Coladepez

Networks for Citizen Participation (CP-Network)

Why we use such simple structures for such complex projects

In fact, in the case of CP via the Net a series of problems and peculiar difficulties arise that are not always taken into account, but which are fundamental (why they are not taken into account, we will see later):

1.- Establishing objectives to be achieved as specifically as possible,

2.- In what type of virtual structure this should be done,

3.- What knowledge we have about methods and processes of CP-Network in virtual environments, how they have been validated and what we know about the relationship between the results obtained and the objectives set.

4.- And finally a point that should not be here, but that is increasingly important: How to work with real results and not just settle for any result obtained justified by the usual marketing slogans.

All this has to do with two aspects that are typical of the current way of working on the Internet:

.- The simplicity of the elemental use of Internet tools contributes to the idea that anything can be done, even if the circumstances are always different from those in the real world, thereby losing the nuances of each particular case.

.- If we work in virtual network structures, we are talking about new areas of knowledge and the need to develop new skills. Especially with skills that allow us to work on the relationships among people, mediated by technology. And the generation and management of information and knowledge on the network. The Internet is not a picture, a still one, but a process of information generation and management in constant evolution. If this elementary Network principle does not apply to projects, then the objectives are usually elastic, to be attained only by arms or by prayer.

This knowledge sometimes (most often) is not there, does not apply or does not exist. And the knowledge originated from previous experiences has often not been systematized, however useful such experiences may have been. This happens because either there hasn’t been continuity, or because the technical knowledge necessary to evaluate and discriminate the essential elements in each case in a suitable format for their transmission, is not there. As in so many other facets of life, it is necessary to dedicate time, effort, research and method to gathering this new knowledge, to evaluating it, to classifying it, to organizing it, to systematizing it, to spreading it, to teaching it, to learning it and to preparing it to be applied again. The problem is not solved with clever slogans as if a perfume were being sold.

This, although it is a widespread problem in working in virtual networks, is even more pressing in the case of the CP-Network because it is assumed that, in these projects, it is the results that determine the value of the participation processes. And without interpretative work like the one mentioned, the results are always necessarily random and not indicative of what has been achieved, how and for what. In fact, to put it bluntly, in these circumstances, any result is almost always adjusted to what was expected, because nothing specific was expected either.

On the other hand, the simplicity mentioned in the use of the most basic resources of communication on the Internet, has put two principles, which would be impossible and unthinkable in any area of daily life, on a pedestal, although increasingly important like the worst self-help advice: We all can do everything and we all know how to do everything. Both are the pretty gift wrap that now surrounds practically all CP-Network projects (and not just these).

But no. Life is not that beautiful or simple. We know this despite wanting to transgress in such an unusual way from our own daily experience. To know what we need to know about citizen participation in virtual network structures and generate what we could call «propitious states for decision making», both by those who promote the initiative and those who participate in it, at least the following steps are necessary:

1. Definition of the objective of the project with the greatest possible precision. We are not good at this, here or practically in any other country. It is the key element in companies, entrepreneurship, public administrations, even families. That is why there are so many business schools dedicated to it, despite which their lack of success is the basis of social irritation and the source of so many failures in collective initiatives or of their survival so distant from the objectives they set out to fulfil. In the case of the CP-Network we do not share the same interests, in the same way and at the same time. The Network creates the illusion that this is possible, that tabula rasa makes sense, but this is not so. Hence, when things do not work, it is often blamed simply on «lack of participation».

2. Design, development and management of an online virtual working area, that is a knowledge network, are essential to achieving these objectives, by debating, creating resources, applying relevant methodologies, formulating strategies and extracting the new knowledge generated on the basis of the PC-Network specific processes. In other words, participation is built technologically, it is a complex technological construction. Without it, it is difficult (and complex) to have CP-Network.

Neither of the two points are achieved or work in the social media we already know. Participation in social media is built as an open, ephemeral activity, without prior clearly defined objectives, subject to the “ups and downs” of personal opinions, where information is difficult to recover and rarely substantiated and documented.