This video was created for the AARP U@50 video contest and placed second. It is based on the Argentinian Political Advertisement "The Truth" by Recara. The video has received huge amounts of buzz in the blogsphere - a testimony, yet again, to the core ideals of digital media: publish a powerful message and people will naturally grativate towards it. The gatekeepers are gone. We are the media now. Thanks to Tim Graham from @VisibleInk and @MarkLobo for introducing me to this clip.

The team at Digiactive have just recently released an informative guide to Twitter for Activism. Congratulations to Mary Joyce, Andreas Jungherr, and the whole team at DigiActive for producing this great resource. I wanted to share it with Digital For Good readers - read below.

Following the recent protests in Moldova, the value of Twitter as a tool for digital activism is more prominent than ever.  Yet in addition to bringing greater awareness to that tool, the hype surrounding Moldova revealed misunderstanding of the value of of Twitter for activism and, even though the realists responded strongly, there was not a stand-alone resource which clearly defined how Twitter could be used by activists.  We hope this guide will fill that void.

Click the cover image to download the guide (PDF format)

The guide provides a wealth of information on Twitter activism.  It  begins with an introduction to the platform (p. 5) and its terminology (p. 6) and then lays out five uses of Twitter for activists, each illustrated by a case study (p. 6-11).  The guide then presents a step-by-step strategy for using Twitter for political and social change (p. 12) along with a list of do’s and don’ts (p. 14) for campaigners.  The guide ends with additional resources for Twitterers, such as applications that help you use Twitter (p. 16), further reading (p. 20), and even alternatives to Twitter (p. 18).

The guide was written by Andreas Jungherr, a master’s candidate in political science at the University of Mainz in Germany, and was reviewed and improved by scholars, activists, and the DigiActive team, all for your reading enjoyment.  Please respond with your feedback in the comments section below.

A Note for Translators:  The guide is published under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution license and we welcome translation by individuals and organizations who will release their version under the same conditions. To receive a copy of the guide in an editable format, please e-mail Contact AT DigiActive DOT org.

Photo via DesigningTheNews

Infodesign. Infographics. Design Info. Call it whatever you will, but there is no doubt about it: it is powerful.

Why?

The internet has unleashed a torrent of information unlike any time in history. Finding information is no longer a problem.  We have can find knowledge/data/facts/videos about anything and everything. We just have to search a bit (Usually on Google). But when we are saturated by information overload,  when finding data is no longer an issue, what remains? How do we find answers, new answers, in all this mess of websites, data, articles and out there? Infodesign.

In 'A Whole New Mind', Dan Pink identifids six cruicial successes in the new economy-design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning. In many ways, I see Infodesign as the intersection of these principles. Design to create meaning. Design to create stories. Design to create empathy.

Plain old marketing no longer works. We want stories.

Pretty design old longer matter. We want real empathy in our communications.

Plain 'another day for the dollar' menality is dying. We want to play.

Humans are no such meant to live their lives. We want meaning.

I have trouble articulating this idea in my head. But I know it is powerful. I'll continue expanding it further posts. But, in many ways, that in itself demonstrates my point. I have seen patterns in the masses of information that I have been exposed to. Meaning in complexity. Perhaps plain old writing isn't the best way to share it this idea. I need some infodesign myself.

To expand on this point, I recently came across International Networks Archives after looking more into storytelling master and personal hero Jonathan Harris. From what I can concur, INA uses mass amounts of data and recreates the data in new infodesign-based formats. What results is something, I think, that is extermely powerful: an ability to create meaning out of complexity, to find trends in things that normally could be not seen. In its raw form, data is often like another language. But when translated through design, data is powerful. It can spur people to new ways of looking at the world and hopefully result in action

Here are some images created by Jonathan Harris and International Networks Archieves. To enlarge, click on the respective images.

SSSMOKIN!
THE GLOBAL TOBACCO TRADE

GETTING AROUND
TRANSPORTATION TODAY

GLASS HALF EMPTY
THE COMING WATER WARS

STEALING THE SHOW
THE GLOBAL MOVIE BIZ

RED TAPE
THE GOVERNMENT GRIND

So, I leave you with a few questions to ponder on:

How are you using infodesign to communicate your ideas. your organisations or non profit's ideas, your business/company or brand's ideas?

