Dadamac has always been about the people involved rather than the tech that we use. But without the tech there would be no Dadamac The people and the tech are inextricably entwined. We value the tech because it enables us to communicate and collaborate.
I'll explain briefly for any newcomers. Our roots are in a UK-Nigeria collaboration that began around 2000 and has been dependent on the Internet from the start. Thanks to the Internet our network grew to include people in countries beyond UK and Nigeria. Thanks also to the Internet I was able to find people and groups in London whose interests overlap my own, so that collaborations started to become local in London, as well as local in Nigeria, and online.
Because the Dadamac emphasis is on people, I'm encouraged whenever I see anything where other people are also looking beyond the tech and seeing the value of people-as-collaborators. This post on ICTWorks about Innovation Spaces: People and Community Matter More Than Tech or Type is one such source of encouragement. I liked its general theme and found this comment particularly relevant:
To start with, innovation spaces should not be evaluated solely on economic outcomes. Building an ecosystem of excitement, skilled participants, and then organizations of those people that then develop products or services for others is a years-long process. Commercial incubation centers take 5-10 years to fully mature, we shoul not expect socially focused innovation spaces to be overnight successes.
Evaluation not solely on economic outcomes
Ref "innovation spaces should not be evaluated solely on economic outcomes". I'm so encouraged to see increasing recognition of this truth.
One of the touchstones in my Landscape of Change explorations is how much a traveller in that landscape is tied into the notion of evaluation solely according to financial metrics, and how much by other appreciations of value - such as knowledge, trust, and skills. In Dadamac we reconise many different kinds of value - and I often use a symbol of a "V" with an "=" through it as a label for "valuable but not financially measurable" when we are mapping out our activities and outcomes.
Ref "Building an ecosystem"
Perhaps "building an ecosystem of excitement, skilled participants, and then organizations.." is a description I should adopt in Dadamac. The graphic on our home page puts our community at the centre, surrounded by organisational structures that have grown out of its activities. Our activities and structures grow in a natural organic way depending "where the energy is" and what needs or interests are emerging.
Ref "..develop products or services for others is a years-long process."
I can certainly relate to that, so I take encouragement from Wayan's comment that "we should not expect socially focused innovation spaces to be overnight successes." If "Commercial incubation centers take 5-10 years to fully mature" then it seems that Dadamac is doing well after all.
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