The Challenges Facing Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is a diverse collection of communities, each facing unique challenges as they try to develop in these times of economic uncertainty. The hurdles Nova Scotians must overcome to create a prosperous economy seem quite daunting. Our coffers are low and our demands are high. Our infrastructure is aging, as is our population, and our economic stability is too reliant on private enterprise and decisions made in Ottawa about the management of our abundant ocean resources and the funding of our health care.
As is the case in regions across Canada, the Nova Scotian economy is approached as the sacred superstructure from which prosperity flows. Progress and development in our province is measured in terms of our activities and outputs for a few key sectors: housing, food production (fisheries and agriculture), employment and energy. These are also the sectors upon which our economy is heavily reliant for growth. These sectors are healthy when our communities are healthy, and our communities are healthy when our population is healthy.
We rarely do interdisciplinary full-cost GPI accounting in the calculation of our yields. And many of the profits which are generated through Nova Scotian labour and resources are exported rather than reinvested into the infrastructures that produced them. This makes our economy unsustainable, and paralyses our ability to create and maintain our own economic stability. It also makes provision of long-term and stable funding to our communities extremely difficult.
Community organizations and the people who run them are continually being challenged to prove the economic validity of their work to the government, and increasingly to the private sector to which they must turn for resource based assistance. Yet they lack the capacity to produce such analyses due to the funding gaps that already exist for program delivery.
But Nova Scotia’s population requires additional support whether community organizations have the ability to prove this or not. By Canadian standards, our population is older, physically and mentally unhealthy, and experiencing poverty at higher levels than other provinces across the country. Therefore, we have a disproportionate number of people with special needs which require the use of more assistance and resources. But government, at all levels, is downloading the responsibility of care onto community organizations. Because these community organizations are unable to secure a long-term commitment from their municipal, provincial and federal overseers, the people who require extra assistance and resources are treated with band-aid solutions or left untreated. In either case, an individual’s ability to participate in the economy is dependent on how well all of their special needs are addressed.
Our current government is working from a negative budgetary position, which can potentially exacerbate these issues, but balancing a budget takes more than simple money. It requires creativity and collaborations within departments and across community, municipal and federal lines of jurisdiction. It requires a push in the direction of technological development and job creation in the green energy and communications sectors, and a commitment to reinvest in our communities. Our government can do its part in creating a bold new vision for Nova Scotia if it is willing and able to redefine what progress and development means for the province. It will also require a shift away from old paradigms framing progress around financial profit, and acknowledgement that our economy can only be prosperous if we reinvest in the people and communities that create and power them.
We have many challenges ahead of us which go beyond this fiscal year. In many ways balancing our current budget determine the budgets we will have in the future. Therefore it will require more than short-term economic analysis; it will require creativity, collaboration, reallocation and reorganization towards a prosperous Nova Scotia.
Is Big Brother Watching?
As with other increasingly complex concepts, privacy is one that has many nuanced meanings. That is, the more we experience issues of privacy, and are forced to create our own boundaries of public and private, a sliding scale of acceptability emerges for us individually. Then, we have to mix in those personal expectations of privacy, and reconcile them with third-party definitions and policies of privacy.
Everyone needs a privacy policy these days.
And it makes sense to a certain degree, but ultimately I wonder, does any ever actually read privacy policies? And if they do pay attention to such things, could a bad privacy policy change a consumers mind about using the product? I also wonder, to what extent do we value our privacy? Sure, when people think that their privacy has been violated, it is a big deal… but we sign over our rights to privacy on a daily basis. Especially those of us who are heavily engaged with the internet.
Last month, in an editorial piece on CNN, Pete Cashmore (a social media consultant) boldly stated that, “Privacy is dead, and social media is holding the smoking gun.” He gets into the nuts and bolts of why people embed themselves in these digital networks. He speaks of the “attention economy” and the notion that a public life is a successful one. The more public you are, the more capital you will earn. An interesting notion, and probably not too far from the truth.
By engaging in the participatory infrastructure of Cyberspace, we record and post our lives, for all to see and analyse. Even when we are clever and set up our privacy controls so that our “work friends” can’t invade our personal profiles, all of our online activity is continually fed into a massive stream of data which I imagine looks something like the Matrix. Every keystroke, every website visit, every tweet, every photo, every video we share and look at… all being fed into numerous databases for numerous purposes.
As a heavy feeder of data into these streams, I have tried to reconcile my private life with my public one; but I know that if I want to use them, and try to make some headway into the “attention economy”, I must reasonably expect that the price for participating in Cyberspace, is the recording of my every movement within it.
Of course, the underlying assumption in my (and perhaps your) use is that there is no unifying program tying all the little data droppings we leave behind in our daily lives… no one actually listening to and watching the Matrix… This is what allows us to easily invoke Big Brother as if it were still a fictional archetype of a society. Big Brother may have the capability of watching, but he only pays attention when you are breaking the rules, or exploiting personal data.
But what about the people who don’t participate in Cyberspace, and cite privacy issues as their reason number 1.
The HRM has over 1200 cameras in use across the city in facilities and on Metro Transit Buses. That figure is no where close to the total number of CCTV cameras in use across the city, and indeed the whole province. The article indicates (and I suspect most public opinion agrees) that the primary purpose for these cameras is safety, and crime prevention. Although no one is monitoring the cameras, and it is hard to imagine a camera stopping a crime in progress even if they are being monitored… it is generally acceptable that CCTV cameras are a good way to enhance our personal safety.
The Brits have been doing it for years already, and major cities across Canada seem to be adopting a model of surveillance, with one noticable difference from the way it is carried out over there. In the UK, you are constantly being reminded that you are being watched by an omnious voice that comes across the subway speakers every 10 minutes, and asked to assist the CCTV cameras and report “all suspicious activity to authorities.” The authorities want people to feel like Big Brother is watching (even if he isn’t).
In Canada we like to do these things more subtley and friendly… just check out the picture with the associated Herald Story… Smile, you are on camera.
