White Courtesy Telephone

Two Social Media Technologies That Will Transform the Nonprofit World

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1. Content.Cloud.0

Problem:  In large metropolitan area X, each of three nonprofit organizations wants to create the online portal for neighborhood-level indicators.

Analysis:  The idea behind a portal is that you try to entice the online user to come to you.  Once at your site, she can benefit from your content and online tools.

The downside:  The user experience is unpleasant because she has to go to your site to find the most accurate data about poverty, another site to find the newest statistics on crime, and a third to track city investments in her neighborhood.

Solution: Content.Cloud.0 is a new social media technology that enables nonprofits to share their content with one another easily.  This new de-portalization tool can be implemented using existing MOU technologies and other B2B instruments.

Here’s how it works:  A group of content creators/providers working in a given area (e.g, neighborhood indicators) agrees to share online content and tools with one another.

This new technology enables online users to find whatever content they’re looking for at their favorite port of entry into the online space, avoiding the hassles of site specialization.  Content.Cloud.0 builds on late 20^th century “SharIng” technologies.

2. CLOUTsourcing

Problem:  During the great healthcare debates of 2009 and early 2010, political will from above met limited agitation from below, leading to legislation that fell short of many activists’ hopes for universal health coverage.

Analysis:  Many of us advocates for low-income communities were sitting on our hands, either because healthcare wasn’t our issue or because we were in the middle of some other campaign.  It was clear, however, that the ability to access quality healthcare would affect the destinies of low-income people for years to come.  The healthcare debate was happening nationally and legislation was being debated in Congress.  Reason dictated we drop whatever else we were doing and get behind this issue.

The downside:  This didn’t happen to any significant degree.

Solution: CLOUTsourcing is a new social media tool that enables advocates to coordinate their actions for greater effect and the greater good.  CloutScourcing can be implemented using existing P2P technologies such as Meetings, Electronic Mail, or Picking Up the Phone and Calling Someone.

Here’s how it works:  When an issue that deeply affects low-income communities is up for a vote in Congress or in the state legislature, and/or is being debated extensively in the media, all advocates get behind the issue instead of doing their own thing.  They offer to help the lead agencies involved by mobilizing their networks; educating their constituencies about the connections between the issue in question and the fate of low-income communities; writing op eds; etc.

China to the West: Pay No Attention to Those Corpses Behind Our Bilateral Trade Agreements

So, this past Friday in Oslo, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was barred by Chinese authorities from attending the ceremony at which he would have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  Here are three takes on the same non-event where concerned Westerners wrung their hands and lamented the state of human rights in China:

1. From the New York Times:

Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, [adds] that China [needs] to learn that with economic power [comes] social and political responsibility.

“We can to a certain degree say that China with its 1.3 billion people is carrying mankind’s fate on its shoulders,” Mr. Jagland said in a speech at the [Nobel Peace Prize] ceremony. “If the country proves capable of developing a social market economy with full civil rights, this will have a huge favorable impact on the world.”

Translation: I’m convinced we’re screwed unless we find a way to rationalize trade with the Chinese.  But the human rights Liu Xiaobo is fighting for are a moral issue not an economic one.  I will therefore split the baby by invoking the notion of a “social market economy,” the Middle Way between socialism and capitalism.  That way we can have our almond cake and eat it too.

Getting a recalcitrant population to acquiesce to a market economy on the state’s terms is a gentleman’s game requiring a delicate touch not an iron fist.  And China is being, well, gauche, n’est-ce pas?

2. From Congresswoman Pelosi’s speech on the House floor:

“Today, the House of Representatives is congratulating Liu Xiaobo on the Nobel Peace Prize and sending a clear message of support for human rights and democracy in China. We do this in recognition of the importance of the relationship between China and the United States, that we have many issues where we have common ground or where should seek common ground. But all of that is better served by candor in our friendship and not ignoring sore spots.

“We continue to call for Liu Xiaobo’s immediate and unconditional release, and for the Chinese government to listen to the many Chinese citizens who are calling for human rights and freedom in China.”

Translation:  I can safely refer to the most egregious abuses of human rights—the denial of basic freedoms, the jailing of thousands of dissidents and their families, and the torture of Falun Gong members—as “sore spots” because the American public isn’t paying attention and half of them wouldn’t be able to locate China on a map anyway. 

So, who’s mixing the martinis? 

Editor’s note:  Before we move on, I need to get this off my chest: It’s a mystery to me why our leaders bother with these effete upbraidings.  After all, by many accounts, our policy of constructive engagement with China has been enormously successful.  Over the past several decades we’ve learned some important lessons from the Chinese about denying due process and using state-sponsored torture to strengthen national security.  And while the US government does not control the media, we’ve succeeded in concentrating ownership of it into the hands of an ever-smaller fraternity of elites.  China, for its part, has embraced capitalism and is deeply grateful for an American public sated by its purchases of cheap Chinese goods.  Not too long ago, China Security and Surveillance Technology, a company that installs surveillance systems for the Chinese security apparatus, was the first Chinese company to join the New York Stock Exchange.  According to Terence Yap, then-vice chairman and chief financial officer:

his company’s software made it possible for security cameras to count the number of people in crosswalks and alert the police if a crowd forms at an unusual hour, a possible sign of an unsanctioned protest.

Sounds like a growth industry to me, both in China and in the West, as an increasingly restive population begins to form crowds at unusual hours in unsanctioned places for allegedly nefarious purposes.

3.  Stay away from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, urges China.  Here’s its officially sanctioned rationalization:

Liu was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Dec. 25, 2009, after a Beijing court convicted him of violating Chinese law and engaging in activities aimed at overthrowing the government.

“We urge relevant U.S. lawmakers to stop their wrongdoing on this issue, change their arrogant and rude attitude and show due respect for the Chinese people and China’s judicial sovereignty,” said Jiang.

... Jiang said earlier that more than 100 countries and international organizations had expressed support for China's stance.

“Justice lies in the heart of the people,” said Jiang.

This man Liu is a convicted criminal for God’s sake!

China is betting that world leaders will be more concerned about their own hold on power than about the ultimate disposition of their immortal souls.  The argument seems to have worked for at least 19 countries and sent a frisson of terror through many more, judging from the anemic statements coming out of Oslo.

Meanwhile, let's enjoy those everyday low, low prices while we still can.

A Prose Poem for Education

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What is a Pecha Kucha? Created by American architects living in Japan, Pecha Kucha is a presentation style in which the speaker is given a limited amount of time to convey his or her message in a creative way.

I went outside my comfort zone to deliver a three-minute Pecha Kucha at the opening of a Grantmakers for Education conference here in New Orleans.  I wanted to write a mood-setter, something closer to poetry than to prose.  But even though I love poetry, I have no skill for writing it. 

Titled Up From the Depths: A Prose Poem for Education, the production of this hybrid Pecha Kucha was a team effort.  I wrote the text, drawing a parallel between New Orleans’s recovery from the devastation of the waters of Katrina and the renewal of the city’s education system. Local documentary and film company Tungsten Monkey artfully mixed the scenes of water with the schoolchildren at Kingsley House.  Janet Daley did the beautiful voice-over you hear on this web version.  The poem excerpt I recite near the end of the piece is titled "Morning Swim" and was written by Maxine Kumin.  Martha Landrum, Vice President for Communications at the Greater New Orleans Foundation, helped shape the piece you see below.