It was only after weeks of failed logo concepts that Joe hit on the idea: Sysiphus finally pushing his boulder over the hill. We think it’s the perfect image for The Point, showing that bringing something to its tipping point can be all it takes, and momentum makes the rest inevitable. It also represents victory over a timeless human struggle - the problems inherent in organizing collective action that The Point helps solves (we never claimed to be anything but audacious…).

Finally, although The Point is about leveraging the influence of groups to solve problems, the group is merely a tool. By showing one person finally shedding his or her boulder, we’re putting the focus on solving your problems, and thinking of the group as a means to an end. We’re trying to embrace self-interest, not work against it.

When he was preparing for [the debates] during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, “I don’t consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, ‘You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.’ So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that's green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f—ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective’.”

Why the new format for Make Something Happen?

By the time news that inspires action hits the front page, the opportunity to leverage the new wave of innovative tools for self-organizing has passed. By highlighting opportunities for grassroots action at their inception, Make Something Happen will spark a discussion about the best way to use these tools, and hopefully help increase their adoption.

We will scour the Web in search of golden opportunities, and suggest action that can take place on The Point and elsewhere. We invite you to comment, make suggestions, and of course, take action yourself.

We expect to post somewhere between 5 - 20 “action opportunities” each day, segmented into categories. We’ll start out focused on a few categories, and expand on demand.

Consider Make Something Happen your participation clearing-house. We link important news before it explodes, then suggest ways to turn your desires and frustrations into a movement.

We need your help.

This is an experiment; we need your help to make it work. Here’s what you can do:

• Contribute to the discussion. We’ll take smarter action when we put our heads together.
• Send us tips - links to stories and sites we should be watching.
• Give us feedback - is this format useful? What categories would you like to see? Are the posts appropriately focused?

Paperwork

• All of the old posts now reside at blog.thepoint.com.
• If you are an RSS subscriber, your subscription will be ported over to blog.thepoint.com.
• Here’s the RSS feed for the new Make Something Happen.
• Our community manager Aaron With’s band volcano! played their CD release show last night at The Hideout. Make sure you pick up their new CD, paperwork.

Increasing participation by offering incentive (free beer)

My friend Sarah organized her first meetup. The topic of the meeting was related to a particular industry and the methods by which it communicates, though we will focus more on the process Sarah went through to figure out how to entice people to come. By watching the initial success of her meeting as well as the inflated successes of the model she based hers on, she learned that it takes a moderate balance of incentive and resistance to simultaneously get people in the door and to avoid the possibility of having too many people get in the way of your intended purpose.

Or, in other words, free beer can be good or bad depending what you hope to get out of offering it.

Sarah explained that as she structured her meeting she took into consideration and prioritized the reasons she shows up to any topical event. If entry is free, she will attend a workshop for the purposes of education (or discussion of the topic at hand) or networking (she is a freelancer). However, it was one night that we were at one monthly event, one that shall remain nameless, that was selling itself with the help of a third, that reminded us of a forgotten factor: free beer.

“If the meeting’s bad, at least the drinks were free.”

Brilliant. The predominant incarnation of this particular meetup, one that occurs in city’s nation-wide, involves a monthly, bar-based get-together where folks congregate, talk about industry-based, socially conscious issues, and pay five-dollars a pint. Some brilliant organizer, for whom this plight must have strongly resonated, lifted the industry-centered focus* and found a brewery that would sponsor the meeting with free beer** and some free food.

Both Sarah and I very much enjoy lubricating otherwise seemingly-dull conversations with alcohol, and neither of us enjoy paying for it. And while she didn’t think much of her decision to stick with keeping her own industry-centered themes in the format of the meeting, Sarah immediately made a sponsorship deal with another enthusiastic local brewery and she began putting the (down-low) word out that the drinks would be free. Again — Brilliant. When I’m at conferences and the education components are bad, the likelihood of drinking for free on the tab of some industry sponsor is redeeming. Even if core of the meeting is bad, Sarah thought, at least one element is reliably good (and often promised to make the networking part easier for us closet introverts)

“Oops - Could I have provided too much incentive?”

With Sarah’s new priorities, booze, networking, and discussion of issues related to the topic at hand, 20 people showed up to her first meeting. She didn’t know half of them and thus she felt successful. Meanwhile, the model she based the structure of her meetup on, the free beer and general conversation meeting, was facing growth that initially startled Sarah.

We had been going to the gathering here and there with friends of ours, but because of previous obligations, Sarah and I had missed the last meeting of the group she modeled hers after. It had grown substantially since the topical modification and the drinks were introduced, going from a steady 20-person meeting to 70-80 after the next month and well over a hundred at the next. Our friends caught the last meeting and reported an attendance of well over 200 people. Lines for the keg were 20-something strong. The free beer was gone in an hour.

