Here’s a quick gander at/guide to some of the great folks we look forward to talking to and/or profiling this week:

Beth Kanter

Imagine if you held so much Internet power, you were able to Google your first name and your very own website were the first to come up. Beth Kanter is able to do just that.

It is impossible to describe Kanter accurately without wholly offending a large bloc of people, but here goes: Beth is God. There. We said it. Beth Kanter is God. Dare you you disagree? Have you ever seen this woman at a conference? Faced with her, you’re rendered awkward, graced, and feeling somewhat irrelevant by comparison of accomplishments. Back up a little bit and observe those around you; they’re all trying to figure out how to get involved in a conversation with her, how to somehow connect with her. In [the extremely approachable] Kanter’s 25+ years of involvement in web-based organization, she has seen it all and she graciously shares slivers of her brain on her blog every single day.

David Sirota

Having been employed by the likes of Ned Lamont and Sen. Bernie Sanders, it is easy to understand why the New York Times has described David Sirota as a “populist rabble rouser.” Sirota has appeared on countless television and radio shows as an all-around sage on all-things political and civic engagement. Further, he has written for The Huffington Post, and The Nation and he serves as senior editor of In These Times. The Uprising, his new book, has won the praise of Bill McKibben, Tom Hayden (legendary Students for a Democratic Society organizer), Naomi Klein, and Matt Taibbi, and it outlines how the netroots can lead a populist rebellion. Also, he is sort of beautiful. But then again, he is also married, so he [unfortunately] wont be appearing in a most-eligible-netroots-activist section any time soon.

Check out this talk at STRAND Books featuring Sirota discussing The Uprising.

Scott Heiferman

Every evening, Howard Dean slips into his PJs, kneels before his bed, folds his hands and thanks Scott Heiferman for everything he has. Dan envisions the great Scott Heiferman and says, “Scott. Thank you so much for helping to get my name out there. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. Sure, I lost the Democratic nomination ‘04, but here I am at the head of the party. Not a bad consolation prize, sir.”

I bet you didn’t know that about Howard Dean.

Through creating Meetup, Heiferman essentially put into action one of the original bridges of Internet and grassroots organizing, helping to breed and popularize the term “netroots.”

Oh. And his “notes” are also awesome.

David All

Of Barack Obama, David All recently praised the candidate’s appreciation for “people-powered revolution.” All is especially interested in making this revolution fruitful for the American conservative movement. In the context of the 2.0 activism world, he is essentially the Little Conservative That Could, as he works his tail off to catch the Republican Party up with the left when it comes to Internet political organizing, and he is doing a darn good job at doing so far. Further, All is not only an advocate with respect to bringing the netroots to the right, but also by bringing the entire process to the netroots. He is an all-around advocate of Internet people power.

-Filed in People

“Saul Alinsky is referred to in this piece. He’s Hillary’s spiritual leader in terms of creating her own chaos.”

Rush Limbaugh, April 9, 2008

“This sort of clever manipulation was at the heart of Alinsky-style ‘community organizing’ in the interest of revolutionary change. He taught, through his books and seminars for radical acolytes, how to convince the common folks that the organizer was merely their tool, willingly offering his own time and service so that they could succeed in throwing off the yoke of their masters.”

www.patdollard.com, “Hussein, the Money Wizard,” June 9, 2007

Media and blog coverage of Barack Obama, his field program, and his campaign’s ascent has been especially interesting in its overall confused treatment of legendary community organizer Saul Alinsky (Hillary Clinton, as detailed above, has suffered the same kind of muckraking). The memory of Alinsky (now dead 26 years), who popularized and largely put into motion the organizational styling that have been credited for Sen Obama’s most recent successes, has been handled in some circles similarly to the way in which the Reverend Jeremiah Wright (and Sen. Obama’s middle name, for that matter) was; as if he were an erratic, anti-American aggitater whose influence should cast an air of doubt onto that of the candidate.

A leftist who so openly identified with the term “radical” might not so much mind these associations.

However, considering how much Alinsky influenced the tactics of the American left and right, this pot-stirring is simply inaccurate. Alinsky pushed for a people-powered revolution. He might not have fully understood the scope of how his tactics would by systemized and used by folks on all sides of the spectrum, but used by social justice groups for more than a decade, the ascent of his techniques is not just limited to radical leftists. They would become the tools of an increasingly-organizer-oriented mainstream Democratic Party, especially within the context of Howard Dean’s 50 State Strategy. The GOP would nearly perfect the art of the GOTV push thanks to the very same tactics. We would see his rules used to popularize the issues and image of mainstream political candidates. Reaching even further across the spectrum, John Altevgot, a former Christian radio host and conservative political activist, has called Alinsky his hero.

