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Change the World

Do yourself a favour and check out this talk from social entrepreneur David Bornstein of How to Change the World.

Bornstein has studied micro-lending programs from around the world and the rise of what he dubs the "citizen sector", the growth of social entrepreneurism during the last thirty years or so.  Combined with radical global societal changes that have occured since the Second World War (in education, healthcare and human rights), Bornstein provides a fascinating context for a lot of the rhetoric surrounding social media. As century-old structures of global social organization dissolve and the world becomes more seemingly miscellaneous, what is emerging is people-(rather than instituion) driven change.

Top-down solutions are proving to be less effective than decentralized solutions, and while we always allude to this in reference to social media and marketing, it is very eye-opening to see this operate on an entirely different (and more meaningful) scale.  Bornstein believes that we are on the verge of seeing the "real" history of the world, one which is driven by collective effort mobilized by social entrepreneurship. The tools of social technologies are there. Now that is something to rally behind (rather than name the Doritos flavour?).

Attention Planners: Want to work for Critical Mass?

Fellow blogger and an inspiration to us all David Armano has put the call out for a Planning Director at Critical Mass in Chicago.

From what I know, Critical Mass is a top-notch agency, so polish up those CV's and get in touch with Mr. Armano.

Here's a job description, and a link:

• Post-secondary degree in  Business, Marketing, Economics, Computer Science, Human Computer Interface or  related subjects preferred
• 4 years agency/consulting and Internet-related  business experiences desired
• 3 years experience leading a team in an  agency/consulting or Internet-related business desired
• Experience in  developing proposals and presentations for clients
• Demonstrated ability  to communicate complex subject matter, either verbally or in written form
•  Demonstrated ability in the marketing research and sciences areas, to  establish and analyze complex research studies
• Teamwork and  collaboration-oriented
• Detail and results oriented
• Flexible and able  to multi-task
• Commitment to learning

Good luck ;)

Veoh TV

Potentially game-changing technology from Veoh? An application that pulls video from all over the web into a very neat, slick interface that functions a lot like good ol' TV. One to watch (har, har, nice pun).

Language Inexact

Once in a while you come across a post that articulates a lot of things simmering in the back of your mind, only stated much better than you would have possibly done. This time it comes courtesy of Brian Oberkirch, talking about just how tired shallow talk of "community" is becoming.

(Just an excerpt, you should check the whole post):

It strikes me that we are at the point in the second act of the Web where things are becoming tedious.  Language inexact.  People unable to parse innovation from overreach, or, worse, hyperbole.  A whole lotta heavy breathing and heavy petting but not enough consummating.  The talk has moved from building and connecting to monetizing and M&A.

To wit:  community & conversation.  Two perfectly functional words neutered by overuse.  Worn down to nothing by profligate trading.

Say ‘markets are conversations’ again, motherfucker.   I dare ya.

Is it revolutionary when everyone uses the same pickup lines?  When I hear someone reify ‘the conversation’ (sic) or ‘the blogosphere’ (sic), or talk about community as though it were a big ol’ shared lump of happiness we are all clinging to like children, I want to reach for a Saz. 

That's refreshing.

Obama Girl

 

How did I miss this? WTF?!

Passion is Interesting

I've just finished reading Mark's thoughtful review of Interesting 2007, and now I'm regretting it even more that I couldn't make it to the event. Here's Mark:

we were basically being treated to a line-up of people enthusing about their passions and obsessions, and it’s hard not to find that interesting, whatever the subject - enthusiasm is contagious, after all.

This really strikes a chord with me. I love geeky, eccentric, and obsessive people who are really in to what they do. They're the ones that inspire others; or at least they're the ones that always inspire me.  If you aren't slightly nutty about whatever it is you do, how could ever hope to have others see things through your eyes?  (

I've been fortunate in my life to have been surrounded by a lot of people like this, who are driven by passion-rather than money ;) DJs (myself included), producers and remixers, but also artists, publishers, writers, journalists, cinematographers and physicists (and, lately, fellow bloggers, at least the ones I come across in the good ol' plannersphere). The common denominator is always limitless enthusiasm and love, and without it I think I for one would be quite miserable.

All have been quite obsessive about something that means a lot to them, and would continue to do what they do regardless of whether it made them rich or famous. I wasn't there, but if it's anything close to how Mark and others describe it, I'm sure I would have loved it.

[the picture on this post is via roo reynolds of a CD that I mixed for the event that was given to attendees. i'll be posting the playlist shortly!]

WidgetCon 2007

What emerging technologies are keeping agencies up at night?

Thanks to Greg for pointing to this Forester study of the most pressing emerging technologies racking the brains of agencies (sorry for poor resolution).

Quick note: online communities, social networks and online video might be sexy, but why so little thought toward blogs and tagging, or even gaming and widgets? This is, after all, the year of the widget.

Congratulations to Mr. Greg Verdino too, who just landed a gig at Crayon. Best wishes Greg!

Sounds Interesting

It's been a bit quiet around here over the last week or so as a result of running around in New York for a few days, attending courses, playing in a golf tournament and doing two gigs over the weekend. I'm beat.

But there have been a lot of interesting things going on that I want to quickly note, so here we go with some rapid-fire links:

• Interesting 2007 went down over the weekend. The Twitter feed gave a good indication of the great spirit of the event; really wish I could have been there. Hopefully Russeell will do it again next year. But come to think of it, why wait? Rules are meant to be broken.

 

• I linked to this Photosynth demonstration last week, but I'm also embedding it here, since it's one of the most incredible technologies I've seen in a long time. The ability to stitch together tagged information based on social media folksonomy to produce a "cross-modal and cross-social user experience" hints at future possibilities of what web 3.0 might look like.  I think I've seen this video twenty times. (Skip to 3:45 to get the "punchline").

 

• Google Street View is great, and the voyeurism of websites like Google Sightseeing is even better. If the street views are a little too real, you can look forward to the search/map website EveryScape, a 3-D virtual world rendering of cities that will allow users to dive in and out of streets and tagged locales. As with Photosynth, the content will be enriched with more tags and contributions; from what I understand, you can apply to be an EveryScape artist and contribute to the social media project.

 

• While we're vaguely on the subject of emergent meaning and social media, have a gander at this beautiful mosaic of Wikipedian Activity.

 

 

• While I was in New York, I had the good fortune of meeting Rachel Sterne from Ground Report, a great new citizen-journalism news service. Later in the week I'll follow-up with more information, but to get an idea of the model, here's a description below:

GroundReport TV will feature a dynamic mix of live, citizen-reported news and unique videos that speak to a worldwide audience. The channel will showcase live presenters, constantly updated video content and independent documentaries. Segments will analyze the neutrality of mainstream media, present local reactions to international issues and capture newsworthy events as they unfold.

As fate would have it, a mere hours after discussing Facebook applications, Rachel's name popped up in a CNET article about the very topic.

 

Animated Interface

The screenshot taken from Wired is of Disco, one of the new cool applications that have been built using Core Animation for Mac. The smoke rises as your CD is being burned, and if you blow into the microphone, the smoke reacts. So very cool.

If the buzz is to be believed, it looks like these applications are poised to revolutionize computer interfaces. Isn't about time for that? When combined with the many innovative things happening with infographics and other intuitive interfaces, this is another small step toward making the digital a little more natural and a lot more human.