So much time, so little news

American news channels are really quite amazing in their ability to cram as little news as possible into the 24 hours/day they have to work with. I watch more hours of news programming here than I used to in Australia but I know vastly less as a result. No international news. No real analysis of anything except the political posturing. No ability to separate fact from rhetoric. And that's just CNN, Fox is a whole different absurd story. Check out Jon Stewart nailing CNN for their insipid "we have to leave it there" approach:

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.3639020&w=425&h=350&fv=autoPlay%3Dfalse]

more about "Video: CNN Leaves It There | The Dail...", posted with vodpod

Obama's Nobel

I've been thinking about Barack Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize quite a bit over the past couple of days and, as excited and hopeful as I am about the Obama administration, it really doesn't feel entirely right. Regardless of how you feel about whether he deserves the award I think we would all agree that giving a President only 9 months into his term the world's foremost career-achievement award makes it only too easy for those that wish to dismiss both the President and the award while leaving many supporters surprised and non-plussed.

It is not hard to make a compelling case that Obama deserves the award according to the criteria outlined in Alfred Nobel's will:

during the preceding year [...] shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

I believe that Obama's election, in-and-of-itself, created an extraordinary change in the world's view of America and America's understanding of itself. The way he ran his campaign and the ideals he expressed empowered millions of Americans and inspired many millions more around the world to believe another world was possible.

Changes in atmosphere, in tone, in people's conception of what is possible, constitute real changes which can indicate a deep, cultural shift in a society. Communicating, defining and inspiring are important parts of the president's role, and a crucial element in what Ron Heifetz calls 'Adaptive Leadership'. This is leadership that produces a shift in values and allows society to understand and confront the real issues, in contrast to 'Technical Leadership' which is focused on the application of existing knowledge for incremental fixes.

However I still wish the Nobel Committee had waited. There's no doubt that Obama will be at the center of world events for the entirely of his presidency, and I believe, and we all must hope, that in many of the years ahead he will make more concrete steps towards peace and disarmament, the protection of human rights and real action on climate change than those that have occurred thus far.

However necessary it is to bring about changes in atmosphere and behavior it is insufficient to be considered a great, or even effective, president. For that these changes must be leveraged into legislative and policy progress. And Obama has a lot of work to do to achieve this, and the places where progress has been made are not those most related to peace building but rather domestic concerns, especially the American economy and next, it is hoped, domestic health care.

I am hopeful that over the next year or two Obama will finalize the closing of Guantanamo Bay, withdraw US forces from Iraq and lead the world to an agreement to take meaningful action on climate change (and then get domestic legislation passed to make this action real). I even hope he will find time to focus on pushing for a final Israel/Palestinian peace agreement. Any of these things might justify receiving the Nobel Prize and would make it easier for supporters to unabashedly celebrate the win and harder for critics to dismiss it. And there were certainly other strong candidates from the past year. Morgan Tsvangirai would also have been a deserving winner for instance.

In the end I hope that this Nobel Peace Prize is, as Obama said, "a means to give momentum to a set of causes." These causes need all the momentum they can get.

The power of suggestion

On Friday last week Twitter added a collection of non-profit accounts to their Suggested Users list, seeming to focus on social entrepreneurship, including both organizations and individuals. These new Suggested Users included:

• Social Edge
• Skoll Foundation
• Kjerstin Erickson (founder of FORGE)
• Jacqueline Novogratz (founder of Acumen Fund)
• Acumen Fund
• Matt Flannery (founder of Kiva)
• Kiva
• charity: water

This was met with general acclaim in the non-profit blogosphere. Nathaniel Whittemore, Change.org's Social Entrepreneurship blogger, went so far as to suggest that a listing could be worth $1 million.

On Tuesday a second set of non-profits were added to the list, this time including @AshokaTweets, which I run, and Ashoka's @Changemakers. Since then we've added over 10,000 new followers each.

The rate of increase really is quite amazing. I had worked diligently since January building an engaged community of 6,500,  sustained participation leading to consistent, organic growth. When I realized what was happening by Wednesday late morning we where already over 10,000. As of this writing, late Thursday evening, we have passed 17,000.

This gives rise to several thoughts.

