The Extraordinaries

Move Your Money: Giving Power Back to the People. #moveyourmoney

Since December 2009, thousands have joined the movement to switch from large corporate banks to smaller, community-oriented financial institutions, and Move Your Money is spearheading the effort. In just a few short weeks, Move Your Money has generated 20,000+ followers and has been featured in Time, the Nation, Newsweek and on the Colbert Report. They provide a list of small banks and encourage people to make the switch and move their money from the corporate banks who played a role in the current financial crisis.

They’re asking for the community to remain engaged and share their stories about where they bank and how they rate their service. What if there was an Extraordinaries Application that would map community banks and allow you to share your experience with them? Next time you’re at your bank or credit union, you could snap a photo, mark the GPS location of the bank and write or record a few sentences about your experiences banking there. We could go one step further and rate each company's behavior with Citizen's Market, an organization already using The Extraordinaries to track corporate behavior.

Help bring the economy out of the downward spiral? Now that’s Extraordinary.

Want to create a micro-task for yourself or your organization? Sign-up now: http://signup.BeExtra.org

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Kim Bale is the Community Outreach Intern for The Extraordinaries. She has also been published in Curve Magazine.

Journalism Losing its Geographic Roots? Mobiles to the rescue?

Just reading this report back from the WeMedia conference about the future of journalism, which I've been thinking a lot about since a "salon" the other week at my friend Tony Deifell's houseboat in Sausalito. The sentiment seems to be similar to those discussed at the salon:  

[Knight Foundation's President] began with a discussion of what's being lost, and pegged it to geography: "For the first time in the history of the republic, the delivery of news and information is not happening in the same space as democracy."

Unless somebody can devise a sustainable geographic model for journalism, he argued, the United States needs to figure out "how to structure democracy in a different way not rooted in geography."

How that might happen, he acknowledged, he has no idea.  Source.

If the problem really is geography, then I've got an idea! Mobile phones are delivering micro-specific location information. It's specific geography which makes most great mobile apps work!

Let's take the "Around Me" iPhone application, for example. Did you think the Yellow Pages were dead?? I did. But they are not. This app is just the Yellow Pages, but organized according to your current geographic location. Want to find a gas station nearby? Click "Gas Stations" and it will tell you which ones are closest. Want to find a hospital? Same deal. The thing is... this application rocks! It's SO useful. Why? Because it's got geographic relevance. 

Is journalism so different? I don't think so. Do you want to know about local news surrounding you? Do you want to know about stories related to the park where you walk your dog? Or about that mugging that took place on the corner where you're standing. Want to tie that to local politics - and then call your city councilperson to discuss on-the-spot? Yes, yes, yes.

And the business model? Local advertising, of course. A $2 off coupon for the Thai restaurant that's 2 blocks away.... if it's close to lunch or dinner time. Or a buy one get one free deal at a local bar if it's past dinner time. Or an ad for the local kids clothes store if you've just read an article about local education issues and it's before closing time. 

You can get hyper-local, time-specific, and content customized. You can deliver video and audio instead of just text. And, you can connect the reader (cum: doer) to local actions - or to other neighbors who are interested in the same issues. This is the future of local journalism. And it's the heart of building strong communities and engaged democracies.

What do you think? Is this not practical in some way? What am I missing? 

Making money as a journalist in 2010

Just want to clarify an idea that's been rolling around in my head for a while (by blogging it). Sparked to action by this tweet:

DailyMe#wemedia will kindle rescue print journalism? Dale: No. Notion of paying for content is an old media biz model 3 minutes ago from web

(NOTE: DailyMe is quoting Dale in the tweet above; it's not DailyMe's opinion. But the quoted tweet spurred me to write, so thanks DailyMe...wouldn't have been galvanized otherwise).

Perhaps there's a model where stories are delivered to the reader in the context of taking action and a percentage of the value generated by that action goes to the journalist. 

