This past weekend, some of the same innovators who attended IPDI's Mobile Handbook launch event, joined activists, practitioners and hackers from around the world in Toronto for MobileActive; a three-day event that promised to build an emerging social network and explore strategies and tactics for the use of cell phones as an organizing tool. Representatives from the UK, Africa, Asia, North America, South America and the Caribbean converged together for the first time to develop usable guidance for practitioners, donors and campaigners who could not attend, as well as brainstorm guidelines to help civil society activists capitalize on the global wireless phone infrastructure for advocacy communications and organizing. While the Politics-to-Go event was a great wake up call for American politicos to start paying attention to mobile technology, MobileActive offered a unique opportunity not usually seized upon during the birth of a new techno-political movement.

That’s because the event was more of what Taran Rampersad of Knowprose.com (one of the attendees) refers to as “a think-tank convergence.” The event, facilitated by Alan Gunn (aka Gunner) of AspirationTech was unique in its approach. “Most technology conferences are celebrations of expertise and permanent existing power structures,” Gunner explains, “the smart people speak and maintain their authority while the novices are just told to sit down, be quiet and listen.” MobileActive blurred the distinction between novice and expert by focusing instead on those with needs and aspirations of using the technology to drive the dialogue. “The role of the expert here is simply to listen and be ready to serve those who are here to learn,” Gunner concluded, “everybody participates. There are no panels.” It's true, even we bloggers and press people were forced to put away our laptops, an addiction not easily relinquished. While this prevented me from blogging in my usual on-the-scene somewhat removed fashion, it forced me to see the bigger picture and to be immersed in what was happening, instead of simply listening to what was being talked about.

The event was a direct result of the creative brainstorming of Marty Kearns, founder of Green Media Toolshed (a communication infrastructure for environmental movements) and was funded jointly by financier George Soros' Open Society Institute and the MacArthur Foundation. “We wanted to build a community of activists and technologists working for positive social change and drive them into a working session to see what would happen,” Kearns told the group at its opening. “This gathering is not about information exchange. It is about work and moving the ball down the court. The real talent, skills and vision for the ways cells [phones] can be used for creating social change are here from around the world and are converging their talents, visions and stories in order to best facilitate and drive mobile technology and politics to the next step.”

This made the event extremely difficult to blog about. The best analogy I can give is that it was kind of like being assigned to blog exclusively about the hallway conversations that usually take place at more conservative panel discussions, the places where real connections are made and projects formulated. A daunting task when you consider that MobileActive was a three-day hallway discussion involving 40 people who are experts at what they do. Not to mention the fact that the conversation also took place via the MobileActive wiki. We continuously organized into break out groups, the topics of which where formulated during a large group discussion. The groups would then report back their major thoughts, ideas and initiatives via short deliverables that where then added to a wiki.

It would be physically impossible to blog about all the intense discussions, debates and innovations that occurred (I plan on sharing more in future posts as I start putting my notes together and watching the outcomes from this event). But for now, it is safe to say that MobileaActive ended up being the perfect forum for one of the first global discussions concerning the integration of mobile technology and politics, where the very newness of the topic made everyone there a novice as well as innovator.

Bukani Waruzi from the Democratic Republic of Congo was a case in point. Bukani’s integration of mobile technology and politics in his home country was a real inspiration to the MobileActive forum. His organization provides a cell-phone to individual villages in his country. The owner of each cell-phone provides the link between the village and Bukani’s organization, which helps route important messages to the authorities when there are problems in the villages. “We just use the cellphone for making phone calls,” Bukani explains. “In the Congo we can only send one SMS a day so that’s really not an option.” Bukani’s example is at the very core of what the political usages of mobile technology make possible and was at the very heart of what MobileActive was all about, discovering and discussing ways in which mobile communications can best serve humanity.

I also had the pleasure of meeting with the people from an African organization called Fahamu, which recently harnessed the power of SMS as a means of collecting signatures for a Petition on the Ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. They are also currently deploying the same SMS technology in a campaign for African debt relief.

The mobile phone may very well be the future of political communication, however, it is important to point out some of its limitations and issues regarding its general practice. Oddly enough, this gentle reminder came from Tonyo Cruz of the well publicized Philippine group Txtpower. The major role SMS had on the People Power II demonstrations that forced former Philippino president Joseph Estrada to resign, has become, in the growing mobile activist community, a tale of epic proportions. The continued use of the mobile phone as a medium for social change by Txtpower has only heightened interest and intrigue as to what the Philippines, also known as the "text capital of the world," can teach the world about mobile technology and politics. But Tonyo is quick to point out that to focus on the technology alone is to lose the message. "It won't circulate without a moment.... There must already be a momentum to make the technology a useful political tool."

Tanyo's message is a humbling one. It's not enough that a person receives or sends a message from their mobile device. The people have to own that message in order for it to carry any political weight. An important message not only for cell-phones, but for any integration of technology into the political realm.

American participation in the integration of mobile technology and politics, however, is still uncertain. The most successful American examples remain progressive in nature and have yet to have been picked up by more mainstream politics. As Mizuko Ito, chief editor of Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, and research scientist at the Annenberg Center for Communication, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, told me:

I wonder how successful it could be. I mean, amongst the US middle-class PC-based Internet access is pretty pervasive that I think that there is definitely a different niche than in places like the Philippines and even Japan where global text is a much more pervasive standard of communication. I think that, when it comes to the United States, there are probably some niches where mobile works well, like for example, in reaching US populations that do not yet have access to the PC Internet. I think that could be one really important use of mobile technology. Another use is, and I believe we have already seen this, the use of mobile technology to coordinate at events, such as activism, where people are away from their home and/or their place of work. Mobile can perform a really useful function there. The educated middle class that are often the target of Internet activism, they already have the Internet. They have Meetup.com, they have blogs and all of these Internet-based resources that for now are better on the PC Internet. And for that population, the only time when mobile really makes sense is when you are on location. Then it makes sense to be coordinating physical meet-up like activities over mobile. I think that in places like Japan or the Philippines mobile text is a social standard of communication much like email has become one in the US. It's just what people think of when your going to communicate something. And I think that in the US we are still pretty far from mobile becoming a standard communication modality.

So there are cultural elements to consider as well. But will mobile politics in the United States move beyond the activist sphere to become a successful factor in more mainstream politics? Probably, at some point. Will it be successful? Probably, but only in certain instances when it makes sense for the mobile medium to be used. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that mobile communications devices will begin to impact our political lives if they have not already. The only question is, how? It is the mission of the participants of MobileActive to discover new ways to harness the power of mobile communications to better serve humanity. As Tad Hirsch told me on the very last day of the event, "while figuring out ways to jump start a fundraising initiative via SMS is important, it is equally important to offer opportunities for altruism for its own sake." He concludes: "We are not just building fundraising mechanisms, we are trying to build a movement." And so they did. The ramifications were already felt when Marty Kearns presented Bukani with seven solar powered chargers to take back with him to the Congo, a place where one cellphone per village is already making a huge difference.

In its aftermath, MobileActive has created an opportunity to set the standard regarding the integration of mobile technology and political activism. How the individual networks that were brought together at MobileActive will utilize this opportunity remains to be seen. But as Tonyo from Txtpower put it, "either we will do it or someone else will. The point is... this kind of [mobile] communication can help people and it will. That's all that matters." MobileActive was the first step of many to move beyond the buzz concerning the power of the mobile medium. Politicos, your cell phone is calling.

For more information on MobileActive visit www.mobileactive.org. Also, check out the wiki created by means of various intense discussions and workgroups. You can view pictures of the event here.