digitally numb

Crowdsourcing change

We’re living in interesting times, where media and communications technologies, driven by the Internet, smartphones and social media are bringing about monumental transformations in our lives. Computing power and web-based services continue to grow at a pace that’s practically impossible to keep up with. In the midst of all this innovation (and hype), its great to see platforms and services emerge that are using some of the most talked about technologies to explicitly instrument some good.

Ushahidi (which means “testimony” in Swahili) is one such open-source platform that brings together the power of mobile technology, location-based social media and mapping to crowdsource citizen reporting and response. Ushahidi was built in 2007 with the intention of serving as a website that could collate eyewitness reports during the aftermath of the disputed elections in Kenya. The platform received reports about violence, riots and deaths via e-mail, SMS and Twitter and visualized the data on a map, using the location provided by individuals. The information gathered proved to be timely and incredibly useful to the organizations engaged in crisis response.

Since the Kenyan elections, this innovative platform has been deployed in a number of instances (across the globe), ranging from mapping violence in Eastern Congo, aiding in disaster response and relief efforts associated with the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, to helping with the Snowmageddon clean up effort in D.C.

The technology is now being used to track the aftermath of the Oil Spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. An environmental group called the Louisiana Bucket Brigade is using the Ushahidi’s platform to collect user-generated reports on odors in the air, sightings of oil-covered birds that are impacted, damage to property and pleas from fisherman who are losing their livelihood. This real-time reporting is helping aid organizations offer timely assistance to areas that need it the most and is helping paint a grim, yet important long-term picture of the environmental and economic impact of this crisis.

Ushahidi isn’t the only recent example of Crowdsourcing using the Internet being used to actually bring about change in the real world. San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom recently announced the city’s tree census project called the Urban Forest Map. It’s a crowdsourcing effort to help cities identify how many and what types of trees they have. As the website explains, this information will then help urban foresters and city planners to better manage trees in specific areas, track and combat tree pests and diseases, and plan future tree plantings.

Crowdrise is another interesting new celebrity-backed platform that’s using aspects of crowd-sourcing and social networking to allow people to build personalized online fundraising campaigns, using interactive features, points and rewards. The idea seems to be to encourage people to do something meaningful, but stay engaged and have some fun while their at it.

Or consider Every Day One Thing, a brand new Seattle-based startup that uses basic game mechanics to encourage its users to do good. You can “check-in” good deeds and earn points for things like volunteering, gardening, recycling, buying green, etc.

These are just some of the examples I came across. Let’s hope its a sign of a growing trend towards harnessing the power of new technology to not only engage and distract, but also encourage us to participate and act. As Anne Frank famously put it, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world”. These words ring even truer in the digital age.

Related Post: Social Media for Social Good

Social media for social good

My fundamental gripe with a lot of social media buzz these days is that most of the services that are all the rage are nothing more than entertainment and marketing channels. Here’s the basic trend — they all start out simple and stupid, but eventually the popular ones grow into real businesses and start monetizing the rich conversations and user profiles for advertising purposes. The users continue to get entertained and distracted by creating, sharing, commenting, liking, re-tweeting, checking-in, etc. for free and the services attract more ad dollars by waving the carrot of targeted ads. Assuming consumers understand the value exchange (and have adequate control), it’s usually a win-win situation and everyone goes home happy. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. I understand the tremendous economic value, but what about the social value of social media?

Some will argue that most social media platforms are like any other technology or service that can be used for purposes ranging from good, bad to absolutely pointless. Further, there are several real examples of good emerging from all this web 2.0 communication between individuals. Social media is having a positive impact on philanthropy and the nonprofit world and has also proved to be a crucial communication tool in times of political unrest and for disaster management. Further, social media obviously helps broaden our social circles and helps us strengthen existing relationships and establish new ones. I wholeheartedly agree that this could all be good for us in the long run.

So what am I complaining about? I’m not complaining actually, but trying to point out that all this good is really a side benefit of these services and not the core reason why people check their Facebook page every five minutes and tweet several times a day. It’s unfortunately pretty obvious that a lot of time spent using such services tends to be fairly pointless and driven largely by the need to be distracted and entertained. Again, that’s perfectly fine in terms of one’s selfish pursuit of happiness. Moreover, everyone else is doing it. But what if you could actually choose a better alternative a few times a day? What if you could actually be distracted (even entertained) by social media and do some good in the world while you’re at it? What if you could harness your free time to make a difference, instead of staring at your iPhone and desperately searching for something witty to say in 140 characters?

Luckily, you don’t have to wonder anymore. Here’s a great article that talks about the following 5 social apps that can save the world!