Urge Alerts

The British consumer research firm, trendwatching.com, issued a new report the other day to signal some recent shifts in consumer behavior, based on the observations of its hundreds of professional trend-spotters planted around the globe. Here are four "trends-to-watch" that are especially relevant to the use of social media and the cause-wired among us:

1. Urge alerts. Spurred by the Web and mobile phones, increasing numbers of people want their buying experiences to be based more on speed and location -- their location. Sure, it's not new that people want things “right now.” But the "where" is becoming increasingly important. So how can a company or a nonprofit satisfy these new expectations from the people who support them? According to trendwatching.com, it's all about getting better at keeping up with the accelerating pace of cultural change. For nonprofits, maybe it's as simple as creating a Web interface set up to track the progress of a donation. Consider Domino’s Pizza and its new digital “pizza tracer.” It allows customers to follow the progress of their order, from preparation to delivery, making delivery delays easier to bear and giving consumers a virtual peek into Domino's kitchen. Is there a digital way to help donors trace the flow of their donations or measure their impact? “While the appeal and influence of ‘now’ has been building for years, societal attitudes, sky-high consumer expectations and new technologies are currently converging in such a powerful way that brands truly have no choice but to go ‘real-time’,” the report says. The takeaway here for social change groups? Find a way to help your donors help you to measure the impact they're having, or risk losing them to groups that will.

2. Brand butlers: You’ve heard it before: serving is the new selling. But now, a nonprofit or a for-profit will need to start asking its customers or donors what it can do to help them -- rather than the other way around. Trendwatching.com says groups that reinvent themselves into “service organizations” (a shift from “broadcasting” to "assisting") could be more likely to survive in the months and years ahead. At least one nonprofit -- the Brooklyn Museum -- is already working the new angles. CTO Shelley Bernstein has developed a way for visitors to “check in” at their favorite exhibits, using their mobile phones. Once they check in this way, a museum staff member comes out to greet them in person -- and to assist them, if necessary, in their search for what interests them. Bernstein also is developing a way to help museum-goers to navigate the neighborhood outside the museum. Museum staff issues an ever-changing list of "staff picks" that might include tips on where to find the best piece of apple pie or bottle of wine in the area.

3. Mature-ialism. Consumers increasingly want authentic offline experiences. But now, "authentic" is being measured by the level of drama involved. "Consumers have a hunger to be exposed to raw and real life – in the form of much more honest conversations, more daring innovations, and more offline, risqué experiences," Trendwatching.com says. "They want brands that push the boundaries." Driving this? The spread of a more liberal, “anything goes” culture in the online world -- coupled with an ongoing shift in what constitutes "status" in today’s society, the firm says. “There has never been a bigger market for demanding and difficult experiences; people are upgrading their consumption to challenge themselves," the report says. "They’re craving authenticity and brands that, increasingly, have values that reflect their own.” For nonprofits, this means there may be an even bigger pool of potential donors waiting to “get their hands dirty” or wanting to have an offline experience that demands more of them to serve the needy -- a kind of reverse-Slacktivism. But consumers also still want to have fun, the company says. Why else are more charities staging contests asking people to, say, shave their beards for a cause, or lose 10 pounds so that poor kids can eat? [Think The Biggest Loser meets the local food bank.]

4. Mass mingling. Surging use of mobile 'smart phones' and the use of location-awareness games like Foursquare and Gowalla are creating ever-larger mobile social networks that convene around social events or a local business "happening." Next up? People organizing in this way around causes. "Like any consumer trend, mass mingling unlocks a human need in a new way," the report says. "It makes the act of interacting with others much easier." Consider organizing your nonprofit supporters around a volunteer event -- but do it via Foursquare or Facebook or Gowalla. And hold that event right away -- this afternoon. Be bold. Remember, one of the latest consumer trends is a respect for brands that dare to do new things -- right now.

Got any other examples of new consumer trends with special promise for the advocacy sector? Let us hear from you!

-- Marcia Stepanek

(Illustration, Flying Team, by Miroslaw Pieprzyk)

Am I a (4) Square?