For example: if the story is about the ongoing plight of Hurricane Katrina victims and the action is giving legal advice at a low rate to someone who needs it... maybe the journalist/publication can take a small cut of this transaction. And/or, the reader can be asked if he/she wants to join an organization or purhase a product from a related entity. Eg: ActiveVoice.net wants you to watch its documentary film about Hurricane Katrina called Trouble The Water. Maybe they'd pay the journalist a couple of bucks per reader that agrees to be added to ActiveVoice's mailing list. Or, if they were sell the film online (they don't at present), a percentage of that sale.

In sum, the journalist creates a compelling narrative and then ties it into what the reader can do about it. The business model lies somewhere in the realm of monetizing the readers/doers' actions. I suppose the latter part of this idea is just like a Google Ad... maybe it's only the first "action transaction" part that is unique.

And, I know! There are a lot of problems with the system as described above... including integrity of journalism and logistics feasibility... but maybe there's a nugget here that one of you smart blog readers can fully extrapolate? 

Related post:

Future of Independent Journalism

Idea: Translating Citizen Journalism

I just had (what I think is) a really frikkin good idea. Of course, like all good ideas, there's probably someone already doing it... so please let me know if so. 

First, some pre-amble. Jacob just sent this link to me:

Ground Report: http://www.groundreport.com

It's a crowdsourced citizen journalism business that pays its reporters on the basis of how many people read their stories. It's also very well done - their incentive package seems to be adequate and their design is clean and useful. It's head and shoulders above  iReport, the other citizen reporting site that we've been tracking (I'm sure there are others... we haven't been tracking all that closely). 

It occurs to me that *maybe* there are tens of thousands of would-be reporters who speak/write uncommon languages... languages with small numbers of readers. And who, therefore, have little financial incentive to report. 

What if we used a system like the WorldWideLexicon (which I've been on about before) to do crowdsourced translations of these crowdsourced news reports? What if a brilliant writer who speaks Romansh can report to a global audience? Or Masalit speaking people living in refugee camps in Darfur can tell their stories (by cell phone) to someone who translates the audio file to English for American readers who have the political power to galvanize for stronger action by the US government? 

It seems that breaking this language barrier in the domain of news could be transformative? 

Right? Wrong? Already happening? 

Future of independent media & long live Story

I just returned from a "salon" at my friends Tony & Mardie's houseboat in Sausalito. These guys always bring together the smartest most interesting people. The topic was the future of independent media... which, to be honest, I haven't thought a whole lot about, but in prepping for the event, I came across a whole bunch of thoughts/ideas that were straight in line with the work we've been doing with The Extras.

In fact, I've had two extremely related conversations recently with some advisors who have said this:
1. You've got to make an emotional connection with people who use your service
and
2. You should list your tasks by outcomes instead of by action

I've intrepreted both (1) and (2) to mean that we need better Story. We need to enrapture the user in a narrative and then enable them to take action while the inspiration runs high. And, in fact, we've got the perfect application for this process to unfold. Watch a short film, listen to a short audio clip, or read a brief article, and then dive into the action... that results in real social value.

SO, hearing all these media folks speak gelled the idea for me... our lead-in is Story. We need what journalists, filmmakers, and storytellers have. We need to engage the user in Story and then deliver on action. The Extraordinaries, in one light, could even become some sort of delivery platform for independent media... and perhaps a route towards monetization.

And where it gets really exiciting is in location-based media. Imagine waiting for your bus at 6th & Market in the heart of the Tenderloin in San Francisco and getting a list of stories/actions that are related to your current locale. Eg: you watch a short film about single-room-occupancy (SROs) dwellings that are prevelant in the area and can then critique a resume for a SRO occupant who is applying for a job. Wow, that's cool. Again, really only possible at scale, but a potential of how this thing could play out.

Idea: describing a locale for blind people

The other day I came across a blind woman on the street corner in Emeryville. She looked lost, so I asked her if she needed help. She said that she "didn't know what was up" with her dog that day - apparently the dog took her off of her usual path and she was turned about. So, I walked with her and her dog over to her usual route (she was 1 block off) and she was on her way.

