The Birth of a Dot Org

CATALYTIC COMMUNITIES: THE BIRTH OF A DOT ORG A DISSERTATION in City and Regional Planning Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2004 by Theresa Denise Williamson Department of City and Regional Planning University of Pennsylvania School of Design [email protected] Doctoral Committee: Seymour Mandelbaum (Chair) Marja Hoek-Smit Thomas Reiner Sidney Wong COPYRIGHT Theresa Denise Williamson 2004 ii Dedicated to Denise and John: my best friends, my parents. iii Acknowledgements At the dinner table growing up, when we had guests over, I would occasionally count the number of languages spoken among us. Out of twelve people it was not unusual to have seven or eight languages represented. Maybe a Russian, a Peruvian, a Haitian, a Kenyan, and a Taiwanese would sit around the table jointly with my parents – my Brazilian mother and English father – and us kids. As I grew up, I found the same to be true within my own circle of friends. The conversations that bloomed and the opportunity for coexistence this inherently created in my imagination were no doubt fundamental to bringing me where I am at today: completing this “risky,” as one doctoral advisor described it, doctoral dissertation, about an organization I founded to bring communities together to exchange solutions across borders. Most of those sitting around the dinner table were economists like my parents. People who believe in numbers – and what they tell us – about the world in which we live. I lived my life to the point of preparing my Ph.D. proposal believing it was mainly through numbers that new ‘scientific’ knowledge could be created. But then I took another direction – one that, in truth, better reflected my style and my instincts about the kind of knowledge that can be used to make the world a better place. In preparing this doctoral dissertation I would like to thank five distinct groups of people who inspired and supported me in very different but entirely complementary ways. The work that follows would not have been possible without all of them, simultaneously, enforcing and reinforcing its approach from multiple perspectives. My parents – Denise and John – have trusted me to organize and manage my life for as long as I can remember while at the same time providing incredible inspiration as iv to who I could be, and every type of imaginable support for me to get there. Their love of education passed to us as children led me to see a Ph.D. as a natural step in the growth process. And so here I am today. My brothers – André and Daniel – older brothers whom I always admired and whose every word I respected growing up (much to my detriment, at times!), taught me to make good arguments, to be clear about my thoughts, and to be strong-willed. It is my family that sent me along the Ph.D. track, intentionally or not. But it was Professor Seymour Mandelbaum I first met when I arrived there, in his Planning Theory class in which all new doctoral students enroll. From that first semester on through the process, his encouraging yet (I expect unintentionally) slightly intimidating posture set me on a course that may be creatively termed “careful risk taking,” if such a thing exists! He, along with Professors Marja Hoek-Smit, Thomas Reiner, and Sidney Wong encouraged me to take on the project that follows – a risky one that I hope will go beyond describing a new type of organization to stimulate more detailed research, other similar ‘risky’ research projects, and plenty of criticism that will lead to better approaches. All four professors have provided very different and important insights into this process: Thomas Reiner with a focus on civil society and the not-for-profit sector; Marja Hoek- Smit as an expert evaluator with a lifelong history of work with housing in the developing world; and Sidney Wong with his interests in ICTs, cities, and deep concerns regarding research methodology. These professors, along with fellow doctoral students – in particular Lynn Mandarano and Dan Campo – were my community at Penn, and I will be forever grateful to them for long conversations that helped me maintain focus and perseverance. v My inspiration in starting Catalytic Communities and the secret of its success to date are beyond a doubt the community leaders that met me with open arms when I first began my research in Rio de Janeiro – Bezerra from Asa Branca, Henrique and Carlos Roberto from Jacarezinho, and the entire crew from the CONGESCO coalition. Since then, they and others have taught me life lessons and involved me in their important struggles, for which I am eternally grateful. On a practical note, it was Catalytic Communities’ incredible staff and volunteers: Roseli Franco, Edson Cardoso, Rosa Zambrano, Angelo da Silva, Thais