Partnering with Artworks

I spoke with Terry Pottmeyer, the Executive Director of Artworks, this morning. She said that they would be happy to share image files of some of the murals their youth have created with us. She asked whether the images would be accompanied by a little blurb about who created it and where, with a link to their organization. I said I thought there would be something like this, although I’m not sure exactly how it will work.

I told her I would follow up via email to let her know specifications of file size, what kind of a blurb we’ll need, and dates when we would need the information by and have it up on the site. We should talk about these things so that we can give a consistent set of information to interested organizations.

Before we spoke, I sent Terry our PSO information page, and the I explained a bit more about the project to her over the phone. She asked why youth would want to use our site over something like myspace. I emphasized the local component and the ability for youth to organize around local issues and/or organize local music/art events. I’m aware that we may want to continue to talk about this so that we can be prepared with a compelling and thorough answer to that question because I suspect it will come up a lot.

So, we’ve got one organization on board to contribute a bit of content for the launch! It sounded like Terry was open to having more conversations as we get rolling and can specify more ways we might be able to collaborate as well.

Entry Filed under: partner strategy

1 comment November 30th, 2007 at 12:26pm Toby Campbell Permalink

Experts warn Facebook users of identity fraud risk

David has asked me to post the following article on cybersecurity. It’s definitely worth a read.

Moneybookers, a provider of secure online payment solutions, has said that internet users are at an increased risk of identity fraud, owing to the growth in the number of online social communities.

The company’s security department monitors and analyses internet user behaviour as part of its risk analysis. It says the popularity of Facebook in particular, combined with the privacy settings offered by the community, could be more dangerous to personal identity security than tricksters who resort to phishing.

Facebook uses privacy filters which allow users to choose their privacy levels and the kind of information they would want to reveal. However, Moneybookers security experts have expressed concerns regarding the fact that most users aren’t aware of the risk they expose themselves to by posting personal details on the web. Moreover, they consider Facebooks’ current default privacy settings to be risky, considering the size of the community.

Amongst the many reasons listed is the fact that the user is asked to provide his/her real name, location, company and date of birth at the time of registration. This information is by default available for all the networks and friends to see. In addition, the community is no longer restricted to students.

It now includes a growing number of professionals, a hard-to-resist temptation for fraudsters. Popular networks are pre-selected by Facebook, such as the London network for Londoners, while registering. This makes the profile available to all members of the network by default, unless the settings are changed.

Vigilance and caution is what the security experts recommend. They suggest changing of privacy settings if the user joins a popular network. This way, members will not have direct access to sensitive information. They also recommend that users don’t display their date of birth and do not allow external search engines to index their profile. Finally, Moneybookers advises users to ensure that hints to their passwords are not available on their Facebook profile.

Entry Filed under: legal and privacy

1 comment November 29th, 2007 at 10:11am Deen Freelon Permalink

Privacy Policy Draft

Below the fold you’ll find a copy of my draft privacy policy. In the document I’ve noted several places where input is needed, so feel free to help with that or anything else you see that needs fixing. The parenthetical citations at the end of most sections indicate the sources of the foregoing text which I modified for our purposes (TIG = TakingITGlobal, YN = YouthNoise, YAN = YouthActionNet). I’ve also attached a Word file containing the same text here: Download psoPrivacy.doc

———-
Privacy policy

What this privacy policy covers
This Privacy Policy covers Puget Sound Off’s (hereafter PSO) treatment of anonymous and personally identifiable information that we collect when you are on the PSO site or when you use PSO’s services. (TIG)

Information collected
PSO collects the following information from members upon signing up:

• First and last name
• School
• Age
• Zip code
• ?? (add whatever else we collect here)

This information will only be accessible by the user who entered it and PSO.

