Community Mobilization

Heavy Load Documentary Premieres Tonight

Heavy Load is a UK punk band made up of members who all have developmental disabilities. Aside from having an a awesome sound, Heavy Load represents the true essence of punk rock music - fighting the social norm. Tonight,June 23rd on IFC (Independent Film Chanel) at 9 PM Eastern 10PM Pacific, is the TV premiere of the documentary movie on Heavy Load. I am looking forward to watching it not just for the amazing music but for the uplifting message that anything is possible.

On a social activism note Heavy Load is driving a campaign called 'Stay Up Late' which encourages those afflicted with disabilities to work with their guardians and caretakers to let them stay out late so that they can go and enjoy concerts and evening events. Boing Boing has a  preview of the movie.

Text messages and Philanthropy

The first time I saw txt messaging and fund raising it was back in 2005 around the Tsunami relief efforts. I do not remember the amount of money raised or the methodology through which they raised it (direct billing or carrier collected). Recently I have been reading information on the Chronicle of Philanthropy site regarding the advances by Mobile Giving Foundation and how they worked with the United Way on their Super Bowl campaign, which raised about $10,000.

The statistics are pretty clear that the mobile device is going to be the 1st piece of computing technology for an overwhelming percentage of the population of this planet. Our friend Katrin Verclas from Mobile Active.org has really embraced this idea with their efforts to turn the mobile phone into a change agent through awareness, education and activism.

Teen Communication Modality - A Look Forward

They say you can take a good guess about the future by looking at those who will be in charge then, and if that holds the Pew study on Teens and Social Media is pretty  telling. It focuses on the fact that social media gained a greater foothold in teen life as they embrace the conversational nature of interactive online media. the study found that 39% of online teens share their own artistic creations online such as artwork, photos stories, or videos. They are creating a culture and location of sharing work unlike anything mass media could ever have dreamed.

Even more telling is that girls (who we knew communicated more than boys) are taking it online too. Girls continue to dominate most elements of content creation. Some 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of wired girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys. And the most interesting statistic to me is HOW the teens are communicating when they communicate. Social portals and networks WAY out pace face to face (duh - we have global friendships now) but face to face is higher than e-mail. The killer app is dying! Amazing. Asked about the communication they have every day with their friends, the multi-channel teens say:

70% talk daily with friends on a cell phone
60% send text messages daily
54% instant message
47% send messages daily over social network sites
46% talk to friends on a landline phone
35% spend time with friends in person daily
22% send email every day to friends

IBM Lists Next 5 Trends

IBM released their take on the next 5 big innovations. They website has a number of report links at the bottom with  research on the trends but what is interesting is that I did not seem to see them tied together in any way. I am real disappointed that they did not take a few of the major issues facing the world and overtly showcase how any one or combination of trends would make an impact on them. Health care, global warming, aging populations, water shortages are all major global concerns that are easily tied into the Next 5 but I believe that IBM did not want to go to far out on the limb to showcase the great impact that these advances could have.

Web Playgrounds of the Very Young

It is no shock to me that youth wordlwide are being drawn into graphically based virtual world environments. The medium captures attention like no other as it engages us in sight, sound, hearing, and touch (keyboard). As parents encourage their children to stay inside more often then venture outdoors for unstructured fun and free time, kids are making semi-structured play online.

The article in the New York Times captures the exuberances of the youth entertainment community but it fails to represent the potential for outside marketers to engage participants. Will these spaces be breeding grounds for the next wave of consumerists who are cultured to 'purchasing' as the only means to enhance their avatar? I applaud the CDC's efforts in engaging the community of Whyville, where avatars are catching the flu ... that is unless they get their vaccination. Rez Nation recorded a session given by Erin Edgerton and John Anderton from CDC on their engagement in virtual worlds.

The Future of Futureology

I have been sitting on this blog post for a bit watching the other futurists talk about it and its ramifications. When a deputy editor at the Economist Robert Cottrell slams your profession professionals seem to take exception. The study of the future is not a precise one, instead it is a vision of possibilities and potential outcomes to be used in preparation and preplanning. Trend analysis and extrapolated thinking are of infinite value when done by a trained and insightful professional. Future studies and the tool kit for future studies is even evolving, and the practitioners are refining their techniques. As our environment changes the possibilities of the future change as well. Societal advents, technology break through all radically impact future scenarios. Long term scenarios must be updated frequently, which is why the classic 'flying car' adage from the 50's is such a thorn in our side - it was wishful thinking and a designer's dream. But the Electric car is another story!