As exciting as the growing count is these new followers are clearly less valuable in purely business terms than those who found us because they are overtly interested in Ashoka, social entrepreneurship, or social change. These original followers are self-consciously interested in what we have to say, and a decent number of them will check out articles or vote in competitions on our suggestion. In other words, they're engaged.

These new followers, on the other hand, have agreed to kick off their twitter experience by following a wildly diverse group of 300ish Suggestions Users, including a preponderance of celebrities and sports people but also twitter developers, journalists and newspapers, blogs and bloggers, online and offline businesses, business and social entrepreneurs. They may or may not be interested in what we have to say, they haven't consciously chosen to follow us, they just want to be following someone, and Twitters suggestions will do.

Equally, this group of new users are probably those mostly likely to quite twitter quickly. In February it was reported that 60% of twitter users quit within a month. As many as a third who get so far as to send a tweet never make it to their second. People who join twitter without a clear idea of what they want to get out of it, what sort of information they want to plug into, are probably those most likely to quit. So it seems inevitable that we will end up with many thousands of abandoned accounts padding our follower count.

But this is all really besides the point. Regardless of how many of our followers are no longer checking twitter there will be many, hopefully more, who are. And even if the majority of new followers are not currently focused on social entrepreneurship, some will be, and some will discover a new interest or passion.

This, indeed, is the ultimate opportunity for a citizen sector organization of placement on the Suggested Users list. Non-profits are always discussing how we can stop "preaching to the converted" and escape our silo. Well here's the chance, tens of thousands of people who don't yet know about your organization or cause but who, with good messaging and sustained effort, can be inspired to be your next generation of supporters, new members of your movement, the boost you need to reach a tipping point of awareness around an issue. In other words it is the fact that they didn't go looking for us that gives these new connections a different, and unique, value.

Ashoka's mission is to create an Everyone a Changemaker world, a world where everyone has the support and skills to create change in their community. Such a mission requires that we seek out opportunities to reach a wider audience and being added to the twitter Suggested Users list is an amazing opportunity to speak to larger, wider, more diverse audience and inspire them to imagine the future they would like to create, and then to take action to bring it about.

Thanks twitter!

Burning Mushroom Part II

I've been meaning to write up my Burning Man experiences but it's harder to do than it sounds. Meanwhile, let me just update you on my excitement to see Infected Mushroom at Burning Man. And boy was my excitement fulfilled; it was one of the most adrenalating, annihilating, wildly surreal dance music experiences of my life. Infected Mushroom were set left on a stage with a projector screen behind them, two lasers arching overhead and a flamethrower directly in front of us throwing jets of fire thirty feet up as ten thousand people stomped and shook and screamed their passion into the night air. It was dance music at its best, as a return to a more tribal state, a giving of yourself to the ancient human pleasure of pounding the earth with our feet, finding unity in repetitive music and motions. It was madness, glorious madness.

Here's the video I took. The sound quality is awful but hopefully you get a sense of the setting. Check out the fire at 2:36.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4X0vBa5jWk]

Here's another good vid of them playing Cities of the Future, one of my favourite Infected Mushroom tracks and very apt for the setting:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aaB6dKd4xE]

Google's 10^100 finally open for voting

Just over a year ago Google announced 10 to the 100th. Timed to celebrate their 10th anniversary this competition called on people to "suggest a unique idea that would help as many people as possible." They were going to sort and prioritize the ideas and then allow people to vote on the ideas they wished to see implemented. Voting was going to start on January 27, 2009. Google would devote $10 million to the winning ideas, although not necessarily to those who submitted them. Instead they would look for the most appropriate and credible organization to implement the idea. As you could imagine people got quite excited by the open-ended nature of the challenge and the considerable financial commitment to positive social change. Then a funny thing happened: Nothing.

The January timeline came and went and now, finally, we know why. Google were overwhelmed by over 150,000 ideas which were submitted. Apparently it ended up taking 3,000 Google staffers to vet and categorize the ideas (you'd think they could have come up with a very clever piece of code to help with this) but at last the finalists have been announced. Only instead of them being the "unique ideas" originally requested they have released a list of 16 general concepts, ranging from "Create more efficient landmine removal programs" to "Enhance science and engineering education" to "Build better banking tools for everyone."

