culture

Iran, twitter + civic engagement

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:12:00 +0000

It's amazing what is happening with the Iranian elections and twitter and organizing. The Iranian government poked a beehive with a short stick when they turned off SMS just before last week's election. But the ramifications are even broader: as one tweet read yesterday, the Iran election is a death blow to the argument that new media will make people less civicly engaged. The amazing thing about twitter, as pointed out by my technologist husband, is that its API makes it harder to block, and activists can conceivably keep popping up alternative ways out to twitter as long as they could spread the word about new portals to it.

Here is an article in the NY Times that describes how it is all working.

PS>> Kudos to the Twitter staff for delaying a scheduled maintenance outage to allow the system to continue to serve as an organizing and information hub around the Iranian Elections.

The value of creating something.

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:31:00 +0000

An article in the Harvard Business Review highlighted a phenomenon that gives something an individual had a hand in creating more value than the identical or better something not created by our own hand. Dubbed the Ikea Effect, because of that company's model requiring most of its products to be assembled by the consumer, it is an argument for the value of engagement strategies, which seek to develop campaigns, products and services from the input of the people likely to use and promote them.

Nonprofits and advocacy organizations are still struggling with how to open their work to their constituents and supporters, and will continue to as long as professional staff are paid for creating and implementing campaigns, rather than engaging communities.

We have three degrees of influence. How will we use it?

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:15:00 +0000

I read an article called "The Dynamics of Personal Influence" in the Harvard Business Review recently which highlights studies done to show the range of personal influence over others. The study looked at trends such as smoking and being happy, and found that if you do those things it is likely that those within three degrees removed from you also do those things. In other words, if you report being happy, your friends and their friends and their friends are more likely to be happy. If you smoke, the same--your friends, and their friends, and their friends are also likely to smoke. The percentage decreases as the influence fans across the degrees of connection, until the fourth degree (your friends, friends' friends' friend) no longer has a higher likelihood of your behavior or habits.

This article talks about the implications that this might bring to sell more products or jump start creativity and innovation within a corporate setting. To me it brings up advocacy and personal implications. Think about how many people you know. And then how many people they know. And when you total the number of people that you can influence through these three degrees, the average person is likely to have influence over tens of thousands of people. So what do we want tens of thousands of people to do? It really makes the words of Gandhi ring true: We must be the change we want to see in the world. The notion of three degrees of personal influence really made me think about mundane things like my facebook status updates totally differently.

Engagingdiabetes.com

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:09:00 +0000

EngagingDiabetes.com is a new project I'm involved in to collect information directly from people with diabetes in order to design new web, mobile phone and social network tools for better disease management and health outcomes. If you have diabetes, please take a few minutes to participate in a confidential online survey. If you know someone with diabetes, please pass it along to them. Click Here to take survey

Examples of Social Media for Causes

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:20:00 +0000

I compiled a list of IMHO great examples of social media used for causes for a friend who works at a foundation exploring how to fund this area. Thought it was relevant enough to put out there on the blog. Post your examples as well.

1. Facebook: I could say a lot about how nonprofits can and cannot use Facebook as part of their strategies. In some ways, the parts of Facebook that have been developed for organizing on Facebook are the worst parts of it. Groups and Causes both lack just about every tool that makes organizing in the 21st century so powerful. However, it is the other aspects of Facebook that allow us to connect to friends so powerfully that causes and nonprofits are starting to really utilize, particularly donate your status or profile picture campaigns and to a lesser degree events.
2. SMS: Obama’s SMS campaign was used in the way that it can work. SMS is a highly personalized mode of communication. It is only those with whom you want to be most intimate with that you want to text with. People wanted to be closer to Barak Obama, and SMS messages enabled that to a degree never before seen.
3. Creative Fundraising: A group of Ron Paul supporters that had nothing to do with the campaign, organized an online fund-raiser on Guy Fawkes Day, bringing in more than $4 million and 21,000 new contributors in a single day — the largest 24-hour haul of any Republican candidate to date. The key word here is creative. Not fundraising.
4. Video: I may be a little biased here, but Students for a Free Tibet has done some great video work—from instant satellite uploads of nonviolent civil disobedience and banner hangs inside Tibet and China to updates to their communities to on the spot interviews with government officials. They even created their own internet television station during the Olympics where you could get news updates, see profiles on the activists who were getting arrested, see movies on Tibet, etc.
5. Viral Video: The Great Schlep was a classic example of brilliantly executed video with all of the makings to go viral. 1.25 million views on You Tube alone.
6. A bad example: I love the folks at moveon.org, but I think that it is an outdated model for how to use social media to advance causes. Their system is not really participatory in the way that the Obama campaign proved is possible—moveon.org members vote on a set number of initiatives or videos. Obama’s myBO.com gave people the ability to create their own campaign and implement it, not just push a prescribed one developed by professional staffers. What moveon.org’s system IS really good at is rapid response to an important and timely issue or opportunity. The moveon.org system also doesn’t allow its members to know each other and self organize. It is almost too dependant online, and hasn’t translated to offline, which to me is an important indicator of a successful social media tool.

