menjadi editor tamu di Internetworking Indonesia Journal

Kira-kira pertengahan tahun lalu (2010), Chief Editor jurnal khusus Indonesia “Internetworking Indonesia Journal” (IIJ), pak Thomas Hardjono menghubungi saya. Beliau meminta saya menjadi anggota Technical Editorial Board. Sebuah undangan yang langsung saya sambut dengan antusias (selama ini menjadi reviewer di jurnal lain – mengapa tidak untuk jurnal berorientasi Indonesia? 🙂 ). Lantas tak lama, pak Thomas mengusulkan agar saya dan kolega baik saya, teh Merlyna Lim menjadi editor tamu untuk special issue di IIJ. Sebuah permintaan yang juga langsung saya dan Mer sanggupi.

menembus jurnal bintang empat: Research Policy! :)

Bagi para skolar inovasi dan kebijakan, salah satu mimpi tertinggi adalah mempublikasikan tulisan di jurnal paling bergengsi di area ini di dunia: Research Policy. Dan syukur kepada Allah, alhamdulillah, halleluya 🙂 tulisan saya akhirnya nongol di jurnal ini. Yeay!!! 🙂 *lebay* Dan tentu saja, ini menerbitkan di RP ini bukan jalan yang gampang dilalui bagi saya yang masih harus belajar banyak ini. Mau tahu ceritanya?

Social media in civil society— citizens in @ction

The Jakarta Post – OPINION, 30 April 2011
Yanuar Nugroho – MIOIR, Manchester
Shita Laksmi – HIVOS, Jakarta

Among many recent trends specifically in technology and civic engagement in Indonesia, two are highly salient.

One, statistics show convincingly that globally Indonesia ranks highly in terms of social media use, as home to the second-largest number of Facebook users (35.2 million) and as number four in terms of Twitter users (4.9 million). Undoubtedly, social media has become an inseparable part of life for many Indonesians.

Two, the blossoming of civic activism goes beyond the confinement of formal organizations that are organized around common interests and concerns, aiming at transforming some aspects of social life. This ranges from activism, as in the case of hundreds of thousands of people who backed Prita Mulyasari in her legal fight against Omni International Hospital, to the “Bike2Work” movement in many cities in Indonesia aiming at promoting healthier lifestyle whilst combating pollution.

Report: Social media & civil society in Indonesia (updated)

DIPERBARUI/UPDATED 7/5/2011

(English version below)

Beberapa saat yang lalu saya dan mbak Shita Laksmi mempost di blog ini sebuah permintaan tolong untuk berpartisipasi dalam sebuah studi yang dilakukan bersama oleh Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIOIR), Universitas  of Manchester UK dan  HIVOS Netherlands Regional Office Southeast Asia mengenai media sosial dan peranserta sipil di Indonesia. Studi ini telah berakhir dan laporan lengkap bisa didownload di sini.  Laporan dalam Bahasa Inggris akan sudah dirilis di MIOIR pada hari Senin 4 April 2011 3-5 sore (silakan daftar lewat email saya) dan di Universitas Salfor hari Rabu jam 2.30-4.30 sore (silakan daftar di sini). Dalam acara rilis laporan tersebut juga akan telah dilakukan pemutaran film dokumenter  tentang media sosial dan gerakan sosial di Indoensia, @linimas(s)a, yang juga didanai sebagian oleh HIVOS. Cuplikan film tersebut bisa disaksikan di sini.

Laporan ini diterjemahkan ke dalam bahasa Indonesia oleh mas Aresto Yudo Sujono (@arestoyudo) dan diedit oleh mas BlontankPoer (@blontankpoer). Rencananya, laporan versi Bahasa Indonesia ini akan dirilis -bersamaan dengan pemutaran penuh film @linimas(s)– di Jakarta, 12 Mei 2011 dalam sebuah acara yang diselenggarakan bersama-sama oleh Internetsehat, ICTWatch, WatchDOC, AkademiBerbagi dan HIVOS di Goethe Institute jam 6-9 malam (konferensi pers jam 3-5 sore). Silakan hadir. Versi Bahasa Indonesia laporan Citizens in @ction / @ksi Warga bisa diunduh di sini.

The return of Big Brother to Indonesia?

The Jakarta Post – Opinion, 30 March 2011
Yanuar Nugroho
Manchester, United Kingdom

Advances in Internet technology have changed the way people live. For many it has brought the appealing promises of global community, democracy and openness.

Many others fear technological threats such as alienated individuals, anarchy, surveillance and repression. The House of Representatives’ proposed intelligence bill is a clear example of the latter.

The bill, if enacted into law, would give the authorities a free pass to monitor conversations and exchanges on the Internet.

Even worse, the bill would give legal justification to the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) to detain anyone suspected of threatening public security based on exchanges on social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook.

