Power Tools for Social Impact, Web 2.0

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Power Tools for Social Impact, Web 2.0

• Networks for Social Change Meeting
• October 17, 2008

Stephen Rockwell Management Consulting Services 6
Beacon Street, Ste. 415, Boston, MA
02108 617-600-3377 srockwell_at_managementconsultings
ervices.org www.managementconsultingservices.org
Roberto Cremonini The Barr Foundation The Pilot
House, Lewis Wharf Boston, MA 02110 www.barrfounda
tion.org
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Are you a

• Enthusiast?
• I think that there are great opportunities to
  apply technology to build my networks because

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What Network Technologies do most people use?
Share Information and Knowledge
Build Community
Mobilize Resource and Collective Action
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People dont Use Technology to Build their
Networks because

• Most people are still unfamiliar with the tools
• Many tools are unintuitive and awkward
• Most people have poor listening, communication,
  and collaboration skills
• The majority of people in organizations are baby
  boomers who didnt grow up using technology

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People dont Use Technology to Build their
Networks because

• It just takes a handful of negative influential
  people to spoil the party
• Network tools work best when your networks are
  geographically distributed and in other time
  zones
• The people we most want to connect with arent
  online
• Often, we dont even know who the right people
  are to network

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It is not what the tools allow us to do that
counts, but the new possibilities that emerge
when we change our behaviors and ways of thinking
to incorporate new approaches enabled by the
tools. Clay Shirky Here Comes Everybody
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Agenda

• Defining Technology Empowered Networks
• History of Technological Change
• Economic Effects on Content Creation and
  Distribution
• Web 2.0 The tools and ramifications on network
  building strategies
• Existing strategies -gt New Tools
• New Tools -gt New Strategies
• Case Studies

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Tech. Background A short history of
technological change
1st Generation Media 500 years, One-Way
Communication
Printing Press Book/Newspaper 1453
Photography 1826
Radio 1896
Television 1920s
Text
Audio
Video
Pictures
Digital Music MP3 1994
Digital Movie Online 1997
Internet Text/ email 1969
World Wide Web Images 1990
2nd Generation Media 30 Years, Multi-Modal
Communication
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Technology fundamentally changed economics of
content creation and who has access to the keys
of the network.

• The marginal cost of production and distribution
  of content 0
• 80 of nonhits are now produced new voices,
  democratized filtering
• Networked empowered organizing takes advantage of
  a wider range of stakeholder perspectives to move
  the mission.

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Networks and Nonprofits

• Communities are built on connections human
  networks
• Technology can help individuals know the network
  and doing so more tightly knits the network
  together.
• Nonprofits slower than private sector in adoption
  of such technologies.
• Arguably a greater need for network building.
• Less capital requirements necessary for the 2.0
  wave of new technologies.

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Todays Agenda

• Defining Technology Empowered Networks
• Technological Change Economic Effects on Content
  Creation and Distribution
• Network theory connected to technology
• Web 2.0 The tools and ramifications on network
  building strategies
• Existing strategies -gt New Tools
• New Tools -gt New Strategies
• Case Studies

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Exploring 2.0 The tools that are changing the
game

• Social networking websites (myspace, linkedin,
  change.org)
• On-line communities
• Blogs, podcasts, videocasts
• Multimedia by and for the masses
• RSS (Real Simple Syndication)
• Interconnected news for/from your site
• Tagging (del.ici.ous)
• Sharing bookmarks
• Wikis
• Producing knowledge collaboratively
• User provided and rated content (digg, youtube,
  allrecipes.com)
• Wisdom of the masses determines content

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2.0 Ramifications Online engagement and
fundraising become the standard

• Wall Street Journal gives MySpace friend updates
• Changing Campaign Fundraising and Organization
• Nonprofit Strategy
• What can we learn from the campaigns?
• Fundraising
• Community organizing and mobilization
• Operations and business processes

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Network Centric Approach Empowers Constituents to
Organizes Themselves
Adapted from Power to the Edges. Evolve
Foundation
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2.0 From Proprietary to Participatory

• Traditional organizations tend to work in silos
  and in isolation from sister organizations.
  These proprietary organizations keep information
  they consider vital to their survival, like
  strategic plans and membership lists, tightly
  sealed. They falsely believe that this
  information leads to more power. Increasing
  membership is not the same as positively
  affecting public policy having a large staff
  budget does not equal raising awareness of an
  issue.
• Allison H. Fine in Momentum

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Categorizing Web Actors
Network Participation
Site Visitors