An article that outlines some great social media used for causes

The NY Times also did an extensive article this weekend on how Egyptian youth used Facebook to organize. It highlights that social network sites like Facebook are hard for repressive regimes to identify as activist threats and shut down. "[A]round the world, dissidents thrive on sites, like Facebook, that are used primarily for more mundane purposes (like exchanging pictures of cute cats). Authoritarian regimes can’t block political Facebook groups without blocking all the “American Idol” fans and cat lovers as well. “The government can’t simply shut down Facebook, because doing so would alert a large group of people who they can’t afford to radicalize,” Zuckerman explained."

Other State Department officials told me they believe that social-networking software like Facebook’s has the potential to become a powerful pro-democracy tool. They pointed to recent developments in Saudi Arabia, where in November a Facebook group helped organize a national hunger strike against the kingdom’s imprisonment of political opponents, and in Colombia, where activists last February used Facebook to organize one of the largest protests ever held in that country, a nationwide series of demonstrations against the FARC insurgency. Not long ago, the State Department created its own group on Facebook called “Alliance of Youth Movements,” a coalition of groups from a dozen countries who use Facebook for political organizing. Last month, they brought an international collection of young online political activists, including one from the April 6 group, as well as Facebook executives and representatives from Google and MTV, to New York for a three-day conference.

Lastly, I'll just throw in a couple of interesting quotes:

Communities are sticky in ways that mass media never was, it requires a very different approach to what we create, how we create it and how we market it.
Yochai Benkler, Wealth of Networks

In the new and evolving online world, the greatest momentum goes not to the candidate with the most detailed plan for conquering the Web but to the candidate who surrenders his own image to the clicking masses

Such developments probably came as no surprise to many in the business world, who understood years ago that the Web represented not simply another mass medium to be gamed but also a fundamental shift in the once static relationship between producer and consumer. It is by nature a participatory medium, in which customers demand a more personal stake in the products they consume.
Matt Bai, NY Times writer + author of “The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics"

Here Comes Everyone!

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:10:00 +0000

I've been reading Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everyone since summer...I know, its ridiculous that I can't finish it, especially since it is so good. But I have kids, and its been a year like no other for many reasons. So, I'm half-way through, but wanted to catalog some of my favorite bits for you. I definitely suggest reading it (and maybe you can tell me how it ends)...

When we change the way we communicate, we change society.

Conversation creates more a sense of community than sharing does.

Information sharing produces shared awareness among participants, and collaborative production relies on shared creation, but collective action creates shared responsibility, by tying the user's identity to the identity of the group.

“The invention of a tool doesn’t create change; it has to be around long enough that most of society is using it. Its when a technology becomes normal, then ubiquitous, and finally so pervasive as to be invisible, that the really profound changes happen, and for young people today, our new social tools have passed normal and are heading to ubiquitous, and invisible is coming.”

Our social tools are not an improvement to modern society; they are a challenge to it. New technology makes nre things possible: out another way, when new technology appears, previously impossible things start occurring. If enough of those impossible things are important and happen in a bundle, quickly, the change becomes a revolution.

We are plainly witnessing a restructuring of the media businesses, but their suffering isn't unique, its prophetic.

...The category of 'consumer' is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity."

The Obama Moment

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:26:00 +0000

The video on the website below is one of the most concise and complete descriptions of the moment in time that brought about the Obama win and helps to reframe how to move forward more effectively:

www.nextagenda.org

(P.S.: Next Agenda as an organization is quite interesting too: a self-described hybrid between a new think tank, new technology and new media...One to keep an eye on.)

