This is the question we set out to answer through our conversations with one another before, during and after LOTE4. After months of developing the Open Ethnographer software to help us go through all the content and identify patterns in it, producing a first ethnographic report, running it through another round of analysis and synthesis, and producing a visualisation of the conversation… this is what we came with:
263421647-Can-networked-communities-steward-public-assets-at-scale.pdf (37.1 MB)
When we set out to build LOTE4 many months ago, one of our aims was to see many new projects and collaborations surface as a result of the new connections made. As well as to explore new approaches towards drawing much needed resources to community-powered projects where important work is often unseen and undervalued.
Based on personal observation of many attempts to pitch projects to prospective clients and or funders, a recurring obstacle seems to be making the connection between projects/efforts to tackle challenges at a micro-scale, and larger problems that would be clients or funders are faced with (and timing your pitch to coincide with windows of opportunity where resources are actually available). This work of building a narrative bridge requires collective intelligence as the challenges we face are far too difficult for any one person or small group of people to tackle alone. The second reason for trying to do this in a participatory manner is that gaining a shared understanding of issues is a key enabler for building shared solutions.
This report was built with the aim of supporting participants own reflections and future work. The idea was to produce a deck of slides that anyone can use for their own purposes, e.g building project proposals or doing public presentations. I tend to find long-winded reports dull to read (and write) and thought something like this would be more useful as a starting point for future discussions and picking up where we left off.
P.s. I would like to get in touch with people who’s images we have used in the report, but do not have contact information for all of them. If you are one of the photographers (or know how to best get in touch with them) please drop me a line: nadia at edgeryders dot eu