Controversy on the blog

Someone has left a distressed comment on the post about self-healing systems. I've replied, appropriately I hope, but I feel like adding a couple of extra comments here.

1. Re-reading the bit that caused the distress I can see why, and in some ways I regret that I didn't write that bit more carefully. At the same time I've set myself some rules for this blog, and one of the main ones is that I write quickly and I don't go over and edit stuff. This runs the risk of me making mistakes occasionally and even upsetting people, but I think the advantages outweigh this (and it was only a tiny part of a long post that caused the upset - do read the whole thing if you follow the link). (Also many of the concerns of the commenter could have been allayed if they'd read some of the other posts, it does look like they only read the one post and didn't see any of my many comments on professionalism, my post on advocacy and therapy, or other reflections on practice and ethics.)

2. This blog is not about my professional practice, it's about testing the boundaries, it's about challenging myself first of all to reflect further on issues I encounter, and then challenging my readers - but mainly in positive ways by offering other unusual sorts of ideas that may fit in with advocacy practice or may be something to avoid.

3. As such, and this is my main point, I want to be challenged. This anonymous commenter has given me a chance to repair an error and think again about an old post. I like comments, questions, emails, suggestions, etc. I've said this several times before, but I've got plenty of readers and not many responses. A blog is potentially very one-sided, but it doesn't need to be, and you can help... (but please leave some sort of name so I can reply properly and follow your comments on other posts)

Thanks
:-)

Accessible computing

Periodically I write about Free Software (also known as FLOSS or FOSS): this is important in terms of accessibility to all and is closely linked in to openly published standards. From an ethical perspective, an advocacy perspective, and a community perspective I find the free software movement interesting to keep up with and a useful comparison to similar developments in advocacy and society.

I think it's particularly important for people to know a little bit about this at the moment as some worrying as well as some positive changes are taking place which may have a big impact on our use of computers over the coming years.

First of all, let's be bold:

Free software will benefit disabled computer users.
OK at the moment the software isn't up to scratch, but over time free software is likely to be the fastest and most flexible way to respond to the diverse needs of differently disabled people. A more positive (if a bit technical) story is here, but see below why we need to support these developments. I also expect that Linux (the free operating system) in its embedded form running phones, TV decoders and washing machines is also being used for various tools and machines disabled people use.

Free software will benefit the poor.
This is more directly obvious, but it is particularly important if we consider the growing poverty gap and the effect of people not being able to afford computers or the legal software to run on them. Microsoft at the moment is threatening much tougher action against people who copy cds or dvds, download music, or use pirated software. These actions are going to affect a lot of people and cost a lot of money, and it will disbar many poor people who become even more cut off from society. Of course there are projects like the $100 laptop to 'revolutionise the way we educate the world's children', amongst many other benefits.

Free software promotes accessibility.
Despite the fact that it's free, the most important meaning of 'free as in free software' is that it's accessible. For the developer that means you can open it up and see how it works, but it also has other important implications for the rest of us. One important example is the Open Document Format (ODF). This was ratified by the International Standards Organisation as the first international standard for office documents. Many governments and large organisations are transferring to this standard (check the links in my earlier post), and they are transferring largely because of the accessibility features of the software and the opportunities it offers to build effective and appropriate services around them. Other important accessibility developments include systems for archiving and retrieval of information, user involvement and collaboration in the new Web 2.0 (blogs, MySpace, Wikis, photo and file sharing sites, del.icio.us, etc), network and server operation and maintenance, and the posibility of reusing and recycling old hardware more productively amongst others.

Free software is built around a principle of community.
This is very important. Proprietary (non-free) software is owned and marketed for a profit by corporations who primarily want to make money. Most end users of computers just want to get by in life ok, have some fun, avoid too many problems. Quite a few people like to avoid problems by sitting in front of a computer and making themselves busy (or entertained or whatever). After a while you meet others like you and you start to communicate, to work or play together. Out of this has evolved an enormous resource of software and support that is involving more and more people every day. Helping each other out feels good, contributing to something which other people are going to use and appreciate feels good, and many people are able to make a living or at least keep themselves sane by working on free software projects. It is instructive to compare the experiences of these communities to the different sorts of communities we often work with, and they provide some hope (if you're selective).