InfoDesign is powerful. Where are you?

Description:  The first International School on Digital Transformation will be held in Porto, Portugal the third week of July.   It will be an intensive six-day residential program, conducted in English and bringing together emerging and established scholars and professionals from around the world. During the week-long session, innovators in digital communications will serve as teachers and mentors, presenting their current projects and research and participating in discussions with advanced students and professionals beginning careers in the field. Presenters and students will be regarded as peers during the School.

The speakerers will include Friends of DigiActive Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society,  Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski (tentative) of Tactical Tech, and Katrin Verclas of MobileActive, in addition to a group of over a dozen international scholars in the field.

Dates:  Sunday, July 19 - Friday, July 24, 2009

Location:  University of Porto, Portugal

Organizer: University of Texas Austin-Portugal Colaboratory, or CoLab

Format: The school is six days long.  There will be a 90-minute session of lecture and discussion in the morning, free time for teachers and students to interact and explore the city in the afternoon, and two more 90-minute lecture and discussion sessions in the evening, followed by a communal meal.

Costs:  Tuition will be between €300 and €400.  Students must also cover the cost of their own travel to Portugal.

Who should apply: Advanced students and recent graduates from around the world with an interest in how digital technologies are changing societies and the world as a whole.

How to apply: Apply here!

Hat tip: Patrick Meier and the team at DigiActive.

In some African villages, bed nets are used as wedding veils—and water strainers and window screens. It’s a big worry for aid workers: in Nigeria every year, malaria accounts for 30 percent of all child deaths; the World Health Organization says that across the world, some 1 million die from the disease annually. The vast majority of those deaths, says WHO, occur in Africa. "The road map to get rid of this disease involves many things," Bill Gates told TED2009 earlier this month, "...including the work of social scientists, so we know how to get not just 70 percent of the people to use bed nets, but 90 percent."

Enter social media, instead. Christopher Fabian and his colleagues at UNICEF’s two-year-old Innovations unit [along with tech-for-change developer Dimagi] have created something called Rapid Android—a new software application for Google's Android phone that turns it into a high-speed data collector and analyzer to help relief workers bust through paper-based bureaucracies to distribute health and food aid more quickly. Using Rapid Android, Fabian and crew also can train villagers, themselves, to use inexpensive cell phones to text in their community's health, food supply, and bed net usage statistics to authorities. How rapid is this new mobile supply chain system? Think minutes versus months: aid workers can collect and process data anywhere there's a wireless connection. With faster knowledge of what's working [and what isn't], aid workers can intervene faster and more effectively.

The team at Cause Global interviewed Fabian, his UNICEF colleague Adam McKaig, and Sean Blaschke of Columbia University, at the  MobileTech4SocialChange bar camp in Manhattan. Have a read of the interview.

The Secret of Happiness from Maria Popova on Vimeo.

This remix clip was created by the team at Tedify.com - an independent Ted spin off series that takes Ted.com content and aims to "capture the common tangents between TED’s incredibly diverse speakers." Ted Remixing, as I see it.  I like this project for a number of reasons: one, it reflects my  belief in the power of information design.  Information is inherently complex. But in shaping, changing, and reorganising information - and presenting it visually, ideas and nuances that you would normally not see appear. Secondly, I admire the ideals behind the Creative Commons and the P2P foundation. In sharing and allowing users to build on your creative content (in this case, Ted videos), you add value. You allow people to build on your work and create new sources of meaning. Use the analogy of Lego. A piece of Lego on its own is bland and boring. But in allowing lego-users to add more 'parts' on top of your piece, change it in whatever way they see fit, you never know what kind of Lego 'castle' you end up with. We all grew up with Lego - we need to get back to those roots. We need to apply those Lego play ideals to creative content.

Tedify.com is DigitalForGood.