Moderate incentive v. All incentive // Meetings v. Parties

For a short while, Sarah had thought she had made a mistake by offering free beer and that her meeting would soon be over-saturated. She realized, however (or at least hoped like hell), that no, this would not be the case. In her meeting, which is aimed at folks in a typically low-pay industry, optional free drinks had become a reward for people who might not otherwise feel, to give up a free night. In the other meeting, which initially catered to a similar crowd, the requirement of association with an industry had been lifted and coupled with the extra incentive of complementary alcohol. Since the only requirement for entry was sharing an interest in the generally vague topic of the meetup (”It’s about the Blues? My cousin listens to the blues! Where’s the beer?”), it had essentially turned itself into more of a soirée than anything else.

By increasing the incentive while also dropping the requirements for membership, you’re basically left saying, “Come have free drinks with a bunch of people who think about vaguely similar things as you do.” There’s nothing wrong with doing that—this model defined much of many people’s high school and college experiences. It’s incentives had changed to accommodate what appeared to be its new mission: increasing rates of social capital with the help of beer (another wholly noble goal), otherwise known as a party.

However, when an organizer is looking to create something more structured, incentive must be matched equally with terms of entry in order to ensure free-riders don’t overwhelm underlying goals of an action. At a meeting with an explicit goal, a participant with a beer in their hand is being rewarded for their participation. At a meeting with no goal, a participant with a beer in their hand is an extra in a John Hughes movie. Free beer is meant to balance the fact that the folks might need an extra selling point to tip their interest to attending the meeting, thus increasing the likelihood the meeting will have a strong, qualified turnout.

By balancing participation challenges with incentive, we are able to bring more qualified people into the conversation, strengthen our dialog, and create new opportunities for well-matched collaboration. By creating more incentive than challenge, especially when one of them is beer, chances are we’re just throwing a party.

The incentive-heavy will cutter your path.

This model is applicable, of course, to all paradigms of organization. The glory of participating with purpose, the personality of the organizer, or, in the case of the Internet, the usability of the platform don’t always translate into high levels of participation. Sometimes, if a task asks a little more than zero effort from a participant, extra recognition for engagement, a trade of services, or a free something or rather might be necessary to get someone working on your side. It is important, however, to create a balance between the complications of opting in and incentive. Unless you’re looking for a strictly numbers-based mass of support, allowing the balance tip towards the incentive-heavy can leave you burdened with incentive-hungry folks cluttering the path that separates you from your ultimate goal.

Footnotes:

*Now the meetings are about over-arching social-consciousness.

**Which, it’s worth mentioning, is spottily illegal depending on your locale and venue.

Netroots Nation was helpful by way of shining a light on Internet activism and action, though it felt a little long by the time Sunday rolled around. For those unfamiliar with the structure (ie. likely anyone who wasn’t there), the conference is part education, part networking opportunity, and part rally for the netroots generation. In retrospect, I find it unfortunate that I was unable to make the right wing net conference, also occurring in Austin over the weekend. It would have been particularly interesting to compare the attitude and atmospheres at each happening (although apparently Michelle Malkin there shouldn’t be a “self esteem problem” in the blogosphere of the right). I am also interested to find out whether or not, in the case of an Obama presidential victory, next year’s conference will be as large and energized without a campaign or a figure to rally around.

The panel that explored how video can help a cause/issue/campaign was great, though I had to leave it early. The milblog session was excellent, though somewhat disappointingly under-attended. It helped put into perspective how military use of blogs and other communication technologies are changing the perspectives of American’s with regard to what’s going on in Iraq. It was also inspiring to see that by way of VoteVets, exposure was shined on the poor living conditions at Fort Bragg, ultimately leading to political action.

Oh. And I was awed to see San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, a true rockstar politician who garnered the stumbling attention of anyone with a pulse.

As per usual, there were so many interesting sessions and only so little time to see them all. As can be the case at conferences, some of the attitude was self-congradulatory, though that’s largely attributable to the fact that the conference isn’t strictly educational. Further, I wonder what these communities are ultimately going to gain by continuing to ask avid Internet activists year after year how we plan on bridging on and offline activism.

I do, though, think we need to talk differently about how we look at online action, new organizing, etc. Let’s just do it, as it were.

Having in the past spoken with Katrin Verclas and Tad Hirsch about the exciting work they’re documenting and accomplishing with the use of mobile technology, it is easy to see how people would be excited by engaging in similar action. Getting started, however, can be an understandably confusing endeavor. Mobile Commons, geared to the organization, and Anyvite, geared towards individuals and groups, are two great starting points for the mobile-interested person who finds themselves starting from scratch.

