The Future of Social Actions, Part II: Projects in the Pipeline

Over the next several weeks, I will be thinking out loud about the Future of Social Actions. Our initiative is approaching its two year anniversary at the end of August, and would benefit from some community participation in creating a long-term plan going forward. I hope this blog post, and others in the series, will serve as a spark for brainstorming where Social Actions should be headed, how to get there, and how best to make the operation fully sustainable.

Part II: Projects in the Pipeline

For the first six months of 2009, I was on the road far more than would reasonably be considered productive and healthy for the founder of a budding organization. Nevertheless, I returned home at the end of June with a treasure trove of new contacts and inspirations. Below are a few of the project ideas that I would like to see Social Actions amplify or launch in the coming months, consistent with our commitment to collaborative innovation in the social sector and our desire to work on a range of high-impact projects that help engage people in making a difference.

Ongoing development of the Social Actions API and related web applications
Social Actions' primary contribution to the world to date is the Social Actions API, a pioneering effort to aggregate opportunities to make a difference and distribute them across the web sites, social networks, and mobile phones that millions of people use everyday via third-party applications. To take this project to the next level, we need to do more to engage our developer community and potential distribution partners. So far, our focus has been primarily on core functionality of the Social Actions API itself. I'd like to see Social Actions shift its focus to the developers and distribution partners that are building web applications from the Social Actions API. What resources / incentives / support do they need to make the greatest impact? I don't have an answer to this question but look forward to developing a strategy that effectively engages this community.

Advocating for open standards for publishing and sharing actions
Since the very beginning of Social Actions, I have been writing and talking about the importance of open standards for publishing and sharing actions. At this point, we have proposed a format called Open Actions that can serve as an open standard for all kinds of social actions: volunteer opportunities, donation opportunities, events, campaigns, petitions, groups, do it yourself actions, and micro-loans. We need to increase awareness, interest in, and adoption of this format and others to add coherence to the online social activism and philanthropy sectors. Suggestions on how to go about this are encouraged.

Building community among the 50+ partners we work with
We work with an impressive group of social innovators from around the world. When we first launched My Social Actions in January, I though that this social network would serve as a meeting point for the partners we work with. To date, this has not happened. Instead, My Social Actions has developed in an entirely different direction, attracting a wide range of social change professionals and providing a forum for them to blog about and post events related to the work they're doing. To build community among our 50+ partners, I am considering two parallel solutions -- 1) regular conference calls and in person events for the partners we work with focused on specific projects (Social Actions API, Social Entrepreneur API, Open Actions, My Social Actions, etc) and 2) a private social network (kind of like an intranet) just for our partners. The private social network would also serve as the main channel for regularly communicating with our partners and creating a safe and secure environment for them to network with one another. We don't normally create projects that do not leave a public archive. At this point, however, I can sense a need to create a private space for a the staff of Social Actions' partners to network with one another. The combination of regular conference calls, in person events, and a private social network would provide fertile ground for our partners to not only deepen their relationships with Social Actions but also to identify collaborative opportunities among themselves.

Open-sourcing the inspiring 1-to-1 conversations we have on a regular basis
For over six months, I have been contemplating open-sourcing many of the phone calls I have on a regular basis. I spend at least 6-8 hours per week hearing about amazing online platforms and brainstorming who the founders should be talking to, how to integrate with Social Actions, and how new initiatives fit into the broader online social activism landscape. While I love every minute of these calls, they don't contribute to the public archive and public conversation about our sector. To fix the problem, I have setup a BlogTalkRadio channel and will be scheduling public calls throughout each week. The format will be incredibly informal -- just a conversation between me and/or Christine and one or our current or potential partners. The calls will focus on the partner and will be publicly archived and available for comments, download, etc. Thoughts?

Telling the stories of our high-impact partners and friends
This project idea came up through conversations with Amy Sample Ward and Rachel Weidinger. Social Actions is all about the impact that its partners are making. We don't, however, always do a very good job of demonstrating this commitment to our partners. Nothing would show interest more than profiling the work of our inspiring partners and friends. Over the next several weeks, it would be awesome if members of the Social Actions community (Amy, Rachel, Christine, myself, and others) started writing profiles about the inspiring work we see our partners doing on the ground. All of the infrastructure is in place for this story-telling. My Social Actions provides an ideal place in which to post an event or write a blog entry about anyone or group you find who is affiliated in some way with Social Actions. Do we need a story-telling calendar or Basecamp project? Let me know if this would help kick-start the story-telling.

Drawing more attention to our paid consulting work, trainings and events
Over the last six months, Social Actions has been involved in a range of innovative consulting projects, trainings, and events. Our most notable paid consulting projects to date are the Social Entrepreneur API (Launching on August, 31, 2009) and Mozilla Service Week (September 14-22, 2009). We've also been doing work with Social Capital Markets 2009, The Case Foundation, The Skoll Foundation, TakePart, NABUUR, Music National Service, Consulting Within Reach, and Small Change Fund. Since we've been so busy working on these projects, we haven't successfully drawn attention to the work we're doing. I would like to use My Social Actions and the main Social Actions website to feature the work we're doing for hire. After all, that's what keeps us afloat financially. Any suggestions on how to draw more attention to our paid consulting work, trainings, and events.

Doing a much better job of reporting back on the impact our partners and projects are making
One of the biggest embarrassments for me is that the footer of the main Social Actions website, My Social Actions, and search.socialactions.com has statistics that are from December 2008. This shortcoming is a sign of just how poorly we have been conveying the impact of main project, the Social Actions API. Somehow, we need to find a way to loop the reporting on impact into our daily work-flows and find ways to automate the sharing of this information. Similarly, we have not asked our partners for metrics on the impact they are having nor have we crunched the numbers on the impact our other projects are making. Of course, measuring impact is never simple. But at least making an effort would be better than what we're currently doing. I'm not sure how to frame the reporting of impact as a project. Your advice is welcome.

If you have any thoughts on these projects, please share them below. I'd also be interested in hearing about other projects ideas that Social Actions can/should be prioritizing. Thanks for taking a moment to leave a comment.