Recent Updates Page 3 RSS Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • amysampleward 6:05 am on August 24, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Challenges, , Competitions, Innovation, , SXSW Interactive,   

    Vote for 4Change at SXSW 

    Vote Here!

    Vote here!

    The #4Change crew threw in an idea to the SXSW Interactive conference for next year and we are excited to make it happen, will you help us?!

    VOTE HERE

    or read on to learn more….

    Our Panel Idea

    “Competition > Innovation > Change: Examining Competitions For Social Change”

    Organizations, foundations, even individuals are creating social innovation competitions, hoping to drive social change projects and solutions into the global marketplace.  What are these new competitions about—are they working? How do we—innovators, entrepreneurs—know what’s going to make real-world impact and where do we start? Let’s discuss: join us!

    Here are some of the questions we hope to answer (or at least ask!) in the presentation:

    1. What are social innovation challenges?
    2. Why are challenges important? What need do they serve?
    3. What are the different types of competitions and which work best in driving change?
    4. How can challenges/competitions be used to discover, support, and accelerate social change projects and solutions?
    5. Do social innovation competitions spur real world impact?
    6. Does the success of competitions rely on the judges or the prize money?
    7. What’s required to create competitions that will generate real innovations?
    8. How can challenges support collaboration between projects?
    9. How can communities or groups start their own challenges to solve local issues?
    10. What’s the future of how we use challenges to drive social change?

    How to Vote

    Visit SXSW’s PanelPicker page here and give us a thumbs up!

    Voting will open on August 17th and close on September 4th – so be sure to vote today!

    About SXSW Interactive

    “SXSW Interactive features five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer. Join us March 2010 for the panels, the parties, the 13th Annual Web Awards, the ScreenBurn at SXSW Arcade, the Film and Interactive Trade Show and Exhibition, Accelerator at SXSW and, of course, the inspirational experience that only SXSW can deliver.”

    About the #4Change Team Presenters

    The panel is comprised of the #4Change team, a group of individuals collaborating to propel the social media for social change conversation forward via monthly Twitter-based chats.  Competitions for change is an important topic to the #4Change community and a Compendium of Competitions has started growing. More at http://4change.memeshift.com

    Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
     

  • tomjd 1:23 am on August 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    #4change chat August: Collaboration and Social Media 

    This is cross-posted from Tom’s personal blog:

    Thank you to @lethalsheethal for her excellent and vastly more timely reflection on the chat. Having just discovered it I’d like to recommend http://www.printyourtwitter.com as creating by far the most digestible (and printable, naturally) twitter transcript (ht @writerpollock).

    The topic of the most recent #4change chat was “How does social media open new doors for collaboration?” It was a vibrant and thought-provoking conversation, in my opinion the best #4change chat we’ve had so far.

    There is no question that social media has created enormous new collaborative possibilities. Some of these are in the sharing of data, such as the Social Entrepreneurship API being developed by Social Actions and the merging of the North American green business databases of Gen Green (@gengreen) and 3rd Whale (@3rdwhale), which was announced at the start of the chat. This was interesting and welcome news, but business alliances of this type are not uncommon. What, we wondered, where the unique collaborative capacities of social media?

    @engagejoe summed up some of these possibilities as “exposing overlap, sharing resources, connecting communities, forging partnerships.” These things are not unique to social media but they are native to it – social media makes overlap and waste more transparent, speeds up information sharing and relationship-building and can increase the impact of collaborations. Messages can be shared between communities and networks both real-time and ad-hoc. And as #4change itself demonstrates conversations can be convened that were never possible before.

    But how much of this is happening? And if these possibilities are not being realized what are the barriers standing in the way?

    The conversation part seems easiest. It is, by definition, what social media facilitates. Making this conversations intentional, productive and constructive is harder, but we still see examples of this all around us, on forums and wiki’s, blogs and microblogs, communities closed and open. These conversations can create new insights, understanding and relationships. And these conversations can lead to concrete action, from protests to petitions, fundraising to collaborative databases.

    There was a real skepticism felt by some in the conversation about whether real work was being done online. This, of course, depends on what real work is to you, but most would agree that hearts and minds are a key part of most forms of social change and so anything that brings us into contact with each other in new ways has the ability to move us in new ways. As Michael Wesch said in his presentation at Personal Democracy Forum this year, “We know ourselves through our relationships with others. New media is creating new ways to relate.”

