This post details why I think that the Governments new #OnlineHarms is a lot of rubbish and questions
"Who is it that 'Owns Your Words' online?"
Is it you?
Those you talk to and/or about?
Twitter?
The Government?
A summary of my #DigCit Efforts
I am NOT a digital citizenship expert, but when looking to reskill from sales to Community Management, I have found myself getting involved with both politics (Yuck!) and Digital Citizenship initiatives (Can also be Yuck at times! That is if you're a Misfit like I am, and get ignored even in a small group).
2014 Scottish Independence Referendum
The cultural conditions for the Scottish Independence Referendum were special!
In that space and time if people like Jamie Hepburn wanted to implement the Fair Start Scotland initiative... it would NOT have taken £96 million and 3 years... could have happened within weeks, as I've said numerous times on this Ev Williams created space (Blogger) as well as the space he and Biz Stone created with Twitter:
'Jane Jacobs ideas could have spontaneously erupted all across the SNP's 'One Scotland'
I wrote extensively about what The SNP should do to keep the culture positive... and shared my Cmgr/OU Human Geography insights with them from as early as the night of the result at the end of September 2014. The insights have been continually accurate... and continually, studiously ignored.
(This post from #VoteYes to No Thanks includes some of the ways that I've offered to help the SNP and Mr Salmond's 'One Scotland').
I wonder if I've done more than his #Cybernats have done... or my SNP MPs for their constituents, STILL waiting for my reply to Margaret Ferrier in 2015. Found it yet?
GE2015 2015 Politicians and DigCit
In the run up to #GE2015 General Election ...I also watched in disbelief as MPs complained about online abuse AND threw their hands up and said
'But what can we do about it?'
(That's as well as predicting months earlier why SNP domination was inevitable as a result of the #IndyRef 'Network Effects' and 'Feedback Loops')
While they threw up their hands a few years ago... here's what I was writing about:
Online Abuse... I Blame the Politicians
#DigCit Vs the Trolls I'm a Student Friendly Social Media Educator
Last year I was to find out just how insightful my 2015 ideas were as I read about
Why Good People Turn Bad Online as well as New Power
Four years on and Sajid Javid has a shiny launch and
1) Does what these idiots do best (And is ALL they do! #Brexit!), blame someone else, and says
2) "Tech companies can no longer turn a blind eye"
Meanwhile his colleagues, if either the fake news and/or Steve Bannon are to be believed... are speaking to Bannon!
And the SNP are studiously ignoring how the Cybernats are wrecking some people's lives.
DigCitSummitUK
I fell for the whole 'Stand up give a speech with a call to action' in 2015 by getting involved when Chris van der Kuyl gave his Scottish Learning Festival keynote in 2015 where I curated some data and this lead to:
1) The then Education Secretary asking me to help with the Digital Learning Scotland Consultation
2) Sharing an article about Digital Citizenship and Twitter in Scottish Schools with one of the Digital Citizenship Twitter chat moderators.
3) Me organizing the first international Digital Citizenship Summit in January 2016 (Within 2 months and on a zero budget).
This event also saw lots of criticism from people (Some saying that getting US educators over here was a money grab,' but the same event in 2018 and it's a case of 'Let's do it!' the day after the #DigCitSummitIRL event).
Scottish educators seemed more than happy to connect with US educators at last years' #CEduAD event too.
Nor was there ANY help from people like
Chris-lets-make-Scotland-the-most-entrepreneurial-country-in-the-world van der Kuyl or
Angela-it's-your-democratic-right-to-be-snarky-about-political-types
They don't even help their own supporters who distributed thousands of leaflets for #Team56 when they are having a hard time by the 'cybernat' SNP/IndyRef supporters?
Or when Javid's colleagues - if they are talking to Bannon - are part of the problem but he blames the work of people like @Biz and @Ev who gave me a voice? A sold and steady argument? Erm #NoThanks!
GE2015 Declara & Ian Blackford
In 2015 I had a call with Ian Blackford and told him that he and his colleagues should create a collection of good news stories and have their advocates create 140 character 'insights' on Declara so they could be tweeted and drown out the Cybernats when 140 character politics arrived properly.
He didn't follow up on this... And yet what do we have today?
Well just look at how Trump bypasses the 'Fake News' today by using these same tactics with the Alt Right folks who have been on platforms like Reddit for years? Go figure!