I’m a big fan of social media but I have to admit: I’m having a hard time getting into the habit of updating my whereabouts. Part of it is that my life just isn’t all that exciting: if there were a badge for Yet Another Before-Dawn Hour Spent Writing A Book or a badge for Marathon Blogging or Watching Rubicon, I would have long ago been anointed somebody’s Mayor – somewhere. At least once. [Dan Fletcher, writing in the current issue of TIME magazine, quips that the idea of updating his whereabouts “is a bit too much like having a pint-size version of my mother in my pocket, constantly prodding me for updates.”] Indeed, it’s kind of like that Twitteleh video that went viral last year spoofing Twitter, in which the Jewish mother uses tweets to prod her son with endless queries asking, Where Are You Going? Who Are You With? Are You Wearing a Sweater? and ... Who’s the Girl?

But a big part of it is that I just don’t see the benefits yet – at least not in the social change space. Sure, some nonprofits are starting to experiment. Kudos to Earthjustice, a nonprofit public interest law firm in the Bay Area, which has been asking BART riders this summer to “check in” with them on Foursquare. For every check-in, one of Earthjustice’s major donors is pledging $10 to help the nonprofit’s attorneys fight environmental pollution. So far, so good: marketing manager Ray Wan says the nonprofit has raised more than $10,000 for the cause, and has brought a crowd of people to the Earthjustice Web site that didn’t know about the group previously. [“We’re getting some amazing buzz from this,” Wan told me last month. “It’s an easy way to get people involved in helping us to fight for the environment.”]

Maybe so, but it’s all still about phoning it in -- what people used to call “click-and-give” in the ancient days of the Desktop, or what people have more recently called Slacktivism, a portmanteau formed out of the words “slacker” and “activism.” Even new media visionary Clay Shirky, speaking on this year’s conference circuit, has cited what he sees as a stubborn gap between online chatter about social action and real social action offline – a sort-of “talk” and “walk” gap that has yet to be widely recognized, if not bridged. [And it’s no wonder, perhaps. Josh Williams, the co-founder of Gowalla, says his company is thinking about how it can provide value beyond just the check-in, itself. “Sharing photographs, telling stories about a given location or whether someone’s had a romantic date there – that’s where things get really interesting,” Williams told TIME's Fletcher.]

I, for one, am holding out for something more. While sitting in the lobby of Austin’s Driskill Hotel last spring, the real potential of this medium became clear. One minute, the Driskill’s lobby was filled with seated, lounging SXSW conference-goers and the next minute, everyone sprang to their feet simultaneously, as if heeding a digital dog whistle, moving to the exits en masse. What happened? They all got the “memo” via Foursquare, an update compelling them to go to the next After Party (and they did, like moths to flame).

I went, too. But I didn’t stay very long. What I’m waiting for is the day or hour or minute when somebody sends me an update that not only tells me where they are, but why I should be there, too. An invitation that gives me a chance to do something locally -- but something outside my "chill" zone, like handing out free meals at the local homeless shelter for an hour, or reading a newspaper to nursing home residents in my neighborhood (and on my way over, bringing them a box of their favorite cookies).

Sure, I could do this without a prod via Foursquare and Gowalla. But if someone at my favorite charity were to invite me right now in an update, chances are I'd actually make it there. Today.

Skeptical? Go ahead, nonprofits. Encourage me to go for the Mayorship of, say, The Greater Harlem Nursing Home or the Atlanta Union Mission. I'm confident that I (and at least a couple dozen of my 3,000 closest online friends – and then some of their friends) would be delighted to compete.

-- Marcia Stepanek

(Illustration: Russell Tate for istock.com)

Digital 'Dog Whistle'

More than once last week at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, I'd be sitting in a restaurant or in a hotel lobby with some colleagues, only to see nearly everyone within eyeshot suddenly stand up and start moving toward the exits, simultaneously. We'd go, too, ending up a few blocks away, or across the street, along with everyone else.

What was fascinating was that this wasn't the usual conference "pack" mentality. Our smart phones had made sure we had "gotten the memo." They told us when to go and where to go -- and then, who else might be there when we arrived. For many attendees, the SxSW conference was a first opportunity to try out location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla and experience the sensation of location-awareness media first-hand.