    But to really scale-up the collaborative possibilities of social media we need to empower and lead our organizations to work together in new ways. As @ChristinasWorld said: “if we could get orgs and passionate people to start working together at a sector/issue level things will start to get exciting.” One key challenge to doing this, as @edwardharran pointed out, is that “social media is pocketed in silos.” While we might wish that this wasn’t the case it is simply a fact of human existence that we build groups at all sizes, but that our closest communities are smaller and more digestible, whether on or offline (although the scale of what’s digestible varies widely between these two states). With these distributed, frustratingly uncoordinated conversations also comes enormous space for innovation and creative thinking. However better search, aggregation and distribution is needed to reveal these conversations to each other in ways that support collaboration. We can see steps in this direction with WiserEarth groups showing related groups and Zanby which allows groups to connect while retaining their independence.

    A schema began to emerge from the conversation which identified three distinct types of collaboration:

    1. organization-to-organization

    2. organization-to-individuals

    3. individuals-to-individuals.

    Again and again the majority of the examples brought up where the later two. For 2. you have organizations like the Sunlight Foundation who are harnessing the contributions of hundreds of coders to create their transparency tools and OneYoungWorld who are using social media to find 1500 leaders of tomorrow. You also have new tools which facilitate this form of collaboration in exciting new ways like The Extraordinaries. For 3. there are grassroots political fundraising campaigns and the entire open source movement.

    (4. was also later suggested by @engagejoe: people-within-organizations. Any more?)

    For 1. there is the previously-cited Social Actions-style data aggregation and sharing and some great examples of organizations collaborating around a social media-enabled campaign, such as the just-launched climate change campaign tcktcktck (@tcktcktc) but there was a clear feeling that much of this landscape remains to be filled out.

    In discussing the barriers to better social media collaboration between non-profits people nominated time intensity vs staffing resources, fear, lack of connectivity in many parts of the world, desire to tightly control their message, geography and time zones and lack of skills as prime candidates. The need for clear strategy so as to not waste precious staff resources was also mentioned, along with the observation that many non-profits do not have the knowledge or experience to develop this strategy.

    To close people were asked for their key takeaways from the conversation:

    • “There is a desire to evolve toward more collaborative outputs; SM [social media] may not be enough to get there” – @ChristinasWorld
    • “It’s given me ideas about the barriers NP [non-profits] face with SM” – @chilli07
    • “I think #4change in itself is a great example of international collaboration” – @tashjudd
    • “Main takeaway: a sense of optimism. SM is not going anywhere and collaboration is only going to continue to get bigger and better” – @edwardharran
    • “SM can be chaotic but still work” – @zerostrategist
    • “I now see more kinds of collaboration: people-within-org, org-to-community, community-to-community, org-to-org” – @engagejoe

    And if I could be so bold as to end on my own takeaway:

    • “We must learn to collaborate as individuals first, then teach our organizations how.”

    ————————————————————————————-

    Please let us know what topics you’d like to cover in future chats!

     

    • @LethalSheethal 10:37 am on August 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Timely is good but thorough is better! Great write-up @tomjd. Lots of inspiring thoughts. Looking forward to the next one!

    • Lethal Sheethal 4:37 pm on August 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Timely is good but thorough is better! Great write-up @tomjd. Lots of inspiring thoughts. Looking forward to the next one!

  • amysampleward 6:43 am on August 10, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Amnesty International, , , International, , , ,   

    August #4Change Chat: Opportunities for Collaboration 

    The next #4change chat is this Thursday – I hope you can join us!

    Details:

    Starting the Conversations

    Unfortunately for me, I will unable to join the chat this Thursday; so, I’d like to offer some conversation starters now to get you thinking of questions, ideas, and stories you want to share!

    Here are some questions to consider:

    • has your organization found new collaborators (other organizations, companies, networks, etc.) for your work via social media use/presence?
    • have you reached out, either as an individual or an organization, with opportunities to collaborate to others you only connected with via social media? why?
    • what issues are unique to collaborations of this type?
    • what kind of reassurances (and what are the mechanisms for providing them) are unique to parties entering collaborations via social media?
    • how could collaborations enabled or maintained via social media be more or less sustainable than traditional tools/outlets?