The Culture War is not over.

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:01:00 +0000

As you all know, I am obsessed with culture and how we can use it to build, grow and sustain movements for social change. I mentioned earlier in my blog the founding of an organization called the Culture Project that is dedicated to using culture to forward a conservative agenda based around liberty. I signed up for their mailing list, and received this in my box this AM announcing their efforts to get conservatives into jobs in the cultural industries. From the email, "We have to do more than complain about mainstream media bias; we need to infiltrate the media with multitudes of Foundational thinking individuals."

The tone of the email (see below) makes me realize that in addition to a post-election retreat to regional and state levels of governing, conservatives are thinking about how to “dethrone” the left’s influence over culture. Elsewhere in their publications they talk about Liberals as controlling culture and their institution is the only think tank out there to do cultural battle.

Perhaps the culture wars are not over…Perhaps they are just beginning.

From: admin@thecultureproject.org
Date: November 19, 2008 8:15:53 AM PST
Subject: The Culture Project Announces Job Search Links Page
Reply-To: miked@thecultureproject.org

Dear Erin,
Since the election, we at The Culture Project are more convinced than ever that the conservative movement is going to have a very difficult time gaining political power if it continues to think that cultural influence professions somehow eternally belong to the left.   

We have to do more than complain about mainstream media bias; we need to infiltrate the media with multitudes of Foundational thinking individuals.

The same goes for other professions that have powerful and lasting cultural impact on the hearts and minds of the American people.   To that end we’ve created a page of job search links so that there can be no doubt about the mission of The Culture Project. This is a tiny step toward our objective of one day dethroning the left as the arbiters of the American worldview through our cultural institutions. As we grow there will be many more programs and strategies deployed to tackle this Herculean task, but the journey of a thousand miles . . .

  Any suggestions on your part would be most welcome.  
Cordially, 
Mike D'Virgilio
Founder and Executive Director The Culture Project http://thecultureproject.org/

The Opportunity Movement

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:19:00 +0000

Some progressives have offered that in this financial crisis whoever can be the “prosperity maker” will win. But prosperity doesn’t reinforce our frame (to use a term that is so 2004 that even I cringe to write it).

If the conservatives are about liberty, let progressives be about opportunity. We have a leader in Obama that can be the symbol of opportunity and the American dream. We have an activated grassroots that is ready to be a movement. We have issues—the economy, health care and education-that reinforce this value and each other. Opportunity through economics, health care and education, is the path to the American dream.

Republicans at the Republican Governors’ Association last week talked about the need to reposition their party as the one with “the solutions to fulfilling the American Dream”. Their path will surely be many of the frames they’ve used to date: liberty, small government, lower taxes. And they’ve framed the Democrats and progressives as irresponsible on these values.

But what if we started talking about taxes as a path to opportunity? About responsible government that makes sure that free markets and Wall Street don’t take away Main Street’s opportunity to live the American Dream. Health care and education as pathways to opportunity (for all).

America has always been an aspiration-based culture. It is why Nike commercials give us goose bumps and the realm of possibility (like sending a man to the moon) excites us. Opportunity reinforces this cultural orientation. And when we step into culture’s stream, our work becomes much, much easier.

This win was all about organizing + infrastructure.

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:05:00 +0000

As un-sexy as it is to say about the most exciting electoral win in the history of American politics, the Obama win was all about organizing and infrastructure. For several decades, progressive infrastructure has been waning, and we’ve been organizing like it was the 20th century with “fold” rather than “baton” media models and “we-just-need-to-be-louder” broadcast rather than conversational engagement strategies. Yeah, we needed help communicating our values, too. But when it comes down to it, the quantity and quality of organizing and infrastructure is what allowed the Obama campaign to have so much engagement with voters and volunteers.

An engagement marketer named Alan Moore explains how by looking at exit polling and determined that Obama was able to contact 11 million more voters than McCain. (Obama reached 34 million. McCain reached 23 million.) This means that the Obama campaign had contacted one in every four people who voted in this year’s election. Through an incredible field operation that was “disciplined volunteer-driven bottom-up-AND-top-down, distributed and massively scalable organizing campaign”, according to the NY Times, Obama was also able to convert more of his contacts.

