What it is: Akoha is the world’s first social reality game where you earn points by playing real-world missions. Based on a play it forward model, players register on Akoha’s website and are sent a pack of mission cards which include instructions like "give someone a copy of your favorite book" and "give someone a compact fluorescent lightbulb." Each card has a unique identifier enabling recipients to confirm receipt and order their own pack of cards. The recipient then, in turn, performs the same act of kindness for someone else, and the card gets passed along. As your act gets played forward, you accumulate karma points visible on the site. "This game gives people the permission to approach someone and perform a random act of kindness," says Austin Hall, Akoha's founder. What you can do: The site is currently in beta and cards are available only upon request. Sign up here.
Read the other entries in our innovative giving series here.
Add your own suggestions for innovative ways to give in the comments below.
What it is:Free Rice is an interactive online game that allows you become a little bit smarter while also doing the world some good. Created in October 2007 by computer programmer John Breen, who wanted to help his son study for the SAT, Free Rice was initially just a vocabulary game. Now, it has expanded to include math, science, geography and other subject areas and is even used as a learning tool in classrooms -- apart from being an effective procrastination device at work.
It works like this: users are given one question and four different answer choices. For every correct answer, sponsors (who advertise at the bottom of every page) donate 20 grains of rice to feed the world's hungry through the World Food Program. With very little promotion on the part of the WFP, the game has gone viral – it has about 40,000 users a day and so far can be credited with purchasing enough rice to feed 2.5 million people for a day – in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Uganda, Cambodia, Bhutan and Nepal. What you can do:Get online and tool around to sharpen your vocabulary, boost your math skills and general knowledge, and feed the hungry.
Read the other entries in our innovative giving series here.
Add your own suggestions for innovative ways to give in the comments below.
What she's done: A social media consultant, Beth Kanter teaches non-profits and individuals how to use social media tools like Twitter, blogs and widgets to raise funds and awareness. Although Kanter has spearheaded several unusual funding efforts, her most effective was at the Seattle Gnomedex 8.0 Conference in August of this year, where she raised over $2500 in just 90 minutes by challenging highly connected geeks to tap into their extensive Twitter networks. It started with a mass tweet asking people to help her “send Leng Sopharath, a young Cambodian woman, off to her junior year of college in good health.” Tweets and retweets traveled through the online community, and by the end of the conference, Kanter had collected almost $4000. She acknowledges the results as a “special success story,” but believes it’s an example of how the power of networks can be utilized by non-profits.
What you can do: Identify a cause that resonates with you and start leveraging your network to raise money or awareness. Get started by reading Kanter's blog, which offers tips on identifying key influencers with large networks, telling stories, keeping real-time results on a reporting page and building social capital before you begin Tweeting your campaign.
Read the other entries in our innovative giving series here.
Add your own suggestions for innovative ways to give in the comments below.
What it is: Architecture for Humanity is a non-profit that seeks architectural solutions to humanitarian crises. In 2007, the organization launched the Open Architecture Network – the first collaborative forum to provide access to architecture plans and blueprints online. The aim: for designers and others to share, freely use and adapt existing solutions, and to collaborate with one another to address design challenges. The site currently has almost 1300 projects, including a library in Sohage, Egypt and a hospital in Petite Riviere, Haiti.
What you can do: Get online, share your designs and ideas, or just reach out to an architecture or designer who might be able to help build your project. More opportunities are listed here.
Read the other entries in our innovative giving series here.
Add your own suggestions for innovative ways to give in the comments below.
(Ed. Note: This is the first of six stories about innovative ways to give back during this holiday season. Check back tomorrow and the rest of the week for the next installments.)
What it is: The Nature Conservancy is a global conservation organization dedicated to protecting ecologically important areas. The organization’s social media strategy is simple: find where people spend time online and engage them in those places. "Nobody wants another password, network or profile,” says Jonathon Colman, social media strategist for the Conservancy. One example of how the Conservancy is building an online audience is the Facebook application (Lil) Green Patch. Users grow a virtual garden and send plants to one another. Based on the number of plants received by members of the community, sponsors contribute money to save the rainforests in Costa Rica -- every ten plants received translate into one square foot of rainforest for The Nature Conservancy's Adopt an Acre program. So far, the application ranks amongst the top five most popular applications on Facebook -- it currently has about 6.3 million users -- and has saved over 70 million square feet of rainforest.
