Can’t volunteer for hours a week? Don’t have a big chunk of change to give away to worthy causes? These limitations may have kept you from making the world a better place 10 years ago, but Care2 founder Randy Paynter and team are looking to limit barriers to involvement through their online community’s upcoming cause-related campaigns.

I had the pleasure of talking with Randy and Care2’s product gurus yesterday about the tools they’re adding. In upcoming weeks the site will offer community news, group discussions, online petitions, and–-not to fear–-volunteer opportunities around women’s rights, animal welfare, the environment, and other topics that are front-of-mind. It’s all part of Paynter’s goal to empower everyday folks to get involved in progressive and consciousness-raising causes that are good on both the “me” and “we” front. The site, which has never advertised but has grown to nine million members through word of mouth among people interested in human rights and social welfare, will later be inviting individuals to create their own cause pages around personal passion points.

The Global Lives Project, a large scale video project that will show a day-in-the-life of 10 people whose diversity represents the world’s population, recently brought a portion of their 240 hours of footage to San Francisco after screenings in Tokyo and the East Village. The project is well on its way to achieving its initial exhibition plans, which creator David Evan Harris talked about for a post earlier this year.

Harris has set out to create “an online video library of human life experience” with the help of more than 250 volunteers in eight countries.  One of the most challenging things about synching tapings with 10 individuals who demonstrate humanity’s current regional, geographic, age, and religious makeup has been language differences (if you don’t count the effect slow bandwidth has on streaming video in sub-Saharan Africa). Users of the collaborative subtitling platform dotSUB have come to the rescue, and a great Flickr diary and video of subjects in Japan, Brazil, and Africa are now available online. The project’s team is also working to create citywide installations and a book coordinated with Sao Paulo’s Museum of the Person. 

The great thing about online video is the ability to livecast (almost) as easily from the Arctic as a house in, say, Ohio. Upcoming webcasts from Ice Stories: Dispatches from Polar Scientists promise extreme reports from the world’s fastest-warming places. Even if astronomy in Antarctica isn’t front of mind for you, the SF science museum Exploratorium’s site — with blog posts, panoramic photos, and videos from scientists and glaciologists — is well worth a visit. Yes, watching the solstice from both poles and looking at images of antifreeze fish can actually be a more intriguing than another cat trick video. The crew’s correspondence and Tweets are fun to read, especially given the seriousness of their work in extreme environments. What better way to celebrate the end of the International Polar Year this December?

More information on JoshSpear.

One of the best parts of my recent visit to the WOMMA summit was talking to former advertising creatives Jonathan Rosen and Ryan O’Hara Theisen about their work post-agency. When the cities of Amsterdam, Zurich, Antwerp, Valencia, and Vienna decided to pool their travel promotion efforts they reached out to the pair to develop a compelling video story about the Cool Capitals. Rosen and O’Hara Theisen, who met in film school before recently opening their branded content shop Lucky, created a mockumentary expose about a polyandrous jetsetter who uses men in the European cities to fulfill her appetite for fashion, culture, and nightlife. The resulting video and site is a fun excuse to play tourist if you’re stuck stateside.

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Women’s empowerment and inviting people to tell their stories in their own words are both of major importance to me, so it was a pleasure to interview BlogHer co-founder Elisa Camahort Page about entrepreneurship for Women 2.0’s video series. A former theater student, she worked as a tech executive before setting out to find a way to identify and organize women who blog. The result has been an online hub and content aggregator, conferences, an ad network, and a syndication partnership with NBC Universal. 

The thing I like most about Jeremy Knight’s Calorie Calc iPhone app is the wide variety of possible input/output combinations. Banana/rock climbing sounds great, and I’m partial to Burrito Veggie with a bit of Stationary Cycling. Although I fear that the most common selection may be Pizza/Desk Work.

I’m no calorie counting nut (and more likely to use a Smartphone to find a restaurant review), but the options are most enjoyable. Until you find out that it will take 592 minutes to burn off the big dinner you’ll enjoy next Thursday. 

Goliblogski’s first carbon fiber frame is home safely

Felt Z35

56 cm

18 pounds, .09 ounces

I’ll be paying for this thing forever

I knew I was on board with Josh Warner, the president of video syndication shop Feed Company, when he told a crowd at the WOMMA Summit that it’s time to kill the word “viral” as a prefix for “video.” My San Francisco teammates are probably tired of hearing me make the plea not to describe short videos as viral until online viewers have deemed them so. It’s a word that should be limited to describing branded entertainment after the fact, not in proposed scopes of work.

In his session about the myths of using online video to create word of mouth, Warner described lessons learned while generating attention for Ray Ban’s “Guy catches glasses with face” and Levi’s “Guys backflip into jeans”–two videos that generated massive attention from viewers and media alike.

His words of wisdom on making entertaining content work harder included:

• Realize that the viral videos your clients are clamoring for may be a fad. The piece that will stick around, however, is engagement with potential customers that generates two-way dialogue.
• Plan multiple messages for different audiences. Customizing short notes with reasons why bloggers and reporters representing different categories should care isn’t just smart—it’s imperative.
• It’s important to leave enough time to strategize video rollout. After weeks and often months of production, it’s easy to limit the window of time to post and distribute video and send it out at random. Advance planning and treating the rollout with the same care can make the difference between 100 views and 100,000.

Transparency and subtlety of brand links were major focuses of WOMMA attendees’ questions. Warner said that his company creates YouTube channel names that don’t include the client’s brand name, such as “Unzipped Productions” for the Levi’s video. A Gatorade entertainment lead at the session mentioned that the company created two versions of its ball girl catch video: the subtle version that took off and featured only a bottle of Gatorade at the girl’s feet, as well as a more branded version that was ready if the first didn’t spread virally. No matter the overt branding (and I lean toward more in the name of transparency), timing and close monitoring are crucially important when it comes to the launch and reveal.

Warner’s plea to “move beyond the view” and consider metrics outside a single number to live and die by was much appreciated. YouTube search results, feature placement, mainstream news mentions, and forum threads are all important additional considerations. Because, as Warner and his audience agree, audience engagement is just beginning to realize its potential.

Loving my day at the Tech Awards–honoring contributions to science and social entrepreneurship might be the best excuse to come to the South Bay. The 25 laureates being honored this week were asked about their work and influences at a showcase this morning. I’m especially impressed by Portable Light Project director Sheila Kennedy and her idea to create portable light that Mexican women can use for creating textiles and studying at night.

More video conversations from the day’s awards can be found here.

San Jose will play host to the annual Tech Awards gala tomorrow, November 12, to honor 25 laureates who have benefited humanity through their work in education, equality, health, environment, and economic development. Among the nominations from 68 countries were environment award winner Laos-based Sunlabob Renewable Energy, which rents solar charging stations to entrepreneurs who then rent out solar lamps to local villagers.

The Tech Museum of Innovation created the awards to recognize new approaches to the most critical issues facing humanity and the planet and will award a $50,000 cash prize to one laureate in each category this week. Professor Muhammad Yunus will receive this year’s Global Humanitarian Award for his work in pioneering and promoting microcredit finance. 

More information at JoshSpear.com.