The Obama campaign structured this organizing and infrastructure based on engagement strategies of this century not the last. “Thomas Jefferson used newspapers to win the presidency, FDR used radio to change the way he governed, JFK was the first president to understand television, and Howard Dean saw the value of the Web for raising money. But Senator Barak Obama understood that you could use the Web to lower the cost of building a political brand, create a sense of connection and engagement, and dispense with the command and control method of governing to allow people to self-organize to do the work.”

Indeed, the field operations that Obama campaign created and ran seem to be completely different than previous efforts. They spent considerable time and resources identifying, recruiting and training volunteers who would identify, recruit and train more volunteers. “We decided that our volunteers would not be measured by the amount of voter contacts that they made in the summer—but instead by the number of volunteers they were recruiting, training and testing,” said one Field Organizer. In doing this, the Obama Campaign amassed an army of volunteers across the country that were able to have millions of conversations with would-be voters on issues of the day, and those millions of conversations are now part of the organizing and infrastructure legacy of this campaign because they imbibed a sense of ownership in the campaign. As the NY Times recently reported, “Now Obama’s 20-month conversation with the electorate enters a new phase. There is a sense of ownership, a kind of possessive entitlement, on the part of the people who worked to elect him.”

Beyond the Obama Phenomenon there was a huge amount of progressive infrastructure being built. In 2004, the Democratic retreat and navel gazing inspired more focus on a state level. Organizers in places such as New Mexico and Michigan (and by the time of the 2008 election in a dozen states) began to focus on building power at a state level. The progressives got together to agree to utilize a single database for voter activation. And more than in previous years and election cycles, a renewed focus on how independent nonprofits and advocacy organizations could play a role in electoral politics, as well as leadership development. The results can be seen in places like New Mexico where a clean sweep has transformed the state from red to solidly blue.

Now what remains to be seen is how will Obama continue to nurture the campaign organizing and infrastructure as he and his team transition into governing? Will he be able to apply his community organizing skills in governing? Reports such as the Obama administration’s intention to put all government contracts online and his indication in his text message to his list that he will “be in touch soon on what’s next make me think he will.

One way that Obama could do this is to set up a Community Outreach position in his administration to liaise with the young people and the nonprofit world that helped him move voters and issues in this election. This position could include a national coordinator in the White House that coordinates “State Ambassadors” who play an active role in maintaining and enhancing the Obama Movement, or what I like to think of as the “Opportunity Movement” (more on this in a later rant).

The second thought is that the progressive movement needs to immediately come together around an issue that will activate and reinforce and connect the Obama + state infrastructure. The ideal for this kind of a campaign would be an issue that has national scope, but is legislated at a state-level; that is connective, meaning that it incorporates multiple issues rather than silos them; and that is not distinctly progressive in nature, but can reach across the divide of partisan politics to, as the Obama field operation was fond of saying “Respect. Empower. Include.” the 46% of the country that voted for McCain.

The issue that stands in my mind as fitting of these needs is Energy, as its policy is decided largely at a state level, it has national and even international implications and consistency, it incorporates economics (think green jobs), environment, and American innovation. We have seen a few wins at a state level (think Missouri’s Prop C). And we might even find that our greatest foes in this battle--corporate lobbyists—might have other worries given the economic collapse. Finally, energy has incredible existing infrastructure to build upon in organizations like the Apollo Alliance, Green for All, 1 Sky, and Energy Action Coalition.

Next, given the economic situation our country finds ourselves in, we also need to immediately prepare our organizations and organizers for lean resources and extraordinary possibility. If enough of us can get together to think this through, I think we can find a sweet spot between what resources we think will be available next year, and the quick and successive waves of opportunity that we are sure to face in the coming 12-24 months.

I tend to think that all of the leadership development we’ve been doing across the country could lead to efficiencies that organizers are not often known for. We need to be able to do more with fewer resources. Again, innovation, collaboration, making connections between organizations and issues, and focusing on proven engagement strategies that will reach people outside of the Moveon.orgs and other established and successful organizations. The best way to find innovation, to inspire collaborations and to make connections is by bringing people, particularly organizers, together.

