jjprojects: our social web » environment

Twitter reveals Top Trending Topics and Most Powerful Tweets for 2010.

John Johnston — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 02:10:07 +0000

In what’s becoming an end of year tradition, if you can call two years in a row a tradition, Twitter has revealed its Top Trending Topics for the year.

The company has also compiled a list of the Most Retweeted tweets, what it asserts to have been the 10 Most Powerful Tweets of 2010, and a tree timeline of some notable people who have joined Twitter over during the year: Who’s New On Twitter.

Unsurprisingly, ‘Gulf Oil Spill’, ‘Haiti Earthquake’ and ‘Pakistan Flood’ made it to number 1, 2 and 3 respectively in the News Events section. ‘Wikileaks Cablegate’ appears to have made it to number 7 on the list, even though that particular global brouhaha is still in full swing.

In other topic areas, Apple took out four of the top ten spots in ‘Technology’, and Justin Bloody Bieber took out top spot in ‘People’. Again, no doubt Julian Assange is rocketing up that list at the present time.

Below is a rundown of the Overall Top Trends, if you can’t be bothered clicking the link above and going all the way over to Twitter. I have to say, Inception has been my favourite film for the year too.

Gulf Oil Spill
FIFA World Cup
Inception
Haiti Earthquake
Vuvuzela
Apple iPad
Google Android
Justin Bieber
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hollows
Pulpo Paul

A few of the listed 10 Most Powerful Tweets are certainly debatable, but in my book, this one from hit parody account @BPGlobalPR was a real doozie at the time:

Catastrophe is a strong word, let’s all agree to call it a whoopsie daisy.

What’s your favourite trending topic for the year, or favourite Most Powerful Tweet?

Google Earth Engine launched to aid global environmental monitoring and measurement.

John Johnston — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 02:29:10 +0000

Google has launched Google Earth Engine at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, currently underway in Cancun, Mexico. The new platform enables global monitoring and measurement of changes in Earth’s environment.

Google Earth Engine will allow scientists to use Google’s huge infrastructure to analyse imagery (running analyses across thousands of computers), in order to study data related to such things as the state of deforestation, disease mitigation, disaster response and water resources.

Google says it’s particularly excited about the use of Google Earth Engine to support development of systems to monitor, report and verify efforts to stop global deforestation. Deforestation is responsible for a substantial amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere, and loss of biodiversity.

It’s a timely launch, as a United Nations proposed framework for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) is a key agenda item at the Cancun conference.

Because of the huge amount of satellite imagery, and the substantial computer resources needed to analyze the images, many images have never before been seen or analyzed. Google says that scientists will now be able to build applications to mine the significant amount of data they have built up.

Google is also donating 10 million CPU-hours a year for 2 years on Google Earth Engine, to help developing nations track the state of forests. The aim is to provide transparency and certainty to efforts to stop deforestation; both important and significant issues.

It’s good to see Google using its resources in a project such as this, which I notice is also supported by several partners, including key strategic and funding partner the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Facebook co-founder launches Jumo, a social network for activism.

John Johnston — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:48:21 +0000

Jumo is a new social network I’m certainly going to be keeping an eye on. That’s not easy to do at the moment. Because of all the initial interest, no doubt generated by the significant amount of launch coverage, I understand they are having a few initial problems.

Not such a bad situation to be in really, although a new network started by Facebook co-founder and Obama campaign director of online organizing, Chris Hughes, was always going to get a lot of attention. So far I have managed to create an account, log in, and have an initial poke around.

The idea behind Jumo is to let us find, follow and support causes that are the most important to us – a social network for social activism. Apparently there are already around 3,500 organizations signed up. No doubt many more will join in. Jumo is a also not–for–profit venture itself.

I’m not going to give any sort of review just yet, as it seems way too soon. I haven’t had a chance to properly suss it out. Will you join me in checking it out? Jumo just requires you to connect your Facebook account when you sign up.

What would a global civilisation with a collective mind look like?

John Johnston — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:45:17 +0000

Lately I’ve been thinking more on the subject of this great human hive humanity is currently creating, in the form of our insatiable and widening use of the internet.