    And here are some examples to consider:

    • SocialActions – a great example of social media powering the sharing and aggregation (and thus the collaboration and partnership) of social action opportunity portals all over the world
    • Amnesty International, Red Cross, and others – organizers working globally/locally have changed the way they campaign or operate now that they are really in the same space (online)
    • Journalism – writers are now using their social media platforms (whether it’s Twitter or Facebook, or even the newspaper’s comment-enabled websites) to collaborate with witnesses, locals, and experts for their contributions to the story

    Join the Conversation

    1. If you want to contribute to the conversation, you’ll need to have a twitter account (it’s free).
    2. To follow the conversation (whether you are planning to contribute or not), use http://search.twitter.com or another application to search on Twitter for “#4Change”
    3. Jump in to the conversation by adding “#4Change” (without the “”) to your Twitter message

    Rules for #Change Chats

    1. #4Change will be structured around a series of questions which all participants can respond to. Send your questions to @tomjd without the hash tag (to keep them out of the stream) to have them considered.
    2. Introduce yourself in 1 tweet at the start or when you join.
    3. Stay on topic!
    4. Stay cool.

    Join us for the chat this Thursday – looking forward to discussing the role social media play in collaboration!

    Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
     

  • Natasha 8:57 am on July 26, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    Revolutionary social media 

    “The revolution will not be televised – it will be emailed, texted, blogged, wikied…”

    So says the blurb of Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody: How change happens when people come together.   But, earlier this month, the #4change crew discovered first hand the limitations of social media.  At the first of our ‘Revolutionary Social Media’ chats, the Twitter search was experiencing major delays and people disappeared from altogether, and as a result, we decided to end the conversation early.  Amy’s fantastic post covers the ‘lessons learned in using twitter for a global conversation’.  Here, I’m going to pick up the baton and provide an overview of the discussion which resumed on July 23.

    Looking back through the twitter stream, some of the issues raised included:

    • Lessons learned from the Iran election, from the icon changing, the State Department and Twitter maintenance, whether awareness-raising should been seen as a success only if it motivates action or whether it’s an end-goal in itself.

    1: Create unrealistic expectations for Twtr hashtag 2: Declare #iranelection revolution 3: Democracy unrealized, proclaim social change dead

    @rootwork 4:46 AM Jul 9th http://twitter.com/rootwork/status/2548985606

    • The changing role of television and other traditional media sources from breaking the news to explaining it.
    • Social media may not be the way to coordinate protests or revolutionary activity, due to the public nature of posting.  Social networks, email, mobile, etc are a more private way to coordinate activity.
    • Different situations require different levels of anonymity.

    Anonymity depends on who you are. If you are a protester in China – anonymity is important.

    If you are trying to be a thought leader in the western world, I don’t think anonymity is the right way to go.

    @Sue_Anne Jul 23, 2009 10:06 PM GMT

    • How social media and Web 2.0 tools can be used to keep governments accountable.  mySociety’s They Work For You cited as an example.  Benefits in governments – like any brand – keeping an eye on what’s been said about them in social media.
    • Whether social media tools, such as Twitter, are inherently politically neutral and as such, whether they should bend to a particular government’s needs.

    I’ve gone through the stream and saved all the links which were referenced in the discussions, on delicious as well.

    It was a really interesting chat, and for me personally, a huge learning opportunity.  Many thanks to everyone who took part.  Feel free to add things I’ve missed, your own take-aways or thoughts on the topic below.  Let’s keep the conversation going.

     

  • amysampleward 3:09 am on July 16, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Global Community, Hashtags, Lessons Learned, ,   

    Lessons Learned: Using Twitter for a Global Conversation 

    Over the last few months, we have seen Twitter serve the global community by playing an important role in communications – whether it’s finding new friends (#FollowFriday), or telling the world about your government/election/political state (#IranElection), whether it’s having a conversation together (#4Change), or non-linearly replacing your RSS feed.  What do those # mean? That’s part of the key to success when using Twitter for a Global conversation. Using hashtags lets you mark your message as pertaining to a certain topic, then automatically include that message in a stream with everyone else’s that include the same hashtag.  Using Twitter search or other tools, you can watch news and updates about the election in Iran by using #IranElection; or, find interesting people to follow and connect with using #FollowFriday to peruse the recommendations that pile up on Fridays.

    There are many opportunities to see hashtags in action!  There are also more and more opportunities emerging for people to coordinate global conversations that happen at the same time, instead of disconnected over time (still tied together via hashtag).  I am part of the planning team working on the monthly chat series behind #4Change.  There is also a Twitter-based chat starting up for consultants who work with social benefit organizations.

    I wanted to share some of the lessons I’ve learned from my involvement with organizing Twitter chats.  I’m looking forward to your ideas, too!

