ICT and global understanding

Dr. Henrike Paepcke, co-initiator and co-chair of the UN Studies Association (UNSA) and managing director of Coconets, reported about new ICT tools and ways of communication accompanied by means to foster global understanding.

Background

In the overall effort to build a global community of UN academics and practitioners that aim to promote UN Studies as an integrative field of studies in its own right, the UN Studies Association has identified new ICT and digital media as key tools to better link UN experts and their knowledge. The online UN Studies Portal is an informal and open resource that serves as members' main communication and collaboration platform. The portal allows members to network and interact, to develop and exchange new ideas concerning research and teaching about the UN, as well as to create entirely new knowledge. 

In general, interactive online portals are the rising "new media" stars in terms of building (expert or issue-related) communities these days. Yet, conceptualizing and designing such tools, to the effect that they indeed improve communication and foster a joint understanding, is easier said than done, particularly not if deployed on a global scale.

Aim

Dr. Henrike Papcke intended to point out key challenges and opportunities of using new ICT tools in fostering global understanding, by drawing on the lessons learned from a two-year experience of running the UN Studies Portal and applying these lessons to the new Go4Diversity-Project Portal.

To better define the potential and limits of building a common understanding based on mostly virtual communicative and collaborative action, Dr. Henrike Paepcke picked people from the audience and thereby provided participants with a hands-on experience of how new technologies work, and to what effect.

To summarize, the workshop first delivered an overview of web-based interactive tools (such as wikis, blogs, twitter etc.). If you wish detailed information, go to Web 2.0 technologies and tools and/or to the link list. In the next part, Dr. Henrike Paepcke provided training on the use of such new technologies, using the new Go4Diversity Portal. A lively discussion of the potentials and limits as well as the applicability of lessons learned and best practices to concrete diversity management projects completed the workshops on Diversity and Global Understanding.

Within her presentation, Dr. Hnerike Paepcke amplified the follwoing Key Questions:

• What are key new social media tools? What are the key principles (such as openness, transparency)?
• How can they be applied to a diverse, mostly virtually operating community?
• In more general terms, how can we build online communities based on a shared understanding by using new media?

For more details please see the complete presentation of  Dr. Henrike Paepcke