Advancing the medium of change
13,700,000,000 years ago
4,450,000,000 years ago
130,000 years ago
7,300 years ago - Agriculture
150 years ago - Industrial Revolution
We were powerful.
1945 - Hiroshima
We were dangerous.
1989 - Exxon Valdez Spill
1994 - Rwanda
2000 - Aral Sea dies
We thought we were in control.
2001 - 911
2006 - Climate Change
2008 - Global markets collapse
We were wrong.
“A flaw in the model...
...that defines how the world works.”
We’re making our planet inhospitable.
We’re killing each other.
We’re killing ourselves.
We’re screwed.
But, there’s hope.
1946 - First Computer
1969 - Internet Launched
1973 - Phones go ‘mobile’
1991 - Web Launched
1998
1999
2002 - Smartphone
2003
2004
2004
2005
2006
2007 - Wins “Best of Web” at SXSW
2007
2008
4 billion people connected together
through a new medium
a medium that’s...
open
mobile
social
personal
public
spontaneous
engaging
practical
A medium of change.
the medium of change
Data Interaction DevicesInfrastructure
an emerging system of social technologies that bring people together
more people ➜ making more change ➜ for a better future ➜ sooner
it’s changing us
Culture and
Mindset
Systemsof our
Society
People Coming Together
Medium of
Changedisrupts changes
enables
•Now over 1.5 billion internet users + 4 billion mobile subscribers•45% of people in developing world are mobile subscribers•By 2020 mobile will be primary internet device•If Facebook were a country it would be the 4th largest in the world.
From news to politics the medium is having profound implications. In the aftermath of the Iran elections in 2009, the US State Department treated Twitter as an essential public service, asking
them to delay scheduled maintenance. Shortly after Time declared it the medium of the movement.
•Governor Schwarzenegger responded to individual ‘tweets’, publicly, spontaneously, from his BlackBerry•In the last 2 months more original content was posted on YouTube than the major networks could have broadcast since ’48.•Ambient intimacy?•Common ground?
it’s changing changeEngagementfrom centralized to distributed
Actionfrom controlled to self-organized
Awarenessfrom structured to emergent
Obamamy.barackobama.com enabled 2m participants which led to:•35,000 volunteer groups•70,000 fundraising pages•$500m raised from 3m donors making 6.5m donations•200,000 offline events•2b emails•3m phone calls online in last 4 days
Haiti Reliefenabled through sms and common web services:•Wikipedia page created within seconds •Facebook served as information source around missing people•RedCross SMS campaign raised $7m within 24h•Virtually every online service became donation gateway.
charity: waterenabling practical and creative fundraising and providing direct connection to projects on the ground:•give up a birthday gift, jump out of a plane - fundraising made easy•through Twestival 1,000 volunteers and 10,000 donors raised $250k through 202 events globally on Feb 12, 2009
#hohotospontaneous peer-produced event in support of Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank•18d from idea to event•no single leader•>dozen primary volunteers•sold out 600+ attendance•>$25k raised•over 2t food donated
Ushahidi“The Ushahidi Engine is a platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline. Our goal is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response.”
TwitterThrough Twitter, people become aware of disasters and events before the mainstream media or conventional channels can report it. For example, Twitter is able to identify earthquake activity before any other public source. People are the very sensors of change.
For a better future,
sooner.
let’s get on with it
We call the emerging ecosystem of social technologies “the medium of change”. We believe it is changing us and changing change in ways that will ease and accelerate our transition to the future we want.
We facilitate initiatives among researchers, developers , and changemakers to advance and apply the medium for a better future, sooner. We are ChangeMedium.
Get in touch, to host or take part in our next initiative.
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