And we complacently smile and wave away our expectations of privacy… enthusiastically even, when the Google car drives by.
But where do we draw the line in the sand? We accept public surveillance in the name of security and public safety. We find electronic banking convenient and reward cards rewarding. We accept most of the cameras and data-tracking. We accept the technology which invades and kills our privacy… in fact we love it. We assist in the creation of the panoptic mosaic which is our technocracy by documenting our lives ourselves, and sharing it with anyone who cares to take an interest.
Perhaps CCTV recording will always remain okay and acceptable by the public, so long as it is related to our activities which are conducted in public.
And perhaps it will remain okay when we install cameras in the houses of people on welfare, like they are now doing in the UK (as reported by Wired Magazine in August). It is apparently a reasonable and rational thing to do over there… so why not here?
I’m glad there are watchdog organizations out there who make it their business to advocate for a human right to privacy… but ultimately I’m just happy for the little claims to privacy I can still make. I still feel as though I am in relative control of my public/private boundaries. Though I acknowledge that control is fairly superficial, because as we are so often reminded – Big Brother could watch if he wanted to.
Talkin’ Shit
We humans are clever animals. We have figured out all kinds of ways to make our lives convenient and pleasant. Cars, electricity, space travel, information and communication technologies… so many advances and innovative feathers in our brain caps related to the wondrous applications of human knowledge and intellectual superiority.
There is one particular issue that humanity has been grappling with since we began to organize ourselves in various civilizations. That is, what do we do with our waste.
Human waste as it exists today is significantly more complex than the waste they had to deal with in other eras of history. Back then, most human waste was shit, piss, vomit and blood… Not a very pleasant topic, I know… but a very important one.
I have read that in Rome, public urine vases were commonplace, and tanners would use in leather and fabric preparation. One Emperor (Vespasian 9-79 AD) recognized a serious buck to be made from the industry and introduced a urine tax.
Paris, circa 1200’s… where legislators had to explicitly forbid people for throwing their feces out the window. And when that didn’t work, they compromised and asked people at least shout ‘gare a l’eau’ when showering your urine from an upper story window.
In 1590’s the model for the modern flush toilet was created by a fellow named Sir John Harington, and readily adopted in France and most of Europe. However, in Britain the design did not suit Queen Elizabeth I, as the smell that remained in the pipes was as unbearable as the shit that caused it. By the 1700’s Britain was still the only major European nation without their shit in relative order. A few more tweaks of the technology, and a few 100 years later… most of the modern world can happily report that the only thing they have to do with their waste, is flush.
But as HRM’s recent sewage disaster has taught us, we still have a long way to go before we have solved the problem with what to do with our waste. And, as Jocelyne Rankin and Jennifer Graham from the EAC, remind us in the most recent issue of Halifax Magazine, our waste sure ain’t what it used to be. Chemicals, cleaners, plastics, pharmaceuticals… we really abuse our toilets with the amount of stuff that isn’t either shit or piss or vomit or blood we flush down it.
But beyond human waste, we share our sewer lines with industry… with hospitals and dry-cleaning businesses and research facilities and breweries and gas stations… all these industries creating their own forms of waste which are mixing with the domestic waste creating a superformula of the most unpleasant byproducts of modern human existence.
Now, in Halifax, we are very concerned about all this waste getting dumped into our Harbour… but… there is something else, which is perhaps even more disturbing than the “glitch” we seem to have encountered with our waste management plan. That is, what we are doing with the sludge left once our sewage is processed through the technology we have chosen to “fix” our sewage problem. Our sewage system takes care of 70% of the particulate matter in our sewage… but what do we do with it once we’ve filtered it out?
Currently, as I understang it, the city lets a corporation called N-Viro Systems take that leftover human and industrial waste sludge away. Which is then mixed with cement kiln dust (a liming agent which is another industrial waste product containing heavy metals) at a 50:50 ratio. The resulting product is something they call Bio-solids.
N-Viro Systems trucks bio-solids to various farms in the province, where it is dug into the land and used as fertilizer.
Now, it appears as though HRM has plans to get into the Bio-solids game by building its own facility to process it… and, it appears as though bio-solids are being touted as a “Green” Solution to our shitty problems… However, I seriously question the ecological wisdom in giving such a process the green stamp of approval… As I learned last night, acceptable evidence on the safety of the land use of bio-solids in agriculture is sketchy at best, given the methods of testing for acceptable levels of certain toxins available to us here in NS.
I mean, we are talking about our food here… our food and our land. We are digging this shit directly into our soil and calling it fertilizer.
Bio-solids are on the agenda of some, like Dr. Marilyn Cameron and other members from the NS Environmental Network. Dr. Cameron gave the keynotes speech at this weekend’s GPNS AGM… she has our attention, and now she needs yours.
Dr. Cameron has been attempting to have this issue addressed by the current government, however she is unable to get any satisfactory response. She is unable to get a list of the farms using bio-solids, and the province is unwilling to legislate labeling laws.
She would like to see the NDP adhere to the “Precautionary Principle” on this issue (From Wiki: The precautionary principle is a moral and political principle which states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action).
When we’re talking biosolids, we’re not talking about simply those natural excrements of humanity… but all the unnatural and chemical ones too… It seems to me that I have a right to know, as a consumer of local foods, if my produce is being grown in this sludge.
Dr. Cameron has yet to get an audience with HRM City Council, but she has an application in to do so. If she manages to get the floor, it will be interesting to hear how Halifax responds to her, an environmental activist from rural NS in response to a problem they believe they’ve come close to solving… I predict it will fall on deaf ears. I mean, the city is pretty pleased with itself, and this so-called Green solution… to the extent that they are pumping more of our tax dollars into a processing plant, which will allow them to cut out the middle man, collecting, processing, selling and delivering the sludge themselves.
