We’re looking for a few good technology training resources. Or rather, we’re looking for… all of them.

The Social Tech Census aims to create a map of every organization, project, event and community that provides technology advice to social advocacy groups worldwide. Previous efforts like the Tech for Transparency Network, LikeMinded.org or our own Tahrir Data Project have looked at technologies or case studies. We’re looking at the people that make up the technology support community: who is talking to advocates about technology? Who is most influential, most trusted, worth emulating? And when it’s all mapped, what’s missing out there?

When we’re done, we’ll have a pretty great directory of efforts that provide technology training, which should help advocates find resources. However, we’re going beyond a mere phonebook to look at how different populations are using these orgs, and hoping to pin down elusive concepts like reputation, influence and network structures.

Readers like you can help. We’re asking for input into two online forms:

1) The Reputation Map.

A few questions on who you are demographically speaking and where you look for advice on technology. This will help us understand who has credibility in our field, and how that changes across audiences. You should complete this only once.

START HERE: The Social Tech Census – Reputation Map

2) The Directory.

A list of resources that help advocacy groups understand technology. To use it, check the running list of resources on the bottom of the page (currently pretty empty, we’re just starting!) then input technology training resources (defined as orgs, projects, events or communities) that you see missing, starting with the ones you see as most important. You can do this many times if you want.

THEN HERE: The Social Tech Census – The Directory

More background on this project, and the participating partners (the engine room and Oxfam Novib) is available here. Results of this research will be freely available to the public (Creative Commons by/sa).

Questions about this project can be addressed to Jonathan Eyler-Werve at census@theengineroom.org. Your input is warmly welcomed! Thanks in advance for your participation.