10 Ways To Change The World Through Social Media

Citizen journalism, open government, status updates, community building, information sharing, crowdsourcing, and the election of a President.

Editor’s note: This is first guest post from Max Gladwell.

Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.

What’s most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to the People they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of technology, and we are all better for it.

For most of us, social media has changed our lives in some meaningful way. Collectively it is changing the world for good. Given the pace of innovation and adoption, change has become a constant. Every so often we find the need to stop and reflect on its most recent and noteworthy developments, hence the following list.

Please note this is not a top-10 list, nor are these listed in any particular order. It’s also incomplete. So we ask that you add to this conversation in the comments. If you’d like to Retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.

1. Take Social Actions: The nonprofit organization Social Actions aggregates “opportunities to make a difference from over 50 online platforms” through its unique API. It recently held the Change the Web Challenge contest in order to inspire the most innovative applications for that API. The Social Actions Interactive Map won the $5,000 first prize. The result is a virtual tour of the world through the lens of social action. “People are volunteering, donating, signing petitions, making loans and doing other social actions as we speak — all over the world. To capture the context of the where, this project uses sophisticated techniques to extract location information from full text paragraphs.” You can also join the Social Actions Community, which is powered by Ning…which now boasts more than one million individual social networks.

2. Twitter with a Purpose: This list could be exclusive to Twitter. The micro-blogging sensation was featured on our first two lists (a three-tweet), and it’s certain to be a fixture. From Tweetsgiving, the virtual Thanksgiving feast, to the Twestival, which organized 202 off-line events around the world to benefit charity: water, it’s become the de facto tool for organizing and taking action. Tweet Congress won the SXSW activism award, and celebrity Tweeps Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Rose Tweeted their two million followers about ending malaria. Max Gladwell recently initiated the #EcoMonday follow meme as a way to connect and organize the Green Twittersphere.

3. Visit White House 2.0: Inside of its first 100 days, the Obama administration has managed to set the historic benchmark for government transparency and accountability. The President’s virtual town hall meeting used WhiteHouse.gov to crowdsource questions from his 300 million constituents, complete with voting to determine the ones he’d have to answer. All told, 97,937 people submitted 103,978 questions and cast 1,782,650 votes. The White House continues to raise the bar with its official Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter channels. In so doing President Obama is not just setting the standard for state and local government in the U.S. He’s establishing the world standard. The Obama administration is spreading democracy not by force but through example. Because you don’t have to be an American citizen to be a friend or follower of White House 2.0.

4. Claim your Zumbox: What happens when all mail can be sent and delivered online to any street address in a paperless form? That’s the big question for Zumbox, which has created an online mail system with a digital mailbox for every U.S. street address. And while the answer to that question remains to be seen, it promises to be as liberating as it is disruptive. A key quality for Zumbox is that it’s closed system much like that of Facebook, only instead of true identity it’s true address. This will enable people to better connect with their communities including their neighbors, local businesses, and the mayor’s office. The primary agent of change, though, might not be that this uses street addresses but that it enables direct and potentially viral feedback, which is a virtue that e-mail and the USPS do not offer. The first methods are to request exclusive paperless delivery and to block a sender, but others are certain to evolve such as real-time commenting and ways to share mail with friends, family, and colleagues. Welcome to Mail 2.0. (Disclosure: Zumbox is a client of Rob Reed, the founder of Max Gladwell.)

5. Host a Social Media Event: This is the year of the social media event. No meaningful gathering of people is complete without an interactive online audience, especially when it’s so easy and cost effective to pull off. Essential tools include a broadband connection, laptop, video camera, projector, and screen. Add people and a purpose, such as entrepreneurship. Promote it through social media channels, and you have a social media event. A recent example in the green world is the Evolution of Green, which was hosted by Creative Citizen, a green wiki community. It celebrated the launch of a new Web property, EcoMatters, while also establishing a new Twitter tag. By posing the question, “How can we go from green hype to green habit?” and including the #GreenQ hashtag, it sparked a conversation between attendees and the Twittersphere in real time. Thus was born a new mechanism for getting answers to green questions via Twitter.

6. Travel the World: More than anyone else, Tim O’Reilly knows the potential for social media to change the world. In his opening keynote at this year’s Web 2.0 Expo, he called for a new ethic in which we do more with less and create more value than we capture. This provided the context for SalaamGarage founder Amanda Koster, whose presentation followed O’Reilly’s. The idea is that social media has enabled each of us to have an audience. Whether through Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, or a personal blog, each of us can have influence and reach. What’s more, it can be used for good. SalaamGarage coordinates trips for citizen journalists (that means you) to places like India and Vietnam in conjunction with non-government organizations like Seattle-based Peace Trees. The destination is the story, as these humanitarian journalists report on the people they meet and discoveries they make. Their words, images, and video are posted to the social web to gain exposure and because these stories just need to be told.

