Community Mobilization

The Anantomy of Virality or How StopKony Spread

This post on Social Flow's website does a great job of creating a visual representation of the network that drove the Stop Kony message into a viral tizzie over the course of the last week. Moreover the article does a great job of pinpointing the underlying mechanisims and prerequisites that enabled the video to take off and go viral so quickly.

First Invisible Children had a pre exiting network to seed and spread the video.

Secont they had a preexiwting network of Celebrities associated with their cause.

Third they activated their network all at once, and drive them to not only share their own message but also pressure the celebrity base.

The net effect is a verry fast and furrious publicity spike that creates ripples and aftershock spikes over the course of a week. Like a pebble landin in a pond or an earthquake there is an initial surge of traffic and then subsequent smaller rushes of eneregy. The real question posed is if this is a sustainable model for garnering attention or not.

Iranians Protest Digital Observations with Economic Boycot

Iranians, aggravated by the fact that Nokia collaborated with Iranian government to observe and monitor cellular phone and SMS traffic during the recent election protest Iranians are bouycotting Nokia phones. Most amusing to me is the fact that the Iranian run television station, and the Iranian run media are now experienceing deceases in advertising spending because of the economic boycot. It is entierly possible that the Iranina population can make a stronger impact on their country by voting with their wallets and at the poles. Unlike elections, the marketing budgets of international companies can not be hijacked by a totaletarian regime.

Communal Collaboration - Media

In the past year there have been some very interesting advents in crowd-funded enterprises. Crowd funding provides capitol by colelcting small amounts of money from a large number of people. In recent months Bands have started tours with crowd funding, and now there is a space where crowds can help fund the publication and production of certain pieces of journalism.

"Spot Us" is a nonprofit that allows an individual or group to take control of news by sharing the cost (crowdfunding) to commission freelance journalists. Spot Us is made possible by the Knight Foundation and the funding models will eventually help craft the kind of content that appears. What is interesting is that this creates a social long tail situation where the more interesting stories will garner funding and the rest will languish ... to be published on the internet and picked up by niche groups where they will thrive.

The crowd funding model for me goes beyond economics. It hits at the heart of the general consideration of a society and its media. If we had a choice, would we fund 18 months of Britney Spears coverage, or would we fund better more interesting? are the masses uncontent with the current content are going elsewhere. If given the opportunity to have more of a say, putting your money where your mouth is, would we see  people campaigning for stories they care about? What would a crowd funded evening news look like both locally nd Nationally?

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!