Portela, Armando Ibarra, Ricardo Ferracini, Andrew Genung, Mike Niedermeier, and Brett Joly, among others, that not only provided much of the energy and important feedback for the organization as it has been built (and which is incorporated into the topics and discussions that follow), but that made it possible for me to take time away from CatComm – my “baby” – to give birth to this baby – my dissertation – over the past year. Finally, Marcos Alvito kept me calm throughout this entire process, helping me maintain my conviction and determination. As an accomplished anthropologist, he is a physical manifestation of the Dreyfus Brothers’ ‘novice-expert’ theory, someone that shows that a researcher, in experiencing and living a situation, can develop an expertise beyond that which the study of numbers can bring and that should be valued. In seeing the Brazilian reaction to his work I also realized that in Brazil good qualitative research is generally more respected than it is in the US. The importance of conducting and valuing qualitative, non-evaluative research grew indisputable as I prepared this dissertation in his presence over the past three years. I hope to show this in the pages that follow. vi ABSTRACT CATALYTIC COMMUNITIES: THE BIRTH OF A DOT ORG Theresa Denise Williamson Seymour Mandelbaum This dissertation describes and analyzes six themes that emerged during the first three years’ development of Catalytic Communities, a community development organization meant to operate strictly in cyberspace, thus reaching a global audience, though legally based in the US and Brazil. I founded this organization with minimal experience and, through this dissertation, describe my learning during its pilot and maturation phase, as an idea was transformed into a viable organization, from September 2000 through December 2003. My basic question was: what can be learned about a new type of civil society institution – the Dot Org – during its early years? The six themes that naturally surfaced, and which I then explore, fall into three broad categories: (1) those that explain its creation (the history of technology, the Brazilian reality, social network theory); (2) those that help describe what the organization came to look like (the concept of the Dot Org, the effect of the development of a physical space on the virtual organization); and (3) those that describe the management processes used to keep and develop such an organization (staff management and fundraising lessons). Rather than attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of Catalytic Communities, I describe the results of a learning process, providing more qualitative and deep knowledge vii that only the protagonist in an academic function can provide. This dissertation is therefore a study of “learning by doing,” for which the lessons learned are not only those referring to the six themes that surface but also those that help define a new research approach that I call Protagonist Action Research (PrAR). viii Contents List of Figures……………………………………………………………… x Preface………………………………………………………………………xiii A New Organization………………………………………………….…... xiii A Unique Approach………………………………………………………. xvii Strengths and Weaknesses of Conducting a Self-Analysis………………. xix A Qualitative Approach…………………………………………………... xxiii Organization of Chapters………………………………………………….xxiv Chapter 1: Historical Elements Leading to CatComm’s Formation……….. 1 Technological Developments: Groundwork for a Revolution…………….1 Theoretical Considerations: Imagining the Social Revolution…………… 3 Brazilian Reality: Making Good on the Promise………………………….7 Catalytic Communities: Born of a Moment……………………………….16 Chapter 2: The Central Role of Social Networks…………….……………. 21 The Nature of Community Ties…………………………………………... 22 Beyond One’s Direct Circle: Limitations to Establishing the Weak Tie….32 Catalytic Communities: Introducing the Internet………………………… 40 Reflecting Back on Communities…….…………………………………... 46 Creating the Opportunity to Connect……….……………………………..48 Additional Reflection: A Predilection for Weak Ties……………………. 50 Concluding on Social Networks………………………………………….. 54 Chapter 3: A Virtual Organization………………………………………….58 Organization Founded Due to Opportunities Created by the New ICTs…. 61 Service can be Provided Without ‘Headquarters’………………………... 63 Organizational Birth is the Website Launch…………………….………...67 Importance of Accessibility…………….………………………………… 70 Focus on Content………….……………………………………………… 72 Centralized Control of Image…………………………………………….. 73 Lack of Hierarchy…………….…………………………………………... 74 Nature of the Board of Directors…………….…………………………… 75 Potential of Virtual Volunteers…………….……………………………... 76 Care with Regard to Media Attention……………………………………..82

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