In just 20 years we have come to the point where almost 2 billion of us now use the internet, and no doubt that will continue to grow until most of us are communicating online on a regular basis, however long that takes.

Star Trek references aside (to The Borg hive mind), as I know someone will mention it, the question remains: is all this mass connectivity leading to a global civilisation with a collective mind? Is it an inevitable part of our social, technological and cultural evolution as a species?

Let’s just say the answer to that question is yes. Will this collective mind be able to help solve our greatest problems, such as climate change? Will it create new problems, such as large scale cyberwarfare? Will life on the internet just play out as it does offline or will it be different? Perhaps the answer is all of the above.

As usual I’ve already floated these ideas on Twitter, a part of this global hive mind in the making (now close to 2oo million users worldwide). It was suggested at one point that the general level of discourse on the web is not high enough at present to be able to achieve anything of real value in a collective sense.

My answer is that it doesn’t all have to be of crucial importance and of great value. Like conversation, the collective mind will wander, will concern itself with trivial matters and pointless entertainment, and “oh look at that silly cat” and celebrities and so forth. Like conversation itself, it can be trivial, it can be awkward, it can be small, it can be big, it can be vitally important. It can have a sense of urgency. It can be relaxed and slow. It can be a lot of things.

Someone also mentioned that it may be a disastrously disconnected global mind rather than a cohesive, perfectly in-tune collective consciousness. My answer to that is that perhaps it doesn’t need to be pretty or perfect, maybe it just has to be.

Facebook is all Green now, don’t give us any more suggestions please.

John Johnston — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 00:40:40 +0000

Perhaps in response to the earlier reported pressure from Greenpeace and others, Facebook has put up a ‘Green on Facebook’ page, highlighting the company’s “efforts to be a green and sustainable global citizen”.

The page has information on Facebook’s environmental and energy efficiency programs, and has links to its energy efficiency partners, such as Digital Energy Solutions Campaign, Alliance to Save Energy and The Green Grid.

Facebook may be correct in asserting that “By enabling millions of people from diverse backgrounds to easily connect and share, we believe we can help unleash innovative environmental initiatives across the globe.”. In addition, it appears that Facebook has now realised, with more than a little pressure it has to be said, that it should also lead by example.

An obvious question now, given how big Facebook has become, is: do you think Facebook is doing enough? Facebook’s stated programs and energy efficiencies now include:

Encouraging recycling and composting throughout Facebook facilities.
Reducing water consumption by nearly 60%, including auto/dual flush toilets and motion sensor faucets.
Motion sensor controlled lighting, reducing energy consumption by 60%.
A Green transportation program offering shuttles, car and vanpooling, bike racks and subsidised public transport for employees.
Facebook has designed a programming language (HipHop for PHP) that provides 50% CPU savings, meaning fewer servers are needed.
Facebook has made the storage of user photos more efficient, so it uses 20% less power than industry standard storage architecture.
Facebook has invested in and is introducing various data center efficiencies on an ongoing basis.

Not bad. They have also added a “Have any further suggestions related to Facebook and the Environment, submit it here” link, but strangely enough, when I clicked it, it came back with:

Hmm, bit of an oversight there. No doubt they’ll fix that. They do allow comments on their wall though. I noticed quite a lot of “No To Coal” spam there as it happens.

I took a holiday and that included not blogging, so there.

John Johnston — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:05:55 +0000

Well it’s been pretty quiet around here for the past couple of weeks hasn’t it? I took a couple of weeks off for a beach holiday with the fam, up the coast in Port Stephens. Beautiful spot! (see pic).

Obviously I didn’t blog while on holiday, and I didn’t pre-write any posts and schedule them to be published while I was away, as many would advise. I just had a much needed holiday and I’m not apologising for it, just explaining where I’ve been. It was good. I think taking some time off to recharge and reflect on life is important.

If you follow some of my tweets you’ll know that I didn’t take a holiday from tweeting. I just tweeted less, and about holiday activities, and on thoughts mostly stimulated by holiday reading. Holiday tweeting is different from usual tweeting, so there.

I’m back now. What did I miss?