We also need to make sure that whatever we embark on has cultural relevance, or is framed in a way that it can be carried by the stream of culture. By this I mean that we need to think about issues and campaigns that can tap into our American identity, how we form community, and how we find meaning in our lives. When we do this, we win not just on issues and in election, but we win the hearts and minds of America.

Resources:

Alan Moore’s website

How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks Power

The New Organizers, Part 1: What's really behind Obama's ground game

The Other Winner

The Culture Project

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:32:00 +0000

A new conservative culture think tank started last month called the Culture Project. It claims it is "a revolutionary initiative to change the American cultural paradigm from liberal to conservative" and it intends to "inculcate into the American people via professions of cultural influence".

There have been other more moderately conservative efforts along this line. As we've talked about before in this blog, the Washington Institute convenes "conversations of consequence" in an effort to "renew culture". While their efforts are underlined with a strong theme around serving and social justice, The Culture project is focused on what they call "Liberty Culture".

The Project goes on to explain why it is needed:

A recent article at The American Thinker, by Bruce Walker, included an interesting passage indicating exactly why we need The Culture Project:

A lot of persuasion is necessary before Americans (including our elites and their institutions) change their way of thinking. We in fact still need a crusade to change hearts and minds more than a candidacy.

Exactly! Top-down action will never change hearts and minds to the degree necessary to make a fundamental difference. Focusing on politics alone will continue to leave us frustrated. The Culture Project offers a bottom-up approach in the cultural influence professions. Nothing like it has ever been attempted before.

A new "crusade to change hearts and minds" has begun.

The Culture Project claims that it is basing its strategies on "a different approach, one that has worked for the liberals and can work for conservatives." While there is likely more liberal-identified than conservative-identified institutions that work in part or whole in the cultural realm (not to mention culture makers and leaders), there is no single progressive think tank working in the focused way that both The Culture Project and Washington Institute do to act as a hub for thought, activity and leaders on strategies for moving culture.

That leaves liberals at a distinct disadvantage. They have all the makings to excel in ways that corporations, religions and conservatives would die to achieve, and squander it because they don't realize its power and their advantage in using it.

Perhaps they are looking right at it but instead of seeing power and opportunity, they are blinded by celebrity. As a colleague said to me the other day in talking about the Obama-Phenomenon: "This is not something that Obama created. He has just figured out how to use culture to create a movement." (See our blog posting the other day on cultural indicators in this election.)

A side note: Our intentions with this blog have always been to gather thoughts on this subject. Tell us what you think about the idea of creating a think tank to be more serious about furthering work in this field.

Bluring of line between Culture + Politics

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:30:00 +0000

Two new developments in the continued blurring of culture and politics this election cycle:

1.) will.i.am's video and song "Yes We Can" is currently in the running for MTV's Best Video award.

2.) Last night Colbert, the comedy show host and one-time Presidential candidate, has asked for a chance to speak at the Democratic National Convention. Will he get it? There are already several petitions launched for just this effort.

Tapping into Local Creative Industrial Bases

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:29:00 +0000

As you probably know, we're pretty obsessed with the role that creative communities can play in change-making. I just found that Americans for the Arts has put together a database that maps creative industries by state, city, congressional district, state legislative district, county, etc.

Because it is an election year, I started looking at swing states, and noticed that some--like OH, PA, OK, + CO--have more than one city in the top 50 most creative industrial base-cities. It seems to me that this information can be useful somehow in our efforts to move the cultural needle on issues. Maybe someone out there has some ideas as to how.

Cultural indicators in the Presidential Campaign?

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:16:00 +0000

Polling in election years usually capture how would-be voters feel on issues and whom they think will be the better candidate. Perhaps this election cycle is unlike any before in that there are also cultural indicators to be watched:

UPDATE: In the continuing blurring of culture and politics this election cycle, will.i.am's video and song "Yes We Can" is currently in the running for MTV's Best Video award.

UPDATE 2: As reported on Future Majority, McCain's "celebrity" attack on Obama deployed web ads, one of which featured a clip from Wayne's World. Mike Myers, Wayne in Wayne's World, demanded that the McCain campaign remove the video from YouTube or face legal action for copyright infringement.