While it might politically sexy for partisans to attribute a sense of “anti-American” guilt unto Sen. Obama by association with Alinsky, this is a deceitful, inaccurate attack. Alinsky’s methods, while rooted in a partisan divide, came to transcend them and have been used by those on all sides of the spectrum. Alinsky was the grandfather of the way that we all — right or left, pre or post partisan— organize, and his actions have influenced how we all perpetuate our respective causes. Right, Left, Center, mainstream or fringe, the honest thing for all of us to do would be to celebrate and civilly discuss the tools that Alinsky brought to our table.

-Filed in People

On this day, June 12th, 2008, the news brings to our attention today’s goings on in mobile activism, the online efforts of young McCain supporters, the Grand Net War of 2025, incarcerated net and civil rights activists, and more.

• Improv Everywhere begins documenting attacks of fun.
• Net and civil rights activist Jailed for “longer than most dangerous criminals.”
• It’s party time at South Korea’s protest 2.0!
• In 2025, there will be a grand net-war.
• In a 2.0 world, what’s an Internet populist to do?
• While we’re asking questions, how is mobile technology is facilitating development work?
• And finally, Rasiej and Sifry: We told you so!

-Filed in News

The “meetup” phenomenon has been a big one since it became one of the perceived cornerstones of the Howard Dean revolution in 2003-4. Four years later, Meetup.com still exists as a big way for many organizers to find volunteers to gather around a cause. For those who organize there, the site is considered to be an astounding and invaluable organizational tool. We’ve talked with eight social and political organizers, each of whom come from varying philosophies and locations. Here, they discuss the work they do on the site, some of the hurdles they face, and how they make their interactions on Meetup work towards furthering the perpetuation of the causes that they represent.

This piece, the first in a three part series about Meetup and those who organize there, focuses on outcomes of efforts towards group organization through the site, growth of groups over time, and a look at what participants feel as though they’re unable to accomplish there.

Who shows up?

Several years ago, a Hip Hop show promoter explained to me that he found that normally one in ten people that are invited to a show actually attend. Even more specifically, one in three people who tell you that they’re definitely going to attend can be expected to show up. Similarly, among Meetup groups, there appears to be a consistent surefire ballpark number of participants per event. Of the organizers surveyed, the most consistent percentage of members in a group that show up to meetings is between 5 and 10 percent. Of the number of members that shows up to meetings overall, Dexter Jones of the Tampa Bay Black Professionals explains that somewhere around a third of all of their members have been to at least one meeting.

Maintaining and increasing numbers

As for what the organizers do to make their outcomes better, responses vary. Donna Orlando of the San Diego Libertarians admits that she does very little herself. Delegation of responsibilities and tasks, she stresses, is most important. “The most useful thing I’ve done is to enroll really good assistant organizers, who represent various segments of the membership within a group. That way, there’s almost always someone organizing an event in the reasonably near future that will appeal to the members.”

Other suggestions for keeping attendance counts high ranged from simply “challenging people to get off their asses” to being consistent. Dexter Jones says that by having a meeting every two weeks at the same location, time, and night, average participation has increased by 500%

Stressing the importance of comprehensive engagement, Brett Mandel of Philadelphia Tax Reform says that while his group reaches out with some regularity, “We’re less about leading horses to water than engaging those who come out.”

Collin, whose last name has been withheld, an organizer for Miami Critical Mass, attributes his higher turnout (approximately 15%) to reaching across the board of potential organizational tools - The group prints and distributes fliers around town, utilizes Facebook and MySpace, and he has also mentioned being a member of The Point.

What’s missing?

As for things that users are unable to accomplish with the use of Meetup, some organizers, like Donna Orlando, are thoroughly satisfied with the service and find it to be complete. In agreement, Dexter Jones says that he feels as though he still hasn’t fully leveraged the numerous options made available on the site for promoting his group. Timothy Tipton, however, of the North Denver Medical Marijuana Discussion Group, feels somewhat let down by the slow moderation time on message boards. “They are slow to respond when inappropriate and unprofessional messages, advertisements, and spam. This is especially disheartening when we all know that this is paid service.”

