Purpose believes that solutions to crises of the 21^st century require global policy shifts and tremendous consumer change. By mobilizing movements of people, online and off, Purpose is helping the green and social economy, as well as major brands, impact global problems.

The creators of Purpose, Jeremy Heimans and David Madden, have already experienced success in the ‘movement entrepreneurship’ world, founding the global movement Avaaz.org and the Australian political movement GetUp.org.

Avaaz, which means voice in many languages, was launched in 2007 with a mission to organize international citizens to take action on critical global issues. Whether the battle is against corruption, poverty, conflict or climate change, Avaaz’s internet model allows thousands of individuals to be forged into a collective and powerful force. Campaigning in 14 languages, with core teams on 4 continents and thousands of volunteers, Avaaz sets out to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people inform policy decisions. Currently Avvaz.org has over 5.5 million members.

Based in Australia, GetUp.org is an independent, community advocacy organization that facilitates Australians to get involved in key political issues and take strategic, coordinated action. With international recognition and praise, GetUp has more members than all of Australia’s political parties put together.

Purpose, based in New York, is creating “21st century movements”. Working with some of the leading players of the green and social economy, Purpose is helping movements to scale and mobilize around progressive causes.

An example of such a movement is ‘Global Zero: A World Without Nuclear Weapons’. Led by Queen Noor, Richard Branson, over 100 world leaders, and endorsed by President Obama, Global Zero’s goal is to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide. Working with Purpose, Global Zero is pushing the issue of nuclear disarmament to the top of international agendas.

I spoke with James Slezak, who leads Purpose’s work on the sustainable economy. James is motivated by the belief that for the green movement to be successful major sectors of the economy must be rebuilt:

“In the green space the goal is to shift the ways we do things, the economy. This means making less, as well as changing what we make. What is also crucial is shifting demand away from unsustainable products to sustainable ones.”

James’ key projects include building a global movement to support the deployment of electric vehicles, as well as renewable power.

James and his team launched helloelectric.org, a strategic movement to get electric cars on roads faster. This movement demonstrates to society at large that viable alternatives to fossil fuel cars are now available, and also channels enthusiasm for the necessary transition. James is concerned that if electric cars are not trusted from their initial launch they will fail, and there will be no other realistic way for countries like America to lose their oil addiction.

Purpose is dedicated to creating a consumer movement to lay the groundwork for the transition to electric cars. The initial goal is to give populations the opportunity to demonstrate their need for electric cars, so that car companies can target sales in these communities, and increase confidence of investors in the technology.

To achieve this, Purpose is having conversations with government municipalities, electric car industry groups, and working closely with Project Get Ready.  Project Get Ready, a non-profit initiative of the Rocky Mountain Institute, is working with numerous partners and technical advisers to help cities develop plug-in vehicle infrastructure and introduce electric cars.

Purpose is also talking to car rental companies and taxi services looking to transfer some of their fleet to electric cars.

This dynamic dialogue of governments, private companies, and non-profits is geared towards sharing ideas and best practices to help cities make the transition to electric cars:

“The benefit of having so many people and like minded groups working together is that you can cross pollinate ideas, to see what works and what doesn’t. Having so much experience is one place also enables you to create benchmarks.”

James explained that to combat the major environmental and economic problems the world currently faces we must rebuild the energy sector and eradicate carbon emitting power sources. Turning the roads of the world electric will be a key strategy to achieving this, and Purpose will continue to drive this movement.

As international citizens looking for a brighter future, let’s help them get the pedal to the metal.

Chris Hughes, one of the original Facebook founders, has just launched his much-buzzed about new startup, Jumo, which connects people and organizations dedicated to changing the world.

Inspired by the enormous online response to the Haiti earthquake last January, Hughes developed Jumo in order to get people involved with their causes of choice year-round—not just when disaster strikes.

He told the New York Times, “The more connected [an] individual is to an issue they care about, the higher probability there is they will stay involved over a longer period of time.”

And that’s a good thing, since Jumo aims to do for charities what Yelp—the famous online urban living guide developed by communities of locals in-the-know—did for restaurants.

But he has his work cut out for him. In 2009, only 6% of the $300 billion that was donated to charities and nonprofits was submitted online. Still, Hughes believes he can increase this percentage.

