wedding prelim 2018

Joining up to promote "A Fierce Green Fire"

For a while now, I’ve been looking for a way to join in the effort to fight back against climate change. I’ve discovered what seems like an excellent best path and I want to offer an invitation to join me.

Earlier this week I got a chance to meet Mark Kitchell and see his feature documentary “A Fierce Green Fire –The Battle for a Living Planet”.  It covers the 50-year history of the environmental movement and tells the story of how we’ve won past struggles. As a result, it inspires and shows us how to win the climate change battle. Cara Mertes, Director, Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program says “The material is vast and it’s an incredibly dynamic film. It’s shaping up to be the documentary of record on the environmental movement. I think it’ll be hugely successful.”

This is the critical moment that will decide how successful the film will be in helping build momentum against climate change.  The film opens in theaters in San Francisco, Berkeley, and L.A. this Friday, March 15.   If you live nearby, or know of anyone who does, you can be instrumental.   It’s easy:

Take 2 minutes  to view the trailer on the film’s website: http://www.afiercegreenfire.com/trailer.html

Go to the event page to find the location, show times, and special guests. Click the “Join” button and invite susceptible friends on Facebook.  You can also buy tickets.

-          San Francisco - https://www.facebook.com/events/496255163744607/

-          Berkeley - https://www.facebook.com/events/398452350250007/

-          L.A. -  https://www.facebook.com/events/575815405764120/

      Other showings:

      San Rafael: Smith Rafael Film Center – opens March 15^th
1118 Fourth St., San Rafael
Showtimes and tickets: http://cafilm.org  or call  (415) 454-1222 

      Washington, DC: National Geographic Live! / Environmental Film Festival -- March 19^th     
National Geographic Society, 1600 M St. NW, Washington, DC
7:30pm
Tickets (or http://www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org/films/show/1008 or  202-857-7700 )
Mark Kitchell appears for intro and Q&A

Hudson, NY: Time and Space Limited -- March 14-17 & 22-23
434 Columbia St  Hudson, NY 12534
http://timeandspace.org/events

New Orleans, LA: Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center – opens March 19^th
1618 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. 
http://www.zeitgeistinc.net

     

     Thanks!

 

 

Early Lesson Learned

I was a relatively good student in the Ada, Oklahoma school system. My older siblings were really smart so our common teachers expected the same of me: “Oh, you’re Tisha and Jim’s brother.”

For the most part I performed up to expectations. I remember at home we had a 20 volume set of encyclopedias on the bottom shelf and I would stand with my back to it and reach between my legs to randomly pull out one of volumes and read it from start to finish. In the third grade I won an award for reading the most books. (I also remember that I beat out the competition by selecting only thin books with large type and lots of pictures.) That same year my class was carrying chairs out of the auditorium and our teacher asked us to be careful, so I walked up the stairs taking a half step at a time. I liked it when she called out to the rest of the class to pay attention to my careful method.

But one day my academic voyage hit some heavy weather. There was a kid who lived around the corner, Billy Keith Gray, who was not a great student. His home was smaller than mine and my parents discouraged me from playing with him. I remember one year he learned I had invited others to a birthday party and he offered me a dime if I would include him. I declined. In fourth grade, in Mrs. England’s class, he sat in front of me. He occasionally tied my shoelaces together.

We were studying U.S. history, which I loved, and one assignment was to create maps showing what sort of products came from different parts of the country. I actually took it step further and used real objects to represent what was produced. My South was full of wads of cotton which I took from the medicine cabinet. I procured coal from somewhere. I thought it was pretty cool.

Our teacher gave us a Monday deadline and my map was ready to go. But some students were slow. On Monday, Mrs. England announced that we could have an extra day.

Why did that make me so mad? We weren’t being graded on the curve after all.

“Liar” I heard myself whisper.

Mrs. England asked me if I had said something. I said no.

Billy Keith corrected me. “He called you a liar.”

Mrs. England said nothing for a long moment and moved on to the lesson.

Later she asked me to stay after class. This made me anxious but I hoped it was because she wanted to congratulate me on my map. Instead she told me that I had to tell my mother what I’d called her.

When I got home I burst into tears. My mother was supportive. She didn’t think it was that big of a deal. But the episode shook me up.

I don’t remember much about the aftermath. I must have been extremely relieved to have avoided deeper trouble. I later realized something like suspension was a possibility. At least a B in Citizenship. But it passed. This shot of humility was undoubtedly a good thing for me then, and it stayed with me in my later student days. I hope.

Thank you Mrs. England, and thank you Mom. I appreciate your patience.

