Achieving a Culture of Participation and Engagement - Informing Digital Futures: Strategies for Citizen Engagement - page 207

complain about design features which have taken countless hours of pains-
taking writing of code to create.
Another obstacle is the sheer enormity of the undertaking. Recognising
the sense of futility that many of us experience in contemplating attempts to
change huge, impersonal systems, Nardi and O'Day encourage and inspire
us: “ While a local information ecology might seem too small a leverage
point, consider these words of Margaret Mead: 'Never doubt that a small
group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's
the only thing that ever has.”…As we confront the rhetoric of inevitability
and the steamroller of technological change, it is good to remember Mead's
optimism and her own unique, committed contributions ” (Nardi and O'Day
1999).
Evidence of the potential for significant change stemming from similar
modest beginnings is beginning to appear in the context of ICT develop-
ments as local councils in the UK strive to implement e-government. The
technology has tended to dominate the national strategy for local e-govern-
ment. Despite this, change has already started at grass roots with local coun-
cils making significant efforts to achieve a shift of focus towards the needs
of users. In defining and developing e-services, they have been consulting
with citizens in the community regarding their needs of the council.
We anticipate with enthusiasm and optimism the growing focus on the
needs of people and on their unique and diverse qualities and contribu-
tions. Our vision is that such a focus will be nurtured in an integrated de-
sign approach which draws from the different approaches according to the
needs of a particular design context and to the design challenges encoun-
tered.
The harmonising impact of a holistic, integrative approach was antici-
pated by Margaret Mead. In 'The Future as the basis for Establishing a
Shared Culture' (cited in Bennis, Benne and Chin 1969 p. 532) she notes
“ the agglomeration of partly dissociated, historically divergent and con-
ceptually incongruent patterns of culture and sub culture which now block
men and women in their search for a better future for mankind” . Miss
Mead envisioned a future united society founded upon the collective ef-
forts of young and old, men and women, people of various nationalities
and religions, scholarly and non-scholarly. She envisaged individuals and
communities transcending the existing cultural divisions to create a shared
culture. She emphasised the value of inclusion and sharing knowledge. Her
interest was much less in predicting changes in society in the future but
to focus upon the potential for invoking and shaping the future “The fu-
ture, unlike the past is always newborn. To involve all living persons in
constructing the future is to release and facilitate growth and change all
round .”