Slacktivism, the Gateway to Change?
Two points of Slacktivism: 1) organizations create and endorse the level to which people take action 2) “slacker activism” is a gateway to lasting change.
Tag: Social Media
Innovations in online social networks that solve global problems
Are we addicted to Slacktivism?
Do we need slacktivism to justify fun behavior online? Are we so accustomed to easy-to-accomplish campaigns that we assume every “call to action” is/needs to be associated with a cause?
Machine Politics
Thanks to the convergence of crowdsourcing, social media and social networks, the world is becoming a more responsive place. While we're still experiencing the adolescence of social media, the information systems we're building are starting to get better at taking input from crowds of people and using it to help us mine the data glut for what we, as individuals, are most likely to want or to need.
Case in point: Google's new Instinct program and Pandora. "I can now program my inbox with Instinct or take Pandora's Thumbs feature and tell it I dislike a song and it can respond by giving me a better one," MIT Media Lab's Riley Crane said at last week's PopTech2010 conference in Maine.
The great irony, of course, is that despite these systems' abilities to be more responsive, none of them can yet solve big social problems that require large-scale collaboration or coordination over time... (continue reading this blog post)
Ethically Challenged?
There's been a lot said in the past year about Slacktivism—that portmanteau of the words "slacker" and "activism" that has become a derogatory term for click-and-give philanthropy. But now, a new MacArthur-funded study says many young people, when online, simply don't act very morally or ethically and need to be mentored by the social good community to play more generously (and civically) with others.
"While social media offer youth new powers, (young people) need to learn to use those powers more responsibly for good," Carrie James, the research director and principal investigator at... (continue reading this blog post)
Be Human: Temporary versus Permanent Networks
Lately, I've been thinking about the topic of cross-platform community building. I've written about it, submitted a session proposal with colleague Debra Askanase to the 2011 NTC, and recently had the opportunity to start a conversation on the topic of engaging your community across platforms in a GroupVine message (more information about my use of the tool at the bottom of this post). One idea that has emerged for me while exploring the topic is that of... (continue reading this blog post)
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Am I a (4) Square?
I’m a big fan of social media but I have to admit: I’m having a hard time getting into the habit of updating my whereabouts. Part of it is that my life just isn’t all that exciting: if there were a badge for Yet Another Before-Dawn Hour Spent Writing A Book or a badge for Marathon Blogging or Watching Rubicon, I would have long ago been anointed somebody’s Mayor—somewhere. At least once. Dan Fletcher, writing in TIME recently, quipped that the idea of updating his whereabouts “is a bit too much like having a pint-size version of my mother in my pocket, constantly prodding me for updates.” Indeed, it’s kind of like that Twitteleh video that made the rounds last year spoofing Twitter, where the Jewish mother uses tweets to prod her son with endless queries asking... (continue reading this blog post)
Nonprofit Institute Haiku Contest
We had fun with our Nonprofit Management Institute page last week where we solicited haikus about nonprofits. The poems posted ranged from symbolic to quirky and we found ourselves checking back frequently to see what new people were writing.
Realizing that we are neither haiku poets nor literary professionals, the task of choosing just five to feature became too difficult. So below, we have listed one from every Facebook user who posted to our page... (continue reading this blog post)
Community Building in a Big Backyard
Last year I used the metaphor of "gardening vs landscaping" to outline some of the key attributes I believe make for successful community building, on or offline. The basic idea:
The Gardener creates an ecosystem open to change, available to new groups, and full of fresh opportunities to emerge naturally. The approach is focused on organic collaboration and growth for the entire community. The gardener is simply there to help, cultivate, and clear the weeds if/when they poke up.
The Landscaper creates an ecosystem that matches a preconceived design or pattern. The approach is focused on executing a preconceived environment... (continue reading this blog post)
Net Impact vs. The Hub: Do Game Mechanics Work for Voluntarism?
Are you sad that the World Cup is over?
Well, last Friday, July 22nd the SF professional chapter of Net Impact and the Bay Area chapter of the HUB “kicked” off a very different type of competition to see which one of these social entrepreneur networks does the most good.
It’s the first competition of its sort in which members ‘check-in’ their good deeds online and get awarded points. At the end of a month... (continue reading this blog post)
Why We Love Social Media
A recent Fast Company article examines research by neuroeconomist Paul Zak that suggests social networking triggers the release of the generosity-trust chemical in our brains: oxytocin. Zak’s research combines economics with biology, neuroscience, and psychology as well as the relationship between empathy and generosity. Adam Penenberg, the author of the article, set out to investigate whether Zak’s research on oxytocin could be applied to social media.
More specifically, he wondered... (continue reading this blog post)
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