New Connections Online Make For New Pathways to New Paradigms

I started this whole web journey from this blog with the intention of doing nothing more than organizing weblinks that I came across on a serial basis. Now that role has evolved into being an activist, OK maybe slacktivist since all of this is still only on the web, regardless I am more linked up than I had ever envisioned. My onlineactivities continue to find synergy between the worlds of Web 2.0 social media technologies and social activism through economic development. When combined together they provide effective tools for change-agents to induce change at a grassroots social level that can then be expanded and linked with other such efforts. During this webtrek, my interests and my connections have linked me with a number of very interesting people across the globe, especially on Facebook.

One such person is Dr. Niki Lambropoulos. She is currently in England but hails from Greece. Her site says that she is an experienced HCI Education e-learning expert, researcher, consultant, HCI designer & researcher, and online communities manager. Her fields of interest include Human-Computer Interaction Education, E-Learning, and Idea Management for Distributed Leadership and User Innovation Networks.

Her specialisation (notice the English spelling, one of the efficiencies of the web is getting others to do the research and writing for you) is in Collective Intelligence theory, design and system development and covers the following fields: collaborative learning, co-creativity and community management in Computer Supported Collaborative eLearning (CSCeL); open innovation and user innovation networks in business strategic development; idea generation and distributed leadership in Project Management; and collective intelligence systems design in Human-Computer Interaction.

If one expected an aloof, computer-oriented egghead they would be very mistaken. She is very approachable online and provides a good deal of useful and interesting information. Where I find it easy to connect is that she collects the same type of links that I do from TED and other sources. She also has a strong interest in innovation. What has fascinated me most in learning about the possiblities of the web is the potential leverage it has in communication and collaboration. Dr. Lambropoulos strikes me as being at the cutting edge of this field.

She gets all of this far better than I do being able to deal with it from a meta-level of analysis. Her work with such efforts as the Special issue of Human Technology: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Humans in ICT Environments: Distributed Leadership & Online Communities for the London South Bank University Centre for Interactive Systems Engineering demonstrates her level of attainment.

One example is her work with Democracy Reloaded a Facebook Group which , an online experiment focused on democracy in Greece, but I believe will have application world wide. She says it is an experiment on Collective Intelligence. The aim is to identify real problems and real solutions by participatory mechanisms. A new platform is going to be released and tested in February 2010.

The difference between our efforts in Democracy Reloaded and other official participatory democracy efforts is that WE ALL produce the ideas and WE ALL make comments/suggestions/corrections.

Democracy Reloaded is a collaborative effort aiming at your immediate participation and involvement at the early stages of governance design even before the decision making. In this way you as a citizen are not reactive but active and proactive in decision making that affects your life. In particular, Democracy Reloaded aims are the following:

• Development of the Greek citizens' potential via the Democracy Reloaded platform to faciliate your direct involvement in decision planning and design.
• Focus on the the real causes of the same problems that constantly appear as news however, with different names occuring in different locations in different times.
• Fill in a gap in contemporary co-governance with the submission and publication of reports that derive from your our articles with your own ideas and comments.

I am waiting with anticipation to find out what she comes up with. I have examined a number of collaborative platforms used by the social development community under my other blog Milestones for a New Millennium but this one interests me because if seems to be a tool for citizen collaboration. If activists are to going to reach a tipping point in bringing about change, they are going to have to go beyond the committed faithful and even the well-meaning slacktivists and engage the general populous. They will need to find means of not only informing them of the issues but also engaging them in the decision process. This might be one tool that could be a help in doing so.

As part of my ever deeper immersion into the Web I am experimenting with Zemanta with this post. Some of the links and the related posts were generated by Zemanta.

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More ideas on Web 2.0 and Changing the World

Now that the Stand Up End Poverty Now! event is over, I am taking another look at the potential impact that the World Wide Web and Web 2.0 tools can have on the world. My latest source is the Fast Company article Can Social Networking Change Our Political Consciousness?

Twitter, Facebook and the many other social networks that have emerged are reminding us exactly how small the planet is, and how seemingly mundane or personal issues (where you live, what you feel) have all kinds of ramifications.

The question of the veracity of this statement has its greatest challenge from Evgeny Morozov. I previously blogged about his Foreign Policy article. This time it is the TED Talk that he gave on the same subject.

TED Fellow and journalist Evgeny Morozov punctures what he calls "iPod liberalism" -- the assumption that tech innovation always promotes freedom, democracy -- with chilling examples of ways the Internet helps oppressive regimes stifle dissent.

This slideshow on How the Net aids dictatorships is also from the TED Talk. First off, everything Morozov says in the talk is in my view could be and often is correct, but I still disagree with his overall argument. In it, Morozov provides his own version of the Maslow hierarchy hierarchy for Internet involvement on slide 21 going from Have Fun, Talk, Share, Learn, and finally at the apex Campaign.

This can also be compared to the Groundswell Web 2.0 usage taxonomy. The difference is that the Morozov hierarchy is basically group-defined and the Groundswell is individual-defined. The top of Morosov's heirarchy is campaign - a group of people working on a common cause. The top of the Groundswell hierarchy is creator - which on the Internet can become collective creation.

Both also have important differences between the Maslow hierarchy in that both, especially Morozov's hierarchy, though he does not make the point, can be re-iterating. Morosov's Campaigners can use the lower levels of Learn, Talk, and Share. Those at the Learner stage have the potential of moving to the Campaigner stage.

