We create the stories of the connected society

Two projects featured at We Media ‘09 are leading the use of digital media and technology in Haiti’s rescue efforts.
Ushahidi, which was named a “Game Changer” at last year’s conference, is utilizing digital mapmaking technology and social media to map and verify vital information in Haiti. Ushahidi plots key information on a Google map of [...]

Among the many extraordinary efforts to provide aid and relief for the people of Haiti comes this one from The Extraordinaries, winner of last year’s We Media Pitch It! competition: the Haiti Earthquake Support Center utilizes crowdsourcing and facial-recognition to help locate the missing.
Anyone can post photos of a missing person or loved one, [...]

The internet is a wondrous anomaly, a technical and creative achievement grander than the Tower of Babel, an infinite tangle of knowledge, ideals, data, entertainment, beauty, trivia, terror, news, noise, hubris, despair. It’s a cultural blender, a mixmaster archive crammed with visions, twits and everyday things.

Stories float, diffuse, wash over us.

Over on my Fast Company Experts blog, I offered some thoughts on the new Cone Nonprofit Power Brand 100 Study.  Here is how my post begins:
Cone Inc released their “Cone Nonprofit Power Brand 100” report yesterday – in which it valued (and ranked) the brands of some of America’s leading social, environmental and animal organizations.  [...]

There’s a media and technology feeding frenzy in Washington. Failing U.S. newspapers are looking for a bailout from the government; nonprofits, telecoms and policy wonks are scrambling to have their say and get their piece of the economic stimulus action – a few billion dollars – to expand broadband networks AND create more content and [...]

Technology and the internet have given us greater control over our own media experience – what information we get and share, how we spend our time, and to whom we are connected.  We are more diverse as a society, more informed as individuals, and more involved as communities.  So what?
This morning I read a column [...]

According to the CDC, roughly 20% of the American population, some 43 million people, smoke (and within that group 80% smoke every day).  That number is down significantly from just a few decades ago, but the rate of decline has leveled off in recent years.  Some attribute the slow-down to creative marketing tactics by the [...]

My daughter Amanda took the above photo in Nepal. The picture on the right is of my new granddaughter, Elizabeth Jane. I thought of them as I discovered The Girl Effect, a project from the Nike and UN Foundation that stunned global leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The big idea: unlocking the [...]

The first full day of WeMedia presented interesting challenges and opportunities regarding the state of new media, social change, and journalism. Conversations revolved around the future of traditional media, expanding the scope of social media companies to facilitate social change, how to more effectively run a business, how to reach target audiences, and more. As [...]

We Media’s Brian Reich and I were wondering, based on the Game Changer Award winners, what would be the attributes that would not only win today’s Pitch It! presenters some of the available funding, but also see them be the Game Changers a couple/few years from now.
A few things have marked the Game Changers, based [...]

Another podcast!
WeMedia is into its second month of producing a regular podcast that features in-depth interviews with prominent media, technology, and social change figures, as well as distinguished experts on current affairs and news. This is the sixth episode. Our goal is to help the WeMedia community understand the roots of the changes taking [...]

President Obama has pledged to run a more open, participatory and collaborative government, and coming off a political campaign powered by unprecedented digital organizing, we have every reason to take him at his word. The relaunch of the White House web site minutes after he became president on Jan. 20 was more than symbolic. It [...]

We’ve recorded another podcast!
WeMedia is producing a regular podcast that features in-depth interviews with prominent media, technology, and social change figures, as well as distinguished experts on current affairs and news.  Today marks our third installment.  Our goal is to help the WeMedia community understand the roots of the changes taking place in our society, [...]

NOTE: We asked each of our 2009 Game Changers Awards finalists to write about their projects, what they’ve learned along the way and what’s next. This essay written by Joey Borgogna, Director of Special Projects and Production Associate of Creative Visions Foundation.

Similar to Game Changers, Creative Visions Foundation (CVF) supports Creative Activists, individuals who [...]