Ideas for 2016 & 2019 Candidates
If Tech Stories did Politics
#YOYOW... Or Do You?
My #DigCitSummitUK Closing Remarks were around The Well's mantra of 'You Own Your Own Words'
After reading The Well in 2015, I felt that big social media would head in the same direction as some of the Well Beings, like Howard Rheingold, did...
Through a conversation on Twitter with Howard and the call to fight #ForTheWeb last month, it would appear that I wasn't wrong!
#FortheWeb? #FFS #DigCit #Cybernat Mission to Help Recruit Elle
#EdChatMod Google+ Forum... Thank You and See You at @GiveandTakeInc Givitas
The hope was that this #DigCitSummit community in 2016 would become a 'Swarm' that could help in exactly the way that US Counter Terrorism suggests with tacking Scottish School girl Asqa Mahmood (As detailed at the end of this post ACEing Made to Stick).
However, in 2015 I was not aware of Mahmood or of these 'swarms' or the book New Power.
I read New Power last April. Reading the book was not my idea, it came recommended by someone who suggested I read it... I'm glad I did. You know who you are... And the person who recommended it has been thanked. To use the cryptic language like the #CEduAD Cooking with Gas post and other messages.
Through New Power I saw that my ideas were sound... So I set about building upon the #DigCitSummitUK work by sending an email to see about a #DigCitSummitScot last February, as some DigCit experts where 'across the pond' for the #DigCitSummitIRL event in April 2018.
David Ryan Polgar moved on from the #DigCitSummit movement after a few years. And when the other co-founder and 'Life Long Family Friend' did not reply... I 'pivoted' to the idea of a Skype Edcamp.
There was so much interest from around the world that @TolleyA and I decided to plan for a physical Skype Edcamp on the same day as trying again with a #CMAD inspired 'Connected Educator Appreciation Day' idea (But had 24 hour EdChat-a-thon idea before I knew about CMAD in October 2013).
But the problem with this attempt at building a community of educators who might 'Swarm' with positive messages and an alternative narrative, and perhaps protect others like Shamina Begum was that
'We were the wrong kind of people, with the wrong kind of purpose... and/or @TolleyA and I were not able to keep up with the breakneck speed of the #CEduAD team'
"Words on a screen hurt people. Although online conversation might have the ephemeal and informal feeling of a telephone conversation, it has the reach and permanence of a publication" Howard Rhiengold
That extract is from The Heart of The Well Chapter of Virtual Communities regarding the suicide of The Well member Blair Newman.
The permanence of the written word is something that toxic Facebook is now realising too, 26 years after Howard and Marc Smiths observations from the Voices of The Well... Facebook is looking at having impermanent messages, according to an article that features in a recent CMX update.
I can confirm that those 'Wrong Kind of People' comments do indeed hurt!
Especially when they came from people you admired and looked up to, and/or come from those who you 'Empowered' (Apparently) by encouraging to make that all important first Skype call, and introducing them to people in your network #ConnectWithPurpose!
Quitting Twitter
"Get on social media it comes with the job today if you want to be in EdTech" was the advice I was given by a Microsoft exec in 2010... Something I was ready to quit on in September 2018.
After my voice not being heard and being rejected from yet another group!
This time for an idea that was my own!
(Well, when I say my own idea - see below - I mean was generated from 'Slow Hunches' and making links to: #EdChatMods + a great source of #Cmgr PD for me + listening to Educators concerns about Crowdfunding and their districts PD).
But it was something I had worked on (off and on) over a 3 year period!
My personal life was a mess - moving house, terminally ill family member, kids playing up because of all the adjustments - and I was ready to hit delete on my Twitter account... So why am I still here?
Words on a Screen Hurt People... But A Kind Word Can Make ALL the Difference!
"I said something and the internet spoke back, no way!" @CordyM at ISTE 2016 Closing Keynote
Someone noticed.
Someone said they would miss me.
Sarah has also acknowledged my contribution with other projects over the years too.
"That's nice I thought"
"I said something and the internet spoke back, no way!" (To borrow from Michele's awesome keynote)
Delete... You Own Your Own Words... Or Do You?
The Well's Mantra was #YOYOW: You Own Your Own Words and was the subject of my 2016 DigCitSummitUK Closing Comments.
