How to bridge gap between narrow focus of any one research project, with Big Picture vision and strategy for what Edgeryders research efforts should contribute in the world?

nadia · January 7, 2021, 4:24pm

Am putting this together as a proposed model based on our discussions re: connecting ethno, community management and outreach around a shared purpose/mission… and the processes for how the team members work together (agreeing on outputs, workflow, timeline, milestones, coordination and admin).

This is meant to be general, but to prototype and refine it, we can start with the immediate project at hand - NGI 2021.

The Edgeryders Mission & Agenda

Edgeryders are on a mission to boost everyone’s ability to live and work well in times of upheaval.
We build and nurture platforms for groups to think together and act on today’s urgent issues.
We believe it is now time to prepare for the serious shocks that will soon be upon us as the consequences of dysfunctional economic systems and climate change start to hit hard. Edgeryders takes on these challenges equipped with new science, our in-house technology and most important of all - an online community of members spanning every continent and area of expertise.

There are no silver bullet solutions. We know from science and experience that no individual, small group, or organisation can contain the issues that affect us the most, no matter how smart. Instead, Edgeryders builds diverse communities and induces collective intelligence dynamics within them.

We seek out existing initiatives, people, places and movements. Acknowledge their good work and build on it. Avoid duplication or competing with one another’s work. Stay open to help anyone who means well and is working on something promising. Improve participants’ ability to access, analyse and interpret information. We support our members, partners and clients to do the same.

Key Focus Areas

Environment and Climate: Grow a community of innovators and knowledge around ecological living, ecosystem restoration and esp. climate change amelioration and adaptation. We want to convene community and diverse institutional partners to discover, learn from and support clusters of promising responses to climate change and sustainability challenges. The findings from the projects serve as data points in developing new economic theory and models needed to enable transition to a sustainable future. (More )
Research & Development : Designs and deployment of R&D activities including joint development of new research projects, technologies and common infrastructure upon which members can build new products and services. Members build meaningful research partnerships and pursue funding together. (More)
Good Technology : This cluster experiments with what new technologies really should do for humanity and all it encompasses. Individuals and organisations in this cluster develop technologies guided by insights from open and inclusive dialogue on how technologies should work, be governed, financed and built. (More)
Culture for Transformation : This cluster connects and equips artists, producers, as well as researchers to experiment uses of culture as a tool for social change, and digital technology as a way to accelerate it. (More )
Future of Work: Equip leaders and organisations to better navigate new realities: remote work, distributed events and services, new business models and online technologies for large scale coordination. Members build tools and frameworks for activities, ventures and programs that are ideated and deployed by large numbers of individuals working together over the internet. (More)
One Health & Resilience : A collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to support community responses to failing health and social care systems, by acknowledging interdependencies and commonalities of health ecosystems. (More)
*Good Life: Collective efforts across the network to build a meaningful, productive and enjoyable work-and-life environment. It combines business incubation, P2P learning, socialisation and communal spaces. (More)

Bridging Agendas and Perspectives: How to ensure we are serving Edgeryders mission in all our research/publications?

In any analysis & publication, always include reflections on how what we learn teaches us about:

1.Implications for/impact of how we live and work
2.Implications for/impact of Public Policy & Politics
3.Implications for/impact of Social, physical and ecological Health
4. Implications for/impact of for Economies & Economics
5. Implications for/impact of culture & the arts
6. Implications for/impact of good life of individual & community (wellbeing indicators)
7. New questions and challenges for further inquiry

We could then aggregate the answers from different projects and topical discussions into an annual Edgeryders collective intelligence report with 7 corresponding chapters.

2021-2022

NGI Project

The Next Generation Internet (NGI) is a European Commission initiative that aims to shape the development and evolution of the Internet into an Internet of Humans. An Internet that responds to people’s fundamental needs, including trust, security, and inclusion, while reflecting the values and the norms all citizens enjoy in Europe.

The ambition of the NGI is to ensure that the development and progressive adoption of advanced technologies, concepts and methodologies contributes to make the future Internet more human-centric, particularly in times of crisis.

Focus topics (we need these from Nesta & EC):

How do we connect two entry points to NGI: tech focus vs human/society focus ?