Currently, almost anyone with a social mission can create a page on Jumo, and some suggest the site could become a simple way for smaller charities to establish a social media presence. With more than 3,000 organizations already listed, Jumo is designed to let users find, follow and support the causes important to them. Though sign-up requires a Facebook account, users can then find their friends and follow their adopted causes too.

Hughes insists Jumo is not intended to compete with the Facebook Causes application, which currently has more than 17 million active users. He says that by focusing on relationships instead of soliciting donations, Jumo hopes to distinguish itself from Facebook Causes and the ever-popular Global Giving site, which also encourages online giving.

Experts believe that since fundraising and volunteer recruitment is primarily about relationships, Jumo may actually become a more effective tool for nonprofits. Though it’s hard to tell whether following a charity will translate into donating for that charity—or even spending time volunteering—this site could at least jump-start the trend.

And that’s a crucial first step.

Especially Google’s Street View has attracted criticism and caused headlines such as “Google’s also Watching when You’re Skinny Dipping” and “Google Knows More about Us than the KGB, Stasi or Gestapo.”

But what is it about Europe’s biggest economy that makes it particularly skeptical about online privacy?

“In Germany, the individual right for privacy has always been valued greatly because of the experiences with the Third Reich and the former DDR,” explains Christoph Schepers who is external lecturer in German culture and communications at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark.

According to Schepers, the political system in Germany is largely structured to secure the rights of the citizens, “If citizens believe that their civil rights are being violated they can easily complain to the constitutional court,” he says.

“Likewise, if citizens’ privacy appears threatened, NGOs or the political opposition will likely take the matter to court,” he says.

Although Google agreed to blur faces, house numbers and license plates before taking pictures, Street View is largely considered an invasion of privacy, as many Germans oppose having their homes photographed without permission.

After accusations of being too passive the German government is now pushing for a higher level of data protection, which could mean stricter rules for collection of user data and forcing companies to delete individual information upon request from citizens.

However, critics question whether the proposal is going far enough. The question remains just how far “enough” is and how the government will meet the demands of citizens while avoiding a reputation of limiting online businesses.

SeeClickFix, launched in beta in March 2008, is an application for iPhone, Blackberry and Android that allows citizens to report issues happening in the public streets to the City Hall, working like a collaborative 311.

The user takes a picture and gives a brief description of what needs to be fixed or tackled. It could be a pothole, a graffiti, a broken streetlamp… The application recognizes the geographic point where the picture has been taken and sends the Authorities the specific address, together with the picture and user description.

In the website, there is a map where the new reports pop-up as they are sent by citizens. This is useful to see the nearby reports to one´s neighborhood, and then to send the own report tackling those same problems, applying pressure by coming all together, to get the problem fixed.

This application is transforming the relationship between urban authorities and citizens. There is a new dialogue that starts, a constructive channel of public feedback. SeeClickFix fosters social commitment, empowering citizens in front of the Government. The application operates in thousand of American communities, including some big cities such as Washington D.C., New York and San Francisco. Local Governments fostering “Gov 2.0″ (also called “e-government”) are employing social media and mobile technologies, such as SeeClickFix, to build a more responsive, collaborative, and effective government to respond to a more engaged society with a richer civic commitment.

I was so surprised to read that the Obama administration (and Obama himself !) called Wikileaks a criminal organization. Logically speaking, if Wikileaks is a criminal organization, then the New York Times, El Pais, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and The Guardian are too (they have been working with criminals) and should be blamed for complicity. Is this relevant or just ludicrous ? The problem here is not WikiLeaks, it is about the “politics of naming” that should force those who lead those policies to be consistent from the beginning to the end. Amateurism…

I was surprised to hear that the US State Department has required all its staff and employees not to read the disclosed documents. Not only does this information sound like a revival of old forms of conscience censorship, but it is also so ridiculous given that the State Department still call those documents “confidential” and “Top Secret”.

I was surprised by French Minister of Telecommunications Eric Besson saying this week-end that he wants to take action to try and block Wikileaks from being hosted by French Server/Host Owni on the Internet. The Internet is so liquid and volatile that any attempt to block a website’s content from being hosted by another website could only be  a waste of time: if Besson succeeds, no wonder then that Wikileaks would always manage to  be hosted by another guy.

