I actually think that the advent of the mass adoption of social media has meant that people are volunteering their time to effect social change in all sorts of new ways without ever imagining what they’re doing is volunteering. Our way of looking at volunteering has not kept up with the changes brought about by social media. The still think of volunteering in the old fashioned sense of someone volunteering when they’re taking on a formal role with a formally constituted organisation.

Just as old media journos are finding they’re disintermediated by citizens on the scene with equipment necessary to document news as it happens, charities are finding the same. That is, people no longer need go through a big well-established, well-known charity to get involved in the promotion of a cause they believe in. They can now contribute by galvanising their own social networks online to back small groups and informal organisations that exist or even create their own.

Your point that the Digital Britain report fails to recognise social media’s contribution to changing our attitude and methods to bringing about social change, is symptomatic of how the tech debate is all too often focussed on the tool itself, rather than putting the tool in the background and putting the social impact enabled by the tool front and centre.

And I still think that ‘using the stuff we know works’ relies on that stuff to work, and that ought to be better supported.

(I hope that makes some sense, I’m probably too tired to be writing this now!)

That’s not to say that your point about “the hold that commercial bodies have over our social infrastructures” is wrong – just suppose if Twitter announced, tomorrow, that all their users had to pay a membership fee? Or decided to block all mention of, say, Google?

There are two areas where Digital Britain sees a role for the community you refer to. Firstly, in ‘Getting Britain Online’ Carter talks about the consortium that will deliver Digital Participation – the switchover bit. The thinking’s a tad clunky as it seems to make a comparison to Digital TV switchover but it does focus on how to do ‘targeted outreach’ – that surely is a call to arms to the volunteer community.

Secondly, in discussing new models for regional news he makes explicit reference to the role of community blogging as a new form of newsgathering. Now there’s an opportunity if ever there was one!

The stuff about content producers is talking solely to the business community. The digital test-bed idea from the Technology Strategy Board is an acknowledgement that we still don’t know what works and what doesn’t in terms of making money – therefore let’s set up a space to do some testing. That’s fine but the real action is amongst the social media community using the stuff they know works. Motivating digital participation with tried and tested methods developed through active engagement.

So for me the areas you can write yourself into are Digital Participation and Regional News. In fact that’s what I like about this report – it’s full of spaces that people should be writing their futures into. It’s a call to arms.