PSO also automatically collects certain non-identifying information from every visitor. These include but are not limited to:

• IP address
• Internet service provider used to access the site
• Pages viewed
• Web browser used
• Screen resolution

Use of collected info
PSO reserves the right to collect, to use, and to disclose to third parties information about general access to and usage of PSO and any related services, including information gathered during use of PSO. Any information disclosed will be in the form of aggregate data (such as overall patterns or demographic reports) that does not describe or identify any individual user. PSO will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to anyone. PSO may perform statistical analyses of user behavior in order to measure interest in the various areas of PSO for funding or product development purposes. PSO will not release Personally-Identifiable Contact Information to third parties, except in compliance with the legal process or otherwise with the permission of the Member, Visitor, or other individual user whose Personally Identifiable Contact Information may be released. (YAN, TIG)

Cookies
PSO may set and access cookies on your computer, used to identify your member account and to allow for the proper functioning of the PSO web site and accompanying services. Cookies are small data files that are sent to your browser from PSO’s Web server and stored on your computer’s hard drive. PSO uses cookies to keep and sometimes track information about you in order to deliver better and more personalized services. (TIG, YN)

Protection for personal information
Your PSO Profile is password-protected. This means that only you will have control over who can access your identifying information. To make the password protection helpful, do not give your password to anyone. If you are using a shared or public computer, we suggest that you sign out of the PSO site and sign off from the computer when you are finished. This will help protect your information. (For example, don’t leave the school or a library computer running and open at the PSO site and sign off before someone else starts using it.) When you create your username and password, please avoid using personally identifiable information such as your name. PSO does endeavor to use secure technology where practical, however, no data collection technology or data transmission technology is 100% secure. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee the security of information provided or sent to us. Remember, you are participating in PSO at your own risk. (YN)

Changes to this Privacy Policy
PSO may amend this policy from time to time. If we make any substantial changes in the way we use your personal information, we will notify you by posting an announcement as a rotating spotlight and/or similar method on our home page. (TIG)

Contact
If you have any questions, comments or complaints about how we use your information, please contact us.
Via postal mail: address
Via telephone: phone number
Via email: email address (TIG)

Entry Filed under: legal and privacy

2 comments November 27th, 2007 at 10:48pm Deen Freelon Permalink

Leadership Team

(link to David’s original proposal–df)

This posting is in support of David’s proposal to develop regional leadership teams. In my opinion, this is a wonderful way to reach a larger audiance than having one program filtered through the Y. The Y is near and dear to my heart, but we need to engage a lot of youth in this project. The regional leadership proposal has the ability to reach between 50 and 100 youth each year. If we can reach an additional 50 youth through service learning then we are talking 100 to 150 participants a year - that is good, powerful stuff.

Here are few other reasons I like the regional team approach:

As I stated above this approach has the potential to reach a lot of young people. This is great for marketing. Young people encouraging young people to use the site will develop a strong user base, especially if they have a positive experience (summer feedback indicates they will). I also believe our leadership team will participate in guerilla marketing. Hitting the streets with flyers, mouse pads, business cards… is a great way to build interest, and an approach One Economy uses when launching the Beehive in a new community. Southend kids marketing to southend kids is great. They are going to know where and when to reach the kids.

I love the grassroots feel to the regional approach as well. Getting young people to work on issues impacting their community is extremely powerful. Utilizing the Project Citizen model (Identify the problem, gather information, examine solutions, and develop an action plan) on a community/regional, as initial approach, will keep us from overwhelming the kids. They know what is wrong in their communities we just need to equip them with the methodology (like Project Citizen) and tools (digital storytelling, blogging) to share the issues. In my opinion, Improving civic awareness from a commuinty level up feels like the “right” way.

This approach also requires us securing space for weekly meetings. I suspect that the local library would be a great spot to hold our regional meetings. Providing space does not requre a lot of time or resources (staffing), but begins to develop a solid relationship. One that we can develop into something more down the road. In my opinion, a great early approach to involving the library system.

This approach also incorporates capacity building. In my opinion, there are far too many territorial organizations that hoard curriculum and take an elitist approach. Organizations with less resources sturggle when more successful organizations don’t or won’t share best practices or learning lessons. We can help alleviate this problem by partneingr with organizations in need of some assistance (if it makes sense and what we have to offer is valuabel) through a train-the-trainer approach. We provide curriculum and the first round of training and then they can continue the program the next time around.