Jamais Cascio of Open The Future has a fantastic line by line analysis of the offending article and I suggest that you read it in depth. His thoughts are precise and his refutations even handed.

Michele Bowman at Fringehog has another very well though out response to the article and I agree with her assessment of the dangers of lambasting an entire field of thought. As we begin to open our eyes to longer term possibilities, as the me generation begins to think beyond their own existence, those who think big, think long term, will be the ones to help the rest vision a better world and then act towards it.

The Great Box Debate; Get out or Stay In

I know I am late pointing to this WSJ article 'thinking out of the box is a waste of time'. One of the big catch phrases I heard when I got into the area of Futuring and Innovation was 'think outside of the box'. Of course this often came out of the mouths of the people asking for ideas not the ones developing them. I did read Rushkoff's book 'Get Back In The Box' and it really put some much needed perspective on ideating and creative solution solving.

The problem with innovation as a practice being done by internal constituencies is that we tend to think there is no more fertile ground internally for ideas to grow in. We HAVE to look out of the box because we assume we have exhausted everything inside. If there were good ideas and innovations left we would not have created this department ... duh! Not so - patience and perspective are key to pulling out the most valuable ideas and innovation from inside the organization. Honestly, who knows your company better than your employees? So why not count on them to speak up on the process improvements, major strategic goals, and even product design and construction. Innovation is about application of technology 
to solve problems and trust me, our employees know more about your problems than you do!

Virtual Worlds, Real Laws

One of the major intellectual quandaries in the virtual space arena is what are the roles of real world laws, if any? New York University Law School and Harvard's Berkman Center, with the direction of Professor Beth Noveck, even set up the State of Play conference to address some of the concerns. They included legal questions on Intellectual Property rights, taxation, pornography, and free speech. Now Virtual Worlds Management is conducting a Virtual World Law conference in New York this spring. I am not sure of the attendees or the nature of the presenters, academic or professional, but their conferences have been well attended in the past and their content is consistently very good. The conference will involve the American Bar Association's committee on Virtual Worlds and Multiuser Online Games. Their participation will help in world business owners address legal questions they have in the wake of some of the more public virtual world law suits.

More Crowd Sourcing real estate prices

Part of what impacts home prices are the outside forces such as interest rates, supply, demand, schools, and other business and neighborhood factors. Personal perception is a major factor in the market value of a home or neighborhood, and it is valuable information for any buy looking to get a fair deal, and any seller looking to market their property at a reasonable price. So here is Home Predict, website that is allowing people from all over predict the value of homes and neighborhoods. What is important is that market value is a function of the Wisdom of Crowds. If 90 of 100 people think that a neighborhood's average home is worth $200,000 it is good bet that as a buyer  you should be looking to pay about that much, and as a seller it would be wise to list it as such. In the market boom what we saw collectively was a skewing of the perception of value. We all thought homes were worth more, and therefore the price tags went up. Now as the market cools, and the economy slows we collectively are correcting our perception.  Potential buyer's value perception are the most important information to have, but a community wide poll would probably return similar results. I'd like to see a group of us getting on and helping to set the value of our homes and real estate here in Cincinnati.

Advertising Age is wrong again

In a recent article 'Second Life Still a Waste of Time' Ken Wheaton exposes on how virtual world environments are a waste of time energy and money for advertisers. Ken not only does not get Second Life, Ken does not get 'community'. Ken is used to putting adds on TV and radio, and maybe a banner add or two. Ken can not carry on a conversation with his market - all that traditional marketing knows is that you have to broadcast the message loud ad far and hope that it sticks to something or someone. If you throw enough of it on a wall something is bound to stick.

Jaffe Juice has a great set of ideas on why traditional marketers are afraid of SL and virtual worlds. It is outside of of the traditional marketers frame of reference. This is why brands are not going to marketing firms to carry out their virtual world marketing - they are headed to specialty metaverse development firms.  Seems like clients would not be shrugging their shoulders and leaving virtual worlds if their marketing teams did a better job of helping them understand the environment, set realistic goals, expectations, and developed a conversational approach to consumer engagement. But hey ... marketers like Ken just don't get.