Activism, Social Media, and…

Why Are We Here?

Demonstrators protest the disappearance of 43 students from the Isidro Burgos rural teachers college in Acapulco, Guerrero state, Mexico, Friday, Oct. 17, 2014. Investigators determined that 28 sets of human remains recovered from a mass grave discovered last weekend outside Iguala, in Guerrero state, were not those of any of the youths who haven't been seen since being confronted by police in that city Sept. 26. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) ORG XMIT: MXEV105 (Eduardo Verdugo)

I was born in 1948.  At three years old, there was no dialer on our new phone… just tell the operator who you want to call.

Talking, learning, sharing… faster and faster.  Communication devices change us. 

November 22, 1963, I was driving 70 mph in a school zone in our new, red Oldsmobile Cutlass, just outside of Dallas.  Dad said, “Judy, pull over,” after we just heard on the radio about Kennedy being shot.  The last assassination I knew of was Lincoln.

In 1964 my activist brothers refused to support the Vietnam War and marched against it.  No cell phones, FB or Twitter; just newspapers. 

Yes.  Technology changes when, where, what, and how fast we get information.  And our ever-expanding technologies in social media let us get active so much quicker and in so many new ways.

‘Why am I here’ is exponentially increased to ‘why are we here’ because of our social media today.  To know what everyone else is doing can change my point of view, my mood, my decisions, my beliefs, and my actions.   Now, faster than ever before.

This author disagrees with Malcolm Gladwell’s column in the New Yorker  (Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted) when Malcolm says that social media in not redefining activism.  Professor Rutledge gives four good reasons why social media is redefining activism and advocacy:

         ~   Public awareness is changed by social media because it spreads freely and fast changing public policy.

         ~  Information is frequently obtained from our friends on FB, Twitter, etc., giving us word-of-mouth validation.

         ~  Social media technologies cross over networks and give immediate impact showing urgency, and can raise donations quickly.

         ~  Social media technologies let us act fast about large and small issues and feel involved.

Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., M.B.A., is Director of the Media Psychology Research Center and teaches media psychology at Fielding Graduate University and UCLA Extension.  Read her article here:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/positively-media/201010/four-ways-social-media-is-redefining-activism

I talked a lot about activism in my previous Green Blog…  so I’ll take this to a more personal level here, and talk about my cell phone.  Because all it takes is a cell phone now to be socially active and affect the very meaning of your life.  Everyone I know has a smart phone but me and it often appears their cell IS the meaning of their lives.

So here is my little LG TracFone in front of a sepia toned self portrait of my shadow I shot in 1974….   against a huge Morton Bay fig tree in San Diego.  Then I squeezed it into my cell, don’t even remember how; couldn’t do it again.

What is it going to feel like when I bite the bullet and get a smart phone?  Yes.  I’m scared.  Because this is an even bigger jump for me than Rabi Tzvi Freeman who writes about upgrading to a smarter smart phone:

“And once it’s in the Cloud, it’s so much easier to share with others. On our devices, each of us is in our own world. We communicate, we interact, but the devices—they divide us. But there, in the Cloud, it’s all one. So easy to create that synergy that comes through sharing.

Looking into his eyes, I saw he was confident and earnest. I trusted him. I had to move on in life."

Freeman’s upgrade story tugs at my heart and funny bone ~!~   So relieved to find another human is attached to their old cell like I am mine.  Check it out.

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2098169/jewish/How-My-iPhone-Upgrade-Redefined-the-Meaning-of-Life.htm

I tell myself I’ve got an iPad, a macbook pro 15” screen with disc drive, a huge mac desktop… I don’t need to go online every second.

Yet, I think about Cairo.  I think about photojournalism and the gazillions of photos I take.   Could I make a difference?   You bet. 

How hard can it be?

~   ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

CROWDFUNDING

Crowdfunding means putting your project online so people can see it and give you money to do it.  It's that simple.

I found this crowdfunding project similar to my blog theme (’Why are we here’) called  “The Meaning of Life” that was successfully funded in August 2012 on Indiegogo ~~

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/meaning-of-life

I also found a number of online sites with good tips on how to start crowdfunding and below are some of their common elements:

Tell your story    

Be organized    

Do your sums (how much money do you need to raise)    Get people talking

Contact businesses and organization, put up fliers

Contact the press  (write your own press releases)

Be creative and keep your followers posted on your (normally) 30-day campaign  ~  because they want to know!   That means, even after you’re funded (if possible, on the particular funding site) let them know your progress, your ups and downs, your continuing story.  If not on that site then leave them an audit trail or website so they can keep up with you.

Say thank you and do your follow up.  Do they get a T-shirt or autographed poster for donating so much money?     

This has been YOUR project turned into a group effort and your supporters have more than money invested.   Talk to their feelings!  This keeps you alive in their minds and hearts because, who knows, maybe you may do it again.

This is good sense from the online ‘Social Media Examiner’ on how to crowdfund  ~   like:

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/11-tips-for-crowdfunding-how-to-raise-money-from-strangers/

Choosing the right crowdfunding site.  Pitch your project with passion.  Show a plan for spending their money.  And more.

My favorites have been Kickstarter and Indiegogo.   I’ve had friends on both and I’ve also backed different projects on both.  There’s also Appbackr, Profounder, Buzzbnk, Causevox, 33 Needs and Firstgiving. 