Morozov speaks of KGB in the former USSR using torture to find out the means of communication between rebels. Now, Morozov complains that it is made instantaneously apparent on the Web. It is also, however, ubiquitous and there is nobody to torture or everybody to torture. When one person or a few hold to key to an entire organization that organization it is far easier to stop despite romantic ideas of the activist bravely standing up to the secret police. While it is true that dictators will try to find ways to stop dissidents using Web 2.0 tools, this does not mean that they have become ineffective.

A far more effective argument on this issue is made by Clay Shirkey the author of Here Comes Everybody.

Clay Shirky: Social Media vs. the Dictator

Clay Shirky - Clay Shirky is a professor of Interactive Telecommunications Program at the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University, where he teaches courses on the interrelated effects of social and technological network topology.

Full Program

Appealing to the Slacktivists

In the last post of this blog I made a defense of slacktivists in general, though I ended up agreeing with so many points made by Evgeny Morozov that slacktivists will still not be able to hold their own convention. This post will also be in support of slacktivists, but this time as an essential audience for change-agent organizations.

My last post took the perspective of one who fits into the slacktivist demographic, though I believe that the demographic is more diverse than appreciated. This time I am going to consider the issue from organizations that need large numbers to directly support their efforts through activism and funding, or to support larger scale efforts to initiate change through other government and social organizations. The Millennium Development Goals involve both approaches in bringing them to fruition.

There are numerous organizations struggling to meet the challenges of implementing the objectives of each of the Millennium Development Goals. These organizations often involve professionals on-the-ground seeking to increase awareness and derive support from a larger and usually less expert base. There is also an overall effort to get developed countries to meet their promise of fully funding the Millennium Development Goals. The Stand Up and Take Action event is an example.

The first set and the second set of activism are natural allies. For the organizations seeking to implement each of the particular objectives of the Millennium Development Goals, the struggle to push the larger agenda is no doubt important, but I cannot see it as a defining goal. Whether or not a certain number of people stand up on October 16th, those organizations working in Africa to eradicate typhoid or to provide universal education in India will still be at work. However, for those working in the second category for global political change, which is what we are talking about, having the first group of on-the-ground change-agents is not enough to positively influence the fundamental source of change in the leading developed countries, the mainstream voting majority. This majority cannot be defined by political affiliation alone because no one makes up a super majority. It does have one general defining aspect and that is, for the most part, for most of the time, non-activist.

Here again, I agree with Evgeny Morozov.

Of course, the ideal case here is when one's participation in digital activism doesn't subtract from -- and instead enhances -- one's eagerness to participate in real-life campaigns.

Now that gives change-agent organization two tasks. One to make sure the the true-hearted and dedicated activists don't lose heart and become part of the Facebook generation wasting their time on Mafia wars.

However, it's also quite possible that a significant portion of the activist population would be morally content with the "slacktivist" option alone, preferring not to get too close to more dangerous activities that are likely to get them in trouble with authorities.

I seriously doubt that anybody who was was of the meddle to protest would not because the Internet just made it too easy. The harder task is getting the uninvolved masses on board.

What we are dealing with from the perspective of social or change-agent organizations promoting their cause is social marketing, and as with social-entrepreneurship it takes a degree of business acumen.

It was dealing with issues of marketing, communications and networking the helped to lead me to the Millennium Development Goals. In a previous post on the blog I looked into the book GROUNDSWELL by Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff which makes the case that either Your Marketing Is Riding The Wave or Its Under Water.

More importantly for this post it provides taxonomy for Web 2.0 usage on the Internet. This I submit is also the different levels of slacktivists.

1. “creators”, who blog on their own web pages,
2. “critics” who post comments,
3. “joiners” who sign up for online communities,
4. “spectators” who read and watch, and finally
5. the unengaged “inactives”

The general understanding of slacktivisits seems to fit under numbers levels 3 and 4, only a small step above the bottom rung of inactives. I still put online creators and critics as being in the slacktivist pool, realizing fully as I have said that writing a blog does not equate in any way from on-the-ground action of groups like Oxfam UK, ONE, Millennium Promise or other similar organizations. Web 2.0 could hopefully help change-agent organizations recruit the unengaged "inactives" and move each rung of the Web 2.0 ladder up, but it is as likely to be other slacktivists higher up on the rungs.

This may fly in the face of our vision of social activists taking a stand like the revolutionaries in Les Miserables, but the concept of effective political change only coming from sit-ins and the risk of arrest, police brutality, or torture as opposed campaigning in the virtual space is to my mind false for liberal democratic countries. I do not believe that such actions alone will accomplish the Millennium Development Goals.

As I said in my last blog post, demonstrations and sit-ins can force the discussion into the open, but at some point the message needs to be taken up the the majority of voters in the democratic countries to put pressure on their governments to put pressure on other governments. It is the responsibility of organizations such as the Millennium End Poverty 2015 Campaign and anybody else supporting these goals to lead such as effort.

It is our responsibility as individuals participating in causes of our choosing to avoid become political commodities by understanding that you are commodified when you lose the ability to change things.

A Defense of Slacktivism (Not Really)

I linked an article critical of slacktivism by Evgeny Morozov in Foreign Policy to a blog post I did on actions being taken on behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi Support getting thanks but not results. Despite having admitted to being a slacktivist, I wanted to look closer at those parts of the article I agreed with which are critiques of my actions and the actions of the vast majority of us.