We use the iceberg model:

Tip of iceberg

The report produced by Nesta (but with modifications to connect it properly with base): https://edgeryders.eu/uploads/short-url/7o9Gz3BT3BDMtTQp4yCpyidki2g.pdf

Base of ice-berg

Input and insights collected under a number of “umbrella” themes that focus on wellbeing/illbeing of people, communities, society and planet

Introduction of the Umbrella themes is in the Community Journalism Digest: our point of departure is the individual human experience as a basis for understanding what the next generation internet should do for humans. And we present in the form of Key Insights, some thinking towards and the implications of this on policy and investments at a European Scale. But this needs to be developed further with the other partner orgs, and with participants in the events/online conversation.
- We include articles that either spark or summarise a discussion around topics self-selected by the participants who engage.
- We have two ways of selecting articles into the digests:
  - Editor’s discretion/ ideosynchratic: Editor of the publication has produced articles ( up to 750 word summaries) of interviews conducted with hand picked interviewees, as well summarised posts/discussions on the ioh forum on the platform.
  - Ethnographic coding: The Research team has made a selection based on the codes that match the themes
Key insights on each “Umbrella” theme: This is a combination of three things : 1) presenting & interpreting the SSNA visualisation for each theme 2) Pre conference Events/final conference sessions on related topics (documentations of the discussions) 3) Proposals for what should be done to act on insights (recommendations for policies, strategies, investment priorities etc).
Participation is open to anyone and takes place on an open online platform as well as in outreach events such as workshops, webinars or “Ask me anything” sessions.

Umbrella Themes for NGI

italicised words - these are topics that we are required by the funder to include/cover.

1. Alternative Economic Development:

Economies , Profit and Power , Policy tensions between resilience, sustainability and growth
Our point of entry: If we want better outcomes, we need better incentives…How are people reinventing economic development models to ones that support the transition to a low carbon economy that works for wellbeing of individuals, societies and the planet at large. And how, if at all, do digital and networked infrastructures and technologies fit into this? We cover **

Chapter Topic Tag: alternative-economic-development

Relevant Ethno codes:

Chapter Topic Tag: windows-of-perception

Relevant Ethno codes:

SSNA

List of posts

10. Equipping individuals and communities to cope, and thrive.

Role digital tech should/should not play in context of transitions to Human, social and environmental sustainability

Thrivability is the act of thriving or prospering. It thus goes beyond simply surviving (ie by attaining a livelihood W and using this to support in your necessities). Thrivability also envisions a vision of sustainability (using a abundant and sustainable way of living) within this act of prospering.

Chapter Topic Tag: /thrivability

Relevant Ethno codes:

SSNA

List of posts

amelia · January 11, 2021, 10:57am

1. Alternative Economic Development:

Economies , Profit and Power , Policy tensions between resilience, sustainability and growth
Our point of entry: If we want better outcomes, we need better incentives…How are people reinventing economic development models to ones that support the transition to a low carbon economy that works for wellbeing of individuals, societies and the planet at large. And how, if at all, do digital and networked infrastructures and technologies fit into this? We cover **

Chapter Topic Tag: alternative-economic-development

Relevant Ethno codes:

building alternatives and inequality are helpful central nodes to explore this concept. You can see a lot of economic codes tied to these in their ego networks. For building alternatives, you can find financial incentives and exploitative business practices, for example, as well as alternative models like co-working and diy. For inequality you can see labour relations, big tech and monopoly

SSNA

List of posts: To find a list of posts that include 2 codes you’re interested in in this topic, just click on the eye at the top of the Graphryder dashboard and it will generate all the posts where both of those codes are mentioned. e.g. `inequality` and `big tech`:

You can also click on any one code to generate the list of posts it has been mentioned in (e.g. exploitative business practices:

2. Polities & Constituencies

Where does power lie, e.g standards bodies, platforms, but also specific actors (alt reality networks- see report on data & society) 4chan and distributed social movements, blue church/ red church, labour movement)

Analysis of which forces are (potentially) against recommendations for how to instill/adapt ngi around european values and ideas, which are (potentially) in favor, and what could be done to overcome the resistance of the former and to enlist the support of the latter, respectively. Including an analysis of which actual forces that shaped how the internet is today, how they did it and for what reasons.We want to involve/have views represented from: international relations, global governance, law, economics of regulation) in the development of the future policy framework

Chapter Topic Tag: new-polities-and-constituencies

Relevant Ethno codes:

governance model is a helpful code to put at the centre of an ego network here. We can see it connected to power in terms of standards bodies (regulation), platforms (waze), and specific actors (software industry).