Ideas turn me on. Ideas get my blood pumping. Old ideas. New Ideas.  I love sharing and distributing ideas, concepts, and knowledge: tis why I hang in the circles that I do: social media folk, nptech kids, 'edgies' and other weirdos, as Michael Doneman would affectionately describe them.

So, you can imagine my excitement last weekend at Brisbane's biannual festival, Ideas Festival, roaming the lectures, taking every piece of paraphernalia I could find, and getting into some very 'light' conversation with fellow participants. As they put it:

The Ideas Festival, a five-day festival of ideas, innovation and invention at Brisbane's Cultural Centre, South Bank, is Queensland’s leading open public ideas event. It is open to all and mostly free. Established in 2001 to present ideas, promote public debate, and to foster and celebrate innovation the Festival is proudly presented by the Queensland Government as part of the Q150 celebrations, with Major Sponsor Griffith University.

My weekend was fairly action-packed: Phillip Adams on Thursday; Mark Loboat Pecka Kucha on Friday night; my saturday included the Edgeware panel on Creative Entrepreneurship and lively lecture and discussion from the team at Creative Commons Australia. Sunday featured, firstly, a panel on Digital Literacy from CCi Arc Centre of Excellence For Creative Industries and Innovation; and last, a stop-over at  Gallery of Modern Art to  see 'The China Project '(if you are Brisbane, I would highly recommend it).

Rather than divulge into a torrential rant about each individual event.  I would like to reflect on my main takeaways. It is always easy to compartmentize knowledge, to separate things. Maths goes here. Economics over there. Digital somewhere around there. In reality, I like to believe that if you could hard enough, you can see patterns and threads in everything.

Here are some of my takeaways:

Ideas do not sit in isolation. They need ignition and fuel to survive, especially the big ones. In particular, what  excites me is what happens at the cross-section of different ideas; when different realities are put together, and thereby ultimately creating new ideas. Think about it. What happens when you put economics and home cooking together? What new insight lie at that cross-section? Surely there is something we can learn from that. Or take medical science and....let say...social media? Health-care 2.0. What about animal behaviour and technology? Bio-mimcry. I don't care what is, but when you put two modes of reality together, you create a new form of understanding, a new paradigm (I hate that word).This concept is nothing new - there are smarter people out there who understand this "cross-cognitive pollentation' much better than I do.  Its everywhere when you look:

Economics + Society = Freakonomics

Music + Therapy = Music Therapy

Ecology + Environmental Science/History + Biology = Jared Diamond

Psychology + Weather = Ideas behind  Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Funeral Home + TV Concept = 'Six Feet Under'.

I know these are fairly arbitrary and random examples but that's not the point. It is the fact that these insights, these new concepts, happen when different ideas collide. You could argue I am simplifying stuff- 1+1 doesn't always equal 2. Nevertheless, I still believe that patterns exist in everything. A common thread. After all, we are live in same universe. The world is not as separate as we choose to believe.

Digital Technology and social media is in many ways the great lubricator of ideas. Take some simple examples:

Encyclopedia  + P2P = Wikipedia.org

Micro-lending + Internet = Kiva.org

Hotel booking + Internet = Wotif.com

I see Digital technology and social media as 'the great cross idea pollinator': allowing people to share, distribute, argue, discuss, exchange. In essence, intersecting ideas. It is one of the reasons I started digitaforgood. What excites me is what lies ahead. Right now, social media has allowed social capital to flourish. In the future, it will be informational capital: allowing different minds to cross paths and thereby allowing the information economy to flourish.

So readers, beloved, ladies and gentlemen, I ask of thee:

How do you get your ideas?

How can we use social media we drive more ideas?

How can digital technology  and the internet continue to become the great ideas-exchanger?

Fundraising Target: Reached.

Campaign: Successful.

Power of Social Media: Reinforced.

Less than a week ago that I came up with the idea that I would fundraise my way to NTEN conference. Inspired by the likes of Beth Kanter, Social Actions and the online fundraising movement, it seemed rather ambitious. As they say though, ignorance is bliss. And so I launched began my first foray into the world of online fundraising - I just didn't think it would happen so quick.

Final Results:

$1049.92 US dollars in under one week.

41 donors from over seven countries.