Morozov provides the standard definition of "Slacktivism" as, “an apt term to describe feel-good online activism that has zero political or social impact. “

It gives those who participate in "slacktivist" campaigns an illusion of having a meaningful impact on the world without demanding anything more than joining a Facebook group. Remember that online petition that you signed and forwarded to your entire contacts list? That was probably an act of slacktivism

Admittedly this is true for me. A good number of worthwhile online petitions come by email, on which I quite honestly don’t want to spend an inordinate amount of time. I would rather spend that time on causes that I have chosen to put more time - the Millennium Development Goals. So I click and move on.

The main point is “that media attention doesn't always translate into campaign effectiveness” was made by my blog post Aung San Suu Kyi Support getting thanks but not results. The web can be a catalyst, but it can not make a difference in the "real" world on its own.

He offers his own argument for slacktivism as a Straw man through the "long tail" argument.

...the dramatic fall in transaction costs of organizing activist campaigns has simply opened up the field to many more participants and issues, there has been no drop in the actual quality and effectiveness of these campaigns.

I also wonder if "nano-activism" for specific campaigns easily thrown up on the web and send to thousands of people, most previously not involved in activist campaigns, benefit from the increased public attention. There has to be more to these campaigns then how the website is designed.

Morozov goes on to write about "activism for a lazy generation”. Again I cannot argue with this on its face. I don't believe that Morozov means the protestors in Iran using both demonstrations for which many meant arrest, beatings or death and Web 2.0 tools like Twitter, but for campaigns such as the United Nations Millennium Development Goals there will be a point where they need to reach the mainstream masses of the developed countries. The Millennium Development Goals as far as I can determine are not mainstream in the United States.

Morozov challenges the basic slacktivist narrative by asking the question:

are the publicity gains gained through this greater reliance on new media worth the organizational losses that traditional activists entities are likely to suffer, as ordinary people would begin to turn away from conventional (and proven) forms of activism (demonstrations, sit-ins, confrontation with police, strategic litigation, etc) and embrace more "slacktivist" forms, which may be more secure but whose effectiveness is still largely unproven?

The answer to whether the utility of the very public work of 1000 "slacktivists" equals that of the very quiet and often unattributed work of one traditional activist is that it simple does not.

However, this seems to me to be a very unpersuasive argument. How often has demonstrations, sit-ins, confrontation with police, strategic litigation, etc worked without either a democratic system of change through voting or a sufficiently large militia to bring about the change? Vietnam did not end because the demonstrators convinced the government, but because they finally convinced the voters who changed the government. The demonstrators forced open the discussion, main stream then took it up, perhaps with false turns and setbacks but they made the final decision.

The real issue here is whether the mere availability of the "slacktivist" option is likely to push those who in the past might have confronted the regime in person with demonstrations, leaflets, and labor organizing to embrace the Facebook option and join a gazillion online issue groups instead.

However, I disagree with the idea that ordinary people, of which I am a fairly good example, would be out demonstrating and confronting police if not for the Internet. Today, I worry about family, mortgages and my job while trying to participate when I can through online activism and voting. The young have far less problem doing both online and on-street activism.

If this is the case, then the much-touted tools of digital liberation are only driving us further away from the goal of democratization and building global civil society.

The argument fails from my perspective. This blog and Milestones for a New Millennium have found too many resources and too many connections beyond Facebook to give any credence to this argument. Still in the end, Evgeny Morozov makes a number of points we need to think about, and each of us needs to re-examine what they are doing to determine for themselves if they can do more to make a difference and still live their own lives.

Blogging to Save the World from My Laptop

One topic I keep repeatedly going over is why I blog. The basic reason was as a learning tool, which I learned was readily shared with others, which I found I enjoyed doing. My other blog was created in part to apply what I had or was learning to a worthwhile cause.I picked the Millennium Development Goals because I was impressed with the cause and the people who are associated with it. It also provides the maximum potential leverage for my efforts - blogging to Save the World.

Now that brings up the potential of being labeled a slacktivist because my BrianDRPM persona does all of its activism online. The trouble, if you can call it that, is that the more you explore, the more you get drawn in by the good work that is being done by so many others. I do find my conflicted about so many doing good works on-the-ground while I merely provide some minimal support through this blog.

My real life/day job persona does have the potential of doing some good for the community for which I work, but I do think about leaving city government after retirement (which is not that far away) to perhaps work for a nonprofit. Yet I can't help but thinking that Web 2.0 will play a larger role in non-profit activism in the future. Even from that perspective there is still a great deal to learn but fortunately many to learn from.

Those internal conflicts aside, it does seem that Web 2.0 is not only taking a greater role in defining activism, especially global activism, but the this online global activism is redefining or reformulating how we use Web 2.0. So the question seems to be, how do we make Web 2.0 an optimal tool for the causes we wish to support and how do we use it do define our own roles in those efforts?

The efforts of one of my Orkut friends and the person who was essential in putting together the Stand Up and Take Action Against Poverty and for the Millennium Development Goals campaign in India is summarized below.

He is also competing in the India Yahoo UnCannies and has been nominated under the online advertising category.

Stand UP Take ACTION - social media for social change

View more presentations from Rupesh Mandal

I also checked out some of the competition on Alexa.com.

