Blog Carnival: I studied Political Science and today I’m working as…

Posted on 29/04/2013 by Mario Sorgalla

…an Online Community and Social Media Manager. If you had asked me three or four years ago about the role of Online Community and Social Media Managers I could hardly have given you an answer. It was not on my personal list of possible jobs after graduation.

I studied Political Science, Modern History and Media Science at the University of Bonn. I chose these subjects purely out of interest. I didn’t have any concrete occupational area on my mind when I decided to study these subjects. I have always been interested in Politics and History. When other people were reading exciting novels I read just another non-fiction book on the Cold War, the Chinese Revolution or about the life of Gustav Stresemann. So in hindsight I can really say that I enjoyed my studies (except for the exams of course!).

University of Bonn. Photo taken by Flickr user Ariane Middel and published under a CC BY 2.0 license.

If you study Political Science it also makes sense to do an internship abroad or to study at a university abroad. I completed internships at the NATO in Brunssum (the Netherlands), at the German embassy in Washington, DC and at the Foundation for Development Cooperation (FDC) in Brisbane. Nothing seemed to be more appropriate than a job as a consultant/ speaker/ contributor to an international organisation or maybe at an NGO in Germany.

As a graduate in Social Sciences in Germany it is not a matter of course that you get a good job right after graduation. Many articles have been written about the Generation Praktikum (generation internship). Guess what I did after I had graduated?

I started an internship with the Bertelsmann Stiftung (Foundation) at the beginning of 2011. I applied for this internship because the project futurechallenges.org seemed to be a very interesting experiment because of its goal: raising awareness for global problems with the help of a worldwide blogger network and via social media. I started to assume the role of an Online Community and a Social Media Manager although at that time I didn’t know that such a „profession“ actually exists.

Today I’m working as a freelancer in Online Community and Social Media Management and I still enjoy it! I especially like the opportunity of communicating with people from all over the world. I also like the fact that in Social Media it’s more about the content than about your position within a company or an organisation. It’s interesting what you have to say and not (only) what you are. I know this may sound a bit idealistic but it’s true in a way.

What will be next?

To put it bluntly: I have no idea. It could be that in five years time (the popular question in a job interview) I will still be doing what I do today. However, it could also be something else. But what I know is that I would study those subjects once again if I had to choose. It’s important to be satisfied with what you’re doing and if you’re always open to new ideas and inspirations most of us will get a job that matches our interests – sooner or later.

Blog Carnival

Now if you studied Political Science what’s your job today? Does it have anything to do with what you’ve learned during your studies? Would you study Political Science once again or would you choose anything else?

It would be nice to read about your thoughts on this. We could make a collection on „I studied Political Science and today I’m working as…“. This could be interesting for other Political Scientists or for Political Science students. I’m looking forward to reading your posts! I will link to all your posts and publish a summary.

Unterschiede im Kontaktmanagement auf Facebook, Xing, Twitter und Co.

Posted on 19/03/2013 by Mario Sorgalla

Wer sich viel in sozialen Netzwerken bewegt kennt die Situation: eine Kontaktanfrage von einer Person, die man nicht unbedingt zum engen Freundes- oder Bekanntenkreis zählt. Und weil wir Internetnutzer häufiger vor dieser Frage stehen hat sich Ute Klingelhöfer entschieden, eine Blogparade ins Leben zu rufen: “Facebook, XING, Twitter und Co. – Wen lassen wir wo rein?”. Spontan habe ich mich entschieden, mein Verhalten in Bezug auf diese Fragen zu reflektieren.

Von allen sozialen Netzwerken, die ich auch heute noch aktiv nutze, ist meine Mitgliedschaft bei Facebook die älteste. Zunächst als Alternative zum heute beinahe vergessenen studivz gedacht, hatte ich mich auf Facebook mit Freunden und Bekannten vernetzt. Mit allen diesen Menschen verband mich, dass ich sie im Laufe meines Lebens irgendwann und irgendwo schon mal getroffen hatte. Ich hatte dieses Vorgehen für mich nicht zum Prinzip erhoben. Es hatte sich einfach ergeben.

Kontakte kreuz und quer. Wie gehen wir mit unseren Kontakten und Kontaktanfragen in unterschiedlichen sozialen Netzwerken um? Public Domain Foto, veröffentlicht auf Wikimedia.

