This post/comment may sound ranty. You’ve been warned

Joe Solomon (@engagejoe) is one of the very few “social media for social change” people I trust the most. Joe and I may butt heads on our approaches to how we focus our work in harnessing the power of social media to effect change, but we certainly agree on one thing: there’s a lot of promise for the social networking tools in effecting positive social change.

This is my response to Joe’s questions on his NetSquared post:

* Are you jaded about social media for change? How come; what happened? How does this affect your work?
* How can we address this and move from being unmotived to being on a more even (if not excited) keel?
* What are your reactions to some of the questions, feelings, suggestions folks shared above?

My responses below:

Thanks for this post, Joe, and for everyone who chimed in beforehand. As I said, I’m better at reacting at things (this comes from my academic training – I’m an analyst of issues and problems, and then I propose solutions). I can only speak from my two organizational experiences (VanChangeCamp very marginally, as I am no longer really involved and MentalHealthCamp).

Early on, Isabella Mori and I decided that we would be the only organizers instead of setting up a committee. This worked in our favor as we are hive minds. We think so much alike it’s unbelievable. We thought out and created a framework of collaboration within which participants of Mental Health Camp would work (presenters, volunteers, organizers). I think much of the success of MHC Vancouver was that we created a framework for openness, discussion, respect for people who shared their stories and the underlying desire to break down the stigma of mental illness and THEN we used social media tools to expand our reach and talk to potential attendees, speakers, etc.

I am sharing these findings because those respond to the last point you made – can we find a target and THEN apply a social media toolkit to it? My answer is – Yes, we can. That’s I think how we ended up being so successful. The participants were engaged, but they were engaged within a framework of mutual respect, love, warmth and sharing. If you were attending MHC you knew what you were going to be in for. You knew that you would be hearing other people’s stories of struggling with mental illness and you needed to be open minded, and be respectful and sensitive to these stories, and react in ways that would empower those who shared their stories. I was amazed at the quality of participants and speakers, and truly honored that they shared in this effort.

The question you ask – ARE WE JADED FROM SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SOCIAL CHANGE? has a good answer that nobody is willing to give – yes, we are, but we aren’t being honest. We all want support for our event, yet we are reluctant or wary to support others events. What happened to “do unto others as you’d like to have done unto you”?. Many people from whom I expected at least a retweet did NOT support my efforts with Mental Health Camp. Many people from the actual social media for social change community, in fact. How does that make me feel? Jaded.

The fact of the matter is – our best bet for the use of social media for social change, in my opinion, is to be honest, respectful and forthcoming in what we expect from our application of online tools to effecting social change. In my view, Mental Health Camp was hugely successful, and there were many reasons why it was, but much of that was the support from the online community (please note that I said the community and not EVERYONE in the community).

I also think that it is important to be selective, strategic and focused in how we approach social media for social change. You can’t be everybody’s hero. Choose one or two projects. Go small and then scale up and go viral. And more importantly, remember the rule of RECIPROCITY. If you want support on your project, make sure that you’ve supported other projects. I had a really bad experience supporting a social media for social change initiative and then asking for support and not even getting a reply tweet back. Not the best way to get me to support this person’s next event, right?

I had also mentioned to Joe that I react very badly to pressure, and I have a policy of being selective. I choose carefully which projects I support but when I support them, I’m fully behind them. I don’t like being pressured into anything, and I’m sure many people feel the same way I do but don’t publicly disclose this. Gentle nudging and negotiation always wins (at least with me!)

One of the biggest challenges and people fail to realize this is – there are SO MANY PROBLEMS IN THE WORLD. It’s hard to get support from everyone. I think Beth Kanter asked in a post how to deal with so many causes (a while ago). One of the best ways, I think, is to re-direct. If you can’t help support a cause, why not get a friend (online or offline) involved? I didn’t know anyone in the mental health community, and now I do thanks to people who were in the MH community who introduced me to other people. Isabella and I got a lot of support from people who weren’t even online!

Overall, my bottom line is – let’s look at problems, create a framework to solve them and then engage the social media toolkit. Within that social media tool kit we should never forget to treat everyone in the social media for social change community with respect and interest. Otherwise, the likelihood that people will react favorably to our initiatives will be very small.
My 2 cents.

