Nancy Lublin: 3 Current Trends in Social Media for Activism

One of my favorite people in the zone of Social Media-meets-idealism, Nancy Lublin of Do Something introduces 3 trends to watch in 2010 for the use of Social Media for activism:

1- Crowdsourced philanthropy enables “the crowd” to decide to whom organizations and companies grant money. As the advisor of both Chase Community Giving and Pepsi Refresh campaigns, Lublin knows the power of this new model. As for Pepsi, they have decided to ditch the expensive SuperBowl ads and instead introduce an online project, where people can submit ideas and vote for others.

2- SMS fundraising: Texting to give has proven powerful during the Haiti crisis, where people have been able to donate money via text messaging. This model might have upset a few parents along the way as the generous children rarely pay the mobile phone bill themselves, Lublin says.

3- Slacktivism is the idea of clicking to give online. The concept has suffered from negative connotations, but Lublin says that the quick and easy way to make a difference appeals to the younger generations.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Enric Sala: Don’t Eat Tigers of the Ocean

On land, do we eat tigers and lions?

No, of course not. In the oceans, however, many of us often do.

Sharks, tuna and similar ocean hunters play an important role by maintaining the health of the ecosystem. Saving them from human consumption is an obsession by National Geographic Ocean Explorer Enric Sala.

I have been on the receiving end of admonition from Enric on at least two occasions, so decided to do this video while at the World Economic Forum to assuage my guilt and explain the situation to others.

Enric’s point is that by eating from the top of the fish food chain we are destroying the ocean’s ecosystem in an unsustainable way. Other unsustainable seafood includes shrimps, of course. Unregulated shrimp farming has destroyed large swathes of Thailand’s coastal wetlands.

Instead of the lions and tigers of the ocean, we should eat lower on the food chain.

This means: Sardines, Herring, anchovies and oysters.

In addition to helping the ocean, they are more healthy to eat due to their lower levels accumulated mercury.

Enric also warns against Salmon due to the chemicals in the fish.

But what kind of Sushi should we eat? “Vegetarian Sushi, of course,” Enric will deadpan.

Fish to avoid: Bluefish Tuna, Caviar/Wild Sturgeon, Sharks, Swordfish.

In his work at the National Geographic Society, Sala has set a goal of preserving the ocean through a national parks-style system. Currently, only 1 percent of the ocean is protected, but in order to maintain sustainability, at least 20 percent should be protected by 2020.

An ocean preserve would create a buffer for overfishing and help the ocean survive for future generations.

Check out Enric’s page at National Geographic and you too will soon want to help save the ocean.

Thanks to Enric, my New Year’s resolution for the Chinese year of the Tiger? Stop eating the Tigers of the ocean!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Zainab Salbi: Saddam Hussein and my house

During a dinner in Washington, Zainab told me the remarkable story about her family’s home in Baghdad. The house has really lived the recent history of Iraq in full. If only the walls could talk… This video really is worth listening to.

Popularity: 2% [?]

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Angel Cabrera: The Online Education Revolution

As President of the Thunderbird School of Global Management Angel Cabrera has observed a fascinating new trend in US university education, largely driven by the Internet.

First, the Ivy League model: Get as many highly paid Nobel laureates and great researchers as possible and select a small number of elite students. This model has been increasingly copied by many state schools, with the result of a somewhat inefficient use of resources. Many government supported schools, who have a mandate to educate the masses, get caught up in the race to have prestigious professors and selective admissions.

Now, enter the Internet, a total game-changer. Suddenly you now have scaleable teaching methods where one teacher can engage an almost limitless population of students over distance and time.

One of the best examples, Cabrera said, is the University of Phoenix, which offer online degrees using great materials and teachers.

These may be online degrees, but Angel says you would be wrong to dismiss them. Instead of concentrating on paying many professors, the University of Phoenix and others in this cadre of online universities concentrate on creating the best possible learning curriculum that can be taught online and then administered in-person by lower non-specialists.

The power of the model is that they now have scale. Another interesting implementation of these methods that I have experienced is Praxis Language with their Chinese Pod teaching method. Praxis combines podcasts, blogging and twittering in a very effective way to teach Mandarin and a range of other languages.

Ken Carroll, one of the founders of Praxis, speaks about how the Internet creates a new cadre of teachers who become almost famous due to the large following of students under their tutelage. I experienced this effect when meeting Ken and his colleagues in Shanghai. Their podcasts gave me a tremendous sense of intimacy with them, a near emotional bond, though we had never met before. Here is a video interview I did with Ken.

New media channels are opening up times for learning that did not exist before. Now I can glance at my mobile phone to review a lesson in an elevator, instead waiting to sit down with a heavy textbook. With an Amazon Kindle or other e-reader a child does not need to carry a 30 kg backpack of books.

Here in Hong Kong, with the regular threat of avian flu, many schools have invested heavily in some quite effective e-learning platforms. There is even talk about launching school within virtual worlds to make the learning a more immersive experience.