It also helps us analyse the forces which might be against Euro values and ideas: e.g. exploitative business practices

If we head back to part of the network of all the codes, filtered down to k=5, we can start to do some very useful power-mapping. We see that regulation is tied to big tech and specifically Facebook (an important actor) which is tied to personal data, control, user control, agency. We start to see what could be obstructing people’s ability to excercise Euro values and ideals – as well as what helps.

If change our business model we can move from big tech to open source – and we see it connected to ideals like transparency, connecting people, 'empowerment', sharing knowledge, and human centred design. If we follow connecting people we can also see that this leads to all kinds of “social goods” like sense of community. This helps us see how shifting models (business and governance) can lead us away from the forces like big tech shaping the internet towards more open and transparent models.

racism and discrimination are also important codes.

SSNA

List of posts

3. Individual, family & community wellbeing:

fundamental rights and social sustainability
Our point of departure is the European wellbeing indicators as developed by the Council of Europe through a massive participatory exercise. The SDGs are also covered by this as they correspond to some of the wellbeing indicators (we have done the bridging).

Chapter Topic Tag: wellbeing-granular

Relevant Ethno codes:

For this, let’s move to the bottom-left of the SSNA as we have it visualised right now at k=5. We see the code human rights connected to privacy, a very important connection – privacy is threatened by social media and by google, connected to surveillance and contact tracing and regulation. This is a strong picture of what threatens fundamental rights and what could help it.

We also see human rights connect us to the concept of community well-being, well represented in this map. shared values is connected to community building, which we have some concrete examples of" co-working, co-living, social interaction, managing spaces like private and shared space, and perhaps most importantly sense of community tied to connecting people. We can see that working remotely and a shift to online has created a sense of loss that must be mitigated by increased human contact, whether digital or in-person.

We see similarly important connections when we look in the bottom-right at imagining alternatives and imagining the future – these are tied to losing human touch and social distancing. People have explored solutions through technology, tied to optimising systems and open source – education and tech literacy.

SSNA

Screenshot 2021-01-11 at 10.49.11

List of posts

4. Work, livelihoods and business

Distributed work and business
Polarisation between rich and poor, issues of value capture and future of work (e.G data as labour)

Chapter Topic Tag: work-livelihood-business

Relevant Ethno codes:

The SSNA has a lot to say on the future of work: working remotely, co-working, shift to online are all important codes to track here. The ego networks of co-working and of business model are also interesting, providing examples of what people need in the future of work and their obstacles to success. The issue of value capture comes up very strongly in this business model network, as business model is tied to monetisation and assigning value, strongly enough to show up on the big SSNA at k=5.

The co-working ego network tells us about the obstacles to alternative ways of working, also telling us something about inequality and polarisation between the rich and the poor (though I wouldn’t characterise this in such absolute terms). Co-working is linked to access control and internet connectivity, work space and managerial practice, as well as distinguishing between sectors. This tells us that being able to work remotely in flexible ways requires resources like good internet connection, ability to control access to resources like a good workspace, and a manager and sector that allows for this kind of work. We can see how inequities can emerge from such access difference.

racism and discrimination are also important codes here.

SSNA

Screenshot 2021-01-11 at 10.50.15

Screenshot 2021-01-11 at 10.59.01

List of posts

5. Recovery and regeneration

social sustainability, polarisation in terms of market power, polarisation between haves and have nots, North south, rich-poor, haves and have nots Wellbeing, Welfare, Deep Green, Green Transition,

Chapter Topic Tag: recovery-and-regeneration

Relevant Ethno codes:

resilience is the key code I’d target here. It has a rich ego network tied to issue codes like crisis, system failure, and technology breakdown and human error. Recovery is tied to institutional response and emergency response – which often fail (see code government failure). People build resilience through failsafes and peer-to-peer aid, as well as technological resilence through cybersecurity. Each of these codes would be well worth diving deeper into by visualising their own ego networks and by using the eye tool to see the list of stories you are interested in.