54 Tweets promoting the campaign.

Quantative Stats can only reveal so much. The level of support and encouragement I received was truly amazing. And so with this, I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who donated, supported, and spread the word. It is a long list, yes; it goes against the unspoken rules of blogging (brevity, KISS etc), but I did not want to leave anyone out. In fact, as you will soon see, it proves to me how powerful social media can be when you develop real relationships with real people.  Here we go.

Firstly, To all those who donated. I am truly grateful for your help. My #NTEN09 is all thanks to you.

Carl Lindgren - Carl thanks so much mate. Gotta come into Map sometime soon and talk ideas.
Rose Vines - Rose, nice to meet ya and thanks for spreading the word on Twitter
Michael Boyd - #Goals #thehive #edgeware #iloveyou #legend #thevoice
David Krumlauf - Cheers mate. Look forward to meeting you sometime
Beth Kanter - 3 Boxes of Tim Tams are coming with me to San Fran. Get ready.
Hannah Suarez - Hannah, thanks for your support. Yet again. Love ya.
Adam Corney - Cheers mate.
Antoine Verdon - Antoine, thank for you all and all the Sandbox Crew. See you in Zurich soon.
Nico Luchsinger - Nico, as always, thanks. Will be blogging at NTEN, more than welcome to cross post on Sandbox Blog
Richard Eastes - Rich, thanks for your support mate. Talk to you on Skype soon.
Matthieu Carrel - thank you so much
Zahira Tiara Shafiq - Tiara, alternative education right? Nothing like learning by doing.
Nick Bell - Mr Bell, I love you. That is all.
Grant Young - Grant, grateful for your support. I will be in Sydney for CU09 in May- lets catch up.
Mark Payne - @MIMOBASE I WANT TO HUG RIGHT NOW! I will do it tonight!
Leesa Watego - Thanks Lessa for your support. Cant wait to tell you about it.
David Earley - Cheers Dave - we gotta catch up soon
joseph solomon - Jo S: Thanks to you. My inspiration for social media is largely thanks to you and @SocialActions - you inspire me mate.
Lisa Harvey - Thanks you so much Lisa
Annette Loudon - Annette- really apperciate your support
Rebecca Trombley Domegan - See you next month! Yeah-
Ashli Cooper - Thanks so much
LaDonna Coy - Very grateful for your support.
Andrew Sloan - Sloandog, cheers brother. See you in the 'dam soon. Go more ideas for FestivalPoint - speak on skype.
Thor Prichard - Thor, thanks for your donation.
David Barrett - DB, support is much apperciated. Legend mate.
Yoshiko Kirby - Mum, thanks. How many times have I said that before?
scott hampson - Scott, cheers matey,
Chris Chambers - Chris, thanks you so much.
Mark Turkenburg - Turks, this is one of those rare occassions when I won't mock you. Thanks mate - helping me out yet again.
Gideon van Schalkwyk - Gids, thank for your support. Maybe I'll get another book idea after NTEN09, which means, you guessed it, another coffee/paper session
Lauren Anderson - lauren, thank you for support. Cant wait to talk big ideas with you and Josh.
Matthew Varley - MV, if ever the buzz word 'Strategic Web2.0 engagement' was more relevant, it was this and thanks to you. Cheers brother.
Kara Carrel - Kara - thanks for your support
Stephen McDonald - Stephen - thanks for your support. Look forward to finally meeting up when you are in Bris next
Esther Cole - Esther, thank you thank you thank you. Look forward to our next 'light' conversation about spirituality.
Holger Nauheimer - Thanks you so much for your support. Would be more than happy to blog about for you on your blog
Nat Duncan - Nat, thanks so much. Lets have a brainstorming session sometime soon
Amber Sloan - Amber, First daughter of the sloans, thanks so much for your support. (I still have one of your books btw)

Interactive Minds - Thanks Louisa and Jen.
Anthony Dever - Ant - thanks for your support and your endless retweeting on your accounts.
Genevieve Robey - Gen, cheers and beers.  Cant wait to tell you about it upon my return.

