-I also wonder where Organizing for America (the post-election network of Obama campaign volunteers) , and MoveOn fit into this network, because they both have really vast databases, and I am seeing Organizing for America gearing up and getting more active in my local community.

Thank you both, Amy and Joe, for proposing questions to help us discern how to target our efforts to unite and magnify impact rather than splintering the movement. I’ll use these as tools.

I want to respond to a few different points you make, and think others will as well:

Your point about pooling and sharing data sector-wide makes me wonder also about what organizations could then do with it. As I’m thinking, there’s all this data and it gets pulled in together and then all the organizations and groups have access, can push it out, use it, etc. But that also means they have reliable data that they can map uniquely for their constituents, or direct to their legislator. And in the open source natural of it all, once someone maps it then the others can access that map and show their region, etc.

The power of the web is truly in the networks. And using social media tools to network campaigns, organizations, and missions is truly the secret sauce. For example, one piece of legislation might be in the headlines at any given time, so what if there was ONE petition to sign if you wanted to show your support, ONE set of talking points and references for contacting politicians, and ONE feed aggregating all of the news and conversations about it? Organizations large and small could use the link, call out to their members and share the same feed for news. They can work into their other projects and mission but think of the effect of everyone in the US signing the same petition and sending that list into the legislature, instead of multitudes of organizations and campaigners drafting various iterations of the same thing. You’ve hit the nail on the head here. So, how do we make it happen?

We need a giant backend to the climate movement that is the mother of all databases, tracking and linking and everything else. Say I was interested in finding out about the sector but wasn’t involved. I might do a Google search and land on The Nature Conservancy because of my search terms. Yes, they have climate change and environmental recovery campaigns and information, but maybe I’m also in college. Something like PowerShift, Focus The Nation, or the Cascade Climate Network might really be what you are after but you just don’t know how to find it. Signing up on the Nature Conservancy’s site and indicating your geography, your age, and your real interst areas though could sync up to that master list and get FTN in contact with you instead. Maybe that’s too scary of a system for people though. What do you think?

In discussing the tools issue, you say, “I think that whenever we launch a new green Facebook app, iPhone app, twitter hashtag, website, project etc – we should examine how it fits into, connects, and supports the other projects in that ecosystem. Otherwise all your project did was splinter the field and create another silo. It is up to us as responsible “change-framers” to empower “change-makers” (we can be both!) so that our varied & diverse actions unite towards common goals.”

I completely agree! This is no different than the networked issue from the previous section. If data and actions can be networked, so should the tools.

I LOVE your list of questions to ask when starting/building/launching something new. I’d add to that list:

– Where is this tool going, how can it change or adapt with the next call or campaign?
– How is this contributing to the movement (and not the individual motions)?

Thank you so much for this post – we will continue this conversation I’m sure!

Thanks for these additional examples! I really want to highlight that The Energy Collective is not only leveraging the power of RSS in all manner of ways, but is also focused on conversation, dialogue. Helping sift engaged conversations to the top is a great start!

Next, what is there was a widget or other tool (a button, for example) that could sit in/on/next to those lively conversations and provide direct access to actionable opportunities to those who wanted to do more than talk? Social Actions has a whole slew of options to do this (many new ones from their Change the Web Challenge).

I don’t mean to pimp Social Actions, necessarily. But I think we always have to look at things and say, even when they are great, “what could make this better – what could raise the level of impact?”

Thanks again for jumping in – hope to keep this conversation going (and see you soon in San Fran!).

What an AWESOME post!!

Your post starts out with some really intriguing possibilities for using the web and social media to wire the green movement:

***enabling data sharing, exchange and mapping***
***connecting organizations for shared knowledge, partnerships and coalitions***
***changing individual motions into a unified movement***

It seems like cutting through the noise is a major theme here as well. The problem is, out-of-the-box, breaking through the noise just doesn’t scale. As we all figure out ways to cut through (by hacking Twitter/Facebook/blogs/etc.), we’ll just create another layer of noise we’ll have to cut through again. And this will then repeat itself. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Watch what happens when we come back to your three points:

***enabling data sharing, exchange and mapping***

If nonprofits, orgs, and individuals embraced sharing data in the green movement – What would that look like? Maybe climate change APIs like AMEE (http://www.amee.com/) would become super popular. This would enable the movement to contribute, review, and distribute data from a major vetted resource. What happens when any given org can share the latest climate research on their site and any kid can display the latest evidence of global warming on their Myspace page — all while pulling from the same data set? My guess is by uniting the data, we could deal the world of ‘noise’ a major blow.

