Strategies to drive citizen engagement and social innovation

I‘ll be one of the speakers at Media2Movements, a gathering in Miami on Wednesday that will focus on the escalating changes in the mediasphere.

Put on by Ashoka and underwritten by the Knight Foundation, Media2Movements will bring together a number of new media luminaries, including old friends Kara Andrade, Karen Worcman of Brazil’s Museum of the Person, Brian Conle of Small World News and Emily Jacobi of Digital Democracy. From the program:

We are at a catalytic moment: Rapid technological change and entrepreneurial innovation have brought us closer than ever to full information citizenship. Egypt, Libya, even Wisconsin testify to the growing capacity of media to catalyze movement; change happens when people know what’s going on and can tell others.

But those same forces also threaten the public good by corroding the historical values of the information realm. In an everyone-a-content-creator-world, who can tell which information is trustworthy? It’s easy to author and distribute news and commentary – and equally easy to monitor and censor that content. Amid these tensions, the risk is that, rather than engaging, people simply disconnect – and movements lose their mass.

The challenge: Can we imagine a new, self-correcting information marketplace – an ecosystem for news and knowledge that effectively responds to, or even anticipates, whatever change happens? That ensures sustainable full information citizenship?

Looks to be an exciting, invigorating event. Hope you can join us.

Sustainatopia and the Social Venture Capital conference

In addition to Media2Movements on Wednesday, I’ll also be speaking at Sustainatopia twice on Monday:

• I’ll be co-hosting the power-packed Move the Needle bootcamp Monday at 9 am with Sloane Berrent.

• I’ll be moderating the Media Trends & Marketing Movements panel Monday at 1:15 pm with Clint O’Brien of Care2, Tamara Staus of Stanford’s Social Innovation Review, Sloane Berrent and Nick Aster of Triple Pundit.

Fashion icon Donna Karan will keynote and Rolling Stone magazine will lead a parade of international media organizations attending the Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference, taking place Monday to Wednesday next week at the Miami Beach Convention Center. More than 300 speakers from 40-plus countries will participate.

To kick things off, Sustainatopia Honours will take place this Sunday evening at the Frank Gehry/New World Center in Miami Beach. Emmy-award winning actress Patricia Arquette will be among the celebs on hand. I’ll be attending, along with Socialbrite partner Sloane Berrent. Look us up!

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Social Venture Capital & Media2Movements on tap

More than 300 speakers from 40-plus nations will participate in the second annual Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference and two conferences within a conference: Sustainable Haiti and Media2Movements, organized by Ashoka. They take place April 4-6 at the Miami Beach Convention Center as part of Sustainatopia, a gathering of social entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders.

I’ll be speaking at two of them and, to kick off the first, my colleague Sloane Berrent will present a social media bootcamp — please check it out: Move the Needle! How to Mobilize Your Supporters to Take Action. (Email us for a 15% discount code.)

Discounts for early registration to the conferences expire today. See the agenda. We hope you’ll come on down!

Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference is the largest annual impact investment conference on the East Coast of the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. Sustainable Haiti is the largest economic development conference in the world for Haiti, with more than 100 speakers and 40-plus panels over three days.

Sustainatopia Honors: Awards for social good

Sloane and I will also be on hand at Sustainatopia Honors 2011 presented by Plum TV, an awards ceremony and celebration for those doing social good through impact investing and sustainability. It takes place the evening of April 3 at the swank new Frank Gehry/New World Center.

Honorees include Maria Bello, Selita Ebanks, Romero Britto, Michael Capponi, Americas Business Council Foundation and others. Special guests for the evening include actress Patricia Arquette and musician Tico Torres of Bon Jovi.

Some 60 individual events comprise Sustainatopia Miami, including film, art, music, eco-fashion, food, design and parties taking place on the weekend before start of the impact investment conferences. Sustainatopia will bring together thousands of individuals from over 50 countries, all seeking to make a profound difference and help push the world toward a more sustainable path.

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At Sustainatopia in Miami, take charge of new social technologies for your nonprofit, social enterprise or social cause

Today we’re announcing a new bootcamp for nonprofits and social entrepreneurs and other change-makers: Move the Needle! How to Mobilize Your Supporters to Take Action. We’re pretty excited about it — while I’ve put on a few social media bootcamps, and so has my Socialbrite colleague Sloane Berrent, this is our first combined effort.

Sloane and I hope you’ll pass along the word to your colleagues, especially those looking to use social media to activate their supporters. Here are the details:

What

Whether you want to grow your membership, raise funds or loans, recruit more followers, gather petition signatures, find volunteers for your cause or connect with your community, Move the Needle! How to Mobilize Your Supporters to Take Action will offer guidance that will help your organization create impact for years to come.