Im Laufe der Zeit kamen beruflich bedingt – vor allem meiner Mitarbeit im internationalen Bloggernetzwerk futurechallenges.org geschuldet – immer mehr Kontakte hinzu, die ich noch nie zuvor persönlich getroffen hatte. Ich teile mit Ihnen jedoch die Mitarbeit an einem Projekt in das viele Menschen großes Engagement stecken. Diese Schnittstelle ist für mich Grund genug, mich mit diesen Menschen zu verbinden. Ich teile mit Ihnen keine gemeinsame Vergangenheit wie beispielsweise die Schulzeit oder das Studium. Gemeinsame Interessen – in diesem Fall das Bloggen zu global relevanten Themen – sind für mich aber Grund genug, mich mit diesen Menschen zu vernetzen.

Folgen ist immer erlaubt!

Trotzdem bevorzuge ich nach wie vor einen anderen Kanal, um mich mit Menschen zu vernetzen, die ähnliche Interessen haben: Twitter. Der Nachrichtenstrom auf Twitter ist perfekt geeignet, um sich auf Inhalte zu konzentrieren und nicht auf private Bilder oder Ähnliches (die auch ihre Berechtigung haben). Ich stelle zwar fest, dass ich, wohl kaum überraschend, häufiger mit Twitternutzern interagiere, die ich auch persönlich kennne. Das entscheidende Kriterium, einem anderen Twitternutzer zu folgen, ist und bleibt für mich aber die Überschneidung von Interessen – und zwar unabhängig davon, ob ich mit dieser oder jener Person jemals in Kontakt stand. Insofern ist Twitter für mich das zwangloseste Medium. Folgen ist immer erlaubt! Die große Mehrzahl der Nutzer freut sich über jeden einzelnen Follower. Ich stelle die nicht allzu kühne Behauptung auf, dass man mit Freundschaftsanfragen auf Facebook nicht jede Person glücklich macht. Für Viele ist und bleibt Faceboook eben doch ein Medium für das private Umfeld. Man kann natürlich darüber streiten, ob ein öffentliches Medium wie Facebook dafür der richtige Ort ist. Darauf möchte ich an dieser Stelle aber nicht näher eingehen.

Google+ im Aufwind

Ähnlich wie Twitter eignet sich auch Google+ gut für die Vernetzung mit Menschen, die ähnliche Interessen teilen. Googles soziales Netzwerk hat einfach noch nicht die kritische Masse erreicht, die es benötigt, um ein ähnliches Netzwerk aus Freunden und Bekannten abzubilden wie Facebook. So tummeln sich auf Google+ viele “Early Adopter” mit ziemlich hoher Affinität zu allen Themen rund um moderne Technologien. Ich nutze Google+ im Vergleich zu Facebook noch in bescheidenem Ausmaß doch in den letzten Wochen ging bei mir persönlich der Trend hin zu einer verstärkten Nutzung. In meine Kreise nehme ich dabei genau wie bei Twitter auch Leute auf, die ich überhaupt nicht kenne. Einziges Kriterium für mich ist der Inhalt, den die entsprechende Person über Google+ teilt.

Im Unterschied zu Facebook, Google+ und Twitter nutze ich die als berufliche Netzwerke angelegten Linkedin und Xing tatsächlich rein zu beruflichen Zwecken. Um ehrlich zu sein, beschränkt sich meine Aktivität dort (vor allem auf Linkedin) aber vornehmlich auf das bloße Vernetzen mit Projektpartnern, Kollegen oder auch Freunden, die auf Xing oder Linkedin ein Profil haben. Inhalte teile ich dort nur sehr selten. Anfragen von Xing- oder Linkedin-Nutzern, zu denen ich noch nie in irgendeiner Form in Kontakt stand ignoriere ich in aller Regel. Und das sogar ohne schlechtes Gewissen – im Gegensatz zu Facebook, wo mich das Ignorieren einer Anfrage schon mal stärker ins Grübeln bringen kann.

Meine persönliche Einstellung zu der Frage, wen ich in meine sozialen Netzwerke mit aufnehme, ist alles andere als eine Empfehlung an andere Personen. Das muss jeder für sich selbst herausfinden und außerdem können die Rahmenbedingungen auch völlig unterschiedlich sein. Ich bin sehr zufrieden mit meiner selbstständigen Tätigkeit als Social Media Manger. Für viele Arbeitnehmer jedoch mag es den berechtigten Wunsch geben Privates und Berufliches stärker zu trennen. Ich benötige eine solche Trennung (noch?) nicht. Sie wäre aber auch ziemlich schwer zu realisieren.