I will be pointing my city councilor, my MLA, the Minister of the Environment, and the Minister of Agriculture to this issue… I will also be asking the local farmers who sell their bounty at the numerous farmers markets in the area, whether their food was grown with bio-solids… I have already started talking with my friends and family about the issues… and I (with other GPNS members) am resolved to assist Dr. Cameron in her public education campaign.
Why would the province and the city take such a risk with an already fragile agriculture industry. And what about the local grassroots economy which has sprung up as a result of successful farmer’s markets across the province… what about the health of the residents of the province who actively make the local choice. It all just seems reckless and wrong.
At least let me know if my food is grown in the shit… so that I can make an informed choice as a socially responsible consumer who is weary of the impact of all these chemicals in our environment.
Where were you 8 years ago today?
Right around this time eight years ago, I was at MicMac Mall with Gabriel and Izaak shopping for a new bag, as that was the year I returned to school at St. Joseph’s College of Early Childhood Education. I remember this day with great clarity, as it was a day that greatly impacted on my perceptions of the political realities of the day. Every moment was recorded in my head like short film clips.
I was in the store Bentley… you know the one with luggage and wallets and backpacks and the fuzzy slippers (I never could figure out the consumer connection between travel and slippers). In any case, Izaak was in the stroller, and Gabriel was almost three. This was before Izaak was mobile, so it was easy to be out with the two of them by myself.
The radio was on. Q104. With an important news update… This was odd to me, as it was early in the morning on Q104… it is usually the chatter of dirty jokes, boobies and beer, not reportings from Washington.
“The Pentagon has Been Attacked!”
My attention dropped from the wallet I had in my hand and zeroed in on the radio, “What did that say?”
Another customer had wandered into the store… “Oh didn’t you hear? America is under attack. A missile flew into the Pentagon and the Statue of Liberty has been hit by a plane… It’s all over the news.”
No I certainly did not hear… If I did hear, I would certainly not by standing in Bentley shopping for freaking wallets… “No, I have to get home.”
I remember my heart was racing. I beelined it to the bus depot and anxiously waited for the bus. This was a time when I was having frequent panic attacks, so everything was particularly heightened. Now waiting for a bus was a time that evoked anxiety in me even at times I did not think that the world was potentially coming to an end (leftover anxiety from Y2K, but at the time, real nonetheless.
It took me about 15 minutes to get home. I hopped on the bus that would get me closest, and pretty much ran from the stop to my duplex off Wyse Road.
The other half of our duplex was rented by close friends (considered family). One of which was scheduled to babysit that afternoon. Dave had gone to work at Convergys that morning… and I had classes. At least I thought I had classes…
I burst into the house and put on CNN… to the sight of that video clip which probably wins the award for most replayed historical clip ever. A plane, flying into the World Trade Tower…
I picked up the phone and called next door… “Turn on your TV or get the hell over here.”
It was all so surreal. And then, when the towers came down, I welled up as my heart broke. This is fucking crazy. I felt like I knew that in that moment, things would never be the same again. I was terrified that Bush was at the helm… and remember lamenting Al Gore’s bum deal all over again (the wounds had just healed).
Eight years later and we are certainly living in a different context. The ghosts of 9/11 still haunt us in Afghanistan and Iraq… and in our daily lives as we find ourselves handing over little pieces of our privacy in the name of security and intelligence.
9/11 was a game changer for the trajectory of globalization, community and human progress. It was perhaps the perfect excuse for CCTV, wire-tapping, holding people without charges or legal representation and using the Stanford (Zimbardo) Prison Experiment as a model for dealing with “terrorists”.
9/11 gave us new enemies to replace the commies, and a new source of anxiety and irrational fear to justify a post-modern witch-hunt on those who would question the omnipresence and omnipotence of America… in all her red white and blue glory.
Yes 9/11 changed all that. It traumatized North America, and we will probably never be the same again.
Turning Lemons into Lemonade
So David and I just returned from our meeting with Erin Flaim and Lisette Cormier of Metro Transit. It was, as we had hoped it would be, a very productive and positive meeting. Although we were not allowed to view the surveillance tape as we had hoped, we did receive some feedback about what happened.
All parties agreed that the situation was handled poorly and that statements made by both parties were taken out of context in the reporting of the situation. Including the statement made by the Metro Transit official not at the meeting, that the camp was riding the bus for free. We knew this to be a false statement, and it is from our understanding now that Metro Transit did not intend for this message to come out.
A point of disagreement about the situation came in regards to the claim that the safety of other passengers was compromised by Izaak’s behaviour. Metro Transit leaves this up to driver discretion. Izaak was on the bus for somewhere between 3 1/2 and 5 minutes before the driver pulled over and said that he couldn’t continue. I asked what the Metro Transit policy was for crying babies, to which I was told that it is up to the driver and assessed on a case by case basis. I wanted to emphasize that when I made the comparison between Izaak and a crying baby, I was not doing so for metaphorical purposes… developmentally, Izaak’s behaviour, social cognition and impulse control is closer to that of a toddler, rather than an almost 9 year-old child. Therefore, to me, it was like asking the someone with an inconsolable baby/toddler to leave the bus. And (also from our perspective) 3 1/2 to 5 minutes was not enough time for the camp director and Izaak’s counselor, in their professional capacity, to calm Izaak. But, on this point we both conceded that we had differing perspectives.
Luckily, Dave and I are the type of people who can agree to disagree. So we were able to move on to the good and productive parts of the meeting.
Izaak will be getting a letter of apology from Erin Flaim, on behalf of Metro Transit. It will be an apology for the mere fact that this happened in the first place and that it spiraled out of control in the way that it did. The camp director will also be getting an apology from Metro Transit, acknowledging that he was acting in his professional capacity as camp director to speak for and defend Izaak, an 8-year-old autistic boy who can’t yet speak for himself.