The Hero’s Journey – The Story of How We Reverse Climate Change

What’s the story?  Do you feel the dramatic tension at this point in history? Despite years of high-level political struggle against climate change, the rate of carbon emissions worldwide increased 5.8 percent from 2009 to 2010.  Even Obama seems unable to make reduction of carbon use a priority and instead calls for the expansion of oil drilling in the Arctic and deep offshore.  How will we reverse climate change?  The ending of this story is still being written.   

Long ago, and, it feels, far away, I worked in interactive storytelling and learned about the Hero’s Journey, a dramatic structure identified by Joseph Campbell in “The Hero With a Thousand Faces.”  This type of story forms the backbone of countless myths and quite a few movie scripts.  In a common plot point, the main character refuses a challenge to act heroically. There’s a problem on the horizon, but the path to action is not clear, or perhaps others will assume responsibility. In Star Wars, Luke initially refuses Obi Wan’s request to join the rebel effort, saying he must tend the farm instead.

I’m not sure when I first heard about global warming, but Al Gore’s PowerPoint-turned-video “An Inconvenient Truth” was a clear call to action. And in response I recycled more. I drove less. I put in more twisted light bulbs. But I didn’t feel like a hero. The threat was clear but my deeper role was not.

And I guess I assumed someone else was going to solve the problem. But I’ve lost that sense now. Climate change is not being reversed, it’s getting worse..

Last month I heard about a brand new organization, Solar Mosaic, that created a way to for individuals to take matters into their own hands. You can directly reduce carbon emissions by lending money to others to install solar panels. Typically, the panels are installed in community institutions–your local school for example. You and other community members can lend $100 or more to fund an installation. And everyone wins. The school (or other project host) gets interest-free financing for solar panels. Their reduced energy bill pays back your investment over time. And meanwhile, you’ve directly slowed climate change.

This breakthrough presents a whole new opportunity, a path so clear that it embodies a call to action: “If not you, who?  If not now, when?” 

Essentially, Solar Mosaic offers you the role of the hero.  But in order to fully assume the role, and to reverse the momentum of climate change, mere participation is not enough. Today the hero must also reach out to others and lead them to act, so that each of them can respond to the call and be a hero. Solar Mosaic staff will make it simple for you to recruit your friends and family to join you as investors in an existing project.  And they will guide you through the process of identifying a new installation site and organizing a new cluster of community supporters.

In this way you can be a spark that ignites the struggle against climate change. This is your chance to help create an overwhelming force, like last summer’s Texas wildfires, and cause installations to sprout up around the world, supported by tens of millions of heroes.

But how will this movie play out? In Star Wars, Luke only accepts the hero’s role after the murder of his aunt and uncle. Will we leave it to others and wait until climate change has caused terrible damage so that reversing its effects is even more daunting? Or will we accept the Solar Mosaic challenge now and embrace the role of the hero? The next chapter is up to you.

Consider taking the first step of the Hero’s Journey: Watch this 1-minute video:

Peer-to-Peer Recruitment Via Sub-Communities

The most cost-effective way to build an online movement is through peer-to-peer recruitment.  The key challenge is to give supporters both an incentive to reach out to others and an effective method for enlisting their sympathetic friends. People are more likely to recruit their friends—and friends are more likely to accept—if the cause seems specific to an identity they share.

Let’s take the case of a national advocacy organization: “Americans Against Domestic Violence.” Building the constituency could be greatly accelerated by creating informal sub-communities of supporters based on a more specific identity.  For example, since I grew up in Oklahoma, I would probably have more success inviting my high school buddies to connect with “Oklahomans Against Domestic Violence” than recruiting them to join the national organization. And those who accepted the Oklahoma connection would be much more likely to spread the word to their fellow Oklahomans. 

Continuing with the geographic identity example, once the initial states had been selected, Americans Against Domestic Violence (AADV) could create a Facebook page and online petition site for each state, co-branded with AADV and the state-specific name.  Each site would offer members a chance to pledge support for AADV’s goals and to recruit their fellow community members to the cause.  AADV could email (and direct mail) its current list in each state to ask supporters to become the charter members for their community and to reach out to people within their state.

Although the recruitment would be state-focused, the goal would be to collect email addresses that could be used for general AADV communication and fundraising. AADV could also post general messages and campaigns on each state-specific Facebook page.  In addition, certain volunteers in each state could be given administrative power to post state-specific content relevant to their own communities.  

This state-specific strategy offers a great opportunity to concentrate movement-building efforts on those states that are key to passing AADV legislation.  Even Congressional districts can be targeted via Facebook ads.        

