First of all, I would encourage you to check out OpenIDEO yourself. It is a great site and actually seeing how they are working on their goal will better help you appreciat the framework behind the site. Visit here, but don’t forget to come back.

The five Principles of the OpenIDEO Community (Copied from here)

Principle #1: Inclusive. Recognize and enable all levels of participation from different disciplines. It’s about allowing anyone to contribute to the creative process. Whether it’s a great insight, a beautiful sketch, an encouraging build, or a few words of praise, the platform allows everyone to take part in and feel as if they are a part of the process.

Principle #2: Community-centered. Remember the core strengths of the community and play to them. OpenIDEO is meant to foster a strong, vibrant, lively community that thrives on inspiration — and that we all trust will make a difference. Focusing on this community and its activities is essential.

Principle #3: Collaborative. Promote teamwork among individuals and teams by recognizing the many roles that are crucial to each step of the design process. Always choose collaboration over competition, and create an atmosphere for building on one another’s ideas.

Principle #4: Optimistic. Stay optimistic! You never know when a wild idea might enable others to get closer to a viable solution.

Principle #5: Always in Beta. Design for continuous improvement and iteration and scale deliberately. That goes for the community, the platform, and these principles. To this end, please email your suggestions for making OpenIDEO better.

I would add three more core attributes that openIDEO is clearly exhibiting that drives their success as a platform for social change.

The first is that of design. Parented by the great design site IDEO, the entire site looks great and functions intuitively. The design propels the user to keep reading and exploring. It is colorful, varied, and full of information but also manages to appear professional, focused, and accessible.

The second is that of a very strong Goal orientation. Humans like achieving goals. OpenIDEO has almost incorporated a game mentality that encourages individuals to participate. Hinging off of strong design, it is easy to feel like there is something to be accomplished.

The final ancillary attribute to OpenIDEO’s success is their variety. They have one goal -utilizing human creativity to solve social problems- but also understand that some big ideas need time to stew. But, rather than loose momentum, there is always a new idea being proposed. Having all of these ideas running on the same page helps create a feeling of accomplishment and a sense of what still remains to be done. They mix things up, another aspect of their design, and know how to celebrate their successes.

Their five principles and three attributes make OpenIDEO a very dynamic site.

Ever wonder how a so-called “social network” website is making so much money?

I mean think about it… There’s no charge to join, no subscription fee, no new hardware or software to buy… How on earth are they pulling in millions and millions of dollars??

It’s simple really. ADVERTISING.

Facebook charges companies to place ads on the site. Ya know, those annoying things that are the side panel of every page, yeah those. Facebook has created a quick and easy way for companies to target their ads. By collecting all kinds of data about its users (through profile information, places they visit, likes, etc.) Facebook can place ads in just the right place at just the right time. Because of this pinpoint accuracy, advertisers flock to them for ad space!

That’s how they make money. They charge for ad space, and thousands of companies are willing to pay large sums for it.

So don’t overlook the potential of selling ads on your site!

Last week, Facebook and current CEO and creator Mark Zuckerberg made it official along with the SEC to have Facebook stocks be sold to the public. Though this maybe the most anticipated IPO (initial public offering)  in the history of the stock market, there is a lot of speculation of how this will affect Facebook. The stocks will most likely not be available to the public until May, but the $5 billion has been raised to allow Facebook to put their stocks up for purchasing.

Facebook already has huge popularity and has been one of the most successful businesses of the 21st century, so why the change? Mark Zuckerberg answers that question with this:

“There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, in a letter that accompanied the filing. “The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.”

Facebook already has 800 million users across the world (that is about 1/7 of the world’s population) and Zuckerberg wants to expand even more! The big issue with Facebook going public will be that advertising is going to be the main money maker for Facebook now. That means Facebook is going to have a more YouTube-ish look to it. This may not seem like a problem to us here in the US, but that is because most users of Facebook in America have personal computers, laptops or tablets; but, across the world the majority of users have mobile devices and advertising on mobile devices is much harder to accomplish and still have that social media effectiveness of Facebook that they have always had.

With that said, I personally see this as a very mature move for Facebook to go public. It is the right move for them, but it might have happened a little too late with the current stock market. Time will only tell how effective this move will be for the current leader of the Social Media Market.

The top 3 companies that use Social Media most effectively, as posted by Amy Porterfield (a social media strategy consultant), are;

1): Martell Home Builders: they are a construction company based in Canada where there goal is to create a direct path from the builders to the consumers. So there website is very user friendly and most of their leads come from other buyers who have previously used the company.

2): Zappos: This is a very popular user friendly internet based shoe company. They use strategies such as fan of the week and allow comments on their website from buyers and their reactions. They are very successful and have a solid company structure.

3): Giantnerd: This is a company that sells outdoor equipment for activities such as hiking and biking. They are dedicated to selling their product but also becoming friends with their customers as well. They have set up their site in a way that encourages a social network where customers can talk to each other. Another aspect of their site is called WikiNerdia. This is where anybody can post questions about different products and then the other consumers that use the site answer it for you. This works well for Giantnerd because their customers do their selling for them. Along with this you can also look up older topics and posts about different products sold.

These companies can be used as examples as how to effectively use social media into your business. If you can’t think of strategies yourself you might as well look for them in companies where it works.

Organizations like Kiva and HOPE International are at the forefront of a unique and relatively recent model for charitable giving. Traditionally, money given to benefit the poor in other countries around the world meant paying for charity organizations to work in communities to provide food, clean water and other forms of relief. The problem here is that the donation only goes so far.

There is an old saying that goes something like, “You can either give a man a fish and feed for a day, or teach him to fish and feed him for the rest of his life.” What this means is that while giving is a good thing, it isn’t sustainable. Micro financing fits better into the second half of this saying. The basic concept is that small donations are compiled into relatively small loans, usually ranging from a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand. This money is given to entrepreneurs in poor countries to help them start a self-planned business. Examples are the cost of a bicycle so that they can deliver groceries or the start-up costs of a small street vendor. With a very high payback rate (both Kiva and HOPE claim 98-99% rates), donors know that they are giving to a worthwhile cause, and can even reinvest the money after it has been paid off!

Visit these two great organizations’ sites to help out your fellow entrepreneurs around the world:

www.hopeinternational.org

www.kiva.org

I have been an long time support of Kiva.  It is a great company that makes it so easy to help other people. It empowers people by allowing them to give money to back up micro loans that would otherwise be to risky to do without Kiva guaranteeing them. Kiva has exploded since it creation.  Kiva has allowed hundred of other get ministries to form because of Kiva.  Kiva is the Ebay of ministry.  Kiva has a whole page of plugins people have created on Firefox for Kiva.  It has allowed ministries such as World Vision to find people who could really use loans and use the Kiva platform to fund their client.  Alalay sa Kaunlaran, Inc. is a company that was founded in 1986.  It was started by a group of Christian businessmen who wanted to help with Philipians issues with poverty and unemployment.   Kiva has given this group of businessmen the tools and resources they need to effectively minister to their community.  Alalay sa Kaunlaran has been on Kiva since 2008 and they have loaned over 2,000,000 dollars on Kiva.  Kiva has revolutionized the way people raise money for 3rd world businessman.  Kiva is a perfect example of how powerful the internet is.  Kiva was an origination that wanted to get involved in micro financing, but because of the power of the internet.  Kiva has allowed normal people to kelp a taxi drive in the Congo receive a loan to fix his car.  Or another example would a boy from Ohio can help father with 6 kids build his house.  Kiva and the internet has opened up huge opportunities to help people who really need loan.

By Ford Jordan
FordJordan.com | SEO, Webdesign, Sports, and Business