Nomad

17 Feb 2012 by Robbie

The other social network...

Don't worry, this is not a rant about new twitter - which I actually quite like.

I'm actually talking about social causes. Specifically technology companies and how we can help alleviate the problems our communities might face.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C Clarke

We live in a golden era of personal technological marvels. There are things we take for granted now, such as mobile touch screen phones, instant global communication and GPS mapping. These would all seem like voodoo of the highest order to a person even 30 or 40 years ago.

If you are fortunate enough to live in the '1st' world, chances are you have at your fingertips more information than you could digest in a lifetime. 99% of your questions can be answered with no great sweat.

Most of this is facilitated by technical workers, companies and agencies. They build the websites and applications that disseminate the information you are after. They also build the browsers and the operating systems that run on your machine. They built and designed the machines too.

Agencies

The role of your typical web agency is the one I'd like to focus on here though.

Web agencies make a lot of money from essentially, producing brand driven websites for companies without the technical skills in house to do it themselves.

Firstly, there is nothing wrong with making money, that's not the message here at all.

However, making money isn't the be all and end all of any professional activity. We all need money but we also need more than that. For Nomad the 'more' in question was a sense of community, equality and ownership. We've worked for other people, guided by their philosophies, and whilst we took a lot from those experiences we felt it was time to take control of our own careers. 

Having decided on this course of action we started to look into our options regarding how our company should be set up. One option we came across was a cooperative. This seemed to satisfy all our criteria for how we would want to run our company, namely:

• Equality of ownership
• No employees, just members
• Transparency
• An awareness of the local community, and our place in it

These and more are encapsulated by the guiding principles cooperatives manage themselves by, the Rochdale Principles.

Locally speaking...

The last item on that list above is 'an awareness of the local community, and our place in it' or to take the relevant Rochdale principle: Concern for community

Now this can manifest itself in many ways, but the main way we've chosen to pursue it is by donating our skills to those who have the need of them but lack the resources to hire us.

Agencies, and agency workers as a whole, spend a lot of time playing with the next big thing and new technology. We focus inwards into our community a hell of a lot - sometimes I feel to ours and others detriment. Whilst this is a natural and required state of being for us, I think we can all afford to face outwards a little more.

Going back to my earlier Arthur C Clarke quote, one of the reasons that we focus inwards is (I think) that because of the nature of what we do and the fact that not many people outside of our community can understand it, it's just plain easier to be understood when talking to others who do understand.

The march of technology carries with it the capacity for enacting huge social change. A few large scale examples:

• The Khan Academy - mass education, on a global scale
• 38 Degrees - organising and prompting action on large, national issues
• For better or worse (mainly worse), the riots of 2011 in the UK were organised via social media sites such as Twitter

However it's not really on this scale that most agencies operate, even if they would like to. Luckily in order to make a change you don't need to operate on this scale or come up with the next big idea.

Remember, what is simple and routine for us can be eye opening and out of reach for those without the technical skills to do it themselves.

Lend a hand.

Without naming names or subject area, Nomad recently took on some work pro bono for a support group. They needed somewhere online for story sharing, discussion and information dissemination - basically a CMS controlled website with a forum. This wasn't a difficult thing for us at all, but it was completely unachievable for our client who did not have access to anyone with the technical expertise to help them.

A small amount of effort on our part has, we'd like to think, made a huge difference to them.

A lot of web agencies do similar work and I would bet that most, if not all, have been approached with a similar need and carried out the work at their own cost. However I think we all can, and should, do more than that.

To paraphrase John Donne, "No company is an island". We exist as part of our communities both physical and virtual and we are part of a shared ecosystem. We've seen what happens when companies leech from that system without putting back in. We need to be aware of our responsibilities back towards that system and act in harmony and cooperation with it. Rather than just worrying about the bottom line constantly.

So what would I have companies do? Well, to start with, just thinking about the possible ways in which they can make a difference locally would be a good start. There are all sorts of charities that operate on a local level that lack the organisation and resources that the larger national charities have, but have the same technological requirements. It's not just about charities though, it's about anyone who you can help and improve things for. Be it a charity, knitting circle or playgroup.

Remember, it needn't be and often isn't about the grand (technical) gesture. Sometimes it's as simple as a little bit of education - such as spending a morning chatting with them about Twitter and how it can help keep their group connected and informed.

Beyond that though I think the key thing would be for companies to codify their community focus. To incorporate this aspect into their actual identity. So rather than being something that is done ad-hoc whenever they think of it or have the spare resource, it's simply a part of what they do and who they are. Something they actively seek to do - a core principle that guides them.

We've committed to the Rochdale principles, and through them, to our community. We are still working out the exact mechanisms by which we want to give back, but that hasn't stopped us from making a start on things. We've got more than a few irons in this particular fire and hope to expand on these as time goes on to help raise a bit of awareness.

Thanks for reading this far, and I hope this has given you some food for though about what you and your company could do. As ever, if you have any comments, please send them to us via the form below.