How to get people involved in climate change action: blow up children [video]. Hilarity ensues.

John Johnston — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 00:26:51 +0000

Dear oh dear. Here’s a lesson in how not to get people involved in taking action on climate change. The embedded video, which is no doubt supposed to be hilarious, depicts some sceptical people including school children being blown up for not wanting to participate.

I’m not sure how or why the makers thought this might help to convince sceptical people to participate. Apart from being in really poor taste, this kind of thing only gives ammunition to those who are vocal in their opposition to action.

The video was written for the 10:10 campaign by Richard Curtis of Love Actually, Blackadder, Four Weddings, Bridget Jones’ Diary and Notting Hill fame. Epic communication fail this time, Richard.

Needless to say, the organisation involved has removed the video from their website and replaced it with an apology. But hey, this is the internet, so it can still be found pretty easily.

The web and the emerging paradigm shift toward sustainability.

John Johnston — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:13:01 +0000

I want to pick up on an idea in a recent post I read over at GreenBiz.com. It’s a very brief interview with Tim O’Reilly on How the Web is a Sustainability Platform. The post is a precursor to their Innovation Forum being held in October.

Partly, I want to pick up on this concept because it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while now too, and let’s face it, we do tend to gravitate to ideas that we agree with.

I think the idea of the web as an emerging sustainability platform also relates to my recent post The great human hive and the road not taken, which discusses increased connectivity in relation to an emerging global civilisation.

Seeing the whole Earth from space in images for the first time– the seeds of a paradigm shift? Earthrise image courtesy of NASA.gov.

In the interview Tim O’Reilly states,

One (parallel with the open source and Web 2.0 paradigm shifts) is that the Web represented a complete sea change in the media world. People were in denial for a long time and most companies completely missed the opportunity because they tried to marginalize it. In a way sustainability is an even greater change in the world of consumer products. People are still in denial. I think one of the big lessons from the Web is that things that seem to start small can actually be utterly transforming.

Well said. Furthermore, I have come to believe that sustainability is going to be THE key driver of business innovation this century. With every day that goes by, this seems clearer and clearer to me. This will involve a huge transformation – in the way we move around, the way we work, the products and services we buy, how products are produced, how we create and deliver energy. With all the advances in technology we have made so far, it will not mean taking a step back to pre-industrial times as some people fear. Far from it.

I think it’s way bigger than the transformation brought on by the Internet and the digital revolution in general, but it will most certainly involve these too. How could it not? There was a time when I thought the internet would be the biggest innovation and transformation I’d see within my possible lifetime. I was wrong.

By the way, if you are interested, here’s a recent article from Harvard Business Review, The Sustainability Imperative, May 2010 (most of which is behind a paywall sorry). This article articulates this emerging paradigm shift in some detail.

In short, the two external references I’ve pointed to here (as well as many other voices around the world) are saying, get on board now or face being left behind as this paradigm shift gathers pace.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree or do you see it going another way altogether?

20 reasons why Earth Hour social media has worked so far.

John Johnston — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 02:43:45 +0000

Last Monday evening I gave a presentation at Social Media Club Sydney, along with another presentation by Dae Levine, Head of Communications with Greenpeace. The topic of the event was “Lessons Learned from Not for Profits: Local Effort, Global Effect”.

I’m not going to give you a summary of the whole event here, as there are already decent summaries here and here if you are interested. As has been noted by various people, the two different campaigns demonstrate how quite different approaches can yield successful results, depending on the objective of the campaign.

One of the most obvious and perhaps biggest differences in the two approaches is the ‘more party than protest’ approach taken by Earth Hour, compared to the more confrontational protest approach taken by Greenpeace.

Yesterday I blogged about another Greenpeace campaign which takes a similar approach in confronting Facebook. The campaign takes aim at the company’s inadequate measures in relation to addressing its growing carbon footprint. After the success of Greenpeace’s Nestle ‘Killer’ campaign, it’ll be interesting to see how this turns out.

For those of you who might be interested, I thought I might break down my presentation into a list of points identifying the approach taken by Earth Hour, especially in relation to social media. In short, this is how and why I think it has worked so far.