Metro Transit will be doing outreach to the autism community about those who might qualify for the Access-A-Bus program. We have found out that Izaak (and Gabe apparently) would qualify for the Access-A-Bus. As noted in my August 1st blog, before any of this even happened, that I would much prefer to use this service with Izaak, but was told when I phoned about it, that Izaak would not qualify when he was about 5 years old. Riding the bus with Izaak, has always been a source of anxiety for me… in fact, it was the dread of having this type of thing happen that compelled me towards Car Share.
But, in this particular instance Izaak was with his camp, therefore granting him use would still not have prevented this incident. This camp is a very special and unique camp that allows autistic kids to have the experience of a summer day camp… and take the bus to explore the city… with their peers in a safe and supervised way. This year they even got to go surfing at Lawrencetown thanks to One Life Surf Spa and Artists for Autism. This is the third year for Izaak in the camp, and although he can be extremely challenging to care for, he has taken leaps and bounds this summer in terms of his behaviour. This is often the case after camp, and I often lament that the education system wouldn’t partially adapt their model. Izaak still has moments though… and those moments are intense… I am so grateful for the counselors at the camp, as they endure and persist with even the most challenging of behaviours, and adore the kids regardless. Unconditional love it is, as pure as it gets.
Parents of autistic children and autistic adults do require more resources than most, and that always puts the status quo on edge… because it is often said that more resources for special interest groups is unfair. But one resource that parents of autistic children needs the most of all doesn’t even require tangible capital… community acceptance and tolerance can go a very long way. And assistance. Offering to help, rather than snarky advice. These things are free… they don’t cost our community anything.
Metro Transit will be partnering with Autism Society Nova Scotia to facilitate an Autism Information Program with Metro Transit, and will work with Artists for Autism to develop Rider Tip Sheets for parents and bus drivers on strategies to prevent and deal with situations arising because of autistic behaviour. The Society of Artists for Autism will be designing an Autism Awareness bus advertisement for inside the bus which will have the website address to access this information.
And based on some of the public opinion surrounding this incident, I think it is pretty clear we have far to go in raising positive autism awareness. For the most part, I did not read the 374 comments posted on the CBC story about this incident. To be perfectly honest, it is downright weird to have 100’s and possibly 1000’s of people commenting on your family, talking about you around the water cooler, and recognizing you as you walk down the street.
Plus, the quality of the comments, in some cases, were downright sickening. Suggesting institutionalization and even worse. It was enough to prompt me to put out a call on my Facebook network to start bombarding with p-ausitive comments… but I stopped reading and paying attention to the seemingly ignorant, dark age mentality attacks that were being lobbed.
What I did pay attention to was the parents, grandparents, friends, and relatives of autistic individuals telling me how proud they were of both David and I to be bringing this dialogue to the forefront. One man told Dave that his wife thought he was a hero… and I have to agree. I also think that the camp director was Izaak’s hero that day… and told him so in an email I sent to him a couple of days ago.
That so many people were interested in this story, felt compelled to comment on it, related to it and felt that we were fighting a fight for them as well, indicates to me that as a culture and society we have a long way to go in terms of acceptance and tolerance of those whose brains are wired differently than most. And this extends beyond autism and into all areas of mental health, where discrimination is rampant and effective social policy is scarce.
This will be the last I discuss the “Metro Transit Incident” publically. I’m done talking and ready to get to work.
life@speed
I’m dealing with waves of anxiety right now. the last 24 hours have been an intense whirlwind… very intense. Now that the dust has somewhat settled, and our issue… our cause… is in the last 3 minutes of its 15, my protective cognitive devices are kicking in as I start to intellectualize the experience and turn it into something productive.
This story, the story of this little boy with autism, who is absolutely adorable and photogenic (by consensus)… generated so much interest that it was picked up from station to station to station across the country. Newspapers, radio, TV, Cyberspace… the media dug in. We figured a page 6 story on the Chronicle-Herald… maybe.
Our friends and family are amazing and supportive. As are the autism parents I have connected with online over the years, from all over the planet who have a variety of perspectives about autism. One thing is unanimous about all Autism Moms and Dads… they protect their cubs.
And god bless ‘em for it. Lord knows the institutions of our society aren’t going to fight for them… because people with Autism immediately present a problem for the status quo… in that they have different needs than the status quo, so the status quo has to start making exceptions for them. This is true, not just for people with Autism, but for all people who have disabilities that lie in the realm of brain function and cognitive processing.
The status quo easily adapts to people with physical disabilities. We have braille on our money, closed-captioning TV, all of our buildings have to be accessible for people on wheels. But when it comes to people with mental disabilities, disabilities that we can’t see, and that we can’t understand… the status quo doesn’t do so well in it’s adaptation.
But I digress…
The only certain conclusion that I can draw at this point in time, the only nugget I have taken from this experience so far, is that I will not be taking Izaak on the public transit system again, any time real soon.
Other than that, I have to keep digesting…
Carless no more
For the past 3 years, our family has been carless. For the most part, it has worked for us. Keeping the household expenses down while commuting on public transit throughout the city. Sure, there were some inconveniences, like grocery shopping and going on outings outside the city… but even at that, we would either take taxis or bum rides from our friends and family and it was still cheaper than owning and maintaining a car.
But recently, we had been finding ourselves wishing for a car more often than not. Especially for doing things with the boys. Carting two autistic children around on public transit is sketchy. Not eligible for Metro Transit’s Access-a-Bus, it meant at least an hour of preparation, especially if it was happening during rush hour.
Gabe (almost 12) loves taking the bus. Scratch that, he simply loves buses. He probably knows more about the fleet than most of the bus drivers… especially what ads are going to on them. He refuses to get on particular buses because of the ads, or lack of ads on them. He particularly dislikes single advertiser buses, like the Bell and Pepsi ones. One day I had to wait an extra 20 minutes because he wanted to wait for the 958 – 60 Eastern Passage bus. The alternative… him very loudly screaming “you can’t make me come with you” and having a complete and utter meltdown while judgemental eyes would inevitably scorn my inability to “control my child”. So we waited, and sure enough, the 958 – 60 Eastern Passage came along and he happily trotted onto it where he proceeded to recite every ad on the bus until we arrived at our final stop.
