Category: Citizen Journalism

Greenmyapple bears fruit.

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The BBC reports on Apple’s plans to make “greener” products. Steve Jobs statement is a direct response to the almost perfectly pitched and pithily web 2.0 Greenmyapple campaign from Greenpeace (which also won the activism Webby on Tuesday). I wrote earlier this year about how it uses the weight of the brand to intensify the pressure.

What is interesting about this is also how it demonstrates lessons for combining online campaigning with face to face work. Greenmyapple harnessed the passion and creativity of apple customers to add pressure whilst also talking directly to the company. And they made the campaign personal both online and offline, (adding pressure to a particularly pertinent member of the Apple Board, Al Gore). Again the response was personal, directly from the man at the top. As campaign insider Brian Fitzgerald puts it

There aren’t many campaigns where the CEO of your target steps out and responds directly to your demands….This has been a tremendous confirmation of the power of consumer campaigning.

Reaction has been good for Apple, Macnn may have blunty said Apple Surrendered but approves of what’s happening, ecorazzi has it as one small step but a good one. But there has been grumbling about Greenpeace. Over at Ecogeek some comments suggest this is more to do with Apple’s competitors going green than the campaign, Slashdot grumpily dismissed the quality of the Greenpeace campaign and this translates the subtext of the Steve Jobs letter.

All that aside I’m impressed, and echo Green Business which writes realistically about the efforts companies will make to protect their brand by aligning with public opinion. And if you check the tags below you’ll see just how many individual and business brands were under pressure.

Good campaigning is about sensing these pressures and then applying your own – it’s also about being realistic and gracious in (half) “victory”. Congratulations Greenpeace.

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Welcome to the Videodrome. Why High speed broadband is the wrong priority.

Two sources tell us the same thing – we need 100mbs internet links and we need them now. The Broadband Stakeholder Group tells us that future internet use in the UK will flounder without an expensive infrastructure upgrade

There was little evidence that the UK’s existing telecoms infrastructure would be able to bring such high speeds to much of the population

Whilst Om Malik warns the same is true of the US

Every day we twiddle our thumbs, we lose some of the edge when it comes to developing clever ways to use the bandwidth.

For me Om has the problem wrong. The first thing to solve is universal access. Ensuring everyone has their 2 or 4mbps is also going to unleash innovation. Compare it with the problem of clean water. Water to every home is the first priority, but not every home needs an industrial sized pipe. Those that do can and will find ways to get the supply they need.

And vast speeds dont give us more time. Being able to download an entire library does not mean I’ll read it. Downloading a thousand podcasts doesn’t mean I listen to them. If we want the internet to drive innovation and support some social benefit then universal access comes first, better upload speeds to make it easier for people to participate and express themselves next, and only then a more widely available ultra high speed network.

After all the latter is really designed to support the videodrome – as much about the online TV and advertising as it is about innovation which improves lives.

Others: Skuds Eric
Hat Tip Drew B Stewart Jones

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BBC – give us the tools and the space.

Richard Wilson at Involve has commented on the BBC’s tentative steps towards building public participation. “The BBC is stuck in 20th Century top-down parental thinking”, he says, continuing:

if the BBC really wants to support civil renewal it needs to give people the tools to make their own content without the aid of a studio or 10K camera. Yes support people understand what it takes to make a beautiful and inspiring documentary, but not in a way in which we are reliant on their filming or editing skills, but so we can do it ourselves, and eventually on our own.

My experience of BBC conversations about “user generated content” is that it is almost always perceived as something which will help create material for mainstream programming. The principal that the BBC has a role to advance democratic conversation by offering the freedom for people to have that conversation on their own terms seems to be rarely considered.Meanwhile Kevin Harris at the Neighbourhoods blog sets out some principals for wider involvement: Read more

The power inquiry uses Youtube

Pam Giddy at the power inquiry has been in touch to tell us about a handful of films made to challeneg the process of reforming the Lords. You can find them through these links to www.makeitanissue.org.uk.

– Alex Hardy and Phil Hall’s ‘The Road to House of Lords Reform’
– Mark Wrainwright’s ‘The Trouble with Lords’
– Duncan Tilly’s ‘House of Lords Fudge’.

Pam also sets out arguments for the adoption o fhte hayden review on party finances:

Party funding, as it exists today, gives parties less incentive to cultivate membership because they can rely on large donations, lends itself to the perception that party members have less influence than super rich donors and focuses spending at the national, rather than the local, level…..If the main parties continue to reject caps on individual donations and total spending at elections, they will knowingly allow some of the most damaging sources of disengagement to continue unchecked.

See also

Iain Dale

Stumbling and Mumbling

Political Betting