Cross-posted from All Things E
 Is Facebook looking a little red this week? No, the world’s largest social media site isn’t experiencing a communist revolution, it’s coming alive in support of equal marriage.
It all started with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) who gave their normal blue and yellow logo a red makeover on Monday in support of equal marriage as the Supreme Court began hearings Tuesday on California’s Proposition 8. They asked their supporters to do the same:
“Who’s wearing red tomorrow? Show your support for marriage equality — make your profile image red for tomorrow and check out www.hrc.org/StandForMarriage for more ways to get involved!”
Then the red revolution took off when social media powerhouse George Takei changed his profile picture this morning with the following message:
“For those friends wondering, this special “red” equality symbol signifies that marriage equality really is all about love. Thanks to the Human Rights Campaign for this effort. Please consider changing your profile today in support–esp if you are a straight ally”
His swanky new profile picture has gotten over 65,000 likes and 32,000 shares, a number that continued to rise throughout the days.
Takei isn’t the only big name involved. Governor Martin O’Malley of Maryland, the first state in the nation to pass marriage equality through a referendum vote, wore red and changed his profile picture Tuesday in support . The Oatmeal (whom we’re big fans of) humorously included his favorite salted meat product to his profile:
 “Changed my profile pic for marriage equality. Also, for bacon” Even internet sensation Grumpy Cat got into the mix:
What can we learn from this virality? Three things:
1) Give people a simple ask with an impact. It takes less than a minute to change a profile picture and show their support to all their friends. Through this act the Human Rights Campaign is giving people an opportunity to be a part of what could be a historic moment.
2) Brand it! Everyone seeing that picture is seeing the Human Rights Campaign logo and if they see the logo again they are going to recognize it as a symbol of equality. It’s a great win for the HRC!
3) Get power users involved. Even though viral movements are the result of millions of people jumping on board they are usually kick started by some celebrity. Thank Jimmy Kimmel for bringing Double Rainbow to the world. Thank George Takei for painting Facebook red.
Robyn Stegman
Project Specialist
Campaign Consultation, Inc.
 (Photo credit: marsmet523) There is a lot to be disappointed about when it comes to the Steubenville rape case. I think it goes without saying that the actions of the perpetrators that resulted in this trial were abhorrent, as well as the inaction of so many witnesses to their crime.
Post-conviction, the disappointment seems to be continuing, if not growing. The peanut gallery of professional and amateur commentators in the media and on social media who have openly attacked, showed careless regard for her privacy, or indirectly blamed the victim for the fall of her perpetrators is truly revolting. Here’s a short rundown of the most prominent failings this week:
- The CNN coverage following the guilty verdict in which outright sympathy for the convicted rapists seemed to be the agreed upon slant throughout their coverage.
- The FOX News, MSNBC and CNN airing of the victim’s name during their broadcasts.
- The two teen assailants who threatened the life of the victim over social media.
Moving forward, it would behoove us all to show some respect, stay on message and have a lot of empathy for the victim in this case…the one who was raped for those who are still confused about who that is.
Andrea Perri
Project Specialist
Campaign Consultation, Inc.
 Women’s History Month Did you know March is National Women’s Month? I didn’t, until this article was brought to my attention. Unfortunately the draw of the article was not that it was National Women’s Month, but yet another embarrassing example of how women are marginalized in the media. A local news organization in Connecticut was announcing an event celebrating National Women’s Month at the Capitol and it had a video clip of women that went with it. It wasn’t footage of women scientists, senators, teachers, or CEOs, but rather breasts. Just a long line of decapitated women walking. Perhaps those women were scientists, senators, teachers or CEOs, we wouldn’t know. Instead we could guess their cup size.
The news organization tweeted an apology, “FOX CT apologizes for today’s file footage error. We will continue to recognize great contributions of women in CT and around the world.”, after the segment ran for a second time.
Why should we be upset about an error in video? Jacqueline Kozin, co-president of the Connecticut chapter of the National Organization of Women, explains “The airing of the footage is repugnant and is not of the level of a credible news organization. FOX CT News, whether they intended to or not, has just inserted their organization into a culture war and sent the message that women should not be taken seriously. It is an insult to the female employees at Fox and to women throughout Connecticut.”