• Adultdost.com has a traffic rank of: 203,381
• Pixtelevision.com has a traffic rank of: 187,730
• Endpoverty2015.org has a traffic rank of: 268,934

Related Posts (from my other blog)

• Web 2.0 and Social Impact from the Ground Up and from the Server Out

• Updating Resources dgCommunities

YouTube From the Self Indulgent to Global Outreach

One of the more popular social media tools on the Internet is YouTube, which started off as means for millions to upload self-indulgent videos of themselves, has now become both an information resource tool and a means of connecting with others on social causes. The challenge for those who would use this resource to connect with others, especially new converts, is gaining the trust of those you would use to help disseminate the videos through social sites such as Face Book or MySpace without having to spend a fortune. The New York Times published two stories that deal with these issues.

BUSINESS / MEDIA & ADVERTISING | January 18, 2009

Ping: At First, Funny Videos. Now, a Reference Tool.

By MIGUEL HELFT

YouTube is rapidly morphing into a popular search engine and a new entry point into the Web.And now YouTube, conceived as a video hosting and sharing site, has become a bona fide search tool. Searches on it in the United States recently edged out those on Yahoo, which had long been the No. 2 search engine, behind Google. (Google, incidentally, owns YouTube.) In November, Americans conducted nearly 2.8 billion searches on YouTube, about 200 million more than on Yahoo, according to comScore.

BUSINESS / MEDIA & ADVERTISING | December 14, 2008

Digital Domain: Advertisers Face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites

By RANDALL STROSS

Web advertising experts see a myriad of difficulties in making brand advertising work on social networking sites.

And when they try to take advantage of new “social advertising,” extending their commercial message to a member’s friends, their ads will be noticed, all right, but not necessarily favorably. Members are understandably reluctant to become shills. IDC, the technology research firm, published a study last month that reported that just 3 percent of Internet users in the United States would willingly let publishers use their friends for advertising. The report described social advertising as “stillborn.”

Change-agent organizations do not have the same goals as companies such as Procter & Gamble. They will face similar issues when attempting to get others to put videos or other social media outlets on their websites.

Youtube, itself, has become more of a social outreach advocate than merely a social gathering site. One example is their work at Davos, the location for the world's latest economic forum.

New Videos from the Davos Question Matthias Lüfkens - The Davos Debates continue... Dan Shapiro joins the Davos Debates Ramazan Salman and Rabbi Soetendorp join the Davos Debates Imam Abu Eesa joins the Davos Debates Ramazan Salman -Social Entrepreneur- joins the Davos Debates Cindy Ehnes joins the Davos Debates Harvard University's Peter Galison joins the Davos Debates S-G of the OECD Angel Gurria joins the Davos Debates Tammy Haddad and Andrea Newman networking at Davos 2009 Ricardo Young Silva joins the Davos Debates Professor Muhammad Yunus responds to the Girl Effect Zurich Financial Services CEO James Schiro joins the Debates Zurich Financial Services CEO James Schiro joins the Debates Jeff Nathenson fails to join the Davos Debates Zurich Financial Services CEO James Schiro joins the Debates Arthur Yap joins the Davos Debates Olivier Piou of Gemalto joins the Davos Debates Social Entrepreneur Fernando Nilo joins the Davos Debates Professor Mohammad Yunus joins the Davos Debates Ann Veneman talks about the Girl Effect at Davos

Advanced Blogging For Business (& fledgling activists) Tips - HubSpot

One of my current interest is exploring how to leverage social media for social causes such as supporting the Millennium Development Goals. Although the target audience of the presentation below is business, the lesson to be learned can still be applied to change-agent organizations.

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Advanced Blogging For Business Tips - HubSpot

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: blog business)

Inform, Engage, and Empower During Your Freetime

One new set of connections created through my Milestones for a New Millennium blog was through becoming one of the moderators for the Orkut group End POVERTY / Fim POBREZA.

I find that Orkut offers more of a conversation regarding relevant topics than does Facebook. It is an international conversation spanning the globe. Lately the direction of the discussions has been on the best means of directing the discussions. The basic format for the discussions is the web itself and more particularly Orkut, but we are open to numerous avenues of communication. The question is which avenues are best for both open dialogue and advancing the cause of the Millennium Development Goals?

A recently learned term is Slacktivists, basically well-meaning but all too often ineffectual (at least until a tipping point is reached) social activists hanging on and together through social media. At the other end of the continuum are professionals (as in "gets paid for it.") in the social media/Web 2.0 arena. Most of us hope to be somewhere in the middle trying to help when and where we can on a part-time and unpaid basis.

Slacktivists may be those who take no more effort than clicking a button to join a petition, but they are still a step above those that don't know and/or don't care. I try to put a good deal of information on my blog to make it easier for others to connect in the hope they will pursue their own pathways. The basic web connection is information through shared self-education. Then comes engagement which does sometimes mean signing online petitions. There is also the potential, as the Obama campaign has demonstrated, for empowerment.

It is not just the IT-intelligentsia's road, it is a journey for all of us. Ethan Zuckerman discusses Technologies and Emerging Democracies: Building a Better Gatekeeper in an MIT video. I agree with both Zuckerman and others in my Orkut conversations that Hi5, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Zuckermans's favorite Reddit among dozens of others offer their own unique impressions regarding their areas of interest, but it also means that the Web is balkanized. Are we "Gatekeepers" or are we attempting to break through the gates?