How do we pull this off (a few ideas):

We will need to localize the application. We can create 4-5 regional applications (one for each team) and ask that providers distribute the correct application.

Partner with community based organizations in the areas we decide to run our leadership teams. One example would be Horn of Africa.

Identify those orgnaizations that we would like to work with or could benefit from a partnership with us.

Target alternative learning environments, like YEP, Opportunity Skyway…

Use the public library or partnering organizations to hold meetings.

Stagger the meetings and we can utilize the Y’s equipment. Utilize some of the funds to purchase more equipment that floats between the partners.

Develop a curriculum menu that we adhere to from beginning to end. For example, we’re all teaching video at the same time.

Turn all curriculum into powerpoint presentations - less expense and more mobile.

Questions:

We talked about staring the leadership team during the summer. Does this still work if we take a regional approach? How do we manage the 5 group during the summer when BC isn’t around? Do we do a two to four week training at the Y during the summer to teach some of the technical skills, like video production.

Participant retention will hinge on the relationship youth develop with their regional facilitator. How will the regional teams respond when every 11 weeks a new BC intern takes over the group? Is there a way to get one year commitments from BC interns?

How do we get BC interns ready for this type of commitment? What type of training do we offer? Do we need to offer? Is it fair to ask a BC intern to assist with video produciton if he/she has never participated in digital story telling?

If using BC interns is problematic then the Y can make this happen, but it would mean groups meet once per month. Or, we would need additional staff resources.

Entry Filed under: digital learning skills

2 comments November 27th, 2007 at 10:11pm Chris Tugwell Permalink

Blogging curriculum (comments welcome)

I can speak to the blogging curriculum, as I have been working on how
to organize that. My current thinking is this: the curriculum should be
divided into two parts—one on the technical logistics of posting,
linking, formatting, commenting, etc.; and the other on the normative
ethic of blogging we want to instill in the kids. These two pieces will
need to be taught very differently, however. “How to blog” in a
rudimentary technical sense can be fairly easily written up in
step-by-step FAQ format, with screenshots, links to more information,
and the like. But how to blog effectively, civically, civilly—in other
words, how to blog well, is something that I think would be
very difficult to convey using only words on a screen. I feel strongly
that merely posting a list of do’s and don’ts will be insufficient for
this purpose (though worthwhile in its own right).

Thus, I propose that we put the technical guide (which I’ve already
outlined and need only to convert into kid-language) online and design
the normative piece as a combination of face-to-face (classroom) and
individual exercises. The meat of the latter will be a series of
prompt-based exercises in which we ask kids to freewrite on an idea,
quote, event, or issue of some interest to them. I will start
pilot-testing the general model for the normative component with the
kids next week (assuming Amber approves), and this is what I plan to
do:

• Give the kids a blogging prompt based on national/local current
  events, a quote, or a recent project.
• Have them freewrite on a group blog (probably not the PSO alpha
  site as Amber tells me she’s been having problems with it) for 5-10
  minutes, with the goal of producing a 150-200 word post (this can be
  scaled down if kids have trouble writing so much). If they finish
  early, allow them to post pictures and possibly Youtube videos.
• Assign each kid to write two brief comments on the posts of two
  other kids. Suggest that they agree/disagree (and elaborate), ask a
  question, relate an experience, or add additional evidence or points.
• Have each kid read the comments they received and paraphrase them
  to see if the commenter and commentee share a mutual understanding of
  what was written. (What I am really trying to get at with this piece is
  to have kids think about whether they are communicating effectively
  with each other. Ideally, the group will be able to identify strategies
  for getting their points across effectively to their peers. I want to
  work on this part a bit to make it less boring and school-ish.)

Through the process of blogging on a series of issues—national, local,
personal, philosophical—the primary hope is to hone kids’ skills in
participation (effective communication) and tolerance (expressing
disagreement in civil ways, arguing and persuading rather than
“flaming”). Since all this will be happening online, we might also be
able to get local kids who can’t come to the Y physically to contribute
comments. They won’t learn as much, but the kids in the class will
still demonstrate a blogging norm that outsiders will hopefully hew to.