Free software is the future.
I don't mean that in a grand way, more like I would say that we have to continue as advocates to support disempowered people to speak out and make their lives better... Free software, like advocacy, is something I think it's important to speak out for. It's available now for most of us, and getting easier to use. See the links at the end of this post.

-----

And now the dark side!
Microsoft revolutionised computing with Windows in kind of the same way that Oppenheimer revolutionised war with the atom bomb. Things are certainly different and we have certainly developed a lot, but was it all a good thing in retrospect? I could go on for ages about the history of Microsoft but I won't, just remember the anti-monopoly ruling that was made against them by the European Court (which they pretty much flaunted as far as I can tell, see this Guardian article and just search google for many more examples).

Now Windows Vista is upon us and the situation is getting far worse. I was catching up on a few tech blogs this evening and it looks like there will be some big upsets in store in the near future (you may not even want to run a new computer).

I started on the blog of a moderator for the Ubuntu forums who said there is no escape from Vista, it's going to shake the world. This is complemented by this slightly more readable and comprehensive post which explains it's all about digital rights management (DRM).

Then I was reading various sites about OOXML, Microsoft's competitor standard to Open Document Format, which seems to be designed to confuse people into not using open source while providing a completely inappropriate alternative. Bob Sutor is Vice President, Open Source and Standards, of IBM, a company that has done a lot for open source and revitalised its once flagging business partly as a result. He provides a couple of shocking summary links to information about the impossibility of implementing MS's huge standard and the fact that MS has already released proprietary extensions that will maintain their monopoly.

-----

There's a lot more than that, but the key thing as advocates or nurses or social workers or whoever you are reading my blog is that open source really is accessible and nice, and is destined to become rapidly more so over the next few years.

This is a very interesting time because many IT industry specialists are saying that the free software movement is now a viable alternative to Microsoft based set-ups, and now Microsoft, by releasing Vista in such a controlled and expensive form, could well be shooting themselves in the foot and helping us to move more quickly along the path to freedom and collaboration.

I personally have been using almost entirely free software for almost two years now. I have an old computer (2001) running very happily and playing DVDs much better than Windows ever managed as well as being able to do almost everything else I want. I've also got various other advantages from even my marginal involvement in the community, and I've paid them back in kind here and there.

The following open source software works and is free and easily if you have a broadband connection (and you can get hold of it in other ways if you need to), so make a start soon:

Ubuntu Linux - alternative to Windows, works similarly, community driven and beginner friendly

OpenOffice.org - word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, database, drawing, etc - more than an alternative to MS Office

Firefox - faster, more secure, community-driven web browser
Thunderbird - the email client from the same developers

There are literally thousands of programs, and many more in development. These are the main needs and you can start using some of them straight away - and do check out the Ubuntu Live CD...

Publish, publish, publish!

This is a post for my next blog really, but I'll write a draft as a sounding board here...

There are several starting points for this idea:

• Organisations seem to be very wary of publishing things (maybe becasue they are scared of being judged, or losing out somehow commercially?)
• This blog is an opportunity for me to publish snippets of half-formed ideas, or bits and pieces that may or may not be useful - this is a very interesting sort of opportunity, and I think it's valuable to be able to do this. I would like to see a place where many people could collaborate in a similar way (probably more consensual). One example I thought of is prison advocacy: it would be good if there was a webspace where anyone could publish ideas about this (however vague), find others who are interested, and over time develop a collaborative resource out of the ideas. Very different format from this blog, but quite open and unpressured still. Subjects in this space would be wide ranging, but easy to find.
  
• The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community are an interesting model. The alternative is proprietary software where companies like Microsoft protect their intellectual property and charge a lot of money for the software. FOSS developers share the intellectual property and give it away for free, but at the same time they solve problems and improve things as a community, and they make money in other ways, e.g. from selling support (services) instead of software (products).
  
• Advocacy can benefit from this model by recognising, for example, that if we shared good practice and published our policies, that many more people could benefit from good quality advocacy, and well-run projects would still have a good chance of winning contracts and remaining sustainable.
  

I suppose it's the glass half empty or half full situation. I find it a bit sad that a lot of organisations who work with people who are entitled to social care are so careful about publishing things and sharing them. I think we could create an opportunity for shring good practice in many common areas, celebrating different approaches to our work side by side, and opening up new areas which aren't written about (or at least published) because they're too new or exploratory...