In 2019 with
1) The Government's #OnlineHarms White Paper
2) Twitter shutting down more accounts because of copyright and complaints
3) Online hatred now affecting people IRL
(Shamina Begum recruited by Asqa Mahmood, Molly's suicide, New Zealand mosque far right killings)
Whether it is anyone that you have paid a compliment to - or hurt badly - with your words, who is it that owns your words in the confusing spaces that is the online world in 2019?
Fake Friends and Lost Words
I have had a few 'Life Long Family Friends' not only block me and had people that I introduced them to make me out to be a horrible person... but also delete every kind thing they ever said about me.
I have people who told me that 'You have a voice' and that 'You Matter' but have blocked me... for the same reasons that I'm beyond sick and tired of hearing Ian Blackford for! His
"Scotland will not be ignored"
But never seems to hear this particular Scot.
That group didn't hear me... in a space with 4 'friends' to discuss an idea that I worked on for 3 years and they couldn't/wouldn't hear my voice. They took the ideas, my time and effort and didn't look back?!
So I can't reference some 4 years worth of kind words, conversations and the contribution I made to discussions. Who owns the
'It's William Jenkins that got me started on the Connected Educator journey?'
The person who said them? And has blocked me from accessing those kind words?
Me because they were about me? And the way that I impacted their personal and professional development, and could benefit my career in job interviews but can't use without the possibility of an awkward
'But they have blocked you' conversation?
Twitter because they own the platform? What about my time? 50,000 tweets at say 2 minutes per Tweet = 3 months of my time, not to mention the ideas I've shared and the connections that I've made that have proved productive (rasing money and helping new ideas take off) and/or anything I did to see the next DigCitSummit take place at Twitter HQ?
Or is it now the government? Which is a worry and so hypocritical it beggars belief... Old Etonian arrogance!
Whether the SNP who have continually ignored me when I've been NOTHING but supportive of their #SLF15 'Educators Need to Collaborate More' and empowering educators rhetoric.
Or the Conservatives with their 'Tech companies can't turn a blind eye"
But Steve Bannon can say that he's talking to Letter Box Boris and Lunatic Gove (What David Cameron called his former Education Secretary).
Don't be a Twitter Quitter
In 2015 the data that I curated directly after Chris van der Kuyl's keynote (After having met with 5 senior MPs on 5 different projects - one even included a visit to Downing Street with John McAlaney re Social Norms), my attitude was
'I know what to do here... and I'm not going to bother with the pointless politicians'
At a 2014 #UKFEChat meet up the question was posed
'What are we supposed to do William ignore the goverment?'
YES! I said regarding FELTAG... Followed by the sounds of laughter and disagreement at the crazy misfit in the room.
Where is 'FELTAG Friday rocket boosters on' Matt Hancock today?
Where is his predecessor as FE Minister, Nick Boles, today?
Where the heck is the 100% of FE Course material online?
And if FELTAG has NOT delivered... then where is all the money that went into it?
Where is Every Child Matters?
Where is the Attainment Gap at?
Where is David Cameron's Big Society?
Where is David Cameron?
Where are the consequences for Vince Cable and his 2007 banks are #TooBigToFail, to I should have let them fail?
Mr Cameron and Mr Cable, do you have ANY idea what scrapping ECM and bailing the bank had on me personally? Or more crucially for politicians across the spectrum... do you even care?
Mr Hancock and Mr Boles do you have any idea what ACTUALLY listening to me might have done for the FELTAG agenda in 2014 as well as with the original 'FELTAG Friday' 2020 goals?
But I am still here on Twitter today... and am so because
1) Of a kind word
2) I was confident that the lessons from The Well would be important
3) I felt that something like the fight for #TheWeb would need a Well reboot
(We're using #YOYOWJOI)
But I'm now going to do something really, really painful here... I'm going to disagree with someone I admire because he changed the world (twice), with regard to The Well Reboot #ForTheWeb
Mr Brand, I don't Own My Words!
And I'm glad I don't because otherwise I would have quit social media because of all the political types, the takers, the fakers and the hate that - with the exception of moaning - the politicians have done nothing about since 2015.
The words: the good, the bad and the ugly, were said by me... and I do indeed OWN what I say, but they are not just mine alone anymore.
These words are the result of the amazing space that Biz Stone and Ev Williams built (And are two people who's work have given me a voice... Thank You!! I'll be 'paying it forward' on the #SeaTurtlePirates adventure and it's going to be Bliss too!)
They are shared words!
I own my words but they are shared... they also belong to the people I spoke about, and it was my choice to speak about them on a platform for the world to hear what I had to say about them.
