What I saw, and didn't, at the #SocialGoodSummit

I was lucky enough to get to this year's Social Good Summit, sponsored by -- and also featuring -- some of the world's leading change agents. Overall, this was an incredible opportunity to hear and cross-tweet vision, goals and implementation strategies for moving our planet to where it needs to be. One cannot help but walk away feeling inspired and hopeful that there are thousands of social entrepreneurs creatively seizing opportunities and addressing problems in ways that can be shared and applied by others -- if we can do a better job of connecting. 

Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg, Fast Company Editor
Robert Safian, and Hope North founder Okello Sam

Malala Yousefzai, Al Gore, Melinda Gates, Richard Branson, Anthony Lake, David Miliband and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt were among the well-known VIPs, but every speaker was on the mark and worthy of a million Facebook "likes". On the sidelines, I was also able to engage around a table with a top corporate leader and his partner on the ground, who are using mobile technology to bring stability and education to victims of a generation of conflict in Uganda. The lessons were numerous, and the incredible wealth of knowledge and spirit will take weeks to fully absorb.

My caveats lay in a few areas, mostly not the fault of the organizers. I list them here and now in the hope they might benefit next year's planning.

Our debt to Vaclav Havel

The fear was palpable on our first family visit to Prague, 40 years ago. My parents had been in Vienna, packing for a visit, when Soviet tanks took over the streets of Prague in 1968. The Prague Spring was still fresh in people's minds, though for a five-year-old American no history lesson was necessary. My memories of that 1971 trip are only of darkness and desperation, like the Batman and Spiderman cartoons I later watched growing up, or the films noirs I eventually came to appreciate as a college student.

One of those who saw through the darkness was Vaclav Havel. Many years later, he would write: “The time of hard, everyday work has come, a time in which conflicting interests have surfaced, a time for sobering up, a time when all of us – and especially those in politics – must make it very clear what we stand for.” I believe that, for Havel, each moment was such a time.

Having suffered for his principled dissent and literary liberties, he used his moment to lead Czechoslovakia to democracy in what became known as the Velvet Revolution for its lack of bloodshed on either side, whether before or after. The fact that Czechoslovakia has a long tradition of cultural and political expression certainly helped usher in the post-Communist phase, but the situation could still have turned deadly – both before and after the revolution – and there was no guaranteed outcome. 

In retrospect, with so many people intent on putting the dark years behind them, the democratic transformation can seem obvious and inevitable. But back then, few people had the courage or creativity to see beyond the prison running across Eastern and Central Europe. 

Whose "Twitter revolution" is this?

There are limits to advertising. Timothy Hutton should have known better than trivializing the sacrifice, aspirations and beauty of Tibetans just to promote "Groupon.com" (which itself sounds like a cause of mad cow disease) during the Superbowl. Last week's outrage was Kenneth Cole trumpeting its disregard for democratic struggle and suffering in Egypt. #TwitterFail. Hopefully, Hutton will be subject to suitable opprobrium from the Hollywood set. There's nothing illegal about either ad campaign, but don't expect me to be a customer in this century.

Has our TV-addicted/Facebook-captive/hashtag-based multi-tasking lifestyle so removed us from reality, that it's reasonable for marketing experts to treat us all like star-struck adolescents? Are politicians also reading us correctly? Perhaps the past week's pair of offensive ads will provoke us to evolve beyond the superficial, point-and-click infancy of our cyber-topia.

Also clear from the past few weeks, is that Tunisia and Egypt have not fit the model of "Twitter revolution", or Facebook, or any "social media" other than word of mouth and spontaneous outrage. However, these new media have allowed millions worldwide to follow and support the emergence of democracy on the ground. It is helping to sensitize us and break through our WiFi- and BlueTooth-inspired haze. What we read on our feed can have a deeper meaning, and help us match names to faces, and real people with real consequences.

We've been slapped twice across the face, once by Kenneth Cole and once by Timothy Hutton. Thanks, guys, we needed that.

Why I use Twitter

I find Twitter useful for several reasons:

1. I often get news even before it’s posted on websites, sometimes a day before an editor processes it for general release, and it all downloads to my handheld so it doesn’t need to be connected as it would if I were surfing the Internet. It saves a lot of time to have it all in one place, without visiting dozens of websites every hour to check what's new.

2. Twitter is the most horizontal medium I know. Foreign ministers and celebrities, friends and random seekers can all pick up on what I tweet, and conversations develop with a built-in audience. It’s interest-driven. And Twitter convos have led me to face-to-face dialogue and collaboration, even overseas adventures.

3. It’s a great way to “drive traffic” or otherwise promote ideas and articles by me or others - including my blog posts.

4. Boiling an idea down to just 140 characters is a good exercise. It doesn’t always need to be the whole idea, just enough to get people to open the link or visit the site.

5. Even without the often ambiguous value of “metrics” and analytic data, it’s easy to know when your idea catches on, and why, and in real time.

I generally post differently to Twitter and Facebook. Twitter is the open arena, where ideas can be judged on their own merits. Facebook is for people I actually know, for whom specific ideas are important but secondary to our personal ties and trust. If I post the same items to both, why should someone follow me on both? 

Many people seem to follow their followers, and vice versa, I have relatively little overlap between my followers and those I follow. It is a good strategy to follow influential people, so you have access to their perspectives and news firsthand, and sometimes they will follow you back (or at least notice when you re-tweet them).