Philanthropy
Philanthropy
Social Media for the Common Good
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 09/20/2008 - 09:42It is popular these days for people bash social media as the domain of the self-absorbed. Critics ask, “Do thousands of people really need to know that you ran out of toothpaste this morning?” Yet this reflects a very narrow understanding of social media.
As an example, let’s look at two different non-profits that are making good use of Social Media.
The first site I want to highlight is Climb Up, So Kids can Grow Up, a project of the American Foundation for Children with AIDS. I learned about this site from change.org where I was asked to participate. I’m not a climber, so I am not attending any climbathon this weekend.
However, I have been running an ad about that for the past several months. People are encouraged to ‘climb, hike, run or cycle up the structure of their choice, anywhere in the world” in an effort to “increase awareness of the pediatric AIDS pandemic and raise funds for life-saving anti-retroviral (ARV) medication, food, and medical and humanitarian supplies to children affected by HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa”.
I was invited to participate in something that I wasn’t even paying attention to. I found a way to participate that met my current needs and hopefully have added a little to their efforts.
Then, yesterday, I received a message on Utterli, formerly known as Utterz about the Red Cross’s social media efforts.
I checked out the message on Red Cross Chat and wanted to highlight it here. It encouraged people to change their avatar yesterday to a Red Cross volunteer. In some places, it is important for me to keep my avatar distinct from other avatars, so I chose to keep my avatar in my standard format, but simply added a small Red Cross on my sweater.
They also asked people to post widgets. They provide two different widgets. One is too wide, and the other one is too slow. I’ve added the slow one for the time being, but I’ll probably drop it soon. It would be good if they could provide customization options for their widgets, but I didn’t see any.
They also asked people to play PSAs and or videos of disaster responses. They have a lot of great videos, and I encourage you to check out the blog post. I selected just one:
The post ends off with a pointer to online tools which includes a link to The Red Cross’ Social Media Links page. That page includes not only the link to their Twitter stream, but also a link to the twitter stream of nearly a dozen people involved in media at the Red Cross. This is a great example of how none profits should use social media.
In both examples, the organizations used social media to invite people to participate, and provided different types of participation In both cases, I participated a little bit this time, and am more likely to participate in future events, perhaps at a deeper level in the future.
Chip In Widget Du Jour
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 06/19/2008 - 13:11My good friend Stephen Wilmarth is organizing a bunch of students to go to China as part of Ningxia Dragon Student Ambassadors. He has sent out an email describing this:
On June 30th, students from communities across Connecticut will leave for China and participate in what will likely be a life-changing experience. We will arrive in Shanghai and travel to the city of Xi'an, a former capital of the very first Chinese emperor. Students will visit the incredible mausoleum of the Terracotta Army.
We will embark on a 10 day tour through the provinces of Ningxia and Inner Mongolia, visiting Buddhist, Taoist, and Islamic shrines, climbing 500 foot high dunes in the Gobi desert, hiking through a landscape of mountains and high plains rarely visited by westerners, and meeting peoples of many religious and ethnic minorities who call this land along the ancient Silk Road home.
Our students will engage Chinese students in high schools and universities across the region, spreading a message of shared values and goodwill, and will come to understand the cultural and educational communities that will make China a force to be reckoned with in the 21st century. Our students will stay in the homes of Chinese students, share meals, and learn what being Chinese is like in 2008.
And then, we will travel to the province of Sichuan and "adopt" a school that has suffered the trauma of the terrible earthquake of last month. Upon returning to the US, our students - representing the very students upon which our hopes and dreams for a better future depend - have devised plans to provide the emotional and moral support for their adopted school community.
Three of our 2008 Summer Camp students come from families that can ill-afford the cost of such an important experience. But that won't stop them. This message is intended to ask you to help. We know that these times have put pressure on all of us economically. It is difficult to ask you to provide these students with the support they will need to make this journey.
If you are interested in helping, please click on the Chip In Widget that I’ve added to the right hand column of this site.
