Month-Long Observances
American Diabetes Month
Lung Cancer Awareness Month
Individual Events and Observances
2010 Election Day–Vote!
Nov. 2, 2010, United States
World Entrepreneurship Forum
Nov. 3, 2010, Lyon, France
Civil Society 2.0
Nov. 4-5, 2010, Washington D.C.
Connecting Social Innovation 2010 (Hashtag = #cosi10)
Nov. 4-9, 2010, See Website for Details.
TEDxMidAtlantic
Nov. 5, 2010, Washington D.C.
APHA Annual Meeting–Social Justice: Public Health Imperative (Hashtag = #apha10)
*Worldways Social Marketing is hosting an #apha10 tweet-up on Nov. 7.
Nov. 6-10, 2010, Denver, CO
mHealth Summit (Hashtag = #mhs10)
Nov. 8-10, 2010, Washington D.C.
National Drug Facts Week (Hashtag = #drugfacts2010)
Nov. 8-14, 2010, Everywhere
HealthCampDC
Nov. 12, 2010, Washington D.C.
TEDxYSE (Young Social Entrepreneurs)
Nov. 13, 2010, Washington D.C.
World Diabetes Day
Nov. 15, 2010, Everywhere
On the Move: The Power of Mobile Communication
Nov. 15, 2010, Washington D.C.
Web 2.0 Summit
Nov. 15-17, 2010, San Francisco, CA
D.C. Entrepreneurship Week
Nov. 15-19, 2010, Washington D.C.
Broadening Influence: Examining Public Health Driven Social Media
Nov. 16, 2010, Washington D.C.
Great American Smokeout
Nov. 18, 2010, Everywhere
Health 2.0 STAT Meet-up
Nov. 18, 2010, Washington, D.C.
Big Tent
Nov. 18-20, 2010, Houston, TX
National Survivors of Suicide Day
Nov. 20, 2010, Everywhere
International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
Nov. 25, 2010, Everywhere
Medicine 2.0
Nov. 29-30, 2010, The Netherlands
Open Innovation Africa Summit (Submit your own ideas for innovation in Africa and potentially win a spot at the conference!)
Nov. 29-December 1, 2010, Nairobi, Kenya
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Feel free to let me know of events I should consider adding by emailing me at abornkessel@fly4change.com. In particular, I look for events that combine a number of the following topics: social media, social marketing, mobile, tech, health 2.0, social innovation, government 2.o, social change, non-profits, journalism, social entrepreneurship, leadership, special observances, and more.
]]>This is not a wimpy philosophical post. We are talking dollars and sense. (Not a typo). A new business model experiment is in the works, relating to social entrepreneurship called: The Life Investment. Basically, it comes down to this question according to the Social Edge blog:
If an investor offered you a large infusion of unrestricted capital, say $300,000, with the only condition being that you would give them 3% of your income for the rest of your life, would you take the deal?
Apparently, it was fueled by this guy as the concept of personal investment contracts. Then, thanks to Nathaniel Whittemore, Change.org’s Social Entrepreneurship blogger, the conversation grew bigger until three innovative bloggers at SocialEdge, the blog hosted by the Skoll Foundation, took the leap and announced the Thrust Fund. Each has their own start-up social entrepreneurship, and here is their offer:
Kjerstin: Offers 6% of her annual income for a $600,000 up front investment.
Saul and Jon: Each offering 3% for $300,000 up front.
Now this gets interesting and I have to say ballsy. If this idea and conversation gets you off your chair and gets your mind thinking, Kjerstin, Saul and Jon are hosting a conversation about their offer saying: “Invest in us; we’ll give you some of our equity for life.” I’m still marinating on this whole concept myself, but I love the innovation here. The details is where it may get tricky–but man, bravo for putting themselves out there and believing in something that strong. What do you think–if you were made the offer, what would you say: Deal? or No Deal?
]]>A Social Shout-out
Not only are good news items coming up, but I’ve also expanded my RSS reader with some blogs I encourage you to get to know:
Social Herder: If you don’t know Will Robinson, you might want to. Will writes on all things social entrepreneurship, non-profits and general do-goodery. You can catch Will at his blog, on Twitter, or at his current gig with Ogilvy PR.
Justice for All: If you are interested in a mash-up of human rights, social enterprise, democracy and law, then you’ll appreciate the enthusiasm of Northwestern senior Akhila Koliset. Not only do I share an interest in advocating human rights with Akhila, but I continue to be inspired by her passion and the voice with which she writes. You can tell she loves to be inspired as much as she is inspiring–just check out her reading list!
What We Give: You’ve probably heard of this one, but if not, you should. Larry Blumenthal is the director of social media strategy at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and adds much value back to the marketplace through both his blog and on his Twitter stream where he talks about how social media is changing philanthropy.
What about you? Any newly discovered blogs or colleagues you’d like to give a social shout-out to?
PS: Often, these “nuggets” are shared sooner through my Twitter account. If you’re on Twitter, let’s connect @socialbttrfly.
