• Beth Kanter discussed the importance of curation, and skyped in the best curator she’s come across: @RobinGood. He mentioned many tricks and tools. Although the connection wasn’t that great, his charismatic Italian accent certainly shined through. Below is her Storify version of it.
• Cheryl Black from Convio stressed the importance of being proactive on social media: not just “saying stuff”, but having a plan, and balancing this with being “proactively reactive”: scheduling in time to comment and participate in discussions.
• Sarah Durham from Big Duck and Katya Andreson had many more traditional marketing tips to apply in the nonprofit world. Katya also delved into the science behind appealing to people’s emotions for fundraising, which is endlessly fascinating to me.
• I was very impressed to hear about MTv’s involvement with the White House, MIT and Dept of Education on various initiatives. Certainly a far cry from music videos!
• Google gave their first public talk about how nonprofits can use Google+.
• An insight from Paul Young of Charity:Water–It’s a messy process and they have a bias to action, to do things quickly. They keep trying to do something new all the time. The lesson learned for me was that despite how clean and sleek their final product may look, there’s a lot of trial and error going into it. And being positive definitely helps!

Permaculture flourishing in the Amazon:

“I saw poverty all my life” Carla tells me. Carla Noain Park comes from a city called Iquitos in Peru located on the Amazon river where she once studied to be a teacher. “I always wanted to help my people” she tells me. However, it wasn’t until she married her husband and moved to the US, that this dream became a reality.

When anthropology and film making brings cultural understanding to your village:

“I don’t believe in giving people a voice as people already have a voice. I believe in giving them a microphone to tell their story” says Martha M. Foster the founder, President and CEO of Living Earth Television and member of WiserEarth.org. A lifelong documentary curator and anthropologist, Martha’s work focuses on helping people understand each other across cultural borders.

Climate change activist focuses on empowering others in Zambia

“My ambition is to empower the local community. When we empower people, they are more likely to want to create their own businesses. It is only when we do this that they will start to take care of the environment around them.” ~Auldridge Chibbwalu 

It’s OK to be against growth!

Dave Gardner is the producer of GrowthBusters, a controversial new film which seeks to de-bunk the myth that growth leads to progress. “I am suggesting that there may be another way of living. True sustainability is progress, yet many people believe that limits to growth go against progress. I am embracing the end of growth,” he says.

Moving back to the US after nearly five years in India, I was very much aware that my carbon footprint was about to increase substantially. Every time I visited, I’d gasp in horror at the packaging waste, the lights left on without anyone in the room, the unnecessary car trips taken whimsically. Whether or not I was ready for it, I was returning to the American culture of excess. Thankfully, I have found several inspiring films that help me keep alive the hope that things can change here. Below is a montage of the films I recently seen which examine ways to live more sustainably and sensibly, with my brief take on them.

 

 

In addition to the “How To Create” media on your phone portions, we delve deeply into sharing your mobile content, delivering your media to mobile and engaging your mobile audience. More than that, we have many case studies, tons of tools, a terminology glossary and feature a weekly roundup of the latest in the field. You can even join us by guest blogging on your experience in the field with mobile media! We’ve profiled a number of pioneers creating mobile media and are always on the lookout for more.

If you’re looking to learn, we have lots in store for you. Just some examples:

• Make some sense of how mobile social media is impacting the media landscape. Use it as a listening tool, enable citizen journalists to produce content, or experiment with microblogging.
• Find out what geo-tagging is and how it’s impacting journalism.
• Decide whether and how to deliver your content via mobile apps.
• Want to know more about mobile radio? Hear how Freedom Fone and Farm Radio created a first-time partnership to use IVR with African stations, or Afghanistan’s Radio Azadi, which incorporates an interactive SMS service.
• Itching to create viral videos from your phone? We have step-by-step instructions, even for live-streaming!
• Improve your mobile photography skills.

So please come check out our Mobile Media Toolkit and let us know what you think! For our latest updates, join us on Twitter @mobilemediakit or on Facebook.

While at the Mashable Social Good Summit, I was interviewed for Ericksson’s Networked Society “How Come?” series. Was surprised to see my video just near Pete Cashmore  You might have noticed that I enjoy asking questions only slightly less than finding answers! This was the first time I’ve been recorded while doing so, though…

I’m still not able to comprehend the digital divide and the lack of connectivity; if you have some solutions I’d love to hear from you!