7. Build It on Drupal: You may not have noticed, but the open-source Drupal content management system (CMS) has quickly become the dominant player on the social web. While we still prefer WordPress as a strict blogging application, Drupal has emerged as the go-to platform for building scalable, community-driven Web sites. It powers Recovery.gov, a key part of President Obama’s commitment to transparency and accountability. PopRule uses it as a social news platform for politics. And Drupal will soon become the platform for Causecast, a site where “media, philanthropy, social networking, entertainment and education converge to serve a greater purpose.” This is especially significant because Causecast CEO Ryan Scott is transitioning the site off of Ruby on Rails because Drupal has proved more efficient, user friendly, and cost effective. (Disclosure: Max Gladwell founder Rob Reed is co-founder of PopRule.)

8. Green Your iPhone: Looking for an organic diner within biking distance that has a three-star green rating? There’s a app for that. It’s called 3rd Whale, and you can download it for free. (Except that the star rating is actually a whale rating.) Complete with Facebook Connect, this iPhone app locates green products and businesses in 30 major North American cities. It uses the iPhone’s dial function to select a category (food), sub-category (restaurants), and distance (walking, biking, or driving). In Santa Monica, this might give you Swingers diner for its selection of veggie and vegan fare. You could then get directions from your current location using the iPhone’s built-in Google map, rate your experience on the three-whale scale, and write up a quick review. 3rd Whale recently released a new feature that integrates green-living tips, which can show how much energy or waste you’ll save by taking a given action.

9. Unite the World Through Video: Matt’s dancing around the world video inspired many to tears. Today, more than 20 million people have viewed his YouTube masterpiece, where he performs a kooky dance with the citizens of planet earth. The most recent example of this approach is Playing for Change, which connects the world through song. The project started in Santa Monica with a street performance of the classic Stand By Me and expanded to New Orleans, New Mexico, France, Brazil, Italy, Venezuela, South Africa, Spain, and The Netherlands. The project was superbly executed via social media, complete with a YouTube channel, MySpace, Facebook, and Blog. It’s received tremendous mainstream media exposure and also benefits a foundation of the same name.

10. Rate a Company: The conversation about corporate social responsibility (CSR) takes place across the social web on blogs, Twitter, and YouTube, but a central hub for this information and opinion is still to be determined. SocialYell seeks to address this by building an online community around the CSR conversation, where users can submit reviews of companies together with nonprofit organizations and even public figures like Michelle Obama. The major topics are the Environment, Health, Social Equity, Consumer Advocacy, and Charity. The reviews are voted and commented on by the community in a Reddit-like fashion with both up (Yell) and down (shhh) voting. The site is relatively new and still gaining traction, but there’s no question that a resource like this is needed to shine a bright light on CSR and and other related issues.

11. Publish a collective, simultaneous blog post on a universal topic: As Nigel Tufnel might say, this list goes to eleven. Let the #10Ways conversation begin…

Final note: This is Max Gladwell’s third list of “10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media.” The first was posted a year ago today on Sustainablog.org, and the sequel followed five months later. If a single headline can capture the Max Gladwell raison d’etre, this is it.

Posted by Max Gladwell

Alife Gets Organic

Everyone’s doing it. Even the streetwear scene.

Warning: To all you guys on Fairfax, if I see you wearing one of these, I will probably run up to you, jump in your arms and declare my love for you.

Go to Alife to purchase.

Found this on my new obsession Lost In A Supermarket.

Posted by thuy

Deep Is So Fresh And So Clean Clean

The keystrokes have been light here in the GG&S world. With all the Earth Day celebrations going on this month, it’s been like a non-stop birthday party.

This past Sunday, our Deep team joined forces with Aveda and the Surfrider Foundation for a much needed beach cleanup at the Venice Pier. Much to my relief I didn’t come across any condom wrappers this time. Small bits of Styrofoam were the biggest problem, followed by plastic drink caps, gum wrappers, water bottles, and plastic bags.

Special thanks to Aveda for continuing the celebration after the cleanup and turning the Deep lounge into an Aveda sanctuary.

We are grateful to everyone that came to give love to Mother Earth. The Deep fam is looking forward to doing more of these in the near future so stay tuned.

First stop- Deep Venice office to prep our new organic cotton “Listen To Your Mother” tees and tanks.

Aveda team reps for Clean Water.

The Deep familia cares!

After the cleanup we went to fill our tummies with Bloody Marys brunch. Thanks Tak!

For Deep, every day is Earth Day. Our flyers are now printed on 100% recycled paper and are printed with soy ink. Hollar!

Posted by thuy

We’re Off To Land Of Windmills

We’re headed out to the desert for a “Jen & Thuy’s Excellent Adventure” weekend. We’ll be missing out on the LA LIVE event for Earth Hour but we’ll definitely be doing our part from Palm Springs. Let’s just say we stocked up on a (reusable) bag of candles and lot’s of (local) wine.

