Technola : Public Interest Law & Technology Updates & Commentary : Matthew Burnett & Kate Bladow : Tech Advice for the Non-Profit Legal Sector

Be warned: this post is off topic. I apologize to those readers who are here for the good tech pointers and our opinions. This is neither. Feel free to skip to the next post. I won’t be hurt.

Still with me? Great. Get ready for a treat. Kevin Brooks, an English professor from NDSU and a board member of African Soul, American Heart, blogged about Andrew Filer earlier this week. Andrew wants to photograph every dot on the North Dakota map. The list of towns that he’s photographed is extensive, although he’s not yet made it to a few key cities: Fargo, Hankinson, Ray, and Zap. (How could he not start with the city famous for Zip to Zap?)

But Andrew has taken pictures of my hometown--Mayville, North Dakota. So, if you’ve ever wondered what Mayville looks like, here’s your chance. You can see pictures of my favorite drive-in, A & M, as well as Videos Plus, the local video rental store where my parents eat at least once a week. He didn’t take a picture of the elementary or high schools, but he has taken pictures of Clifford, Galesburg, and Portland, the three other towns in my school district. (That’s right. My high school, May-Port CG High School, had students from four towns, but my graduating class had just fifty-two students.)

And that concludes our tour of Mayville. Back to your regular scheduled programming.-K

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For those of you who have checked the About page, it should be no surprise that for the last week or so, I've been watching the flooding in North Dakota closely. Fortunately, my family and friends are safe and relatively warm and dry; however, with the Red River of the North headed towards a crest of 43 feet (by-passing the record crest of the 1897 flood) and with residents' too recent memories of the 1997 flood and Grand Forks' destruction, they are understandably anxious and worried.

From a distance of over 1500 miles, I've been incredibly impressed with the area's ability to get information out and recruit volunteers. Like most places, North Dakota currently has a group of people who have thoroughly integrated technology into their lives, a group that hasn't, and a group that is somewhere in between, so the effort to get information out has been a combination of traditional and new media efforts. In addition to round-the-clock news coverage from the Fargo Forum, KFGO, and KVLY TV, technology played a key role. A few of the tools that are being used and that might interest Technola readers:

• Twitter: People are reporting the current flood stage and other current news. (Search hashtags: #flood09, #fargoflood, #redriver, #NDfloods.)
• A Facebook group is a place to connect with others and gather information.
• Mapping is being used to create a mashup of flood announcements, display areas being evacuated, and identify areas in danger at different flood stages.
• Automatic telephone notifications are being used to round up volunteers and notify people who need to evacuate.
  
• YouTube videos are being used to instruct people on how to build a sandbag dike and show what sandbagging is like.

People unfamiliar with the North Dakota landscape may enjoy this great series of photos from USGS pointed out on Twitter by Steve Drees. They document the rise of the river in Grand Forks, North Dakota, which is about 100 miles north of Fargo. You can also check out the Fargo SkyCam to see the level of the Red River to see the current level there.

Although I feel like we have to mention it too often, free legal resources exist for people recovering from disasters at National Disaster Legal Aid site. In addition, ABA LTRC posted a round up of disaster resources yesterday. - K

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Other than a brief moment last Saturday night, I was off the 'Net for most of last week and was forced to turn to The Forum to stay in touch with world events. Compared to the quick, immediate reporting of Andy Carvin and the rest of Twitter, the coverage of Gustav and other national events was a bit frustrating, but I was pleasantly surprised with the subject matter of the stories that they are covering. For example:

• Life Preserver or Anchor? - A two-part series on payday loans and their affects, both positive and negative, on North Dakota consumers. Sunday's article included an overview of payday lending, while Monday's introduced an initiative that would use the funds from the Bank of North Dakota and credit unions to provide a payday loan alternative. Supplementary online material included video of a congressional hearing about payday lending in Indian Country and of Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner who provided small self-employment loans to alleviate poverty, speaking at Concordia College.

• Many Teens Sharing Pornographic Images - A story about teenagers using their cell phones to send naked pictures of themselves to others. One terrifying aspect of young people distributing these pictures is that the pictures are easily passed along and will be around for a very long time; a second is that those who send and have these pictures are disseminating and possessing child pornography. As Moorhead policeman Lt. Tori Jacobson told the reporter, "Right now, if an 18-year-old wants to have sex with a 17-year-old, that's OK, but as soon as he takes a picture of her, that's child pornography." Unfortunately, this is not simply a local issue but a national trend.

• Resources Can Help Stretch Dollars - A financial advice column that focused on how a mother of four could try to make ends meet after leaving her abusive spouse. Liz Weston, the columnist, provides an excellent list of resources for families struggling financially.

• Families in Economic Bind Turning to Public Libraries - An article that notes that more people are turning to public libraries to fulfill entertainment needs and save money. This is good news for public libraries since their funding often depends on visits and circulation. And for legal aid programs who are looking for outreach avenues, this makes public libraries an even more valuable partner.

If you are interested in keeping an eye on stories like these, or the news in Fargo, North Dakota, you can either add The Forum to your news reader or follow it on Twitter. - K

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The last article I expected to find when I opened the latest issue of the NDSU Magazine was one on social media. You see, as much as I know that Fargo, North Dakota is developing into a midwest technology hub, I forget that it isn't the small, sleepy city that I remember. I know. You've seen the movie, and that makes this hard to believe. For proof, see Microsoft, NDSU Research and Technology Park, and Great Plains Technology Conference.

But there was Dr. Andrew Mara, an English professor who teaches about corporate and organizational use of new media, to remind me. His essay got me with its tagline - "Even the alphabet was a threat at first." From there he goes on to talk about how Web site visitors expect interaction. They don't want brochure-ware. This constant interaction can be scary and perceived to be dangerous by some, but Dr. Mara reminds us that this fear isn't new. Some people don't like change. "Even the jukebox was thought a tool to break up the family by chaining men to their barstools."

While the idea of new media being a long-term communications change was interesting, the second part of the essay was what really invigorated me. He talks about his students, digital natives who use the Internet to improve their education through collaboration and connection. These methods have caused Dr. Mara to change how he teaches. For him, it means more interaction. He now encourages students to use the Internet productively during class - doing research and reporting on it. And if there is an error on Wikipedia, he expects them to contribute and correct those errors. This, to me, is an incredible way of using technology to improve quality.

So what does this article mean for the legal aid community? Where are we fearful and preventing changes that could improve client services? Should we be encouraging more backchannel conversations during staff meetings and conference presentations? Should we be conversing with pro bono attorneys, staff, and low-income communities more through blogs? What do you think? Let us know in the comments. - K

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A secret for readers of Technola: Every morning, I read The Fargo Forum to see if any of my friends or family have made the news. North Dakota has only 600,000 people, and my husband is related to what feels like 599,999 of them, so this is not an unreasonable expectation.

While there was no stories about family or friends this morning, North Dakotans did receive some good news. They experienced a larger than average increase in personal income over the last year because agriculture and energy did well, and the housing and financial services slump didn't hit the state as hard as other states. Want to see how your state did? Check out the Bureau of Economic Analysis - Regional Economic Accounts website for the news release on State Personal Income 2007. -K

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