***connecting organizations for shared knowledge, partnerships and coalitions***

The web is designed to unite us. What happens when every organization leverages the web to connect with other orgs with similar missions?

The best model I’ve found for this, in the green movement, is 1Sky (http://www.1sky.org). 1Sky is a new platform that connects climate groups and concerned citizens in states across the US to accomplish shared goals. Check out the Community Page for 1Sky Washington to see what I mean —http://www.1skywashington.org/community
What blew me away (and it may seem small) was when I visited the website for Climate Solutions (http://www.climatesolutions.org/) – and saw a “Take Action” button leading to the Washington 1Sky website. This reminded me of the MyBarackObama website in its heyday and how that helped elect a president by uniting people and communities across borders (”for change”).

Can you imagine dozens of green orgs sharing the same call to action as part of their strategy — and how maybe that might enable such a larger impact. And in the process, be a shining line for people to engage with? Shwoop – Goodbye noise!

And connecting actions is only part of the equation:
What happens when orgs share their mailing lists and communities?
What happens when orgs share their fund raising campaigns?
What happens when orgs share their news & research?

A networked web is helping us envision & enable nonprofits that will be inextricably networked together in the real world – and I’m SO excited for this potential!

By uniting and highlighting work across borders, we can break through the noise and accomplish more. Web culture & web thinking (phrases I’ve heard from Jason Mogus of Communicopia), I think, will be instrumental to help us explore the possibilities. The technology already exists in spades.

***changing individual motions into a unified movement***

Wow, this is a tough one – How can the web transform individual motions into a unified movement? I’m not sure what the answer is, it may be more a number of approaches than any given one.

I think that whenever we launch a new green Facebook app, iPhone app, twitter hashtag, website, project etc – we should examine how it fits into, connects, and supports the other projects in that ecosystem. Otherwise all your project did was splinter the field and create another silo. It is up to us as responsible “change-framers” to empower “change-makers” (we can be both!) so that our varied & diverse actions unite towards common goals.

Questions we should ask:

How do our projects share data?
How do our projects share users?
How do our projects share impact?
How do our projects connect with other projects?
Should we be collaborating on another project rather than inventing another wheel?

Technology that may help with this might include Open APIs, OpenID, and ways for sharing and tracking impact across different projects.

Outside of new technology – I think we would also do well to consistently be sharing – to promote the work of our colleagues & ‘competition’ in our fields – to share tweets, Facebook updates, and newsletter blasts about the things that further our mission, and not necessarily our initiatives. In a sense, let’s create more noise together, noise that networks us, connects us, and unites us for change.

(Amy, Thank you SO much for starting this conversation!)

Also, here’s another example of how to bring together a community to discuss related issues (and filter it): the “collective” site’s run by SocialMediaToday, including The Energy Collective, where I write. They pull in feeds from a number of blogs writing on topic areas (like social media, sustainable building/design, energy and climate change, etc.) and then filter those feeds (through an editor) to pull out top posts. Then posts can be ranked (vote up or down style) by members and also filtered by most active comment streams (rich dialog being a goal and of interest to people). Pretty cool platform I think, and The Energy Collective is building up nicely.

How has reNEWeconomy approached the issue of bringing calls to action via social media with real world action items and actions? Have you found certain types of issues are better able to bridge the divide than others?

Thanks again!

I think the key to what you are saying is that what we need isn’t just a content or cause-specific stream, but one that also measures or filters out the noise.

Do you think that when it comes to the “green” sector as a whole, the best voices, calls to action, and alerts are coming from individuals or organizations? What does the difference mean to you?

Thanks again for adding to the conversation!