]]>Why? Because whether it’s social marketing or corporate social marketing, you are still working to effectively change or influence behavior for good–and an effective way to do so is making your desired behavior fun, popular and easy–which is exactly what started bubbling through on the social marketing list serv as others started sharing some of their favorite fun, popular and easy social marketing initiatives. Enjoy–and when you find yourself running around ragged, ask yourself: Is anyone having fun? Is this easy for people? and go from there.
The Piano Staircase
To encourage passerbyers to take the stairs rather then the escalator (and thus promote physical activity), this group turned the stairs into a piano–whenever you stepped on a stair a different sound would echo–in effect, making taking stairs more exciting than an everyday escalator. I can’t find the source, but it apparently had a 60% success rate. Who’s behind it? Volkswagon. Apparently, Volkswagon has been trying out some experimental marketing based around “The Fun Theory” to see if they could create desired behaviors if the action was made fun. You can read more about the piano staircase and other initiatives such as the recycling arcade and more at TheFunTheory.com.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw
The Pink Glove Dance
You may have seen this one already, as it’s been circling the blogosphere for a while. But, it’s an example of everyday people–hospital employees–finding a way to make their job fun while communicating a message–that you aren’t alone when taking steps to prevent breast cancer, like getting a mammogram.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEdVfyt-mLw
Musical Hand Sanitizer
Aas part of Volkswagon’s initiative, they are hosting an awards program on the best “fun” applications for healthy and good behaviors. One entry was a University who had installed hand sanitizers to prevent the spread of germs during the flu season. They found few students using them. Thus, they adopted the fun theory and installed some sounds. Each time someone went for hand sanitizer, a funny noise was created. Results? With the sounds included, students were seven times more likely to use the germ-reducing resource.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9nCRJo73oI&feature=player_embedded
Pedestrian TV Traffic Light
In this example, you get some free entertainment while waiting to cross the street. Instead of staring at a red outline of a person wishing it to change with your desired mind control, this traffic light shows TV clips–vidoes from YouTube, funny clips from TV shows, etc. This way, the hope is that you’ll actually wait until it’s safe to cross the street.
Design you own bottle at the vending machine. Granted, I know bottles and paint on bottles isn’t good for the environment. But if you can’t quite get that change initiated, then check out what this group did. To encourage people to buy water over sugary pop or juices form the vending machine, they enabled it so people can design their own water bottle from the vending machine at the point-of-purchase. Now that’s easy, and fun!
Fun, Popular and Easy…Online?
More examples are found on the FunTheory.com Web site mentioned earlier, and I have to admit–it’s fun just looking through them. But, my mind started going: How can you make your online and social media communications fun, popular and easy to help you achieve your behavior change mission? Now, that’s a weighty question. Then, I started thinking about what is it in a Web or social media behavior change initiative that makes it fun, popular and easy:
What about you? What are some of your favorite fun, popular and easy social marketing efforts? Any of those take place online?
]]>In the beginning, I feel many tools were leveraged as awareness-building mechanisms. From the initial launch of Causes to recruiting fans, followers and friends, many tools were initially set out to further awareness-building of an organization.
Then, I felt like the tools and our use of them matured as we discovered ways to leverage the tools into dollars–from Twestival to Tweetsgiving to Goodsearch. Even Causes adapted and identified birthdays as a way to increase micro-donations. You could say that online fundraising in and of itself has seen a phased formation and continues to evolve. See Beth’s Kanter’s recent post: 5 Social Media Fundraising Trends for 2009.
Then, enter the behemoths–contests and competitions like “America’s Giving Challenge,” hosted by the Case Foundation entered in the next rendition. You could say this ties into a more advanced type of fundraising, but I felt like it deserved to be on its own. As, I don’t yet think this area has been “tapped out” and neither do organizations according to Andre Blackman who interviewed the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation who uses contests and competitions to further public health innovation.
However, where I feel we are still in our infancy is with online advocacy for social change. It’s starting to creep up–just look at LiveEarth’s 2009 campaign “Love, the Climate” where people were encouraged to write love letters to office holders who worked to prevent climate change or the “Be a Voice for Darfur” movement which utilized activist and blogger toolkits to further realize the campaign’s objectives. Even act.ly provided a way for people to create and spread petitions with a call to action via Twitter.
Like I said, I think advocacy is where we have the most potential to further expand. I could be biased based on my government and citizen engagement day-job type of work–but I think there’s more ways we can get involved, as citizens, in decision making and peace keeping in our local, state and Federal governments–even internationally. What about you? Where do you think we have the most room to grow and what do you predict as being phase 5? Perhaps, partnerships and collaborations might be a phase five as we see how online and social media open up new doors of opportunity across organization firewalls. Or, another phase 5 might be storytelling–as more of these functions become interwoven and organizations get better at telling their story.
What do you think?
flickr credit: flatfield
]]>Almost every topic and issue discussed had behavior in common. Whether working to increase understanding across ethnicity, wanting people to be aware and address the peanut recall situation, take better care of the environment, to adopt new work processes, or to empower local citizens to help fix up their community–behavior plays a key role. Whether it’s the behavior of the American public or the behavior of those within an organization, work is being done not to be cool, not to be different, but to influence and change behavior.
