Online Community Conference 2007 - YouTube's Hong Qu

YouTube sent Hong Qu to OCS2007 to talk about their special program for non-profit organizations. (That's me on the left.)

According to the the promotion on the home page of http://youtube.com/nonprofits

"Your Nonprofit channel includes:

* Premium branding capabilities and increased uploading capacity
* Rotation of your videos in the "Promoted Videos" areas throughout the site
* The option to drive fundraising through a Google Checkout "Donate" button"

Apparently approved non-profits aren't limited to 10 minute videos.

Among the participating partners is one of the organizations that Omidyar Network supports:
http://youtube.com/youthnoise Check it out and you'll get some sense of the possibilities.

I really liked Hong Qu because he was so humble - the opposite of a public relations person. He's an interface designer. Just like Google/YouTube to send a UI person. For example - when someone predicted YouTube's downfall, he didn’t get defensive, he just said “we’ll have to wait and see.” When asked how non-profits were selected for special promotion he admitted that he didn't know. He shed some light about the management process at YouTube - he said they got a memo that a human had to review all the non-profits before they are allowed to use it – and the memo asked for volunteers.

Small world: Hong Qu works with Hunter Walk at YouTube. Hunter and I worked together at Linden Lab in the very early days of Second Life.

At this point organizations must have 501c3 nonprofit status - that means – sorry to Canandians and others living outside the USA. But it's a nice start.

Why Second Life Could Help Improve the World

Here's a recap and page of resources from the "MacArthur Foundation Enters Second Life" meeting last week - transcripts, video, photos, etc.

I went through the transcript and pulled out some key concepts that made the most meaning for me. Please check the previous post for more context.

- ROSEDALE: is Philip Rosedale, the CEO of Linden Lab, the company that created Second Life.
- FANTON: is MacArthur Foundation President, Jonathan Fanton.

The idea that SL makes it possible to quickly build trust -

FANTON: When you first started Second Life, did the notion of the public good effect any of your design? Do virtual worlds like Second Life help groups get together, discuss issues, and advance collective vision of the public good? Talk to us a little bit about those issues and activities.

ROSEDALE: Well, you know, I think that when we started, I know I, and a lot of us working on the technology, were very focused on the technology of creating a sort of a virtual world. But as we got it working in around 2003, people really started coming into it, we started to see the effect that being in this kind of very, very empowered, enabled, communicative environment had an effect on people. It made them close very rapidly, and it made them work together in certain ways.


That the transparency of SL makes the most of “People are Basically Good” -

YOWELL: Here’s a question for both of you from the Teen Grid. How can Linden Lab and residents, especially teen grid residents, work together to make sure this power is used morally, apart from cooperation with MacArthur? And that’s for either Jonathan or Philip.

ROSEDALE: I bet Jonathan has perspective on this that’s probably quite unique from mine. I think what I would say is that we have a deep belief that with the high degree of transparency that exists in the virtual world, I believe that the virtual world is different in an important way, in that it is typically more transparent, more accessible, more communicative, it’s easier to see what’s going on, easier to travel within it than the real world. It is therefore more transparent than the world that we all live physically in today, and I believe, you know Pierre Omidyar, when he started eBay, he made the famous statement that he believed that eBay would work because people were basically good, that the majority of stuff that happened on eBay would be good and legitimate attempts by people to sell things to other people.

ROSEDALE: I think the same thing can be said here, that with the additional transparency we have, we won’t need to do anything, from a central perspective, to make people good and just in their actions here. I think they will be, the only think I hope I’ll be able to look back and say we did, was that we simply enabled, using the technology, a very, very, very transparent environment, and that that transparency was beneficial.


