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In media
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Bertelsmann's "Future Challenges" Launches
The Bertelsmann Foundation’s newest project “Future Challenges” was launched on 22 April at a conference in Washington D.C. featuring the annual convention of the foundation’s American subsidiary.
This is what the project team has to say about their initiative:
“Mega trends are shaping the global agenda. Their impact is reaching far into our daily lives. We are gathering tons of information on each single trend, but we hardly know anything of how these trends interact, which interdependencies exist between them and what they will cause. Up until today science generates knowledge in a very exclusive way: research results are mainly discussed within closed “expert” communities far away and mostly untouched by a broader audience. Internet and social networks aren’t embraced by scientists. But we think science should become more public, and science should depend on public support. […]”
The “Future Challenges”-Team of the Bertelsmann Stiftung intends to overcome these limitations. Our new internet-platform futurechallenges.org aims to spread knowledge on global change and make it accessible for everybody. […]”
At the moment, the use of social media tools is limited on the site but the project coordinators envision to gradually expand their usage as the project grows and its instruments develop over time.
The new site features a version of my latest article “Social Media in Georgia: Challenging Invisible Boundaries in War and Peace” that is available for easier reading via Scribd (page 105ff) or on the “Future Challenges” website itself.
Tags article, Bertelsmann Foundation, Future Challenges, Georgia, mega trends, Social networks
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In civil empowerment
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World Map of Social Networks: No Homogeneous World
Vinco’s Blog recently published a new world map of social networks.. The map shows the worldwide distribution of social network usage based on aggregated data from services like Alexa.
I find the map, albeit not new data, highly interesting. It’s quite well known that Facebook is slowly making progress in conquering the “world of social networks”. Nevertheless, specific networks such as Odnoklassniki in the Russian-speaking world, may be here to stay for some time to come.
Even with all the buzz about the downsides of “data silos” and “walled gardens”, maybe there are plenty of reasons why people prefer “their own” realm - and possibly even ought to? As I have tried to show in an upcoming article for we.magazine (to be published in April 2010) using the example of the country of Georgia people frequently use online networks for a number of reasons, not necessarily abstract concepts of openness or accessibility. Here many who have been brought up under Soviet rule prefer the system of Odnoklassniki as it mimics the real-life structure of the education system they attended. Facebook as many other services are often labelled “Western” which is not necessarily a flattering statement with many above a certain age. Still, many of the youngsters do indeed join Facebook and other competitors.
To simply claim that openness is and a one-size-fits-all approach of universal goodness (just as many people do for transparency) may ignore the simple fact of human beings using the systems - not machines. And humans often do not prefer in daily life what sounds great on paper. What is needed is better research and more hard data on how the brave new world of online social networking plays out in real life. What networks are useful to people, why, and in which circumstances? What “soft skills” (e.g. image, upbringing, education etc.) may influence the choice of participation in building the global civil network?
It is important to ask these questions also from a viewpoint of how global civil society as a formative force besides governments and private business can be furthered in short and long run.
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Tags Alexa, Facebook, Odnoklassniki, Online Communities, social networks
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In civil empowerment
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Public Eye Awards: Classic Example for Social Media Use?
Nominations are now open for the “Public Eye Award”, an initiative by the Berne Declaration and Greenpeace that “awards” the “nastiest corporate players” annually at an event related to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The team also awards the “Greenwash Award”, a “prize” with a goal that seems to be quite obvious:
The Public Eye Awards (formerly Public Eye on Davos) are a critical counterpoint to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. Organized since 2000 by the Berne Declaration (BD) and Pro Natura (the latter replaced by Greenpeace in 2009), Public Eye reminds the players of the global economy who impact people and the environment with destructive business practices that actions have consequences - in this case for the image of the company. We present shame-on-you-awards to the nastiest corporate players of the year. Two of these (in the categories ‘Global’ and ‘Swiss’) will be awarded by an in-house jury of experts while winner of the people’s award will be chosen on this website by… the people. Starting this year (2010) we also present a ‘Greenwash Award’ to account for the rapidly growing number of institutions that fabricate social-environmental fig leaves in an attempt to make inveterate corporate players look greener than they are.
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Tags ArcelorMittal, Business, Civil society, Greenpeace, Public Eye Award, Royal Bank of Canada, WEF, World Economic Forum
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In science
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Ninety One
91 …is the number (percentage) of Germans saying they are respecting the environment through environmentally friendly behaviour in their daily lives. However, only 65 percent are willing to pay higher prices if that would allow to produce cleaner products. Only 56 are willing to pay for electricity from renewable energies. Plus, 43 percent are not willing to do so at all. Only 24 percent of Germans can agree to the statement “Driving your car should become more expensive to reduce CO2 emissions”. 75 percent openly reject this statement (all data Stiftung Denkwerk Zukunft).
That makes clear that as measures to protect the environment get more and more concrete fewer and fewer people are agreeing to support them. One the one hand, we’re having a communication problem here. Think of Germany’s most chauvinist automobile club, the ADAC, acting like the “car driver’s party” and consistently rejecting more drastic measures that would make the polluters (aka: car drivers) pay.
On the other I believe this also highlights the gap between our scientifically-minded world that is much more focused on understanding complex issues through advanced analysis than it is on actually solving them through practical action. Thus, you could easily say that we are also having an “action problem” here. We may be increasingly paralyzing ourselves by focusing on the analytic part of the equation only.
Tags climate change, surveys, sustainable consumption
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