‘environmental sustainability’ is also a useful central code to explore, tied to questions of capitalism, responsibility, transparency and cost as well as other rich codes.

SSNA

List of posts

6. Freedom and control

Individuals:
Reconciliation of data governance with user control over data.

Chapter Topic Tag: freedom-and-control

Relevant Ethno codes:

This is a strong theme in our SSNA. We have the codes control, user control, and agency which are all useful to track and visualise. They are tied to personal data, advertising, big tech, and the idea of a trade-off, which comes up frequently and is a very useful code to visualise and track when talking about control, freedom, and agency. People feel uncertainty and distrust when it comes to technologies of surveillance that use their personal data. This is tied to regulation, and widespread belief that individualising responsibility is a problem when it comes to control over personal data — that governments are responsible for regulating big tech companies, and putting that onus on individuals is not right. There is also a trade-off between user control/agency and user experience, mapping on to a sense that having to constantly make decisions about one’s own data (like via GDPR checks on every website) diminishes user experience and has questionable positive effects on user control/agency.

SSNA

List of posts

7. Limits and growth

limits to growth

Chapter Topic Tag: limits-and-growth

Relevant Ethno codes:

funding issues, business model, monetisation, assessing impact. This topic of limits and growth is not vey clear to me, so may need more fleshing out.

SSNA

List of posts

8. Safety and security

Security or Safety are not static artefacts or states but perceived outcomes of multitudes of interplaying factors.What do these different terms mean for different people and what are the implications of these different perspectives on how we go about imagining, regulating, financing and deploying different infrastructures and technologies?

Chapter Topics Tag: safety-and-security

Relevant Ethno codes:

safety is a big code in the network with many co-occurrences, very rich analytically. It’s strongly tied to artificial intelligence (ai) and trust.

People are concerned about automation, and misinformation, in journalism and especially around AI.

Approaches to create a sense of safety include peer-to-peer learning, community building, media literacy, 'public education, shared space, and diy-- as well ashuman oversightandcontent moderation`.

We are noticing that the network around safety doesn’t include codes on violence or physical safety, which we plan to examine as we know there have been interesting threads connecting content moderation and reporting systems to threats of physical harm.

SSNA

List of posts

9. Windows of perception:

Analyse what true European values are beyond the rhetoric of political discourses and discuss how to embed them in the future internet.

Here we get into exploring the lenses through which tech discussions are had. We cover contemporary Ideologies, Ethics, Values and Norms as well as explanation models e.g conspiracy theories and misinformation/psyops: e.g discussions about ethics in citizen/open science

Chapter Topic Tag: windows-of-perception

Relevant Ethno codes: Good codes to track/ explore here include:

trade-off (how people articulate their own values and decisions),
defining terminology (as people struggle or attempt to define these internet concepts for themselves), assigning value,
making decisions,
considering larger context,
reframing priorities,
nuancing the debate
ethics
modeling the 'real world'
reframing questions
and freedom and justice

SSNA

List of posts

10. Equipping individuals and communities to cope, and thrive.

Role digital tech should/should not play in context of transitions to Human, social and environmental sustainability

Thrivability is the act of thriving or prospering. It thus goes beyond simply surviving (ie by attaining a livelihood W and using this to support in your necessities). Thrivability also envisions a vision of sustainability (using a abundant and sustainable way of living) within this act of prospering.

Chapter Topic Tag: /thrivability

Relevant Ethno codes:

The happiness code has a nice illustrative ego network.

This could be tied to environmental sustainability and the social good code might also be helpful here.

I think if we want to target this concept, we may have to dig deeper as well!

SSNA

List of posts

amelia · January 11, 2021, 11:44am

@nadia, see above. @nextgenethno, fyi as well.

nadia · January 11, 2021, 12:46pm

this is super interesting, thanks @amelia
@katjab check this out - ahead of future conversation re: conference journalism digest and conference content.