The Squared Root

Blog Action Day 2008 'Poverty'

mchapman — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 01:34:09 GMT

Austin, Texas is a very prosperous city. We are the capital of a state that is rich in resources and opportunity. A state that is doing very well economically, even in difficult times.

Our city is the creative capital of the country, according to the book Rise of the Creative Class. Yet, approximately twenty percent of our citizens live in what are considered poverty conditions.

In the county surrounding Austin, approximately 200,000 residents are classified as "working poor" by the Texas Department of Human Services. TDHS also estimates that 41,000 children, under the age of 18, are confronted with food insecurity every day.

Because of the natural beauty, economic growth, and numerous success stories happening every day in Austin, it's easy to forget about or not notice those who are not as fortunate living among us.

In conjunction with the international Blog Action Day on Poverty, scheduled for October 15th, a number of bloggers, podcasters and videocasters here in Austin will devote 24 hours to capturing the face of poverty in our city.

We will be focusing on the personal stories and facts of the people living in poverty in Austin.

A group of us will also be involved in a 24-hour street retreat immersion effort, delivering updates by Twitter, short video and audio segments, and a series of webinars.

We hope to use the power of social media for social good and engage our respective online communities in this effort. Our goal is to include our friends, followers and online contacts in a real-life look at what it means to live in poverty in Austin today.

Mobile Loaves and Fishes and the Capital Area Food Bank have provided a leadership role in identifying several objectives for Blog Action Day in Austin:

1) Raise community awareness of the personal aspects of living in poverty in our hometown.

2) Communicate a unified call-to-action across a variety of organizations working with poverty in Austin, spotlighting specific ways to face poverty in Austin.

3) Engage the broader Austin community in how to respond to these stories, harnessing our city's unique imagination & creativity.

We need your help to make this happen:

1) Sign up to blog for at least one hour during Blog Action Day: http://www.doodle.ch/participation.html?pollId=kyawmrma58rxup99

2) Consider joining us for some or all of the street retreat immersion effort. If you want more info or want to be involved, email bob.carlton@gmail.com or comment below.

3) Expand the network for this effort. Forward this post to at least 10 friends in Austin who might want to join us.

Our neighbors who live in poverty conditions are real people. They have stories to share but their voices are often not heard. You can be a conduit for sharing their stories and giving them a voice.

Please join FG SQUARED in support of Blog Action Day 2008 to address poverty in Austin and around the world.

Food Bank Employs Social Capital for Social Good

mchapman — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:25:44 GMT

One month ago, Michelle Greer and I met with Lisa Goddard and her staff at the Capital Area Food Bank. At that meeting we hatched the idea for a tweetup to help with their efforts surrounding Hunger Action Month. We even came up with a clever name for it. We called it a HAM-up. A tweetup is a meet-up in real life for people who have usually met first on Twitter.

Twitter is a growing social network surrounding a microsharing application. "HAM-up" is a play on a word that is completely made up and named after an application that sounds pretty funny to begin with. All of this is fairly typical of the social media and social networking world. Creativity and fun are allowed and encouraged. Along with the fun, however, is the potential for some very serious real world benefit accompanied by valid and measurable results.

Here's what happened: Lisa made the connection with me through colleagues Connie Reece and Sheila Scarborough of Every Dot Connects. They had recently led a workshop on social media which Lisa had attended. Connie, Sheila and I are also co-founders of the Austin Social Media Club which agreed to cosponsor the event. We pulled David Neff of the American Cancer Society into our group because of his active membership in the Social Media Club and 501 Tech Club of Austin, which also agreed to cosponsor.

Following the success of the Blood Drive Tweetup led by Michelle and David, we were confident in the combined social capital of our online networks. So we started twittering away trying to reach anyone who might be willing to help with our efforts to promote Hunger Action Month and the HAM-up.

Next, David remembered that he had met someone at a conference on social media who might have an interest in our project. Ed Nicholson, of Arkansas based Tyson Foods, and David had continued their relationship on Twitter. David figured that Ed might be able to help with our efforts based on their ongoing online conversations. Ed liked the idea and decided to use our efforts to follow through on an idea he had already been considering.

