Cabueñes 2009: Today's Young People Light the Fires that Will Build Content Nation

Cabueñes 2009 is an annual event sponsored by the regional government of Asturias, Spain that helps young people in their own country and countries around the world interested in applying Web technologies to key challenges in their nations. Originally an event focused largely on representatives from Latin America and other Spanish-speaking countries around the world, Cabueñes is taking on a broader international focus at this year's event. More than 700 representatives from many nations around the world have gathered to hear speakers, learn skills in workshops and, of course, to have a good time. I had the pleasure to travel to Gijón, Spain to speak to this budding group of Content Nation enthusiasts about, what else, Content Nation. In the process of doing so, I discovered a group of young people who are enthusiastic about social media, but also weighing the challenges of making it work in places where old traditions and powerful forces are likely to slow its acceptance.

The good news is that Cabueñes 2009 in particular, and the Asturias area in general, provides a great venue to help get ideas flowing for using social media in nations around the world. Asturias is a region in many ways set apart from Spain, with a lush and comfortable climate remarkably similar to that of San Francisco, California and a commitment to technology advancement that makes it a potential Silicon Valley-like bridge between the nations of Europe and developing nations. You may never mistake the Jardines de Begoña in Gijón for San Francisco's Union Square, but neither would you feel that out of place there, either, with its smart cafes and an abundance of free wireless services. While folks out along Highway 101 in Silicon Valley are having fun at events like Burning Man developing creative ideas for the trendy Web sites, there is a world that is filled with people who need better communications tools desperately in order to improve their lives. Why not Gijón as a hub for such social media development, a place that has excellent infrastructure, sophistication but less of a self-satisfied view of the world than the usual Silicon Valley haunts?

It was with this backdrop that I delivered my talk on Content Nation to the attendees at Cabueñes 2009, a talk that was well received - so great to hear a room filled with people from around the world shouting "We are Content Nation!"  - but there were also many pointed questions after the talk. The general themes of the questions revolved around issues of online safety, culture clashes and the place of commerce in helping social media to succeed in developing nations. In particular there seemed to be some concern about groups of people who may not feel safe in social media because of people who attack others in one way or another, as well as with government censorship. Having to deal with bullies and annoying people is a common problem in social media, of course, but one that I noted was largely under the control of the services that provide access to social media. Most people don't like to be treated that way, and will move on to other services that protect them from abuse more effectively. There may be some need for governments to get involved when people do things in social media that are crimes, but the ability to express one's self openly in social media does come with the need for reasonable self-enforcement.

On the government side of regulation, I think that the concerns voiced at Cabueñes 2009 fit in with concerns that were also expressed about how business fits in to the picture of implementing social media in developing areas of the world. In many nations, governments may view social media as a threat to central authorities, leading to attempts by those governments to filter social media or to limit its use. Yet it is because of this very reason that I think that the young people of the world should consider very carefully how enabling more efficient commerce in their nations at a very local level can help to foster the development of Content Nation.

The average villager in India, Peru, Cambodia or Indonesia or probably even Spain is not going to be an "OMG" texting fanatic, nor do they have to be. Social media starts with highly scalable and affordable technologies, some of which may be scaled in different ways for different people. This is why I think that the Google Noticeboard concept, a communication system that can scale nicely to villages with very limited literacy or technology access, is a good example of services that go light on technology but heavy on content generation. It's the content that will change the world, even as much as the technology makes it happen, and the most important content will be that which changes everyday lives in the most humble of communities. In the next few years, as very powerful and increasingly inexpensive mobile devices become more widespread, it will be easier for those villages to step up the technology curve to broader services, but first the everyday people whose lives need to be changed via social media must learn how to be publishers in the social media sense of the term.

In the process of using social media for everyday purposes, their ability to succeed materially will improve. This in and of itself should be motivation for any government to consider how to use social media in their nation. If social media can improve the economic outlook for their nations more rapidly than other media technologies, then why wouldn't they invest in them? Well, perhaps some leaders would prefer to have their people be poor, but I do think that most will choose to deploy highly affordable social media technologies in order to succeed. Whatever political or cultural questions may fall out of that decision will work themselves out over time, to be sure, but when the economic questions lead the way then it's likely that the other questions will resolve themselves appropriately.

A good part of the Cabueñes program provided sessions on how to deploy publishing technologies that can help people to succeed with online publishing, with a particular focus on affordable technologies such as open-source software and open standards used across the Web. These are good stepping stones for any publishers trying to improve their publishing infrastructure cost-effectively, though I would also argue that cloud computing infrastructure reduces the need to rely upon detailed Web development to build successful social media services. Cabueñes can focus also in its sessions on how to foster a culture of citizen publishing effectively in cultures around the world, so that people can have good guidance as to how to participate in social media effectively. The more that the rules of publishing are understood by everyday people, the more effective that citizen publishers from all nations will succeed in changing our work, our lives and our future.

The potential for social media to bring together people of different cultures into a more common Content Nation social fabric was highlighted by an event in the early evening of the first day of the conference. Participants in the conference put on wireless headphones in the plaza of the Universidad Laboral de Gijón and played roles in a performance based on guidance from a voice coming through the headphones.  As in this event, we all play shifting roles in social media, discovering ourselves and one another in the process. We need not think always about our traditional roles as people in our own local societies, nor do we have to abandon those roles; we need only explore how social media can enhance both old and new roles in our societies.

This melding of old and local traditions and new global ways of thinking about people in communities communicating with one another was underscored in a unique way one evening at midnight on the beach in Gijón, when some people attending Cabueñes who were from the nearby region of Galicia hosted an ancient Galician ceremony known as La Queimada. Queimada is a drink prepared in a large clay pot from a Galician liquor mixed with water, sugar, lemon rind and whole coffee beans. This concoction is lit with a match and is stirred gently for about a half hour as it burns down into a hot beverage. When the queimada is about ready, a bagpipe player begins a traditional Celtic song from Galicia and the "bruxos" - the sorcerers - chant an incantation to send evil spirits to their fiery death in the queimada.

As I was watching the queimada burning down into its essence, all of a sudden someone came up to me, pointed to the fire and said vigorously, "See, this, this is Content Nation!" I had to think about what he was saying for a moment, but then it seemed to be quite clear that he was right. There we were, people from all around the world, with different traditions, many of us knowing nothing about Galicia, queimada or anything else about one anothers' lives. And yet we were all willing to let go of our individual outlooks for a time to share as one community the beauty and joy of an experience in a very unique context, even as we were taking our photos and videos of it to share with our experience with others around the world in new contexts.

 The fire and the bagpipes and the incantations were bringing all of these people from far and wide together in much the same way that the band of hunters in the final scene of Chapter 10 in Content Nation share a unique moment ten thousand years from now with their friends around the world. Social media enables us to be proud of all of our unique heritages, individually and collectively, even as those heritages take on new audiences through our local and global citizen publishing. No offense to the good people who produce Burning Man, but the fire of queimada on the beach of Gijón is the real creative fire of social media, everyday people reclaiming their heritage as the true guardians of Prometheus' fire, being unafraid to be both traditional and cutting-edge, both uniquely local and powerfully global.

My thanks again to the sponsors of Cabueñes 2009 for inviting me to speak at their event and to the local press and television outlets who provided such generous coverage of my visit. The world is indeed a nation of publishers, and it was an honor and a privilege to have some small amount of influence over the next generation of influential publishers using social media.