Good timing: climate change action is needed and wanted by many people all over the world.
It’s a simple Idea and message. It’s positive, fun and hopeful. It’s more party than protest, which encourages a lot of people to get involved.
Turning off lights is a powerful visual to help deliver the message worldwide.
It involves people power, with a grassroots driven campaign.
Earth Hour is an open source brand. It’s available for anyone to use.
The use of social media and user generated content fits well with the grassroots driven and open source nature of the campaign.
For Earth Hour there are thousands of events organised worldwide, both official and unofficial.
Earth Hour social media started organically and has grown as social media has grown since 2007. In 2007 Twitter was not mainstream, Facebook was smaller, YouTube was only a couple of years old.
Earth Hour has access to, and the support of the global WWF Network to help with campaign organisation. For instance, in social media there are numerous official and unofficial social network profiles worldwide, in multiple languages and on multiple networks.
The network is asked to respect the open source nature of the Earth Hour brand, to let go of the brand so anyone can use it.
There are numerous unofficial Earth Hour supporter profiles and an overwhelming amount of supporter generated creative content, which organisers encourage worldwide.
Local agency generated creative content is encouraged worldwide.
Numerous official and unofficial partnerships are developed with companies and organisations worldwide, to help spread the word and lend support.
Throughout the year, bloggers are engaged and encouraged to write about Earth Hour – from popular, influential blogs to environmental bloggers, to regional bloggers (in different countries and languages) to any and every bloggger. Earth Hour assets such as videos, images and logos are made available for use by bloggers when possible.
The rewards of an open and available brand have so far, far outweighed the risks of letting it go.
The approach by organisers to social media conversations is mostly “hands off”, letting conversations flow and letting supporters argue the case when there is criticism.
Interventions are based on highly ‘offensive’ content only.
Traditional and social media have worked together to make the campaign a success – from print to radio to tv to websites to mobile to social.
Supporter–made creative content is showcased through official Earth Hour networks.
On–the–night image and video uploads, live blogging and status updates are encouraged, to help support the event itself, in real-time.

Here’s the official Earth Hour 2011 video if you haven’t seen it yet :)

Greenpeace campaign takes aim at Facebook’s coal–fired servers [animated video].

John Johnston — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:49:08 +0000

Following the recent social media driven succes s of Greenpeace’s campaign to get Nestlé to stop using palm oil linked to the destruction of rainforests, it seems the activist organisation is now taking aim at Facebook’s massive new data center. Apparently, the new facility is not powered by clean energy.

Greenpeace wants Facebook to “drop coal and commit to 100 percent renewable energy, cutting its carbon footprint and helping in the struggle to prevent catastrophic climate change”

Greenpeace has released the embedded animated video, which is a bit of a spoof on the new feature film The Social Network – another movie Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will not be particularly happy about.

Earlier this month, Facebook responded (in the comments section) to a Greenpeace open letter to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, maintaining that their massive, new Oregon data center is quite energy efficient, although not run on renewable energy.

Perhaps Greenpeace feels Facebook is a good target for this kind of campaign as it’s getting pretty huge, with over 500 million users now. In addition, Facebook is increasingly in competition with the likes of Google, which is doing substantially more to address its carbon footprint, and even making investments in renewable energy technology.

What are your thoughts on what Greenpeace is asking Facebook to do? Could Facebook be doing more, given its huge size and growing revenue? In any case, It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how this one turns out.

jjprojects: our social web » environment

Twitter reveals Top Trending Topics and Most Powerful Tweets for 2010.

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Google Earth Engine launched to aid global environmental monitoring and measurement.

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Facebook co-founder launches Jumo, a social network for activism.

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What would a global civilisation with a collective mind look like?

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Facebook is all Green now, don’t give us any more suggestions please.

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I took a holiday and that included not blogging, so there.

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How to get people involved in climate change action: blow up children [video]. Hilarity ensues.

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The web and the emerging paradigm shift toward sustainability.

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20 reasons why Earth Hour social media has worked so far.

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Greenpeace campaign takes aim at Facebook’s coal–fired servers [animated video].

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