Open and Connected: Impressions from the Social Media Week Hamburg and Paris

Posted on 04/03/2013 by Mario Sorgalla

This post has originally been published on futurechallenges.org. The text was written in collaboration with Future Challenges blogger Rayna Stamboliyska. Rayna came up with the idea for this blogpost.

This year, Social Media Week celebrated its fifth birthday. Ten cities all over the world were hosts of this truly global conference. The organizers marked this milestone with a unifyingglobal theme that explored openness in a connected and collaborative world.

Future Challenges first got in contact with Social Media Week last year. The Future Challenges team gave a crowdsourced presentation titled “Big World – Big Challenges: can a big network help?”. Twenty bloggers from our worldwide blogger network contributed to this presentation. That’s just one of the reasons why we at Future Challenges are familiar with the benefits of openness and collaboration – especially across borders.

Our globalized world forces us to rethink accustomed practices. The organizers of the Social Media Week assert:

Emerging technologies have dramatically changed the way we communicate and engage (with) the world around us. One voice can now ripple to millions, and we can now share our passions openly and across cultural and geographic boundaries. Change is happening everywhere (…). Groups are self organizing to take positive action. Transparency, accountability, information sharing, and collaboration are accelerating progress to levels never seen before.

FutureChallenges.org joined Social Media Week in two European cities: Hamburg (Germany) and Paris (France). Mario Sorgalla reports from Hamburg and Rayna Stamboliyska participated in Paris.

Hamburg

One week and 170 events. You don’t need to be a professional statistician to seee that one person couldn’t possibly attend all the sessions that the organizers of Social Media Week (SMW) Hamburg got going. But this abundance of interesting sessions was a great opportunity for cherry-picking. Which new trends, tools and perspectives did Social Media Week Hamburg offer its participants regarding “Principles for a Collaborative World”?

My personal Social Media Week started with a presentation about corporate blogs. Many, or actually most of, the big corporations are still hesitating to start their own blog. A loss of control is probably the main reason for such reluctance. The classical mindset in Public Relations and Communication departments is that the information flow has to be controlled and directed. Such a mindset necessarily clashes with the attitude that prevails in the blogosphere and on social media channels. However, there are some good examples of big corporations that run their own blogs, like the Daimler blog. Setting up blogs could be of particular interest for transnational corporations. Don’t you think it would be exciting to get to know the faces in different countries behind an anonymous corporation?

Let’s jump to the second day in Hamburg, when the session “A Nerd Toolkit for Journalists” caught my attention. I’m not a journalist and not a nerd (though some people might challenge the latter point) but I’m convinced that data visualizations — the focus of this session — will become ever more important for our globalized world of big data. We learned about some useful visualization tools and got to know the technical basics of visualizations. Did you know that the Guardian provides all the data they use for their visualizations via Google spreadsheets? And why shouldn’t they? They don’t own the data and everybody in any corner of the world can take these data and create something new. This is how globalized data journalism looks like. If you’re interested in the technical basis of data visualizations and you understand German, you should take a look at this summary. You will find some useful notes from the session.

…It’s already Wednesday! My highlight of the day was “Wikipedia in Museums”, an inspiring project that I’ve also discussed on my blog. There is hardly any better example for our global, open and connected information society than Wikipedia. The German Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte (Museum for the History of Hamburg) has collaborated with members of the Wikipedia community in Hamburg in order to publish information and photos about many of the museum’s exhibits on Wikipedia, an endeavour resulting in a rich collection of information for all museum geeks out there. The museum’s visitors can access this information via QR codes that are placed next to the museum signage. I’m sure there will be many more projects like this in other parts of the world.

Paris

For its third edition, SMW in Paris hosted “only” 62 events. But what a tough choice it was, selecting which one to visit, especially when I was also speaking at a few of them. As a number of the organizers are also involved in what I’ll call the collaborative economy, many sessions were converging to the focal point of identifying economic models able to sustain open knowledge in the broadest sense. Here are my top 3 SMW events from the last week!

The first day kicked off with a whole afternoon at Paris’s City Hall. This building is anabsolute jewel in terms of external architecture and the interior totally follows, which makes the venue even more striking as we discuss the ‘digital Parisian’ against a backdrop of 19th century marble chimneys. The goal was to build a bond between the Parisians and their (well, our) city. One of the ways to do so was with the introduction of an app, “Dans ma rue” (translated: “In my street”), inspired by the British ‘Fix my street’. The app aims to provide Parisians with a handy tool to report the status of city works in the neighbourhood. Using the app, anyone can take a photo and geolocate the situation.