Why are our officials so incompetently appointed? The problem here is not WikiLeaks but the lack of though and judgment of some people applying “real life” measures to what should be once and for all understood as a complex new digital age.

I was very surprised to receive an e-mail email from OSA (Office of Students Affairs) sent to SIPA’s entire body warning students not to discuss the wikileaks fiasco in any online forum, lest students interested in pursuing careers within the State Department would put their future in jeopardy. This directive seems odd considering that last year, the head of the State Department’s new e-Diplomacy was talking at SIPA. It was about need-to-share and transparency policies…

My only consolation last week came from T.Friedman’s new Op-Ed in the New York Times. The author wrote a fiction piece called « From Wiki China » where he imagines : « What if China had a WikiLeaker and we could see what its embassy in Washington was reporting about America? ».

A Must Read. Enjoy !

Founded on August 24^th, 2009, M.A.L.I[i] is a group of thirteen Moroccan citizens who present themselves as staunch advocates of individual and civil liberties aiming at fostering the debate on Individual liberties and civil rights in Morocco.

“We all love our country and that’s why we want it to improve in the field of individual liberties”, explains M.A.L.I Co-Founder Betty Lachgar.

The ambitions of M.A.L.Is go beyond words. In fact, M.A.L.I members are rather seeking to organize coup-de-poing happenings to destabilize the country’s most sacred conservatisms and then start the debate.

“ In this respect, we have decided to start a struggle against intolerance, power abuse, socio-religious inquisition and abusive laws” adds Psychoterapist Betty Lachgar.

And that is exactly what they did.

Aware that Islam is the most volcanic taboo in Morocco’s society, M.A.L.Is did not choose provocation deliberately.  What they were bent on doing was to act as the mirror of “the provocative contradictions of Morocco’s social, religious and institutional fabric.”

“We wanted to perform a symbolic act to point out the very contradictions of Morocco’s institutional backdrop. In fact, while Morocco’s constitution guarantees freedom of Worship, article 222 of Morocco’s criminal code still condemns anybody presumably of Muslim belief to a six-month sentence to jail” argues Co-Founder Zineb El Rhazoui, 27.

The Butterfly Effect

At first glance, M.A.L.I appears as one of the million movements locally struggling for the advancement and improvement of individual liberties. So far, so good. Nothing new under the sun.

However, absent social networks, what happened in Morocco on September 13^th, 2009 could have gone totally unnoticed. And that’s what makes M.A.L.I so revolutionary.

The idea is quite simple to understand. Aware that their low weight and high powerlessness as a 13-member group is a disheartening liability, M.A.L.Is have mostly relied on Facebook as a stepping stone to spread over their ideas.

How Could a 13-people picnic in the small city of Mohammedia, Morocco set off a tornado in the highest ranks of Morocco’s authorities, hit the headlines of  Le Monde and El Mundo, and arouse the ire of Human Rights Watch?

At The Beginning Was Facebook.

The conception, description and pubilicity of the un-fasting happening all started on M.A.L.I’s Facebook page.

What first started as a mild and cordial discussion about religion and society evolved to a more and more tensed, aggressive and sometimes violent exchange between those who supported the initiative and those who condemned it with the utmost vehemence.

Choosing to compare the insignificance of the incident itself with the huge consequences it had and still has as the yardstick by which the success of the operation should be assessed, one would doubtlessly call it a success. Let’s have a look.

The Media

On the local level, the story hit the headlines of all daily and weekly news magazines such as Tel Quel: “They Did It!”

On the international level, Spanish Newspaper EL Mundo’s headline best encapsulated the discrepancy between the incident and its irrational consequences: “In Morocco, 100 Policemen against 10 Sandwiches”.

NGOs

“We should not, in the name of our Muslim heritage, accept that people be condemned only because they express a different opinion” argues Khadija Rouissi, President of Bayt Al Hikma, one of the local NGOs which supported M.A.L.I’s intiative.

“They started the debate, and that’s very positive” adds AMDH President Khadija Ryadi.

On the international level, on September 19^th, Human Rights Watch called on the Moroccan authorities to cancel any charge against M.A.L.I members. A camouflet for a country that has always been boasting about being one of the most advanced democratic Muslim country in the world.