Here’s how you can celebrate National Women’s Month:
 (Photo credit: laRuth) This week I had the opportunity to attend a discussion with Beverly Schwartz, the author of the new book ‘Rippling: How Social Entrepreneurs Spread Innovation Throughout the World‘. In her book, and during the discussion, Schwartz encourages everyday individuals to become social entrepreneurs, or at the very least work alongside social entrepreneurs, to make real, sustainable, systemic changes in society.
During the discussion numerous examples of social entrepreneurs were discussed, all of whom are or were fellows of Ashoka, the social change organization that Schwartz works for. I found the stories of these innovators inspiring on multiple levels and feel strongly that innovations and work like this should be elevated to inspire other thinkers, dreamers and doers in our society to take action.
Below are a few videos about the work and impact of some inspirational social entrepreneurs:
- Albina Ruiz created a profitable recycling industry that lifts people out of poverty.
- Isaac Durojaiye started the first revenue-generating mobile toilet initiative in Nigeria to improve sanitation and create jobs for at-risk workers.
- Pradip Sharmah designed a light, ergonomic rickshaw with a financing service and new business model to enable rickshaw drivers to build a better quality of life.
If you are aware of other innovators making real change around the globe, please share in the comments below! In a world full of tough headlines and conflict, let’s raise social innovation and entrepreneurship up as legitimate responses to some difficult challenges.
Andrea Perri
Project Specialist
Campaign Consultation, Inc.
Hugo Chavez was the type of leader that people either loved or hated. His death this week elicited strong statements from citizens and global leaders alike when reflecting on his legacy. Proponents of Chavez noted that, during his 14-year rule of Venezuela, poverty rates were cut in half, infant mortality rates were dramatically reduced, secondary education became more accessible, and millions received identification documents for the first time.
But, at what sacrifice?
A Venezuelan going by the pen name Pancho49 may have said it best in his CNN iReport ’10 reasons why I will not miss Chavez,’ which details the negative effects of the dictatorship on free trade, freedom of speech, global politics and human rights. While the essay does not rejoice in the death of Chavez, it does underscore the many economic and political challenges that Venezuela now faces.
Now, the world will hold its breath as Nicolas Maduro – Chavez’s selected successor – steps into power despite potential divisions within the Venezuelan military and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. If and when an election is held, Maduro will face challenges to his presidency. Time will tell if the future government of Venezuela will embrace democratic principles, ensuring basic freedoms to its citizens.
Do you think that the U.S. and Venezuela will repair their relationship during this transition period? Please comment below and let us know.
Julia Krieger
Project Specialist
Campaign Consultation
Last week I was watching the 11 o’clock news – as uncommon as it may be – it’s still the way I consume what’s happening (or rather making news) in Baltimore. It was an all too frequent night with a “late breaking news” report of a double shooting. Admittedly, I held my breath – not again, not here. Inside, I was hoping that at the very least it wasn’t too close to home. That somehow an incident farther away, where drug and gang activity ran reckless, would make it “easier” to make sense of it.Nope, not so lucky. More importantly, not so easy.
 conflict (Photo credit: Adam Prince) The next line out of the anchor’s mouth was the location of the shooting, and what was known of the circumstances. Just blocks away, in a neighborhood adjacent to mine, it was a murder/suicide, with a small child found on the scene. One of the victims reportedly was a community mediator, presumably well-equipped with resources to peacefully solving problems in our corner of the city.In a city with 35 homicides, not quite a third of the way into 2013, gun violence has become the norm, and an acceptable one – on our streets, and in our homes. When my home was burglarized a few months ago, the first response from more than one neighbor I told was, “That’s it, I’m getting a gun.”
During a period of hyper awareness on the issue, it can be tempting to dial down the noise and let the extremes of each side hash it out. But like so many issues, this matter cannot be solved on either side.
It’s up to the rationale middle to take a hard look at why it seems easiest to solve problems with violence. Do we not have the words to use? Are we frayed from working to much, or having too few basic needs met?
Issues are difficult to parse out in a city where poverty can be pervasive, and in a culture of escalation. How do we understand these causes? What does it take to treat one another with respect, even in conflict?