Is there a way to better leverage the collective wisdom of these international connections being created through these groups? Just trying to keep up with all the information and maintain my two blogs is an effort. Then there is that pesky real world day job. I try to rise above being a slacktivist or at least attempt at being a fairly prolific slactivist. Without the educational background and professional expertise in the Web 2.0 world, how does one best use these online resources to endeavor to connect and make a difference in the world?

I have a good deal of respect for experts in this field, but their professionalism is often related to the medium not the message. The question is how best to connect? One earlier post exploring this idea which I revisited and reedited was Being Human, Working, Writing Stories, Being Human.

Uniting "Small Pages" Discovered on the Journey

My new blog Milestones for a New Millennium continues to grow and find new connections. Depending on how you measure it has now surpassed this blog. Alexa.com has Millennium Milestones at a traffic ranking of 766,539, while this one is at 860,699. Those numbers still put me what has been aptly called "small pages" rank.

I got the idea of "small pages" from Aira of the blog It'll be alright. I had participated in Bloggers Unite For Refugees. Aira helped to organize the majority of the posts under one thread and tied the whole affair together rather nicely in her own post.

It seems a small thing, I know. But the net itself is made of small pages, like mine and like the web pages of the over 10 thousand bloggers part of the Bloggers Unite. Ten thousand stories and thoughts for giving voice to 40 million refugees, for making known an association that help people for real. And to put in practice an expression I read on the Refugees United’s page and – with its simplicity – seemed to me such fundamental: spread the world.

I am not trying for the big numbers any more. It takes me away from what I find enjoyable and educational about this experience. The journey is far more interesting traveling away from the masses, but there are still many who can share in the travel. At the same time, I still want to find ways of getting the ideas that I learn on those web-journeys to a larger audience.

Challenging the next generation (and this one) to get serious - Tech guru Tim O'Reilly again points the way.

Tim O'Reilly is one of the main pillars of this blog's beginning. I am, admittedly, still on the periphery of the techno-world. Before starting this blog, the Firefox browser's bookmark button was about as adventurous as I got in the Web 2.0 world. I was also far more aware of Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, as a former psychology major, than I was of any technological revolutions going on the Internet.

However, when I decided to use the Internet to explore Paradigm Shifts, it was inevitable that Tim O'Reilly's - Open Source Paradigm Shift would be at the top of the pile. O'Reilly's ideas on processes and organizational relationships, though focused on computer technology, still appealed to my organizational psychology perspective. My interest in exploring what Web 2.0 offered in regards to tools for gathering, organizing, communicating and applying knowledge was enhanced. That started a process that led me to create Milestones for a New Millennium.

Now my quest has discovered dozens of different ways to be make positive contributions to the world using the Internet, as well as discovering numerous sources of interesting and educational material. Yet, I am still encouraged when I read today in the Los Angeles Times a story by Los Angeles Times Staff Writer Jessica Guynn that Tech guru Tim O'Reilly challenges next generation to get serious.

SAN FRANCISCO - ; Silicon Valley insiders call it the O'Reilly Radar: Tim O'Reilly's uncanny ability to spot a technology revolution before it happens. But lately the entrepreneur, investor and book publisher has been busier trying to incite the next one.

The entrepreneur, investor and book publisher urges young entrepreneurs and engineers to stop making silly software and start making a real difference in the world.

What I appreciated in the article was Tim O'Reilly's perspective ... that Silicon Valley has strayed from the passion and idealism that fuel innovation to instead follow what he calls the "mad pursuit of the buck with stupider and stupider ideas."

Flush with money and opportunity following the post-dot-com resurgence, he says, some entrepreneurs have cocooned in a "reality bubble," insulated from poverty, disease, global warming and other problems that are gripping the planet. He argues that they should follow the model of some of the world's most successful technology companies, including Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which sprang from their founders' efforts to "work on stuff that matters."

Visit latimes.com

Lessons Learned Lessons Applied

The new blog is still undergoing construction. Actually construction is not right because it is still in the design phase and undergoing is not right because I haven't done anything with it for last few weeks. This post is partially to get back on track.

While this current weblog has provided a number of lessons that can be applied to the new one, there is still the matter of deciding what the new weblog is supposed to accomplish and how to achieve that. One primary lesson being applied is that Milestones for the New Millennium is far more focused than this endeavor which tends to follow its own path of exploration.

The new blog is focused on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and the efforts of others to see those goals accomplished. The eight goals though still provide a wide range of topics to write about. Within each of those goals, is it to 1. End Hunger 2. provide Universal Education 3. ensure Gender Equity 4. ensure Child Health 5. ensure Maternal Health 6. Combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases 7. ensure Environmental Sustainability or 8. create Global Partnerships; there are both milestones to celebrate and millstones to rail against. The efforts of those supporting End Poverty 2015 will be prominently featured.

The concept, though, of overcoming all the world's problems for the thousand years before us is daunting. The notion that we will be successful in pushing the world's governments into meeting their promises by having people stand up is almost naive. It is still, nonetheless, worth supporting.

The Millennium Milestones blog is based on the premise that there has to be other avenues connecting the global perspective of the Millennium Development Goals with the individual activities of organizations and people working at the local level. There is also the "how" as well as the "what". This blog has explored social-entrepreneurship and the efforts of those trying to make the world a better place. There is the expectation that increased awareness will not command compliance from world governments but that their lack of commitment will inspire others to take matters in their own hands. It will be the day-to-day efforts of hundreds working through organizations utilizing new technologies that will lead us to fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals.

