Green Options

I am a big fan of Conservation International (CI) and have been for ten years ever since I worked with the NGO during my previous life at a multinational corporation.  I admire CI’s collaborative approach by accepting the world’s largest corporations as part of the environmental solution and not just the source of the problem.  Realizing the importance of the private sector, CI created the Center for Environmental Leadership in Business (CELB) partnering with such companies as Starbucks, McDonald’s and Wal-Mart.

CELB’s mission is to leverage the power and reach of corporations to “improve human livelihoods through: innovative business practices that reduce companies’ ecological footprint, strategic investments in conservation opportunities and dynamic communications campaigns that engage consumers and employees worldwide to take action in their everyday lives.”

As part of their progressive communications campaign, CI recognized the influence and reach of social networking and social media.  And now, they are set to launch a groundbreaking tool designed to catalyze personal and collective action via the connective power of the web.  Are you ready for “Team Earth”?

The poor guy just wanted to watch a baseball game. And then this selfish, nasty woman had the gall to–gasp!–breastfeed in the seat in front of him. Oh, the horror!

So he did what any sane representative for a radio program would do: He Tweeted his disgust. He made sure to toss a few choice words in there, like:

‘crazy‘, ‘no shame‘, ‘rude‘. And don’t forget that ever-popular suggestion, ‘Can’t she go in back?‘

But this so-called radio personality, Tim Mihalsky, had standards, folks. It’s indecent to breastfeed in front of him. That is, unless…

if she was hot, it woulda been a different tweet

But people were watching. It’s the magic of Twitter. Use a term, and anyone following that thread can watch your foot-in-mouth disease as it gets progressively worse. That’s where he came up against Feminist Breeder, a former rocker mom who is from, as DJ articulate said,

Chicago or, some ghetto place like that.

This post is a collaboration between Max Gladwell and Mashable’s Summer of Social Good charitable fundraiser. It is the second in our series of #10Ways posts being published simultaneously across as many as 300 blogs.

Social media is about connecting people and providing the tools necessary to have a conversation. That global conversation is an extremely powerful platform for spreading information and awareness about social causes and issues. That’s one of the reasons charities can benefit so greatly from being active on social media channels. But you can also do a lot to help your favorite charity or causes you are passionate about through social media.

Below is a list of 10 ways you can use social media to show your support for issues that are important to you. If you can think of any other ways to help charities via social web tools, please add them in the comments. If you’d like to retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.

1. Write a Blog Post

Blogging is one of the easiest ways you can help a charity or cause you feel passionate about. Almost everyone has an outlet for blogging these days — whether that means a site running WordPress, an account at LiveJournal, or a blog on MySpace or Facebook. By writing about issues you’re passionate about, you’re helping to spread awareness among your social circle. Because your friends or readers already trust you, what you say is influential.

Recently, a group of green bloggers banded together to raise individual $1 donations from their readers. The beneficiaries included Sustainable Harvest, Kiva, Healthy Child, Healthy World, Environmental Working Group, and Water for People. The blog-driven campaign included voting to determine how the funds would be distributed between the charities. You can read about the results here.

You should also consider taking part in Blog Action Day, a once a year event in which thousands of blogs pledge to write at least one post about a specific social cause (last year it was fighting poverty). Blog Action Day will be on October 15 this year.

2. Share Stories with Friends

Another way to spread awareness among your social graph is to share links to blog posts and news articles via sites like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, and even through email. Your network of friends is likely interested in what you have to say, so you have influence wherever you’ve gathered a social network.

You’ll be doing charities you support a great service when you share links to their campaigns, or to articles about causes you care about.

US’ oldest environmental group launches social network for hikers

You’ve heard of trail networks, well how about the network, Trails?  Sierra Club Trails, that is. Don’t feel bad if you haven’t because it’s brand new. On Thursday, The Sierra Club launched what is being billed as the world’s first-ever comprehensive hiking wiki. Like other wikis, the meat behind Trails (or the GORP, as the case may be) is [...]

But for entrepreneurs and other freelance professional, Linkedin has always been a great spot to be. And there are quite a number of those active in the green world already there. So, if you haven’t yet joined or aren’t quite sure how to maximize your presence, here are a few tips.

Citizen journalism, open government, status updates, community building, information sharing, crowdsourcing, and the election of a President.

Editor’s note: This is first guest post from Max Gladwell.

Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.

What’s most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to the People they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of technology, and we are all better for it.

For most of us, social media has changed our lives in some meaningful way. Collectively it is changing the world for good. Given the pace of innovation and adoption, change has become a constant. Every so often we find the need to stop and reflect on its most recent and noteworthy developments, hence the following list.

This post is, in Rob’s words, part of a grand social media experiment to publish the first collective, simultaneous guest blog post from Max Gladwell. Our goal is for it be published simultaneously on 100 blogs, thus inspiring 100 simultaneous conversations from various points of view. We have more than 70 confirmed with some of the biggest and coolest in the blogosphere.

Citizen journalism, open government, status updates, community building, information sharing, crowdsourcing, and the election of a President.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Max Gladwell.

Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.

What’s most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to the People they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of technology, and we are all better for it.

For most of us, social media has changed our lives in some meaningful way. Collectively it is changing the world for good. Given the pace of innovation and adoption, change has become a constant. Every so often we find the need to stop and reflect on its most recent and noteworthy developments, hence the following list.

Please note this is not a top-10 list, nor are these listed in any particular order. It’s also incomplete. So we ask that you add to this conversation in the comments. If you’d like to Retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.

These organizations use tactics varying from direct action to job training, but they all are working to protect the planet in a substantial way.

Through twitter, anyone can stay up to date with their latest efforts to restore and protect habitats, influence environmental policy, and curb climate change. Take the opportunity to tap into the thoughts of those pushing for change and perhaps find some ideas of how you can help.

That’s right, stay up to date with all of our green craftiness on the go and in short bursts of 140 characters or less on Twitter! Join in the conversation of all things green, crafty and diy.

Stay tuned to from us here at Crafting a Green World and follow us @CAGW

You get that? @CAGW

To keep the momentum going, Rob has also set up an @ecomonday account on Twitter, where you can look for the most recommended green Tweople to follow. @Ecomonday will only follow those that follow @Ecomonday and those who are recommended in the meme.

Rob told me a total of 230 people were recommended on this first ecomonday. I’d say it’s off to a great start! (Use the new sidebar Twittersearch on your Twitter page to find #ecomonday recommendations from last week [...]