Digital Activism

Techstrategy.org (a very good, and very new blog -- do give it a read) brought a very noteworthy article to my attention. It discusses the large shift in how people approach volunteer work. However, I think these ideas could be applied to the broad spectrum of organizations which depend upon unpaid efforts from large groups of people. Excerpted from The New Unaffiliated Volunteers

Call them serendipitous, entrepreneurial, spontaneous, unofficial, out of the box, under the radar, independent or unaffiliated. These are the new volunteers that do what they want, when and how they want to do it. They do not feel obligated to do their volunteer work through established channels...

Ejovi Nuwere proposes a new blogosphere project called American Voices. Ejovi describes the concept as thus:

The primary mission of American Voices is twofold: 1) To call attention to the most interesting conversations and perspectives emerging from citizens throughout America by linking to text, audio and video blogs and other forms of grassroots citizens media being produced by people living in America. 2) To facilitate the emergence of ethnic leaders of the digital era and provide a means of mentorship for minorities in America.

 At a time when minorities in America increasingly look towards the Internet and technology for answers now more then ever a resource that connects minority leaders in technology with aspiring youth and adults is necessary. Who are the digital voices for Philippine Americans, Mexican Americans, and African Americans in our country? What are these groups saying and who’s listening? American Voices will function as a clearing house of Bloggers and Internet visionaries that will act as pseudo voices for their respective ethnic communities. By utilizing a mix of open source blog and Wiki software it will be a community built by its community.

Today has been one incredible panel after another. The last panel, Are Political Parties Obsolete? was very inspiring. Over the past few months, I've been unable to think of any realisitic ways to take the Progressive Blog Alliance to the next level. I've been talking with several people in the back channels; unfortunatly, the ideas discussed stalled, generally for two reasons:

1. Executing the idea would require us to dramatically increase the PBA leadership's level of control over the members.

2. The idea assumed that our 200+ bloggers would actually do what we told them to.

Now, there are a few Jacobians in the alliance who might disagree with my insistance on keeping the PBA as non-hierarchial as possible. I'm open to debate on that, however, I strongly feel that we should not respond to our growth by creating stronger power structures. Rather, I think we need to change the focus of our organization, and begin to expand upon our current function as a blogroll and a decentralized news/opinion collective. The PBA has always been about empowerment, community, and mutual benifit. Though we've made mistakes, deep down we've always strived to create an oasis of intelligence and humanity, in this bizarre and vulgar world we call the internet. Its time we take our legacy a step further. So here is what I propose:

John Emerson at Social Design Notes has put together an introductory guide to the techniques and tools of internet activism. [link]

(Link found by Harry)

Sorry I haven't been updating my blog this weekend. I've been busy redesigning Blogger Corps, and Center for Online Investigative Research.

Aldon Hynes has brough to my attention a rather amazing challenge by Michele Agnew . Michele has come up with a very creative way of donating money to the Tsunami victims. Here's how it works: