CivicActions

News of what appears to be a distributed, spontaneous action against the new video game "Spore" because of the DRM included with the game has been spreading around the web since yesterday (when I first heard about it from Fred Benson of Free Culture) , and the action seems to be growing.

Owen put up a website that uses a math problem to get people to think about a very important number, 350ppm CO2.

I just turned is math problem into a short animated video using a website called GoAnimate.com.
Watch my video below:

Aaron Pava and I are at the NetSquared Conference, a gathering of social changemakers and geeks. This year the conference focuses on "mashups" for social good. Web mashups combine data and functionality from two distinct sources. Two iconic mashups include (Oakland Crimespotting, which maps crime data to Google maps, and Mapskrieg, which combines Craigslist apartment listings with Google maps.)

My buddy JD Leahy presented The Rosetta Project--an awesome endeavor to preserve endangered languages. Their mashup is considered to be in the "hackable" phase because it already maps audio and data about these languages onto Google Earth. At the conference, passers-by gazed at the crystal ball of alphabets and the 3" disk archive of 14,000 pages of language documentation on 2500 languages.

We just heard two-minute intros of the featured mashups. Some themes: Transparency in government (congressional bills), transparency in corporate practices (Know More, a Firefox add-on that indicates a companies environmental rating you when you're on the company's site). Recycling consumer goods (Freecycle: community-based cyber-curbside). New Orleans restoration. And all things related to maps (Green Map). I want to check out my local GreenMap group... obsess over map iconography, and invite people to participate in the EcoCitizen Trading Card project.

One of the things I love about working at CivicActions is getting to hear about great projects happening in the world. It makes my days seem a little more hopeful and inspired to know that there are really smart people doing really great things.

On Sunday I hear with much sadness about the Cyclone that hit the Irrawady Delta in Burma. With each day the news gets worse. Some 22,000 Burmese presumed dead. Sometimes an event happens that in an instant captures the attention of the world, while even larger tragedies go unnoticed for decades. Such is the case in Burma. Back in the mid nineties I was involved in the Free Burma movement on college campuses, specifically at NYU, and helped pass selective purchasing legislation in the NY City Council.

Amnesty International has a really powerful campaign up right now called "Unsubscribe Me" (from the "war on terrorism's" torture practices).

Who Are the World's Most Influential?

Take a moment and Vote for Peter Gabriel to get a spot on this year's Time 100. In the article, he's credited with launching 'the Hub, a so-called YouTube for human rights' which was built with Drupal by a number of the folks right here at CivicActions!

Earlier this week I met Brent Schulkin at EcoTuesday who shared about his Carrotmob vision: organizing consumers (via Flash Mobs) to make massive group purchases at companies who make environmentally friendly choices.

After a bidding war between local businesses, K & D offered to use 22% of the day's gross profits to upgrade their store to be more environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient.

Below is a short video of today's action (sans after-party):

What's my connection to mountaintop removal? Quite intimate, as I learned from entering my zip code into ilovemountains.org. The site identified my local electricity company's participation in mountaintop removal in the Appalachian states—showing the specific mountains (I've?) destroyed, as well as testimonials and photos from coalfield residents. Is that the impact I want to make here on earth? Did I do that? ilovemountains' online campaign employs the following smart strategies:

• Brings grassroots organizations together to maximize impact (7 organizations from 5 Appalachian states collaborated on the campaign)
• Personally engages visitors to the site (by showing the far˜reaching impact of daily local actions)
• Provides content that supports the diversity of its users, contributes to coalition-building, and frames issues in new ways ("Go Tell it on the Mountain" is an interfaith page where users can contribute prayers; an online "National Memorial for the Mountains" uses Google Earth; users can absorb their preferred type of content—video, photo, written testimonials, interactive tools).
• Provides clear calls to action (support the Clean Water Protection Act by writing to congress)
• Increases visibility and media coverage with star power (Willie Nelson)
• Uses web tools to support and spread their message (YouTube, Google Earth, online pledges, "myconnection" tool)—note that this strategy supports the other strategies, it doesn't serve as an end in itself!

Help end mountaintop removal: support this important campaign!

Sign the petition demanding that political reporters ask the presidential candidates about climate change.