MacArthur’s hopes to have civil rights groups operate in SL -

FANTON: MacArthur supports about 1,000 local civil society groups all over the world: Action Health in Nigeria, working on sexuality education, Resources Himalaya in Nepal, working on protecting some of the most beautiful landscape in the world, the Nizhny Novgorod Committee Against Torture in Russia working against police abuse, or Fundar in Mexico, helping to strengthen the system of human rights ombudsmen. I’m hoping the MacArthur can encourage many of the civil rights organizations that it supports to operate in Second Life and other virtual worlds as well, so that there will be a civil society in virtual worlds that mirrors the civil society in the physical world.


SL as an empowering environment -

ROSEDALE: …So the most common type of content, if you will, in Second Life, is an individual building something that they are giving or showing or selling to the people in Second Life. It’s not a company. We’re just at the very beginning of that phase where larger organizations are starting to see Second Life as being of value, and I think, when they come, they’ll add a lot to Second Life, as they come. But I think profoundly, at its core, Second Life is an empowering platform, an open environment, for individuals. Historically and statistically, it’s much more individuals and that corporate ownership of Second Life is probably in the low, single digit percentages, in terms of looking at the land.

SL as a reputation system or network of trust -

ROSEDALE: …I think Second Life is already demonstrating an ability to let people build systems for reputation and trust that are effective, fast, and lightweight, and can go beyond what can be done in the real world. It’s a rich topic, I see somebody in the audience saying say more about that. It’s a really rich topic, and one where I think technology will, in the virtual environment, empower us. If you look at things like Grameen and how microlending is enabled in the real world by a network of trust, I think that the virtual world allows that sort of network to be potentially expanded in ways broader and faster than it is in the real world.

MacArthur Foundation to push the possibilities of Second Life

It's hard to tell from this picture but about 200 people packed a sim to hear MacArthur Foundation President, Jonathan Fanton, and Founder and CEO of Linden Lab (makers of Second Life), Philip Rosedale launch MacArthur's experiment to use a virtual world to help create a better real world.

The discussion came across as quite groundbreaking with these two from quite different backgrounds recognizing the potential of working together and introducing a major philanthropic effort in a expanding virtual platform. It was especially encouraging to hear Philip quoting Pierre Omidyar and referencing Muhammad Yunus in describing how SL is transparent environment that empowers individuals.

Over at omidyar.net, we've talked a lot about the possibilities of non-profit efforts in SL. Despite the great success of Relay for Life, the population of Second Life may be still too small for most efforts to efficiently raise funds or recruit from the existing population.

I think non-profits efforts can get the most benefit from SL by using it to create virtual conferences and ongoing meetings so that people around the world who are already interested in a effort can connect, exchange information and work on real-world tasks together.

This morning about 25 people from around the world - primarily speaking French along with some English and Spanish - met at the Camp Darfur exhibit in Better World Island to organize anti-genocide efforts.

Jonathan Fanton suggested the possibility of supporting the use of SL to lobby the US to join the International Criminal Court. This might be a great test case to see how SL could be used as an organizing tool - connecting international members with those in the US and connecting organizers within all 50 states to coordinate their efforts to recruit members in the real world and activate them to put pressure on their representatives.

(Disclosure: my employer Omidyar Network, is an investor in Linden Lab - and as a former employee I own stock options.)

US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs - and global warming effects

Thanks to Strange Maps - for publishing and to Mark Grimes and Josh Friedman at omidyar.net for pointing to it.

I love this map – and find it shocking. How can my home state of Oklahoma – which I remember as cows and oil wells – have the same GNP as Phillipines?

“Annual GDP represents the market value of all goods and services produced within a country in a year.”

How can Rhode Island equal Vietnam? Especially considering what half of Vietnam was able to do to France and the US.

Illinois and Mexico?

I imagine that to a large degree GDP reflects carbon footprint. Don’t you imagine this angers people in other countries? That one state, Texas, contributes as much to global warming as Canada? Alabama (!) as much as Iran. Arksansas and Pakistan. New Jersey and Russia?