Grumpy Tuesday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 06/17/2008 - 09:51I continue to fight a cold and have not been able to get enough sleep recently, so I’m pretty grumpy. On top of this, there is a long list of tasks that keep getting put off, causing the list to get longer, including several blog posts I need to write. So, I will combine a few of them into this post, and then, when and if time permits, expand upon them.
Firefox 3
Today is Firefox 3 day. Starting at 1 PM EDT, people will be able to download the official version of Firefox 3. I downloaded the final release candidate and have run it a little bit. So far, there isn’t much that I’ve seen as improvements. The one feature that I like best is a ‘most viewed’ tab. Things I don’t like: You need to be running at least Windows 2000. It won’t run on my main machine which is still Windows NT. Yeah, I know, I should upgrade, but Windows NT has been good enough for me for years.
Things I’m trying to get used to: With Firefox 2, you have these little arrows next to your back and forward buttons so you can skip back, or forward, several pages. In Firefox 3, they’ve combined this into one button. There is a little circle next to the page showing where you are. A little more compressed; mixed feelings about it. Likewise, the dropdown list of recently visited sites is now split onto two lines; the title on the top and the link below it. I’m still used to the old way of displaying the list with the URL on the left and the title on the right. I prefer the older format. Perhaps there is a way of tweaking Firefox 3 to look more like Firefox 2.
Associated Press
Recently, the Associated Press sent takedown orders to a blog for quoting brief passages of AP articles. They requested the removal of six blog posts and one comment for quoting passages from AP stories ranging from 33 to 79 words. At the core of this is a battle over what constitutes Fair Use. The AP positions borders on asserting that no use of AP content is fair. First off, this is really stupid on the APs part. They should be encouraging people to link to their content. Instead, they have discouraged people from linking to their content. The UnAssociated Press is calling for a boycott of all AP stories. People are urging others to stop Digging article from the Associated Press and any other activities that might drive traffic to AP stories. Major hat tip to Liza Sabater for her coverage of this at Culture Kitchen. For more information on this, start off with Netroots' bloggers boycott of Associated Press is working.
EntreCard
In a similarly stupid move, EntreCard is asking bloggers to write for them, offering between 700 and 2000 EntreCard credits for reviews of other blogs. Depending on how much they actually pay, and the exchange rate of EntreCard credits, that works out to be between around $2.50 to $15 per blog post. For bloggers that do most of their writing for free, that is a major improvement, and is near the low end of the range that people get paid for writing articles about Second Life. Yet EntreCard, unlike other sites, will not permit republishing of the article on the writers own blog. They express concern about Google not liking duplicate content.
My understanding is that Google doesn’t like the same content with hundreds of links repeated over hundreds of websites in an effort to boost page rank, and that an article reposted on another site or two isn’t what Google is penalizing. If people can come up with details about Google penalizing a site for regular cross posting, please let me know.
Second Life
As a segue from grumpy to hopeful, let me comment on the Second Life birthday celebration. It starts June 23rd. There was a lot of stuff floating around about how the birthday celebration would not allow adults whose avatars are in the shape of children from participating. Linden Lab changed its position and Dusan Writer wrote a post entitled Linden Regroups and the Kids Are In. I had really wanted to write a detailed post about this, but time has slipped away. Perhaps I can write a post about the celebration.
More Second Life
The Network Culture Project at USC’s Annenberg School for Communications has a different approach to promoting community involvement in Second Life. They are having a Community Challenge contest. They have announced five finalists, with voting through the 30th. My first choice is clearly The Ability Commons. I am good friends with the folks behind The Ability Commons and hold their work in the highest regard. I haven’t voted yet, because I need to look more closely at the other finalists to determine my second and third choices. If you are in Second Life, please check out this project and the five finalists and then enter your vote.
Serena
As a final more hopeful post, I want to highligh Help Save Serena. I mentioned the effort in passing in my wandering around EntreCard sites on Bloomsday, but I didn’t have the link to the Help Save Serena blog.
There are plenty of other things that I need to write about, but I have too many other non-writing tasks to accomplish, so this will have to suffice for right now.
The Sojourner
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 05/27/2008 - 08:06For the past few days, I’ve been offline, camping with my family. Before that, I was at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference for several days, and before that I had various software programs to write, websites to build, and a trip to Virginia to bring my daughters home from college. So, last night, I sat down to an email box with over 2500 unread emails and 3500 spam emails.