The event itself also allowed us to work in groups of 3-5 during an hour around a few other topics. In one group session, we worked on the idea of ‘Paris Answers’, a crowd-sourced Yahoo! Answers-inspired platform which will collect information on various topics related to services proposed by the city. A very interesting debate emerged around the possibility and the rationale behind crowd-funding of public services, an idea that clearly divided the participants. On one hand, some were putting forward the fact that a citizen already pays taxes, so s/he should not be asked an additional effort. From the other hand, why reject such a much more targeted contribution to the city and the neighbourhood? So many answers yet to find…

A session dear to my heart came on Tuesday: “Open & Connected: Research Joins, Too!”. In this session, we addressed vital questions about the economic models that underlie open libraries, open data produced by public institutions, and open labs. I talked a bit about open data and how it can change a person’s everyday life; one can stop being an observer and begin acting upon one’s environment. More specifically, the discussion emphasised the screaming need for opening the data produced by research groups, especially by those that receive public funds. If you read French, I greatly recommend you to allocate a neuron or two to the summary (and in any case, to watch the amazing video, no French speaking required).

Last but not least, I’d like to end this retrospective with a very short mention of the Open Hardware session. We had Open Source Software decades ago, now the time has come to have all the nerds united and geek out with Open Hardware. Actually, this is partly misleading, as anyone can hack: I leave you to the fabulous ‘Fabrique–Hacktion’ initiative (French & English) which will convince you that everyone can be creative and that wonderful things can be achieved when we work in an open, connected way.

Bye Bye Home Office

Posted on 26/02/2013 by Mario Sorgalla

It was on my way back home from a shared office with a design agency in Cologne when I read an article about Yahoo’s decision to bar their employees from working from home. It felt quite ironic because a few weeks ago I decided to substitute my home office for a shared office. But this was a voluntary decision and nobody told me I had to do this.

There is already a heated discussion going on concerning Yahoo’s step. Mashable has published a good overview of the discussions on Twitter. And there are already several voices that are very skeptical if Yahoo’s decision will benefit the company. Intel and Hewlett-Packard made similar initiatives in the past couple of years and they backfired said an analyst with the Enderle group. The analyst told Investors.com: “The move is likely to…make Yahoo a less attractive place to work (…). Companies that take such measures typically reverse the policy in 12 to 24 months.”

I’m curious if I will also reverse my decision to leave my home office.

What brought about this move?

At the beginning I really enjoyed working from home. You can sleep longer because you don’t have to commute. You can also organize your time as you like. It’s no 9 to 5 workplace. In light of the bad weather in winter in Germany it’s currently hard to imagine but a few months ago I posted this picture on Facebook because I enjoyed working in my own garden.

Home Office. Photo taken by the author.

Working from home was a benefit for me because nobody disturbed my concentration. Nobody came into my office to ask anything or to just say hello. So I was more efficient, I thought, when I work at home. However, this is only partially correct.

I had to realize that it was very hard to think about anything else than work-related issues. Your office is just one step away and it felt like I was on standby all the time.

One year ago I joined a big shared office with many other freelancers. I went their once a week but soon I realized that it was too anonymous. There wasn’t much interaction and I decided that under these circumstances I could save my money and stay at home. Why do I have to commute to get to a place where I work almost as anonymously as from my home office?

A few months later I gave co-working another try. I’m now working in a shared office with a design agency. So far I’m really satisfied. I’m very concentrated at work but you can also talk to your “colleagues”. I don’t have this tunnel vision that I had when I worked at home. You get other impressions and you learn about things that are not necessarily related to what you’re doing. I think it increases your creativity.

I wouldn’t say that Yahoo’s decision to ban the home office is recommendable. Yahoo has to compete with other big technology companys for the best talents. And many of these talents are used to working from home. They demand flexibility regarding working hours and working place. Yahoo won’t be able to reverse this trend and it could be that they have to revoke their decision any time soon.

I’m happy that I, as a freelancer, can decide if I work from home. And I will make use of my home office every now and then. But I’m also happy about the opportunity of going to an office outside of my house. When I come back home I switch of the standby mode. At least I try!