Secondly, to all those who showed support in some shape or form - retweeting, posting, forwarding my message - thank you. I feel very humbled. So the list gets bigger, and I did not want to leave anyone out.

I would like to particularly thank Amyrsward and Beth Kanter who posted about my campaign on their blogs. Both Amy and Beth are incredibly inspiring people - I feel lucky to know them. Honestly I do.

To all those who retweeted, thanks so much. Here it goes: @hnauheimer: @bennop:@niftycorp:karitas beckytrombley:kanter:nadiapayan:ntenhross:socialentrprnr tomjd:@amyrsward @alexsteed @twolla @lukegrange @donmacca @denzasaurus:@rainbowhill:@frollop: @BrandsToFollow:@carloscomputers:@marklobo: @edurelief: @CarlLindgren:@mapbrisbane: @brisbanepetrol: @grantyoung: @brisneyland:  @lcarroli: @mariana_66: @benjaminaaron: @antoine_: @halbluchs: @sandbox_network: @corney: @silverbell @dkrumlauf: @briscreative @digitalforgood: @romioliverio @mikeboyd: @thecharityplace: @rosevines: @designthinkers: @grassroutes:@abhilash

There were others too: @lexiphanic @trib @dramagirl @deswalsh @rosshill @deswalsh @windybenny @waycooljnr Mum, Dad, Cliff, Minako who provided me a ton of support and encouragment.

God, I feel like I am writing a speech for the Oscars, not a blog post. Ah well.

As in the nature of big thank yous, I might have accidentally missed a few people. If you are one of those, my sincere apologies. As you can see there are a lot of people.

And finally:

I leave to San Fran on 22nd April and will be there until the 3rd May. The NTEN Conference is from 26th - 28th May - so exicited. If you are around the San Fran area during that period, I would love to meet up and have a chat. Email me on eddie (at) gmail (dot)com or on twitter: @edwardharran.

I will be writing a full report about NTEN, so keep your ears posted for more news. Also, I am currently drafting up a post about what I learnt from this campaign - I'll publish it ASAP.

Thanks again everyone. Talk to you all soon,

Eddie

If you wanna comment, my comment box is at the top of my post underneath my title. In the process of fixing it at the moment.

Dear Family and Friends,

Desperate times call for desperate measures. So here I am. I need your help.

I was recently awarded a scholarship to attend the NTEN (Non Profit Technology Network) Conference in San Franciscio, which is going to be held from April 26th-28th, 2009. Thanks to Convio and NTEN, the scholarship fund has generously covered the fees for 57 delegates to attend. Unfortunately, the scholarship did not include any air miles. Thus, I was left with two options: one, to let the award go; or two, put my creative brain to use and launch a campaign to raise the funds. As you can see, I chose the latter.

Who am I?

My name is Edward Harran. I am a digital and social media strategist from Brisbane, Australia. I am passionate in how digital technology and social media can be used as a force for good. Having attended ConnectingUp08 and MakingLinks08 ( two of Australia's largest non-profit technology conferences), I want to build on what I learnt and share those ideas with others. I honestly want to make a difference in this world - this is the way I believe I can do it.

When is the NTEN Conference?

The 2009 Nonprofit Technology conference is taking place from April 26th to April 28th at the San Franciscio, Hilton. As NTEN states on their site,

The NTC is THE place to engage around the technology issues that face the nonprofit sector. Nearly 1200 people will come together from across the country and around the world to connect with our peers, learn from our heroes, and change the world.While it's unclear what the future holds, one thing is certain: the need for our services will be greater than we've ever known.  Now, more than ever, nonprofits need to invest in technology to create efficiencies that increase our effectiveness.

How I need your help?

With the assistance of the scholarship, I got a place booked at NTEN09 Conference. Unfortunately, I need a flight to get there. With the help of @lexiphanic and others, I have been investigating flights and luckily for me, Qantas and VAustralia have flights from under $1000AUS. Other flights range up to $1400AUS.

I am looking for small donations - between $5 or $10 if you can - from my network of family, friends and supporters. Any excess funds I will donating to Edurelief - a Mongolian non-profit that I have been in long support of.

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This is happy me. I will be even happier with your support.

