What does Facebook Questions Mean for Non-Profits

This was my first post for the Small Act blog and was published there last week.

Last week Facebook continued their two trends of appropriating the most successful features of other social networks and making what was once a closed network increasingly public.

This time Facebook has borrowed from LinkedIN Answers, Yahoo Answers and Mahalo.com, all of which allow members to ask and answer questions, building a collaborative, searchable, repository of knowledge and opinions. Beginning with a first cohort of members last week Facebook is rolling out its own Q&A platform in for the form of “Facebook Questions”.

As with anything it does Facebook’s demographic mass with a community over 500 million strong makes this move incredibly significant. The usage of this service will in all likelihood rapidly surpass those of its rivals. All content within Facebook Questions will be completely public which will bring significant amounts of search traffic.

I think this is a smart, exciting and coherent extension of the Facebook platform. People already use their status updates to constantly ask questions of each other. And anyone who wants to continue limiting their questions to their friends, which will be the case for the vast majority of these updates, can continue to do exactly what they’re doing. But if your question is of a more general nature; “Where is the best pizza in Washington, DC?”, “What’s the best company to work for in America?” or “Why do you not eat meat?”, then you might benefit from making it public, and discovering what the citizens of Facebook at large think. In that case you would ask it as a “Question”, a new option you can select below the profile update box.

What makes the Facebook service particularly compelling is that it is contextual: if I ask a question about Google my friends who work at Google will see I and if I ask a question about San Francisco my friends who live there will see it, and so on. This context and integration with our Facebook network will ensure the success of Facebook Question.

So what does this mean for citizen sector organizations? Simply put, it’s another chance to engage your community in a meaningful way. Already many organizations use their Facebook Pages and Twitter accounts as consultation tools; this will be another valuable avenue to seek the input and opinions of your members, supporters and the community at large, and anything that allows you to do that at the scale Facebook represents is of enormous value. As your community responds they will also be sharing your question through their Facebook network, further expanding your reach.

As Facebook Questions has only been made available to a limited number of Facebook members so far (and aspects of it are still buggy) we don’t know yet if businesses and organizations will be able to pose questions or provide answers directly via their Pages. I hope so, and it would make sense for Facebook to allow this. The alternative would be staff spokespeople. And regardless of who an organization chooses to manage this interaction their staff will inevitably be drawn into responding to Questions that match their employer, issues of interest and hobbies or are asked by their friends.

As is true on other social networks, if a passionate group of people are discussing your issue you should (respectfully, humbly, openly) participate. You could learn a lot from the Facebook community and they could learn a lot from you. As a platform for aggressive advocacy I do not think it will work. But as a platform for educating it will be excellent. When you add value by educating, when you provide links to relevant information and stories, when you don’t ask for anything in return, you create trust, which leads to attention and support. In these respects Facebook Questions could big another valuable tool in the portfolio of socially-connected organizations.

Resurfacing

Mountains outside Taos, New Mexico

Oh blog, and blog readers, I've ignored you for so long. My apologies for the long break between posts. The last couple of months have gone by in a flash, a nearly-hallucinatory slideshow of people, places, goodbyes, hellos, endings, beginnings and movement, always movement. Until finally I stopped.

I've been in San Francisco for three weeks and feel myself slowly settling in. K and I have been enjoying a really simple life these last few weeks: pottering around the house, working from home, shopping for bulk goods and cooking every healthy meals at home, barely eating out. We really needed this slower time after a fun but relentless and at-times spectacularly stressful previous three months which involved 3 countries, ten states, six flights and one epic drive.

The last couple of months we spent in DC were a constant countdown to departure and we pushed ourselves to be endlessly social as we strove to pack in time with all the people we loved. Finishing a job and packing up a house made work and home time equally busy. Taking a break to Costa Rica, where we originally planned to renew our visas, sounded like a good idea when we booked the ticket, and was certainly very beautiful, but became just another thing that needed organizing and nowhere near enough time to really relax. (And we weren't even able to get our visas, requiring another trip overseas, this time to good 'ol Australia.)

Then a final week in DC, party party party pack pack pack, and we were on the road, driving South through Virginia at first and spending our first night in the George Washington National Forest, part of the ancient Appalachian Mountains that run down the East coast. Staring up at the stars that night I felt the thrill of freedom that everyone must feel when they set out on a cross-country adventure.

