It only took a day after I wrote my last post before the ruling junta in Myanmar shut down the internet and disabled several cell phone networks to prevent the free-flow of messages, video, and photographs streaming out of the country.
According to the Guardian:
The Burmese government apparently cut internet access today in an attempt to staunch the flow of pictures and messages from protesters reaching the outside world.
An official told the Agence France-Presse news agency that the internet “is not working because the underwater cable is damaged”.
In Bangkok, in neighbouring Thailand, an official at a telecommunications firm that provides satellite services to Burma said some internet service inside the country had been cut.
The London-based blogger Ko Htike said: “I sadly announce that the Burmese military junta has cut off the internet connection throughout the country. I therefore would not be able to feed in pictures of the brutality by the brutal Burmese military junta.”
Mr Htike said he would try his best to feed the Burmese junta’s “demonic appetite of fear and paranoia by posting any pictures that I receive though other means … I will continue to live with the motto that ‘if there is a will there is a way’.”…
But people are still talking about Burma - probably even more now that most of these message channels have been disabled. Webpages are plastered with articles, videos fill up pages on youTube, and several of my colleagues and friends are wearing red shirts in support of the Burmese dissidents.
In 2002 when I was in graduate school, I did research on “hactivism” in Myanmar - the expanding practice of using internet channels to promote political ideology in opposition to the ruling totalitarian regime. You can download this paper if you want to read more.
Back then, the focus was on getting information into Myanmar through peer-to-peer networks - using connections to bases like Napster to transmit controversial and banned information on the state of the country, including international reaction. Burmese expatriates the world over secretly gathered in chat rooms to determine their messaging, and then used creative technology to educate and empower those activists in Myanmar who were quietly and secretly waiting for signs that the regime was growing weaker or for a specific call to action.
Continue reading ‘Empowering Myanmar, one blog at a time’
This story about Middlebury has been out for a little less than two weeks, but I just discovered it this morning when a colleague passed it along. It has special relevance to my organization, as we’re currently going through a huge re-branding process and have been overly diligent in including various stakeholders. However, we aren’t doing a lot of testing with student audiences because our organization stands for so many different things and getting internal buy-in alone was a process that dragged on much longer than it should have. The majority of folks that are affiliated with us already is for cause-based reasons vs. image, and we’re counting on that as we move forward - the brand is just a new way to represent the great things we already and will continue to do. That said, I do think it’s important to reach-out to these student audiences a bit before we do the formal roll-out, to let them know what’s going on, and re-frame the branding process in terms of actual cause-based outcomes, such as a new focus on global citizenship and public events that focus on these initiatives.
I also don’t agree with the way that Middlebury backed down from their new branding. They obviously invested a lot of time and money in the process, and although the voices of their constituency matter, a Facebook petition shouldn’t have so much impact over their decisions, especially in such a short amount of time. Their reaction definitely sets a precedent and I imagine it will be harder and a much more arduous process to make any changes to their brand or the way they do business in the future as they’ll want to get buy-in from EVERYONE.
Facebook Petition Sinks Revamped Logo
“The College’s roll-out and subsequent retraction of its new logo this summer brought administrators face-to-face with a growing reality - the speed and power of Facebook as an organizing medium among college students.
Armed only with their computers and disdain for the “Middlebury Leaf,” Sarah Franco ‘08 and Alex Benepe ‘09 brought more than 700 students together in their group “Just Say No to the Middlebury Logo” within days of the College’s announcement of its new graphic identity to accompany a $500 million capital campaign…”
In the spirit of Beth’s recap of Amy’s strategy, here’s a go at combining work notes with blogging (and breaking it into pieces that are manageable)…
So it’s been a little over two weeks into our study abroad blogging pilot, and in my opinion, the experience so far has been a success, if not also a great learning opportunity. All students are finally on-board with blogging accounts, and almost everyone has written at least one post, with several writing more than that. I’m particularly encouraged about the potential of this technology, as several of the students physically signed up for blogging accounts when they already were situated in their host countries [testing the limitations of the local technology].
