On Ideas, Status, Conversation, and Flow: Life and Twitter

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Fred Wilson wrote on his blog, A VC, yesterday about how the status update has become the primary user experience, whether you're on Facebook or Twitter or another social networking option.

"I believe Facebook's recognition of status as the most important and most powerful social gesture seals the deal," wrote Fred. "Status is where it's at in social networking. This is very good for Twitter and it's also very good for the other social nets who recognize this and move quickly to provide status updating features and open them up to the social web."

Howard Lindzon, whose latest idea StockTwits, is built on the Twitter API and features a clever twist on the status update (Substitute "What Are You Trading?" for "What Are You Doing?"), countered that "It's about Ideas."

I agreed with both and said so in a tweet yesterday afternoon: I think it's about Status + Ideas + Conversation.


Jeffrey McLarty, who knows about such things from his study of global water issues, commented that it's all about flow. More specifically, "the flow of it all."

He's right too.

My wife, who is always right, really doesn't get Twitter or why I'm hooked on it. She asked me yesterday whether I preferred my "Twitter life" or my real life. Of course I said my real life, but later I started thinking about it.

There are plenty of moments during any given day when I do prefer my life online, connected to the folks in my various social networks over what I'm doing at that moment. And there are other times when I want to shut off that online world.

But then, it's becoming increasing apparent to me that there is no real difference between the two. And that is where the flow happens: I'll tweet something that feeds into StockTwits, it's picked up and retweeted by a total stranger, and then one of my good friends sees it on my Facebook status feed and comments on it or sends me an email about it.

Another friend calls me to set up a meeting in a couple of weeks and asks me about another tweet, which is in turn commented on by someone else. That comment might trigger another idea in my head, which I might share with my wife or someone with whom I'm having coffee or a beer, which sets off another flow.

A couple of weeks ago I tweeted something about my son collecting coins. One Twitter friend picked up on that and, because he is a coin collector himself, offered to send me some coins from the British Raj. Amazing flow.

The trick is to learn to "go with the flow" and not get swallowed up by it or run ashore. Now that the Dalai Lama (or at least his office) is following me on Twitter, I'm hoping the flow leads to some harmonic convergence or something. Or at least a continuous flow of ideas and status and conversation.

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Review: CausedWired by Tom Watson

The best trend watchers are sharp observers of the present moment. They have a knack for assessing a trend as it's developing and making it come alive for the rest of us.

Think Tom Peters, Jim Collins, Malcolm Gladwell, Faith Popcorn. Now add Tom Watson to that list.

Watson, veteran consultant, journalist, and entrepreneur, gives us CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World, published last month by Wiley. It's an important book. Why?

Because what Watson analyzes here is a trend that will effect the entire non-profit sector and has implications for how change will happen in the future.

His premise and central thesis of the book is very simple: "New technology and the human urge to communicate will create the basis for a golden age of activism and involvement, increasing the reach of philanthropy and improving the openness of politics, democratic government, and out major social institutions."

He's right. Just look at the fully wired Obama campaign, the success of donor-oriented web marketplaces, such as DonorsChoose, kiva.org, and GlobalGiving.org, or the popularity of Facebook, MySpace, and even LinkedIn.

People are connecting in very real ways and through every virtual means, and they are getting involved and taking action -- even if it is simply sending a strange plant creature to your Facebook friends.

Tom has had first-hand view of this trend over the years, first as a journalist and later as a consultant and co-founder of onPhilanthropy,com. His personal reflections speak to a deep engagement in the sector, which lends color to this book and makes for an engaging read.

And this work is, as he quotes Ben Rattray, founder of Change.org, "...all about deep engagement--a lot of these viral campaigns, it's not just getting them to join, it's about deeply engaging them in the issues." The goal, Rattray tells Watson, is to "transform how nonprofit organizations engage with individuals, to improve the giving experience for thousands and thousands of people."

Another reason this book is important: this is truly cutting edge stuff. The sector, as Watson states in a late chapter, "is still being defined. It includes online social activism, nonprofit fundraising, wired social entrepreneurship, political organizing, flash causes, and digital philanthropy. It overlaps the larger worlds of organized charity and nonprofits, of politics and policy organizing, of consumer brands and marketing, even as it changes them."

And as the next generation of philanthropists continues to challenge the status quo and seek ways to be more engaged via non-traditional means, nonprofits need to become well-versed, if not downright sophisticated about this stuff. It is both an opportunity and a threat.

Tom Watson, however, provides an excellent road map of understanding about this new, wired (and wireless) approach to generating support. Anyone interested in the future of philanthropy should read this book, because the future has arrived.

New York Times on Twitter, Facebook, and the New Digital Intimacy

Interesting piece in New York Times Magazine this weekend about what social scientists are calling "ambient awareness"...

"Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it 'ambient awareness.' It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye."

Worth a read: http://snurl.com/3o6q7

Clean Tech: Village Green Energy and Wineries Team Up to Promote Renewables Through Facebook

Four Sonoma and Napa County, California, wineries are trying to power their operations with renewable energy.

Now you can help them by loading the "Green My Vino" application on Facebook.

"Green My Vino" allows Facebook users to promote environmental change in the wine business. The application, developed by Village Green Energy, creates three free gifts in Facebook, representing 1, 5, and 10 minutes of renewable energy.

When a user gives the gift, Village Green Energy purchases an equivalent amount of renewable electricity from a wind farm or solar array on the Facebook user's behalf, according to Village Green. If Facebook users pass 10,000 minutes, the first winery will convert to green power.

Seems like a tall order, but it is based upon the success of other applications with high volume of use and effectiveness, such as the Lil' Green Patch, which helps save rainforest as friends give each other cartoon plants.

To date, according to the application developers, the Lil' Green Patch community has saved 29,259,567 square feet of Rainforest by using sponsorship revenue from advertisers to make donations to the Nature Conservancy's Adopt an Acre program.

The first four wineries to participate in Green My Vino are Iron Horse Vineyards, Girard Winery, Windsor Vineyards, and Windsor Sonoma. Village Green intends to recruit additional wineries once the original four have converted.

"We jumped at the opportunity to participate in the application," said Pat Roney of Windsor Vineyards. "'Green My Vino' gives the community the opportunity to interact with businesses and make their voices heard. When people participate in the application, they're telling us that clean energy is a priority for them, and we'll make supporting renewable energy a part of our commitment as a business."

Village Green Energy enables households and businesses to purchase renewable energy from wind farms, solar arrays, and other renewable technologies through the purchase of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), the legal rights to renewable power.