We took eleven days to cross the continent, enough time to do things other than drive. Twice we took days off, first in the bohemian Taos in New Mexico and then in the Eastern Sierra Nevadas in California. We spent two days driving due West across Tennessee, arriving at all our chosen attractions just after closing time or on their day off, then spend across Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. In Little Rock we picked up a traveling companion, our friend James, and in Clinton, OK. we spent the night in the perfect old-school roadside dive motel. We were in awe of the Taos gorge and then had our minds blown by the Grand Canyon over which we saw the sun rise after three hours of sleep. In Death Valley we experienced 119 Fahrenheit (38.5 Celsius). (That was particularly amazing, the hottest temperature I've encountered, a genuinely new feeling.) We plunged into a freezing-cold stream of ice-melt pouring down off the Sierra Nevadas and saw the highest and lowest points in mainland USA within 2 hours drive of each other. I saw five animals I had never seen in the wild before: a hummingbird, coyote, elk, praire dogs and beavers.

America is a spectacularly large and diverse country. Mainland USA is as spread out as Australia but with a staggering degree of geographic diversity. Ancient mountain ranges (the Appalachians) and much more recent upheavals (the Rockies), huge plains and vast canyons cut into plateaus four thousand feet high. America is a relatively new continent, the land subject to the repeated trauma of tectonic collisions, volcanic instability, ice-age glaciers and resulting floods. It was thrilling to see the land morph so dramatically around us, often in the space of a few hours.

All in all, an amazing drive. We arrived in San Francisco around 2pm, had time to visit a friends house and have a shower and then left the car in long-term parking and caught a flight back to Australia, whereupon landing we dashed immediately to the US Consulate for our visa interview, arriving with seven minutes to spare. Stressful. But new visas we did receive, allowing us to work in the US for another two years, and we were both deeply relieved despite our outward (and well-deserved) confidence. The rest of the week was spent focused on family and some very special friends. Then back to San Fran, landing at 10am and seeing our first apartment at 12pm, the first of ten we would see over the weekend before I flew out on an overnight flight back to DC to start my work for Small Act at the Virginia HQ.

Naturally it was the eleventh house K saw, the morning after I left, that she fell in love with and so when I returned that Friday night it was to our new place in the Mission, which was pretty cool. And the house was every bit as great as described, cozy, large and filled with character, not to mention exactly where we wanted to live, in the Mission near SOMA (where I'll be working).

And that brings us roughly back to now, thanks for sticking with me. Having got you up-to-date I'm going to return to the irregular-but-somewhat-frequent-updates-on-whatever-I'm-thinking-about that constitute the usual programming around here.

Photo by Jim Nix, flickr.

How Social Media Enhances Events presentation

As a result of two major Ashoka events this year I've been thinking a lot about how social media can enhance, leverage, expand and capture the content of events. Tech4Society and the Ashoka Future Forum were the most social media-enabled events Ashoka has yet run and many leassons were learned as a result. I co-hosted a recent #4Change Twitter chat on the subject and wrote a case-study for Netsquared. On Friday I tried to draw this all together in a webinar I delivered for Small Act (organized before I accepted an offer to work for them next). The goal was to give an accessible introduction to different ways of creating social content at events and some things to consider for small organizations as they move in that direction.

Check it out and let me know what you think:

[slideshare id=4275408&doc=socialmediaateventspresentation-100524185631-phpapp01]

The cost of not loving your job

A man died on a DC train on his way to work on Monday. His body remained undiscovered for 5 hours, as the train completed two end-to-end runs of the red line. Since then the coverage has focused on why he wasn't found for so long, with the train operators being suspended and then allowed to return to work as it's not actually Metro policy to check trains for dead bodies. That policy is now being changed. As I read this sad story Metro policy wasn't what I was thinking about. I couldn't help but remember seeing Deepak Chopra speak at the State of the World Forum in 1995, when I was an impressionable and awed 16 year-old, and him asking us if we could guess the day of the week most people die of heart attacks. Can you guess what it is? That's right: Monday. And what time would you imagine most people drop dead? Yep, 9am. On their way to work. It seems some people dread their job so much they are literally dying to avoid it. And that's a very sad thing. We spend too high a proportion of our time at work to loath it as so many seem to do. Since then I have instinctively, devotedly, pursued work that inspires me, that I feel makes a difference.

In thinking about this I discovered more corroborating evidence: more people die in the first week of the year than any other (statistics from the Centers for Disease Control). In other words, immediately after Christmas and New Years, which are usually spent with family and friends and on a break from work, only to be hit with the reality of going back to their 9-5.