While the very same social media have given birth of a new type of civic engagement globally, in Indonesia, in the eyes of the bill’s drafters, technology is a threat.

Call for paper: Social Implications of ICTs in the Indonesian Context

Merlyna Lim and I are inviting you to submit paper to be considered in a special issue of the Internetworking Indonesia Journal (IIJ),  a peer reviewed semi-annual electronic journal devoted to the timely study of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Internet development in Indonesia. We are seeking manuscripts that look at a wide variety of ICT uses and what implications these uses have on people, organizations and society in the Indonesian context as the technology becomes more widely available. We also welcome those who look at the other side of the coin, i.e. manuscripts that focus on the cultural, social and political shaping of the technologies by Indonesian society.

Although the journal accepts manuscripts in Indonesian, we prefer to have English ones for the sake of wider audience  coverage.

Read the full Call for Papers here.

An innovation perspective of knowledge management in a multinational subsidiary

Journal of Knowledge Management, 15(1):71-87

1. Introduction

Organisations nowadays have been faced with the challenges of managing increasingly more complex activities in the knowledge-based economy. As Castells (2000) suggests, knowledge economy is characterised as being informational, global and networked. In his view, information and knowledge plays an important role in modern economy, giving new perspective to the works of some earlier economists who had already hinted this issue, such as Marshall (1965), Hayek (1945) and Schumpeter (1951, 1952). The consequence of this is clear: organisations working in knowledge economy cannot but conceive themselves as learning agents capable of creating and managing knowledge to achieve their purpose (Antonelli, 2008).

Survey: Internet, social media, dan komunitas sipil di Indonesia

Rekan-rekan sekalian, para pegiat Komunitas/Kelompok/Jaringan/Organisasi Masyarakat Sipil di Indonesia,

dimanapun Anda berada

Saat ini kami, Yanuar Nugroho dan Shita Laksmi dari Universitas Manchester UK dan HIVOS, ingin mengundang Anda sekalian untuk berpartisipasi dalam survey untuk mengetahui bagaimana komunitas/kelompok/lembaga/jaringan/organisasi masyarakat sipil di Indonesia memanfaatkan teknologi informasi, khususnya internet dan social media. Survey ini ditujukan untuk komunitas/kelompok/lembaga/organisasi bukan perorangan. Cukup satu orang mengisi untuk satu komunitas/kelompok/lembaga/organisasi.

Ada beberapa kemungkinan mengikuti/mengisi survey ini.

• Pertama, melalui survey online – silakan klik link ini, atau copy and paste-kan pada browser Anda: http://mbs.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_0cEQLkCyokGzZME
• Kedua, melalui form MS-Word. Silakan download di sini dan setelah diisi dan disave, kirimkan kepada saya dan/atau mbak Shita di alamat email kami di bawah.
• Ketiga, melalui form Open Office (ODT). Silakan download di sini dan setelah diisi dan disave, kirimkan kepada saya dan/atau mbak Shita di alamat email kami di bawah.

Localising the global, globalising the local: The role of the internet in shaping globalisation discourse in Indonesian NGOs

Journal of International Development, Early-cite, DOI: 10.1002/jid.1733

Yanuar Nugroho

Abstract

Globalisation arguably brings about socio-economic development but the distribution of these benefits is unequal. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), whose growth has often been closely linked with globalisation, have been outspoken regarding this inequality. Despite clear linkages between NGOs and globalisation, there has been little research aiming at understanding how NGOs engage with the issue of globalisation itself. Using the case of Indonesia, this study aims to uncover how NGOs utilise the Internet to respond to globalisation-related issues. NGOs should understand global issues in their local contexts and rearticulate more saliently for their beneficiaries. Technology can serve this purpose when used strategically. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Exploring Knowledge Management in Civil Society Organisations

Exploring Knowledge Management in Civil Society Organisations: Sustaining Commitment, Advancing Movement

by Yanuar Nugroho and Mirta Amalia

Manchester Business School (MBS) Working Paper No. 600
Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIOIR) Working Paper No. 56

This paper is currently under review in the International Conference of Knowledge Management and Information Sharing (KMIS), part of IC3K (International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management), Valencia, Spain 25-28 October 2010, and is being revised for a journal submission.