Many people would be motivated to sign up, because taking a stand as, for example, an “Oklahoman Against Domestic Violence” is a powerful way to show pride in the state. A sense of competition can be developed between the states—for example by pointing out that the number of supporters of the Texas fan page has just surpassed Oklahoma’s.  The use of Google maps to show the locations of supporters in each state could provide further incentive to join. It could be especially effective to display AADV
supporters alongside domestic violence crime locations on the same map. 

While geographic communities offer certain distinct advantages identified above, it would also be wise to test communities based on other aspects of identity, such as colleges (students or alumni), professional sports team affiliations, careers, or employers. All of these examples leverage bonds of shared community and opportunities to express pride in one’s group.  Because people are more likely to accept an invitation to join an informal community based on shared identity, this approach encourages effective peer-to-peer recruitment and should result in the rapid growth of an organization’s supporters. 

S.F 49er Fans Against Domestic Violence?  Willing to join?

Why Sign? Can Online Petitions Create Change?

Many people deride online petitions as ineffective "Slacktivism" or worse since they might deter someone from taking effective action by giving the false sense that the signer has made an impact.  I disagree.   

Petitions can be a critical channel of communication that can build awareness for many issues.  They challenge individuals to decide whether or not to take a stand, and provide an easy way for people to publicize their opinions and recruit others to lend their support.  Facebook can be an extraordinary medium to amplify this process because it can leverage an individual’s personal connections to help a campaign go viral and reach people who would otherwise never be touched. How else will my Oklahoma high school buddies have a chance to consider same-sex civil rights?

At the same time, a petition like the Food Declaration can be an extremely effective way to expand your network of supporters who can help apply pressure on legislators and provide financial contributions. And, in my experience, those who sign up online are much more likely to respond to online requests for action than connections made via face-to-face canvassing.

But some petitions are more effective than others.  Ideally they demand something that has a good chance of actually being achieved.  For example, here's a petition campaign I drafted in response to a request to improve on an existing petition on Change.org.

First, to set the context, here's my wording of the text that introduces the issue on the campaign page:

Tell Trader Joe’s: Don’t Dump Good Food

Every year in America we throw out 96 billion pounds of food, much of it still good to eat.  Grocery stores are dumping food every day that could feed hungry people.

This is where we start to reverse this unacceptable waste of food.  Trader Joe’s prides itself as “giving back to our local communities.” But the movie “Dive!” shows huge amounts of good food discarded in their dumpsters.

Send a message to the grocery stores that you care about the environment and hungry people. Sign this petition to tell Trader Joe’s to act on its principles and cut its food waste in half.

The original campaign asks: "Please initiate a Zero Food Waste corporate-wide policy!"   I Googled "zero food waste policy" and couldn't find a definition for it.  It sounded like a reference to a certification program, but I don't think one exists.  Hopefully it will some day.  In the mean time, Trader Joe's management hasn't responded to the petition even though it has 78,000 signatures.

However, I doubt they ever will, since it asks for "zero waste" which is impossible.  But what if we asked for something that they just might agree to?  In my work at Roots of Change, I learned that the first step in reducing environmental impact is just to measure it.  So my "demand" would be for Trader Joe's to measure food waste and to cut it in half over the course of three years.   Not exactly a slogan that would send people to the barricades, but one to which I can imagine the management responding.  Here's the full letter I drafted:

Dear Mr. Bane,

Trader Joe’s has a reputation for being environmentally friendly and supporting local communities.  I’m writing to ask you to build on this reputation by acting to help solve an urgent problem: the estimated 96 billion pounds of food that are thrown away in the U.S each year.  Reducing this waste would prevent significant damage to the environment and could provide nutrition for millions of hard-pressed citizens.

This statement from Trader Joe’s website is a clear sign of your concern: “We continuously strive to improve our processes in our efforts to reduce food waste and provide hunger relief.”  I ask that you establish your reputation as the most socially conscious grocery chain by making this commitment: “to measure the amount of food that Trader Joe’s throws out annually and reduce it by 50% over three years.”

This issue is so important to me that if you’ll take this critical step, I’ll pledge to help publicize your good work and urge my friends to support you.

I look forward to learning about your response through Change.org.  With your cooperation, we can work together to maintain a healthier planet and feed more people by reducing food waste.

Sincerely,

In addition to the specific demand, the overall tone is changed to one of collaboration to solve the problem. And it offers a carrot if they are willing to agree.

The next draft is the email alert sent to supporters to trigger signatures.
Even though the petition itself sets a collaborative tone, the letter to supporters is more urgent and dramatic.  Note that it also clarifies where this particular action fits into the overall effort to reduce grocery store waste.  I especially like the  subject line - designed to maximize the open rate.