The posts are engaging and interesting, and definitely provide some great fodder showing future students what their experience might be like. It’s been a lot of fun re-living the study abroad experience through our students, while also learning more about the structure of our programs (since I am new to the organization). I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was disappointed that the Flickr component hasn’t really caught on yet, but I’m waiting for students to feel completely comfortable with Typepad before I send out another email reminding them that we have it, and encouraging its use.
Continue reading ‘Harnessing the unpredictability of youth (or wishing you could) Part I’
Last week was Non-Profit Week on Read/Write Web, where they featured a series of articles on how non-profits are using the web framed under the question “is the Web still a windfall for Non-profits?“. Unfortunately I was away from my RSS feeds last week and I am only now catching up, so I decided to write this post-week summary of what R/WW had to offer.
- The Non-Profits Web Tool Kit contains a great list of tools available to non-profits to leverage the power of the web. Tools listed range from the well-known to the waiting to be discovered and include blogging platforms such as WordPress and volunteer finding tools such as VolunteerMatch.
- Beth Kanter shares her experiences with Web 2.0 and the non-profit sector and highlights her recent experiences at the Cambodian Bloggers Summit. It was interesting to hear about how she was able to use these tools to raise money and awareness for the event but I also appreciated her take home message of non-profits taking creative, low-risk experiments in order to test out the Web 2.0 waters.
- Richard MacManus provides a nice breakdown of how Facebook and MySpace are being used by non-profits. MySpace’s Impact service is being used primarily for political campaigns whereas Facebook’s Causes are being used primarily to raise funds for a variety of causes ranging from Global Warming to Breast Cancer. I’m curious about the root of this distinction and how much of it is due to the functionality each site offers and what role demographics and socioeconomics play, if any.
A topic that consumes me wholly. On the Flickr side of my life I’m becoming seen as *that* dog person, who can think of nothing more interesting/intelligent to photograph than Atlas, my 5-month year old puppy. It seems like I’m also becoming *that* Facebook person too.
Every day there is something new about this social-networking tool that’s a magnet for news, bloggers, and most everyone in my non-profit community. It’s a great tool, don’t get me wrong, but ack, the talk is ubiquitous. I remember back in the day when I first started blogging out of boredom/lack of work to do, and I’d search high and low everyday to find something on the internet that might be entertaining for an hour or two. Mostly I got lost in Yahoo Games. These days, there isn’t enough time in the day to read even 25% of the Facebook articles out there, not even taking into account the activity on Facebook itself. (Not to mention that I have a job that also consumes me wholly).
Continue reading ‘Facebook is becoming like my puppy…’
It’s certainly no secret, and it seems like everyone has jumped on the Facebook bandwagon these days. I don’t have to search far to find a news article, blog, or radio broadcast talking about the political, cultural, and social implications of social networking - particularly the Facebook phenomenon. Teachers are using it to communicate with their students, friends are getting back in contact after years out of touch, even parents are signing online to keep track of their kids.
One of the biggest users of the social networking site (which also happens to be the second most visited daily website in the United States) are non-profit organizations. And why not? It’s a fantastic tool that helps mobilize communities, connects groups in disparate locations, rallies people around causes, and segments demographics in such detail that it is easy to learn what your users want and subsequently serve up customized content. The new application addition to Facebook also enhances the user experience and allows these organizations to create fun widgets that provide a fun and unique service and allows them to take action, while further cementing their relationship with the organization. Once action is taken - be it via signing a petition, RSVPing to an event or rally, or sharing what you do (or your application) to a friend, that user is much more likely to support your organization in the future, either financially or through in-kind support or volunteering. Now with Facebook profiles becoming semi-public and searchable through engines like Google and Yahoo, the potential seems unlimited.
Continue reading ‘Social networking: has the train left the station?’