Here’s an interesting recent video interview with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.
One point grabbed me as I was listening to the interview. He says:
One particular event opened our eyes to what we had on our hands. That was in March of 2007 at a festival called South by South West….We had about 75,000 users at that point and many of the people at the festival were using Twitter, and this was the first time we were able to see Twitter in the wild, so to speak. And there were a couple of things that happened at that festival that made us realize that people were using our service to come together and move as one…We rushed right back to San Francisco and formed Twitter Incorporated.
I find this interesting in the light of my recent thoughts on what a global civilization, aided by an increasingly social web, might start to look like. Is it possible that sometimes (only sometimes) we may be able to use the social web to come together and act as one, on a larger scale than anything previously achieved? Twitter has certainly become a lot bigger since then.
One of the criticisms I often hear from people about the web (even social media) and computing in general, is that it tends to divorce us from the ‘real world’. The main criticism seems to be that as we spend more time interacting with screens, we are less present and attentive in the physical world, and with the people around us.
However, it could be argued that with the recent development and popularisation of mobile devices such as smart phones and touch screen tablets, we are increasingly able to interact with the world of data while being more ‘present’ in the physical world. We are no longer stuck in one room in front of a screen. Increasingly, the worlds of computing and digital connectivity are going mobile.
There are also many new applications being developed in response to this new digital mobility. One such development is Google Googles, which just today has been released onto the Google iPhone app, in addition to the existing Android platform. Another example is the recent proliferation of augmented reality apps for mobile platforms.
The embedded video however, shows something on a whole new level in terms of the possibilities of the physical world interacting with the world of data. It’s nothing short of amazing. In the video Pranav Mistry demos his SixthSense wearable device, which allows an incredible degree of interaction between data and the physical world. And to my mind, two of the great things about his invention are that he’s making the technology open source and surprisingly, it’s not expensive!
Are we seeing the future of popular mobile technology here?
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.
Here’s an interesting TED Talk from 2009 by Nicholas Christakis. It’s about how social networks of many kinds, not just online social networks, can be used to detect epidemics a lot earlier than previously.
We’re not just talking flu epidemics here, although he does discuss a study of the H1N1 virus they conducted within the student population at Harvard. We’re also talking about the spread of ideas and behaviours within networks.
While watching the video, I couldn’t help but think about the book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Amazon Assoc. link) by Malcolm Gladwell, which addresses similar ideas about the spread of ideas and viruses. If you’re interested in human social networks in general, it’s well worth a read too, if you haven’t already.
Needless to say, I find this stuff pretty interesting. Do check out this (20 min) TED Talk if you do too.
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 :)
