live the questions now

Last week, I pulled out a favorite expression of mine in situations of highly misguided energy. Luke and I were observing the ever growing vanity on Twitter, particularly the angst some people feel when their “follower” number drops, worsened by the use of applications like Qwitter, an application that notifies you when someone unfollows you. “Just think,” I said, “if only we could harness all the attention people put into tracking who stops following them on Twitter, worrying about the reasons why, and publicly announcing their mental anguish, we could solve world hunger.”*

And then I thought, what if the Qwitter developer had instead built a Twitter application that helped to solve world hunger? Or helped Twitter users keep their angst in check and redirected them toward taking some type of action?

There’s a good reason that idea popped into my head, and it’s called the Change the Web Challenge. And good news, world! Now there are 35 ideas submitted in that spirit to the project gallery. I’ve been volunteering with Change the Web for the past couple months, helping to spread the word about this innovative concept to take the Social Actions API, get developers to build great things with it, and lower the barrier to people changing the world as part of their everyday Internet use. It has been a lot of fun, and in the process I’ve met the great people behind Social Actions and deepened my own thinking about online activism, learning/behavior change, and civic engagement. Twitter itself is where I first found out about the volunteer opportunity, and the whole experience has helped to make my professional use of that tool more meaningful.

So now, the best part is the voting that has been going on all week, and there’s only 48 hours left! If you have even the slightest interest in social issues, activism, civic engagement, and/or the interweb, you need to check out these brilliant ideas, leave comments for their creators, and vote for your favorites. Read the primer Joe Solomon wrote if you feel pressed for time. Just get moving so your vote can be counted to help the top 20 finalists move on to the judges, who will select three winners to receive cash prizes.






*For the record, I interchangeably say “solve world hunger” or “create world peace” or “cure cancer” — no bias when it comes to which causes people choose to redirect their negative energy.