The Internet: Facebook as a facade and forums as ramifications

Facebook has been essential for M.A.L.I.  They were three important phases.

First, the creation of a Facebook group of 13 admins, a couple of clicks, some pictures, a description of the group, and the weapon was ready.

The second phase was impulsed by the creation of an event, the “symbolic picnic”, which made the group grow from 13 people to 200 ones, a sufficient critical mass to spark a small buzz prior to the event.

The third phase is still going on and it is about how the Facebook page beneficiated from the incident post-euphoria. The two groups now have more than 2,500 members. Though this number is incomparable to what we generally witness with NGOs in Western countries, it is still a lot for a country where Internet accessibility, literacy and fear of retaliation are still serious issues.

As for forums[ii], they have been playing a satellite and shelter role. Among them, Bladi has been the most active one.

Recently, In July 2010, the famous American blog Freethought devoted a 2,000-word piece on the story and its consequences.

Speaking in absolute terms, the fact that 13 people stubbornly decided to eat publicly during Ramadan 2009 in Morocco should have remained an insignificant and marginal incident. Yet, owing to the very special modus operandi chosen by the “dissident” movement to make their act go viral and start an unprecedented media buzz going beyong the borders of Morocco, what happened that day should be given the utmost attention and be construed as a major and fundamental change in the way religion and society dynamics are and will be apprehended in Morocco.

Now the Pandora box is open and there’s nothing to do to reverse the tide.

[ii] Forums perfectly illustrate Professors Keck and Sikkink’ arguments (Activist Beyond Borders, 1998)about the power of transnational networks metaphorized by the « boomerang effect »: the idea that a local group can « send » a boomerang (ask for help through the internet for example) to a group acting abroad and have the later inform and put pressure on its own local environment which, the authors believe, will in turn help the foreign group that asked for help in the first place (they « send back » the boomerang).

What is the danger of a single story?

Chimamanda Adichie explains it well. When she started to write, Adichie explains that, though she was living in Nigeria, a country that she had never left at that time- all her characters were blonde and blue-eyed people who would eat apples, drink ginger beer and always talk about the weather. While Nigerians would rather eat mangoes than apples, drink water than Ginger Beer and never be amazed at the sun coming out, Adichie explains that she couldn’t imagine writing about anything else that the very context which composed all the literature that made her want to be a writer. And that literature was purely white-dominated.

Now, Can we extrapolate Chimamanda Adichie’s idea to new digital social networks ?

I believe so. Let’s take the example of Facebook. Is facebook dangerously promoting a “single story”?

When one signs up for a new account, one is requested to fill some elementary boxes which-it is assumed- is the best way to introduce oneself to the world: first name, last name, pictures, friends, hobbies, interests, education, marital status, religious beliefs etc.

It is true that you can choose not to show all of this information, but what is very intriguing is to notice that there is no other way to introduce yourself to the rest of the world. Therefore, it can be argued that people who are not used to this way of presenting themselves are discriminated against.

Ask children in rural Kenya working with their parents in community fields what their hobbies are, I’m not sure you’d get answers such as “photo”, “horse-riding”,”bird watching”.

Ask people from Atlas mountains in Morocco to talk about their education or say a few words about the marital status. What answers would you get, if you ever get them, let alone in English?

In many cultures, it is obscene, taboo or at least unusual to ask these kind of things.

Therefore, it seems that new digitals social platforms are mostly targeting urban people from urban megalopolises while claiming their goals is to reach out to everybody throughout the world.

While they say they want to narrow the world’s digital divide by providing a one-size-fits-all platform allowing anyone, on equal footage, to enjoy equality of numeric opportunities, it seems that those platforms are rather widening the gap between those living in the world’s most important urban centers who can now better interact socially through the use of such platforms and those who just still cannot.

The page is good news for fans wishing to follow the royal family without having to open a new tab. However, those looking forward to becoming online friends with her majesty will be greatly disappointed.

Although Facebook is a tool for online interaction, the royal family doesn’t seem to have any intentions of interacting. Posts on the site are limited to official photos and press releases and since the page is a fan site and not a personal profile, actions such as poking and sending messages are not possible.

Further, negative comments about the royal family are removed.