The problem, of course, is that many professors and universities are - by definition - highly conservative. Many need to wake up to the opportunities (and threats) of new styles of teaching.

As a side note, I am proud to claim credit for having converted Angel (photo on left) into a blogger!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Technorati Tags: Angel Cabrera, Thunderbird, University of Phoenix

Matthew Bishop

Author of Philanthrocapitalism and the less interestingly titled Essential Economics, Matthew Bishop is Chief Business Writer and US Business Editor of The Economist.

Some years ago he was honoured as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. It is a little known fact that 2005 was the United Nations International Year of Microcredit, Bishop was part of the Advisors Group.

He has served on the faculty at the London Business School and was educated at Oxford University.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Technorati Tags: Economist, Matthew Bishop, Philanthrocapitalism

Davos: Peter Gabriel sings Biko, a capella

The most amazing session I attended this year in Davos was a 2-hour Dignity Day event in a local school auditorium.

Speakers included the schoolchildren, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel, who sang Biko a capella.

Hearing Desmond Tutu speak was an incredible experience. I have rarely seen someone captivate and hold an audience with such simplicity, humility and light heartedness.

At the end of the event Peter Gabriel led the entire room in singing his tribute to Steve Biko.

Popularity: 3% [?]

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Lera Auerbach on the meaning of music

The morning after I heard her in concert, I had a chance to do a video quizzing composer, pianist and poet Lera Auerbach about the meaning of music.

As a non-musical person, this quest for the meaning of music has become a bit of a crusade. I asked the same of the Chinese composer Chou Wen-Chung.

The video is much better value, but here is a compressed resume of our discussion. (Which concluded with my opening question unanswered!)

Music is wonder, magic, life, without the limitations of words.
Music expresses emotion without the brain betraying the heart.
Music does not have the limitations of language because it is free of words.
Music allows you to communicate through time, allowing a composer from hundreds of years ago to move us to tears.
Don’t expect anything from music, just let it take you to places in your soul that you didn’t know existed.
We sometimes cry while listening to music and we don’t even know why.
Sometimes music just touches a string of the soul that needed to be released or relaxed.
The more you know the work and the composer, the more powerful the impact of the music.
The beauty of performing is that your relationship with the work changes as you change.
At the same time, music is close to science and based on mathematical ratios.
Why is it that Mozart’s requiem has such a profound effect on its listeners?
I don’t think we can really know what music is.

Popularity: 7% [?]

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Outblaze CEO and founder Yat Siu describes his Hong Kong-based (but global) Internet company

It is hard to fit the sprawling Outblaze empire into one sentence (or YouTube video), so here’s two videos and a few sentences to describe the company founded in Hong Kong by Yat Siu.

Starting life in 1998 as an email service provider for ISPs around the world (Currently 40 million users), Outblaze has branched out into everything from hosting the Sanriotown online community, the Hello Kitty MMORPG to redoing cartoons from Turner’s Cartoon network into 3D versions (see video on Dream Cortex below). In between that, they are involved in the FON wifi network, the Activ8 Worldwide online ad company and Typhoon games. (I am sure I have forgotten other key companies!)

Beyond their dayjob on the Internet, Outblaze and Yat have led advocacy on a number of online and offline causes, including the fight against Spam, Creative Commons, Open Source and generally supporting free expression on the Internet. More here.

Thanks for the tour of the company, Yat!

Technorati Tags: activ8worldwide.com, hellokittyonline.com, China, dream cortex, fon, Hello Kitty, Hong Kong, Outblaze, sanriotown, typhoon games, yat siu

Popularity: 5% [?]

Van Jones: Corn ethanol swindles the poor by increasing the price of food

Van Jones, a green economy activist and founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, describes how US corn ethanol subsidies have created a dangerous perversion of the food prices.

The great ethanol swindle:
Ethanol is supposed to saves the environment by offering a renewable source of energy (corn and sugar), but the truth about ethanol’s impact is far more complex.

Corn ethanol is inefficient
Jones explains that due to the fertilizer inputs for growing corn, the energy consuming conversion to ethanol and low output of usable fuel from corn, corn-based ethanol is not an efficient means of producing fuel. Corn-based ethanol’s return is roughly on a one-to-one basis, meaning that you are only getting out the same amount of energy you are putting in. By contrast, sugar-based ethanol produces something like ten times as much energy as it takes to create. The US is not, however, a good zone for growing sugar cane.

Linking food and fuel hurts the poor
By offering American farmers another market for selling corn besides food, ethanol subsidies more tightly link food to the price of oil and other fuels. The result is that rising fuel prices create a direct demand for corn, thus increasing the price of a basic food material. Jones cited Mexico’s food riots last January as a precursor to what we will see in the future. Angered at the rising price of tortillas, tens of thousands of Mexican’s took to the streets in protest. To draw an extreme image from Jones’ thinking: The poor will starve while the rich drive cars fueled by food.