This makes voting an interesting exercise. You need to choose between the relatively specific ("Encourage positive media depictions of engineers and scientists" and "Make educational content available online for free") and the very broad ("Work towards more socially conscious tax policies"). Some of problem-focused ("Create genocide monitoring and alert system") while others are aspirationally-oriented ("Provide quality education for African students"). The submitted ideas these 16 concepts are based on are more specific but only marginally more "unique". This all makes it pretty hard to select amongst the ideas or to know what might really happen to an idea if it is selected. In other words, to decide what will make the greatest difference for the greatest number.

I, however, will be voting for the broadest "big idea" of them all: "Help social entrepreneurs drive change".

To me this idea stands out from the others as social entrepreneurship is a methodology for creating change, not a specific change. This may seem kind of vague but this is why this idea has the potential to create massive change beyond what is possible for most of the others. Social entrepreneurs, properly supported, are the people who can solve all the other problems, who can accelerate the removal of landmines or the opening-up of government, alert the world to genocide or "build a real-time, user-reported news service." In fact, they already are.

Supporting social entrepreneurs has a catalytic effect on communities. Successful social entrepreneurs are usually community-based; they are focused on addressing problems that affect them and their community and they do so in new and innovative ways. They are also experts at making small amounts of funding to a very long way, so you get bang for your buck. They inspire those around them to become changemakers, helping to not only address one problem but create an environment of adaption and innovation that is ready for the next challenge. This is the kind of world we need, a world of changemakers, and social entrepreneurs are the highly-infectious carriers of the idea virus of changemaking.

When I think about the social entrepreneurship sector it brings to mind how science was conducted in the 15th Century: brilliant innovators spread across the global, often working diligently on the same problems, regularly unaware of existing breakthroughs in their field. Smart people would lose decades of their lives working on problems for which solutions already existed, there was just a lack of opportunities to disseminate these breakthroughs. Compare this to the science sector now: a tightly inter-networked set of universities, government research institutions and corporate R&D labs with, IP not-withstanding, rapid dissemination of new knowledge and scaling of the best inventions.

Many of the problems we face are similiar across the world, from teenage pregnancy to landmines to living more sustainably. Imagine a world where we can learn from the best social innovators and apply those innovations at a scale to address these problems. Where we can stand on each others shoulders and step over some of these intractable problems.

It is easy to imagine how the technological know-how and financial resources of Google can help us support, empower and network the world's social entrepreneurs. Ashoka, where I work, has spent the last 28 years working on this challenge, building a network of over 2,200 visionary social leaders along the way. But as impressive as this is there is so much more to do in a world full of problems, but also full of smart dedicated people working on those problems. We need to help them to drive the changes we need.

Please be sure to vote by October 8. You can also nominate an organization you think would be best placed to receive funding to carry out the idea. I think you can probably guess who I'm voting for there.

Ashoka at the Clinton Global Initiative

I was laid up with a bad back all of last week and while I was it was very cool to see all the videos produced by the Ashoka Team at the Clinton Global Initiative.  The increasing use of video at Ashoka, and at citizen sector organizations overall, is wonderful to see. A year ago Ashoka's approach to video was very traditional - footage would be shot and, time-permitting, edited into something usable. Now the focus is on fast, one-take, minimally edited videos that can be shared live or very rapidly with our online audience. It's our immersion into social media that inspires this new approach - being involved in a real-time conversation with our supporters and peers creates an emphasis on timeliness and humanness. To this end people from different parts of the Ashoka family where profiled at CGI: Fellows, staff and supporters. It was the first-time we've emphasized video as a reporting tool from a live event like this. We have learnt a lot from this pilot and will be using this learning to better cover future events, including our Tech 4 Society conference in Hyderabad India in February next year, one of the biggest gatherings we have hosted.

These learnings include improved coordination between the production of videos and the conversation at and about the event. For instance, if we see an Ashoka Fellow or staff member saying something interesting or profound over their twitter feed we should try and grab them as soon as possible and get them to expand on those thoughts on video. This would more powerfully embed our videos into the conversation, rather than just using the twitter conversation as just an outreach platform.

The ongoing development of Ashoka's online communities and the clear interest and enthusiasm for stories from the Ashoka network has inspired this greater focus on developing timely content that can be shared with these communities. The understanding of the importance and benefits of this approach is becoming widespread across the organization, such that it barely requires me to suggest let alone implement these efforts. And that, to me, is the most exciting thing of all, evidence of the real culture-change taking place at Ashoka as we become more social, more participatory and more focused on storytelling.