I can definitely have an ongoing curriculum finished and partially
pilot-tested by 12/15. We can probably also get one video PSA done by
that time. The trouble is that we have about five kids so far who come
in for 90 minutes every Monday when they remember or have
transportation. So if we get started with the blog curriculum and video
next week, that gives the kids 11/19, 11/26, 12/3, and 12/10 to work. I
think cranking out a 30-second PSA and piloting this blog curriculum
(in addition to doing other fun things to hold their attention) is a
substantial agenda for that amount of time.

But I’m always looking for feedback, so please let me know if anything
I’ve said sounds strange or unreasonable, or if it could just use some
tweaking.

Entry Filed under: digital learning skills

6 comments November 13th, 2007 at 10:14pm Deen Freelon Permalink

Web marketing (direct to youth) Ideas

As we’ve been discussing there’s a need to start thinking on what we will do to grow the user base of the site once it’s launched. Here are some initial ideas, please add in your thoughts:

WHAT (Marketing Assets)

• Work with Amber’s and Service Learning kids to develop marketing assets, such as: videos, email templates, web banners, icons, and posters, songs, photos that promote PSO
• Have kids develop a contest for users to recruit other users that post to the site
• Develop a widget for FB and other sites
• Develop some sort of event sponsored by PSO to promote the site?

HOW (Distribution)

• YMCA youth to recruit friends through email
• Post information about the Site in high school or community centers that we have access to
• Have kids post marketing materials across popular sites such as YouTube, Myspace, etc
• Have kids post widget in sites and tell their friends
• Have kids distribute postcards or posters through their high school, library, etc.

WHEN (Timeline)

• The development of materials can start in Jan/Feb 2008
• The execution could start once the site is launched

WHO (Resources)

• We need an overall campaign coordinator, perhaps we can have two or three kids be campaign coordinators and one of us coach them?

Entry Filed under: youth recruitment

3 comments November 12th, 2007 at 12:37pm Adri Permalink

Public Blog Nominees

As a step toward getting the public side of the blog up and running, I have compiled several examples of posts that I think would be of interest to others doing similar work to engage youth civically. Each of the posts below gets at some issue or issues that are not specific to our circumstances. It would be great if you all could offer your opinions on these posts as well as nominate your own in comments. Remember that my list is not comprehensive; that is, a given post’s absence doesn’t mean I think it shouldn’t go public.

Also, I wanted to float the following idea that came to me while going over all the posts: does anyone see any material that we definitely would not want outsiders to see? What I’m getting at is that it seems like the vast majority of posts would be useful for the public blog on some level. What do people think about dropping the password protection and dissolving the public/private distinction entirely? It would make using the blog much easier as well as render moot the selection process for making things public. Let me know what you think in comments.

Chris T’s service learning proposal

Toby’s partnership plan 11/6/07

Lance’s Images of Citizenship and Design Decisions

Chris W’s Model for Future BC Involvement with PSO

Adri’s Reflecting on Teamwork

Toby’s PSO Overall Learning Goals

Toby’s Partnership Proposal 10/18

Entry Filed under: administrative

3 comments November 10th, 2007 at 01:01pm Deen Freelon Permalink

Update on PSO Website Development Planning

I have sent out an email to the team with instructions on Google Docs for the Website planning process.

We’ve had two meetings in which we are discussing some planning issues
for the website. The two meetings are serving to clarify and align the
group on what we want the site to do. Our aim is to close the planning
phase by Nov 30. Sam will then need ~3weeks to develop a scope and
submit it for review and approval.

PART 1 PRESENTATION (NOV 1, 2007)
http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dkcv3zf_934t9q7x&invite=g2×7hk2

PART 2 WORKING NOTES (NOV 7, 2007)
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dkcv3zf_149cxdvfq&invite=gpd3smv

Google Group Page
http://groups.google.com/group/psowebsite

(I can delete the google group page if we can figure out how to set up email subscription in the blog with password protection and share documents. But while the blog is private this may not be possible)

Entry Filed under: decision log

Add comment November 8th, 2007 at 05:40pm Adri Permalink

Service Learning Proposal

Learn and Serve America defines Service-learning as a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.

