our man in cameroon

Yesterday I did an hour long talk for a group of VSO volunteers on social media for NGOs.

I’d already come to the conclusion that you just can’t teach this stuff.  Instead I thought I’d try to inspire them and they could go on to discover how it works for themselves.  I think it worked.

It certainly inspired me.

I took them on a journey – starting in 1993 – telling them how to I started – with my fledgling Space Hardware Blog. I told them how I was inspired to begin by Salam Pax – the Baghdad Blogger.

I told them how it was also inspired by the on-going Iraq and my anger at my country’s involvement.

I told them of the joy when the Guardian covered this new phenomonon and named my blog as one of the best and how it felt when I checked my stats and saw my readership go from hundreds to thousands over night.

I told them of the joy of living in Hanoi. How, when I was told we needed $80,000 fast to save KOTO, my blog suddenly, and unexpectadly became a means of building support, and ultimately funds for the cause.

I revealed how I had discoverd the concept of photosharing and Flickr as a way of sending pictures of KOTO kids to their sponsors – and of sharing pictures amongst those who took part in our annual charity bike ride.

I told them that that one of the first times I ever used YouTube was when I filmed the moment KOTO’s new charity restaurant was opened and we had officially saved it.

I told them about being under-employed in beautiful Nicaragua.  I told them of the growing realisation of the power of blogs – when the New York Times came to town I was the one they wanted to interview.

I told them of discovering Twitter during those lazy days in forty degree heat.

Then, of arriving back in Newcastle and working, for me, in the new area of public affairs for the local council.  So new, in fact, that I had to go and Google what it was I was supposed to be doing.

When my boss talked of creating a “good news narrative” and of networking – well that sounded like blogging to me.  I had expected to come home feeling left behind – instead I was amazed to find the skills I honed, in what was starting to be called Social Media, actually were hard to come by.

While little progress was made during my year there -  I wrote reports on content and tone and potential comment box moderation policies and how we could link up blogs, Flickr, Twitter and all to create something really new in our sector – something must have stuck with them.

Because, despite by this time, already being in Cameroon – I was very proud when they were the first council to tweet an election.

I told them that it was the first time that I realised that these tools could be harnessed in tandem rather than indidividually.  How this content, generated by Council staff and the people they served, could be the narrative we were looking for.

Then in Cameroon and fundraising again, I talked about how inspired I am personally by Mara Triangle. How they told their story and built that narrative through their blog, pictures, videos and, of course, Twitter.

I told them how their fundraising was so effective in this manner that when they announced they were looking for donations for village latrines they actually had to tell people to stop giving only four hours later.

And they didn’t stop – they just kept on giving.

I talked of diminishing news rooms who ironically were being endangered by bloggers and so were turning in greater numbers to the same people for content.  How if you wrote, snapped or filmed, sharable content there was no greater time to get your message to millions.

I mentioned how Kiva “get it”.  I mentioned that when they appeared on Oprah – everything sold out.

Us NGO bloggers live in hope of that big break.

But you want to get on prime time – it’s not so difficult.  I told them how a group of friends, here in Bamenda, had ended up on CNN for doing nothing more than watching Obama’s inauguration and eating fruit.

If you blog it, post it, tweet it etc – they will come.

And I told all the volunteers to remember that we are lucky enough to live extroadinary lives.  That people do want to know about what we do.

I even talked about the American election.  It was Social Media wot won it.  And nobody is claiming Obama’s followers are just geeks.  I talked of his desire to take on the tax havens.

Was this a man taking on the privilidged few because for once he was funded and backed by the many?  Could it be that simple?  Could it be that good? Is social media really giving us true democracy and accountability too?

It seems almost to naive to hope for.  But maybe.  Just maybe.

I had only intended to inspire but maybe I’d gone overboard because by the end I was starting to believe it really was the dawning of the age of Aquarius.

A feeling helped, earlier that day, by a link I had picked up on Twitter: Generation G.

That’s G for generosity – not greed.

That night we had our normal Friday beers. We realised that we had hit our six month mark and toasts were drunk.

We have an incredible group.  If you mapped us demographically not one of us would be placed even remotely close to another – but no one has ever broken ranks.  No falling outs.  No splits.  The support within our small group has been incredible.

We talked individually of our plans post-Cameroon and of who might be staying longer – and for those of us who one year will be enough.

In a game – we took turns to say what we liked about Cameroon – us foreigners mostly went for “the people” the Cameroonians all went for fufu and njama njama.

And it felt good.  The best I have felt for a while.  The world seems like my oyster again and despite the recession or credit crunch or call it what you will – there is a chance that something new and better can be built from this rubble.

New people are in control.  Hell, maybe even The People are starting to take control.

That naievety again.

But there are times when anything seems possible and yesterday was one of them.

It’s staying with me today.  I hope it stays for a long long time.