Campaigns that are in a situation where they think that they might want to organize their users by utilizing mobile technology should keep an eye on Mobile Commons, a New York City based start-up that builds infrastructures designed to help organizers connect with users via the user’s mobile phone. Their tool set makes it possible for users to opt into campaigns simply by SMSing key words related to the campaign. Representatives from Mobile Commons showed me one campaign they had worked with where users could find information about the fish they were eating simply by texting the word “fish” to a particular number. By having them opt in, users can then be sent information, locations for action, and other information useful and related to the campaign. Further, campaigns can ask for information about the user in order to build user lists.

Mobile Commons, by all appearances, struck me as extremely user friendly and operable by nearly everyone. In addition to working with the ACLU, the Human Rights Campaign, The Sierra Club and many other campaigns, they also work with private companies as well.

Also interesting, though this more relevant to the individual, is Anyvite. The service, which TechCrunch very recently gave a positive review, is geared more towards individuals and leisure-oriented groups and it makes it possible for a group to edit an event on the go. Users are no longer bound to the one event, saved the way it was when organizers brainstormed it back at the laptop. Would you like to change the location of where you’re meeting? Want to change paint ball to football? Anyvite users are kept up to date with event edits via SMS, meaning no one will be left in the dark as users will remain up-to-the-minute informed via text message. This is a lovely departure from older, more traditional electronic invites and it is clearly more-geared to group action - As TechCrunch says - it is “sort of like a Twitter for groups.”

It’s a mobile jungle out there. Knowing where to start, for individuals and for organizations, is a sizable chunk of the battle.

“The lone cowboy story was a myth,” writes Kohn, recognizing and celebrating the Millennial’s shift towards an embrace of collective action. I had a similarly themed conversation as early as last week with Josh Levy of Change.org, where we discussed our simultaneous appreciation for how awesome the movie Iron Man was while also marveling that it exists as yet another continuation of the dated mythology that suggests “one great hero will save us all.” Enabling collectivist political and social behaviors is impossible without the connectivity provided by Internet technologies, the Millennials are moving beyond that myth. As Douglas Rushkoff said at this year’s Personal Democracy Forum, “You can either be an in-charge individual, or an in-charge collective,” and this generation has showed which side they prefer.

I agree with Kohn’s caution, and believe it important to keep a close eye on the Millennial’s tendencies towards the hyperindividual (Kohn suggests that the Internet is a tool of the individualist). The Millennials are a generation struggling with its own identity. Further, I agree with Kohn’s assertion that the Millennials must be cautious with regard to how we move forward as a collective by taking as many of their actions offline as possible. They must strive to participate in as many face-to-face ways as they can, so as to strengthen a connection that goes beyond familiarity with screen names. It is important that the Internet is consistently embraced as a tool, not a single answer, with regard to increasing civic engagement and degrees of social capital.

Where Kohn’s assertion gets tricky, however, comes when she claims that “the Internet does not bind individuals in shared struggle the same as the face-to-face activism of the 1960s and ’70s did.” Generational comparisons as measures of success are both tricky and dangerous. This mirrors an argument I have heard time and again between the 50+ crowd and Millennials themselves—an argument centered around an expectation held by the elder collectivists that believe that since the youth are not rioting in the streets ala France in May of ‘68, something isn’t going right. Unfortunately for that argument, May, 1968 is as mythical as the proverbial lone cowboy.

On the 40-year anniversary of said summer, it is sexy to remember all of the radicalism that took place all over the world, but in doing so, it is easy to forget that in the US, many of the fruits of that particular movement weren’t as attractive as we care to remember. There were, of course large successes with regard to “the culture war” and the movement towards a stronger civil rights policy, but the rise of Nixon’s “silent majority,” the cultivation of distrust in government and the collective, and an eventual embrace of the hyper individualism that we’re now trying to re-imagine also came out of it. It is important, as Kohn points out, to be sure that the Millennials are careful to embrace as many opportunities for face-to-face action as possible, be they opportunities provided by Meetups, using Couchsurfing, flash-mobbing, or other available tools and mechanisms. We must be careful, though, to not get too hung up on measuring the successes of this generation by the foggy, glamorized spectacle of the ones that came before.

• Sally Kohn, senior campaign strategist with the Center for Community Change, reminds us to log off once in a while.
• It looks like Bob Barr’s supporters would like to see him read Ms. Kohn’s article.
• With regard to environmental issues, Chinese Millennials are starting to make something happen.
• Don’t piss off the Netroots.
• Community organizes to help family (aw).
• With regard to mobs, does ’smart’ necessarily equate ‘wise’?
• Perhaps you’d like to know the (speculative) future of e-politics.
• And finally, want to win a campaign? Bring a camera