I'm still going to be thinking and writing about this in the next few weeks, in amongst hopefully more direct material about advocacy.

Keep on skanking

Hey hey. 2007 is moving on already, and I've been busy doing things I want to blog about and not having time to write (actually I've got two quite long drafts from the last week, but haven't been able to finish them).

At the same time, I'm managing to get a bit of consistency back with my posting, and this seems to be rewarded with more hits and more returning visitors: nothing amazing, but gratifying just the same, and also some positive comments. In return I feel like I need to be keeping people satisfied with new content...

Skanking means moving to me, but with a bit of flava. I'm looking forward to getting back to dancing next week, and our teacher always wants us to ‘ben' up’: keep on moving, but not in too straight a line, not with a straight back at all...

This blog is about dancing a similar bent-back dance, while circling vaguely and persistently around a centre known as advocacy. In some ways this crazy bent up dance of advocacy keeps on tempting me in different directions. I'm thinking at the moment of trying to sort this out and create some alternative spaces that would be more appropiate for those sorts of thoughts, other kinds of dances. One of these alternative spaces at the moment would be more experimental and philosophical (based on visctrix.net), and one would be more strict, accessible and sensible (the advocacy community site).

Hopefully that will leave this for more focusing on advocacy in a quirky and independent way. I've had a good conversation tonight about upsetting people: my friend thought that although she loves me, maybe I upset people unnecessarily. In the end we agreed that there are some people who I should be free to go on upsetting: this is partly the necessary sacrifice (for me) to be able to work successfully with and gain the trust and understanding of vulnerable people and others I already know and work with; and it's partly to avoid the grey area where I could try not to offend anyone and end up completely bland and with nothing interesting to say.

So I think this blog will stay a personal space for me to try some challenging ideas and remain philosophical, but I'll try to be a bit more focused on advocacy in the future. I would also like to make it a more integral part of my work and be able to devote some core time to it instead of mainly writing late at night when I'm tired. That should also give me more chance to write responses to publications of various types (not just the videos I mentioned in my plans for 2007). Finally for now, this will be more of a sounding board for ideas that may be written more carefully and inclusively in other places.

I hope this makes sense... the key is to keep posting I guess, but in the meantime any comments or thoughts or any sort of feedback will be appreciated :-)

A new web resource for advocacy?

So at about 8 o'clock last night I wrote about my wish to explore social networking and content management systems, and at about 11 o'clock some guy I met at a party said he thought Joomla was the best option out there, he liked my ideas, and he could offer some free space to start to try them out on... Maybe it's a good time for wishes...

I've spent a bit of time exploring Joomla today, and it has just won the Packt Open Source CMS Award (click on logo for link) as well as winning the UK LinuxWorld Best Linux/Open Source Project for the second year running. I was aware of the two runners up, Drupal and Plone, and I've also been looking at some of the also rans, most notably MediaWiki (a different type of CMS really, so not in the running). So far most of my attention has been on MediaWiki and Plone, although I knew Drupal needed to be looked into more carefully. Various examples of what I'm interested in include the townx blog (using Drupal, more than just a blog), Wikipedia of course (using MediaWiki), Schoolforge-UK (also MediaWiki), the Ubuntu Wiki (based on the MoinMoinWiki), the Free Software Foundation website (based on Plone again) and finally the Sheffield Social Forum Wiki which gives a good idea of how a community can be organised through a wiki.

I must say that so far I like the aesthetics of Plone and MediaWiki best, and I look forward to being shown that this can be emulated successfully in Joomla. I also think that it will be important for lots of people to be able to contribute to page content easily and quickly - and to feel like they want to! (like a wiki). [Edit 1/1/07 - looks like this shouldn't be a problem.]

First I need to get together some kind of spec for a website and start discussing this with people, and we'll see if Joomla can deliver...

Watch this space.

New look

So I finally got the invitation to upgrade to Blogger Beta, and ended up going the whole hog and setting up a completely new design and colour scheme!

I hope it works. I'll try out the colours for a while and may revert, but as for the layout I think this is a big improvement, especially the new Archives, the bigger text, and the fact that most of your screen should be used (plus IE users will be able to see the sidebar now hopefully).

