Harnessing The Social Data Stream For Good

The web tech world is alive with conversation about the "stream." The stream is the fire hose of social information that Twitter, Facebook, music sharing tools, video tools, and just about everything else these days is pumping into the collective ether. I'm attending the TechCrunch Real Time CrunchUp today in San Francisco, and all day I'll be thinking and blogging about how we harness the social data stream for good.

We've already begun to see examples of people using services like Twitter and Facebook to more effectively leverage their communities - particularly for donations. Epic Change's Tweetsgiving is an example of a creative campaign that builds support around important social work in Tanzania. The America's Giving Challenge that is hosted by Causes, Parade and the Case Foundation each year is an example of institutional philanthropy getting creative to help a broader array of organizations.

Perhaps even more than that though, we've seen the stream power dynamic support and personal brand building that can create a dense safety net for social entrepreneurs. Last year, when FORGE hit financial trouble, founder Kjerstin Erickson took a path of 'radical transparency,' blogging about what she thought she had done wrong. Tactical Philanthropy's Sean Stannard-Stockton picked up the story and the community rallied around her transparency and helped the organization get on a healthy foot.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The social media stream creates or enables a few forces which impact social good organizations:

• Authenticity: people don't want carefully crafted brand messages, they want a feeling of realness. It's better to goof and to apologize than to pretend you're infallible on the social media sphere, and that has impact for nonprofits.
• Transparency: closely related to authenticity is transparency. The stream encourages openness up front, because there's a pretty good chance that things are going to be open whether you want them to or not.
• Dispersed Asset Discovery: the stream gives people the ability to reach farther out to find the talent and resources they need to make their endeavors work, and I think this will change the way that nonprofits particularly think about tapping their stakeholder bases.
• Opportunity Discovery: from the flip side, I think that it's becoming easier and easier for people to find opportunities to support organizations that are particularly relevant to them, and this could translate to more action and engagement.

These are just some of the things that are happening. At the Real Time CrunchUp, I'll be looking out for more trends about where this real time stream is headed. In particular, I'll be thinking about how mobile and location based services could have a huge impact in the way nonprofits act and harness their resources. Stay Tuned.

Photo: Rudhach