“When we change the way we communicate, we change society”

Clay Shirky

What’s the Big Idea?What’s the Big Idea?

Nicole de BeaufortPresident, Fourth Sector Consulting

•Communicator and Planner for organizations wanting systems change, transformation, and public will building•Children and Food•Healthy Food and Farms•Early Adopter•Mac “and” PC•Social Networker

ndeb@fourthsectorconsulting.com

Debra EschmeyerKellogg Food & Society Policy FellowNational Farm to School NetworkCenter for Food & Justice, Urban & Environmental Policy Institute, Occidental College

•Food Justice Advocate•Mac “and” PC•Communicator•Off the grid proponent•Grower

deschmeyer@oxy.edu

What do you want to take away from today’s session?

Remember, there are no stupid questions.

Source: Obamafoodorama.com

Create community and conversation. Save money! Lower barriers to accessing

information: get info out without print expense

NOT a replacement of traditional relationships or organizing; a reinforcement.

Purpose of Social Media

Technology is the means to enable relevant social experiences.

The Internet is confusing – networks make it easy to connect to things you love.

For social media to truly be effective, the technology has to become boring and invisible.

Although, the iPhone changed everything.

Making Meaning

Making Order.

"What, after all, has maintained the human race on this old globe, despite all the calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not faith in new possibilities and courage to advocate them?" - Jane Addams

We are awash in conversations: online and off. People are now “curating” their lives online

Social devices providing a platform for communication.

 It’s about the communication and not the device.

Applications, computers, etc. are ephemeral and discarded when no longer useful.

We still have a knowledge gap though.

Steps to Successful Social Media

Strategy first, then social application!

Steps to Successful Social Media

Publication tools with blogs (Typepad, Blogger…), wikis (Wikipedia, Wikia, Wetpaint…) and citizen journalism portals (Digg, Newsvine…)

Sharing tools for videos (YouTube…), pictures (FlickR…), links (del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia…), music (Last.fm, iLike…), slideshows (Slideshare), products reviews (Crowdstorm, Stylehive…) or products feedbacks (Feedback 2.0, GetSatisfaction…)

Discussions tools like forums (PHPbb, vBulletin, Phorum…), video forums (Seesmic), instant messaging (Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Meebo…) and VoIP (Skype, Google Talk…)

Social networks (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, Orkut…), niche social networks (LinkedIn, Boompa…) and tools for creating social networks (Ning)

Micropublication tools (Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Plurk, Adocu…) and alike (twitxr, tweetpeek)

Social aggregation tools like lifestream (FriendFeed, Socializr, Socialthing!, lifestrea.ms, Profilactic…)

Where conversations take place 1800-2020 *and beyond

Source: Baekdal.com

Source: Baekdal.com

April 2009: Facebook hit its 200 millionth user, up 100 million since August 2008.

Even before Oprah got a Twitter account, nearly 2 million people were using it.

As of April 2009, Facebook was the world’s 5th largest “country,” and growing.

Moldova, 2009: Facebook, Twitter served as organizing tools for flash mobs and planned protests.

Obama.collecta.com

Swine Flu: from “OMG!” to global pandemic on a Sunday afternoon. Viral media to track a virus.

Source: spectrumscience.com

Source: Forrester Research

As recently as 200 years ago we got our information (news, gossip) from the marketplace.

Now it’s a “both/and.” Quality trumps all.

Jump in. Spend time listening. Follow what interests you. Find people you know. Start a conversation. See what happens.