Check out the latest blog post over at http://pdbrewer.wordpress.com/
Check out the latest blog post over at http://pdbrewer.wordpress.com/
We'd really appreciate it if people could help promote the list by printing it out and putting it up in appropriate public spaces. We've created a header for the list which can be cut to size and printed out. A link to the header is given above and here
We're looking for volunteers to print out the i-canhelp list and stick it up in useful places! If you're prepared to help out, please contact me at pbrewer@hotmail.co.uk. Thanks!
I'm delighted to say that James Lightfoot, the webmaster has added an advert for i-canhelp on the front of the village website http://www.fulkingvillage.co.uk/
Stephen and Lesley are the latest people to put an entry on the i_canhelp list. They're offering to bring essential supplies to you in their 4x4 should we get snowed in again. How kind! Good forward thinking too!
It's great to see such a variety of entries, including lift share, use of a garden shredder (handy), a request for help with dog walking and building materials going spare.
Please do take a look and consider offering some of your time, skills or belongings to help your neighbours out. Or feel free to ask for help with something.
Thanks to Colin for posting a link to this in the www.poynings.net email newsletter.
Go on, add to the list now!
i-canhelp is now live - please add something to the list above!!
You can now add entries and view an i-canhelp list. Please do, especially if you live in Brighton and Hove or nearby. This will help work out what features and functions are needed. You can even get a pdf version to print out! New entries will appear at the top of the list (I'm a technical whizz you know ..)
The primary aim at this stage is to get something working for my village, Poynings. But hey, go for it!
On to where I really think this could all be heading.
The idea of i-canhelp is simple. What can I do to help my neighbourhood with my bits of time, my skills, and what I own? This is micro-volunteering with an emphasis on very local in-person acts.
I've come up with these categories (most come in pairs), most of which are used across some excellent websites, but no one website covers it all, as far as I can see:
Thing is, trying to create a website that does all this isn't going to work, particularly given that I haven't got the 23 hours a day it might take to MAKE it work!
Communities may need some help identifying which micro-volunteering, sharing and freebie sites are most used in their area. And then it does all need to be brought together, based on geography and possibly communities of interest. The clever thing to have in the i-canhelp toolkit would be API widgets (I'm at the egde of my understanding and it probably shows) for the better used sites so that communities could build their own "dashboard", linked to or embedded on their neighbourhood website. Where there is a gap, the i-canhelp toolkit would provide options for building simple sites from free tools.
My little Google Docs option is very simple. Anyone who can see this functionality being made to work in Posterous or Wordpress, with autoposting to Twitter and Facebook - please get in touch to volunteer!
I am very grateful to the people who have been helping me shape this idea so far. I had a really useful meeting with Andy Brightwell (@andbwell) and yesterday met with Catherine Howe (@curiousc) at Public-I. @georgebashi has been great too. Nick Booth (@podnosh) has tweeted to say the idea “has potential”, so that’s a great boost.
Catherine’s enthusiasm for many things is infectious and she sprinkled i-canhelp with a dose of it. What a great idea to combine a social media surgery with a practical aim – to set up an i-canhelp service for your area. Catherine is willing to come and help with this in Poynings (no doubt spurred on with the prospect of a pint and some food at our wonderful Royal Oak). I am hoping that Andy Brightwell will come along as well.
In parallel to this, I will be meeting up with colleagues in housing and customer services at Brighton and Hove Council next week. I am working on a model to make i-canhelp something that councils can support, to help build stronger, more resilient communities. I hope we can develop the toolkit with some of the community groups that the council works with, as well as with my village.
Lastest design snippets: I am thinking that part of the toolkit will allow people to create their own tailored communications and advertising material for printing out, neat i-canhelp lists for the local notice board etc. The toolkit would include video tips and guidance and a forum for organisers.
That’s where I am today!
Ah, and thanks @maxwellinever for the useful chat @brightwest last night and @rossbreadmore for the pint!
The first version of this post was a few days ago on my personal site www.pdbrewer.wordpress.com. There you will find thoughts on other issues often related directly to my job as lead for ICT and Data Analysis at Brighton and Hove's Council (Children's Services). These posts are about i-canhelp ...
"After the intensity and excitement of CityCamp Brighton the other week, I have been flung back into the day job but also managing to carry on thinking and talking about i-canhelp.
What is i-canhelp?
i-canhelp is an idea – a way of creating the space where people can offer help and ask for help on an informal basis. It’s about connecting people together around helping each other, the more local the better. Groups and events can ask for help too.
My family are scattered around, in Bournemouth, South Wales, Leicester and Harrogate and I have even recently moved away from friends in Brighton. Sometimes I need help and I can’t get it. Sometimes I have a bit of time to help someone, but don’t know who needs it!
We now live in an idyllic downland village, but the car’s the star and even in our small Close, I just see cars come in and cars come out. It’s a challenge to just knock on people’s doors somehow. Certainly I feel a reluctance to.
Small needs, small offers
We now have a lawn and we haven’t got a lawnmower. I’m pretty sure it will need mowing before I have got round to buying one. What if I could put a ‘shout out’ in my village to borrow one?
The roads were difficult in the snow – what if we could have organised people to bring out their shovels and worked together to clear the roads and pathways for some of the older neighbours?
There is an elderly woman who walks on our unlit country lanes at night. Maybe a hyper-local i-canhelp would allow us to find ways to keep her safe?
A toolkit to help communities set up i-canhelp social media tools
The period since CityCamp has been about constantly pulling back from any idea of a traditional website. The ppt slide I was most comfortable with at CityCamp was the first one which introduced the hashtag #icanhelpbtn. I now want to explore the design and creation of a toolkit which guides people into how to use the free tools available to set up an i-canhelp in their area, using stuff like posterous, twitter and facebook (thanks @andbwell).
A community can set up i-canhelpwherever.
The i-canhelp.org site will become the place to get the toolkit, view video training, create and download your own communications materials, discuss issues with other i-canhelp co-ordinators etc etc.
I’m going to start with my village Poynings. I’m going to the pub to speak to folk about it and try and get some help designing the toolkit – a widget for implementation in the Poynings.net website, a way of printing off the list for the village noticeboard, etc etc. Lots to think about and important to get a simple process in place. I’m told its possible to send emails to posterous and these be passed into twitter. I’m sure it’s all possible.
Anybody interested in working on their own hyperlocal i-canhelp and helping me with the tech design, please let me know.