What you can do: Get on Facebook, install the application, and with a few clicks of your mouse you're on your way to preserving the foliage in Costa Rica.Add your own suggestions for innovative ways to give in the comments below.
A canister arrived for me early this morning. Too large to contain Pringles or tennis balls, it could have been home to a bottle of whiskey. I opened the lid, peeled back the top, peered inside and found... cereal. Customized, hand mixed, organic, all natural, artisinal cereal – a mix of organic corn flakes, flaxed and flaked (consisting of organic corn, amaranth, flax and sesame), blueberry, choco goji and pecans. All chosen by me for me and delivered straight to my desk, ready to be munched on, courtesy of an ambitious new startup [me] & goji.
Based out of New England, and founded by three recent college grads who are still haunted by the taste of greasy dorm breakfasts, [me] & goji's aim is simple: it allows you to customize your cereal the healthy and sustainable way.There are a few similar services out there, such as UK based MyMuesli and Florida based MixMyGranola, but it's still a sparsely populated market.
It works like this: you go online, pick from a variety of organic and all natural ingredients -- ranging from samurai wheat and artisinal cereal to choco goji and goldenberry – and have it all hand mixed and shipped to your door within a week. As you add ingredients to your virtual bowl, nutritional information and the price both update, so you know exactly what you're putting in, and how much you're shelling out.
Customized organic cereal is a novel idea, but one has to wonder whether it will take off. For one thing, there's the cost – my customized 600 gram canister cost $11.50 minus the shipping and the optional green tag that allows me to offset my carbon footprint. Throw in shipping and the optional green tag and before you know it you're up to about $15, a price tag most would balk at, particularly in this economy.
Then there's the fact that, unless you're a cereal connoisseur, you may have to prepare to be surprised. My inspired combination was not all I expected – the pecans didn't add the crunch I was hoping for, instead leaving my mix with a generous smattering of chewy softness. If you aren't an experimental personality, a visit to your neighborhood grocery store for some Cheerios might be your best bet.
There are definitely pros: the service is extremely convenient -- the website is well designed and easy to use – and with minimal effort you get the cereal of your choice within a week. You also know the ingredients are good, you're eating healthy and doing your part for the environment. Finally, depending on the ingredients you pick, the cost may not be all that much compared to what you end up with after spending your lunch hour trawling Whole Foods looking for a similar mix. As with so much else nowadays, you can choose.
In keeping with the holiday spirit, bottled water manufacturer Aquafina, along with retail chain Sam's Club has handed out 25,000 fleece jackets to 100 schools.
At first glance, the news is just another instance of corporate philanthropy – laudable but nothing to really bat an eyelid at. What's interesting about the effort: the jackets are actually made out of 189 million recycled bottles.
The endeavor began as part of a "Return the Warmth" program started by Sam's Club and Aquafina in support of Keep America Beautiful's Great American Cleanup. This is the third year the two have partnered on this program. The program challenged communities and schools to recycle 80 million plastic between March 1st and May 31st. The goal was far surpassed, and the top 50 schools that collected the most bottles received fleeces as well as a $1,000 Sam's Club gift card.
Last year, Fast Company ran a story on America's bottled water craze. The nation spends about $16 billion every year on bottled water - much of it coming from nations in which chunks of the population do not have access to safe, reliable drinking water. The impacts of production, transportation and consumption - for the environment and beyond - are startling. Recycling is only one step in the right direction.
That being said, it's far better than doing nothing at all. And turnining PET bottles into a warmly useful product - that's undeniably cool in our books.
Lying about your identity on the Internet may no longer just earn you the scorn of your fellow online users – it could also be a criminal, jailable offense.
Last week, a jury arrived at a decision on the Lori Drew (the Myspace mom whose actions led to the suicide of a 13-year old girl) case. The jury found Drew guilty of three misdemeanor charges, each punishable by up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine, of accessing computers without authorization. No verdict was reached on the main charge of conspiracy -- a mistrial was declared.
Marketing Vox has called the decisions a watershed ruling, stating: "In addition to casting a fresh tint on computer fraud and abuse, the ruling suggests lying about one's identity on the internet could be considered a prosecutable crime."