Izaak (almost 9) is unpredictable on the bus. Sometimes wonderful and easy… sometimes taking off his shoes and biffing them across the bus to hit some poor public transit rider in the back of the head with. Izaak has very few traditional communication skills. He talks in one or two word requests and answers, and is incapable of expressing complex descriptions about what he likes and doesn’t like and why. He also has no idea how to appropriately interact with people. So if we are on the bus and someone sits next to him that he doesn’t like the smell of (one of his hyper-sensitivities), he is likely to smell them then push them away by saying “no – bye bye” very loudly. While I think it is kind of cute, the people whose smell he is offended by don’t so much. And that’s a tame one… Izaak is getting to the age and size where if he doesn’t want to be on a bus, there’s not much we can do about it unless we are willing to subject a whole busload of strangers to one of Izaak’s meltdowns, which we are usually not.
So we’ve been really feeling like a car might make life just slightly easier for us.
We had heard about Car Share Halifax a few months ago. I can’t recall where I heard about it, but I do remember that I had gone to the website and checked it out. We flip flopped regularly about whether it would be useful to us and we could justify the expense. Then about a month ago a friend of ours told us he was Retiring his Ride and he could either get $300 cash or have a $500 coupon to Car Share Halifax. He had heard us talking about Car Share, and offered us the coupon.
Signing up was extremely painless. The folks at Car Share Halifax are nice and easy-going. Within one hour, I had signed up, got my membership number, had an orientation session, and was given the FOB to the Car Share Fleet. I went from having one car, to having 8 cars, strategically placed across the city. Even a Prius! For $9 an hour (M-F 6am-6pm), gas and insurance included.
Our neighbourhood lot is convieniently located one block away. 3 minute walk, tops.
We used Car Share a lot this week. Mostly for transporting Izaak home from summer camp, and running errands. I found hours last week that I did not know that I had in a day.
Another cool thing about Car Share Halifax is that it makes me feel good about being a part of it. I am not only a customer, using a service… I am a member participating in a fabulous organization.
But perhaps the best thing of all is driving in a car which has facebook and twitter on the bumper.
So I’m sold, and I’m encouraging everyone who’s been thinking about it for the past few months to dive in and try it. I can totally see how a service like this would be useful to non-profit and government agencies as well. Pay-per-use is the smart way to have a car. I’d also like to add that if it so happens that my blog has been that final convincing point for you to try it, give them my name as the referrer and we will both get a $25 driving credit for doing so!
Internet Literacy
Ted Naylor and Charlene Croft, with E. Dianne Looker
from May 2007
While issues of access to technology and connectivity infrastructure remain essential, it is also paramount that on top of connectivity we recognize that inclusive access does not end at being ‘connected’. Rather, inclusion and participation in the knowledge society is tied to social processes that are dynamic and complex and which vary across different socio-economic contexts.
To this end, we introduce and discuss the notion of ICT literacy. This concept provides an analytical approach that makes visible that there are important differences in use, skill levels and objectives in using ICTs throughout the social order, particularly across the key socio-economic sectors of governance, business, education and community. ICT literacy therefore provides the analytical link to understanding how to navigate and use the information highway in ways that cuts experiences of users in different ways; people form literacies with meaning that are socially and culturally mediated. An equitable knowledge society is indeed a connected one, yet is also one based on acknowledging that a plurality of ICT literacies exist; there are not ‘dumb’ users of technology and ‘smart’ users of technology when considering how individuals employ ICTs in ways that matter to their lives, circumstances and needs.
From a policy and practice perspective, we believe this approach helpfully moves us away from the prevailing tendency to understand ICT literacy as a singular, hierarchy ranked, uniform set of competencies with computers or technologies that can be measured, standardized and taught.
The Knowledge Economy
It is now generally acknowledged that Canada, similar to other advanced social democracies, is becoming a knowledge based economy. This shift is premised on the accentuation of “knowledge” as the most important factor of production, surpassing land, labour, and capital based on the diffusion of information communication technologies (ICTs) throughout the social order (Parayil 2005).
From a federal policy and programme perspective, Canada has aggressively positioned itself as a leading proponent of the knowledge economy, making massive investments in infrastructure and programs based on the understanding that “Canada needs a highly skilled and educated workforce to remain competitive and sustain its prosperity in an increasingly global and knowledge-based economy” (Berger et al. 2007).
The Knowledge Society
While there has been a great deal of focus on creating an advantageous climate for growing the knowledge economy, considerably less focus has been put into considering how we might ensure the development of an equitable knowledge society. In broad terms, a knowledge society centre’s around the social capabilities to identify, process, transform, disseminate and use information to build and apply knowledge for human development (UNESCO).
However, while issues of access to technology and connectivity infrastructure remain essential, it is also paramount that on top of connectivity we recognize that inclusive access does not end at being ‘connected’. Rather, inclusion and participation in the knowledge society is tied to social processes that are dynamic and complex and which vary across different socio-economic contexts.
Indeed, scholars of the ‘digital divide’ now point out that this divide cannot be reduced to just technological access, “solved” through “simple technological fixes” (Parayil 2005) because connectivity and access to infrastructures are not a sufficient basis to develop a knowledge society based on equitable inclusion and participation (UNESCO).
In both cases, the concept of the knowledge society and economy hinges on access to computing infrastructures – while government policy and programme has begun to successfully conquer the ‘digital divide’ in terms of access to technology and connectivity infrastructure it has not yet sufficiently addressed the digital divide in terms of ensuring adequate levels of literacy with ICTs.
ICT literacy addresses the post-connectivity question of, what now? For those with access to the ubiquitous information highway, ICT literacy provides the analytical link to understanding how to navigate and use the information highway in ways that cuts experiences of users in different ways. This approach makes visible that there are important differences in use, skill levels and objectives in using ICTs throughout the social order and that these differences should not, and do not, necessarily follow along a hierarchal ordering of ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ skills within the social realm – there are not ‘dumb’ users of technology and ‘smart’ users of technology when considering how individuals employ ICTs in ways that matter to their lives, circumstances and needs.
