social change

Today is Blog Action Day, an annual event leveraging the power of blogs around the world to raise awareness and spark discussion on an issue and promote social change. This year, more than 9,000 bloggers are dedicating today's post to discussing climate change, and those posts are expected to reach more than 12 million readers. Although Social Citizens doesn't often tackle environmental issues, we couldn't pass up an opportunity to join a movement on the social web for social change. These are just a few ways Millennials can go, and already are going, green.

Buy Green. Being a green consumer is easier than ever, and it doesn't have to be limited to local produce, recyclable paper and reusable bags and water bottles. Last month, Newsweek released its first Green Rankings, which scores the 500 largest US-based companies on their efforts to cut emissions and adopt responsible environmental polices. Among the top 10 are Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Intel, IBM, Nike, and Starbucks. This list will make it easier for you to put your money where your mouth is when it comes to the environment. Check out Newsweek for the full list of rankings and some insight into why they took on this project.

Serve Green. As part of of the Serve America Act this year, President Obama created a Clean Energy Service Corps, which will be a part of AmeriCorps, and will train and put full-time volunteers to work on efficiency programs for homes and offices, weatherizing low-income homes and installing renewable energy systems. These new positions likely won't be announced until next year, so in the meantime you can explore existing AmeriCorps positions with an environmental focus, like wildlife restoration, trail building and invasive species removal. Or check out opportunities through the Corps Network, which enrolls more than 29,000 young people in service and conservation programs each year, and those young people, in turn, mobilize 227,000 volunteers who contribute 21.3 million hours of service every year.

Teach Green. Are you a student or teacher? Try one of these ideas to integrate environmental education into classrooms and community service. Edutopia's searchable database has more than 150 ways to engage other students on various climate topics, and you can add your own or rate and comment on projects you've tried.

Join Green. Even if you're not a blogger, there are endless ways for you to join the online effort to raise awareness and encourage action on climate change. Add a personal story on the UN Foundation Climate Board. Watch and vote in the Drive Smarter Video contest. Challenge a friend to an online environmental education game. Participate in the Greenpeace cool IT challenge campaign to turn IT industry leaders into climate advocates and solution providers.

Find other ways to take action at Change.org and see some of the thousands of other climate change posts from Blog Action Day.

Sure, the race to a million twitter followers is “so last week.” But what an interesting week it made for celebrity philanthropy. While the race to a million came to an end with Ashton Kutcher pulling ahead of CNN Breaking News, many in the “twitter-verse” and beyond hoped that celebrities posturing for attention would just go away.  But could this be a new and important trend in how celebrities are using their power to inspire millions for social good?

Not only did Ashton commit to giving back and supporting the great work of Malaria No More but what’s more, he introduced millions (via twitter, plus his appearances on Oprah and Larry King Live) to the idea that every individual can be part of making decisions that lead to global change, in this case the eradication of Malaria. 

As SXSW comes to a close, I have lived vicariously through the tweets, blog posts, and Facebook status updates which have all served as a gentle reminder that I’m not there. Let’s be honest, I have a bit of SXSW envy. For the past five days the SXSW Interactive Festival has featured a plethora of engaging panelists, digital creatives and visionary technology entrepreneurs, all in an effort to celebrate some of the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology. At least that’s what I surmise from the 140 character tweets I’ve come across this past week. 

• Tweet Congress [WINNER!]
• Clif Bar 2 Mile Challenge
• I Am Second
• Just in Queso
• Sunny Side

Whether you were on the ground in Austin or tuning in from the comfort of your couch and MacBook…what were your favorite moments as captured by Flickr, TwitPic, Facebook or others?

This time last year we were reading drafts of the Social Citizens paper and wondering whether it was sea worthy, meaning would the findings and assumptions hold up over the course of a few stormy tosses and turns. And now we know the answer: mostly yes. Of course, we missed one big thing coming on the horizon, more than a storm, an economic tsunami really, but, then again, so did everone else! 

In preparation for the WeMedia conference taking place this week in Miami, I wrote a short reflection piece on the Social Citizens paper a year later.  Here is a quick summary of that paper.

Certainly the intensity of interest in social causes, and the rapdity of growth of individual causes and cause events, has continued and perhaps even quickened because of social media. Twitter, the fastest growing social networking site, has spawned events like Tweetsgiving and Twestival, raising thousands of dollars to build schools in Africa and buy drinking wells and filters for clean water worldwide.

But the construct of Social Citizens has also changed throughout the year. One issue in particular that we wrestled with throughout the year was whether Social Citizens are by definition Millennials (ages 15-29). And I think that the answer is, naturally, more complicated at second glance than at first. Not all Millennials are Social Citizens, and not all Social Citizens are Millennials.  But there is more movement on the later idea than the former, particularly when you see the data that the Pew Foundation recently released showing that older people are coming online faster than any other segment of the population.  And old in this instance isn't me (regardless of what my kids say) it means over 75!  Your grandparents are on email, your parents are on Facebook, and you're on Twitter, and we're all pinging and poking and tweeting about causes. Increasingly, we're all social citizens.

That's the good news. Unfortunately the bad news is really bad, the fast sinking economy is the first economic crisis young people have ever faced. Sagging beneath a pile of credit card and student loan debt, unable to find jobs, unwilling to live at home, the patina of effortessness that had clung to Millennials all their lives is beginning to wear off. How this will affect causes is uncertain at this point, but it's difficult to imagine that the cup of coffee grown on an organize farm by an entrepreneurial native family will do as well today as it would have last year against the less expensive one.

One very interesting issue to watch moving forward this year is the growth of the public sector as the stimulus money begins to move through the system. Certainly the early signals are that Millennials who were very involved in the presidential campaign are not as drawn to the messy reality of governing. However, if the only growth area for jobs in the next year or two is the public sector, that may change the wariness and distance that young people have had from the public sector as a whole.

We'll continue to watch from our perch here on the blog and on Facebook and Twitter and whatever the new Twitter is and continue to learn how people engage with one another for causes and how those causes affect our relationships and our communities.

As the year comes to an end, our stomachs are filled with turkey, our hearts are filled with joy, and our RSS feeds are filled with Top Ten lists.  We couldn’t help but get in on the action, so we’ve compiled some of our favorite lists from the past year --with a social change bent of course. Social Citizens posts will be slowing down until after the new year, but we wish you all a wonderful holiday season.

For the past week or so, my colleagues and I have been feverishly working to unveil a new online civic engagement campaign, "Change Begins With Me." One lucky person (and their guest) will have an opportunity to participate in the 44th Presidential Inauguration and MLK Day of Service related festivities in Washington, DC.  The concept is simple, no idea is too big or too small - just tell us how you commit to "change" your community, neighborhood, or nation...and you'll have a chance to win the trip.

But, last night as the site went live and we all went home to take a deep breath - something funny happened. We started exchanging emails and asking each other - "what would you commit to change?" And it became obvious that if we had an opportunity to participate and post our commitment for the world to see - it would be difficult to narrow down what it was that we wanted to change, especially in the 250 character limited space.