Social Networking, Social Fragmenting, Or Social Hand-wringing

My post on Ten Reasons John Mariotti Won't Use Social Media Sites received a comment from Michael S. Copeland who said...

I agree with John's thoughts somewhat. Yes it's good to do things in your local physical market. However, what if I wanted to get in contact with ALL the left handed trout flyfishing anglers? I would get online on places like Facebook or left handed fishermen dot com and find others. The Social Media Landscape isn't a scary place. It's a world of wonder. It should be explored, and used. As far as marketing, it's great to get to know your customers/users on a more personal level.

Truth is that I do as well, at least that component that Michael focuses on, Yes it's good to do things in your local physical market. A post by another social media maven Brand Autopsy does a good job of making the point. Blogger johnmoore from Brand Autopsy on 6/8/08 wrote about a recent editorial in Ad Age regarding JetBlue's current advertising campaign in which Advertising Age recommends NOT ADVERTISING.

JetBlue is missing the point with its recent ad push. What it needs is to get back to what made it a media and consumer darling: customer service and good internal and external communication."

>"Priority No. 1 should be getting back to a place where consumers want to share good stories.

From John: Let's take this a step further. BEFORE any company spends gobs of money on an advertising campaign, it should first spend money on improving the performance of a product/service and on ratcheting up the customer experience.

The questions being raised lately though go beyond just bottom line and cash flow concerns. The larger question being asked is whether social media is an effective tool for change. The Other Side of the Pillow - Official CoolPeopleCare.org Blog asked Social Networking, or Social Fragmenting? back in February. Sam Davidson brings up a number of issues but I am skipping to the conclusion of his article.

As someone who runs a digital property, I'm constantly looking for what all this means for CoolPeopleCare and our mission to enable people to change the world. Yeah – we've got the Facebook fan page, we've got the MySpace profile, we Twitter and we blog. But why do we do all this, especially when we believe in the power of the offline community so much and that change happens best face to face?

Because we have to be where people are. And people now gather online. Even if the ultimate action we're soliciting is one of offline, real world, or analog behavior, the doorway into people's minds is a digital one.So by all means use social media and use it well – but don't expect it to save the world in an instant. Countless individuals are finding that social networks could lead to social fragmenting. Rebecca's found that social networks don't create new leaders. Even if there is a digital doorway, the pathway to change has to still be traversed with two very real feet.

The Rebecca he is referring to is Rebecca Thorman, who's blog post about how social media doesn't create a new generation of leaders was for Sam a prophetic beacon of how all of this online networking may not be getting us as far along as we'd like.

Rebecca's found that social networks don't create new leaders. Sorry, but I don't find this that insightful. We should know this already. Ecological niches do not create new species, but they do create the environment in which they can arise.

Another source of evidence, I would argue against proof, is Wired Magazine, in which Tim Harford explains why new technological tools, which intend to eliminate the importance of geography when it comes to collaboration, actually do just the opposite.

Business is more innovative, and its processes more complex. That demands tacit knowledge, collaboration, and trust – all things that seem to follow best from person-to-person meetings.

While fully agreeing that we are still most comfortable in establishing a relationship on trust if we can meet people in person, this does not really speak in oppostion to social media. There are a number of psychological and cognitive-neurological reasons for this bias, which have been touched on before and will be again. But, just as E-bay established greater online trust for the web transaction, so will greater degrees of trust occur through Social Media sites (and degrees of wisdom from too much trust).

I have a more basic philosophical beef with Hardford's approach, which is more to do with his often quoted argument that if you (I am paraphrasing here) have a choice whether to study the issues of an election or a new stereo then read up on woofers because your making a difference is so slight in the election. Actually my argument is more with the traditional Homo economicus argument. Not only in that there is a non-rational component to what we do as individuals, but when we interact as a collective or group it changes the paradigms. There is a Malcolm Gladwell-like Tipping Point, where if enough people follow Mr. Hardford's advice the system breaks down.

Yes, this is unlikely to happen, but the same principles that prevent this also serve the integrity of the social media systems. This raises questions on the "Popular" Theory Of Group and Individual Interaction. Social Media allows Howard Rheingold to speak on Collaboration Moving Masses Through Compassion and provide an avenue for Kevin Kelly's endeavors - The Universe Is Conspiring to Help Us Or At Least Kevin Kelly Is. I am suspicious of using old paradigms to judge new paradigms.

There are a number of other points that Sam makes that should be addressed, but I am going to leave those for another time. I will also admit taking advantage by changing the order of Sam's argument, but one of the best arguments against the hand-wringing regarding social media sites is Sam's own CoolPeopleCare.

So perhaps all of this worrying about technological innovation not taking us as far as we think or as fast as we would like is not all that useful. Maybe it's just a better way to play Scrabble or better yet the Free Rice Game. Not as social, but at least you will be doing some good while improving your vocabulary and you will get better at Scrabble.

I will finish off by fully agreeing that Even if there is a digital doorway, the pathway to change has to still be traversed with two very real feet.

SRDS Worthwhile Lessons For Wanna Be Change Agents

The primary paradigm shift being faced personally is changing from a career in city level economic development to a post-career life in the next 5 to 10 years. While this weblog could keep me pretty busy during my additional free time it is also designed to explore alternative pathways. One potential pathway is to become involved in a philanthropic or non-profit organization working in social-entrepreneurship.