Puget Sound Off (PSO) strives to be a catalyst for increasing youth involvement and engagement within the community while encouraging expression of one’s beliefs, respect for others, and a commitment to public service. We believe that if youth are given an opportunity to express their voice, they can better their communities.

Seattle Schools require all students to earn 60 hours of service learning in order to graduate. Our goal is to provide a new, exciting way for

youth to earn their service-learning hours by providing them space to host an issue on the PSO website.

Hosting a group involves:

· One semester commitment

· Willingness to improve your civic awareness

· Identifying a local issue you want to do something about

· Interacting with the following 21^st Century learning tools: blogging, video production, photography, social networking, and podcasting.

· Reflection

· Community Action

Plan:

Local youth, in partnership with the YMCA of Greater Seattle – Metrocenter Branch and the University of Washington Center for Civic Communication and Engagement, will participate in a semester long civic engagement project. Youth will gather for 15 hours of training at the beginning of each semester. The trainings will include: an overview of the project, service-learning 101, an opportunity to identify their issue, blogging 101, video production 101, and other relevant trainings.

After the initial 15 hours of training, youth participating in this project will be paired with an undergraduate student participating in the U of W CCCE’s Becoming Citizens program. Their role is to provide support, resources, and additional training when needed. In addition, all participants will attend a mandatory monthly meeting to engage in additional trainings, and troubleshoot issues.

Each participant will also be required to organize a community service activity utilizing the tools available to them through PSO, primarily social networking tools. The following are a list of possible activities:

· Meet-ups

· Serving food to the homeless

Organizing a rally

Entry Filed under: partner strategy

4 comments November 6th, 2007 at 01:53pm Chris Tugwell Permalink

Partnership Plan 11/6/07: Please Comment

Hello, all! Please review the plan of action for partnerships over the next few weeks below. If you could respond with a blog comment to a) let us know whether this plan looks good to you, and b) indicate whether you have any personal contact with anyone at the organizations listed, we’ll go ahead and begin contacting these potential partners.

THE ASK: We will be asking contacts whether they can provide us with content that we can put on our website, crediting them as the source, for our website soft/hard launch.

THE INVITATION: In turn, they will be invited to attend our soft launch party. This will provide an opportunity for them to see what we’re doing, see their content on the site, and to help test the website if they are interested. This is also an opportunity to begin thinking about ways we might be able to work together as the site launches and grows.

THE CONVERSATION: We will use our conversations with potential partners as an opportunity to informally inquire about possibilities for further collaboration in the future, whatever form this may take.

THE ORGANIZATIONS:
1. Youth in Focus: They produce youth photography. Amber has an existing relationship with staff there we could build on.
2. Seattle Public Library: The MacArthur grant stipulates that we will work with the library, so it is important we continue to explore this option. There may be a way we can get involved with their May All Ages Arts Night, which Toby and Chris discussed with Jennifer when they met with her. Amber will follow up to coordinate.
3. Pongo Publishing: This is a new organization with potential content to contribute. Chris has made contact with them, and they have expressed interest in partnering at some level.
4. Artworks: Have a website but don’t display student work on it. Perhaps they would be interested in contributing photographs of past student work on the PSO website.
5. Power of Hope: Their mission is “youth empowerment through the arts.” They have a website but use it to promote programming and do not post youth works. They may be interested in partnering with us, so it’s worth a conversation.
6. Arts Corps: Arts Corps offers free arts education classes to kids in grades K-12. They have a very limited amount of work posted on their website, so it would be worth reaching out to them to have a conversation.

HOW? Who will contact these organizations in the near future?
Amber: Youth in Focus, Seattle Public Library
Chris Tugwell: Pongo Publishing
Toby: Artworks, Power of Hope, Arts Corps

WHAT’S NEXT? Once we’ve talked to some initial content-producing partners, it seems like the next outreach should be to organizations that explicitly work with diverse youth.

Entry Filed under: partner strategy

3 comments November 6th, 2007 at 10:50am Toby Campbell Permalink