Community Mobilization

Facebook provides for Digital Gifts

danah boyd has a very full and complete review of the latest addition to Facebook - a micro gift giving. The system allows for individuals to give small financial gifts to each other. In doing so they have also allowed fund raisers to collect money for the population of Facebook. There are numerous implications to this including social implications and peer pressures to give gifts to each other. It could be a real boon for smaller niche organizations looking to collect micro-donations.

Flying Your Conscience

Since I have moved to Cincinnati I now am facing a few new realities that concern air travel. Yes I am still on a Delta Hub but now I am near CVG, the most expensive airport in the USA. So when planning a trip to NYC I found direct tickets to all 3 airports close to $1,000.00 That is absurd, especially since this is donor money! Now I could fly out of Dayton (20 more minutes in the car) and connect through Cincinnati for the low price of $225 but that is 2 flights and a big carbon foot print. The kicker is that the American Airlines flies direct to La Guardia from Dayton. After the bad American Airlines customer service experience incident I refuse to fly with them under any circumstances. In conclusion I will be flying Continental into Newark and taking the train into the city. It is the best compromise I can find to save donor money, keep a smaller carbon footprint, and avoid giving American a single red cent of my money.

Charity groups harness the crowd on networking sites

In a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy article a few charity and not for profit groups are utilizing the population of social network sites to raise funds. In the example the Salvation Army and Life Rolls On are getting 'friends' and soliciting them for donations and social action activities. With populations in the millions sites like Gather, and Myspace are sound places to reach out and attract existing supporters to participate in a new channel. In fact research by Getactive.com shows that when donors donate through more than one channel their total donation over the course of a year is significantly higher.

Life Publishing

Life publishing and its cousin Life caching seems to be on the verge of taking off. The short description is that you forward your e-mail to a life publishing site that helps you aggregate your life experiences for future publishing in a book format. Companies ofering the service include Life Trackers. Travel journals, a memoir, or even the first few years of a child's life ... all collected and stored for future use.  I love the idea and it reminds me of a number of bloggers who have turned their chronicles into stories and sold them as books. I have suggested to numerous people I have met to start a blog and use those writings as a base for a published text. One thing a blog can do that a closed site can not is offer free publicity and teasers. Nor can it engage readers in conversation. So as an archive I like the idea, as a conversation it has a long way to go.

SLCC 2007

I am please to announce here that the date and location for the Second Life Community Conference has been set as August 24-26 2007 at the Hilton Chicago. There are a few more details but it is going to be a very cool event filled with lots of live music, panels, and special interest tracks. I very much look forward to seeing you there.

Merc stops push for mandatory Gardisil vaccination

Merck announced that it will stop lobbying state legislatures to enact laws requiring young girls to be vaccinated with Gardasil before entering 6th grade. Bloomberg.com reports that the move was sparked by a consideration by Merck that legislating health may not be as effective as demonstrating the overwhelming positive virtues of the cervical cancer preventing vaccine. (Gardasil protects women against human papillomavirus (HPV) Types 6, 11, 16, and 18, which is a virus that can cause cervical cancer and genital warts.)

Texas, surprisingly, was one of the very first state to enact such legislation. They do have a clause where parent can opt their children out of vaccine for moral objections or concerns. In a situation where nearly 4,000 women die each year from cervical cancer it is a logical move to mobilize the community in this age group. My sentiment is Gardasil should be offered in school nurse offices similar to the Flu shot, especially since studies show that the vaccine is most effective when administered to girls between the ages off 11 and 13.

GPS Phone Services

A recent Time / CNN article talks about the recent buzz around the inclusion of GPS tracking technology in mobile handsets. This time the tracking tech lets you track your friends, and see where they are without any user inputed data. It seems that these systems are limited to keeping information flow within the carrier. Helio offers the services and has a few commercials out advertising it.

On a mobilization front it would make a lot of sense to be able to physically track volunteers out on a campaign push, or have fund raisers call in friends from the near by areas. The further development of location based applications for cell phones will lead to near total location awareness in select populations. Select because some populations may not see the value, or reject the premise while others (teens, early adopters, narcissists) will want to be sure that everyone knows exactly where they are at all times. It is as much as being seen as seeing for yourself. Presence.

Second Life Relay For Life 2007

We just had our kickoff for our 2007 Second Life Relay For Life. Here is a great photo of our group. Looking forward to it. Please mark your calendars for July 28!!!

Virtual Worlds Conference

I am speaking at the Virtual Worlds 2007 conference on marketing and media. I am on a panel with a Greg Verdino of DIGITAS, Roger Holzberg of Disney World parks, and Joel Greenberg of GSD&M. I am really excited about this event not because it is the usual suspects, but because I feel it is a first real push towards mass market understanding of the potential inside of the virtual worlds.I think it is a critical event for anyone thinking about getting involved in the virtual world communities. I am also real happy to just have found out that my good friend John Anderton who writes Looking Ahead from the CDC will be presenting as well.

Change.org - Socail Action Social Network

I was just pointed to Change.org by my good friend David over at FI Space.
I spent the morning poking around change to discover that they have
worked very hard to incorporate most all of the current hot web 2.0
apps into the site. They have video streams, Digg style voting, as well
as the fundamental Social Network functions. The site also supports a
group blog where members post articles and topics that re relevant to
them. The one thing I am not thrilled about is the 'Most Popular' items
coming up first. I always feel like this is a self feeding cycle, but
have yet to come up with a better solution aside from randomizing the
listings. Change is a great site and I hope it get the critical mass to
energize millions of social activists.

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