This weblog has provided a great deal of information and insight into the variety and expanse of what I have started calling change-agent organizations that are available. It has also let me study how they use the Internet and web 2.0 tools in carrying out their various missions.

So I was especially pleased to find a site which provided an excellent example of what could be done on the web, the Seafield Research and Development Services or SRDS. I have introduced its creator George Clark before in Social Tagging For The Not So Social.

The mission of SRDS is according to the site:

Goal	to support the proliferation and enhance the quality of the training required to develop global Civil Society
Purpose	to provide consultancy, research, training and material productions services for Human Resource Development - with a focus on the training of trainers

What impresses me about the site is that it leverages a well done solitary effort with numerous other collaborative efforts that span the globe. It is not, however, based only on Internet bells and whistles. George Clark brings years of academic and in the field experience to the endeavor. He also brings an insight as to the importance of writing and organization that I find admirable. I get the idea that George does most of the off-line and online documentation, as well as the website creation. What I find so admirable is the number and range of activities SRDS interacts with. The Internet often contains worthwhile efforts by local organizations that could be replicated and scaled in different parts of the globe.

The work I find most engaging is that done with the The Caledonia Centre for Social Development. Perhaps some of it looks a bit dated (or that's me telling my Grandmother how to suck eggs), but the format allows me to study the organizational structure. What is apparent is that there is structural depth to the programs based on a deeper understanding of economic development, human resource training and organizational structure issues. Most other websites are too slick to provide this level of insight because they are in truth marketing to an audience.

One strong impression that I come away with is that there are numerous change-agent organizations working in the UK and Europe and that they are far better networked together than their counterparts on this side of the globe. Following the Caledonia links and the del.icio.us links of EUFORIC links provides me an expansive education on economic development from a variety of different perspectives.

100 Million For The Millenium Goals

I have written before that I would stop mixing content regarding the various subjects I blog about with updates about the ongoing activities of this blog. This post demonstrates that does not work. It is this blog that connects me in an every widening and deepening manner with others across the globe.

Fellow Blogspot Blogger Aditi (who unfortunately does not have a Blogger profile) left a comment on my post "Best Intentions Unintended Consequences" which I did back in December of last year. A quick check of Google got me to Wikipedia where I learned that Aditi is an Indian Goddess.

I truly agree with consciousness awakening part of the post.!
People rating poverty as poor from their hearts is the first step towards any revolution to be taking place..

The Millennium Development goals of the UN..works this principle..!
They wants people to think..question themselves and then come forward to their bit in the cause..!
It has being doing enormous efforts on these lines….
This year UN will be shifting its focus on India, with Stand Up and Take action event and getting many hands together to fulfill the 8 goals…
Be updated….with the latest happeningss..
http://www.orkut.co.in/Community.aspx?cmm=47234928

I was interested to find out who was reaching out 6 months after I wrote the post and why beyond what was written. Feedburner told me that I had a visitor from Bombay, India. Feedburner also let me know that somebody searched for "child health end poverty" on Google. My blog was nowhere to be found that I could discover but the top choice from Google was Child Health End Poverty 2015. Hittail let me know that Aditi likely found me through Google Blog Search.

I was still interested in finding out who it was that was reaching out so I followed the link and ended up joining Orkut. The link took me to the Orkut group for End POVERTY by 2015 United Nations Millennium Campaign Stand UP Take ACTION 17-19 Oct 2008.

The group has 1,415 members, the majority seem to be from India. I joined the group to help take a small step in their goal to cross the 100 Million mark this time. I figured that if they were nice enough to reach out to me I should do the same.

I might be overstepping some bounds but I decided to take what follows straight from their site.

Be the first generation to end poverty by 2015 with the United Nations' Eight Goal Millennium Campaign. 1. End Hunger 2. Universal Education 3. Gender Equity 4. Child Health 5. Maternal Health 6. Combat HIV/AIDS 7. Environmental Sustainability 8. Global Partnership In 2007, Over 43.7 million people, in 127 countries broke the Guinness World Record for the largest number of people to “STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY” in 24 hours http://www.standagainstpoverty.org/ www.endpoverty2015.org SMS JOIN ENDPOVERTY2015 to 567673434 for mobile updates. language: English (US) category: Activities owner: EndPoverty2015 Millenium Campaign moderators: Akhil Ramaswamy, Ayesha, Charly type: public content privacy: members only forum: non-anonymous location: Mumbai, Maharashtra, 40005, India created: March 25, 2008 4:12 AM members: 1,415

It is still worthwhile to join Orkut as there are other resources available at the site. There may be similar groups from other countries. There is a similar group on Facebook. This is what is so amazing about the Internet and Web 2.o. Even though this weblog does not reach millions it does reach people around the world. Somebody from Pakistan or Thailand may read this and also take part. They in turn can be read by somebody in Germany or Argentina. Like the video below, this can go around the world.

Make this video go around the world

Listen to this 12 year old girl in her speech to the United Nations. It's going about..........you and your world. Listen and please act !
Added: Jun 14(6 days ago)
Duration: 06:42

Social Tagging For The Not So Social

It is not that I really like ideas better than people, it just that I like people with ideas better than people with no ideas. It seems easier collecting the ideas and then finding the people than the other way around. The Web has an abundance of people with ideas. The favorites of this weblog and many others are provided in the left hand column. There are many more to be found through Google Reader and other web 2.o tools. Organizations such as TED and MIT are filled with people with ideas.