Abstract

Civil society organisations (CSOs) have recently attracted much research attention, as they have become more central in social as well as economic and political dynamics, challenging and shaping the work of the state/public organisations and of the private institutions. Despite the fact that they are actually knowledge-intensive organisations, CSOs –like any other organisations– are faced with new challenges due to the advent of knowledge economy. Knowledge-capital in CSOs is highly diverse and this affects both the organisational performance and the civil society movement within which they are part of. Most of the knowledge in CSOs that has been driving and characterising civil society activities and realms is tacit in nature and is largely unmanaged. Consequently, in the long run, the organisations and their movement often become unstable despite efforts to manage their activities. We use the works of Polanyi and Nonaka to help address this problem and conceptualise the corpus of knowledge in CSOs. To anchor this conceptualisation, we feature the case of Indonesia where CSOs in a latecomer economy have been significantly influencing the work of public and private sectors. We find that managing tacit knowledge has been crucial to sustain the engagements with beneficiaries and networks. We propose taxonomy to understand different types of knowledge in CSOs and suggest a guiding principle to strategically manage it.

Full paper
available for download from here

Comments are most welcome! 🙂

NGOs, the Internet and Sustainable Development

NGOs, THE INTERNET AND SUSTAINABLE RURAL DEVELOPMENT
The case of Indonesia

Information, Communication and Society, 13(1):88-120, 2010

Yanuar Nugroho

Abstract
Today sustainable rural development is of paramount importance in Indonesian development. Yet, different social actors have different perspectives on it. Non-government organizations (NGOs) in Indonesia have established themselves in pivotal positions in the social, economic and political landscape across the country, and a large amount of their work has been connected with development in the rural sector. But, there has been little attempt to understand how NGOs in Indonesia, particularly rural NGOs, engage with the issue of sustainable rural development itself. Since rural development is one of the oldest issues to be discussed among activists, since the early days of Indonesian NGOs, it is interesting to see how they understand the issue of sustainability in rural development and rural reform. An empirical study was conducted recently to see how some Indonesian NGOs, in their endeavour to respond to and broaden the discourse, utilize Internet technology. The study employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches to build a detailed story about how different organizations working in rural development deploy strategies to deal with the issue. By doing so, it aspires to contribute to the advancement of theory relating to the efficacy of the Internet as a tool for social reform and sustainable development by taking Indonesia as a case study.

Opening the Black Box: Adoption of Innovations in Voluntary Organisations

The image is taken from http://frontlineclub.com/blogs/onnikkrikorian/civil_society_poster.jpg

I received an email from SSRN today, saying that this paper was on the Top 10 List as of yesterday 8-12-2009. Not a great deal, but still, I’m quite happy. This paper was presented at ISPIM conference in Singapore December 2008 and -after some revisions- was published as Manchester Business School Working Paper No. 576. This paper was submitted to Research Policy, which, very very luckily did not reject it but suggested me to do some revision for resubmission. Of course, for an innovation scholar, the chance to publish in Research Policy (even if it is just a chance!) is too good to miss. Just wish me luck, guys!

Incorporating network perspectives in foresight: A methodological proposal

Foresight (2009), Volume 11(6): 21-41
Yanuar Nugroho and Ozcan Saritas

Abstract

Purpose – A particular feature that makes foresight powerful is its capability to learn from past trends to help guide decision-making for future policy. However, in studying both past and future trends, network perspectives are often missing. Since networks are capable of revealing the structure that underpins relationships between stakeholders, key issues and actions in the past, they are powerful to help envisage the future. The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodological framework to incorporate network analysis in foresight.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper develops a generic framework to incorporate network analysis into foresight’s five stages. Trends identified by respondents of the Big Picture Survey are used to demonstrate how we operationalize this framework.

Microfinance and Innovation: Are we reinventing the Wheel?

I had an opportunity to co-author with my ex supervisor Professor Ian Miles to write an opinion in the world magazine MicrofinanceInsights. The piece appears in the latest edition (Vol 15, Nov/Dec 2009). I quote the editorial’s comment:

Innovation: Are we Reinventing the Wheel?

In this issue, we look at different innovations—product, technology, and financial—that are adding value and efficiency to the sector. In our Commentary, Ian Miles and Yanuar Nugroho of the University of Manchester, argue that microfinance is now poised to bridge the gap between the privileged and the bottom of the pyramid, with the help of innovations that bear no resemblance to the Wall Street machinations that helped bring the global economy to its knees. In our cover story, Stephen Hodgson of Redport International and Yana Watson of Dalberg Global Development Advisors, question the nature of innovation that has taken place in microfinance to date; cite examples from the annals of financial history that could work well when applied to microfinance; and conclude that the sector might be better served if it adopts models that have been tried and tested in other spheres of finance. The issue brims with examples of innovations that work—from mobile technology in India to financial education for Mongolian teenagers to ATM-style kiosks in Georgia—and ones that don’t, such as the Business Correspondent system, which has faltered in India. In this issue’s Survey, our team polled 180 microfinance institutions about how Information & Communication Technology has influenced their work. You will also find the results of a Reader Survey we conducted in September to gauge what our audience thinks of Microfinance Insights so we can tailor the content to suit their preferences.