It occurs to me that The Extraordinaries could be used to re-create this type of help in situations where there isn't someone nearby to help out. Here's how it could work:

1. blind person needs help getting bearings, and calls The Extraordinaries.

2. a volunteer sees the incoming request and selects "Connect" to voice-connect with the person in need.

3. the blind person's GPS coordinates are sent into the system, which then sends the volunteer's phone into Google Street view mode for that location.

4. the volunteer uses Google Street View to describe the surroundings to the blind person and follows their progress as they walk to a known location.

So, this system only works at scale, when there are enough volunteers to rapidly answer a request - and assumes that the blind person has a GPS-enabled phone that is easy to operate... So, this isn't immediately practical, but I think there's a nugget of a good idea here... What you think?

This is an idea that comes from the series of ideas that arose from reading the WWL Specs. (this idea not directly related, but came to me during reading, nonetheless)

Idea: Reading poorly formatted Web pages for blind people

I don't know what the state of screen readers is these days... but I know that poorly formatted HTML can cause problems. So, here's an idea that can get around this problem... and add a human touch to listening to Web pages.

1. person with seeing-disability hits a Web page that cannot be read by a screen reader and requests that it be sent to The Extraordinaries for a reading.

2. a volunteer reads the page into their mobile phone.

3. the recording is sent back via email, phone, or Web to the requester.

This system could also be used for simply creating podcasts for popular news sources. The New York Times could be read everyday by volunteers so that others could listen to their favorite news source in their car on the way to work...

This is an idea that comes from the series of ideas that arose from reading the WWL Specs.

Idea: Crowdsourcing for ESL

Jacob and I have been throwing this idea around for a while, but had some clarity on it this weekend and wanted to document. The overall concept is that we could use The Extraordinaries as a tool for people to learn foreign languages (I'm just using ESL "English as a Second Language" as an example). Here's how it could work:

At scale, this could all happen real-time, where the ESL student can connect to a native speaker and together they can review and read aloud a series of phrases.

This is an idea that comes from the series of ideas that arose from reading the WWL Specs. (although this one doesn't have much to do with WWL)

Idea: On-demand Language Assistance

My colleague Tad Hirsch came up with a brilliant system called Speakeasy several years ago. It allowed recent non-English speaking immigrants to connect with a translator via phone who would help them make phone calls: to the local school for their kids, to their health care provider, etc...

The problem with the system (at least in my purview) was that you'd have to do a lot of logistical coordination to ensure that a translator was available to do the live translation (which he did for the pilot - and which may have been the reason that the program didn't move beyond a pilot??). So, to avoid this problem, I'm wondering if something like the following is possible:

I know there'd be a good deal of latency and it would be pretty expensive to pay for processing and bandwidth. But it seems that this thing would work from a high level...

This same concept could be applied for non-synchronous events too, such as emails, letters, etc. So that a non-English speaker could send an email in their native language and it would arrive at the service provider in English... In fact, this kind of thing could be built right into the next Firefox or created as a plugin, where, as part of the FORM UI, you just click a button to translate the contents of your form into another language (this idea doesn't require the Extraordinaries... but is a cool idea regardless... and I think it's what Brian at WWL (see below) is working on making a reality.)

Now, let's say that The Extraordinaries is working at scale.... where there are 1000s of volunteers who speak all kinds of languages who are frequently checking in to see what they can do. In this scenario, we can stick to Hirsch's initial vision by solving the volunteer timing problem. So, the diagram would look like this:

This is an idea that comes from the series of ideas that arose from reading the WWL Specs.

Idea: Film Subtitling to Multi-Languages

Step 1: Watch a 15 second clip on your mobile phone.
Step 2: Subtitle it in the language of your choice.
Step 2: Repeat as many times as you like

Your subtitle then goes into a holding area where it's rated by other people using the system. If it gets a poor aggregate rating, it goes back into the subtitle queue.

I mentioned this idea to Gunner from Aspiration, who pointed me to DotSub, who, it seems, is already doing this (but not on mobile).

This is an idea that comes from the series of ideas that arose from reading the WWL Specs.