What is especially cool is that sometimes people with ideas will coming looking for you. One of the components of this ongoing blogging experiment is learning social tagging systems. Right now three are being used, del.icio.us , diigo and StumbleUpon. I have been fortunate enough to get connected through social tagging with smart people who are very good at having ideas. Now as a matter of mostly my personality, the connections are more through the tags rather than the social. What we are talking about is folksonomy or what seems to me to be crowd-semantics. Once somebody networks with this weblog, all their tags and the links and ideas represented by those tags are available for exploration.

The result has been literally global in nature. The weblog networks with people in Scotland, Finland, Russia, Italy, Nigeria, Denmark as well as the United States (not to mention the European Union). My horizons are being expanded in other ways as well.

One particularly notable connection and the most recent is with George Clark of Portsoy, Banff, United Kingdom.

George responded to an e-mail I sent him with a kindly worded response.

Thanks for getting in touch. I was impressed (overwhelmed even) with the amount of good stuff you have pulled together on your blog. I reckon I will learn much more from you than you will from me.

The truth is that George is way beyond me. I just gather links like picking fruit off of the ground. George has worked on creating some impressive social activist sites and networked them with a good number of organizations working for social causes. I have stumbled one of them so far Caledonia Centre for Social Development. He has also been instrumental in the creation of the Seafield Research and Development Services site and Let it begin with me. He also blogs at existential soft rock at which his current post is particularly noteworthy.

George strikes me as a one-man EUFORIC. Now I am not sure how he will like the comparison and it is pretty safe that he will take issue with the one-man designation, but through George's links and the others connected to through this weblog, I have been learning that the world is far more faceted than we usually appreciate in the United States.

Why be Optimistic? Why Not!

Why be optimistic? Larry Brilliant at Skoll World Forum, on TED.com via TED | TEDBlog by on 11/26/07

As was said in the last post much of the information on the web is repeated but that is in part because many of the individuals providing the new information have multiple venues, for example Larry Brilliant. This is worth repeating as this brings up the concepts of innovation and even more importantly optimism.

Recorded at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, Oxford, UK: 2006 TED Prize winner and Google.org director Larry Brilliant uses a clip from an old Frank Capra movie to show that we've known about global warming for 50 years -- yet in half a century, we've done almost nothing to solve it. He explores this and other megatrends that could inspire pessimism. But, he says, there is a more powerful case for optimism. (Recorded March 2007 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 21:01.)

The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford, UK, is an annual gathering of innovators from all over the world who are creating positive change across critical issue areas.

If this doesn't load use one of the links above to get to the TED site.

Reconnecting to MIT Low Technologies High Aims

There are a few past posts that I did not give the full attention that I wanted to at the time I placed them. One of those was MIT Low Technologies High Aims back in October. One goal of this weblog is to make meaningful connections from different sources. MIT continues to be a source of information and nspiration for this Weblog. The New York Times article cites Amy Smith, a lecturer at M.I.T, as the primary brainchild of the International Development Design Summit and a MacArthur winner. The article also feature the D-lab nicknamed “Amy’s World” "In homage to Ms. Smith’s passion for attacking poverty from the ground up".

“Nearly 90 percent of research and development dollars are spent on creating technologies that serve the wealthiest 10 percent of the world’s population,” Ms. Smith said. “The point of the design revolution is to switch that.”

The article also features Dr. Polak, who has become something of a guru to the design revolution movement, and Mr. Brandis who now helps run the Full Belly Project, which develops machines to simplify village work.

“What you try to do in virtually every situation is make their lives more efficient,” Mr. Brandis said. “That’s what the big revolution in America was between 1860 and 1960 — that a person doing a day’s work can produce a lot more product. And that means time is more valuable and that means he has more time to do other things.”

This weblog has also featured other MacArthur winners with an interest in design.

Below is a video of Amy Smith lecturing at TED.


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More from Pop!Tech

This looks far more interesting and uplifting than some of the other things I have been dealing with lately - POP!TECH. Fast Company has had a number of articles on the conference.

Live from Pop!Tech: My Kind of Dinner Party
Live from Pop!Tech: Thursday's closing thought
Live from Pop!Tech: The Art of Giving Consumerism Stats Emotional Punch
Live from Pop!Tech: Friday's Closing Thought
Live from Pop!Tech: Losing Books from the Library of Life
Live from Pop!Tech: Questioning Our Slow Instincts and Speed Limits
Live from Pop!Tech: Today's Social Capitalist Assignment

In the meantime TED is blogging on the PopMech Awards

Saving the World Next Door

This weblog continues to evolve. The last few posts have dealt with social entrepreneurship and philanthropy. These have now been made part of the permanent structure of this weblog under Pearls of Paradigm Processing Shifting to a Better World.

MicroFinance Program Kiva

Adam Smith blog writes about a new program that allows people to make direct micro-finance loans. The program is called Kiva. From their website:

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.

Why participate in such a project? Tom Clougherty at Adam Smith explains it this way:

The great thing about micro-finance is that it is based on the philosophy of the hand-up rather than the handout. As I wrote for the GI: "Micro-finance is not a top-down solution to poverty, it is a bottom-up approach that aims to empower the poor, harnessing their individual aspirations and abilities and creating an environment in which they can realize the true benefits of the market economy." That's why micro-finance has been so successful where traditional aid has failed to make an impact.