Sugar ethanol also has risks
While sugar ethanol offers a far greater energy output than corn-based ethanol, there are environmental risks: A rise in the price of sugar cane could inspire Brazilian farmers to cut down more rain forest to grow sugar cane.

Technorati Tags: ella baker, ellabakercenter, ethanol, food, food prices, poor, van jones, vanjones

Popularity: 13% [?]

Jennifer Corriero on how TakingITglobal.org encourages youth activists

Jennifer Corriero, co-founder of TakingITglobal.org, describes innovations to their

Online service that helps young activists
The site, claiming hundreds of thousands of visitors each month from countries around the world, aims to help students and young people improve the world through organized community action.

Activist toolkit
TakingITGlobal gives advice and offers online tools for organizing collective action. This includes discussion groups, tools for email campaigns, petitions, etc.

Knowledge and inspiration
Those who are not sure of what causes need their help can log on and find out more information about the problems facing the world and what they can do.

Two sections of the site Jennifer emphasizes people to check out are Commit to a better world and Guide to Action

More details in the video…

Technorati Tags: Jennifer Corriero, takingitglobal, TakingITglobal.org, wef, World Economic Forum, ygl, Young Global Leaders

Popularity: 2% [?]

YGL program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government

In this video, Leslie Maasdorp and I speak about the program we just attended that Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government created for the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders.

Entitled Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century, the program has been described by the World Economic Forum and written about by Harvard, so this takes the participant’s perspective.

Intended for those members of the YGL community considering the program, I invite other attendees to add comments that would help those considering the program this Spring.

Previous YGL postings can be seen here.

Thomas Crampton:

I found the program highly intense and extremely rewarding on several levels:

1- Knowledge: The Kennedy School gathered a range of A-team of faculty from across Harvard and MIT to present great overviews of issues ranging from global security and climate change to trade and demographics.

2- Skills: The Kennedy School brought in professors from at least three business schools (Harvard, Wharton and Stanford) to work on a variety of skills from negotiation and improved decision-making to the skills needed for creating and leading a team.

3- Participants: As in every YGL gathering, the participants themselves are a highlight. Really great group of people, each of whom has more than one amazing story.

Jennifer Corriero:

This program was incredible!

Through the many presentations and interactive sessions, we have been exposed to such a diverse range of perspectives on the problems facing our world today - with an underlying sense of hope in our capacity shape the future. The power of our individual and collective leadership is yet to be fully realized - and I know that coming together as a community has been an important step in a critical process of change.

Let’s continue to learn and grow together!

Technorati Tags: Davos, Harvard, ksg, Leslie Maasdorp, WEF, World Economic Forum, ygl, Young Global Leaders

Popularity: 3% [?]

James Sebenius: 4 key negotiation tips for a modern day Machiavelli

Disruptive ideas, by their very nature, are difficult execute. This is a problem for someone trying to push through innovations. Simultaneous agreement of conservative decision-making bodies such as governments, boards and city councils can be near impossible. Opposition can often only be overcome with strong sequential negotiation skills.

Citing coalition-building tactic from Gulf War I, the 1985 Plaza Accord that revalued the dollar, Clinton’s NAFTA negotations and others, James Sebenius presents four key tips in an essay taken from the book Wise Choices. (I read the essay in preparation for a conference organized next week at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government by the World Economic Forum.)

Negotiations that involve a coalition or group decision can either be:

I - Simultaneous - All parties sit in one room.
Open and collective decisions encourage buy-in from all stakeholders and generate new options through brainstorming in debate, but can make original and controversial initiatives impossible to undertake.

II - Sequential - Many bilateral negotiations.
A sequential approach allow an innovator to overcome blocks and hurdles that would arise in general discussion, but the methods can be sneaky, manipulative and even unethical.

In selecting the approach consider:

a - Failure potential within simultaneous negotiations.

b - The value (or detriment) of getting some players on board first.

c - Cost in time and resources to conduct bilateral negotiations.

When undertaking sequential negotiation be wary of folk maxims such as:

- Isolate opponents

- Get allies on board first

- Start with easy parties and then get hard ones

- Get an internal consensus before negotiating externally

Instead, Sebenius argues looking beyond individuals and coalitions to actually map out relationships of key players:

a - Exploit patterns of deference - Convince those who can convince others through deference, influence or antagonism.

b - Progressively worsen the no-deal alternative - Make non-supporters feel their standing worsens by not joining.

c - Build inevitability - Create momentum by getting a series of parties to agree. Momentum can even be built outside those whose support what you need: Foreign leaders’ support of a presidential policy can be used to persuade a reluctant Congress and US population.

d - Reveal information selectively - Basic negotiation skill for someone trying to buy out small landowners to create a large tract. Don’t reveal your final objective too soon.

Interesting points, but is he a modern day Machiavelli? (If you like his ideas, it appears that you can employ him for consultancy work here)

Any further thoughts?

Technorati Tags: James Sebenius, Sebenius Lax, WEF, World Economic Forum, Young Global Leaders

Popularity: 4% [?]