• Songs written about each candidate

o McCain 2
o Obama 28

• Designs on Café Press (a user-designed online merchandise company)

o McCain 17,50
o Obama 53,500

• Appearances since 2000 on cultural TV shows

o The Daily Show
• McCain: 12
• Obama: 3

o Colbert Report
• McCain: 0
• Obama: 1

o Letterman
• McCain: 8
• Obama: 4

o Saturday Night Live
• McCain: 2
• Obama: 1

• Movie appearances

o McCain: cameo in Wedding Crashers

A deeper look at these indicators might be useful in modeling voter behavior. If not, it definitely illustrates the connection between culture and politics. Indeed, politicians are quoting musicians , musicians are creating songs about politicians, and sometimes it is unclear who is the bigger draw.

Sources: IMDB Movie + TV Database, Cafe Press product search, Air Traffic Control Research.

The research is in: offline & online organizing is completely different.

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:38:00 +0000

Clive Thompson writes in this month's Wired Magazine about researchers at MIT's Media Lab who are studying the differences in how people connect and organize in the real world and in online worlds. What they have found is that the two are completely different, and the people who play vital roles in making things happen in each are also completely different:

On the Web, the best way to solve a problem is to engage an extensive network; the person who provides information, advice, or answers is often someone you know only vaguely — a weak link.

In the face-to-face world, though..., groups are more productive when the team members know each other well, sharing extremely strong links. That's because face-to-face teamwork requires intimacy, he says, and "when you're among friends you can really capitalize on preexisting protocols" — nods, grunts, in-jokes — for talking and listening.

Using a method for tracking interactions within a group (based on with whom and when individuals have conversations), these researchers can do incredibly useful things like: predict with incredible accuracy when conversations will take place (very useful in cause-related word of mouth campaigns), locate and resolve inefficiencies in a working environment (usually by introducing people that don't know each other or resolving personal conflicts between key connectors), or model how to create or manage groups to maximize their productivity (creative groups apparently work best when allowed to "fan out to gather information, then regroup").

The research shows us that we cannot create online and real-world networks in the same ways, nor tap the same types of leaders. If we want healthy online AND offline networks and groups that are ready to solve problems, we need to think differently about how we organize them, and specifically who we should invest special support in in their role as "super-connectors" within the group.

Obama Quotes on Music + Culture

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:22:00 +0000

Rolling Stone Magazine interviewed Barak Obama and asked a number of interesting questions related to music + culture.

You've gotten enormous support from the music community. Why do you think they've responsed so strongly to your campaign?

Musicians and creative folks, generally, may be inclined toward the idea of change, or at least open to it--to not just settle for what is, but what might be...

Overall, what do you think of pop culture today? It is harmful or a healthy influence?

I'm not somebody who thinks that popular culture should carry the whole freight; it both shapes and reflects what's happening in the country as a whole. What I have seen is a shift in attitutdes of young people wanting to be more engaged and more involved, and you're going to start seeing that increasingly reflected in music as well...

The New Membership = Experience.

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 05:32:00 +0000

We were having beers with a colleague who does design for a traditional ad agency that works primarily for nonprofits. They do a lot of beautiful communication materials--ads, websites, annual reports, membership materials, etc.

Deyden and I were explaining our philosophy on engagement strategies and how different it is from the traditional marketing that our colleague is so good at. At one point, we were talking specifically about membership programs and materials, how many established organizations know their membership is graying, and how desperately they want to attract younger members.

From our perspective of engagement, the new model of membership cannot be that of the card-carrying member that gives their annual donation and self-identifies as a Sierra Club (or other organization) member. We've written at length here and elsewhere about changes in how young people engage in the world that make most membership programs look ridiculously outdated.

At the same time, we understand that organizations rely on individual membership dues to support the important work they are doing. In fact, relying on thousands of individual donations of $20-100 is the sign of an economically healthy organization whose programs aren't dictated by major donors and foundations. So individual, small donations to nonprofits are imperative to maintain and even to increase.

But we need to find ways that membership can provide new types of value + benefit exchanges (what the members get in exchange for their donation or membership), while still providing the organization with vital resources. We think that in doing so nonprofits will deepen their relationship with their support community. And when this happens, the community is likely to increase its support.