Collin adds that the site is rigid and the layout is odd, though he has no suggestions to change it. He adds, “I wish there was a way to get more input from members. People are not always willing to rate rides, or share their goals or ideas, I wish meetup had ways of getting members get more involved.”

In conclusion

As appears to be the case with community organizing anywhere on or off line, on Meetup, an organizer can expect a return/response from a small fraction of those engaged on the surface. Consistency and building personal relationships with volunteers and participants is an important element in maintaining numbers and increasing participation. Delegation of contact and outreach is also extremely important with regard to maintaining these relationships. Further, engaging those who show up in a comprehensive way is important for encouraging recurring participation. The organizers surveyed appear to be happy with the service for the most part, with exceptions regarding comment moderation and some limitations to free exchanges.

For tomorrow: What happens when a crazy person shows up to your Meetup? Find out here.

-Filed in Uncategorized

Flash Mob, noun: An impromptu gathering, organized by means of electronic communication, of the unemployed.

-The Devils Dictionary (2.0)

In its short time in existence, the flash mob, which turns five a the start of next month, has been the fodder of much experimentation and conversation in communities concerned with action, civic engagement, general frivolity, and the Internet. After the now [micro]infamous 100-patron-strong “Love Rug” shopping trip that took place at the start of June, 2003 kicked it all off, getting random groups of people together via email, SMS, message boards and other communication technology to do random things has come to be considered the bees knees by participants all across the globe.

Confronted with this new behavioral specimen, The New York Times and CNN ran news pieces, Thomas H. Sander at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government qualified how he thought the phenomenon would factor into civic engagement, and Bill Wasik, maestro of the first mob, suggested that to call it a movement was premature–the flash mob is a precursor to something bigger. Boing Boing and Instructables have illustrated how one can assemble their own random, electronically organized public sing-song and/or disco and/or pantless escapade. Jaron Lanier jived wearily about online masses of the anonymous, Robert Vamosi discussed where flash mobs have become dangerous to the public, and CNN once reported on it in the context of virtual retribution.

Oh. And Christopher Monks imagined organizing a mob to help him win back the heart of a lost love.

In preparation for the celebration, we try to look beyond a lot of the talk to take a look at the five (well, six, really) coolest flash mobs to date:

Number 5 // Rickrolling London, April, 200

The Rickroll phenomenon is sociologically fascinating in its transcendence of all traditional standards of appreciation for irony for disaffection’s sake [here, Boing Boing talks to Astley about what he makes of this odd, unsolicited revival]. And on the 20th of last month, after putting an unbelievable amount of time into somehow keeping this joke alive, 400 Rick Astley fans brought their enthusiasm to London’s Liverpool Street train station and sang his infectious 1987 hit Never Gonna Give You Up. A mirror event with less attendees followed in Baltimore, of all places, several weeks later

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFfY2QSyZ9s[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzaT1d718Sw[/youtube]

Number 4 // Doonesbury and Dean Lovers Occupy the Space Needle, September, 2003

In 2003, when it was generally believed by every political internet dork ever that Howard Dean was going to be the mascot of an Internet-led, anarcho-socialist revolution, even cartoons were rooting for “change.” In

September of that year, Alex, one of the strip’s characters, was featured in a strip typing the following: Saturday, September 13th, 10:35 a.m,. at the foot of the Space Needle. Everyone should link arms in an enormous circle, hop up and down, chanting “The Doctor is In.” Not even a week later the bait for this Flash Mob for Dean was eaten by over a hundred people and the Space Needle was overrun by at least 100, Internet-savvy liberals participating in the first cartoon-instigated flash mob.

Number 3 // Zombies Attack Apple Store in San Francisco, Recurring

For a while, I was trying to figure out how to rank the pillow fight flash mob which, as a whole movement, is itself interesting. They’re visually stunning (feathers everywhere!) and they appear to be good fun for what seems to be a mostly-college-aged group of participants, but a certain edge is missing. That edge? A tribute to the grandfather of modern zombie cinema, George A. Romero, articulated by way of disrupting San Franciscan Apple customers.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Myb68v33o[/youtube]

Number 2 // The First Flash Mob - Buying “The Love Rug,” June, 2003

The first flash mob, which has been documented somewhat extensively since, was the brainchild of Bill Wasik (and it was reportedly this guy who coined the expression). In an interview with Stay Free Magazine, Wasik discusses his plans for the first effort, which was to take place in a Claire’s Accessories location in New York, and how his plans were inevitably foiled by the law:

About ten minutes before the first mob, I get a call from [a collaborator], and he’s like, “There are seven cops and a police wagon out in front of Claire’s Accessories.” So I get there and they’re not letting anybody stand in front of the store. They made it look as if a terrorist had threatened to wage jihad against Claire’s Accessories.