I also like the new labels which should help people find their way around a bit better (once I've added appropriate labels to all the posts that is...)

I've managed to sort out a couple of niggling little problems so far. I even created a new class in the css so I could format my name (that's hard-core programming for me!). The fact that the blog title is not aligned with the sidebar text is an ongoing annoyance though.

Let me know what you think.

May summary

13,000 words in 26 posts in May, linked and summarised. There's some duplication in this list because it's not easy to categorise things, and also a lot more overlap between some sections than even the duplication suggests:

Advocacy:

• Helping someone not to get angry - a practical advocacy intervention
• No advocating for avocados - seriously, ban the verb 'to advocate'
• Advocacy and therapy
• Humility is not a passive state - but it is an important part of advocacy practice
  
• Recipe for paranoia - for advocates to guard against
• Being non-judgemental - another important skill
• Being independent - how you can be, and how you can tell
  

Complaints:

• Complaints are great
  

Ethics:

• The boiling water principle - ethics is about economics too
• An apology - sorry I gave money to a multinational oppressor
• All work and no pay - partly about the problem of 'intellectual property' and some alternatives
• Being non-judgemental - this links in very closely with an ethical approach
• Ethics vs. morality - first proper description of my approach to ethics
• Theory and practice - there is only practice - throw all theory books away!

Blog organisation and methodology:

• Delivering the world from its exhausting boredom - a critical and clinical approach to the blog, and some juicy quotes
• Ethics vs. morality - ethics is one of the key principles of this blog, and here's some ideas about how that is
• Theory and practice - there is only practice - throw all theory books away!
  

State violence and discrimination:

• Rather they convict me than abase myself - the continuing story of Shaun
• The boiling water principle - we need to rethink economics if we're going to solve these problems
  
• An apology - supermarkets are violent too
• Recipe for paranoia - a problem for psychiatric units
• Bullying and harassment of doctors - it's not all one way
  

Links, discoveries and other things:

• "we all have an obligation to intervene" - from an interview with a Portuguese novelist
  
• Welcome to the Mental Health Hotline - humour from the Mental Nurse
• Bullying and harassment of doctors - from the 'work related blogs' blog
• intueri: to contemplate - another medical blog, but very thoughtful and quite ethical
  

Creativity and literature:

• A practical novel - Face by Benjamin Zephaniah
  

Spirituality and healing:

• Happy Beltane - keeping in touch with the seasons and ourselves
  

Computers and IT:

• Google good...? - some of the background to an increasingly powerful force in computing
• Best viewed in Firefox - if your not using it, get this browser
• Linux for human beings - this blog is written in the spirit of Ubuntu
  

Humour:

• An apology
  
• Welcome to the Mental Health Hotline - humour from the Mental Nurse
• No advocating for avocados - seriously, ban the verb 'to advocate'

Others:

• Cantonese/Mandarin reading matter sought
• Cats have voices too
  

Theory and practice

For anyone who reads Maria's post (linked to below) I should say that although there are some terrible books and papers out there, and her assessment of Muller's piece was probably as ethically real as it appears from my quote, I always feel a bit uncomfortable when I read such negative experiences of reading.

This is for two reasons. Firstly I tend to think that any article that makes you that unhappy is probably not worth advertising. In fact it's not worth wasting any time over and I'm glad she didn't read it to the end. (This is contrary to the traditional 'wisdom' that we should study the mistakes of history so we can learn from them, and I'll write later about why it's necessary to oppose this latter view).

Secondly, there are also loads of great books and bits of writing out there. Much of this is written in extremis: Bataille called writing (amongst other things) the 'impossible': that which we are compelled to do, because of it's very impossibility: that is there's something that drives you to write, but it's outside the realm of the written word, but the words that come out seem to circle and begin to clarify this driving force. Like any force, this is creative. People have published great books from the world of academia and the world of psychology as much as from the world of mental illness or art or stories of life.

These books are people's practice, and I've been meaning for a while now to write something about theory and practice. I want to say that theory doesn't exist. By this I mean that the artificial distinction between practice and theory is both wrong and unnecessary. In other words theory shouldn't exist.