The US is in real danger of being further isolated as the effects and the need to address global warming become clearer.

omidyar.net community member conference kicks off in Gulu, Uganda

Over 100 omidyar.net community members came together today in war-torn northern Uganda to for a historic conference titled: Globalizing Local Change Through Online Communities.

This is an extraordinary conference in many ways. How often do the attendees convene on the front lines of a struggle rather than in a air-conditioned windowless room that could be anywhere in the world?



Heres the top news story that came up when I Googled "Gulu". "Starting today, some 560,000 internally displaced persons who are currently living in camps, returning to their homes or resettling after years of displacement will be receiving aid worth US $3.2 million from the ICRC." (Red Cross)

Here's another story that comes up: Teen resumes her education after two years in captivity in northern Uganda. The Government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have resumed talks in Juba, Southern Sudan, to end the 20-year insurgency that has left over 1 million displaced.

Here's the invitation that describes the event - much open space meeting time coordinated by long-time omidyar.net community leader Ted Ernst. "Open space" takes on a new meaning when the meeting takes place in a room with no walls. It will interesting to see how they pull it off.

Here's list of the people attending - most of them from Uganda and Kenya - including 45 from the local Gulu community.

Keep an eye on this discussion for the latest reports from the conference.

(Disclosure: Omidyar Nework, my employer, is the host of the omidyar.net online community and has provided some support for Life in Africa and this conference.)

Preview of the film The Devil Came on Horseback

Last week I got a chance to preview – The Devil Came on Horseback – a feature documentary about the genocide in Darfur.

Here’s a blurb - “THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK will expose the violence and tragedy of the genocide in Darfur as seen through the eyes of a lone American witness. Using thousands of uncompromising and exclusive photographs taken by former US Marine Captain Brian Steidle during his role as a military observer with the African Union, THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK leads you through the tragic impact of an Arab government bent on destroying its black African citizens.”

(Disclosure: The film is supported by Humanity Unity, a group that is closely associated with Omidyar Network, my employer.)

It’s a very powerful and well-made film. It would be so easy to really screw up a documentary dealing with genocide. This is why it works so well.

In many fictional character-driven plots, the hero faces a dilemma, a call to action, resists it at first and later makes a heroic choice. For Brian the choice was not whether or not to go to Sudan. He was compelled by the financial reward. Brian’s challenge came after he returned to the US: He had the photos and the first hand account but going public with the story would cut him off from the possibility of similar contract work. The State Department also urged him not to rock the diplomatic boat – not to mount a campaign to expose the genocide that he witnessed first hand.

Brian is not a slick speaker which is good. He comes across as an ordinary Jimmy Steward kind of character -- reluctantly drawn into a complicated, evil plot. But he really does find his voice when speaking at a rally in Washington last spring. It’s really fun to see someone who you feel like you know getting nervous about addressing the crowd. Then he did such a great job that it sent chills down my back.

It sounds like the filmmakers are planning a theatrical release and a grassroots organizing campaign in conjunction. I’m not sure how well the film will do commercially since you’d expect many will lean toward lighter entertainment when facing the choice at the multiplex or the channel changer. Perhaps Al Gore paved the way for some success. Like “An Inconvenient Truth” the filmmakers have made a smart choice to focus on a character. Brian works well as a vehicle for audience members to imagine themselves on the same journey. Hopefully the promotion of the film can focus on this angle, and attract a wide audience.

Keep your eyes open for a chance to see it later this year.

In the mean time – you can take a look at the anti-genocide organizing going on at omidyar.net.

Can virtual world protests work?

Second Life still has only 25,000 people at a time so one might think that protesting there might have the effect as staging a rally in my hometown of Ada, OK. Yet many of the people in SL are very connected with circles within and without that virtual world and the press has often taken an event in SL and amplified it because of its novelty.

Thanks to Rik and Beth for the heads up on a anti-escalation protest scheduled tomorrow - Monday at 2 pm PST in Second Life - Avatars Against the War! Actions for peace in the Metaverse Jan 27-29.