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Why?

- I will be representing Volunteering Queensland at NTEN09. Volunteering Queensland (VQ) is one of largest volunteer bodies in Queensland, Australia. I plan to use knowledge and networks from NTEN09 to help VQ with their online and technology strategy.

-I am passionate about using the digital space to make a difference in the world. Full stop.

-I am natural maven - I want to share the knowledge and ideas from NTEN09 with other people and organisations in Australian and overseas. I have a large network that could benefit from my knowledge. I am also a big supporter of Edurelief, NetSquared, SocialActions, ConnectingUp- organisations that are are showing how social action and technology converge.

When?

Essentially as soon as I can get it. Holly Ross (@ntenross), NTEN Director, graciously offered to hold the place for me. The sooner I can raise the funds, the sooner I can book the flight and secure my place.

How?

1. You can donate online here through Chipin, an online donation web application linked with Paypal. (Recommended by @kanter). Please click on the widget below if you can donate.

2. Forward this link onto your friends any way you can.

3. If you are on twitter, a RT would be greatly appericated.

Update: So I found a flight for $1098 Aussie, which means i have reached my target. I am just waiting on a few last minute donations from family. I would like to thank everyone thus far - more thanks in another post later.

(Thanks to KateFoy (@dramagirl) for sparking the idea of a 'long-tail' fundraising campaign in my head.)

Crowdsourcing intrigues me.

As a business strategy, we have seen it been used on countless occassions. InnoCentive with its Research and Development. Cambrian House with its software development. 99Designs with its creative design. Opinion leaders - the likes of Shirky, Tapscott, Friedman - have evangenlised it in some shape or form; admittedly, though, the verbatim they use to describe it differs ( 'The World is Flat', 'Wikinomics', 'Free Culture', 'Creative Commons Revolution', 'Global Economy', blah blah blah). For those geeks reading this post, this is nothing new to you. You have heard this before. But try describing this trend to your grandma however, and it puts things into perspective.

We live in a truly an amazing era.  When the creative talents and the minds of the masses can now be utilised all from the comforts of our computer chairs. Traditional barriers such as time, distance and language no longer matter; in fact, we laugh at such things now. People will now work for free - in return all that is required is a bit of recognition for the hundreds of hours they put in.

So, you can understand my exicitement when @therealburgo, informed me of the latest news in the world of the interweb - Kiva launching its API platform.  Crowdsourcing For Good.

What's Kiva again and what the hell is going on?

In its essence, Kiva, a non profit people-to-people microlending organisation, acts as the medium ground - connecting entrepreneurs, micro-lending banks and donors in the digital space. Kiva has revolutionised the microcredit industry since its inception, and has provided millions of dollars worth of loans to people in the developing world. The launch of its API platform represents the new step for Kiava, allowing techies interested in building tools and new applications for microfinance/microlending community. Kiva wants build.kiva.org’ to become a hub for socially-minded developers who want a make a difference in the world (and create cool applications). In attempt to spur new creativity and increase their distribution, Kiva has opened up its API (or application programming interface) so that web developers can use information about Kiva loans to build applications for Kiva loaners.

Kiva even makes some suggestions to developers of several products that could be built from the API. Here are a few, but you can access all of the ideas through the Kiva developer’s Wiki.

• an application for iPhone or Blackberry that let’s you keep up with Kiva on the go
• service where lenders can register for alerts on new entrepreneurs they want to fund
• integration into a social network where friends can engage around each others’ activity and loan updates on Kiva

The idea is really amazing. Kiva's core business is helping people loan small amounts of money to developing world micro-entrepreneurs. The first blog post on Build.Kiva mentions some of the ideas they've had for applications:

an application for iPhone or Blackberry that let’s you keep up with Kiva on the go

a service where lenders can register for alerts on new entrepreneurs they want to fund

integration into a social network where friends can engage around each others’ activity and loan updates on Kiva

a map that simulates the realtime transfer of funds across the globe.

With crowdsourcing, you cannot predict what ideas and initiative will emerge. I will certainly be watching with eager anticipation to see what applications people develop  Congratulations Kiva.