Subject Line – Stop Trashy Behavior at Trader Joe’s

Dear ________,

Every year in America we throw out 96 billion pounds of food -- much of it is still OK to eat.  Meanwhile, people across the country are going to bed hungry.  This is unacceptable. 

Join the voices that say that tossing out good food is terrible, and take the first step to reverse course. Call on Trader Joe’s to drastically reduce its waste—specifically, to measure the amount of food it throws away each year and cut it in half.

This petition was started by dumpster-diving Jeremy Seifert.  In his movie “Dive!” Jeremy shows Trader Joe’s dumpsters full of food—a dozen eggs thrown away because one is cracked, a crate of bananas tossed because of a few brown spots, intact packages of fresh spinach stacked in the trash—and says, “it’s about more than not wasting food. It’s about making sure everyone has enough to eat.”

This campaign is completely winnable.  Jeremy selected Trader Joe’s because the management is sensitive to its reputation for being socially conscious.  They will act when they understand the depth of consumers’ concerns. 

And Trader Joe’s is just the first step. Once it sets a standard for waste reduction, Change.org will pressure other grocery chains to publicly meet or exceed those standards. That way we can destroy the assumption that it’s OK to toss healthy food.  

Here’s your chance to cause real, measurable change with a simple action. But it can only work if people like you act, and if you ask your friends to join in. Be the spark that changes the world.

http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-trader-joes-dont-dump-good-food

Thank you for taking action.

Even campaigns that ask for the moon can effectively communicate messages and gather support.  But whenever possible, as in this case, why not step it up and demand something that could actually happen?  That way the campaign gains credibility--and more support.   And it greatly increases the chance of a campaign victory.  By referencing that victory, we can undercut the "what difference does it make?" argument and set up even more credible, more powerful follow-up campaigns. 

How to Leverage Networks and Change the World - with only $5,000

I majored in Communications a long ago.  My senior thesis was a film portrait of a United Farm Worker boycott organizer. I was also volunteering to help picket Safeways and liquor stores selling Gallo wine.  Later on, I joined up with a well-known documentary filmmaker, Peter Adair, and served as producer for several works he directed under the Adair and Armstrong banner. Until last year, with the exception of a 40^th birthday surprise for my wife, I hadn’t directed a video since my college days.

A couple of years ago, the Ohana Foundation, funded by musician Jack Johnson, awarded Roots of Change a grant of $5,000 to help create a more sustainable food system in the U.S. After thinking long and hard about how to use the money to create a significant impact, we came up with the idea of a call-to-action video, presenting some of the sharpest sustainable food issues and offering a brief review of some of the efforts to change course.  ROC's key mission, in my mind, is to support the work of other organizations from many issue areas connected with food and farming: social justice groups including labor and healthy food access, environment, and production agriculture. That’s why we decided the video should also serve as a showcase for key food and farming groups and offer viewers a chance to connect with them and support their efforts.

I woke up with a vision for the video a little over a year ago: just text and still images over a Bo Diddly drum beat.   We hired Adam Goldstein to search for and edit the images.  At first we tried combining the images and text but Adam convinced me of the wisdom of separating them so that the viewer could focus on one thing at a time.  Daniela Aceves and Shoshona Bochner dug for dozens more photos until we were satisfied. Daniela cleared the rights, contacted all the organizations, and set up the webpages.  Michael Becker, our composer from the old Adair and Armstrong days, created the sound track pretty much as a favor.  ROC President Michael Dimock provided the food system expertise and editorial guidance. The title “Food Movement Rising” was inspired by Michael Pollan’s article in the New York Times book review section. He generously allowed us to use the name and Tweeted his support.

Many people find the video too fast to absorb. My hope is that the speed and power of the images trigger an emotional engagement so that they’ll watch multiple times and spread the word to their friends. 

To me, the most critical and compelling aspect of this campaign is what happens after the video.  ROC offers a web page with logos and descriptions of 26 organizations and the chance to simply check a box to connect with as many of them as you choose.  We did this without requiring any of the organizations to promise to publicize the campaign. At the same time we hope these groups and many other people see its value and lend their support: by publicizing this one video and connection page, you are really supporting the overall movement.   This fits well with ROC’s role to encourage a wide variety of organizations to work together to change the food system. And it communicates our message that all the issues need to be dealt with simultaneously to create very basic, system-level change.

I’ve now moved on from ROC but I'm still supporting their efforts.  So far, the video has almost 4,000 hits on YouTube. I’d appreciate any feedback and, of course, any promotion of the video and campaign that you feel you can muster. Here's the link to the ROC -  http://rootsofchange.org/campaign/food-movement-rising  After the video, click on Connect.  Thank you.  

Online Community Conference - 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.