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Inferno Victoria

by Gavin Heaton on 02/08/2009 17:50   0 comments , 279 views

All weekend I have seen and heard news reports on the bushfires racing across Victoria. Twitter has been abuzz. In their wake, they have left destruction and broken hearts – entire towns have been lost and a death toll around 80 (at this point in time).

In some cases, the fires have moved at over 100 km/h, engulfing houses before the occupants even smelled the smoke. In these cases, those who escaped, escaped only with their lives and the clothes on their back.

A fund raising appeal has been established by the Red Cross here; and those wanting to check on the safety of loved ones can do so by calling 1800 727 077. However, the focus at present in on the wellbeing of those affected by the fires – and there are still many fires burning out of control across Victoria.

Elias Bizannes shares this live map of the Victorian fires. It has been pulled together in a mashup by Google engineer, Pamela Fox – bringing data from the Victorian CFA and combining with with Google’s mapping/geo location data. It shows the very real scale of the fires. Unfortunately, as Elias points out, not all states make their data available in such a portable format.

Victoria Fires Map
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Social Entrepreneurship and Rowan Claypool

by Alexander Muse on 01/16/2009 01:52   0 comments , 327 views

The concept of social entrepreneurship has become more popular in the last few years as people have taken entrepreneurial principles and applied them to a social issue.  Rowan Claypool is one such character who started his social entrepreneurship quest over 10 years ago. Rowan has built two organizations, starting out as insurgent, grass roots groups and the growing one into an offical arm of Yale University.  I asked Rowan to talk about his ventures:

Rowan, tell me about Bulldogs in the Bluegrass?

Bulldogs in the Bluegrass was started to accomplish several missions: attract Yale undergrads to a city they would NEVER consider otherwise, give them their first real world job experience, provide our local nonprofits with extraordinary young interns, and put the city on the map. It worked, 10 years and 324 interns later, 32 have moved to town for at least a year after graduation from Yale. I now work for Yale replicating the model across the country. It is a complete novel ALUMNI driven model which now operates in nine cities and places over 140 interns annually.

In addition to this group, you also founded Teach Kentucky?

Teach Kentucky flows from the same general mission to attract brigh... read more >>

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Mainstreaming Social Media

by Gavin Heaton on 11/16/2008 18:15   0 comments , 279 views

While I normally don’t like using nouns as verbs (perhaps I am linguistically conservative?), I quite like the word “mainstreaming”. It implies that social media is in a state of transition where widespread acceptance and uptake is occurring with the general public. 

Paul Chaney suggests that the rising popularity of social media, while strong, will still take some time to become fully integrated into marketing practices. Interestingly, the soc... read more >>

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Event Review: Social Search, Online Identity, and More at Social Media Club-DC

by Shashi Bellamkonda on 11/14/2008 13:21   0 comments , 300 views

The line-up:
Last night’s Social Media Club, chaired this year by Livingston Communications, covered the gamut on social media search and local search tools. It was a packed house at DC’s National Press Club where Jared Goralnick, AwayFind’s President, moderated a full, debate-filled panel with these industry experts:  Chris Seline, Searchles‘ CTO; Laurence Hooper, Founder & CEO of Loladex; Greg Gershman, VP of Search and Engineering at Odeo;... read more >>

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Anything is Possible

by Ari Herzog on 11/05/2008 02:08   0 comments , 269 views
As I watched the election results flash on my TV screen while I surfed between CNN, MSNBC, New England Cable News, and Comedy Central, I simultaneously sent messages to my Twitter stream of friends and strangers - people I’ve met in person and others I don’t know other than living around the world - who [...] read more >>
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237 Bloggers Worldwide Collaborate to Benefit Charity

by Gavin Heaton on 10/29/2008 20:01   0 comments , 461 views

Aoc2A year and a half ago I would not have imagined being in this place. Sure, I believed in the potential of social media, but how could it scale? How could we turn an idea into a movement? What were the mechanisms required to ignite the passions and ideas of a community? Today, I proudly released The Age of Conversation 2: Why Don't They Get It? for publishing. You can purchase it here.

It brings together the written thoughts on the role of conver... read more >>

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Social Implications of Social Computing #1

by Kate Carruthers on 10/23/2008 20:08   0 comments , 682 views
Social computing has exploded and is changing the world we knew in a number of ways that impact on education. But social computing is not so much changing the world as it is changing student’s expectations of what kind of technology they should use in their everyday life and how they should interact with other people using that technology. This is a revolution akin to the telegraph and radio in its capacity to change the world we live in. For... read more >>
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5 Ways Social Media is Like Speechwriting

by Ari Herzog on 10/07/2008 19:21   0 comments , 331 views
RAMALLAH, WEST BANK - NOVEMBER 11: In this ha...Image by Getty Images via DaylifeDue to my on-again-off-again 18 years of writing professionally, I own many writing books. Perusing through one of them the other day, "The Well-Fed Writer," by Peter Bowerman, I noticed a series of tips he provides on writing speeches.

On page 195, Peter writes, "While often there is a predetermined theme to which you need to write, you may be called on in the client meetings to come up with a creative concept fo... read more >>
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HubSpot's Social Media Delivers on ROI

by Robert Lesser on 09/23/2008 09:45   0 comments , 353 views
In some of my previous posts, I suggested that social media is highly effective in generating marketing ROI.

Last week, I interviewed Mike Volpe, VP of Marketing HubSpot, for his perspective on social media ROI.

HubSpot is a stellar example of how a small business can excel in social media marketing and in the process, attract $17 million in venture capital for a social media and online marketing solution (read more on why small business succeed...
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Frameworks for Social Responsibility - Jamie Welsh

by Mario Vellandi on 09/15/2008 19:57   0 comments , 318 views
[Video Link for Email/Other Subscribers - 10min] In this interview with Jamie Welsh of 10% Solutions, she describes the nature of her work, the current landscape in social responsibility, the importance of csr, and how her certification process works. Their framework involves donations, volunteer programs, and sustainability certifications that together, form a complete social responsibility package that [...] read more >>
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