2008 may have been a year of political organizing via Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, but the ultimate impact on political and social change remains under debate. This debate was addressed head on in the Organizing for Change on the Social Web session at NCMR this afternoon. The session brought together luminaries, innovators and activists to discuss how to make connections and make change online and off. Interestingly, most of the interesting discussion and useful tips focused much more on the people behind our technology, not the technology itself.
Deanna Zandt opened the discussion taking the pulse of the room. Most people were active in online social networks and were ready to take their casual browsing to the next level, or leverage their Facebook friends to make a difference on the issues they work on. That was exactly what Ruby Sinreich addressed in her discussion, but she encouraged us to connect our online and offline social networks.
“Social networks are nothing new,” Sinreich said. “Social marketing is nothing new. Social media is nothing new.” But, Sinriech sees the Internet as a tool that is putting a new and increased focus on social platforms and providing new modes and models for extending, developing, and using our connections. The Internet gives us “the power to use and organize our own networks for our own purposes.” With these new tools, we can tell each other what to do, providing critical information to each other, instead of relying on a top down, corporate source to provide us with key info. “In other words: we don’t need no stinkin’ marching orders.”
Sinriech ended her talk with a great slide that addressed a series of questions related to how to leverage your networks to make something go viral: How do you take grassroots organizing online? What makes an issue become a story that thousands of bloggers are paying attention to? What makes a network “swarm” around something? For Sinriech it comes down to five key ideas:
1) Having social ties with trusted relationships
2) Having a common story, and a shared language
3) Having a dense communication grid, multiple forms of connections
4) Having a culture of sharing and openness
5) Having an awareness of your place in that network – affinity and connection
For more of this presentation check out http://www.lotusmedia.org/5things [1]
Craig Newmark did not talk much about his experiences launching Craigslist, but rather focused on taking the lesson’s of Craigslist and applying them to new, innovative projects. Newmark also touched on the centrality of creating a culture of trust to successful online networks. “By acting on shared values each and every day” we create real bonds that extend far beyond websites and blogs.
Newmark suggested that to some extent, in the midst of all this powerful and exciting technology, we just need to get back to basics. “People operate on the principle of ‘treat others the way you want to be treated,’” said Newmark. “We have bet our company on the fact that people are mostly kind and good.”
For Chris Rabb, a consultant, writer and "netroots" activist who founded the blog Afro-Netizen in 1999, the power of social networks is their potential to allow people to assert their own, self-created identity and connect with others who have identified themselves with the same values and characteristics. Rabb drew a great connection between the idea of “social capital” - the social, political or even economic value of our connections with each other - and “digital capitol,” the value of our new online networks. However, Rabb warned, we have to understand the way that digital capital and social networks are tied up in networks of privilege both on and offline.
The founder of the Harry Potter Alliance, Andrew Slack, talked about his efforts to mobilize tens of thousands of Harry Potter fans through online communities and videos. Some of Slack’s videos have been viewed more than 3 million times. However, Slack suggested that the success of these videos relied less on any recipe of key cinematic ingredients, than on their ability to tap into a cultural meme and capturing the energy of people’s imaginations.
Slack sees his work as connecting social networks to activists’ causes to create powerful social advocates. To do this, he focuses on shifting the energy in culture and refocusing on some of the most pressing issues of our time. Social networking is, in part, about tapping into popular culture’s resources to make change.