Now I find myself with a good example to explain this better. There are some writers who do amazing things for us. They come in all shapes and sizes, and again some of them write about ethics or psychoanalysis, while others write survivor stories or blogs. This is the writing, and this is what we should spend our time interacting with (and hopefully trying to do). On the other hand, sadly, there is theory. Our history and development have created it. Our teachers haven't always had faith in us: they've said, the original is too hard, read this secondary text which explains it. Quickly most books seemed to become books about books.

We get trapped in the game of mainly just absorbing and regurgitating knowledge that we forget to see and listen to the person in front of us. We really should forget all this garbage: it really is turning us grey.

Spend time reading and writing about proper writing, and about life, and things will keep on moving.

This is our practice - keep it up.

Ethics vs morality

This blog is obviously about advocacy, but another constant underlying theme will be what I call ethics. It's ethics that got me into advocacy, and ethics that keeps me going. This needs some explanation.

Originally ethics comes from the Greek word ethos, meaning character, or way of living, and I want to recall this sense of the word when I use it. Morality came from similar roots (in Latin), but to me over the years even though both words have become confused, morality has become much more associated with an idea of 'moral law'.

In talking about ethics I want to remember both that it means our way of life, and to distinguish it from laws and rules.

How can you see this in the blog?

1. I will write about things like humility, independence, violence, etc. We need to think about these things rather than make rules about them; we need to explore how we use these ideas in our lives and in our working practices. These ideas and others like them are the ground where an ethical practice can grow.
   
2. We need to understand these ideas in terms of stories, and we will never learn their lessons in the real world unless our bodies experience some kind of incorporeal transformation (you may well have already gone through this, I'm not trying to preach). Learning a definition of humility as an objective fact is not going to be any use, and I won't present ideas in these terms.
3. Laws are relatively closed - they can be changed, but it's not easy to do. This blog will on the contrary try to remain especially open. It is published openly, and its contents are openly reusable. It is also published 'on the fly', without much editing, warts and all. I'm not trying at all to say everything, just to open up conversations. I will inevitably make mistakes and say things that I will clarify or correct later.
4. You will see an interplay between ethics, practice and methodology: these all mean basically the same thing, but in slightly different contexts. Ethics is more about the way we live our lives; practice is more about how we act, what we do; and methodology is more about planning, tactics and strategy.

Is this a new way of looking at ethics?

No. Firstly, having learnt from some books about this way of thinking about ethics, I've noticed that actually this really is the way many people live their lives. This is especially true of people who haven't been too much damaged by education, or people who have been excluded from normal society for one reason or another. I think many of my readers will recognise what I'm saying, it's not that strange.

Secondly, I'm not an academic, but I have found that this approach is similar to the work of some of the very early pre-Socratic Greek philosophers as well as later writers including Lucretius (Roman), the seventeenth century Dutch philosopher Spinoza, Nietzsche in the nineteenth century, and people like Foucault and Deleuze and others more recently.

More down to earth, I recently saw a section in the Barefoot Doctor's Handbook for the Urban Warrior subtitled 'Morals make the moron' - this coming from a sort of modern Taoist perspective.

General comments

If you want to make a general comment about the blog, leave it here.

Thank you.

Disclaimer

This blog is the independent work of Henry Fisher, who accepts all responsibility for its content. It is meant to support the work of independent advocacy organisations and independent advocates.

As stated in the very first post: I claim no special knowledge, the blog is about exploring issues and ideas, and don't be offended...

While I accept responsibility for the content of this site, I cannot take responsibility for readers misunderstanding or misusing this content. You are responsible for your own actions and decisions: do act, but do also take care.

Finally, it is important that readers should engage with the blog through contributing comments. I cannot however take responsibility for comments made by third parties.

How you can contribute

This is an open and collaborative space. Readers are encouraged to add the thoughts and comments, positive or negative. Comments add a whole extra dimension to the posts.

I realise it may not be obvious how you can contribute, so here is a quick guide. (Contents: Adding Comments | Permanent Links | Glossary)


Adding comments

1. On the main blog, at the bottom of each post is some extra information and links (see below for glossary):
• the first line says who wrote the post and the time
• the second line says 'Permanent link to this post' - this is useful if you want to email anyone to read a specific post, or if you want to make a link on your blog or webpage (see below)
• the third line says how many comments have been added, and gives a link to 'View/Add comments'
2. Sometimes you may be looking at a sub-page, showing only one post. At the moment the information and links at the bottom of this page are slightly different, but there is still a link which says 'Add a comment'.


