Civic Engagement
Is It Time for a New Presidential Debate Format?
Around the world, people want more say in what questions candidates need to answer during presidential debates.
Marcia Stepanek
Civic Engagement
The Algorithms of Fear
Many media companies are using algorithms this US election year that are having the effect of accentuating people’s differences and stoking their fears. Is it time for social innovators to build new tools that help promote a more tempered, consensus-based discourse?
Civil Society
Building With, Not For
Social good technologists working on building a more responsive and effective government need to be more inclusive of the citizens they’re trying to engage—and stop neglecting the government they already have.
Human Rights
Feminism Meets Philanthrocapitalism
Women’s empowerment issues took center stage at this year’s CGI and Social Good Summit, giving new momentum to causes helping women and girls.
Technology & Design
The Snowden Leaks: Turning the Outside In
Our digital infrastructure is rapidly eroding accepted boundaries that diplomacy, good governance, and politics have relied on for centuries.
Collaboration
CauseFests: Philanthropy’s New Marketplace
A report from the 2013 Clinton Global Initiative and Social Good Summit—the trading floors of the new philanthrocapitalism.
Civil Society
The Snowden Effect: An Opportunity?
Pro-privacy activists and others have a chance to reinvent the conversation about security and privacy in the digital age.
Technology & Design
The New Internet Public
Social networks are bringing new voices to the table and forcing political change in ways previously impossible—a report from the Personal Democracy Forum.
Technology & Design
Exploring Failure
Failure and its upside—a report from the 2010 PopTech conference.
Technology & Design
Machine Politics
The information systems we're building are starting to get better at taking input from crowds and using it to help us mine data for what we will most likely want or need.
Nonprofits
Ethically Challenged?
Does the nonprofit sector represens an untapped opportunity to leverage social media for social good among young people?
Global Issues
Upping the Ante: A Report From the Clinton Global Initiative
In its sixth year, GGI is no longer just a former President’s bid to stay relevant.
Technology & Design
Am I a (4) Square?
What are the benefits of social media in the social change space?
Social Entrepreneurship
Minding the Gap
How do you inspire people, from your CEO to rural farmers to consumers, to change their ways to do good (or at least better) for society?
Technology & Design
Game Theory
Behavioral experts agree that so-called "games for good" can teach empathy to those who play them.
Technology & Design
The New Digital Divide
New levels of data-filtering, along with the growth of social networks that aggregate like-minded souls, are threatening civic engagement—and other assertions made at the Personal Democracy Forum.
Technology & Design
Micro-multinationals Rising
Small, Web-wired start-ups that are using social media to find, then recruit, the best new talent from around the globe and leverage it for immediate innovation, impact, and sustainability.
Business
The New Watercooler
Companies need to start engaging with employees by creating social networks in the workplace that facilitate greater communication.
Nonprofits
Crowdsourcing Social Change
A look at examples of high-impact crowdsourcing and the movement for more open collaboration and transparency in the giving sector.
Technology & Design
“You” Video: The New Cause Politics?
Developments in social media have led to a new type of online, personalized campaign advertisements.
Nonprofits
Donor, Dearest
The philanthropic landscape continues to shift as donors are switching their alliances to for-profit causes.
Health
TED Prizewinner and Chef Jamie Oliver: Food Revolutionary?
Recent TED Prize winner, chef Jamie Oliver, has a goal to change the way Americans look at food and fight the growing trend of childhood obesity.
Global Issues
Privacy (Still) Matters
Is privacy an "old people's issue" or increasingly more about civil liberties in the 21st century?
Social Entrepreneurship
Three Social Entrepreneurs Sell Shares in Selves to Scale
Three young social entrepreneurs offer future income in exchange for support to scale.
Social Innovations
Twitter Diplomacy
Marcia Stepanek reports back on the Alliance for Youth Movements conference and the power of social media in modern politics.
Social Innovations
America, Reimagined
Social Innovations
Swarm
Social Innovations
The Clinton Global Initiative: Focus on Innovation
Social Innovations
The New Women’s Movement
Social Innovations
Twitter: Business Builder or Mostly Babble?
Global Issues
Collision Course
Philanthropy
Members Only
Global Issues
Speaking YouTube
Social Innovations
Now Media
Nonprofits
SkollFest Wraps
This blog is the last of Marcia Stepanek's coverage of the Skoll World Forum 2009 at Oxford University.
Social Innovations
Spinternet
The Internet has the potential to do a lot of good in the world, but we must not ignore the emerging negative influence.
Global Issues
Remix Culture
Remixes are becoming an ever-growing part of contemporary culture, consequently posing an interesting dilemma for cases of copyright infringement. Where should we draw the line?
Social Innovations
Party’s Over
"There's no question: with public trust in CEOs and corporations at rock-bottom and the change mantra out of Washington (and Davos) and this week’s TED2009 still freshly potent, cause-wired social entrepreneurs have never had a better opportunity to boost traction globally for their Web-powered ideas."
Social Innovations
From Blue to Green
The author reviews Jacqueline Novogratz's book The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World and draws insight from the book's in depth presentation of social enterprise.
Philanthropy
Flash Causes
Twitter-fueled “flash causes” have been rising up from the grass roots more frequently to solve a problem for a person or group sharing a common concern.
Nonprofits
Climate Change
Social entrepreneurism should focus less on charismatic personalities and more on ideas that work.
Global Issues
Causefest
A youth summit discusses online platforms as a means of catalyzing social change.
Nonprofits
Breaking the News
The recession poses an opportunity for nonprofits to tell their stories using social media as a means of fundraising.
Nonprofits
The Secret Sauce
The Internet will increasingly be used to build momentum for social change.
Global Issues
Heat Wave: Part 3
Major world leaders pledge big money to improve the lives of millions.
Social Innovations
Mobile Volunteers
Social media innovators are intrigued by the idea of spare-time, mobile volunteering.
Government
Peep Show
Expect a battle between a cause-wired citizenry and governments that want to block the free flow of information.
Human Rights
Censorship.org
Governments are banning the digital flow of information on human rights abuses.
Social Innovations
Games for Change
"Cause-related" video games don't go far enough in helping to solve social problems.