There are thousands of scenarios, and circumstances, but there is also the constant of local organizations addressing solutions, with incredible results every day. Conflict itself is not a negative thing, but compounded, and in a split second it can become lethal.
Learn more about the following resources – better yet, share them, and support them if you can.
Empowering Youth Voices
Baltimore Urban Debate League
Megaphone Project
Preventing Violence
Center for Prevention of Youth Violence
Violence Prevention Program
Mitigating and Mediating Conflict
Choose Civility Project
Community Mediation Program
Finally, tell us how violence can be prevented where you are, and what resources have assisted your community?
If there is one thing that annoys me pretty much more than anything it’s being told to smile. Just to be clear I am in fact a human and not a robot. Thus I have been endowed with the ability to think and feel on my own. So if I feel like smiling I do. What definitely makes me not want to smile? Being told to by total strangers on the street.
This may sound weird to some readers but I’m willing to go out on what I predict is a pretty sturdy limb and say most females have been told at least once in their life by a complete stranger to “Smile Baby” or “Smile Beautiful”. Generally this is followed up by other ‘requests’ that are far less benign but equally annoying.
 Tatyana Fazlalizadeh has taken her own frustration with daily street harassment and turned it into works of art. Her work has been posted in Philadelphia, as well Brooklyn and other parts of New York City and continuing to expand to new cities. Ms. Fazlalizadeh has also created a t-shirt that reads “Stop telling women to smile”. Needless to say I’m a big fan.
Street harassment is a daily ordeal for numerous people around the world but is generally targeted towards women and LGBT individuals. It may seem non-threatening but verbal harassment can quickly escalate to violent and physical altercations. The long-term effects of verbal harassment can lead to depression, anxiety, decreased mobility and an overall reduced sense of safety.
Want to turn your own frustration into action?
Andrea Perri
Project Specialist
Campaign Consultation, Inc.
 English: Seth MacFarlane at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego (Photo credit: Wikipedia)  Best Actress Academy Award (Photo credit: cliff1066™) In my previous life, I was an actor. I wasn’t ever Jennifer Lawrence famous, but I worked enough to be self-sufficient and sign the occasional autograph. Perhaps because of my 20-year experience in “the biz,” – or perhaps because I am a woman – I found Seth MacFarlane to be sexist – and perhaps slightly racist – during Sunday’s Oscar telecast.
For the most part, people agree with me. Some are even likening his now infamous “We Saw Your Boobs” opening number to “celebrating rapists” because most of the scenes where we “saw boobs” depicted sexual assault. There are a few people, however, who are defending MacFarlane’s jokes, arguing that they were satirizing age-old stereotypes about women.
To refresh your memory, the following are just some of Mr. MacFarlane’s musings:
Here is the thing; as an actress you are regularly reduced to the sum of your parts. I cannot tell you how many times I was – as a teenager – told to lose 10 pounds or that I was “just not hot enough” to play the leading lady. I used to wonder if casting directors were even watching my performance, one I spent hours preparing for. Not one of my male friends ever experienced anything close to that. Additionally, male actors don’t have the same shelf-life women do. You reach a certain age and it’s over for you. Part of the reason plastic surgery is so rampant is because very few women maintain their status after they reach 35 years of age.
Further, the Academy’s, which is overwhelmingly comprised of white males, tacit approval speaks to a larger issue. Women are “less than” in our society. A woman, with the same education and experience as a man makes roughly $.82 to every man’s dollar, the number of female CEOs and board members at Fortune 500 companies is less than 5 percent, a “record” number. Not to mention the Academy’s own history of excluding women from the Best Director category – for the record only four have been nominated in the 85-year history of the awards show.
These disparities are not due to lack of capable, competent women, but rather because women are widely undervalued in every aspect unless, of course, we are talking about our bodies – which, by the way, plenty of state and federal legislators try to control.
For comedy to satirize social norms it must be funny and it should not need to be dissected ad nauseum. Seth MacFarlane’s jokes are neither. Rather than criticize, he reinforced norms of women as inferior, which is why there is still much work to be done in the fight for women’s equality.
Rachel Roth
Executive Assistant
Campaign Consultation, Inc. 