CNN describes the successful second attempt:

In June 2003, after the initial attempt at a flash mob was foiled, over 100 people assembled in the home furnishings department of Macy’s department store. As instructed, the participants consulted bemused sales assistants about purchasing a “love rug” for their “suburban commune.”

And from there, the rest became history.

Number 1 // Culture Jamming and Leaving the Pants Behind, 2006-2008

Tied for first place are No Pants 2k8 and the Best Buy infiltration, two events that come from Charlie Todd and Improv Everywhere [here we look beyond the fact that, similar to skinny kids with affinities for Williamsburg and tight pants who don't like to be identified as hipsters, IE suggests that they do not deal in flash mobs]. Todd is easily one of the smartest folks out there constructively pushing the creative limits of flash-mobbing (not to mention many other sorts of compelling rabble rousing). While it is its own, unfathomable existence that makes an event like the Rickroll flash mob interesting, there isn’t anything particularly substantial about the way in which the event challenges people beyond invoking reaction based on spectacle alone. By organizing a pantless confrontation of the general public in 10 cities across the United States or culture-jamming a retail giant with 80 employee lookalikes, IE continues to keep the art of the flash mob interesting by continuously challenging onlookers to wonder if they have been confronted with an actual glitch in the Matrix.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXB_DcuMv_E[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utkkXCF8ZVc[/youtube]

-Filed in Uncategorized

Peter Deitz is a Montreal-based micro-philanthropy consultant and the creator of Social Actions. By way of aggregating social change campaigns from nearly 20 social action platforms, Social Actions purports to make it easier for an Internet user to be connected to their cause of choice.

With May fast approaching, Deitz is staring down the barrel of an extremely busy month. He will be attending Philanthropy’s Vision: A Leadership Summit, which will be put on by the Council on Foundations. There, he will be live-blogging the Next Generation Sessions, where Kiva, Donors Choose, and other “usual suspects” will discuss how technology will factor into the future of philanthropy. He will then head to Sweden, where Social Actions is a finalist for consideration in the prestigious Stockholm Challenge. Later in the month, he heads to San Jose for the NetSquared Mashup Challenge, where Social Actions is also a finalist. Finally, he will be hosting a two-day workshop about micro-philanthropy following the NetSquared Conference.

He spoke with us recently about how Social Actions came about, what it is up to now, what brought him back online after writing it off for four years, and where he sees the off and online activism intersecting now and in the near future.

Why is a site like Social Actions necessary?

I started writing about micro-philanthropy a year and a half ago. At the time there were six platforms doing this work and each had a similar mission. Then there were engaged and socially conscious platforms popping up nearly every other week. Social Actions serves as an attempt to bridge the gap between these platforms. The project attempts to free the content from the platform on which it was created in the hope that the people most likely to engage in the specific campaign will do so given the opportunity.

Right now, we’re building an open API [application programming interface] to get this done more effectively. We will be working with third party developers to get widgets out there that will sift through the campaigns and actions so that the user can find the right platform on which to take action. We want to tear down a lot of the walls that separate platforms and we want to make actionable content easier to find. Right now if you want to get involved and you go online, you wouldn’t know where to start. If you were to start by Googling an issue, you’d get flooded non-actionable content as well as a few actions from the platforms participating in Social Actions. The API would be meant to streamline that process a little better.

Did you start with the present model for the site in mind or is that something you eventually worked towards?

I can’t say that the current form of the site is what I was thinking of from the start. I kept going off on different tangents and as one gained traction, we would continue to go into that direction. It’s not the most strategic way to proceed, but we will try stuff out, move forward and backward, find what works and doesn’t and we move forward accordingly. We’re not coming at it from a business structure and we don’t have an advisory board. Sometimes we spend weeks working on something. And when I say we, I sometimes mean just myself. And if things don’t go well, I sometimes have to abandon that component.

