Connected Giving Ordinary People Coordinating Disaster Relief on the Internet.pdfVIP

Connected Giving: Ordinary People Coordinating Disaster Relief on the Internet Cristen Torrey, Moira Burke, Matthew Lee, Anind Dey, Susan Fussell, Sara Kiesler Human Comput er Interaction Institute Carnegie Mellon University {ctorrey, moira.burke, matthew.lee, anind, sf ussell, kiesler} @ Abstract to donate (such as clothing, tools, or diapers) to connect with people in the disaster area [11]. Donors saw their The Internet is widely valued f or distributing control distributed efforts as an appropriate complement to the over inf ormation to a lateral network of individuals, but distributed needs of those affected by the disaster . They it is not clear how these networks can most eff ectively saw gap s left by large, institutionalized organizations organize themselves. This p ap er describes the that could be filled by a peer-to-peer approach. distributed networks of volunteers that emerged online Individuals with no training in disaster relief found one f ollowing Hurricane Katrina. Online communities another through online communities and organized the resp onded to the disaster by f acilitating the distribution distribution of an ad hoc collection of resources. People of donated goods f rom ordinary p eop le directly to appropriated the technologies that were available to hurricane survivors. These “connected giving ” group s them—forums, bulletin boards, blogs, and personal f aced several challeng es: establishing authority within websites—to coordinate a massive grassroots response the group , p roviding