Museum in Hamburg Opens Its Gates for Wikipedia and the Social Media Week

Posted on 22/02/2013 by Mario Sorgalla

The Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte has opened its gates. A collaboration with members of the Wikipedia community in Hamburg has resulted in QR codes in the museum and lots of information (including photos) about the museum’s exhibits on Wikipedia.

Ten cities all over the world hosted the Social Media Week from 18-22 February 2013 and for the second time I took the chance to attend many interesting sessions (all for free) in Hamburg. When I took part in the Social Media Week in Hamburg for the first time, last year, Tom Fries and I gave a presentation about the potential of big networks to find solutions for global problems. This time I had the opportunity to just listen and learn. And again it was worth it!

It would not make any sense to sum up each and every session. And I bet there are many other blogposts that give an overview of the most interesting presentations. I just pick one of my favourite sessions in order to focus on this amazing initiative: Wikipedia in Museums (link in German).

The Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte. Photo taken by Flickr user mama-online (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Wikipedia seems to be literally everywhere. Most of you have a smartphone and if you want to look something up there are two simple options: Google or Wikipedia. Now if you go into a museum you might think that you don’t need Wikipedia (or Google) because all the exhibits are furnished with tables that give explanations regarding history, context and so on. Why should you look up anything else? Because there is much more information about these exhibits than a museum can provide in a regular exhibition. And this is where Wikipedia comes into play.

The Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte has cooperated with some engaged members of the Wikipedia community in Hamburg (for example @Peter_Weis) to fill this gap. The Wikipedians and the museum’s resarchers had a few workshops to write texts for several exhibits and to take numerous photos. All this information can now be found here. The visitors of the museum can access these texts via QR codes that are placed next to the museum signages.

This is how it looks like when Wikipedia and museum texts merge. Photo by the author.

One of the participants of this tour through the museum asked the initiators how many visitors make use of the QR codes and it turned out that it’s still just a few people who scan the codes. However, I think that the biggest benefit of this project is not the QR codes in the museum but all the information that has left the gates of the Hamburg Museum and which is now available via Wikipedia including lots of pictures. This project is the first of its kind in Germany (there are similar projects in the UK) and I keep my fingers crossed for the initiators that they don’t need to legitimize this project by counting the people that use their QR codes. Information about Hamburg and its history has found its way to Wikipedia and this is a value in itself!

Nutzt Soziale Medien, Denn Grau Ist Alle Theorie

Posted on 30/01/2013 by Mario Sorgalla

This is a guest post that I originally published on the Bretterblog. Actually I wanted to translate the post into English. Now one week has passed and I don’t think that I will ever translate it…That’s why I republish this German version on my blog as well. So for those of you who want to start learning German: just go ahead!

Idealismus. Realismus. Konstruktivismus. Und so weiter. Die Lehre der internationalen Beziehungen speist sich aus vielen Theorien, durch die junge Studenten lernen zwischenstaatliche Beziehungen zu analysieren. Dieses Spektrum muss natürlich noch um das Verhältnis zwischen staatlichen und nicht-staatlichen Akteuren erweitert werden. Aus meiner eigenen Erfahrung zeigt sich, dass das Studium der IB zu einem großen Teil auf die Kenntnis dieser Theorien abzielt.

Dies soll keine a priori Kritik an Theorien (der IB) sein. Ich habe Texte der Vordenker all dieser Richtungen sehr gerne gelesen. Diese Theorien erleichtern das Verständnis für die vielfältigen Beziehungen unter staatlichen Akteuren und auf Basis der IB-Theorien lassen sich beispielsweise auch verschiedene Handlungsszenarien von staatlichen Akteuren herausarbeiten.

Trotz dieser Vorzüge hat es mich aber immer irritiert mit welcher Selbstverständlichkeit junge Studenten (Anmerkung: ich habe an der Universität Bonn studiert) Außenpolitik durch eine IB-Theorie-Brille betrachtet haben oder außenpolitische Vorgänge zumindest derart abstrahiert haben, dass mir nicht mehr ganz klar war, ob sie auch zu einem einfachen Pro und Contra fähig sind. Ein Beispiel ist der Angriff der USA und der „Koalition der Willigen“ auf den Irak im Jahr 2003. Zur Verteidigung dieses Schrittes wurde in einem Seminar vor allem das Argument „Bündnissolidarität“ aufgeführt. Randaspekte wie der mögliche Tod Tausender Zivilisten oder die fadenscheinigen Beweise der US-amerikanischen Regierung für die Existenz von Massenvernichtungswaffen wurden teilweise ignoriert. Steht es einer sozialwissenschaftlichen Disziplin gut an, derart zu abstrahieren und nicht auf unmittelbare Folgen einer schwerwiegenden Entscheidung einzugehen?