What brought you to care so intensely about micro-philanthropy? What informs your current activism?

I have been involved in various ways with social change movements for a while now. My activism, and I don’t want to turn people off with that word…

It’s funny. On the blog, we’re trying to figure out how to not turn people off by the term. Maybe 2008 is the year for changing perceptions about it. Well, maybe not, considering all of the organization around the Olympics.

Right. The word “action” is now a very popular term. Since action is now a term that we can use more publicly, activism might also become more acceptable.

I came from a background of working with Quaker organizations. I have been involved with the Quakers for the last ten years. I am not myself a Quaker, but I went through a number of Quaker summer camps and I went back as a counselor. I then started to do some online consulting for Quaker organizations. Again, while I am not a Quaker, if you look at the underlying value structure of the Religious Society of Friends, there are a lot of similarities with the the social action communities that are emerging online.

From 1999 through 2003, I went totally offline. I abandoned my computer and grew my hair long and I essentially became a hippy. I looked at the Internet and started to think that all it was good for was the creation of commercial websites and monetizing the system.I wasn’t interested in that. What brought me back was the 2004 U.S. presidential election.

Ah. The era of the born again Internet activist.

Exactly. I wanted to get involved with the presidential election in some way, but I was based in Canada and I had no intention to go back to the United States to lobby for a particular candidate. Instead, I started Voices Without Votes, which was run with an open source content management system. It invited citizens to send letters to US voters via the site. They were encouraged to explain how US foreign policy affects their own country. It was a success and we collaborated with other sites and created a blog called The World Speaks. That whole process was a thirteen month endeavor and it got me excited about doing online activism. This year the project is sponsored by Reuters and run by Global Voices Online.

What made what you saw happening online [in 2004] compelling enough to bring you back into the fold?

I just wondered what good we were doing offline. In 2003, I was in Toronto protesting the war in Iraq. We had all of these people who were having demonstrations and we got nowhere in the process. Offline in North America, you can protest all you want but it brings nothing. And all this time, there was Howard Dean out of Vermont and he was building a viable candidacy online. He was creating a plausible challenge to the initiator of the war that we were all against. It was a fundamentally different and interesting experience. It wasn’t as much about anger as much as it was hope. When stuff happens online, reporters can’t change numbers of attendees the same way they can at rallies. Our impact is undeniable.

And when Dean lost, what were your thoughts about the overall process?

A lot of us came out of the 2004 election disillusioned. I retreated to New York and I worked as a tech consultant for a human rights organization for two years. For me, it took a year and a half to to move forward. But I got bitten with the creativity bug in 2006, and started building Social Actions..

What do you consider some of the potential limits to what can be accomplished with online action?

There are, of course, demographic issues that bring up questions about whether or not tech movements are fully inclusive, especially for those who don’t have the time to go online. We do have to be aware of that. But I don’t think we should think of action in terms of on or offline. The most exciting developments are in the intersections of the two. The tech realm and SMS capabilities are blurring the lines. There are a number of ways in which things are changing.

Where is Social Actions headed in the next year?

My main goal is to move from being a one man operation to making it into something that is financially sustainable. I would like for us to build a team of people working on the project. We just put together an open “unbusiness plan”, or whatever you want to call it. We outlined several directions, one of which focuses on Social Actions existing as a meeting place for people interested in peer to peer social change. We want to host conversations in which people are able to talk about impact, assess platforms and best practices, and discuss why we are doing what we are doing and what it all means.

We also want to work on the API, of course. The fee structure for participating platforms will favorthe most efficient platforms. Finally, I will be forming a consultants cooperative, where we would be able to pay talented folks for non-billable work. I’d like for this to work with companies and organizations who want to get involved in peer-to-peer social action s in some way, and also to put it to work for innovative grand making programs using these platforms.

The amount of time that has been spent in terms of getting things going is sort of unbelievable. I didn’t think that I would play this roll, but connecting people seems to be what I do most these days, and that is great fun. There is something to be said about doing what you do best. I spent so much time on this aggregation project — I spent 12 months trying to build it myself. I am not a programmer or designer. I was trying to build manageable site. And in the fall, I realized that this isn’t where my skills are the strongest so I started to work to establish relationships with people and to bring them together. i could focus on building the API through someone else’s experience, not my own. Now it is getting along quite well.

-Filed in Uncategorized