Community Mobilization

Inflation's Little Parts

The New York Times has a very nice interactive graphical representation of the impact of inflation on all of the small parts of our lives. The chart shows where the average American's goes and how inflation is impacting each of the areas differently. An example is that we hear how fuel and food prices are climbing but not much about how new cards are 1.1% less expensive than last year.

As a philanthropic organization the impact of inflation can be seen in the donations received but also the cost of doing business. We hear how food banks and shelters are stretched even more thin because of higher food costs. The non profit community has always been judicious in exercising stewardship in how they use their money, but even more so now.

Social Networks and Fundraising

Non Profit organizations are being drawn towards large social networking sites at a rapid pace, due in large part to the density of potential volunteers. One of the organizations looking to recruit new donors is the International Humanitarian Foundation. The group recently launched the $10/1000 campaign focusing on attracting 1000 new donors at $10. "Social networking has the power to effect change in our world. We can reach the people we know will be interested in our work in a viral manner," said IHF President Amish Parashar.

Part of the allure continues to be massive scope and size of these spaces, but no one has really tried to quantify the quality for specific actions. There have been no research studies that I have seen that help fund raisers better understand conversion rates in social networks, and ROI for each fund raised dollar. IHF suspects tha the overwhelming majority of new donors will be 1 to 3 degrees away from existing IHF volunteer, which speaks to the assumption that the web technology allows for stronger reach across weaker ties but we still do not know how strong or how far that reach can go.

Social Multitaskers and Social Value

Forester just released a report linking social value to social multitasking. The report poses an interesting idea and I am going to take a stab at concocting my own argument to support it, and then propose why it is all rubbish.

Social multitaskers I would define as people involved in a number of social spaces, either in real life or on virtual and electronic communities. I'll even add in that the social spaces need not be mutually exclusive.The fact that they are involved in unique named and purposed groups is good enough for me.

So the argument that Social Multitaskers have higher social value is true in a broad sense. Involved in numerous circles they have the a potentially greater reach than the average person. They touch entirely separate groups giving them a high potential to motive and mobilize a greater volume of people for a cause or action. In terms of resources they also hold an advantage in that they posses a larger pool to poll when seeking assistance.

But reach in of its self is simply a lousy metric. I think reach tells nothing about impact. Regardless of the number of folks you can reach if you have no relationships to leverage individuals to action. This is where I have a hard time with this theory. There are a number of people who are dedicated to a single community. They are involved and have strong ties to leverage people into action. I would be curious which set up has the most actual power, not potential power.

Human Rights, and Virtual Poperty Rights

The panelists consist of professionals from GoPets, Live gamer, and Charles River Ventures. One of the questions that often comes up is are game designers responsible of devaluation of valuable goods in world? The panelist seem to agree that part of game play is treating player fairly but game owners can not be held accountable for market forces.Marketing side is more important than the legal side. Treat the customers well in protecting their content (not necessarily guaranteeing value). EULAs help to determine publisher responsibilities, but again vthe questions are all centered on the challenges of the legal vs. the ethical.
Part of the limiting factors of WOW is the lack of human and property rights within the game. One amazing questions becomes inheritance and willing of objects. Monetary value that is assigned to avatars and to activity is difficult to assign since there is not always a definitive dollar value to an object or a skill set.

Where is George

Where is George
Originally uploaded by randalcmoss.

My wife gave me this bill the other day that she got from some merchant down town who got the bill from ... Wheres George is a neat application that allows you to put in serial numbers of bills to see who has held them in the past. You can watch your money move all around the world. From a networking perspective it is actually pretty darn cool!