Adapting to a networked world.
Things we’ve learned helping institutions manage digital change since 1993.
On Thursday February 25, 2010, one of our long time clients, the UN Foundation will be featured once again on the Emmy-award winning television show, American Idol. The overall theme of the show is raising awareness and much needed funds to support the UNF's and others' efforts to help Haiti rebuild.
The last 3 months have been a whilrwind, helping the TckTckTck global climate campaign get ready for, and do some serious movement building, in Copenhagen.
After working a lot of 20 hour days during December, I'm still finding my feet again and hope to do some writing about what we learned together in what is probably the most diverse movement the world has ever seen.
It was a great honour to spend the weekend in New York with the amazing folks at 350.org, as they organized what has easily become the world's most widely distributed political action, and, for a time on Saturday, became the biggest media story in the world.
This, from one of the smallest NGO's on the planet, and probably one of the youngest - nearly everyone who works there is only a few years out of college! So how did they pull off something so massive with such a small team?
As part of our role managing the digital campaign for the TckTckTck campaign, we were right there in the centre of the aciton with them. Because I'm now too busy to write blog updates here, this is a re-print from what was sent out to my community on what happened, and how they pulled this magic off.
In late April I got another one of those phone calls that change your life. A new international organization, the Global Campaign for Climate Action, had recently formed to build a global groundswell for a strong climate deal in Copenhagen this December. They were a collaboration of International NGO's insprired by the success of the Make Poverty History campaign. Their brand was TckTckTck, and the web lied at the core of their strategy.
We put together our own collaboration of best-in-class partners, and despite a highly competitive process (which included Obama's digital team) won the gig. That's when the real fun started, and it's been flat out ever since.
Last year we had the great pleasure of helping launch what has to be one of the more ambitious new world-changing organizations today: The Elders. Brought together by Nelson Mandela and backed by the likes of Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel, The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders who offer their collective influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.
Through our Web of Change project, Communicopia produces conferences and trainings connecting established and emerging leaders in the Web and social change. We do this as a service to the community and our clients, helping build capacity and making their organizations more effective in creating long lasting social change. Our second Social Tech Training in Toronto was a huge success in June.
The following article from our newsletter summarized some of the great stories from the week.
It's one thing to talk about transparency and change in an election campaign, and quite a different task moving a beauracracy towards unchartered territory. Last year we took a turn at politics and were part of the team whohelped Gregor Robertson win the Mayor's race, and one of the most exciting pillars of his platform was the focus on supporting creative industries in Vancouver, with City Hall's new spirit of innovation, transparency, and open government.