I deleted the spam with only a minimal glance to make sure nothing fell into the spam box by mistake. I scanned the unread emails and found around 500 that I moved off into folders which I might read someday if I ever have time. For all practical purposes, I’ve deleted them. Then I glanced through the remaining emails to see if there were any of particular importance. If I’ve missed yours, I apologize, please be patient.
The one email that particularly caught me attention was simply titled, “The Sojourner”. Soj, as she was called, has been a key part of the fabric of Second Life for nearly four years. She was part of Brigadoon, an early support community in Second Life. The first time that I recall meeting her was last February as she worked on bringing together support groups in a health care coalition.
In subsequent meetings, she spoke about her own struggles recovering from three different strokes. She spoke about how important Second Life was as a community for stroke victims. As I opened the email, I wondered what great new adventure Soj was setting off on now.
The answer struck me with grief. From the The Tribute to The Sojourner, A True Second Life Heroine, 8/18/2004-5/25/2008, I learned of her passing.
I immediately logged into Second Life and went to the memorial that has been built for her there. Along the pathway, there are all kinds of monuments to her work. At the center is a large area covered with candles. There are so many, so close together that the effect is overwhelming. It takes a special effort to read the candles.
I wandered around reading the inscriptions floating above one candle after another. People talked, should we move the candles and spread them out? Yet it was felt that it was more appropriate that the effect be overwhelming. The contributions that Soj has made to Second Life and to so many people here was overwhelming, as is the grief of so many people that loved her deeply.
I took a picture of the candles in a special way that captured to chaos of the text. I wandered from candle to candle copying down the texts. I saved much of it on the Wiki and others have checked candles and added additional texts.
I only knew Soj for a very short time and the words that I can share pale in comparison. There are many great tributes to Soj and a couple jump out at me.
From your first day in SL when we met
You had a Dream
I am glad i could help you get it started
so long ago in a place called Brigadoon
You will be missed here.
-- Coos YellowknifeOne Short Sleepe past, we wake eternally,
and death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
-- John Donne.Soj, you got your second set of wings! Godspeed.
Rest In Peace, The Sojourner
Events, May 4th
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 05/04/2008 - 04:42Connecticut State Senate Candidate, Mike Renzullo will be walking in the Multiple Sclerosis walk at 9 AM starting in Litchfield. He is encouraging people to join him for the walk. If you can’t make it to Litchfield, there are several other walks going on through out Connecticut today. Mike is running a great campaign, including service politics into his activities and sending out a great newsletter.
In his latest newsletter, he has a great section about picking up trash on Earth Day.
Last Saturday was Earth Day, and folks gathered at Coe Park in Torrington for a city-wide clean up. I was assigned to pick up trash at a park on Oak Street. This is where older kids hold Little League games and play basketball, and there is a playground for the younger kids. My cousin Kevin used to live in that neighborhood, and we used to go to this park as kids. This is a perfect example of how we can all have a direct effect in making our communities a little nicer. In about an hour and a half, I picked up an entire trash bag full of cigarette butts, broken glass, cans, bottles, food wrappers, and other various types of refuse. While I was working, a couple of the parents who were there watching their kids joined in, and started collecting trash, too!
For a more traditional campaign event, please consider stopping by at the fundraiser for Martin Goldberg who is also running for State Senate in Connecticut. The event starts at 2 PM at the home of Geena Clonan and Peter Schrobenhauser, 1119 Sasco Hill Road, Fairfield, CT 06824. Details can be found on MyLeftNutmeg.
In the evening, Fiona and I will make a second attempt at a show on BlogTalkRadio. I was fairly disappointed that there were technical problems last week. Support from BlogTalkRadio seemed fairly responsive during the attempt, but the problem was not resolved during the show slot, and the folks at BlogTalkRadio failed to follow up on what happened or how it has been addressed, so I am a little bit dubious about whether the show will end up happening this week, or the quality of BlogTalkRadio’s service.
Anything else exciting going on?
