Virtual Platforms for Good: Empowering Individuals

Photo UgoTrade Blog

I wanted to highlight a couple of observations that Lucy Bernholz makes in her analysis of yesterday's discussion about philanthropy in Second Life by the MacArthur Foundation.   She points out why this was such a groundbreaking event and suggests a compelling new metaphor for philanthropy:

Imagine if philanthropy sought to be an "empowering platform for individuals (and organizations) to make change."

But to really be a platform for individuals, where the participants decide how to do things, where the successful organizations are only those that help residents succeed, where feedback loops are tight, fast, and respected - these are new ways for philanthropic institutions to act. A good start, a conversation with anyone who could get there, was made today. I hope the Foundation and its partners are successful in achieving their goals: listening to new s, providing means for isolated groups to get together, offering support for creative solutions "in world" that might transfer to "real life." The conversation started - lets hope (and help) it continues.

What is interesting to me about this concept of a platform for change that is very different from say - campaigns on social networking sites like Facebook or the use of widgets and charity badges on blogs for personal fundraising campaigns -- is that while Virtual Worlds are empowering individuals -- we are empowering collective action.

The Second Thoughts blog, in a post called "We Need A New Kind of Philanthropy" outlines ten ways a new kind of philanthropy could get started with the combination of social media and virtuality in worlds and games. 

I was also surprised to read this post by the Web Metrics Guru, not the usual type of blog that covers the nonprofit world or philanthropy.

Just as blogging is now becoming mainstream, but was ahead of the curve three or four years ago (and several Bloggers, are now seen as influencials (and members of the Press (sorta) - if they have a wide enough audience).   

I predict the same fate for Second Life and other 3D-Virtual Words - although the time frame is closer to 5 or 6 years from now (and I think it was Gartner who said that by 2010 or 2011 pretty much everyone is going to have a "Second Life" in a 3D Virtual World -I wrote about it in More people leading 3D virtual lives online) due to hardware and platform restrictions that prevent a wider adoption now.

I noticed that Macarthur Foundation is not limiting themselves to Second Life - but also are exploring There.com.  I saw There.com at Virtual Worlds 2007 but did not focus as much on them, being more interested in just covering the whole event and making contacts, which are already proving to be very useful and helpful to me.

But it's clear to me the lines have been drawn, even at unlikely places like Search Engine Strategies (I wrote about my first hand impressions at the last SES in NYC  in Search Marketers and Second Life don't seem to mix) - as many in the Search Engine market have traditionally seen themselves as the innovators - when in reality they have now become mainstream and tomorrow, some of them will be forgotten unless they, as group, move forward - to innovate and see what's happening now.

That's always the challenge ... to move forward...you have to give up something.

The UgoTrade Blog shares some notes from the event, but also tells us about the magic of Second Life and the ability to provide access to people:

Both Philip Linden and Jonathan Fanton stayed after the event to chat one on one with people.
I sent an IM to Jonathan Fanton about an African intitiated Virtual Africa portal to Second Life (see next post!). And, I got an instant response. Not only did Jonathan Fanton himself want to stay in touch with project. He immediately sent contact information for the person most involved with Africa at The MacArthur Foundation.

Meanwhile over in the teen grid of Second Life, there was a listening party where teen were gathered to listen to the event and invited to send questions.   Here's part of the report:

John near the end was faced with the tricky question of, if he had to chose 3 issues with priority over others, which would he chose for SL. He talked about Iraq, and said it was important, but there is enough media coverage of it all ready, and he feels nothing could be done in the short term. He said he would more focus on the "death and destruction" in northern Uganda and Eastern Congo.

Once again a small amount of the teens were messing around, this time singing "my milkshake brings my nan to the yard", but ironically they were all surprised at how soon it ended, and were begging for more.

Over at the Global Kids Blog, Barry Joseph reports that:

One teen quote in particular, from, Anthony Pomeray, summed up the effect the event had on many who participated: "After hearing the conversation Philip had today, I just feel like I want to be part of something to help mankind."

Here's an update on the round up of coverage:

• Event Announcement from Jonathan Fanton, President
• Doing the Impossible in Virtual Worlds by Doug Thomas from USC Center on Public Diplomacy
• A report about the event from Hastac
• My Live Blog post with notes from the event
• The flickr stream - photos tagged with macfoundsl and snapzilla stream
• Nonprofits in Second Life Blog coverage
• Lucy Bernholz captured the video stream from blog.tv and offered an analysis here
• Rik Riel's multimedia coverage the event
• Virtual to Reality Blog
• Ugo Trade
• Mindblizzard Blog - a good screencapture showing attendance
• Second Life 101 - some great photos
• Teen Listening Party and Global Kids coverage
• Second Thoughts blog, "We Need a New Kind of Philanthropy"
• Don't Tell the Donor Blog
• Britt Bravo's Second Life Do-Gooders
• New York Times article