CivicActions

Geekcore: bloggers, virtual revolutionaries, nerdnetizens. Commmonly seen at: NetSquared, CivicActions, NTen, and the Web of Change Conference.

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.

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!