For the past two months, I've been part of the digital strategy team for The Elders, an extraordinary NGO that was launched last year by Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel. The vision is to convene a council of elders for the global village; the founding elders include Desmond Tutu, Aung San Suu Kyi, Mary Robinson and Kofi Annan.
As part of this work, I've been supporting the web team for Every Human Has Rights, a campaign to spread awareness and support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This year is the sixtieth anniversary of UDHR, and being part of its celebration is a wonderful echo of one of the first pieces of work I did as a grad student at Harvard, thirteen years ago. (Ouch!) At that time I was a research assistant for Andrew Moravcsik, helping him research an article on international human rights regimes (PDF) that he published in time to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the UDHR.
Alexandra Samuel's blog
Every Human Has Rights makes human rights personal
by Alexandra Samuel – April 23, 2008 - 12:53amHow your non-profit can earn revenue with Web 2.0: Part 5 - Product sales
by Alexandra Samuel – April 22, 2008 - 9:47pmThis blog post is part of our series on Social Media for Social Enterprise: How non-profits can earn revenue with Web 2.0.
A mathemetician, a librarian, and a web strategist walk into a bar...
by Alexandra Samuel – April 1, 2008 - 6:11pmI know, it sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. (Or a great cartoon! Rob, care to give it a try?)
But believe me, if you asked them to write a document, the mathematician and the librarian would come out ahead. Why?
How your non-profit can earn revenue with Web 2.0: Part 3 - Earning revenue with advertising
by Alexandra Samuel – April 1, 2008 - 12:59pmWelcome to the latest installment in our series on revenue sources for non-profit social media projects. Today, I'm looking at what many non-profits first think of (and often, recoil at) when it comes to earning money online: advertising.
YouTube views as a proxy for web success
by Alexandra Samuel – March 30, 2008 - 9:57amWe're often asked how organizations can measure the return on investment from social media. Frank Rich's column in today's New York Times effectively uses YouTube views as a proxy for the overall success of the Obama and Clinton campaigns in tapping the power of the web:
Good parenting 2.0
by Alexandra Samuel – March 13, 2008 - 9:34pmYesterday I Googled each of our kids for the first time, in the form "John Smith".
No, we did not name our kids John Smith. And here's why: there are 4,640,000 results for "John Smith" on Google.
Wrap your brand in reflected glory
by Alexandra Samuel – March 3, 2008 - 12:14amSomeone needs to tell the folks at Glad: Unless your customers pay for the privilege of wearing your logo, don't build an online community around your brand. That's rule #1 in marketing with social media -- and reason #1 for instead taking an approach we call reflected glory marketing. In reflected glory marketing you create a web site that resonates with your brand, but focuses on something your customer cares passionately about. Think of Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty, or Amex's Members Project. Or think of some of the projects we've launched in-house: BC Hydro's Green Gifts application for Facebook, or Vancity's Change Everything.
How your non-profit can earn revenue with Web 2.0: Part 2 - Intellectual property
by Alexandra Samuel – March 1, 2008 - 10:29pmThis week, I return to the questions I recently posed about social media and social enterprise:
This iPod weighs four pounds
by Alexandra Samuel – February 21, 2008 - 6:08pmToday is the 8-day anniversary of my iPhone, and in those eight days a whole bunch of people have asked if I've lost weight. At first I thought it was just that the iPhone made me look thinner -- you know, like a good pair of jeans. But this morning I stepped on the scale and sure enough, I've lost four pounds.
I've done a retrospective analysis of the past 8 days of my life, and I think all four pounds can be directly attributable to significant iPhone-related lifestyle changes:
| More time spent surfing while standing up with iPhone, rather than seated with Macbook Pro | .1 |
| Walked to two meetings I previously would have driven to, because I can leave my Macbook at the office and can walk further when I'm not carrying it | .5 |
| Took kids for a long stroller ride while chatting on my Bluetooth headset | .25 |
| Elimination of snacking while waiting for Treo to S-L-O-W-L-Y load a web page | .5 |
| Skipped dinner because I got into bed with my daughter and my iPhone and couldn't tear myself away from the iPhone even after my daughter fell asleep | .25 |
| Walked to the bus after a meeting (rather than bringing the car) because I was able to have a walking-meeting-by-iPhone rather than rushing back to the office | .25 |
| Found a healthy recipe for dinner on Epicurious rather than ordering Thai food | .25 |
| Used iPhone during drive to work to access bank account, pay Visa card so there'd be money for groceries, rather than foraging for whatever (inevitably) higher-cal food happened to be in the cupboards when we got home | .75 |
| Avoided scheduling a meeting during my workout time because I was able to review an accurate current schedule on my iPhone | .25 |
| Overall reduction in anxiety-related snacking due to increased sense of well-being from iPhone-y goodness | .75 |
| TOTAL WEIGHT LOSS | 4 lbs |
When you compare the up-front cost of an iPhone the cost and performance of other weight loss programs, four pounds in a little over a week looks like a pretty good deal:
- If you sign up for Jenny Craig, you'll pay $77 to $119 per week (not including food) to lose 1-2 pounds a week; if it takes you seven weeks to lose 10 pounds, that translates into about $585 (compared to just $499 for a 16 GB iPhone, which at the current rate, will have me down by 10 pounds in just 2.5 weeks).
- NutriSystem charges $293 per month (including food), and you can figure on losing ten pounds in four to ten weeks -- so figure it may cost as much as $732 to lose the weight an iPhone can take off in just four weeks.
- People lose weight faster on the Zone -- something like 8 to 10 pounds a month -- but it costs $40 per day; you could buy two iPhones for that money -- with Bluetooth headsets!! -- and lose weight with a friend.
Coming soon, the latest Apple campaign: iSkinny.
Will the real Alexandra Samuel please stand up?
by Alexandra Samuel – February 18, 2008 - 11:50pmI knew this charade couldn't last forever. Like lonelygirl15 and fake Steve Jobs before me, I went to great efforts to create a compelling illusion: not only an Alexandra Samuel blog, but a consistent profile on every online community site from del.icio.us to Facebook. Even a complete fake company with me as the fake CEO.
But today, the illusion is at an end. Darrell Houle has unmasked m
e as.....Suzanna Cavatrio, copywriter for Enormicom.
That's right, Darrell came across my alter ego on the tour page for Highrise, a CRM product from 37Signals, the makers of Basecamp. Check it out:
I'm happy to take this re-purposing as a sign that someone at 37Signals saw my obsessive blog post about Basecamp workflow. Or maybe it's a tribute to the talented man behind the camera -- Kris Krug, who took the original photo. Maybe this is kk+'s chance to become official photographer for 37Signals?