Ed then authored a blog post about the HAM-up on Tyson Food's Hunger Relief blog. In it the company pledged to donate100 pounds of protein products for the HAM-up for every comment they received on the blog post. Ed figured that 360 comments would be needed to fill a truck and that we might be able to generate that much interest over a few weeks of intense online activity.

With the tremendous help of our combined online networks it took less than four hours to reach the goal. In fact, we doubled the number of comments needed in only a few more hours. The truck arrived this past Monday with over 40,000 pounds of desperately needed protein products for the Food Bank. You can visit the Tyson Foods Gift of Protein 2008 flickr page for a good look at the actual delivery.

By utilizing the social capital she is developing online, Lisa Goddard of the Capital Area Food Bank in Austin, was able to locate resources she might not have been able to identify through traditional outreach methods and with only a few weeks of online activity. This very real example should be studied by anyone considering empowering their employees to use their social networks as a resource for their own company or organization.

September is Hunger Action Month and Hurricane Ike is likely to make the need even more urgent. Please do what you can to help. Whole Foods recently hosted a Grill-up to benefit the Food Bank. As FG Squared CEO Steve Golab joked, "it's time to HAM-up or shut up." I agree. If you can help, please do.

A Twitter A Day

beth — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:20:07 GMT

Twitter. If you consider yourself in the know of all things tech, than you probably have heard of Twitter. It seems to be popping up everywhere nowadays. Friends letting friends know what they are doing, giving insight to feelings on a certain topic, arranging plans for the weekend or even commenting on the article they are currently reading.

Even though Twitter was created for personal use, friends sending quick micro messages to friends; it is really starting to take off as a business tool. It lets companies update its followers on exciting news, new blogs, schedule changes, or just what the employees of that company are up to that day. Companies are also using Twitter to share and connect with others to listen to what is being talked about, in order to gain business intelligence and consumer insights.

Twitter has also taken off as a conference tool, allowing attendees to update their followers on all the interesting topics and speakers that they are encountering at the conference.

I have personally found myself addicted to Twitter lately, and get disappointed when I am not receiving tweets. Twitter gives me that wonderful “in the know” feeling; that great feeling of knowing that you can intelligently participate in almost all the conversations that are occurring around you. By having carefully chosen who I am following, I have a better understanding of what is going on in the political world, the interactive world and the social world (mostly my social world here in Austin).

If you haven’t experienced a tweet, I suggest you check out twitter and see what have you been missing in the world today.

Interactive Austin 2008

cynthia — Sat, 31 May 2008 04:09:47 GMT

Social commerce, the use of social media in business, is putting companies on an even playing field; and the companies that aren't getting on board are going to find themselves falling behind the competition.

Think about it - social media is everywhere! Wiki-ing, blogging, podcasting, twittering, FaceBooking, and MySpacing - this is how the world is communicating now. And if your company isn't playing along, your message is less likely to reach your target audience. For this reason, major corporations, like Austin-based Dell, Intel and AMD are integrating social networking and other social media into their marketing plans.

To help companies get to where they need to be, interactive professionals in Austin that understand the power of social media in today's world have converged to create Interactive Austin 2008. This forum which takes place on June 19th, is an event dedicated to educating companies on the advantages of Social Commerce, the importance of it in the rapidly changing corporate environment, and how to harness its power for profitability.

The event will feature two prominent keynote speakers. Brian Magierski, Co-Founder and Chief Development Officer of nGenera Corporation, will speak on "Social Commerce and It's Impact on Business." While the Vice President of Corporate Marketing & Communications for AMD, Pete Hayes, will speak on "Get into the Click Stream: An Alternative to Driving Traffic to Your Site." Aside from the keynote speakers, this will be a day full of educational and informative panel discussions and case study presentations from Austin's social media experts.

If you have a company, it would be a wise decision to attend Interactive Austin 2008. For more information about it, check it out online at http://www.interactiveaustin2008.com.

We will see you there!