The Social Web for Karmic Good

Saturday, Feb 24 3:30pm

That video at the beginning was The Machine Is Us at http://youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

Facilitator:

Cyprien Lomas, Faculty of Land and Food Systems UBC

Panelists:

William Azaroff, Vancity

Alexandra Samuel, Social Signal

Lynda Brown, New Media BC

GOAL for workshop:

Take a project like New Media BC's World Centre for Digital Media and apply the wisdom of the people in the room.

World Centre for Digital Media

http://www.newmediabc.com/wcdm

• Have raised 60m and need to raise another 46 million.
• Concerns: what about all the people who aren't engaging with us? What about the people for whom web access is far down the list of fundamental needs?
• Could the Centre have tech for social good as part of its mandate?
• Chris Heuer (Social Media Club): how about facilities for citizen journalists? Opportunities for collaboration? Make virtual networks more visible in the real world. Incubate social entrepreneurship.
• What does "trickle up" mean?
• could be part of competitive edge: not just doing it as a business and commercial venture. Maybe big name people also want pet projects -- pet karmic projects. e.g. producing health info for mobile phones in developing world.
• it's useful to notice the language we're using: "get it right".
• funders will expect WCDM to stay in the same box as usual
• what do we define as "social entrepreneur"? Lynda has been both a for-profit and non-profit entrepreneur.
• Part of where the social change and non-profit world is moving is toward more entrepreneurial models. While they used to get most of their money from government funding and private donations, now they're wondering how to create fee-for-service and other models that generate revenue. That makes the web interesting because of advertising revenue. Meanwhile you have many businesses wondering how to measure their social impact. So there's an opportunity here: to meet in the middle, capturing both sides of that model. You need to look at how to capture sustainability, both environmental and social (e.g. new media companies moving into Gastown and displacing low-income media companies). What projects at the centre could develop revenue streams that support non-profit organizations? Non-profits offer credibility; when a business comes in, you can say "we have this non-profit and these citizen journalists who can try your product."
• metrics:government funding requires metrics on success. what are new metrics that can help government understand success in different ways?
• metrics come down to: number of jobs and dollars that come in.
• if you're going to be a world centre, you've got to include the world. Stop thinking about competing with other centres and think about how to collaborate/engage with other centres.
• if you collaborate you can collaborate with other new media centres (econ centres) but also create partnerships with social organizations. Can have two points of connection: where do we connect on business, trade & commerce, and where do we connect on community.
• an interesting connection: some UBC economists (John Helliwell) working on happiness index. More social connectedness=more happiness. "Return on interaction" as a metric.
• need to include externalities in the picture of what a product costs.
• do people here have social projects that would be a good fit with the centre?
• how do we know when we've achieved inclusivity?
• example of Nimble/Rapspace -- taking video media project to developing world
• don't hold on to perfection too closely
• lessons from 2010 Games: supposed to be triple bottom line. Stop seeing social good projects as nice-to-have and see them as integral. Look at sustainability projects that are part of 2010 and see how they might fit.
• New Media BC incubates the Mobile Muse project.
• poor neighbourhoods in Vancouver have urgent needs -- not just in developing world.
• WCDM could create a directory of social media in Vancouver, organized by topic.
• Possible idea " Who wants to create a Vancouver Area Web - Blog- Web 2.0- Geek-Wired- Internet Community Directory"  at  http://adultaddstrengths.com Organized by category with Tags RSS etc. Could monetize it to cover costs or create it to build community or to drive traffic to your own site to promote your ideas/organization/company by having a perpetual link baiting mechanism that also serves a social/community good. Or 5 other reasons.
• LeftRightMinds: Arts management and web development. The world of artists is often far away from web implementation.
• change therapy - In what ways is the wired world a vehicle for building better lives, on personal, interpersonal and social levels? As a therapist/counsellor/people helper, I like working with people who are not only interested in their own emotional/mental health improvement but who will also take their personal learning out into the world.  Example: Working with alternative learners (aka people with learning disabilities)

Key themes:

• integrated approach to social, environmental & economic outcomes
• play an enabling, collaborative role instead of seeing other organizations as competitors
• we need to transform metrics if we are to transform funder expectations
• we're never going to get it "right". There is no "right".

Recommended books:

• Emergence
• McLuhan for Business Leaders
• The Starfish & the Spider

I want to help the World Centre for Digital Media include/engage with community goals and organizations

• Alexandra Samuel, Social Signal (alex at socialsignal dot com)... we can help the WCDM connect to the comunity of organizations that provide technology advice and assistance to the community sector
• Luke Closs, Socialtext (luke at socialtext dot com) - I can help set up a wiki for further brainstorming, and ...