The BRIC award - photo by Jane Middlehurst

At last week’s beautiful UnLtdWorld first birthday gathering, I was honoured to collect a shiny BRIC award, for “using technology for social good in the most creative and innovative way”.

Thank you to everyone who voted for Dharmafly, and to all who have supported us in the last 2 years.

There were five award categories, with an array of nominees, each of them involved in the finest of projects. Although UnLtdWorld is an online social network (it brings together those with an interest in positive social change), it was a particularly rich experience to meet in person so many passionate and focussed individuals. And there is a growing number of meetups in this area, such as Social Innovation Camp, the Shine Unconference and 2gether.

Felix Gonzales produced this video:
(please excuse my slightly gushy, tongue-tied jabbering – I must have been having a rush)…

And here it is on my desk, as promised:

Update: And another very special, double award was received over the weekend. More on that later today very soon right here…

Dharmafly are chuffed to have been nominated for a BRIC award with UnLtdWorld, the social network for social entrepreneurs. You can vote with your feet (erm, your mouse) right here.

Since its launch, one year ago, UnLtdWorld has gone from strength to strength as a platform for collaboration, helping people to work together for social change. We’re listed in the Digital Award category, for those “using technology for social good in the most creative and innovative way”:

The BRIC Awards aim to recognise the most active, inspiring and original members of UnLtdWorld, as voted for by its community.

They encapsulate what UnLtdWorld stands for: Business, Resources, Insight and Community – and members selected as nominees reflect a well-rounded approach to those elements.

Voting ends Friday 24th April, 5pm (UK time), and the winners will be announced at UnLtdWorld’s first birthday celebration, on May 5th.

Twitter: What it is, why you need it, and how you can use it to change your world

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a website that lets visitors write short messages (limited to 140 characters) that answer the perennial question: What are you doing?

Twitter began as a way for employees to communicate within organisations, but gradually expanded as a way for friends, colleagues and contacts to share their news, thoughts and interesting discoveries with each other.

If you want to have a conversation online, you might use email or instant messaging. But if you want other people to ‘overhear’ your conversation, allowing them to join in, then Twitter is the perfect medium.

Twitter is becoming an inspirational source of connections, helping like-minded people unite for social change, good causes and business shenanigans.

Why should you use Twitter?

At first glance, Twitter might appear to be a hyperactive torrent of random thoughts. But it’s much more than that. You can use Twitter to do many things, including:

• Let colleagues and clients get to know you as a person
• Open communication channels between your organisation and the public
• Demonstrate your intelligence/wit/charm/(insert good quality here)
• Find new partners, volunteers, members and clients

Why do other people use Twitter?

We asked these questions…

• @leifkendall Asking: Why do YOU use Twitter? Why?! #
• @premasagar Doing a little research… Tell me, why do YOU use Twitter? #

…which very quickly led to these responses (and more):

• @mattlambert Hi Leif – twitter is human moderated search, I get to find stuff I didn’t even know I wanted. Plus, a personal radio #
• @helenbaker I use Twitter in the hope of learning something new! I like the trying-to-be-useful Tweets, not the tells-me-nothing ones. #
• @TraceyDooley First it was curiosity. Then it was an addiction. Now I intend to build good relations (I hope!) with people AND poss clients #
• @ThirdSectorLab I use twitter to learn from all the knowledgable people in the twittersphere and [hopefully] to contribute as well. #
• @eggboxrobin Would love to help, but can’t say why I use Twitter in 140 chars! To stay informed, meet new interesting peeps, feel connected.. #
• @catherinepope I use Twitter in lieu of real colleagues. The virtual variety is much easier to filter out! #
• @theanxy Staying close to people, sharing information easier and faster, discovering new resources from interesting bloggers. #
• @cathyma To keep track of the minds of smart people and to share exciting quirks online #
• @stevebridger It’s like having better brains on tap, and I work alone, so it helps me feel connected – I call it ‘alone together’
• @Robpermeable For tidbits of info, useful urls, and connecting with people in my sector (charity and PR) #
• @jellyslastjam Initially to see what the fuss was about, now I’ve been sucked in and can’t help myself. #

As you can see, people have many personal and commercial reasons for using Twitter – but don’t just take our word for it, the web abounds with useful articles on Twitter (such as this excellent one).

One thing’s for sure – now that Twitter has broken into the mainstream, playing its part in citizen journalism, charity fundraising and Barack Obama’s legendary social media success (he’s by far the most followed Twitterer), it’s not going away any time soon.

So, do YOU use Twitter? Why?

We gave a 30 minute session at BarCamp London called "Yoga and the Social Graph: from smoke-signals to self-realisation"…

We discussed the ever-increasing trend for expansion and connection within society. This is now stronger than ever with the progress from the Internet (a network of interconnected computers), to the Web (a network of interconnected documents), to the Social Graph (or more simply, ‘Social Network‘, a network of interconnected social relationships).

We considered this tendency in the light of the yogic concept of constant progress towards union – on both the individual and collective level.

The discussion was interesting – with everyone offering insights into the process that we see unfolding in the world today. We found it a refreshing chance to take a step back from technical details and consider the bigger picture.

BarCamp

BarCamp is a growing global movement of web technology conferences that follow a model of grassroots, collective participation. The latest camp was held at Google’s London offices.

[See our previous post from BarCamp Brighton]

Further Reading

Nothing here about yoga – but some interesting commentary on social networking issues…

• Social Graph basic concepts on Read Write Web
• Brad Fitzpatrick’s summary of the problems and issues
• Brian Oberkirch blue-skying the future of portable social networks
• ‘Move My Data‘, a campaign to make data easily portable between different social networks