Makes wonder if social media can be used for evil and how ..

I tried to use my social media power for good and to help Cambodian children. I’m hoping that the collective power of social media networks can leverage the America’s Giving Challenge which ends next week.

When the Challenge comes to close 1/31, I will be doing a workshop with poverty lawyers on social media and am hoping to to share some great screen captures ….

BTW, Ed Schipul did an awesome presentation on social fundraising – definitely worth a look.
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/01/social-fundrais.html

And, even better, he helped pitched my cause from the podium – along with Frozen Pea Fund!

Now that’s using both online and offline social media power for good!

You go on to say that “Social media tools are built to connect individual voices to a community.” Here’s where I see a disconnect: from this description, it appears that enterprise software and social media tools end up doing the same thing. Since I suspect that’s not your argument, could you elaborate more on what the differences actually are?

By the way, was great to meet you on Twitter, and hope we can get together here in Boston sometime.

Michael Krigsman
Blog: http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mkrigsman

You could have written the sales letter for my new product. In fact I’d like to quote some of the text from this post if it’s okay with you.

This is not a shameless plug, but an advanced notice to those of you who hold similar views.

I have written a piece of software that contains ~ 600 Social Media sites. It’s a power tool for those of you who are interested in promoting your voice and your vision to the world.

It is not a spam tool. But a ‘productivity tool’ that you can use to increase your ‘Personal Power’.

I was inspired by the 8th Habit…
“Find Your Voice And Inspire Others To Find Theirs…”

Chris, I’d like to offer you an evaluation copy for your review. You don’t have to review it publicly if you don’t want to. But I think given the content of this post, you’ll appreciate what it can do.

All I ask is that if you do take me up on my offer… Use Its Power for Good!

You can email me at the email address attached to the post.

Greg White
http://socialbuzzmaster.com

The power is in the collective, oops don’t go Marxist on me, but it’s true. When a guy bought ink by the barrel with limited newspapers to compete with, that’s individual power.

today this ink is limitless and no longer an issue. The different dynamic is everyone is either a competitor, a supporter, or a bystander.

Moral of the story: the less bystanders, the more power spread across the people in the system.

All the best,

I don’t think it’s fair to compare enterprise applications to social media. It’s a bit like comparing Van Gogh’s brushes and paints to the machines that paint lines on highways. Line painters do an important, but repetitious and boring job and they do it well. Thank goodness! So do sales order systems, purchase order systems, general ledger systems, banking systems… they ultimately empower the organization to grow through consistency and conformity.

Back to social media: well, I guess you might say that I’m growing my “power base” as I learn more about the virtual world. I live in a fairly rural area, so Web/social media/etc. have made a big difference by granting me the “power” to tap into wonderful and varied things that I would never have discovered otherwise.

In some ways I wish all of this technology was around (in its current form) when I started university 20 years ago. Then again, I might not have graduated from university if it had been around – I’d have been too busy Tweeting, Facebooking, and playing online games!

Long term, I’m not going to pretend that I have many altruistic or charitable reasons for using social media, although it would be nice to use it to support causes that I believe in. I might do that at some point in the future. Right now I’m exploring the opportunities and working on my writing/content creation skills.

Besides, if I ever really wanted to have a superpower, I’d really want to have Peter Petrelli’s! But social media mastery would be cool.