    1. Build a landing pad

    It is helpful to have some place where you can send people interested in your topic or chat that haven’t participated before – whether it’s a website, a blog, or just a separate Twitter account.  If you have a landing pad somewhere online where you can refer people and provide information about your chats, your group, or your purpose in more than 140 characters, it will save you a lot of extra tweeting!  Plus, it will provide a natural and obviously place to aggregate your content, thoughts, updates, and promotion of the chats.

    2. Brainstorm lots of questions but pick a few

    It seems obvious that people using a communication tool like Twitter, and then electing to participate in a large-scale public chat would not require much prodding to keep conversation going.  But, it is actually just this reason that it’s more important to pre-select your questions.  Twitter chats are slower moving than you’d expect because everyone is waiting on the Twitter search to refresh with new posts.  It works best to have 3-5 questions selected ahead of time and shared with a core group of chat leaders or guides.  This way, there is a group of people helping keep the conversation on track, focused on one question at a time.  Otherwise, the group can quickly and easily splinter off to other topics using other hashtags, after all, that’s what Twitter enables all day, every day.

    3. Consider your time

    If you really want to pull in participants from all over the world, it’s important to consider what time you are holding the chat.  It’s also important to consider how long you want the chat to be.  Knowing that Twitter based chats are slower in development and pace than something like a live web chat, you don’t want it to be too narrow of a window, but you can only hold people’s attention for so long as well.

    4. Narrow your focus

    #4Change or #NPCons (nonprofit consultants) seem like pretty obvious topics. But coordinating a conversation would be far too difficult without a specific topic for that chat because the possibilities for questions or specific ideas within those two general topics are endless.  For example, recent 4Change topics have included using competitions for social change and Twitter as a political/revolutionary tool.  This also means people can identify ahead of time any resources they want to share during the chat and if they are interested in the specific topic of the month or not.

    5. Invite your audience

    If you have your topic for the month picked out, you may have some experts, prominent thinkers, or maybe organizations/companies/ groups that are known for working in or with that topic that you want to explicitly invite to participate.  Ensuring that fresh voices participate is important – we could all talk to the same group of people without organizing a public conversation.  Promoting the chat widely via Twitter and other social networks is a great way to find more participants, too.

    6. Never underestimate the technology

    I already mentioned that Twitter-based chats aren’t as fast-paced as live web chats or some other technologies.  But, you also have to remember that Twitter isn’t in your control!  If the server has a glitch, if there’s scheduled maintenance, or if search tools lag, then your Twitter chat will dramatically suffer.  This happened during the July #4Change chat and caused us to call the chat off half-way through as search was 15 minutes behind and many participants’ messages weren’t showing up at all.

    7. Participate!

    #4Change:
    If you want to learn more about the #4Change monthly chat series, visit http://4change.memeshift.com  The next chat topic will be announced there and on Twitter using #4Change.

    #NPCons:
    Join the first #NPCons chat this coming Tuesday, 21 July, at 1pm US Pacific time.  These chats will be monthly, on the 3rd Tuesdays, at 1 pm Pacific.

    Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
     

  • amysampleward 2:56 pm on July 7, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Organizing, Revolt, Revolution, , ,   

    4Change Chat: Revolutionary social media – social tools for revolts, protests 

    The next #4change chat has been announced and I hope you can join in!

    Details:

    • Date: Thursday, July 9 (moved to July, 23rd – today! – same time)
    • Where: Twitter (search for #4Change)
    • When: 5 – 7 pm US Eastern Time
    • Topic: Revolutionary social media: Exploring social tools for revolts, upheavals & protests

    Why are we doing this and why would you want to join? Great questions:

    Social media is becoming a key driver of social change, allowing for the dissemination of new ideas, the formation of new communities and coalitions and the realization of new efficiencies and reach by existing social change groups. Throughout the world activists, organizers and non-profit professionals are exploring how best to use these tools, and sharing the results using the tools themselves. However these conversations are less international and therefore less effective than they could be.

    We have so much to learn from each other. From new forms of political campaigning in the United States, experiments in e-government and civic participation in England, from the fight against internet censorship in Australia and New Zealand and from start-ups in Canada and France. And beyond.

    We need a platform for light-weight, easily-organized and openly accessible conversations involving people from numerous countries. Twitter, I believe, provides us with such a platform.

    When do the chats take place?

    Chats are on the second Thursday of each month between 5-7pm US Eastern Time (GMT-4).

    Who is leading and participating in these chats?

    #4Change was initially proposed by Tom Dawkins (@tomjd) in Washington DC who is joined by Todd Pitt (@zerostrategist – Washington DC), Morgan Sully (@memeshfit – Oakland, California), Natasha Judd (@tashjudd – London, England), Edward Harran (@edwardharran – Brisbane, Australia) and Vibewire (@vibewire – Sydney, Australia).