Das globale Dorf. Foto: Gerd Altmann, veröffentlicht unter einer CC0 1.0 Lizenz auf pixabay.

Wenn man beispielsweise über Antiterrorismus-Maßnahmen diskutiert oder schreibt kann es doch nicht ausreichen, sich mit der teilweise abstrakten Gefahr terroristischer Anschläge zu beschäftigen und diese als Ausgangspunkt zu nehmen für Maßnahmen wie etwa den Drohnenkrieg der US-Regierung. Es sollte schon dazu gehören sich Geschichten wie Yemen: Anger at Expansion of US Drone War , Obama’s Lawless, Secretive Drone War Continues Over Pakistan oder List of children killed by drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen durchzulesen. Was sind die Auswirkungen auf die lokale Bevölkerung? Was sind die Erfahrungen der Menschen die sich hinter den Opferzahlen verbergen? In welchem Ausmaße treiben diese Anti-Terror-Maßnahmen junge Menschen eventuell in die Arme terroristischer Gruppierungen? Ich möchte an dieser Stelle nicht auf das Für und Wider des Drohnenkrieges eingehen. Aus meiner Sicht jedoch kann sich Jeder erst ein Urteil über solche Maßnahmen bilden wenn man sich über politikwissenschaftliche Theorien hinaus ein ganzheitliches Bild gemacht hat. In Zeiten des Internet gibt es – trotz des digital divide – genug Stimmen online anhand derer man sich eine Meinung bilden kann. Eine Meinung, die nicht nur auf Theorien und möglichen Konsequenzen fußt, die sich aus eben diesen Theorien ergeben.

Studenten und Wissenschaftler der Internationalen Beziehungen – aber natürlich auch anderer sozialwissenschaftlicher Disziplinen – sollten sich aus meiner Sicht auch mit nicht-wissenschaftlichen Texten und Meinungen auseinandersetzen. Für mich persönlich stellt beispielsweise die Mitarbeit an den Projekten Future Challenges und Global Voices in dieser Hinsicht eine enorme Erweiterung meiner eigenen Perspektive dar. Die Berichte von Bloggern aus aller Welt zu Globalisierung, Menschenrechten, interkulturellen Themen und vielem mehr lassen das Verständnis für andere Kulturen und Staaten wachsen. Sie durchbrechen den Tunnelblick der einem durch unsere traditionellen Medien allzu häufig vermittelt wird. Doch nicht nur solch große Multi-Autoren-Blogs vermitteln ein Gefühl dafür, dass es den global citizen nicht nur als Ideal gibt. Sie oder Er begegnet jedem, der sich in sozialen Netzwerken auch in internationalen Kreisen bewegt. Ich bin immer noch oft überrascht welche Überschneidungen sich mit Personen aus anderen Kulturen auf anderen Kontinenten ergeben. So kann es schnell geschehen, dass man sich seinen internationalen Kontakten aus anderen Kulturen in sozialen Netzwerken näher fühlt als seinem Nachbar ein Haus weiter.

Natürlich lässt sich solch interkulturelles Verständnis noch besser durch längere Aufenthalte in fremden Ländern fördern, doch nicht Jeder hat dazu die Gelegenheit. Insofern möchte ich dazu ermuntern das eigene (politik-) wissenschaftliche Studium auch dazu zu nutzen sich, über die Aneignung von Theorien hinaus, mit den Geschichten von den Menschen vor Ort auseinanderzusetzen. Das Internet bietet dazu die Gelegenheit!

Wissenschaftliche Theorien sind wichtig und bilden Grundlagen. Sie bieten ein Gerüst. Sie sind jedoch nicht ausreichend, um die Welt in all seinen Schattierungen nachzeichnen zu können.

Overcoming National Identities

Posted on 10/07/2012 by Mario Sorgalla

Last week I took part in the annual Regional Editor Workshop of futurechallenges.org. Nine regional editors from nine different countries all over the world came to Berlin to meet each other and to discuss the future of the project.

There are lots of lessons learned from this meeting, of course. However, there is one overarching feeling that has deepened these days. It’s about global identity.

There are so many things that globally minded people from all over the world have in common: tolerance, curiosity, openness and so forth. These are all characteristics that you might not share with your neighbors next door but with your friends on other continents.

