So it seems that people all over the world and in various disciplines have been inspired by the Web 2.0 phenomenon and are creating new buzzwords left, right and centre with the suffix ‘2.0’ attached.
The latest is NGO 2.0, as coined by Curt Hopkins, who is part of a very interesting project called Blogswana. The concept is explained here:
If the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 can be said to be the transition from static, authorial, unitary, proprietary, non-transferable content to distributed, networked, user-generated, shared and easily transferable content, and if traditional NGOs may be said to function as cash-intensive, centralized, hierarchical, bureaucratic, specialist-driven operations, then Blogswana is, in a sense, NGO 2.0.
One of my new media students, Gregor Rohrig, put together a simple logo for Curt, who now encourages other NGOs that hold the same ideology to use it in their own media.
I just wonder if the loose and ambiguous definition of Web 2.0 that continues to cause much debate on the Internet, has not led to various subjective adaptations of its principles? I don’t know! but maybe it’s a good thing if the worst it does is inspire change and a re-working of existing structures?
1 Curt May 11th, 2006 at 4:34 pmColin: My “NGO 2.0″ idea came as I considered what made our approach different and was struck by some of the same elements that many people identify as Web 2.0, including a reduction in mediation, an entrepreneurial approach and a “user-generated” aspect. I wasn’t trying to force it, it just came to me. I’ve found some of the hand-wringing over the definition of Web 2.0 to be a bit contrived and over-heated. Terms are just ways of handing around ideas. They change and develop. No doubt “2.0″ will be replaced by something else. For now, it’s a handy marker of a non-standard, non-top down approach to aid that has lost a lot of its credibility.
2 Vincent Maher May 11th, 2006 at 4:51 pmThe 2.0 thing is starting to get lame, everybody wants to be 3.0 and above these days anyway.
3 Gregor May 11th, 2006 at 5:29 pmI see where you are coming from Colin. The fact that the definition of Web 2.0 is still so vague, questions other terms adapting certain principles of 2.0, like NGO 2.0. But, as you said, if it does acknowledge change and reorganization of existing structures then at least the idea is a good one. Whatever definition adapted to it then becomes problematic as we can clearly see this in the various posts about the issue. Maybe 2.0 has no precise definition (yet / or ever will) yet it does stand for a certain process and approach to things, does it not?
4 Vincent Maher May 11th, 2006 at 5:39 pm2.0 currently stands for snake-oil
5 Jarred Cinman May 12th, 2006 at 9:59 amThis is probably the dumbest concept anyone has ever come up with. This kind of thing more accurately defines “Wanker 2.0″ than “NGO 2.0″.