ICT literacy
While there are many definitions of ICT literacy within the scholarly literature (see Bawden 2001 for a review), ICT literacy is generally taken as an “umbrella term” that attempts to describe a new set of literacies which have emerged as a result of a broader shift to an “information society” and the accompanying technologies embedded in that shift. As Warschauer (in press: 16) concludes, “Today, the social, economic, and technological transformations are again aligned to bring about major changes in literacy practices.”
Currently, the prevailing tendency in understanding ICT literacy is to understand it as a singular, standardized set of competencies with computers or technologies. In the tradition of traditional literacy, we then find those agents and organizations wishing “to define ‘it’, to teach it, measure it, assess it, and remediate it – in a word, to universalize and standardize it (Lankshear and Knobel 2005).” If you don’t have ‘it’, then you better get ‘it’ because you will need ‘it’ in the future, goes the rationale. Within the education sector, for example, this approach is ensconced within traditional curriculum programs that understand ICT literacy as a teachable and unified set of skills to be learned. However, evidence from our study, among others, suggests that ICT literacy should be more accurately understood across a broad range of competencies and skills, and that individuals use ICTs in ways that matter to them, and not necessarily along a fixed continuum of ‘advancing’ skills.
Our understanding of ICT literacy therefore differs from the normative understandings of ICT literacy by recognizing that there are social and cultural elements which draw our attention to understanding literacy in different ways which vary in different social contexts (Simpson 2005). Freire (2000) describes literacy as “an active phenomenon, deeply linked to personal and cultural identity. Its power lies not in a received ability to read and write, but rather in an individual’s capacity to put those skills to work in shaping the course of his or her own life.” In this context, ICT literacy conceptualizes a whole host of social practices of how people engage in making meaning “mediated by texts that are produced, received, distributed, exchanged, etc., via digital codification” (Lankshear and Knobel 2005: 9). People form literacies with meaning that are socially and culturally mediated, which is not the result from some universally learned skill or technique.
With this in mind, we would suggest four major socio-economic sectors where ICT literacy matters; it matters in the sense that while literacies with ICTs will inevitably vary among individuals, these sectors continue to form the basis of the knowledge society. Therefore a consideration of literacy with ICTs among these sectors is paramount to ensure equitable inclusion in the knowledge society.
* Governance
It is important to consider ICT literacy in relation to its significance around equitable participation within the public domain. The existence of asymmetries in democratic and governing practices in Canada is now well established. In this context, ICTs are increasingly playing an important role in inclusion around policy formulation and decision-making processes (Dale and Naylor 2006). Civic engagement processes are increasingly found on-line, and the communication possibilities created by ICTs allow the public to express itself more immediately and effectively than previously possible, helping citizens reinvigorate public talk and dialogue in entirely new ways, and with entirely new results (Dale and Naylor 2006).
Aside from ICTs contribution to civic engagement, ICTs are also now crucial to evolving notions of alternative service delivery mechanisms within government. In efforts to become more efficient and effective, many government services are now found online (http://www.gov.ns.ca/snsmr). The rationale is that the public can be better served by making these services available online, circumventing the traditional bureaucratic ‘silos and stovepipes’ found across departments, and offering more immediate and better services to citizens.
* Business
Simply connecting business to the Internet isn’t sufficient for ensuring effective use of the advantages offered by ICTs. In a study of rural New Zealand small businesses, the authors recommend that human capability play the key role in their E-Commerce strategy as a priority for the Government in the drive for economic transformation. To this end, among a host of recommendations, the authors direct the government to facilitate skill training for small business by ensuring the education sector focuses on ICT literacy, and that the government helps the private sector “build broader ICT literacy and capability in the community including rural areas” (Al-Qirim and Corbett 2003). In this way, ICT literacy becomes positioned as the key competitive edge for businesses once they have gained connectivity – the better literacy skills with ICTs on behalf of businesses and owners, the more competitive they become within a global marketplace where ICT literacy is presumed to be the entry fee to compete.
* Education
Canada requires a highly skilled and educated workforce to ensure it is competitive and to sustain its long-term prosperity in a knowledge-based economy (Berger et al. 2007).
At the same time, it is widely believed that students who have difficulty converting written information to knowledge are at a critical disadvantage in today’s world (Sim 2006). ICT literacy is therefore a desirable and necessary form of human capital, particularly in relation to an increasing emphasis on an individual’s success within the context of a knowledge economy.
Within the field of economics, there is also a growing theoretical consensus that the driving force behind economic growth is technological advancement; an assertion which has clearly found its way into educational policy formulation, and curriculum reform and practice for many governments, including Canada. As Milton (2005: 10) contends, “The early drivers of levels of investment in ICT in education have not changed. ICT skills are a key factor in both individuals’ success in the labour market and in national economic growth.” So while connectivity and access remain important obstacles within education, obstacles to creating literacy with ICTs within the education sector is the key to ensuring all groups have access to tapping the potential created by connectivity within Nova Scotia, particularly those groups that have been historically marginalized (Naylor and Frank, forthcoming).
* Community
Rural connectivity and literacy with that connectivity represents an important development in the historical use of ICTs to foster and enhance civic participation within the public domain (Dale and Naylor 2006). In this context, the use of the ICTs to expand dialogue, literacy and discourse are taken as new features of a potentially democratic process within the public sphere since to a large extent they seek to involve different groups employing different techniques to achieve different objectives.
Rural communities worldwide are now facing formidable challenges: significant demographic urban growth, with associated problems of economic and population losses in many rural and resource-dependent communities, with associated job loss and community decline; and meeting the basic necessities for clean air, clean water, energy, transportation, land use, housing, jobs, health, waste disposal, etc. Such problems are dynamically interconnected and cannot be dealt with in isolation; they require new approaches, frameworks, partnerships and tools to address them in an integrative fashion (Dale and Onyx, in press). Key to facing these challenges is the capacity of communities to coordinate and lead discussions around these issues, potentially contributing to a rapid development of social capital.
