CTC VISTA 2.0: The Evolution of the Project's Communications
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Last fall, then VISTA Leader Saul Baizman wrote a candid article on the latest evolution of the CTC VISTA Project communications scheme for the Fall edition of the Community Technology Review entitled “Build an Information and Communications Technology Infrastructure in 21 Days.” At the time when Saul first started tackling the problem, the Project’s site was mostly a static site with contact information and some examples of the Project work. In his tenure at the Project, Saul helped the site evolve from a confusing, multi-tool system to a more simplified contact directory complimented by a webblog system.
But like all things technology, new dogs with new tricks appeared in the form of an open source content management system called Drupal. After a little fiddling, the Project staff discovered that Drupal could perform many of the same functions under the same database umbrella. Concurrently, the Project has evolved in emphasizing opportunities for collaboration and resource sharing among CTC VISTAs on our new site CTCVISTA.org.
The idea of developing common resources as a Project is not a new one. The implementation of the priority areas (Community Networking, Community Organizing, Digital Media, and Technical Assistance to Nonprofits) last year was stimulated by the potential of connecting often very different organizations around the theme of empowering communities with technology.
Over the year, Project HQ staff realized that any discussions and content sharing among the VISTAs needed to be simple and, more importantly, fueled by their immediate challenges and interests, and not just by more general issues of the larger field. CTC VISTAs could be better served by a simple space for sharing timely, specific resources. Also, with a wider view of all the work of each organization at the ground level, the Project has the perspective to connect the dots – to spark connections among similar projects across organizational structures and geography.
This expansive view across organizations, as well as across national membership organizations such as CTCNet, NTEN, NAMAC, ACM and others, also made it clear that there are many existing (and unfortunately unused) resources available. In a time of excessive content generation and media overload, the Project didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. However, many new VISTAs don’t have time or research skills to sift through all the content available on the Web. So with the advent of aggregation and tagging technologies, we decided to incorporate tools such as Delicious for social bookmarking and other tools to pull local CTC VISTA site content into “resource pages.”
Unfortunately, this call for collaboration clashes with the current environment where non-profits are often in competition with each other. We see the CTC VISTA Project as an ideal proponent for fostering a new environment of resource sharing for several reasons:
- As usually new recruits to the non-profit sector, CTC VISTAs can bring fresh ideas and tools into existing non-profits.
- The one-year timeframe of CTC VISTA’s work allows for focus on specific tasks and development of a reachable end goal – but many of these tasks are almost impossible without reaching out to others for help or training.
- These VISTAs are connected through the CTC VISTA Project, and thus there is an inherent network of peers to reach out to for help and advice.
And thus, we revamped the Project website, using Drupal technology and are attempting to adjust our thought processes and communications mechanisms to new, open and tag-based ideologies. The VISTAs now only have to log into one place to view the directory and blog about their experiences. Each bit of content created on the site (blog entries, newsletter articles, and new resources) is tagged by both priority area designation and free tagged by the VISTAs according to their own naming conventions. The Project also adjusted how VISTA Leaders support groups of VISTAs, now by priority area and with focused monthly conference calls and resource portal home pages. We also plan to use the new resource portal as a place to gather pertinent content in a timely and useful way.
So in the way of all great iterations of technology, we did not throw away the hard work done by past VISTAs like Saul – we made a conscious effort to evaluate our work and communications and extract lessons learned. With a focus on user-generated content and social networking principles, the Project hopes to create a positive experience for a new set of VISTAs as well as create a space for continuing innovation and cooperation in the years to come.
Danielle Martin is a VISTA Leader, serving both at the CTC VISTA Project HQ as well as with MassIMPACT, coordinating new programs and training in digital storytelling and other multimedia community organizing projects with housing developments in MA. Her background is in after-school multimedia programs for youth, instructional design for web-based trainings, and fundraising and development. She was previously the Technology Director at the Charlestown Boys & Girls Club (MA) Computer Clubhouse.