Missed the Social Good Summit, NY? Catch Our First Hand Coverage

The dust has now settled after Mashable’s Social Good Summit in New York last week, which united “a dynamic community of global leaders to discuss a big idea: the power of innovative thinking and technology to solve our greatest challenges.” It was a star-studded affair, with speakers including former model, Christy Turlington Burns, actress Geena Davis, Lance Armstrong, singer Mandi Moore, and even a surprise appearance by Richard Gere. What do we all have in common? A commitment towards social causes and an interest in new technologies (except for Gere, who claimed to be a Luddite). You can still watch the recorded livestream too!

 

I also enjoyed seeing Elie Wiesel and hearing his philosophies. He lamented that nowadays, people don’t know how to wait; for him, so much pleasure in life has come through the waiting and anticipation.

There were lots of other stars around yesterday; pictured below is Randi Zuckerberg, Derrick Ashong & Mandy Moore.

Check out 92Y’s Social Good Summit: Recap of Day Two with video clips!

Ted Turner was charming and funny. His lighthearted approach to serious humanitarian problems made them seem manageable without undermining their urgency. He came out with many one-liners and certainly had the confidence of a media mogul. He also promoted the Economist as a source of unbiased international news, which I’ve been reading since college. It’s a good thing he’s so likeable!

There were a number of panels focusing on the influence of youth, which was fitting but unexpected. It makes sense that since these new “digital natives” are so tech savvy, they’re using it towards social good, but I hadn’t personally come across many examples until yesterday. It’s a great twist to the normal power equation, where younger people are teaching others; as is the case with One Laptop per Child, some children are even teaching their parents how to read. Loved this quote by Monique from GimmeMo:

You can do it all, you don’t have to choose between success and social good. You can contribute as you’re growing. Humanitarianism will find you!

I’d definitely like to check out these orgs:

• One Young World
• DoSomething
• Teens Turning Green

As could be expected at a tech conference, there were lots of launches: CharityWater Dollars to Projects, IdealistNYC.org, USAID’s FWD fundraising campaign to help the nearly 12 million people affected in the Horn of Africa. One Laptop per Child showed us their solar-powered tablet prototype which really got the crowd going.

Simon Mainwaring’s enthusiasm for a “third way” was infectious: between profit and charity, there’s a way to tie them together. See his slides below.

Mashable Slides

I’m glad that Christy Turlington & Heather Armstrong (Dooce) are publicizing the issue of maternal mortality with Every Mother Counts; I’m surprised to hear that many people are surprised by the number of deaths that occur due to childbirth. Then again, most people haven’t studied development issues! Often it takes a personal experience for us to wake up to reality–as happened with Christy’s childbirth complication, she became inspired to champion the issues on a large scale.

See the official Recap of Day One from 92Y.

Whether it’s to deliver accurate crop prices to farmers, or assist health workers to collect better data, the use of mobile applications is growing among civil society organizations. More importantly, they are starting to help more and more not for profits save time and money, while simultaneously helping them better achieve their goals.

Take one example, the nonprofit Medic Mobile. It uses existing open-source platforms, such as FrontlineSMS, OpenMRS, Ushahidi and HealthMap to support community health worker coordination and management. It helps to give assistance to programs which involve health workers travelling from clinics to reach isolated patients. Since the health workers are often as disconnected from central clinics as the patients they are trying to serve, mobile phones are used to help clinical staff reach the maximum amount of patients in the minimum amount of time. In one program in Malawi, it resulted more than 1,200 hours of staff follow-up time being saved and reduced fuel costs by several thousand dollars while at the same time providing an improved and more timely service to patients. Read the study in the Technology and Health Care Journal. Many other examples can be found online through databases such as MobileActive’s which describe how mobiles are being used for social change.

Much to my surprise, I’m slowly discovering how to live sustainably in New York. When we left India, I was well aware that we were leaving more than just a place, but a certain lifestyle and mentality. Sure, its slow pace would frustrate me on many occasions–even cows have right of way!–but it’s something I now look at nostalgically, with fondness. I’m looking into volunteering in local community gardens, and discovering that there are several farmer’s markets in Queens, where I can even deposit compost. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, because New York has it all; but I’m new here and it’s easy to be distracted by the glitz and flashy lights.

Last week, I attended part of No Impact Week at Jivamukti. Naturally I watched the “No Impact Man” documentary beforehand on Netflix, and was struck by the similarities between the way Colin (No Impact Man) lived and the way we lived in India by default. On Friday, we all went to see “Bag It,” which provided the inspiration to be more firm in my commitment to living sustainably. The trailer is below. In a nutshell–Plastic doesn’t just go away; reduce (that means buy less, people!), reuse, then recycle… If you’re into eco-conscious media, definitely check out the Story of Stuff, too.

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