The emergent tools of Web 2.0, for example, suggest the importance of a set of communication tools that rural communities might adopt as strategies that cut across the rural socio-economic experience. It also highlights the critical need to address a plurality of literacies that need to be considered in relation to connectivity.
Internet Web 2.0 applications are “those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated services that gets better the more people use it, creating network effects through an ‘architecture of participation’ (O’Reilly 2005). In this way, Web 2.0 first assumes access to web based infrastructure but from there departs from the current understanding of the internet as a single entry point to access more information or as static communications link. Rather Web 2.0 is centered on a model of knowledge generation and production by communities.
As rural communities continue to face the challenges noted above, they require the tools to mobilize not only their civic voices and participation but their commerce and economies; and without the literacy to embrace and adapt the evolving architecture of the knowledge society and economy they risk becoming marginalized as technology ‘have-not’s’.
tangled webs of the brave new world
Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen – And keep your eyes wide the chance won’t come again – And don’t speak too soon for the wheel’s still in spin – And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’ – For the loser now will be later to win – For the times they are a-changin‘
For the past three days I’ve had that friggin’ song in my head. And most definitely, it has been Bob Dylan’s version of the song. It’s so stuck I often find myself walking down the street singing it fairly loudly, and upon recognizing that, I find myself wanting to burst on out into it… all theatrical and shit.
I love being a citizen of Now. Observing these structurally shaking instances of history.
Citizens of Iran, speaking out against their theocracy. The Women of Iran, finding their voices. The Net Generation of Iran, fighting violence with information-communication technologies. Amazing. I am sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the results of this one. Unfortunately our attention spans here in the West are so short, especially the media’s attention span. Also unfortunately democracy always comes bundled with bureaucracy and it is possible that the institution has far more power to drag the recount process out. I suspect the Iran saga will be anti-climatic. They will do the recount, and the numbers won’t change. What then? The citizens will have to accept it. Just as US citizens did in their 2000 election … and in the end, they didn’t even get their recount. The Supreme Court decided… much like the Supreme Overlord will.
Unless, of course, the recount happens and the numbers do change… what will happen then? I have no idea.
I am ultimately convinced that if Obama had not won in November, we would have seen a similar uprising in the US. I know it is a highly theoretical thing to say, but I stand by it. What’s happening in Iran is a smackdown of cultures. What happened in the 2008 election was also a smackdown of cultures. If John McCain won in a landslide, or even by a narrow margin, there would have been protests and allegations of voter fraud en masse. In 2008, the outrage would have expanded past an audience of election wonking observers like it did in 2000 and 2004. You would have seen these scenes from Tehran in Washington.
God I’m happy that didn’t happen. I am increasingly impressed with Barack on a daily basis. He is governing exactly how I hoped he would. And, he is still using all those social media tools that got him elected to reach out to his constituents.
Though, when I read about a City in Montana that requires you submit all of you Web 2.0 logins and passwords, I think… WTF America? Background check takes on a whole new meaning when you have to start opening up your cyberlife to your employers. That is the depth approach to job screening.
Then I start thinking about the Bill just introduced in Canadian Parliament about intercepting Internet transmissions and gathering user information from ISPs and I think WTF Canada? “Twenty-first century technology calls for 21st-century tools,” said Justice Minister Rob Nicholson (via CBC). Indeed they do Minister Nicholson.
The Internet is blowing it all up. Thrusting us into a brave new world whether we want to go or not. We early adopters are all quite giddy about it. Once labelled the “cyber-utopianists” it is clear the skeptics are now paying attention. And jumping on board where they can. The revolution could never be televised because it must be an interactive, reflexive process for it to be real.
But, now that the Internets’ transformative potential is very clear, it becomes scary. Because Now, it is no longer theory… and you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be people trying to make their top dollars by attempting to exploit the technology for profit, for security, and for measuring an individual’s moral value by snooping around their Web 2.0 pages.
Now is, indeed an interesting and exciting time.
The line it is drawn the curse it is cast – The slow one now will later be fast – As the present now will later be past – The order is rapidly fadin’ – And the first one now will later be last – For the times they are a-changin’
Twitter FAQ for Sociologists…
What is Twitter anyway?
Twitter is a social networking site where the main activity is sending out and receiving 140 character (max) information bursts (called Tweets or Chirps). People sign-up for membership using an email address and choose a unique username. After disclosing of a small amount of personal information you are given your own Twitter profile.
Every profile is one page, and consists of a photo (if the user chooses to upload one), a 140 character “About Me” blurb, and if you have entered it, where in the world you are. Your profile is also a record of your Tweets, in the order in which they have been entered, with the most recent last.
Where you “friend” people on other social sites like Myspace and Facebook, the social part of Twitter emerges as you “follow” other people’s tweets, and as people follow yours. Your Twitter “home” then, becomes the real-time sending and receiving of tweets between and among you and those that you are following.
If you use Facebook, think of it as the Status Update feature isolated and turned into a social networking site on its own.
What kinds of information are being sent and received over Twitter?
The substance of the information bursts fall in a number of different categories:
- Mundane events (what I’m eating for breakfast or whether I’m going to get a bath or a shower)
- Personal news (where I’m going to have a beer or whether or not my best friend is pregnant)
- Making Plans with Followers (let’s go have a beer together to talk about our friend who is pregnant)
- Interesting Internet Finds (external links to articles, blogs, YouTube videos, pictures)
- Self-promotion (external links to your own blogs, YouTube videos, pictures, website, creative work)
- Citizen journalism (coverage and promotion of the local community events and news)
- Mediated journalism (external links to, interaction with and commentary on mainstream news)
- Commercial (purely service or product driven information with the intention of promotion)
Who uses Twitter?