Cross-posted from ResourcesNow.org
 In 1854, John Snow plotted cholera deaths on a map of London’s Soho district to determine the cause of a deadly epidemic sweeping the community. By mapping the geography of the outbreak,Snow was able to successfully pinpoint the cause;argue for public action to disengage the source,and stop the epidemic.
Today,nearly 160 years later, communities don’t need to wait for the external intervention of an expert like John Snow. Social media,mobile technology,and free and open source tools such as CrowdMap, Ushahidi Platform,and Open Street Map have made it possible for anyone to map the issues they most care about and produce evidence to support their calls for action.
Maps are not just analytical tools. They are visual arguments that provide graphic evidence to spotlight issues and collect evidence of the need for social change.
Crowdmapping is the aggregation of crowd-generated inputs such as texts and social media feeds with geographic data to provide real-time,interactive information on events such as wars,humanitarian crises,crime,elections,social issues,or natural disasters. If properly implemented,crowdmapping can bring a level of transparency to fast-moving events that are difficult for traditional media to adequately cover in real-time,or to longer-term trends that may be difficult to identify through the reporting of individual events.
I recently heard a NPR story on Women Under Siege, a project that uses crowdmapping to gather real time data on rape and other forms of sexualized violence in Syria. Women Under Siege collects reports from survivors,witnesses,and first-responders via a web form,email,SMS,and Twitter (#RapeinSyria). The data are then analyzed by public health researchers and reports are plotted on a crowdmap using the open source Ushahidi Platform. By plotting each story on a map,voice is being given to the voiceless and valuable data is being gathered on the rate of sexual assault that can quickly, quantitatively,and objectively be used to pinpoint where and when survivor services need to be offered, from internally displaced persons camps to the conflict area itself.
Another crowdmapping project is being implemented by Slate Magazine to track gun-related deaths. This project uses interactive,crowdsourced data to track and map the name, age, gender, date and location of every person who’s died from gun-related violence since the Newtown shooting. They’re also publishing the data via a Twitter feed, @GunDeaths. By plotting where the gun-related deaths have occurred, the map makes it clear that the issue isn’t just an urban or mass shooting one, but rather something that spans across the nation in communities of all sizes and demographic compositions.
Crowdmaps are a great way to engage communities around local or regional issues —as a way to encourage participation and sharing, as a visually powerful,location-aware storytelling tool, and by creating a compelling call for action.
If you’re planning a crowdmapping project be sure to:
- Identify the right question. What is the issue you want to bring to light? What problem do you want to solve?
- Choose your platform: CrowdMap, Ushahidi Platform, and Open Street Map are three open-sourced tools to try.
- Create an outreach and engagement strategy. Be sure to include Twitter Hashtags, and other ways for people interact on social media.
- Develop an information page on your website that clearly explains what you are trying to do and how people can get involved.
- Promote your crowdmapping project via traditional and social media channels.
Shannon McGarry
Project Specialist
Campaign Consultation, Inc.
Video games have been blamed for increased violence and bad language in children and young adults. Considering that statistics show youth will spend 10,000 hours gaming by age 21, that’s a whole lot of influence.
A new market of raising awareness for social issues like female genital mutilation and food scarcity through games is growing. Companies such as Games for Change are facilitating the creation and distribution of social impact games that serve as critical tools in humanitarian and educational efforts. Games for Change is working on “Half the Sky” which is a multimedia campaign that will have games for Facebook and mobile phone platforms, as well as a television component to address the oppression of women around the world. This game will highlight women as not the problem, but the solution.
Are you interested in creating social good games for your organization? If yes, these resources will help you get on your way!
- Join Gameful, an online social network that hosts webinars, meetups, and groups based on your interests like nonprofit games, health games, educational alternate reality, and more.
- Listen to Jane McGonigal’s TED talk explaining how games can make the world a better place.
- Check out some simple games that can help organizations raise resources. Free Rice used a simple format of matching vocabulary with the correct meaning. Each correct answer equaled 10 grains of rice being donated through the World Food Program.
- Learn how organizations are using Facebook to learn about causes while they game.
By Stephanie Grocott
Project Specialist
Campaign Consultation, Inc.
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Is Facebook looking a little red this week? No, the world’s largest social media site isn’t experiencing a communist revolution, it’s coming alive in support of equal marriage.