Related posts:

1. My recent Social Media Club Victoria talk: “Towards an Action-Focused Agenda for Social Change Using Social Media” (#smcvictoria) @smcvictoria
2. Video as a tool to effect social change – An example from Giant Ant Media
3. Social media for charity and social change roundup (Vancouver)

Vancouver Adaptive Snow Sports (VASS) runs skiing and snowboarding programs for persons with a disability at Grouse, Seymour and Cypress Mountains. VASSS makes the mountain experience accessible to all. VASS is a registered non-profit society, operated by a dedicated group of volunteers, which includes an active Board of Directors, program coordinators, instructors and administrators.[VASSS]

VASSS is having their annual fundraiser on February 26th, 2009, namely the VASS Challenge. There are three groups to sponsor – a racer, a volunteer or a team. This is a very worthy cause and I’d encourage my readers to consider donating. The cause is very much worthy. I think this video is pretty powerful. Enjoy (and hat tips to Giant Ant Media for contributing and helping raise awareness)

Related posts:

1. What to do in Whistler when you’re not a snow sports person
2. Snow in Vancouver
3. Snow predicted in Vancouver

Last week, I mentioned that I was worried about the lack of interest in local/Canadian politics and the excessive focus on the US election on Canadian and Vancouverite blogs and on Twitter. Well, with the news of an upcoming Federal election (October 14th, 2008), I am very, VERY happy to see the interest of our bloggers, readers and Twitterers renewed on Canadian issues

During the same week, I tried to remind my readers that in order for us to really participate, and put the public back into public policy, we need to focus on local issues while maintaining a global perspective. One of those hyperlocal issues that I think we need to focus on is the lack of homes and shelter for homeless people. On a side note, I am not too sure that homelessness will be taken up as a Federal election issue, but who knows.

Even though homelessness is mostly considered a regional, municipal/provincial public policy issue, there is an actual Federal Homelessness Partnering Strategy (launched in December 2006). From their About Us page:

Under the HPS, the federal government will offer the provinces and territories the opportunity to enter into bilateral partnerships, improve collaboration and develop linkages between the federal homelessness programs and provincial/territorial social services to help communities make strategic investments that will best serve their homeless populations.[HPS About Us]

Homeless Action Week will take place EXACTLY during the 2008 Federal election week, which is kind of timely, if you ask me. Why? Well, because everything is interconnected. With the 2010 Olympics and the discussions around the gentrification of the Downtown East Side, there will be a need to re-examine the Federal strategy on homelessness. And I have the feeling that Homeless Action Week may be the catalyzer for this re-examination.

Is lack of homes (and affordable housing) an issue? Well, let’s examine the data provided by the Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness.

A 24-hour snapshot count conducted on March 11 th, 2008 indicates that 2,592 individuals were found to be homeless in the Metro Vancouver region. This number is an increase of 427 individuals over the 2005 count data, or an increase of 19% over the number of homeless individuals found in 2005, and a jump of 131% since 2002.[HAW Research Page]

So, the question again is … how can you help? In addition to all of those great suggestions provided on the RSCH page for Homeless Action Week, you can also
- Blog about it.
- Tweet about it.
- Talk about it with your friends, family, etc.
- Write about it (in print).
- Discuss it on national media.

And, two additional things you can do…

One, you could donate your time, clothing items or food to local food banks. Rebecca has for very long been a champion of Metro Vancouver’s food banks, most recently raising over $10,000 dollars for the United Gospel Mission (along with Duane and with the generous help of Matt Good, Matt’s fans and many other participants). Lack of food would most definitely be an issue that homeless people face.

Two, you can participate in the events for the 2008 Homeless Action Week. Last year, I highlighted some of the 2007 HAW events and had a chance to participate in a few. As I mentioned in that previous post, sustainability, social change and social responsibility start at home, and Vancouver is my home, so that’s where I am trying to effect change.

On that note, I would like to invite you to follow @vanpoverty on Twitter, as this is a project where I am partnering with the brilliant Joe Solomon (@engagejoe on Twitter) to use our combined blogging/social media powers to bring issues of poverty and homelessness in Vancouver to the forefront.

Related posts:

1. Homelessness Action Week (Metro Vancouver) October 10th–16th, 2011
2. Homelessness Action Week 2010 in Vancouver
3. Homelessness Action Week 2009 (Oct 11th to 17th)