My current, favorite project is this one-station radio in a mason jar on Kickstarter  ~~

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/358468212/the-public-radio-the-single-station-fm-radio?ref=nav_search

Crowdfunding isn’t really about money; it’s a community engagement process between an individual anywhere on Earth reaching out for money to create something new.  At the heart of this revolution is how people can easily find like-minded people and collaborate using social media tools. 

Crowdfunding rocks!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

                              ALL TOOLED OUT?   

Woa ..!   Is Web 2.0 dying?   Dead?   

Week 6 of CSU-Chico’s online class, Social Media, explores social media tools like DipityDoodle, YodioPrezi and Screenr (timeline creator, online scheduler and online presentation tools ~ and yes!  I just had to say them that way!) .   Plus, I read some more articles on more tools.

The one basic, underlying idea I got from them all was just HOW important it is to expertly create, monitor, and manage daily, often hourly, your social media.

Because…. “don’t you want to know how many people you reach?” ….  As they become dedicated, hopefully interactive friends.   After all, you have a product or service or you ARE a product or service, right?  

And you need to stay up with Internet trends, tools, tasks (and tedium) to be competitive, right?    Because, isn’t it really not only about being popular but being popular for a reason, right?   To make MONEY, right?

Maybe you don’t have a business now, but after reading about all these tools, they kind of make you want to ‘get-on-board’ and at least position yourself and get unabashedly popular.  Then you could be nicely poised with zillions of ‘managed’ friends that you could then sell something to, right?   Or, get so many hits that you get paid for just displaying others’ ads .  Like rocker, Bibi Farber ~~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHxB_3KA9Qw#t=32

….who ‘stumbled upon’ and created www.nextworld.com

Bibi’s a self-proclaimed concerned citizen who posts  little videos that she finds and re-posts from YouTube about sustainability on her site NextwordTV.  Last time we talked a few years ago, it netted her a tidy $2500ish a month for very little work.  Nice.  I had no idea she is a musician but found Nextworld due to my interest in eco stuff.

On the local scene in Red Bluff a few weeks ago I saw this truck and snapped it.

“Like Us On Facebook”     Hmmm…. So I went to ‘Orland Saw and Mower’ website to see who they were.

Their site looks like it’s actually STIHL’s national site that dealers can use… and yet under “Who We Are” they talk about ‘family’ ~~

"We are family, first and foremost. This also extends out to our customers, because without them, we wouldn't be here. It's because of this that we treat everyone as just that, family. We've been locally owned and operated in Red Bluff, CA since 2002, reaching out to help people across the board: landscapers, homeowners, contractors and professionals, and CDF camps throughout the northern valley. If you haven't been in before, feel free to stop by, if only to say hi, and let us help you through all seasons of the year. We also have weekly sales and promotions on our Facebook page, so give us a "Like" and join in!"

In Red Bluff?   I’d never seen them in town… and their truck & online address say Orland…   and their website is actually a national chainsaw company’s dealer website (STIHL).   Hmmm.

Also, on that site there is a really nice, personal-like video about Dave Stine, a custom woodworker who uses STIHL’s chainsaws, etc., so I got excited about his custom woodworking. 

Dave told such a heartwarming story about his five-generation family land, saying, “we try to take trees that are dead…”   Sounded a bit too homey, but still I’d love to see his work even if I have to drive to Orland…. But, WHAT??!   He’s actually in Dow, Illinois?        http://stinewoodworking.com  

My point is this is just one of many companies I’ve seen in the past few years that say “Like us on Facebook",  haven’t updated the data on their website for awhile, (that sometimes really isn’t their website but a national manufacturer’s website dealers can use) and then they post information (like woodworker Dave’s video commercial) of other people they, perhaps, have never even met.

Seems to me it’s easier and easier to get unraveled with your social media so the need for SM tools is keen.  But not necessarily easy or cheap.

After deep-boot wading through all this stuff I was primed last night to reach, grasping for air, at this refreshing article in WIRED:

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/adaptive-path-end-of-the-web-2-0-era/

Adaptive Path’s CCO, (middle C = Creative) Jesse James Garrett.  (Yup, Jesse James)

Garrett looks precision squinted, adequately rugged, yet expertly coifed & tailored.  (Silicon Valley is the new-old Black).  So who is Jesse and Adaptive Path?  Yup, of course!   A San Francisco company, along with Odeo, Six Apart, 37 Signals and some others who brought out some tools that made web pages come alive and flow with action – their overall focus was USER EXPERIENCE.

I’ve never heard of any of these guys but I’m all for making user experience awesome.   So I was a bit stunned to learn in this same WIRED article that it sold itself to Capitol One – a bank!   The WIRED author said this about such companies:

 "The people who ran these companies all talked together openly online, many worked together in person, and hell a lot of them even slept together." 

And he said they were mainly hype, “a hothouse of self-promotion”.   Tsk, tsk.  Sounded so cool yet another online dream deflated.

I won’t give up though.   I’ll find some (free) tools some where, somehow on this great world wide web that could manage my social media ~ once it becomes large enough to manage.  Oh… to be that big!  Bibi Farber scoot over.  ~~!~~