One of our ideas for how to do this is to focus membership benefits and earned income strategies around providing supporters with experiences. Events of all sorts can be once-in-a-lifetime experiences for participants, can raise money, can nurture community, and can be an introduction to new supporters. Retreats seem to be extremely successful in engaging and growing communities of support, as has been employed by evangelical churches and others. Storefronts like that of 826 Valencia also provide opportunity for unique experiences for would-be and existing supporters. (Remind us to post our interview with Dave Eggers on the benefits of having a storefront from a few years back.)

Of course, there are ways to produce these experiences that will encourage and satisfy a new type of membership for nonprofits, and there are ways to totally botch them. We'll put try to put more thought into some of the criteria for success for this soon. But in the meantime, feel free to post your thoughts.

Community + Culture Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:59:00 +0000

Some thought-provoking quotes we've dug out of our archives recently for a project we're working on...We thought it might be of interest to others.

Communities are sticky in ways that mass media never was, it requires a very different approach to what we create, how we create it and how we market it.

Yochai Benkler, Wealth of Networks

Far more than was true for today’s older generation, most Millenials desire—many even require—a direct interaction with their culture.

From Millenials and Pop Culture: Strategies for a New Generation of Consumer

Culture is concerned with the development of coherent viewpoints which bring a cumulative effect to otherwise isolated experiences of a group, making them feel special yet allowing others to have a parallel experience.

Kim H. Veltman, “Computers and the Importance of Culture,” International Institute of Communications Conference, Sydney, September 1997

Web 2.0 is about connecting.

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:51:00 +0000

I came across this interesting research conducted by MSN + MTV, and found this paragraph (and particularly the sentence I've highlighted) to be very intriguing:

How are Social Networks used?
From flirting to ‘checking people out’, networks tend to be relatively small. Globally, social networks allow young people to ‘feel connected’ to their existing friends rather than to meet strangers. The idea of social networks being ‘open to everyone’ has less appeal than the idea of smaller communities among people they know. While they use technology such as IM to arrange their social life, the sites are forums to share and relive experiences.

Another report by the same company talks about how the mass appeal in user-generated content is to connect with others.

A report by the Annenberg Center for Digital Future published a report that showed a dramatic increase in the number of social networkers who are participating in causes online.

Three-quarters of online community members said they use the Internet to
participate in communities related to social causes, with 40 percent saying that they use the Internet at least
monthly to participate in such communities. Eighty-seven percent of online community members are
participating in social causes that are new to them since their involvement in online communities began.

Wow. We are living in a time when people are actively trying to connect and engage, and where an obscene amount of money is being generated from this pursuit. How will nonprofits leverage these tools that seem to be made for our needs?

Social Media + Social Change

noreply@blogger.com (Deyden) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:48:00 +0000

Just read this article, How to Use Social Media for Social Change, that a friend sent us. It outlines how users are leveraging social networks and tools to get the word out about a variety of causes and issues. From raising funds with Twitter to using the Cause application on Facebook - we are seeing how people continue to connect the causes they care about to their identities and everyday routines. These tools allow users to go beyond the message T-shirt, the Live Strong bracelet and even that ol' dependable Free Tibet bumper sticker and find a way to wear the causes they care most about on their virtual sleeve. The "experts" continue to debate how effective these tactics are in achieving meaningful social change but having witnessed the nail biting results of Facebook's Giving Challenge and the incredible protest photos and news that made it out of restricted Tibet and Burma it's hard not to get excited about the power these tools lend the average user.

Small is the New Big

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Wed, 21 May 2008 20:31:00 +0000

This new article on HuffPo by Rob McKay just came out that highlights some of our cultural organizing work, particularly with musicians. This work centers around our mission to engage young people and people on the margins, and our experience that the best way to engage is to connect to them through culture, give them ownership over their activism, and support the heck out of them.

Our work with musicians is just a part of this. We're working with a colleague who is also featured in this article, Eli Lee from New Mexico, on an experiment to invite young New Mexicans to the table—literally and figuratively--and provide them the space, tools and support to use their talents and extensive social networks to inspire and engage others around the themes of opportunity, sustainability and the future of the state. Collectively, these activities can jumpstart the cultural conditions necessary for significant political change to happen.

I sometimes talk about this work that we are creating the cultural conditions for change...that like a wildfire, where a lighting strike or errant cigarette will set afire only if the conditions are dry enough and there is enough material to burn, change only happens when conditions are right. We're working to make those conditions right...In New Mexico, in the music communities across the country and beyond.

