Top 10 influencers from Clinton Global Initiative

Sloane Berrent — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:05:45 +0000

When I attended the Clinton Global Initiative last week, I told all of my friends (online and off) that it was a dream come true for me. On my life bucket list was the World Economic Forum and the Clinton Global Initiative. The idea that I got to attend both while I’m 30 is just remarkable to me.

While at CGI last week, I operated very differently than I do at a lot of conferences. What I mean is that while I did network and connect with people, I was very focused on sharing and telling stories.

So when I was there, I decided that while I’m not a full-time journalist, I wanted to be the best version I could using the skills that I have. I thought it would be valuable to live-tweet most of CGI because I know for many people in circle and network, they would love to attend, and soak in the information like I did. But most people can’t be there, for a variety of reasons.

Something I’ve learned from my time spent volunteering in developing countries and year of travel is that people love to share in the experience. So blogging and taking photos and videos, using Facebook and Twitter — all of these online tools allow many who are just as deserving of attending (if not more so) to be able to witness the event.

That’s where sharing the experience comes into play. By live-tweeting CGI, I received scores of messages from people saying simply “Thank you.” Thank you for sharing the information presented there to us. Yes, CGI had a simulcast, but we all know that for most people watching a video all day while they are at work is not feasible. Pulling quotes and stats from speakers and sharing them in 120 character bites (less than 140 so they could be retweeted and shared further) is a great way to spread the CGI mission – and indeed the mission of any conference or closed-invite event.

My simple joy in sharing all of those messages with you last week just got even better! Waggener Edstrom, one of the largest and most well-known communications firms in the world, named me one of the top 10 influencers on Twitter during CGI. Which, when you look at the list, is kind of ridiculous. I mean, the company I’m keeping is large organizations like Ashoka and Echoing Green and then the likes of John Wood and Lance Armstrong.

And then there is me. @sloane.

A thank you to the online community

But when I think about it, good for the little guy. Good for me, and good for Twitter and my online community for being interested enough to share and retweet the content I provided last week. It’s like the biggest high-five! So this is really a thank you to my online communities for sharing the messages from last week and caring enough to follow along.

I think that is what President Clinton meant when he asked, “How can each person and each organization leverage their core strengths in the most effective way, turning good intentions into real changes?”

From the Waggener Edstrom blog, Innovation Conversations:

If you were following the CGI Twitter dialogue last week, you know there was A LOT of content being shared and a lot of messages competing for air time. I thought it would be interesting to use twendz pro to see who were the most influential people in the Twittersphere.

Below are the top 10 Twitter influencers* from CGI gleaned from twendz pro, who were seen to have a strong voice in their respective areas of influence. Keep in mind, a person’s influence ranking changes day to day, given the fluidity of the Twitter landscape. These people were the most engaged influencers during the CGI because not only did they have a high number of followers, they were actively engaged in questions, replies, shared links, and constantly used hashtags in their tweets. Most of these influencers were retweeted at a high volume, demonstrating their broad reach.

CGI’s Top Ten Twitter Influencers

@changemakers (307,137 followers) – Ashoka Changemakers is a global online community of action that connects people to share ideas, inspire and mentor each other, and find and support the best ideas in social innovation.
@ClintonTweet (11,282 followers) – The host of last week’s events, the Clinton Foundation addresses urgent global problems through collaboration with the private sector, NGOs and other government entities. CGI gathers world leaders annually to turn ideas into action.
@echoinggreen (330,900 followers) – Echoing Green is a global nonprofit that provides seed funding and technical assistance to emerging social entrepreneurs with ideas for social change.
@johnwoodRTR (317,672 followers) – John Wood is the Founder of Room to Read and author of ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World.’
@witnessorg (273,673 followers) – WITNESS is a human rights organization that provides training and support to local groups to use video in their human rights advocacy campaigns.
@lancearmstrong (2,654,892 followers) – This iconic, 7-time Tour de France winner and full time cancer fighter is the spokesperson for LIVESTRONG.
@sloane (7,721 followers) – A Kiva fellow, Sloane Berrent is a cause-based marketing and social branding consultant who blogs at The Causemopolitan.
@VanJones68 (6,217 followers) – Van Jones is the award-winning pioneer in human rights and the clean-energy economy. He wrote the NYTimes bestseller: Green Collar Economy.
@WomenforWomen (4,733 followers) – WomenforWomen International helps women survivors of war rebuild their lives. Zainab Salbi is the ever-inspiring Founder and CEO.
@govgranholm (16,325 followers) – Jennifer Granholm is the Canadian-born American Governor of Michigan (D).

I’ve also created a Twitter list with all of the amazing people above that you can follow here.

Photo courtesy of Taylor Davidson, Founder of Narratively.

Cross-posted at The Causemopolitan.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported.

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Saving the world with apps & Twitter

Sloane Berrent — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:46:48 +0000

Former President Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative this week. (Photo by Taylor Davidson on Flickr)

I’m in New York City this week for a flood of world-changing, global-thinking, innovative and inspiring conferences, meetups and opportunities. I’m also covering much of what is happening on a few different online platforms, plus have some exciting press to share, so I thought I’d put it all here for you.

It’s UN Week, and accordingly, Mashable, the 92nd Street Y and the UN Foundation hosted the Social Good Summit, which I attended and wrote about. I wrote up a few posts online, check them out!

Halogen: Social Good Summit Kicks Off UN Week Republished on the United Nations blog, Conversations For A Better World

UN Week Media posted three of my posts:

You can also find some of my posts at WeBlogTheWorld.

On NPR’s ‘Talk of the Nation’

Next up! I was on NPR’s Talk of the Nation Tuesday afternoon. What an honor. I was contacted through the contact form on my blog to see if I could participate in a conversation about how apps and social media can change the world. I was like “uhm yeah, I can talk about that.” Minus the “uhm” of course. But seriously, I mean my grandparents listen to NPR. Along with my photo and coverage in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year when I was the citizen journalist chosen to go to the World Economic Forum in Davos, it’s like my family finally understands what I do!

So I was on NPR talking about Saving The World With Apps And Twitter along with Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook and founder of the soon-to-be-launched Jumo, and Ray Chambers, General Secretary of the Special Envoy on Malaria. From the write-up:

Many donors are understandably wary of donating to far-flung, small-scale organizations, says Sloane Berrent, founder of the consulting firm Answer With Action. But tools like YouTube and Flickr, Berrent says, can help donors hold organizations accountable.

“We have an opportunity to ask organizations and ask the people who are taking our donations to provide information back to us when they give that money to the people on the ground,” Berrent says.

Read the NPR article and listen to the transcript here.

Last, I’m spending a good part of this week at the Clinton Global Initiative. It’s been my dream to attend (after Davos, of course) and so to have the opportunity to be here, to soak up the knowledge and to share it with so many of you – it’s truly amazing. I’m going to have posts on WhatGives?! starting today for the rest of the week and again in a few other spots so hope you enjoy the coverage. If there are certain topics you really want to know about, people you’d like interviewed or anything else, just let me know!