According to Buckingham Palace, the move is part of an “ongoing strategy to adopt social networking as a way of engaging people with what the Royal Family is doing.”

Nevertheless, it’s hard to see how a fan page qualifies as “adopting social networking.” Rather it seems that the monarchy is using Facebook to broadcast messages, a purpose for which YouTube and the official royal family Web site are already being used.

The British royal family is not the first to try to circumvent the principles of openness and dialogue in social media. The Danish royal house found itself in a domestic outrage last year when a YouTube video of Crown Prince Frederik, advocating the Raise Your Voice climate campaign, had the comment function disabled.

Although the video was made by the Danish Foreign Ministry and not the royal house, the case exemplifies that social media – with its ideal of symmetrical two-way communication – isn’t necessarily a place for royals.

Photo by Prachatai

The project was launched in February and gives away $ 1,3 million every month. Applications are submitted online and the American public can then vote for the ideas they find most worthy of a grant.

But should a private company whose mission it is to generate a profit for its stakeholders take on the role of making the world a better place? And is an online voting process the right way to go about it?

According to Pepsi it is.

“The Pepsi Refresh Project is built on the belief that great ideas can come from anyone, anytime, anywhere, and we are serving as the platform to help them make change,” says Adrienne Caruso, a Pepsi spokesperson.

“The public benefits from this because they have the opportunity to submit their ideas and voting for the ones that should be funded.”

CSR Beyond Profit?

But with several scholars arguing that corporate social responsibility should fall within the business scope of the company to be effective from a marketing perspective, how does Pepsi make soft drink production cohere with building lockers for the homeless and supporting public art projects?

“The Refresh Project transcends corporate philanthropy or cause marketing, because it’s truly focused on the power and ideas of individuals to make a positive difference with Pepsi’s support,” Caruso notes.

“The project is consistent with PepsiCo’s ‘Performance with Purpose’ platform, our commitment to sustainable growth and giving back to communities worldwide,” she says.

Letting the Public Decide

With the new initiative Pepsi has not only added to its portfolio of social responsibility, the company is also adopting a democratic decision-making process by letting the American public decide, which causes get rewarded.

Although Pepsi doesn’t describe the project as a marketing initiative, according to Rachel Sterne, who is professor in digital media at Columbia Business School and CEO of the citizen journalist site Ground Report, the project is nonetheless beneficial to the Pepsi brand:

“It’s a great marketing concept for Pepsi, and the voting enables them to turn grant applicants into marketers for Pepsi – asking friends and colleagues to register and vote.  It creates the feeling of authenticity and community,” she says.

According to Pepsi this move has enabled the company to follow the changing needs of their customers. “We’ve seen a shift towards active participation in this country, and through the Pepsi Refresh Project we want to provide people with the tools to do just that,” Caruso says.

She further notes: “It’s always been a part of Pepsi’s DNA to be at the center of great cultural changes.”

The Pitfalls

The project has been met with some criticism. For instance, the open voting process has been criticized for giving an unfair advantage to those better able to mobilize votes as this was argued to hurt the chances of people representing minorities.

“These systems are not perfect, and can be gamed.  But theoretically everyone has an equal ability to game,” Sterne says, “Pepsi Refresh is not Facebook or Twitter – it’s not a destination site.  So the only people there are overwhelmingly likely to have been persuading by friends to visit and vote. This is part of the objective of the project.”

Awarding grants within several different categories – including those that don’t necessarily relate the company’s business activities – also serves to prevent benefitting particular of applicants.

According to Pepsi every application is evaluated to make sure it lives up to the guidelines, which include not supporting ideas with political or religious agendas. Further, Pepsi has hired a third party technology firm to ensure that the voting progresses in a fair manner.

Asked to respond to the criticism of the open voting system, Caruso says: “We believe that the true power of this program is the democratic process and nature of submitting ideas, campaigning and voting for projects that Americans believe will truly move the world forward.”

Whether for or against the CSR, it is safe to say that Pepsi is making an effort to refresh America while bringing CSR into the digital sphere. In 2011, Pepsi has announced, the company will expand the project to also include Europe, Asia and Latin America. The question, then, remains whether Pepsi can “refresh the world” and overcome the digital media illiteracy of some of these countries.

