Tag Archives: movement building

What Creates a Revolution?

“A revolution doesn’t happen when a society adopts new tools, it happens when a society adopts new behaviors.”

–Us Now Movie Trailer Preview

Today, I was skimming through my RSS feeds and one of my favorites had an update: Mike Kujawski’s Public Sector 2.0 blog. Mike gets social marketing (the real kind), and he is also a savvy social media professional. On his site, he posted the Us Gov movie trailer, which I had seen before on Maxine Teller’s blog, but today, the last quote (located above) really stood out to me the most.

It stood out because in it I saw a profound statement being made on behavior change. It may be due to me coming away from my talk with a class of smart Yale students, where their *good* questions focused a lot on the why of social media (measurement, literacy, behavior change, clutter vs. content, society’s relationship to technology, etc.). But, I feel like this quote gest to the heart of the relationship between social media and social marketing, and why the relationship is important.

  1. It’s not about the tools (i.e. being cool or shiny)
  2. Change (i.e. revolution, small or big) is a result of adopting/influencing new behavior (whether it be that of a society, an organization or an individual).

Currently, at an increasing rate, society is experimenting and applying social media tools, both for the good and the bad. Thus, we as practitioners need to be aware of this and how it is affecting one’s behavior. For example, I tease that in 10 years, we will be doing public health campaigns for internet addiction…but how far away is that really? We already have them for TV addiction. Take a quick look here at the Us Now documentary preview, as it’ll provide some more juices to step back and do some introspection and reflection.  

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlqU1o3NmSw

If you find this interesting and what to dig beyond the tools and really get to “what does this all mean?” Then, I also highly recommend visiting the Digital Ethnography blog and getting introduced to Professor Michael Wesch, who was named Professor of the Year for 2008. He and his students have some interesting and compelling videos on what “more than the tools” have to mean and why it’s important to know.

If you want to continue discussion on “what government may/can look like,” then I also recommend following both the Government 2.0 Club and the Government 2.0 Camp conversations (if you can’t physically attend the gathering coming up soon at the end of MArch) on Twitter too.

…because after all, what creates a revolution? and what does a revolution look like?

flickr photo credit: Wesley Fryer

Invisible Children: From Grassroots to Mega Movement

You may have heard of Invisible Children. And no, this is nothing from a science-fiction movie.

Movement Image

Invisible Children is a non-profit that benefits children in war-torn Uganda. It began as a grassroots efforts in 2003 when 3 college students set off on an adventure to Uganda. With only a video camera to document their travels, they discovered a 17-year war they had never heard of where children were being forced to be child soldiers.

Their biggest observation was witnessing hundreds of children marching every night, miles upon miles, from their homes in the country to Gulu in hopes of avoiding being forced into the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army). The children shared their stories with the students about their nightly commute and the struggles they face everyday. What came through clear, was that the children wanted more education.

Upon witnessing what they did, the students turned their videos into a documentary and showed it to anyone and everyone. The movement grew into the Global Night Commute , where Americans all over the country walked miles to sleep outside within their own cities, hoping for others to notice the situation in Uganda.

Since the Global Commute, Invisible Children’s movement has grown…a lot. Currently, it has a fully developed website, a visible child scholarship program, a bracelet campaign, Invisible Children Campus Movie Tour bus, teacher exchange program, internships, a world tour and more. For more information on the war or the movement, I highly recommend visiting and browsing the site.

I mention it here for three reasons:

1) I think it’s a great example of how a grassroots movement can go from a few individuals to an international movement…and how a good story, enhanced by media capabilities can be powerful beyond words.

2) I wanted to highlight how collaboration can lead to a more effective campaign and cause. This movement was begun by college students by has even hit the steps of Washington by gaining the interests of the media, policy makers, world leaders, government officials, special interest groups, partnering NGOs and more.

3) I wanted to emphasis the great use of capitalizing on your target and interested audiences. This movement begun by showing the movie at house parties and on college campuses, working to gain that one-on-one interaction combined with powerful stories and powerful media. Also, by targeting college campuses first (especially with Generation M), it made for a strong network to grow the movement. And, for great resources (students) to tap into to also promote the cause – they still believe that anything is possible, have more flexible schedules, want to feel like they matter, want to be the change in the world, have the technology know how, have some education and many other useful attributes…and with Invisible Children working to aide the children of Uganda…this is an audience college students can more closely relate towards, and as history shows, turned out quite successful.

Bravo.

(You can watch the original Invisible Children video here.)