Turn off your lights tonight from 8:30-9:30. C’mon, everybody’s doing it. Ok, well only like a billion people throughout 2,400 cities in 82 countries…

We’ll leave you with these musical gems ’til our return.

Straight up baby making music. Teddy Pendergrass “Turn out the lights.. light a candle..” The slideshow to this is kinda funny.

Bob Marley & Lauren Hill “Turn Your Lights Down Low”

Jay-Z & Mary J. Blige “Turn Off The Lights”

Santogold Santigold “Lights Out”

Britney Spears “Kill The Lights.” No video for this yet but it shows lots of clips of her before she got crazy in the brains.

Morrisey. “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” and it’s beaming out of my chocha and it will never die for you Moz!!

Posted by thuy & jen

Dine By Candle Light For Earth Hour

Tomorrow night, millions of people will be flipping off their lights in their homes and businesses.

What can you do for that hour? Well there’s the LA LIVE earth event going on downtown, or you can organize something for your family or friends to do at home. Or you can grab your honey and dine by candlelight at one of these participating restaraunts that have pledged to turn it off on Saturday evening from 8:30-9:30 p.m.

• AKASHA
• Chaya Brasserie Beverly Hills
• Chaya Downtown
• Ciudad
• Lawry’s The Prime Rib – Beverly Hills (For our meat eating friends)
• Napa Valley Grille – Westwood
• Simon LA

Groundlings Supports Earth Hour

Performance venues around Los Angeles, including the world famous Groundlings Theater are supporting Earth Hour by powering down their exterior lighting, going acoustic for music performances and presenting fun, eerie dark performances at top improv theaters! Support Earth Hour while enjoying eco-conscious entertainment and make a reservation for a Dark Performance!

Posted by thuy

FREE L.A. LIVE Earth Hr Event At The Nokia Center Hosted by Mayor Villaragosa

The grand finale for Earth Hour 2009 happens at L.A. LIVE hosted by Mayor Antonio Villaragosa, MC’d by Billboard chart topper and Emmy-Award-winning DJ, Tony Okungbowa from the Ellen Degeneres Show, featuring elected champions of the environment and staring special musical guests the Agape Choir, the spectacular Gina Rene, singing her song, Be The Change, the official song of Earth Hour LA. And a special surprise guest to be announced shortly!

Come together with your fellow Angelinos, Dine By Candlelight at L.A. LIVE restaurants and enjoy great entertainment, all while you watch Los Angeles icons all over the city go dark on the L.A. LIVE jumbo-trons at the Nokia Center. Watch the Capital Records building, the Santa Monica Pier Ferris Wheel, L.A. City Hall, the El Capitan Theater and The Getty Museum flip the switch!

The event is FREE and ALL are welcome!

Go to http://www.earthhourus.org/losangeles for more details and prove to the rest of the world that we really do have a community here by turning off the lights together for Earth Hour LA!

We look forward to joining all of our eco-minded friends — in the dark– for Earth Hour on the 28th!

We’ll be getting there by Metro. Holla if you want to roll together.

Posted by thuy

Alanis Morissette: Earth Hour Is A Turn-Off

I hate it when people clip their nails in public! Nasty!

There’s another PSA from Janeane Garofalo. Watch it on Huffpo.

Earth Hour 2009. March 28th, 2009. 8:30 p.m., local time. Turn out. Take action.

To sign up, visit www.earthhourUS.org where you’ll learn more including ways you can spread the word about Earth Hour, plus creative things to do when the lights go out.

Posted by thuy

Opi + Sephora= Free Of The Big 3

Nail polish powerhouse OPI has teamed up with Sephora to create Sephora By OPI: Digital Diva Collection, an extensive line of 54 fashion-forwardshades for $9 each. In fashion-forward colors like buttercup yellow, magenta plum and bright orange-red with names to remember including IM Beauty, Meet for Drinks and Lost Without My GPS.

The new and exclusive line will have you covered with all your nail essentials: base coat, top coat, nail color drying drops, remover, and of course, the most on-trend colors in the industry. Opi does not test on animals. Plus, the long-lasting, chip-resistant polishes are free of toluene (a petroleum-based ingredient), formaldehyde (a cancer-causing chemical), and dibutyl phthalate or DBP (a chemical shown to cause birth defects). Sephora by OPI Nail Polish will be available at Sephora in early August (and on Sephora.com in late July).

Source M.I.S.S

Posted by thuy

What’s The 411?

Ecstasy (MDMA) threatens rare Cambodian Tree. How’s that for guilt trippin’ your next trip? Treehugger

Spit that Diet Coke out right now. BPA in soda cans. Eco Child’s Play

90% of parents opt out of school’s paper handouts. YES! Mother Nature Network

California leads in Energy Star Buildings. Environmental News

Posted by thuy