Designing for the 21st Century: Using Web 2.0 Technologies(and Social Networking Tools)for Social Action - 11/12th March, London

We invite you to present an idea or case study at this PRaDSA workshop on "Designing for the 21st Century: Using Web 2.0 Technologies and (Social Networking Tools) for Social Action" to be held in London in March.

Call for presentations:

Social networking tools and Web 2.0 are this year's talking points. But the chatter hides their growing history as means to contact, link and engage a broad range of friends, strangers, existing and emergent groups in forms of work and play that build (or challenge) civil society. Their effect has been seen in charity fundraising, community decision-making and political mobilisation. Their use has created shadows (see, for instance:
http://partnerships.typepad.com/civic/2006/12/social_media_su.html) that altered the strategy of organisations and changed the shape of projects to include greater and wider participation.

But tools alone don't make things happen. So this is an opportunity to explore the practices that lead to change and share ideas about the use of these tools to democratise consultation processes, win hearts and minds and the rest. Please bring your experience of working in this way and the potential - and challenges - you see in the new forms of social organisation supported by these developments. We welcome informal and unorthodox contributions as well as more formal talks. Emphasis will be upon reflection and practice, rather than grand research objectives.
There will be full wifi connectivity.

You might like to have a look at O'Reilly's definition of Web 2.0 at:
http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20....
and the PRaDSA discussions of social action at:
http://www.technologyandsocialaction.org.

as a prelude to the event.

How to express interest:

Talks will range from 10 to 25 minutes depending on the nature of the submission. It will also be possible to offer a panel discussion. Please send a summary of your topic and why you would like to share it at this event to Kutoma Wakunuma at at
<K.J.Wakunuma@shu.ac.uk> as soon as possible. She will be the first port of call for any questions you have.
Formal invites to speak will start to follow in December.

Notes:

• Day one will start about 1pm with a keynote talk and day two
  ends at 3.30 to allow for travelling.
• PRaDSA has a small budget to offer bursaries which cover
  expenses, including travel, your stay overnight in London and your absence from work - be that to your organisation or to you as a freelance operator. If you require one of these bursaries to attend, please note this on your proposal and the organising committee will consider your application.

About PRaDSA

PRaDSA stands for "Practical Design for Social Action". The PRaDSA project's goal is to develop and extend the capability of social action organisations to creatively design new practices by appropriating and adapting ICTs. There are three strands to the project, of which the workshop series is one. The other two are:

• To develop a new understanding of designing in social action
  settings, grounded in detailed contextual studies of design in practice.
• To create a collection of practical resources to support the
  work of practitioners (and others) including workshop materials and easy-to-use (open-source) on-line community communications systems.

PRaDSA is a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council
(AHRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
(EPSRC) as part of its Designing for the 21st Century programme.
If you would like to know more about the PRaDSA project, please see:
http://www.technologyandsocialaction.org.