Web Director Kate Sands Adams considers the IRC online strategies surrounding the earthquake in Haiti last winter to be among its biggest successes.  The IRC was able to raise an extraordinary amount of money in a short time as well as contribute to increased media coverage of the disaster.

Furthermore, the IRC raised $10,000 on the Facebook Causes application.  This is especially impressive because, according to the Washington Post, fewer than 50 of the approximately 179,000 groups using Causes have been able to raise this amount. The organization also has frequent smaller scale success like when New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof retweeted an IRC tweet, which exponentially expanded the tweet’s reach.

Do not be fooled into thinking these successes are due to luck or public concern during disasters alone.  The IRC’s successful fundraising and advocacy are the result of strategic planning and careful analysis of past online trends.

According to Adams, the organization used to keep a relatively low profile in all aspects of its work.  However, in 2006, the IRC underwent a major rebranding campaign to raise its visibility.  Adams says that external communications have been ramping up ever since and the web has become especially important as a marketing tool to reach new audiences.  Although the IRC has a solid core of long-term supporters, the organization knows the importance of reaching new people.

Ruth Fertig, Online Community Builder at the IRC, adds that cultivating new audiences is a primary goal of the social media strategy as well.  The IRC hopes to turn people who follow the organization on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube into activists, donors, volunteers and sometimes even employees.

Another important goal is to raise unrestricted funds, which the organization can allocate wherever they are most needed.  According to Adams, this type of funding is crucial for sustaining the IRC’s ongoing work as well as responding quickly and effectively during emergencies.

In order to achieve its goals, the IRC has made a priority of tracking its successes. In evaluating advocacy campaigns, the IRC looks at how different types of content drive users to sign petitions or write to leaders.  In terms of fundraising, the IRC monitors criteria like the number of individual online donors, donation amounts and repeat donations.  On the social media platforms, a successful post or tweet is one that many users share or one that sparks conversation via comments or wall posts on Facebook.  Here, a challenge is to pinpoint exactly what it is about a particular post or tweet that makes it go viral.

As a result of tracking trends, Adams, Fertig and the other members of the web team at the IRC have amassed a collection of best practices for engaging potential activists and donors.  Fertig emphasized that forming best practices is key.  It saves her time and allows her to do her job better

Adams has found an important practice is to react quickly to website analytics data. During their efforts surrounding the earthquake in Haiti, the IRC found that it was extremely effective to rapidly post new content, photos and video from the ground.  It allowed them to communicate the urgency of the situation and inspire people to help.

The IRC has found that maximizing use of multimedia in general is very effective.  Analysis of IRC website traffic shows that most people tend to click on pictures and video and will stay on a page longer if it utilizes multimedia.

Another lesson is to listen to users and let their needs drive content.  Fertig describes social media platforms as “places for a two way conversation.”  As the IRC’s Online Community Builder, she spends a large portion of her time listening to and monitoring what the IRC’s online community is saying in addition to putting out their own content. She adds that asking questions on social media platforms is a great way to engage people and spark conversations.

Fertig also reaches out to bloggers and generally encourages others to be the IRC’s “megaphone.”  She has found that messages are more effective in the community if “they take the cause upon themselves.”  In response to the many requests for support they receive from individuals hoping to hold awareness or fundraising events, the IRC recently launched iRESCUE.  This “Do-It-Yourself Fundraising” site gives people the resources they need to spread the word to family and friends.

Similarly, through its research, the IRC has found that people are moved by individual stories as well as what is happening on the ground.  The IRC’s Blog, Voices from the Field, was created to give the IRC’s field staff a place to write about their experiences and share their pictures and videos.  Adams says that it is the place where her colleagues in the field “take center stage.”

However, because staff in the field are busy with a variety of lifesaving tasks, they have less capacity to contribute content, photos or video to the blog.  To address the challenge, the team now has four information officers around the world who work closely with field staff and the external communications team to share that important perspective from the ground.

In addition to listening to their audience, Adams finds it important for the IRC to “talk to them in a language they understand.”  Although most of the IRC online community is well informed about a variety of issues, web content producers must use everyday vocabulary and refrain from being overly technical.

The IRC’s web strategy can set an example for other international nonprofits seeking to enter the Web 2.0 world.  Learning from best practices and listening to target audiences can help a small team reach big goals.