3. Either way, click on 'View/Add comments' or 'Add a comment'.


4. You will now be transferred to a new page. Existing comments are on the left, and on the right is a box where you can add your comments.


5. Type your comments in the box. You can use basic html to format your text, but don't worry about this, it's not important (you can ask me to tidy it up for you if you want).


6. When you have finished your comment it says 'Choose an identity' and you have three options:
• If you have a Blogger account, you can use this. Your comment will be linked to your profile and your blog. If you don't have a Blogger account or you don't want to admit to it, try one of the other options...
• Click on 'Other' and a space will open up for you to type your name or nickname, and to give a website address if you want.
  
• Or click on 'Anonymous' if you don't want to give any information about yourself.
7. You can 'Preview' your comment to see how it will look (and still edit it again if you want). Or you can 'Publish your comment'. It usually takes a couple of minutes for the comment to show up on the main blog.


8. Thank you for contributing :-)
   

Permanent links
These are useful if you want to reference a post, e.g. send someone an email telling them to read a particular post, or put a link on a website, forum, or another blog. You can right click on the permanent link and copy it, ready to paste wherever you need. Or you can click on it and you will be taken to a page with just that post - then the permanent link will be in the address bar of your browser - so just highlight this and copy and paste as usual.


Glossary

• Post - each article is called a 'post' - ask the computer geeks why, but we're stuck with it now.
• Link - click this and it will 'link' (take you) to another part of the World Wide Web, or just another page on this Blog. Links on this Blog are bold and green and when you put your mouse over them they are also
  underlined.
• Blog - short for web log, a sort of web-based diary, often providing links to other places of interest on the web.
  
• Blogger - a free community website where anyone can simply and easily create their own blog. Give it a try...!
  
• Blog Roll - links to other people's blogs that I like (like a 'roll call', for anyone with a dirty mind...).
• Recent Posts - links to recent posts that have been contributed to the blog.
• Archives - any post older than 30 days (that is, written more than 30 days ago) will be in one of the archives, and not on the main page.
• External Links - other links to websites that I like, but not blogs.

What's this blog about?

Advocacy Action's first AGM was held last Wednesday, which is a small but significant milestone in its development. I am currently employed by them part time, although it looks like their funding will run out again in a few weeks (especially if I keep on spending my time doing things like this instead of more fundraising), and my position is a little tenuous.

They have made a good start, and they have a structure and friends to help them grow and become more sustainable, but it's still early days. Hopefully this space will allow me to explore some things that are happening in the world outside the project, as well as reflect on what's happening in Advocacy Action itself.

Some potential topics:

• advocacy, resources and ethical computing
• training for advocates - and training to generate income
• the state of the voluntary sector
• children and young people, older people, refugees
• mental health, learning disabilities
• community advocacy
  
• links between advocacy and music or books
• social enterprise
• philosophical links and ideas
• management, supervision and monitoring
• funding and business planning issues
• many more...

The advantage of ignorance...

The important thing is being able to do things. And you don't necessarily have to have knowledge to do things: small babies can often swim, as can dogs; we learn to ride bikes, but the process then becomes automatic, without requiring thought.

I'm not going to write an essay about the reason why we are too caught up believing in the importance of knowledge, but I do say to would-be advocates that sometimes ignorance can be an advantage. Here are just three reasons:

1. shared learning with your advocacy partner is more empowering for them (in contrast to their professional support workers who 'know the answers' and can 'sort things out');
2. advocates work in such a wide variety of situations they can't possibly know all the answers, but we can certainly find ways through and make good results happen;
   
3. people are more ready to help you if you don't appear to be able to help yourself (as long as you speak to them nicely).

So, since I always think I should start as I mean to go on, ignorance seems to be a good place to be today. Because I don't really know exactly where I'm going with this blog, and I'm sure I will write some things that I won't be very sure about either. I have got some ideas of course, and I'm confident that I'll get stuff done.

So this is meant to be a place for me to explore ideas, and hopefully for you and others like you to explore them with me. I'm happy you're reading this, but please remember that I'm starting from igorance and I may not manage to get far beyond this, so please don't be offended, just help me find the right way...