NetSquared teaming up with Sun Microsystems to produce global Hack Days. First stop, San Paolo, Brazil on October 1, 2008. Next up, China! Register: Collaborate for Change.
NetSquared is an initiative ofTechSoup
NetSquared enables social benefit organizations to leverage the tools of the social web.
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- Visuals are Worth a Thousand Words Particularly if People Can't Understand the Words
Visuals are Worth a Thousand Words Particularly if People Can't Understand the Words
What's *really* new on the Web, as opposed to buzzwords and soundbites?:
Visualization is really new. Google has had data for years but it only recently offered up a way of translating that data into graphs that make sense to humans. No doubt in response to the graphs at Technorati (www.technorati.com) and Blogpulse (www.blogpulse.com) already. For the first time we can see where the issues are with tools like frappr, map things easily with APIs to google and yahoo maps. Graph interest in topics at the click of a button to articulate points with visuals.
Visuals are hard to ignore and easy to understand. They help humans see patterns like never before.
Google Trends: “global warming” vs. “darfur”
Along the same linke youTube and friends are lowering the bar for video authoring and sharing. A good example of a creative use of this is video blogging post Katrina.
Which tools best embody the new opportunities from your point of view and why?:
Tools that accept they aren't the ONLY tools in the world.
Open API and things that make it easier to do common tasks. Flickr (www.flickr.com) posts to your blog and youTube (www.youtube.com) embeds strings. The digg (www.digg.com) link at the bottom of a blog post or the Technorati tags make things easier to do. These are tiny, yet powerful things.
So perhaps plugins are more important than the software itself? While Mozilla, IE and Safari all get the job done, there is no way I can live without my Mozilla plugins. The community is the killer app in the form of add on ingenuity.
Who's doing the best work with the new tools (technically or in terms of social benefit or both)?:
Technically 37 signals (www.37signals.com) has created a cult of simplicity that I find encouraging. All organizations must change and adapt to use software tools. This is counter to the old method of "modify the software to match our processes." That was good in theory but not economically possible for businesses never mind non profits. Perhaps the best work is being done in the slow acceptance of change among non profit boards. They are accepting that no tool is perfect but perhaps many are worth a try? Worth changing the organization itself to gain the benefits of the tools.
What I do not think will last is the dearth of web2.0 companies with one feature. One feature does not create a community. youTube does great video upload. Is that a community? I am not sure. Perhaps they don't have to be a full community, just another avenue of getting your message out.
Given nonprofits are primarily driven by ideological and social motivation, I'd like to see even more transparency of both motives and actions. For that I can't yet point to a non profit that I personally work with that is as transparent as possible. Hopefully they are moving in that direction with visualizations (see 1) and simplicity. More RSS-Simple.
What's the bad news? What are the greatest barriers preventing web-based technology from producing social change?:
The bad news is that the tech community has practically invented a whole new language. This is a HUGE barrier to entry not from a technology perspective but from a language perspective. Example - we put a link to digg at the bottom of articles and good heavens folks were bothered. "What is that?!?" Language and exactness of speech matter so we must come to a consensus on terms and use as few as possible to exactly describe the tools. Is it "Consumer Generated Media" or "Web 2.0" or "Social Software" or what? A social group does not particularly want to learn another language to gain the benefits. While style sheets and CSS allow us to make the web MORE accessible, the language associated with that technology makes it less accessible even if you can access it. So I believe language and exactness of speech is the biggest barrier to producing social change by making it unapproachable.
The second biggest obstacle would have to be integration. Mashups are fine for us, but really, what the heck is a google maps key and how do I get one? That may as well be Mt. Everest.
Hmmm, that last question sort of has this end on a downer note. Overall this is a very exciting time for non profits with better software available at a lower cost (or free) than ever before. That is great news.
