My last few posts used slacktivism to make a point about online activism, but the lesson that I have taken from my blogging and wanted to pass on to others is that Web 2.0 tools can be used to tell the story of a cause not just the facts. The story of a cause goes to the heart or the meaning of a cause and why someone should join, not merely the facts of the issue.
The World Wide Web may have started transmitting only data, but it has evolved into something more and is continuing to evolve.
Change-agent organizations need to understand and adapt these new means of connection, communication and collaboration. It is a balance between pulling on people's feelings and getting them to be part of some larger cause and providing the facts so that they can make up their own minds and find new means of working together.
Mining the Web for Feelings, Not Facts
The universe of reviews, ratings and recommendations online open a tantalizing window on the collective consciousness.
“Social media used to be this cute project for 25-year-old consultants,” said Margaret Francis, vice president for product at Scout Labs in San Francisco. Now, she said, top executives “are recognizing it as an incredibly rich vein of market intelligence.”
Here are two TED Talks featuring Clay Shirky, who in the first TED Talk looks at how the end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics, Iranian protestors streaming news to the world, showing how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news by bypassing censors (if all too briefly).
The second TED Talk examines how the Internet and Web 2.0 can enhance collaboration.
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