Global Identity. Photo taken by srqpix on Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

Less than two weeks ago the European Football championship ended. During this tournament some German media discussed why so many German players do not sing the national anthem. This would be a form of identification with the nation they say.

To me the concept of national identity is outdated. Sure, we share a common history, common traditions and a common language. But all this is shared qua birth which means that you can’t do anything about it. You share this with your friends as well as with people you don’t like. But in the course of our lives we develop either attitudes that bring us closer together or attitudes that tear us apart. And this is true not only within a nation but also beyond borders.

During the regional editor meeting in Berlin I met people from far away countries like Pakistan, India or El Salvador and again I recognized that I have so much more in common with them than with some of my neighbors – apart from cultural traditions, language and nation. One of my colleagues wrote on his Facebook page:

“Nothing like visiting central Berlin to be proud of being European. We’ve come a long way.” Craig Willy

Perhaps we could – some day – even get to the point where you can replace “European” by “World Citizen”.

In the end it’s a matter of prioritization. For me it’s more important to have characteristics like tolerance, curiosity and openness in common with other people instead of nation, language and cultural traditions. In other words: I prefer a global identity and not a national one.

Allemagne: La campagne “25000euros” dénonce les livraisons de chars à l’Arabie saoudite

Posted on 24/05/2012 by Mario Sorgalla

A few days ago I published my first article on Global Voices Deutsch. I have already translated a few blogposts from English into German but writing articles yourself and reading them in other languages thanks to volunteer translators is a new experience. That’s why I would like to repost my article here – not in German but in French! You can read the German version here. The French version has been published on GV French. Samy Boutayeb translated the post into French and Rachel Horst translated it into English.

Le groupe d’artistes et d’activistes “Zentrum für politische Schönheit”(”Centre pour la beauté politique” en allemand) a lancé le lundi 21 mai 2012 une action spectaculaire pour mettre fin aux livraisons de chars à l’Arabie saoudite. La campagne 25 000 Euro promet cette somme aux personnes donnant des informations qui permettraient de faire comparaître devant un tribunal un ou plusieurs dirigeants de l’entreprise d’armement Krauss-Maffei Wegmann. L’action a d’ores et déjà connu un important retentissement dans la blogosphère et sur les médias sociaux.

La campagne des 25 000 euros se déroule dans le contexte de projets de livraisons de chars allemands [en anglais] à l’Arabie saoudite. L’industriel de l’armement Krauss-Maffei Wegmann a décroché le contrat portant sur la livraison de 270 chars Leopard 2 A7+. Ce modèle est spécialement conçu pour des interventions en zone urbaine. Le Centre pour la beauté politique a produit une vidéo illustrant les capacités de ce char dans la lutte contre les révoltes populaires.

Le Centre pour la beauté politique justifie son action en précisant que les chars peuvent être utilisés pour réprimer des révoltes populaires dans ce pays ainsi qu’au Bahreïn voisin (Global Voices avait couvert [en] l’entrée des troupes saoudiennes au Bahreïn). Le contrat de vente de chars ayant reçu l’aval des milieux politiques allemands, la campagne “25000 Euro” entend faire comparaître les dirigeants non pas pour les livraisons de chars mais pour fraude fiscale, blanchiment d’argent ou pour d’autres délits du même ordre :

Si le monde politique n’interdit pas le commerce des armes aux conséquences mortelles, nous avons l’obligation d’être créatifs afin que les auteurs répondent pénalement de leurs actes. Dans le cas d’Al Capone, il a été finalement nécessaire d’attaquer sur le terrain de la fraude fiscale. Le Code pénal possède d’innombrables articles pouvant être invoqués.

Le caractère singulier de la campagne réside dans la mise à prix d’une sorte de “récompense” ainsi que dans la publication d’avis de recherche, présentant les responsables. La campagne souligne le fait qu’un grand nombre de ces personnes se présentent comme des antroposophes ou des artistes.

Les réactions inspirées par la campagne sur les médias sociaux sont dans leur grande majorité positives. John F. Nebel écrit sur son blog Metronaut :

C’est sans doute l’une des campagnes les plus belles et les plus radicales contre l’industrie allemande de l’armement depuis longtemps.

Le blog populaire Netzpolitik.org a également publié un article sur 25000-euro.de.