    But the #4Change chats are open to everyone interested in discussing social media’s role in social change! Don’t be shy about joining—that’s one great thing about an open, public chat like this, you can follow along silently until you have something you want to say and no one will know :)

    How can you follow along or join the conversation?

    1. If you want to contribute to the conversation, you’ll need to have a twitter account (it’s free).
    2. To follow the conversation (whether you are planning to contribute or not), use http://search.twitter.com or another application to search on Twitter for “#4Change”
    3. Jump in to the conversation by adding “#4Change” (without the “”) to one of your Twitter messages

    Are there any rules for #Change Chats?

    1. #4Change will be structured around a series of questions which all participants can respond to. Send your questions to @tomjd without the hash tag (to keep them out of the stream) to have them considered.
    2. Introduce yourself in 1 tweet at the start or when you join.
    3. Stay on topic!
    4. Stay cool.

    Join me for the chat this Thursday – looking forward to discussing the role competitions play in social change!

     

  • amysampleward 6:55 pm on July 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Impacts and Indicators   

    Competitions for Change Compendium 

    The June #4Change chat topic focused on Challenges/Competitions for Social Change. Early on in that online chat, the request emerged for a compendium or other list of “all” the Challenges and Competitions focused on social benefit. Such an overview would let those interested in participating or facilitating a competition review the full landscape of options, characteristics of each, and so on.

    So, to answer that call, the #4Change crew has started building the compendium and now it’s your turn to chip in! Here’s the link to see what we have so far.

    Below is a form you can use to easily contribute to the Competitions for Change Compendium.

    Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
     

    • Beth Kanter 10:40 am on July 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      I captured a few on this blog post in May – but not sure how many will be repeats
      http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/05/targ…

    • franloosen 2:13 pm on July 13, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      I'm interested in knowing what happens to the great ideas which are not selected into the “top 5 winners”? Has anyone done any research on where those ideas/projects go? Is there a need for a way to capture/support those folks in a way that is not as intensive as the support given to winners? Do those projects go on to fruition? Where would be the best place to find this information?

      • Ernesto 5:21 pm on August 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply

        Franloosen,

        My company Infamia was the development company for this project, so I can speak to this a bit for you.

        NPCA's competition was added to get people excited about ARC and to put some “skin into the game” if you will.

        However, the broader purpose of the site is really to collect many ideas and plans for Africa and generate interest in them all across the board. We're hoping to see people and institutions connect with these projects and make some of these projects come to life. And some of these plans are already moving along!

        So yes, the competition is exciting but more importantly I want to see the community connect with these projects and collectively help move the ball a little bit closer to their goals. That's what I would like to see and to me will have this whole effort all the more worthwhile.

        So please if you have ideas, or plans, or just want to help out on a project or two, come on by and we'll see ya in there!

        Best,
        Ernesto Gluecksmann

    • Ernesto 11:21 pm on August 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Franloosen,

      My company Infamia was the development company for this project, so I can speak to this a bit for you.

      NPCA's competition was added to get people excited about ARC and to put some “skin into the game” if you will.

      However, the broader purpose of the site is really to collect many ideas and plans for Africa and generate interest in them all across the board. We're hoping to see people and institutions connect with these projects and make some of these projects come to life. And some of these plans are already moving along!

      So yes, the competition is exciting but more importantly I want to see the community connect with these projects and collectively help move the ball a little bit closer to their goals. That's what I would like to see and to me will have this whole effort all the more worthwhile.

      So please if you have ideas, or plans, or just want to help out on a project or two, come on by and we'll see ya in there!

      Best,
      Ernesto Gluecksmann

  • Natasha 2:29 pm on July 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Reflections on the #moonwalk 

     First published on the YouthNet blog.

     

    Last Friday, after work, a group of us from YouthNet walked down to Liverpool Street station for a twitter-organised moonwalk in memory of Michael Jackson.  Given the instantaneous nature of the Internet, I’m almost too late to blog about the event itself.  All over the web, you can read about how a tweeted idea became an exercise in mass participation, involving the police and Network Rail, announcements over the loud speakers at the station, and thousands of people bobbing up and down to Jackson classics.  There are plenty of photos on Flickr, videos on YouTube, and a twitter stream using the #moonwalk hashtag where you can see how it all came together.

