The BBC The Guardian and others (here, here, here) have written about research at Duke Medical Centre which suggests researchers have found the part of the brain responsible for altruism. I just want to digest this with two things in mind: other ways to understand the research and why these things might mean charities and non profit groups are brilliantly equipped to make best use of the social web….
Tag: Social Networking
Davos – a few links.
As you probably know a theme of this week’s meeting will be web 2.0 and how it contributes to shifting power relationships. Keep tabs in a number of places including:
BBC: Richard Sambrook and others.
Commondreams usually as an alternative take
Speakers will include Bill Gates, Tony Blair, King Abdullah of Jordan, Angela Merkel, Joe Biden, Rupert Murdoch, Eric Schmidt, Hua Jianmin, John McCain, Mohammed El Baradei, Sergy Brin, Gordon Brown. Apparently Bono will also be there!
The Huffington Post is helping produce Davos conversations and is inviting us all to post our video questions to youtube using the tag davos07.
In the meantime anyone want to step up and have a stab at running their country?
The Smartest Online Organisations
Just a quick pointer to the 59 smartest online organisations. Great for inspiration for charities looking to make better use of a range of internet tools.
Celeste over at studio 501c tells us to encourage just this sort of list making in our own organisations.
If you’re interested in using the web more effectively, ask different staffers or volunteers to each review a few sites and to report back to the group on their findings. Make sure to examine the sites of those with missions that are close to yours as well as a few that aren’t. If you have a narrow goal, e.g., improving your online donation capacity, concentrate on what the different nonprofits are doing in that area.
A civil spat – the Youtube way.
I have masses of blogging to catch up on, but thought I would start with one of our local councillors here in Birmingham who is using youtube to tackle graffiti. In the process Martin Mullaney appears to have sparked an intergenerational brushfire.
On January 5th 2007 this Liberal Democrat Councillor for Moseley and Kings Heath popped up a video in which he talks about specific tags and taggers and tells us that many of these young people are from ‘good homes’ and good schools. 10 days later it has provoked more than 170 (often vociferous) comments, essentially a conversation between the taggers concerned and the councillor.
[youtube]hVf1AP6EBW4[/youtube]
As Pete Ashton points out the councillor is clearly determined to confront the taggers. On his own blog we also find out that this particular politician gave police evidence which he says led to the arrest of 3 taggers before Christmas.