Here are a couple of my favourite of our videos from CGI:

Ashoka Fellow Harmish Hande:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k5AKpQpFg8]

And a super-cute video with my boss, head of Global Marketing Beverly Schwartz:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C69ftNBi-A]

You can see all the Ashoka CGI videos here.

American money = broken

Having just returned to America having visited Australia I'm struck once again by how poorly designed American money is. By this I don't just mean the design of the money itself, although that is pretty woeful, but more importantly the monetary spacing between coins and notes. In both cases they're pitched way too low given the value of today's money. You routinely end up with a pocket full of worthless metal and a wallet full of near-worthless paper. I recently had the feeling of considerable wealth as my wallet was full of cash but upon counting it it turned out to be 14 $1 bills. The notes themselves are dull and easy to destory.

Compare this to Australia. Australian bank notes are plastic which is untearable and can withstand going through the wash. They are actually quite beautiful, each with distinctive colours and design. But, more to the point, Aussie money is spaced out to be more convenient to consumers.

Useless 1c and 2c coins have been eliminated and it was recently announced that 5c coins would no longer be minted either. There are $1 and $2 coins, meaning that when you have a bunch of coins in your pocket you almost always have enough for a cup of coffee or even lunch. This leaves the lowest value note as $5, so if you have several notes in your wallet you know you have real money to get you through the day.

The American penny is being redesigned in 2010 but a more much logical course of action would be to eliminate it all-together. Apart from its general inconvenience it actually costs more than 1c to mint each penny, so the government is losing money on them, and since 1982 they have been 97.5% zinc, a highly toxic metal. This means pennies can cause damage to the stomach if swallowed and can actually kill dogs.

To break it down:

Australian coins: 5c (being eliminated); 10c; 20c; 50c; $1; $2.

American coins: 1c; 5c; 10c; 25c.

Australian notes: $5; $10; $20; $50; $100.

American notes: $1; $5; $10; $20; $100.

While I have no hope this is ever going to happen: get it together America. It's the 21^st Century with both 21^st century printing technology but also 21^st century prices. You can't go down to the shop for 1c candy anymore, and it actually costs more to make pennies than they are then worth, so why have them at all?

Images from Sean Hackbarth and Joshua Aaron via flickr, both on attribution no-derivates Creative Commons license.

Home(s)

Kate and I have just got back from a week spent back in Sydney visiting family and friends. It was our first visit home since we left in April last year and was every bit as wonderful and as rushed as you would imagine. One week to see so many people we care so much about was nowhere near enough, and there's people I badly regret missing. But, in general, those we saw where those we most needed to see, our closest friends we used to see on the most regular basis and, of course, our families.

Flying back into Sydney was stunning. I've been to quite a few cities but I've never seen one as blindingly physically beautiful as Sydney is. It was heart-stirring to see the sunlight glinting off a harbour dotted with small sail boats and ferries, eucalyptus trees greening the suburbs on its banks. Given Sydney had only just emerged from winter the weather was brilliant – sunny and warm but not too hot. Few cities can compare to this.

But even more heart-stirring was seeing our friends again. As wonderful as the people we've met in Washington DC are there's nothing like being back with old friends, a coherent crew of people who know and love us, and who uplift and fulfill us. Such friends make life fantastic, and we miss them all enormously. We truly felt we were home.

Flying back into DC was an amazing feeling too though, as I realized that DC is also home for now, that we have people we miss here and who miss us, and that I was looking very forward to getting back to our house, our neighbourhood, our friends and my work. I think it's only in leaving then returning to a place that you realize what it means to you. It's good to be home.

Radiohead and Banksy, together at last

Radiohead are one of the great music innovators of our time and one of my favourite bands. Banksy is an iconic artist from our generation, the most famous street artist in the world whose work I love. So it's brilliant to see Radiohead's latest video featuring Banksy's work: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2DQ50-4qXY&hl=en&fs=1&]

I'm alive!

Just a note to confirm that I made it through Burning Man alive (so alive) and am now back in Australia being run off my feet trying to catch up with as many family and friends as possible in the one week we're here. I spent a glorious 2.5 weeks completely unplugged: no internet, no phone. Highly recommended. We're back in DC this weekend so I'll return to regular posting after that but will try and get an update up before I depart.