Andrew Grossman, a senior legal policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, called the ruling a "radical change" reports the New York Times. "What used to be small-stakes contracts become high-stakes criminal prohibitions… If this verdict stands, it means that every site on the Internet gets to define the criminal law."
MySpace's terms of service require users to be "truthful and accurate" when registering. Drew's fake profile was interpreted as unauthorized access by prosecutors - a violation of the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.
Whether online anonymity should or should not be allowed is another question. Last month, after Fast Company received a slew of comments from trolls and users operating under false identities in response to a blog post I wrote about sexism on Digg, we posed a big idea to our community postulating that online anonymity should be banned.
Responses seemed fairly evenly divided, with some protesting that banning anonymity would be an unnecessary leash around users' freedom and others insisting that there should be no difference between identities online and offline.
Rather than an outright ban, leaving it to the websites themselves to decide may be the best compromise, as users are expected to agree to the terms of service before they use the site. Sarah Perez for ReadWriteWeb points out, as sites increasingly move towards authenticating identities, a slew of services like Facebook Connect (rolled out today), Google Friend Connect, and Yahoo's Open Strategy, are all readying themselves to verify identity.
"No matter who wins, though, it's anonymity that loses. For the sites that move to these types of authentication methods, no longer will their users be able to create disposable usernames and passwords so they can troll around harassing others and leaving juvenile comments. Instead, all participants are themselves online - and subject to the same standards for behavior that you would expect to see if you encountered them in a real-life public situation," writes Perez.
The Keith Fink/Dov Charney (lawyer who confirms all bad lawyer stereotypes/American Apparel CEO) standoff just got uglier.
Keith Fink has a reputation for targeting celebrities to make a quick buck -- big names he has targeted include Marilyn Manson, Brad Pitt, and Ellen DeGeneres -- and even for concocting evidence. He is particularly known for leveraging the media to bolster his case - a potentially tarnishable reputation can be worth its weight its gold. He has been at odds with American Apparel for two years now over a case he filed accusing Charney of sexually harassing former AA employee Mary Nelson. A few weeks ago he filed another suit against Charney - this time on behalf of an employee claiming wrongful termination. "He has a history of chasing this company around," says Charney.
Most recently, a series of emails has been leaked in which Fink appears to threaten American Apparel lawyers in relation to the sexual harrasment case brought by former employee Mary Nelson. Writes Fink in one of the emails: "Don't even try me. I will not respond to another e-mail again from MSK. You don't pay me by the Fed 7th I'm blowing this whole farce wide open. Then you can try the case against me and deal with the media knowing that you wanted to pay sever fogures to sweep this under thr rug. So try me." Called a "celebrity ambulance chaser" by Charney, Fink has already been fined $7500 for fabricating evidence (he instructed his client Mary Nelson to lie about her income to make the jury more sympathetic) in a sexual harassment case alleging Charney held meetings in the nude. Charney tells us that Fink is currently being investigated by the California state bar.
"He uses sexual shame tactics. I've never had to settle a case outside of a few months severance. This is a nuisance claim from two yrs ago," said Charney in an interview the week before the emails were leaked.
Update: Yesterday, Charney was slapped with yet another lawsuit -- from Nikky Yang, an ex-employee who alleges Charney harassed female employees by conducting meetings in the nude amongst other things. The suit also alleges that the CEO forced Yang to move inventory between stores, leading to "inflated sales and false net profits." Via The New York Post.
Known for being fearlessly risqué, American Apparel has yet again used shock tactics to its advantage. Its latest effort: using nudity to sell clothes. The company has rolled out a banner ad that displays a topless model – boobs, nipples and a tantalizing unzipping of her top.
Of course, American Apparel has attracted attention for some time now, with its open embrace of sex as an integral part of its brand image. "Yes there's shock value to these ads – that's what our advertising strategy is about," explains Ryan Holiday who does online strategy for American Apparel. "We photograph models in a way that's honest – we aren't so constrained by the rules."
The nude ads are currently displayed on only two blogs- Debauchette and Reverse Cowgirl – both of which deal with sex and neither of which have had any advertising on them before (look on the right of either site for the banner ads or scroll to the bottom of this post). Holiday explains that the company chose the blogs because employees are personal fans of them and because they don't enforce the same restrictions that mainstream publications do. Recently, American Apparel had to switch out an underwear ad on design blog, The Sartorialist, because the site's users complained. The company is also talking to other publishers who might be amenable to running the ads.