I met someone today interviewing for my job at Ashoka. She currently works for the World Bank, where salaries are generous (and untaxed). She knows that in coming to Ashoka she would be taking a very significant pay cut. And she's okay with that, because she's not happy in her current role and needs something different; the chance to be more entrepreneurial and adventurous, less micro-managed and confined. I completely agree with her, your personal growth and happyness are worth so much more than money. Life is too short, too precious, too amazing to spend 40+ hours a week doing something you hate.

Finding and following your passions often involves risk,  failures and set-backs. But the greater risk is that you will never take a chance on finding and following your passion, never find work that fulfills and inspires you, that you will instead end up trapped in a job you hate, waking up on Monday morning wishing you could be anywhere other than on your way to work, and one day being taken to another place entirely.

Announcing what comes next

A couple of weeks ago I announced that I was departing Ashoka to move to San Francisco and that as such I was looking for the next opportunity to challenge myself and create positive social change. Today I am very pleased to announced that I will be taking up the position of Senior Social Media Consultant at Small Act, a DC-based start-up which helps cause-focused organizations to use social media strategically. As part of my role I will be establishing the West coast office for the company.

I couldn't be happier or more excited to take on this new role. Over the past six months I have got to know the founder of Small Act, Casey Golden, and Chief Love Officer (that really is her title) Kate Hays and I respect, admire and like them greatly. I'm looking forward to working with them to grow this enterprise. I know they are passionate, as I am, about helping social change organizations to tell their story, empower their stakeholders and rally people to their cause. It feels good to join an organization whose vision, product and people I believe in. In fact, it's essential.

I truly believe that digital and social media has the capacity to help organizations large and small to empower their communities and bring about positive social change. We can do better together when we are better connected, better informed and better able to work in new ways to find new solutions to issues which confront our world.

I have gained an enormous amount from my almost two years with Ashoka and am sad to be leaving. Nothing negative is pushing me to leave, but life is pulling me to San Francisco and new challenges. I'll be forever grateful for the opportunity Ashoka gave me and remain deeply committed to doing my part to bring about the Everyone a Changemaker world we need. They say that once you're at Ashoka you're an Ashokan for life and I hope that's true. I've met so many amazing people whose support, collaboration and companionship have meant so much to me and who I hope to stay in touch with for life.

I am now excited to take all my learnings, ideas and energy and support a diverse range of organizations to use new technologies in ways which make a difference. I'm excited to explore San Francisco and connect to the vibrant non-profit technology and start-up scene there.

I finish up at Ashoka the first week of June and will start work in San Francisco in early July, after a two week drive across southern America. If you have any advice on neighbourhoods, restaurants, events or organizations for me to check out in San Francisco (or on the way over) I'd love to hear them!

Reflecting on SOBcon

I spent this past weekend at SOBcon in Chicago. SOBcon stands for Successful and Outstanding Blog Conference and is an annual gathering of bloggers founded by Liz Strauss of successful-blog.com and Terry Starbucker of Ramblings of a Glass Half Full. I was lucky enough to be invited to represent Ashoka as one of the citizen sector organizations featured on the final morning of SOBcon, the "give back" session, coordinated by Geoff Livingston of Zoetica Media.

Conferences are more than just an exchange of information, they create temporary and in some cases permanent communities. The good ones convene a group of practitioners to share ideas and co-create the experience, bringing together expertise, passion and commitment in an inspiring mix. At the very best conferences a feeling of togetherness is created almost instantly, leading to a level of openness that is rare, where people care for and want to help each other, where no-one need be a stranger to another. SOBcon was this type of conference.

What was it about SOBcon that created this atmosphere, energy, connection?

Intimacy. SOBcon took place at a human scale, with only 150 attendees. The organizers could no-doubt sell several times more tickets than this, but they know that something would be lost in the process. They are not simply looking to run a profitable event, they want to host something meaningful. As a result real relationships are made, new partnerships forged. (The flip side of this intimacy is the cost of course, with the event costing almost $1,000 full price).

Interactivity. SOBcon had more than just the usual speakers and panels, it concluded each session with time for each table to brainstorm how the ideas presented relate to their organization, business or idea. This interactivity created a strong sense of creativity in the room, and a deeper connection between otherwise-random tablemates. The Give Back session harnessed this creative energy on behalf of the featured organizations.

Openness. Thanks to the above a sense of openness was created. People shared their struggles and successes, aspirations and accomplishments with the same open good humour. No-one seemed trying to impress anyone particularly and a genuine curiosity permeated most conversations. The speakers seemed to pick up on this vibe, mostly giving thoughtful and reflective speakers devoid of the rah rah you often get from the stage.