Twitter is a social networking site predominantly used by individuals who are high-level communicators and organzations/businesses who want to reach those communicators. Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point is a good lens through which to view Twitter users. He talks about the Connectors, the Mavens and the Salesmen as being the three types of individuals which start and spread what he calls “social epidemics.”
Connectors are individuals who know lots of people and who use those connections to their advantage. Connectors are people who have invested in social, cultural and identity capital and who can convert those intangible resources into pretty much whatever they decide to.
Mavens are the senders and receivers of information. They are the people who always have the pulse on the good deals and breaking stories of the day. Mavens are the trendsetters and the people who you turn to to find out about this thing or that. Citizen Journalists are types of Mavens, often scooping the mainstream media in reporting “from the ground”
Salesmen are the persuaders of society. They are the people who dedicate a great deal of their lives to selling people on their ideas.
These three types of people form the Golden Triangle of trends. “Mavens are the databanks. They provide the message. Connectors are social glue: they spread it… Salesmen [have] the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced.” (p.70, The Tipping Point).
But there is a fourth type of Twitter user, which I will call Leachers. Leachers are passive Twitter users who do not tweet themselves, but who set up profiles simply to follow users and extract information from them for whatever purposes they may have. For the most part Leachers exploit Twitter and the information being provided to them from the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen. They only use half of the application. They take information without giving anything in return.
How Many People Use Twitter?
According to Mashable, In April 2009, it was estimated that 7.4% of adult Internet users had a Twitter account. That’s about 12.1 million people. How many of these are active Twitter accounts with real people behind them is probably considerably less, but this is a problem with measuring any social metrics on social networking sites.
What about Twitter Penetration into Real Life?
Typically, when patterns of technology penetration are reported and analysed, they are done so in terms of number of users, which was answered in the above statistics. However, the type of penetration discussed here has more to do with how this virtual platform influences and penetrates the everyday life of its users.
Because of the simplicity of the platform it makes it extremely friendly for use on any mobile phone with web capability. Whereas Facebook there are multiple pages and multiple possibilities for surfing, the Twitter feed is the only screen you need to use the site. Twitter mobile is fully functional, because it has such a simple function.
One of the concerns with this, of course, is that heavy Twitter users will often exhibit behaviours consistent with work-a-holics, or information addicts. Non-users will often complain that their friends who have embedded Twitter into their daily lives are missing out on the here and now, and they hate having to compete for the attention of users.
Twitter penetration has also surpassed the personal and infiltrated the institutional. Institutions, which have been the traditional gatekeepers and disseminators of public information are jumping in the tree for their own purposes. Politicians, libraries, universities, governments, police, celebrities, the media, corporations – all the institutions who have things to say to people – are chirping their way into the collective consciousness of the Tweeps (or Twits if you prefer) who would find that information useful.
Why has Institutionalized Media Become so Obsessed with Twitter?
Because Twitter is a social networking site which attracts the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen; the mainstream media has become increasingly interested in hopping on board this social epidemic. It has gotten to the point where many mainstream media outlets are using Twitter as a source for their stories, which perpetuates it’s perceived value by the users because it can create a direct line from them to the mass media. The Trending Topics feature (a keyword top 10 of what people are tweeting about) assists the media in keeping the pulse on what the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen are talking about (it should be noted that this is also why market research firms are so interested in Twitter).
In this way, the mainstream media co-opts Twitter as a form of unpaid journalism. The Twitter user becomes a Prosumer (from George Ritzer) – the Producer and the Consumer of “news” mediated by the mainstream media.
Why is Twitter Such a Valuable Social Tool?
Many of the social benefits of Twitter can be found in the literature around social networking sites in general. Feelings of connectivity can lead to stronger social cohesion within cultural and geographic communities. Because the majority of content on Twitter is user-generated, the information does not have to pass through the same vetting processes. There are still vetting processes though, but they emerge in the form of social consensus as to what information is valid, or worth repeating (or in this case, retweeting).
Some, like Silicone Valley ex-pat Andrew Keen, are concerned with these processes of user-generated forms of culture, lamenting the death of the expert as a dangerous evolution of western civilization. But this concern only holds water if you fundamentally believe that culture should be guarded and distributed through institutionalized gatekeepers: mainstream media, academics, admen, studied artists and record companies to name a few.
A local example of the social value of Twitter can be seen upon recollection of the Spryfield fires. Those Haligonians who were using Twitter at the time were sending and recieving information about the state of the fires much faster than any local media outlet was. It was the efficient delivery of important information which was personalized and unvetted, therefore it contained an inherent unmeasurable value to it which is often absent in reporting from the anchor desk.
A global example of the social value of Twitter emphasizes democratization, and information which has circumvented the institution. This example is actually playing out as I type this, in the highly contested Iranian election. Where state controlled media is finding it difficult to control the message and the information coming out of the country. Even their attempts to block Internet traffic has failed, as global activists are facilitating external communication by tweeting proxy server addresses for those who might not be able to otherwise connect to the Internet.
Is Twitter for Me?
Well, the only way to find that out is by going on and trying it. Chances are that if you consider yourself to be either a Connector, a Maven or a Salesman, Twitter would definitely be worth checking out. Unless you are a celebrity, or have many friends and connections to people already using Twitter, it takes a while to collect a following, and really understand how it works. Ultimately, people will follow you if you are tweeting things that are relevant to them (another benefit of Twitter is the positive identity/idea reinforcement as more and more people start following you).
It is important to remember that the thing that makes Twitter so valuable and meaningful for people is the interactive aspect of it. The more you use it, and interact with it, the more you understand it’s value.
I think, though, overall with Twitter, we need to rethink the whole media paradigm. The old “Medium is the message” adage becomes flipped to think about “the Message as the Medium”, with the “viewers” flipping to the “users” and where “content” matters more than “form”.
Do you have more sociologically related questions about Twitter? Post them in the comments here or tweet me @statsgirl.
