Why wait until Monday morning when Friday afternoon quarterbacking can be just as much fun? (Okay, that was my lame attempt to dispel a gay stereotype and prove that I really DO know when the Superbowl is being played...but I digress.) And what better topic to dissect this week than the massive self-inflicted implosion of the Susan Komen Foundation? So much has already been written about how poorly Komen managed its de-funding, flip flop, and subqeuent re-funding of Planned Parenthood that this week's lessons alone could fill a "How NOT to..." book.
*A Guest Post by Daniel Jae-Won Lee, ED of Levi Strauss Foundation*
Time Magazine provocatively named “The Protester” as its 2011 “Person of the Year” for its riveting influence on last year’s social and political events. As courageous citizens connected with each other to express dissent and organize public actions, social media tools spurred activism and social change in unprecedented ways.
But for legal and advocacy organizations that defend civil liberties in the United States, forays into the social marketplace come with a unique set of challenges – and, no doubt, risks...
Health care and the Internet are on a headlong rush to each other at 4G speed. The big question is whether the point of impact will be a gentle caress or a "blunt impact trauma" (the medical term for the situation where your face hits the tarmac at a couple of hundred miles an hour...but I digress...).
On Jan 18, 2012, the web pulled off a much-publicized and widely coordinated protest campaign to oppose SOPA and PIPA by "going dark." The effort, which included participation by notable web giants such as Google, Mozilla, Craigslist, and Wikipedia, was aimed at building public opposition to 2 proposed anti-piracy bills that were moving through Congress – the Stop Online Privacy Act in the House of Representatives (SOPA) and the Protect...
The Problem: A name that no one can pronounce (Oh-nay-gun? Oo-nee-gin? On-ee-gan?), based upon a Russian poetry novel written almost 200 years ago, and performed in a medium (ballet) that some people still think of as arcane, inaccessible, and exclusionary to broad audiences. Oh goodie. Give me more of that, right?
The Solution: Twitter, Tumblr, and Unrequited Love.
Would you go online to buy a virtual daikon radish?
If your answer to this question is "Yes," then you're in good company; nearly 500,000 people spent between $5 and $40 each to buy limited edition daikon radish crops last year on internet gaming company Zynga's popular "FarmVille" franchise.
Of course, as in all things in life (well, almost all things...Kim Kardashian and Jersey Shore are exceptions...but I digress), proper context makes even the most seemingly bizarre and odd concepts understandable.
Internet advocates across the country celebrated today as Senator Harry Reid announced that he was indefinitely delaying a vote on the PROTECT IP Act - and then a few hours later, Rep. Lamar Smith shelved any further action on the Stop Online Piracy Act. Online policy advocacy groups across the country immediately heralded the news; my favorite banner headline was from arstechnica.com, which featured crumbling tombstones engraved respectively with SOPA and PIPA.
Recently ZeroDivide was asked by one of our foundation partners to help them integrate Twitter into a convening to meet two main goals:
To introduce convening participants to the power of social media
To model the benefits of using Twitter to promote a shared learning experience and create additional engagement between the participants and the foundation
