Social Consciousness, Consensus, and Impact

Everything converged on socially conscious sites yesterday. I was asked to join in a discussion down in Palo Alto at Socialtext's offices pulled together for Social Media Consensus. Participants included Ross Mayfield, Britt Bravo, Sara Olson, Vinnie Lauria, JD Lasica, Jim Lawn, Bronwyn Kunhardt, Erik Sundelof, Eszter Hargittai, Sam Perry, Julia French, and Pim Techamuanvivit. The goal of the meeting was to discuss the notion of social impact of social media from the different perspectives of different communities: techie building social tools, policy folks, and those involved in various socially conscious projects and sites.

I found that couldn't help but fall smack into the rut of a technoid blogger, and evaluating impact based on things like design of the sites, or Technorati or Alexa ranking. Some of the others, who understand the dynamics of the world of non-profits and policy organizations, broadened my horizons by pointing out that impact can be measured in other ways.

For example, I really dislike the poor design of Global Voices Online:

The use of tag clouds at the top of the page means you have to scroll past to see anything: they should be sidebar navigational elements.

I also found the lack of a description problematic: if you know what they are up to, fine, but for a first time visitor there was little to guide me.

(Note that even in this context, Twitter shows up: see the top story? A Malawian blogger is cited talking about Twitter and why it is better suited for Africa than alternatives.)

I wandered over to the manifesto, which suggests that the org/site exists to support free speech, but the actual stories wander a bit from this. I was informed later on by others in the know that the real impact of the site was in the policy sector, as opposed to activism. If so, I was misled. And the endless text, broken by a few photos, wore me down.

There seems to be little opportunity for social interaction -- no voting, no polls, no comments, no people -- very old school journalism model. Which of course I dislike intensely.

In the final analysis, I doubted that the site/org could be having big impact, but again, if it influences the policy sector, even though the numbers of readers involved are small, the final impacts could be quite large. And the policy wonks might like the newslettery feel of the site.

I was introduced to another site, Change.org, which is everything that Global Voices Online is not. Change.org is a social network -- with a surprisingly rich set of social features -- that allows people who care about various causes to find others with similar outlooks and goals, and perhaps take action jointly on the issues.

Here's my profile:

I have joined a few 'changes' -- the issues that I wish to affiliate with -- and when you drill into a 'change' you discover other people, events, photos, and videos on the topic.

I also created an 'action' associated with the Stop Global Warming 'change':

People can also raise money, organize events, and get involved in other sorts of collective action.

I find the design clean, very social, really exemplary as a social tool, and from my perspective therefore more lilkely to have grassroots impact, although the policy wonks might not want to get their knees dirty this way.

Following in the vein of socially conscious apps/sites, last night at the SF Beta event one of the demoing companies was FreePledge.com, whose motto is "Shop. Donate. Feel Good." A marvelously simple -- although non-social -- site, FreePledge allows users to buy stuff from major retailers online, and donate the affiliate fees toward good works of various sorts.

How does it work?

So, sites don't have to be social or even well-designed to have an impact. Global Voices Online is (from my perspective) both badly designed and non-social, but it influences policy, which leads to potentially big impact, indirectly. FreePledge could have a big impact by allowing people to direct affiliate fees toward green causes, without any sort of social architecture involved.

My sense though is that the social architecture that animates Change.org is necessary to have large scale, sustainable social impact. Something like FreePledge looks like a feature, or an 'action' that someone might have implemented within Change.org, if the site allowed apps to be developed within it, or if they exposed the API so that 'actions' could be external sites. I believe that the largest social impact will come from social tools that build on the motifs that appear in many if not all of the most successful social applications, and Change.org looks like a great example of that.

Apropos of that, Britt Bravo emailed to let me know that the CEO of Change.org, Ben Rattray, will be speaking on the topic "How Nonprofits Can Use and Build Online Social Networks" on April 10th at Citizen Agency in San Francisco at Net Tuesday (RSVP on Meetup or Upcoming.org). Ben will be joined by Gina Bianchini, the co-founder and CEO of Ning.

tags: citizen+agency, britt+bravo, ross+mayfield, sara+olson, vinnie+lauria, jd+lasica, jim+lawn, bronwyn+kunhardt, erik+sundelof, eszter+hargittai, sam+perry, julia+french, pim+techamuanvivit, ben+rattray, gina+bianchini, ning, change.org, globalvoicesonline, freepledge, social+consciousness, socially+conscious, social+tools, social+media, social+media+consensus, socialtext

Comments

[Maryrose Lyons]

One of my favourites that I came across recently is Kiva - loans that get repaid. You choose the project you want to invest in. Your money goes directly to the people who need it, and not into aid organisation administrative expenses: http://www.kiva.org/app.php

[eszter]

Thanks for this summary. I agree that it was interesting to learn who may be Global Voices' main audience. I can see how it could have significant influence in that realm. Thanks for mentioning the other sites, these are interesting comparisons.

[Phil Butler]

I love your style! This was a very enjoyable post to read. Actually made me want to go sign up (which I will).

I would be interested in an open source social network at say: Wikia or Swik as examples. Is is pretty obvious (if you are over 12) that we need to use Web 2.0 for more than a really big video game.

It seems that what we have right now is trending toward the Sims on meth. Thanks so much for your mature and interesting perspective.

Always,
Phil

[Stowe Boyd]

Maryrose - I saw Kiva a few months back. Very cool.

Eszter - Your welcome.

Phil - Thanks.

[Phil]

Interesting notes- our site, Cauzoo.com (currently in public preview at the above Url) effectively implements FreePledge, but with a key difference- unlike Change.org and FreePledge, we won't siphon any money intended for charities.

We like your observations about the social space though. If you have any questions about our site, give us a shout out. Otherwise, we'll keep reading on!

Thanks,
Phil

[Boris Anthony]

I entreat you to revisit GVO today, as we just launched a redesign.
Please keep in mind it is not an SNS or "social site", but an editorialized aggregation of newsworthy content from webogs around the world. We may not fit the current "Web2.0" view of how websites should be, but we are quite happy with what we're doing. 30,000 average visits a day is not bad.

Stay tuned for our Outreach and Advocacy projects, just now getting underway.

I wonder why you didn't contact any of us directy? Goodness knows we have enough people in common.

[Jeff Paul Scam]

I would be interested in an open source social network at say: Wikia or Swik as examples

[Jeff Paul Scam]

I agree that it was interesting to learn who may be Global Voices' main audience. I can see how it could have significant influence in that realm.