A commitment to something bigger than itself. The reason I was at SOBcon was for the session devoted to cause-based organization on Sunday morning. Along with Ashoka Vitamin Angels, InvisiblePeople and Anixter presented about their use of social media and what they are trying to achieve. The room then worked in groups for 45 minutes to generate suggestions and ideas for us based on the questions we each posed. The passion with which everyone focused on this task, the palpable desire to help and the insight of the suggestions was inspiring to behold.

Love. There really was a lot of love in the room at SOBcon. Love for our fellow participants. Love for social media and the medium of blogging, for what it had brought into so many lives and what it allows so many to achieve. And a love for those less fortunate, a desire to give back and contribute to creating a better future for all of us.

This love came through in the stewardship of Liz and Terry, in the passion of the participants, in the honesty of the presenters. And there were some fantastic presenters: Steve Farber reminded us that "oh shit!" moments are often the indicator that we're doing something significant, and not to be feared. Ted Murphy shared his journey with us, and what he overcame on the way (he also put up a $1000 Izea voucher for best idea for an online exchange platform, which my conference buddy Carol Roth and I won for an idea about intergenerational connections). Chris Brogan gave us some real talk about sustainability and becoming an overnight success after 11 years of hard work. Jay Jay French of Twisted Sister shared hilarious story after hilarious story.

A huge thank you to Liz and Terry for organizing such a great event and to Geoff for inviting me to present on behalf of Ashoka. It was a real honour and a pleasure.

Being comfortable with uncertainty

When it was recently announced I was leaving Ashoka most people assumed I had something specific lined up, that I would only make this announcement, this leap, if I knew exactly where I was landing, that I would land on my feet. But I don't, and I feel okay about that. Humans are hardwired to generally dislike uncertainty. We hold off on making decisions in the face of it, or avoid risky life choices all together, missing opportunities as we do. We have constructed complex religious mythologies around filling all possible uncertainty in the cosmos (repeatedly!).

I'm sure we all know or have known people who are unable to leave a job until they have another assured. Indeed I've known people who could not leave their partners until another came along, even if the passion had gone out of the relationship.

However this is not true for everyone. Amongst many other traits entrepreneurs have an unusual capacity for uncertainty. If you're going to make a bet on the future, and your capacity to make that future, you're going to risk being wrong. But taking that risk is the only way to create the future you desire, to live your dreams and make a difference.

For me I feel my life has taught me that it's vital to commit myself to the path I wish to walk. If I had not been prepared to focus my time and energies into Vibewire, sacrificing the comforts of a proper paying job and, potentially, years of my life, neither it nor I would be where we are now. For years I never had more than a few months worth of funding to pay myself. Once it got down to two weeks reserves before new funds arrived. Uncertainty was a constant.

Now you certainly can't do that forever. But going through times of uncertainty is usually (perhaps always) a necessary part of the most exciting and rewarding journeys. When we left Australia and came to America I didn't have a job confirmed. I had some good leads but knew I had to be here to finalize them. I bet on my success and came over. And now I am prepared to do it again.

I also think it's critical for organizations to accept the uncertainty that comes from trying new things. Especially when technology is involved I think an iterative approach to change, constantly tweaking and experimenting as you go, constantly being in beta, is the only sensible approach.

A blogger I admire, Sean Stannard-Stockton of Tactical Philanthropy, wrote about this in the context of philanthropy last year:

Humans don’t like to take risks. We are evolutionarily designed to be risk adverse. But good philanthropy, just like good investing, requires taking risks. Maybe a Zen approach to evaluation isn’t just a new age joke. Maybe accepting discomfort rather than trying to overcome it is the key to navigating uncertainty.

Having said all that I normally would not announce my departure from a job without another lined up. The reason I did so this time was more for Ashoka's sake than mine. While we had been quietly looking for a possible successor for a couple of months I felt we needed to accelerate that process by announcing that we were looking. My job is the most outward-facing one in the entire organization and it is essential that there is continuity. As a result of the announcement we've had several strong applications and I'm hopeful of finding someone in time.

Favourite Videos This Week

I love online videos. This is a semi-regular column of my favourite recent finds, whether they are artistic, political or data visualizations. You can see the previous collection here. COMBO: A collaborative animation

[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/6555161]

An incredible street art/video collaboration. It's almost mind-blowing to think about how much work went into this, the animation is created by a sequence of graffiti artworks painted  inside an abandoned building. They have painted and re-painted and re-painted, a true example of the transient nature of street art, here captured by thousands of photos put together to create a wonderous and surreal animation.