To take those words from them by deleting my account? That would have been wrong of me!
@Sfm36 @TolleyA @BeYonder @MichaelJGaston and the 23 people who helped with my desperate 2018 crowd funder (As well as those who provided moral support too)... you were and are
'Love in Action'
The start of the #SeaTurtlePirates adventure began with a 7 year old boy turning pirate by breaking a little rule with a bunch of Donkeys (Their contribution at the end of the adventure will be acknowledged!)
... But the @BeMorePirate adventure will be continuing through whatever #NewPower storms that Twitter and collaborating with people with different views, personalities, career aims, personal challenges in a loose informal context brings.
Go into any house with kids where David Cameron's 'Young Aspirational Families' are now Theresa May's 'JAMs' and see if you can find parents who love their kids dearly but DON'T let their frustration of life in a country of the bailed out banks get the better of them and shout at their kids... It's probably a regular occurrence.
Go into any school, workplace, coffee shop or neighborhood and you'll find people falling out.
Just look at the bickering at Mr Javid's place of work and the 'Hallowed Halls with it's no clapping traditions' and 'Right Honorable People' that are his colleagues: Theresa May is hardly getting on with her team, and the person responsible for 'ORDER! ORDER! speaker has faced accusations of bullying?
So what if you are in the same space and collaborating with passionate people who have opposing views? For example:
'Yoons' + IndyRef supporters?
Corbyn supporters + people affected by Northern Ireland's 'Troubles?'
People who support Colin Kaepernick's Black Lives Matter + people who see this disrespectful to the US military?
Vegans + people who earn a living through the farming industry?
You could EASILY be one wrong conversation and/or misunderstanding away from a falling out and maybe even seeing the group/community falling apart!! There are also introvert Vs extrovert mis-communications, and making sure that takers/fakers and/or assholes don't poison the well being of the group.
Getting the right people with a shared purpose is one thing... finding the right core values and community guidelines is another thing entirely #YOYOWJOI!
But whatever happens, it's an adventure that would not be happening for me if it was not for the kindness a few people showed me online in 2018.
Mr Blackford go compare that to the 6 Cybernats that are making some people's lives a misery online and IRL. 'Scotland's Voice Will Not Be Ignored!' The same kind of Westminster dramatics as Mr Javid yesterday with his #OnlineHarms noisy launch?
Here's to a kinder 2019... Here's to a #YOYOW 2.0 reboot that brings JOI... and here's to The Misfits!!
What If... They are not your Ideas? What if the Idea Picks You?
Last August at the end of my first ever meeting with Chrissy MacKay at Be Yonder (Who I connected with because of a #ECGlobal conversation with @FillTheGapLearn) and she recommended a crazy book which had also been recommended about 10 years ago... but looked a little too crazy for me a decade ago! But I read it this time.
After reading it I asked James Stanbridge and Ayelet Baron (Who hosted the awesome 2016 CMAD Building Relationships to Ignite Movements session) if they had read it, they had... this led to Ayelet recommending another (Which hurts my head!) and this concept jumped out at me.
If it is the case that 'The idea picks you' and that 'New Power' is like a current and 'Crowd Leaders' are interested in empowering others... and if empowering Scottish Educators is something Mr Swinney want's to encourage then...
There is A LOT more to this story! @GibsonI encouraged me to submit a Tedx Glasgow presentation and helped to improve the application, but the talk was rejected + the story would be left unfinished if I had deleted my Twitter account if it wasn't for @Sfm36.
So if anyone wants to see the content of the presentation, which includes ideas around #OnlineHarms and potential aims and outcomes of the #SeaTurtlePirates... give them a shout.
Something our politicians appear to have caught up with the idea of! Perhaps in 12 months time people like Business and Skill Minister Jamie Hepburn will be agreeing with this objective.
“Our business
objective, if you will, in hosting these 24 hours of panels is to reach as many
people as possible to educate them on the community industry" Sherrie via CMAD 2016
Reflections of a Newbie.
In
the mean time, hey @Sfm36 & @GibsonI There really should be a #CEduAD
panelist on as many 2020 #CMAD hangouts as possible to further the CMAD
business objective… Just a thought and a random idea.I'll leave the last word on Twitter in 2019 with the person who gave me these insights:
Twitter Literacy Knowing How to Use it is Key by Howard Rheingold.
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