How the internet can facilitate social change directly | Charles Leadbeater | The Observer

Author and social entrepreneur Charles Leadbeater says that new technology can give ordinary people the means to tackle social problems in direct, innovative ways charles-leadbeater-activisim-internet Charles Leadbeater, online evangelist, at home in London. Photograph: Sonja Horsman for the Observer Charles Leadbeater is an online evangelist. The former Financial Times journalist has moved away from politics into a world of social entrepreneurs, amateur activists and grassroots campaigners who are exploiting digital technologies to develop solutions to problems that lie outside the interests of commercial and state institutions. He believes that online tools can be used to organise and galvanise. He produced a call-to-arms in We-think: The Power of Mass Creativity (Profile), a book that documents the rise of amateur activism in a time of information revolution. His research with digital activists who work with people in some of the world's most impoverished places shows how the web can galvanise support from around the globe – using new applications, devices and social networks – and what needs to be in place for this to happen.

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The Contrast and Tension In Quality Between Online Aggregation and Original Content Explored - John Blossom

Quality is as quality does"may not be a saying that came out of Forrest Gump's mouth but it's a simple formula that seems to be proving itself on the Web as traditional sources of quality content lose audience share to search engines and social media sites. At the same time, though, the ever-increasing popularity of social media sites does not always seem to be balanced by mature quality control. But don't mistake immature techniques with inadequate potential: the techniques used to generate social media are carving out a new path to content quality that's here to stay. Professional publishers find themselves oftentimes railing against the Web as a devil's den of half-baked information and hailing the quality of their content. And, as underscored by ongoing issues with Wikipedia content quality and conflicts of interest, there are some real concerns out there in the world of user-generated content.

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90+ Essential Social Media Resources, the Best List of Social Media Tools Yet!! - Mashable

Now you’ve gone and done it. You’ve come across a list so enormous, so useful, and so awesome, our futile attempts to describe it have been lost in the tubes of cyberspace. We’ll just say this: No matter what you’re into — Twitter (Twitter), Facebook (Facebook), Mobile Apps, Business Development, or good-old-fashioned YouTube (YouTube) hilarity — you will find it below. So put down your barbeque, send out another huge thanks to our men and women in uniform, and limber up your scrolling finger — it’s a big one. If you dig the uber-list, be sure to send some comments our way down below!

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Creating Collaboration Takes More Than Technology - BRW - Evan Rosen

Wikis, Web conferencing, and the like won't help people work together if the corporate culture is internally competitive and hierarchical, Why should any organization adopt collaboration? There's only one reason—value creation. After all, if we're not creating value, what's the point? With a growing consciousness for collaboration, many companies are investing in collaboration tools and technologies. These range from enterprise instant messaging and unified communications, wikis, and enterprise social media to virtual worlds, Web conferencing, and telepresence. In a typical scenario, the months fly by after the collaboration tools are implemented. As the seasons change, decision-makers anticipate reaping the benefits of collaboration. And perhaps they can even point to successes within particular business units or functions. Often, though, it's the same old story.

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Social Media and Its Dishonesty - Michael Schrage - Harvard Business Review

Would I lie to you? Read on.... Probably not, but forgive me for preserving the option. Would you conceal a damaging truth from your boss? I wouldn't presume to guess. But one person's "discretion" is another person's "dishonest." It's getting harder to determine where one ends and the other begins. That's why the virtues of transparency have been wildly oversold by digital utopians. The (social) networks to organizational hell are wired with good intentions. The let's-hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya arguments that "the more information we share the better off we are" are demonstrably rubbish. All too often, far greater transparency guarantees far greater conflicts. In fact, legitimate tensions between professional privacy and personal visibility are unavoidable. Confusing transparency with integrity and honesty is a recipe for disaster.

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