Par ailleurs, de nombreuses personnes soutiennent cette action en adressant au porte-parole du gouvernement, Steffen Seibert, la question suivante, transmise sur Twitter:

Monsieur le porte-parole (@RegSprecher), pourquoi le gouvernement fédéral soutient-il l’exportation de chars de combat auprès de régimes autoritaires ? #panzer #25000Euro

À ce jour, le porte-parole du gouvernement ne s’est pas exprimé sur Twitter, pour répondre aux questions sur le contrat de ventes de chars.
@kl_gelber_Fisch se désintéresse de la précédente question et souhaiterait savoir si le gouvernement fédéral allemand privilégie la stabilité ou la liberté.

Monsieur le porte-parole (@RegSprecher), la stabilité dans les pays du Golfe est-elle plus importante que la vie et la liberté des personnes qui y vivent ? #panzer #25000Euro

Le Centre pour la beauté politique a également publié sur 25000-euro.de un appel vidéo de Abbas Al Omran (Centre pour les droits humains de Bahraïn), appelant les dirigeants à mettre fin aux livraisons de chars.

Le Centre pour la beauté politique informe en continu sur 25000-euro.de sur l’évolution de la campagne, par exemple en diffusant des informations susceptibles d’être utiles dans le cadre d’une plainte devant un tribunal.

FutureChallenges.org at the Social Media Week in Hamburg

Posted on 21/02/2012 by Mario Sorgalla

On Friday, 17th February me any my colleague Tom Fries hosted a session on “Big World – Big Challenges: can a big network help” at the Social Media Week in Hamburg. I wrote this blogpost for futurechallenges.org where it was originally published.

Social Media Week is a global platform that explores the impact of social media and its role in driving economic, political and societal change. A global event, the presentations and get-togethers take place simultaneously in more than 20 cities all over the world. Futurechallenges.org was invited to give a presentation on our efforts to crowdsource policy ideas in Hamburg on 17 February 2012. You can watch our session „Big World – Big Challenges: can a big network help?“ here (not accessible today, 20th February)- it was livestreamed and recorded.

Giving consideration to the title of our session (Can a big network help?) we took an innovative approach to complete our presentation. We asked our blogger network to contribute to the presentation by adding one or two slides. The result was amazing! We received almost two dozen slides from 19 bloggers from 13 countries, giving an overview of good examples for using the Internet and social media tools in particular to generate engagement in the political sphere. Thanks to all our bloggers who made a contribution!

Our goal was not to announce final solutions in terms of best practices for global problem solving but rather to get feedback on how futurechallenges.org can improve in engaging its readers. Is it a viable option to crowdsource policy ideas for global and complex problems? If so, how could we achieve this goal?

Basically, there are two aspects that were interesting and important for futurechallenges.org:

1. The experience of compiling a crowdsourced presentation with a truly global perspective.

2. Feedback on futurechallenges.org: all participants agreed that it is an too ambitious goal to crowdsource policy ideas on such a complex topic: correlations between global megatrends. They said that we should instead focus on some chosen policy sectors to engage the people.

FutureChallenges is constantly evolving and we take into account suggestions from readers, bloggers or network partners. We will discuss the feedback that we have received at the Social Media Week in order take the next steps. Thanks once again to all the contributors to our presentation!

Ajinkya Pawar, India, @thejinxedone
Anuja Upadhyay, India
Mac-Jordan Degadjor, Ghana. @MacJordan
Anneliese Guess, USA, @DCAnneliese
Bhumika Ghimire, Nepal, @bhumikaghimire
Irwin Cruz, Philippines
Purple S. Romero, Philippines @purpleromeropo
Juliana Rincon, Colombia, @medeamaterial
Lucía Querejazu, Bolivia, @luciaquerejazu
Rini Mukkath, Sri Lanka, @rinimukkath
Sopheap Chak, Cambodia, @jusminesophia
Sushma Joshi, Nepal, @joshisushma
Clément Renaud, China, @clemsos
Rahul Kumar, India
Badrud Doza, Bangladesh
Alexey Sidorenko, Poland/Russia, @sidorenko_intl
Otgonsuren Jargal, Mongolia
Blanca Vera, Venezuela
Kira Kariakin, Venezuela
Robert Schwarz, South Korea/Germany

What will be next?

Blog Carnival

Share

Like this:

Share

Like this:

Hamburg

Paris

Share

Like this:

Share

Like this:

Share

Like this:

Share

Like this:

Share

Like this:

Share

Like this:

Share

Like this:

Share

Like this:

Follow “Beyond Borders”