Categories: ported from old Blogger blog
- Using social networks for social change: a slideshow
Ivan Boothe has put together a very nicely done slideshow (with voiceover) on using social networks for social change. In this very young field, Ivan is a veteran. He co-founded the Genocide Intervention Network, which has used social networks very successfully to engage members. He is currently the Creative Director of Rootwork, as well [...]
- About Civic Capital
I’ve been interested in social capital for many years (though I didn’t have a name for it before reading Robert Putnam’s groundbreaking book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.)
But I’d never heard the phrase civic capital before hearing it used to describe the effect of Barack Obama’s successful “netroots” campaign. The On [...]- Obama’s plans for information and communication technology
If you haven’t seen it already, Barack Obama describes specific plans for change on his slick website, change.gov. I find the Technology Agenda page particularly interesting and exciting.
Of course, just saying these things doesn’t make them happen. But I’ve never seen a politician articulate so clearly, unambiguously and (seemingly) sincerely information and communication [...]- Here come the changebloggers
I met with Kathrin Ivanovic today at Remedy Tea Bar (nice place, first time there). She’s one of a growing number of self-identified changebloggers. A new label, though not a new practice, changebloggers are “bloggers, podcasters and vloggers who are using their platform to make the world a better place”, according to the Changeblogger [...]
- Inspiration from decades past
Sorting through old papers, I rediscovered the 82-page Honors Thesis I wrote in 1979 as an undergraduate at Penn State. I re-read it for the first time in decades, and was astounded by how fresh and relevant it felt to me today. It focused on a radical analysis of the institution of education, and was [...]
- Libraries facilitating self expression
I’m frustrated by the seeming lack of commitment of libraries (especially community-anchored public libraries) to their role in facilitating patrons’ ability to speak. Librarians entusiastically rally ’round the flag of “Intellectual Freedom“, but they think of it almost entirely in terms of defending patrons’ right to read stuff written by others. All very well and [...]
- Origami conference tag tags
Here’s another cool tag tag application given to me by a friend who regularly attends the OrigamiUSA Annual Convention.
So, as origamists(?) walk around and encounter one another in physical space, they display this structured metadata about themselves re: an origami project they would like to learn or teach. This sort of tag tag seems ideally [...]- “Where do people find the time for this participative media stuff?”
Here’s a very interesting 16 minute video (and transcript) by Clay Shirky, given at the recent Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. It’s a fascinating and inspiring reply to the question, “Where do people find the time [to engage in all this participative media stuff]“?
(I’ve been a big fan of Clay Shirky since reading his [...]- Idealism and pragmatism can be friends
Here’s another insight I gained from Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations.
I (Seth) regard myself as an idealist. When I first encountered Wikipedia, I was excited by what I perceived to be an idealistic tool which fully and equally validated every participant and contribution. So I found it difficult at [...]- About social tools and activism
Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations has lots of terrific insights. Here’s one about activism.
He describes a couple examples of citizen activism facilitated by new social tools. One is about angry airline passengers organizing to create an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights by using newspaper interactivity and an online petition [...]