Growing green: Venture capital support for clean technology

InnoGRIPS Newsletter No. 9, October 2009

by Jennifer Hayden and Yanuar Nugroho
Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

Global venture capital has been hit hard by the recession, dampening the prospects for many would-be start-ups at just the time when job creation and innovation are badly needed. Venture capital plays a critical role in funding the risky, early stages that other forms of finance often shy away from. Fund managers bring a mix of expertise and capital to guide a good idea to fruition with the goal of reaping large pay-offs at the IPO, but more often than not the venture fails – a risk that traditional funding bodies will not take on board. The success of the venture capital industry is important because it acts as a catalyst for innovation in the economy and can be critical in bringing course-altering technologies to the fore1. It is promising then that global venture capital is addressing itself to the grand challenge of climate change through its support of green technologies.

Hubs and wires: Internet use in Indonesian NGOs is strengthening civil society

Two days after the tsunami hit the northern tip of Sumatra on Boxing Day 2004, Yayasan AirPutih (airputih.or.id ) began working quietly, far from publicity, to reconstruct the communication backbone destroyed by the disaster. Using VHF/UHF radio, V-Sat and wireless technology, AirPutih restored communication in Aceh, making its first Internet broadcast on 30 December 2004. This was in spite of the radio silence policy imposed by the local military and government. Yayasan AirPutih also provided the first free satellite telephone and wireless Internet connection in Banda Aceh for humanitarian relief organisations working in the area and continued to do so until it ran out of money. In addition, Yayasan AirPutih played a vital role in establishing the first media centre (acehmediacenter.or.id ) which relayed to the world what happened at ‘ground zero’, channelled support and coordinated humanitarian aid. Without Yayasan AirPutih, the reconstruction of an information infrastructure and initial relief in Aceh after the disaster would have been impossible.

The urgent need to reconstruct Aceh’s information infrastructure, and in particular to provide Internet access, reflects the importance of this technology to the work of both Indonesian and foreign NGOs and aid organisations. Yet Internet use among Indonesian NGOs is a relatively recent phenomenon. It is only in the last decade or so that the Internet has became more widely available and the technology adopted by Indonesian NGOs. However, in that time, Internet use has had a significant impact on the organisations and their work.

Read the full article in INSIDE INDONESIA here.

Network Dynamics in the Transition to Democracy: Mapping Global Networks of Contemporary Indonesian Civil Society

This paper seeks to make transparent the mutually reinforcing relationships between global civil society, democracy and network society, which are often implicit in extant theories. The concept of a ‘global civil society’ cannot be separated from the promotion of democracy. Global civil society itself is one of the most explicit instances of the emergence of network society in the modern age and democracy lies at the very heart of what constitutes a network society. However, very little has been said about how these apparent mutually reinforcing relationships arise. Focusing on the case of Indonesia during the fraught regime change from authoritarianism to democracy, we investigate the role of transnational and national civil society organisation during the periods of pre-reform, reform and post-reform. Using multi-methods, including social network analysis and interviews with civil society activists and networkers, we discover a less encouraging picture of these relationships and conclude that the forging of this virtuous circle has some obvious gaps. We attempt to account for these apparent gaps in this mutually reinforcing relationship in terms of different modes of political participation. We suggest that some forms of ‘chequebook activism’ characterised the global civil society role during an abrupt and bloody regime change.

Read the full paper in the Sociological Research Online (Vol 13 Issue 5) here.

Does the Internet transform (civil) society?

An excerpt of my PhD thesis appears in the 3rd edition of INNO-GRIPS Newsletter, published by the European Commission DG Innovation, Pro-INNO Europe. Below is the text. The full PDF version of the newsletter (only 8 pages) can be downloaded directly from the Pro-INNO EU here. Enjoy .. 🙂

(just did not think that EC would be interested in a research on Indonesia .. :-))

y

Barriers to Internet adoption in Indonesian CSOs

Among many other aspects, this research aims to investigate the barriers to the adoption of the Internet in civil society organisations (CSOs). However, it is not easy to address such a question straightforwardly. To approach this inquiry the survey posed two questions. One question addressed the ‘negative aspects’ caused by the use of ICTs, particularly the Internet, in Indonesian CSOs. The other one addressed the extent to which some factors hampered their Internet use.

The Internet and mobilisation of direct action

Among the strategic uses for the internet that Indonesian CSOs carry out is mobilising direct action. A salient example of this is the campaign against violation of human rights, forced disappearances, repression towards labourers and trade unions and campaigns for promoting gender equality, women’s rights, environment sustainability amongst others. The targets are typically government, companies and military bodies. In general, the campaign is performed by submitting an online protest on the web or circulating the issues through various mailing lists asking for support to pressurise government, parliament, military and/or companies to reconsider their actions.