    However, what’s more interesting, from my point of view, is the questions it raises for charity marketers, campaigners, press people and others who spread the word about a cause.  It’s too easy for social media campaigns to fail – despite the best planning and the most inspiring causes – because they just don’t catch on.  For all that we may believe that re-tweeting a message about one of our causes doesn’t take much effort, I’m beginning to wonder if it actually does.  People have to be logged into Twitter to see the message in the first place, they have to pick it out of all the other tweets they’re receiving, they have to understand it, engage with it, and choose to pass it on.  And that’s only one social networking tool.

    It’s also easy to be impressed that the event went from concept to implementation in one day.  And while the moonwalk wasn’t actually held in Liverpool Street Station in the end, and while there wasn’t actually room for much moonwalking in such a large crowd, the fact that it happened at all is testament to the power of social media to turn buzz into action.  As charities, do we have the ability to be this spontaneous?  If the mood of the public was to turn in the direction of our cause on a particular day, would we be able and ready to react?  And, would it be appropriate for us to do so?

    Finally, when you’re pressed up against people, it’s easy to overhear their conversations.  A woman behind me was asked why she was there.  “I’m actually more a fan of Twitter than Michael Jackson”, she said.  And while, like many children of the 80s, I did bop around my room to Billie Jean, the same applied to me.  What we had then was a crowd of people who used Twitter or who know people who used Twitter or read reports of people who used Twitter.  While there were some real fans, I’d guess that a significant amount of people had come along to see what was happening and be part of it.  If we were going to organise a charity event via social media, would that matter?  Raising awareness is a goal in itself sometimes, but if some people are ‘there for the sake of being there’, is that enough?

    Would be great to hear your thoughts.

     

  • tomjd 10:01 pm on June 29, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Ashoka, Lemelson Foundation, Socentchat, ,   

    Another Twitter event: #SocEntChat 

    In addition to instigating the #4change chats I have also been involved in establishing another monthly twitter-based conversation for social entrepreneurs, their supporters and partners called #SocEntChat. Having just written this post for SocialEarth I thought people visiting here would also be interested in knowing about it:

    Twitter is proving to be an incredibly powerful tool for entrepreneurs, activists and researchers to share their stories, ideas and causes, building tribes of followers who can help them in their missions. #SocEntChat uses Twitter as a platform to bring these people together, convening monthly real-time forums to help identify promising initiatives and techniques, connect with possible allies and partners and share knowledge and insights.

    I initiated #SocEntChat (short of Social Entrepreneur Chat) as part of my role as Digital Marketing Strategist at Ashoka, an international citizen-sector organization founded by Bill Drayton, often called “the father of social entrepreneurship,” which seeks to create an Everyone a Changemaker world. After 28 years of supporting leading social entrepreneurs in over 70 countries and building infrastructure to support changemakers we see an incredibly important part of our mission as convening social entrepreneurs and their supporters to help accelerate change.

    So the question I asked myself as I launched our account @AshokaTweets earlier this year was, how could Twitter help us further this mission? After having been inspired by the success of the weekly #Journchat discussions, which focus on how technology is impacting journalism and PR, we made the decision to use our networks to host an equivalent monthly event for social entrepreneurs. Nathaniel Whittemore, social entrepreneurship blogger at Change.org agreed to be my co-host and the first #SocEntChat was held in April to try and capture the learnings from the Skoll World Forum. Since then we have covered Social Entrepreneurship on Campuses and Green Entrepreneurship. You can read the transcripts here, here, and here. You can also read the reflections from David Strelneck, coordinator of Green Initiatives at Ashoka, on the last #SocEntChat here.

    We have been thrilled by the response and the quality of the conversations help so far. Despite the severe length limitations of Twitter the discussions have reached a surprising depth, whether in considering how new voices could be heard at the Skoll World Forum, how to better connect students and off-campus communities or the best role for Government in fostering green innovation.

    This Wednesday from 4-6pm US EDT (GMT-4) we’ll explore the exciting possibilities of Mobile Innovation, a week after Ashoka and the Lemelson Foundation co-hosted an event in Nairobi Kenya on this topic. Innovation in the use of mobile technologies for social change are leaping rapidly ahead, whether in the form of The Extraordinaries use of smart phones for volunteering, using SMS to share the daily price of goods at market so that rural farmers in Africa get a better deal or mobile phones being used for banking in the absence of more traditional  financial infrastructure.

    I hope you’ll join us!

    Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
     

← Older posts

Newer posts →

c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
l
go to login
h
show/hide help
shift + esc
cancel