This special 3-hour workshop will dive deeply into strategy, tactics and tools available to social entrepreneurs and nonprofit change agents. Minutes later, Sustainatopia will rev up with the second annual Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference (SVC/SE – Miami).

Don’t be intimidated by social tools! Learn how to formulate a strategy, then put the right tools to use in this power-packed interactive workshop.

When & where

Monday, April 4, 9 am to noon
Miami Beach Convention Center

How much

$99 (email us for a 15% discount code for nonprofits)

Who should come

• Nonprofit managers and executives
• Representatives of foundations and NGOs
• Community managers
• Change agents and representatives of social cause organizations
• Social enterprise executives, managers & aspiring entrepreneurs
• VCs, investors and philanthropists
• Political reformers, journalists and educators
• Activists, advocates and those who want to make the world a better place

Speakers

J.D. Lasica is a social media strategist, consultant and author who is considered one of the world’s leading experts on the social Web. He is founder of Socialbrite.org, a learning hub & global consultancy that works with nonprofits and social enterprises, and Socialmedia.biz, which works with major brands. A blogger since 2001, J.D. co-founded Ourmedia.org, the first free video hosting site, a month before YouTube.

He has spoken at or given workshops at Harvard’s Berkman Center, Stanford, MIT, NYU, SXSW, the Cannes Film Festival and at events in Paris, Milan and Seoul. J.D. was named one of the Top 40 Silicon Valley Influencers and one of CNET’s Top 100 Media Bloggers. Follow him on Twitter at @jdlasica.

Sloane Berrent is a digital strategist focused on campaigns in social innovation and corporate social responsibility. She runs Answer With Action, a digital communications and marketing strategy consultancy that creates campaigns and events with immediate impact for businesses, and she is a partner in Socialbrite.

A former Kiva Fellow, she is the co-creator of Cause It’s My Birthday, a nationwide malaria prevention campaign. In January 2010 Sloane attended the World Economic Forum (Davos) as the citizen journalist for MySpace and The Wall Street Journal and in February 2011 she traveled to Haiti. She is a nationally recognized speaker on community building and “cause-filled living” and writes on her blog, The Causemopolitan. Follow her on Twitter at @sloane.

Agenda

This workshop will focus chiefly on practical, down-to-earth tactics and strategies that busy professionals can immediately take to engage supporters. The emphasis is on actionable takeaways. You’ll be introduced to several examples of social enterprises, nonprofits and organizations that are moving the needle — with real-world examples you can learn from.

We encourage interaction and questions during our sessions! If your social enterprise or nonprofits has “lessons learned” that you’d like to share, email us and we’ll call on you during the session.

Some of the questions we’ll cover:

• What strategies & tactics will motivate supporters and newcomers to take specific actions on behalf of my organization or cause?
• What are the essential elements of a successful advocacy campaign?
• How can I successfully use social tools to mobilize my organization’s members, spread awareness, enlist supporters, raise funds and drive action?
• How can storytelling and video advance the mission of my social enterprise?
• Which organizations are moving the needle, and what are they doing right?
• What are some of the cutting-edge tools and resources available for change agents looking to make a difference?
• What do you want to know? Email us in advance.

Format, food & drinks

Where possible, we’ll use a roundtable approach and a short small-group breakout session that encourages dialogue and interaction. We’ll also try to include an appearance by a local social entrepreneur who’ll provide an account of how their enterprise is moving the needle as well as a Q&A.

Series

This is part of Socialbrite’s nationwide series of social media bootcamps. At Personal Democracy Forum, we presented to 50 social activists & nonprofits (at $199 per person — twice the price of Miami).

Hear what Jeff Pfaff, founder & CEO of mtbMobile, said about taking the bootcamp in this 60-second audio:

Bonus materials!

In addition to this 3-hour live training, during the bootcamp you’ll also be access to download these full-color handouts and guides at no additional cost:

1. 12 Steps to Mobilize Your Cause — Summary of all the action items you need to conduct a successful campaign.
2. Team Collaboration — Tools to help you work with other organizations or your own team members in multiple locations.
3. 15 Best Practices for the Social Web — High-level principles to help you succeed in social media.
4. 12 Social Action Hubs — Selectively plug into some of these online communities and crowdsource platforms to promote a social cause.
5. 40 Hashtags for Social Good — Use these Twitter hashtags as you tweet for your cause to gain wider visibility and viral help from the community.
6. 10 Mobile Apps for Social Good — Apps for your iPhone or Android.
7. 6 Twitter Tips for Change-Makers — A series of tips to help your organization use Twitter more strategically.

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