NY gets Pixelated

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcXtT3rZcqg]

A very cool video of space invaders and other early computer game characters invading New York City.

World Air Traffic Over a 24 Hour Period

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1US_4uf4YE]

An amazing data visualization of all airplane flights over earth in a 24 hour period. I love data visualizations - for the visual learners amongst us it can convey a huge amount of data (in this case, flight patterns) in a gorgeous and visually-stimulating format. Very sticky.

16 Deaths a Day

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pssw5bnjnr4]

Given the recent deaths of 29 miners killed in a West Virginia coal mine disaster and, last week, another 11 workers being lost, presumed dead, after an offshore oil rig explosion, I wanted to share this important video from the ever-productive team at Brave New Films.

Looking for the next challenge

It's official: I'm moving on from Ashoka. Ashoka doesn't usually promote specific roles but today we announced that we are looking for a new Social and Digital Marketing Manager. I've had an amazing time building the social media program at Ashoka. During this time our Twitter account has gone from zero to 315,000 followers, we have run 12 Twitter #SocEntChat conversations, published 3 e-Books, live-streamed 7 Fellow presentations, launched a number of new blogs including our flagship Change InSight, developed a new template for Ashoka websites which foregrounds social content (which you can see piloted on the Ashoka USA site), crowdsourced an Everyone a Changemaker film, placed social media at the heart of our events and run numerous trainings for staff, Fellows, changemakers and students. Most importantly, social media has been adopted across the organization, by staff and programs.

It's been an amazing experience and I've learned a great deal. Ashoka's Everyone a Changemaker vision is one I believe in intensely and it has been an honour to represent this vision to our online communities, and to work with an incredible group of people.

So why am I leaving? Our two year visas are almost up and I will need to apply to get a new one whether I remain at Ashoka or not. K's work with WineInc is strongly pointing us West, to San Franciso. When we moved to DC for my work I promised K that she could choose the next city we lived in. San Francisco is the right place for her to grow the business while also fostering her creative practice. For me the draw is the incredible local non-profit technology and start-up culture in the Bay Area, and the proximity of so many of the outdoor locations I most want to explore in the States: Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, the Sequoia Forests.

This all means we are looking for a passionate, energetic and entrepreneurial individual to take Ashoka's social media and digital marketing program to the next level of reach and impact. If this sounds like you we'd love to hear from you. Go here to see the position description and here to apply.

My colleague Hayley from Ashoka's People Team put a blog post up today on what Ashoka is looking for when hiring and I wanted to excerpt it here as it does a great job of explaining the unique nature of our approach:

Who is more important than what. At Ashoka, we are not typically looking to hire someone who can do a job. We are looking to hire someone who can re-define a job; taking it, the team, and the initiative to a higher level. That means that who you are and what you’ve been compelled to do is more important than your degrees, your work experience, and the metrics demonstrating your competence.

Our hiring criteria are clearly listed on that page. Let me take this blog-post space to explain the meaning of one of our most important criteria: entrepreneurship.  We describe it like this: Entrepreneurs are compelled to take creative initiative and ownership (e.g., founding an organization or company, starting a movement, or re-shaping the work of an existing organization). They demonstrate relentless and realistic how-to thinking and passion for seeing their ideas come to life.  That means not only that you have demonstrated social initiative, but that you have proven a willingness to see a few things:

·         Things must change. ·         Things can change. ·         You can be a part of change.

Entrepreneurs are not intimidated by the worlds’ ills, not defeated by the status quo. They intuitively realize that they, and others, can make change. Often solutions to the worst social ills are simple, but require changing systems, not just situations. Entrepreneurs know that. They aren't afraid to think big, they can see how each tiny piece relates to the whole.

This may all sound like wishful thinking. Embedded in our prototype of the entrepreneur is 'realistic and relentless how-to thinking.' That means working within real-time, real limitations, and with real people to make change that affects not symptoms, but causes.

I am sad to leave Ashoka but also excited to once again not know exactly what I'll be doing in three months time, when anything seems possible. I am having some very interesting conversations about some great opportunities and I hope something will be finalized within the next few weeks. I'm completely open to possibility in terms of my next role so long as it is fun, challenging and meaningful. I'm inspired by using technology to empower communities and individuals and share inspiring stories the world needs to hear. I want to continue to learn and grow and make a difference.

If you know of an opportunity that sounds like a good fit, I'd love to hear from you.