The idea of Government 2.0 and government as a platform is not about tools and technology. It’s about cultivating an environment and culture that enables citizens to influence and direct its government and each other.
Now the big question: Why? Why does government as a platform matter? Why are so many smart, talented, and skilled people devoting time, energy and resources to “Government 2.0?” The Answer: Government 2.0 is a metaphor. It’s a field jazzed about influencing behavior for the better (whether they realize it or not–many of them are social marketeers). It’s a group of people who say no to the status quo, and instead says, “We can do more. We can do better.”
Herein comes the next big question: How? This is a longer answer, but I know a good place to turn to-studying and knowing about behavior. The great thing–this is nothing new. Sure, technology is new, cultures evolve, but we as humans have been and will continue to be fascinated with behavior. So if behavior plays such a huge role in the programs we authorize, products we produce and services we fulfill–here is my recommendation–more social marketing:
What do you think? Many of us participants finish this week motivated to take our lessons learned and move the needle on some of the biggest issues facing our country. What are your recommendations to implement and help realize “Government 2.0?”
flickr credit: Leo Reynolds
The goal: Spark a nationwide movement toward careers in the common good – including nonprofit, government, and social enterprise jobs. (Cross-Fertilization–> This makes me especially happy!)
Status: Currently, Change.org is building a huge database of social change jobs with their partners and have just hired a team of career advisors who will be blogging every day to provide guidance on finding and developing a career in social change, including Rosetta Thurman! (Mentors, resources and role-models….even better!)
Now What? Besides just checking it out and getting some good food for action, Change.org is also reaching out to like-minded bloggers and non-profit leaders to spread the word–specifically by signing a statement to endorse the vision. If you think this sounds pretty sweet….then join me (and @mikekujawski @engagejoe @mindofandre @bbravo and many others in signing.
Some Highlights of the Vision:
Thanks Change.org for providing an avenue for people to cultivate their passion with their purpose for effective, long-lasting and positive change.
(For the record, I currently have no relationship with Change.org other than being a member of their community…I jam ust that impressed with 1) their blogger outreach strategy anf 2) the actual product/vision behind this initiative.) =)
]]>Play a simple word game and based on your success, rice will be donated to hungry children.
A word appears and asks you to define it. Every definition you correctly identify donates 20 grains of rice. You’re intriguing the mind, using social media tools AND giving. Talk about collaborative innovation.
There are 55 different vocabulary levels, with customized options for your own vocabulary growth…the site says that most people don’t get beyond level 48. Will you be the one to reach level 55?!?
The words are also constantly evaluated on their difficulty level depending on how many people get the word right or wrong and new words are always being added.
Why
Free Rice also lists many reasons why its encourages the development of vocabulary as part of its mission in its FAQ section of its website. They include:
Who Finances The Donation?
According to the site, the site’s advertisers are the ones who actually pay for the rice to be donated. And, the site itself does not run a profit. Thus, you play, advertisers pay to be listed on the site, that money funds the rice donation.
Distribution
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) distributes the rice. The WFP works with over 1,000 organizations in over 75 countries, making it the world’s largest food aid agency. When possible, WFP buys the food through the local growers and economy.
Results
From its start on October 7, 2007 to April 27, 2008, the total number of rice grains donated = 29,724,130,370! For a break down of results, click here.
More
To learn more about hunger, visit Poverty.com, an interactive site that teaches about hunger and poverty, and even tracks how many hunger deaths occur per hour through a moving, interactive map…
Other Helpful Sites include:
]]>At work, we’ve been talking a lot about the information scans we all do on our own…who we refer to, which sites are the best, the most useful feeds, etc. So, now, out of curiosity and from inspiration gained from Chris Brogan’s recent post: “Where I Learn More,” I’m asking: Where do you go to learn?
Brogan’s article is great, as in it, he talks about the role of influence and asks us to reflect on what influences what we learn, think, behave and believe….so close to a social marketing (the real social marketing) question my buttons were popping with techy-excitement.
About the listening phase. I might do some or all of this ritual depending on the day and the time. The point is though, that my ritual is…I am always listening. Always checking in. Always asking questions. Always working to seek answers.
The FUN part, is taking it all in, reflecting, and creatively organizing the content and information in your head to implement innovative, effective communications. And, when I really want to *get wild,* I reflect further, beyond the field of communications, social media or marketing…but more to what Chris mentions, about influence. About change. About society. About trends. About what it all means.
Photo Credit: Flickr, Elias Pirasteh
]]>Stay with me. Obviously, not all may agree on the content. But, this is worth taking a few minutes to review even if only:
IJNP, In Jesus’ Name Productions, launched last week during the Cannes Film Festival. It’s promotional video is below. It’s a bit long, but fast forward to the last minute, and you can get the *details.*
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMwVSUQtWaQ
In sum:
IJNP desires to leverage social networks with the purpose of uniting Christians around the world to have a ‘say’ in the making of film. IJNP offers Christians to have an influential role in determining which movies the studio makes and/or partners with.
First thoughts? And, this is posted in terms of looking at the non-profit business model and the use of social media through social networks.
This should be interesting… =)
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