Bottom Out, not Bottom Up

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Sat, 10 May 2008 22:00:00 +0000

I gave a speech last month to a group of funders in which I talked about how cultural strategies for engaging people in causes and civic life is not bottom-up as we often like to say in the nonprofit sector, but rather bottom-out.

It is peer-to-peer, and spreads horizontally first, rather than vertically. Of course, it has vertical effects as well--just look at how presidential campaigns have begun to incorporate web 2.0 tactics.

New Orleans + Tom Morello's Justice Tour

noreply@blogger.com (Deyden) — Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

What a month! For the past month we have been busy organizing the "Justice" part of The Justice Tour 2008 and have been traveling to cities across the country the past two weeks. Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine & The Night Watchman) came up with the idea to produce a tour that would touch down in seven cities and, in conjunction with the concert, include a day of activism for all the musicians and help bring a spotlight to a different issue in each city. 100% of the ticket sales from the shows went to our partnering organizations. The tour took us through Los Angeles, NYC, New Orleans, Asheville, DC, Boston and wraps up in Chicago tonight. The issues included: bringing people home in New Orleans, solving homelessness in L.A., establishing a living wage in Asheville, working with Iraq veterans to end the Iraq War, health care and labor rights for all. It was easy to get overwhelmed by all that needs to be fixed in this country but it only took time with each org working on the ground to feel a little better and remember the value of their work and the vital role they play in securing justice for many Americans. The work that they do day in and day out leaves us all inspired.

Tibet.

noreply@blogger.com (erin) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:42:00 +0000

I just sent this email out about the situation in Tibet to people who were involved in the Tibetan Freedom Concerts...and then forwarded it to hundreds of others to ask for their support.

As this article from the NY Times talks about, and as we saw with the great work of Bjork a few weeks ago, music is an important frontier for the work for Tibet, and in a totally different way than it was when we organized the concerts. It's pretty damned exciting, I have to say.

But not nearly as exciting (and scary) as what the brave Tibetans are doing inside of Tibet right now. I hope that this is our moment...And I'm serious about doing one more concert---The Tibet is Free Concert.

Dear Participants & Friends of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts,

This past week has seen unprecedented and widespread protests inside Tibet. Throughout the country, and even in China itself, Tibetans from all walks of life have taken to the streets to protest the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

It is hard to piece together exactly what is happening--China has virtually shut down the country, not allowing journalists or independent monitors inside Tibet to evaluate the situation. What we do know is that many Tibetans have lost their lives, and many, many more have been imprisoned.

In other parts of the world, solidarity vigils and marches of exiled Tibetans and Tibet supporters are happening on every continent. Just as Tibetans inside Tibet heard about the Tibetan Freedom Concerts and the international action it garnered almost twelve years ago, Tibetans today are hearing of the world’s increased support for a peaceful resolution through negotiations.

Students for a Free Tibet, the organization that we partnered with on all of the concerts, have an incredible information and action center on its website: www.studentsforafreetibet.org. Please encourage your family, friends, fans and anyone else who believes in human rights to go to their site to take action.

More then ever before, by joining together in action right now, our voices of support for Tibet can ensure that this becomes a watershed moment not just for the people of Tibet and China, but also for the cause of human rights and freedom.

Sincerely,
Erin Potts
Co-founder, Tibetan Freedom Concerts

PS>> As I wrote this email, this video emerged from a remote region on the border of Tibet and China:

be+cause Clothing featured in Good Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Deyden) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:30:00 +0000

GOOD Magazine featured our Aung San Suu Kyi T-shirt in this month's Mar/April edition. The design is by super talented, Brooklyn based artist, Karen Ingram.

Ever since we started the HERO line of shirts we have wanted to feature Aung and had a clear concept for the depiction. Karen took our idea and made it into this masterpiece: layering 2 transparent colors over each other to give the effect of 3 colors and then overlapping her image with words from a 1995 speech she gave.

The recent peaceful protests in Burma by the monks, their supporters and the subsequent crackdown has made Karen's design all the more relevant. The shirt's design has sparked many conversations and questions from people unfamiliar with Aung San Suu Kyi and her people's struggle.