The attention the new campaign is attracting online is exactly what American Apparel wants. The brand has worked hard at creating an image for itself that is "soaked in youth and sex". Provocative advertising is their artillery. Their site even has a special section labeled "provocative ads."
"These ads were Dov's idea – it's something he's been wanting to do for a long time," says Holiday. Dov = Dov Charney, the company's controversial founder and CEO, who is known for conducting meetings in his underwear, and even in the nude, and was recentlyhas beensued for sexual harassment (creating a "hostile" work environment) earlier this month.several times in the past (all suits were denied or settled.) Charney is currently being sued for wrongful termination and has also been accused of keeping nude pictures of female employees on his computer, something Holiday was quick to point out was for business reasons -- the employee also happened to be a model for American Apparel.
"I mean you could say its an inopportune time," says Holiday when asked whether rolling out the nude ads at a time when Charney is being sued for nudity in the workplace amongst other things is really the best move. "When you see the way the lawsuit is represented in mainstream media like the Wall Street Journal, they seem not to get what American Apparel is all about. But if you look at the response to the ad from young people there are no negative responses – they're a different generation. You could say there's sort of disconnect between how mainstream media reports on American Apparel and how younger people perceive what the company is doing," he adds.
Is American Apparel worried about a backlash against the new ads? "No because we're very open about sexuality," says Holiday.
What happened to the American Apparel that was about sustainability? Why all the raciness? "Whatever the polls might say -- ethical consumers were a niche. (Charney) wasn't going to sell as many T-shirts as he wanted by targeting a niche; he wanted a generation," writes Rob Walker in the June issue of Fast Company magazine. Charney's way of widening this demographic – sex and youth or making "sexy T-shirts for young people."
But do ads featuring topless ads run the risk of alienating part of American Apparel's user base and narrowing the brand's appeal? Holiday is of the opinion that it won't, because the company is targeting a niche. "These two blogs talk about sex and people who work in the sex industry. The ads let us reach out to an interesting audience, one that is normally ignored."
So American Apparel wants to go mainstream but it's advertising for a niche audience? "We're mainstream in the sense that Obama is mainstream -- we are connecting lots of small groups together into a big audience. We also advertise very heavily on sites like MySpace and Facebook. We did a big campaign on the Sartorial," says Holiday.
The company's ad strategy is about tailoring different advertisements for different demographics. For Reverse Cowgirl and Debauchette, the company actually had a photographer and a model read the content and then design the ads for those blogs in particular. The ad on Debauchette for instance is more provocative than the one on Reverse Cowgirl, reflecting the content of the different sites.
But is there a disconnect between the product itself and the advertising? Much of American Apparel's clothing is basic and simple, with not a hint of suggestiveness. By comparison, their ads are provocative, controversial and steaming hot. When I asked Holiday about this, he explained: "The company's clothes may not be particularly suggestive, but there's no reason why normal can't be sexy. That girl is unbelievably sexy in the ad- she's doing that with vintage clothing. We don't airbrush and we use normal models."
So what comes after the boob and the nipple? Stay tuned. I'm sure Charney won't disappoint.
Update:I spoke with Charney who strongly denies ever having held meetings in the nude. As for colleagues seeing him in his underwear: "It's like if you're a bathing suit designer, and you're wearing a bathing suit. If you're an underwear designer, naturally you'd have to be in the underwear to show it to your colleagues," he says.
Charney goes on to point out that Keith Fink, the lawyer who alleged that he held meetings in the nude was fined $7500 for fabricating evidence and is currently being investigated by the state bar. "He's a celebrity ambulance chaser," says Charney, "He has a history of chasing our company around and has also exploited other celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres. Do you watch Gossip Girl? I mean imagine if the creator of Gossip Girl was sued for sexual harassment. It's like I live in this alternate world. I have 10,000 employees, there are bound to be problems. We are now starting to have contracts that employees sign that preclude them from filing a public suit... I have never propositioned anyone in a manner that wasn't becoming of a positive work environment. A few people have suggested this as a means of trying to correct money in a corrupt lawsuit."
While allegations of him conducting meetings in the nude are included in the plaintiff's claim of wrongful termination, he insists these will be stricken from the record as they have no bearing on the case at hand.