More Carrot at Burning Man 2010: Our Plans

Late last night I submitted the theme camp application for the More Carrot camp at this year's Burning Man Festival. I wanted to share the heart of the application, where we are asked to describe our philosophy, goals and interactivity plans. We are an ambitious bunch this year and it was hard to fit all our ideas into the 5,000 characters (including spaces!) allowed.If you like the sound of the below please join our Facebook page.

Now it's a waiting game, theme camps will be announced in early May.

More Carrot 2010:

More Carrot was the name a group from Australia and the UK chose as a label for our projects at BM 08. The name refers to the nature of incentives: you can use a carrot or a stick. We endorse the carrot approach, providing encouragement and rewards for people to do their best. But we also believe strongly in the importance of eating your vegetables in the desert—not always an easy thing!

That first year we built a tower, ran 5 EL wire PacMan bikes around and organized a mobile prom. We were part of Deadly Muppet, a crew from San Francisco, who some Carrots had camped with in 04 and 06.

Last year More Carrot evolved into an independent camp within the Oasis 47 theme camp village. We built another tower and a hookah lounge with tapestries, cushions, and, of course, hookah. We also hosted strip glow bocce and glow table tennis and ran a Chinese restaurant (“The Dusty Prawn”) out on the playa in a dust storm. We dressed up for the Billion Bunny March (as carrots, naturally) and had a lot of fun.

For Burning Man 2010 More Carrot is taking the next step in our evolution: a stand-alone theme camp.

More Carrot is a diverse and passionate group of people from 4 countries on 3 continents. We planned our camp around two elements: Our name: More Carrot. And the theme: Metropolis: The Life of Cities. We talked about the kind of city we want to live in, and, specifically, given our name, the food culture of cities.

We realized what the Black Rock Metropolis needs: a farmer’s market!

Imagine: it’s 7 a.m. and you are wandering home from the outer playa or on your way to an early yoga class and wafting smells of grilling corn on the cob draw you over to a roadside stall bursting with a cornucopia of beautiful produce, including bananas, pineapples, melons, and (of course) carrots! You stroll up to the stall, where you receive juicy slices of chilled fruits and a citrus carrot cocktail, served by friendly people in farmers overalls.

Yes, at Burning Man 2010 we will host an early morning farmer’s market. We will source produce from markets in Reno and Sparks the weekend before Burning Man and have designed a cold-storage system which will ensure we have delicious fruit to gift all week. We are motivated by our belief that cities should promote the selling of local produce direct to the public—and that this should be true in our city, Black Rock City. We also know what an amazing gift fresh fruit is on the playa, especially later in the week, and how food facilitates connection and community.

The Black Rock Farmers Market will run from 7-9am Tue-Fri, functioning as both our primary gift to the citizens of BRC and as an art project. The early birds running the market will be in character and costume, hamming it up for citizens of BRC.

Our camp will be fun, accessible, relaxing and attractive, featuring a striking 20ft neon carrot (affixed to the front of our tower), carrot lanterns and a chill-out lounge in a modest geodesic dome, with rugs and cushions on the floor, flowing fabrics for walls, and DJs playing funky and relaxing music. Alongside will be our games area, featuring glow-in-the-dark bocce and table tennis, complemented by our main art project ping|pong – a large 2D array of 16x16 tricolour LEDs in ping pong balls, creating a 256 pixel array. ping|pong (inspired by the amazing Cubatron art by Mark Lottor) will serve as the score board for the table tennis and a screen for 2- and 4-player games of Pong. When not in use it will display spectacular light patterns.

Last year, true to our name, we turned up to the Billion Bunny March dressed as carrots. We were attempting to build a bridge to the bunny community but were instead discriminated against and refused service at the pre-party. This year we will provide an opportunity for carrots such as ourselves to participate in the brand-new Countless Carrots March! Countless Carrots will express the dignity and inherent worth of carrots in the face of hurtful, persistent bunny prejudice. All carrots will be invited to our camp for a pre-party, where we will serve drinks and provide sign-making equipment. Then we’ll head out to meet the bunnies on the playa.

Members of More Carrot will also be hosting several absurdist events, including playa cricket, Sock Wrestling championships (complete with announcers, theme tunes and shiny belts to be won), a surreal crew of inefficient road repairers, and back-by-popular demand the roving Dusty Prawn Restaurant, which serves the hungry and thirsty masses out on the playa.

Love, More Carrot xx

Join the More Carrot Facebook page.

Watch the video we made of our adventure at Burning Man 2009.