Nov 22, 09
Worldchanging Timeline: 2003-2009
We here at Worldchanging just celebrated our sixth anniversary! In addition to publishing a series of "101" posts, highlighting some of the iconic pieces we've published over the years, and a primer on blogs and other resources we lean heavily upon, we though that it might also be useful to share a timeline of the project so far, noting some representative events, to give the interested reader a sense of where we came from and how we got here; perhaps knowing something of the evolution of...
"Changer Pour Durer:" Change To Endure
"The French think differently,” said nearly every one of us who was not actually French. Of course, we said this to each other in French, so perhaps we were thinking differently too. Patrick Viveret presenting at Cerisy-la-Salle, Sep 2009 Last week (19-24 Sept 2009) I attended an inter-disciplinary colloquium at a castle in Normandy called Cerisy-la-Salle. The central massive stone structure (see photo at the end of this article), constructed in the 1600s to defend a Protestant...
A Declaration of Health Data Rights
The United States has the most expensive and sophisticated health care system in the world, yet to many it appears broken. While the debates about health care reform focus on costs and how they're managed, there are also problems with service delivery, or, you might say, with knowledge delivery. For example, a new study suggests that some patients often aren't told of abnormal test results. The impact of this opacity on individual lives can be devastating. Last March, when Regina Holliday's...
Roundup: Participatory Medicine, Music Tees and More...
Journal of Participatory Medicine: A Tool for Personal Resilience "Participatory medicine" has been a meme for nearly a decade, describing proactive strategies for wellness ranging from patient peer support groups to collaborative treatment and research efforts. Now the movement hopes to advance and further unify its conversation with the launch of its own peer-reviewed journal. The Journal of Participatory Medicine (JPM) will be published exclusively online using Open Journal Systems, an...
Politics and New Media, or “Should I Really Tweetspam Congress?”
I lectured in my friend Jonathan Zittrain’s class at Harvard Law about ten days ago. I shared the stage with Nicco Mele, internet strategist for Howard Dean and co-founder of tech consultancy EchoDitto. I gave a typically long-winded talk on citizen media in Kenya and Madagascar… and then I was blown off the stage by Mele’s short, sweet and direct speech. Mele explained that you need to hire five people as a politician to succeed: a fundraiser, a PR director, a field...
Worldchanging Interview: Ethan Schaffer on Power Shift 2009
Last week, I caught up with Worldchanging ally Ethan Schaffer, Director of Major Gifts and Grants at Northwest-based nonprofit Climate Solutions, to talk about his recent participation in Power Shift 2009. The epic event featured four days of workshops, speakers and music focused on mobilizing, networking, learning, teaching and lobbying Congress to make real progress on global warming. More than 12,000 people attended the event, which organizers are calling the largest gathering of U.S....
China’s Complicated Internet Culture
The Chinese internet is lots more complicated than you think. That's the core message of Rebecca MacKinnon's talk at the Berkman Center on the Chinese internet, deliberative government and internet filtering. Most of the models we have for understanding the Chinese internet are wrong, or at the very least, deceptive. Scholars who follow the Chinese internet closely, like Rebecca, and wrestling with explanations of what, in fact, is happening with the Internet and movements towards...
The Final Word on the Death of Newspapers?
Image via WikipediaSome sort of secret signal went out, and everyone and their neighbor has posted a “death of newspapers” story since the beginning of the year, myself included. Polymeme, which is increasingly my go-to, first thing in the morning read, has listed at least a dozen stories this month, and their “media” tag includes roughly 50% crisis stories. Rather than offering a taxonomy of depressing media stories, I’d prefer to point to the best of the bunch, a piece in the New...
Getting Real in the 21st Century
The chief project of humanity has long been fulfilling basic material necessities: clean water, food, warmth, clothing, healing, transportation and livelihood. In the face of such immense needs, no one was too particular about how these things got accomplished. Housing for 100 families was a good thing, even if it meant a drab cinder-block tower without an ounce of charm. But with widespread affluence in Western societies over recent decades and pockets of prosperity elsewhere, new...
Social Software, Digital Activism and Cute Cats
This article was written by Alex Steffen in February 2008. We're republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective. Ethan's talk at ETech was one of my favorite parts of this year's conference. He wrote it up on his excellent personal blog, My Heart's In Accra. I think Worldchanging readers will find it funny, smart and useful. K thx bye! --Alex I’d forgotten just how much fun ETech is. Not only are the talks some of the most creative and innovative you can hear...
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