[New York Times writer David Carr described the sensation at SxSW, writing in the Times today that "it was striking to see the digital location effect in the wild, with people reacting to an unseen dog whistle and moving en masse, on command."]

How does it work? Once you arrive at a location, you "check in" and see a list of people who are already there; Foursquare was ranking the most popular locations by the number of check-ins during the conference. Local merchants were handing out digital, branded "badges" to those who showed up -- and free beer or other perks were being given to those who showed up the most often. Twitter launched a location-aware app during the conference and Facebook will soon follow suit.

Location, simply put, changes a lot -- from marketing to social action. [The potential to organize volunteers this way was explored again this year on some of SxSW's panels.] Merging location and the Web means that most of us can walk around with a smart phone in our pockets that not only tell others where we are but also plugs into the Net to share that information, merge it with online databases and spit out who else is in the immediate vicinity that we might know.

But location-aware services -- though still a relatively new form of social media -- are doing more now than simply testing organizers' ability to move a crowd for entertainment [see Where Ware in Cause Global last week]. They're also testing new ways for crowds to help charitable causes with donated money and services: following the Haiti earthquake, Loopt announced that for every user who checked in from a Panera, Chipotle or a Whole Foods, it would donate $1 towards Haitian relief, with 50 cents going to the Red Cross and the rest to Doctors Without Borders. Not to be outdone, Gowalla donated $50 to the Red Cross for every user who checked in from one of three locations in San Francisco at certain times.

CauseWorld, meanwhile, is a location-based social network that hands out "Karma Points" each time a user checks in at a participating location. The free iPhone and Android app lets users convert their Karma Points into real dollars and donate them to to a list of causes that corporate sponsors Kraft Foods and Citi have designated. The CauseWorld community has, so far, earned $6 million worth of Karma Points for the homeless in Haiti.

No question, there is more potential, still, for groups to use location aware technology to move groups to benefit social causes. Backers say CauseWorld is an example of how brands can combine social media with cause marketing in new ways to deliver new value to customers and employees, alike. No doubt CauseWorld is just the first of such initiatives.

Are you part of any new projects that use location-aware technology-for-a-cause? How would you rate the potential for location-aware media to promote social action? Employee and consumer engagement?

-- By Marcia Stepanek

(Illustration by Matt Hertel for istock.com)

Where Ware

It's all about location-smart social media this year at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin. Dozens of new start-ups launching there this weekend offer new ways to help people connect geographically in real-time, on the fly, using their mobile phones and devices. But just some of these new start-ups use social media for social good.

Here are a few very new start-up social enterprises which have, so far, triggered some buzz among the more than 5,000 SxSW attendees (many want to "discover" the next Twitter or Foursquare):

* Vicarious.ly is a real-time, location-based information stream that aggregates the movements of people in Austin attending SxSW -- and will soon be able to do the same in different cities around the United States and the world. [Go ahead, try it. It's like a visual Twitter on steroids.] SimpleGeo, the startup that owns Vicarious.ly, partnered with eight different location companies -- including Gowalla, Foursquare, Brightkite and Twitter -- and the result is a fast-moving "location stream" of data. So far, much of the activity represents check-ins from either foursquare or Gowalla. Down the road, founders hope to help nonprofits and NGOs build new ways to map crowd movements in environmental or political crises, so as to boost the delivery efficiency of basic goods and services.

* CauseWorld is a free iPhone and Android app that enables users to check in at places but when you do, participating brands (including Kraft Foods and Citi) will give money to a charity of your choice. The concept is to turn the current craze for location-based check-in games into money for those in need. This week at SxSW, CauseWorld and TechCrunch, the tech news blog, are partnering to offer double "karma" points to people who check in to one of over 50 participating venues in Austin. There are no purchases required. "Players" just need to check in to the right venues to earn the points.

* SparkHelp, a project that Mashable is supporting for the Pepsi Refresh SxSW Challenge, a competition for $50,000 in start-up funding. Founders describe SparkHelp as "a foursquare meets Craigslist" application. "The idea is simple," says Brian Milner, co-founder. "Anyone can place a call for help and anyone can answer that call. Help can be sought for anything: fence repair, car repair, computer work, dog-walking, etc." SparkHelp is seeking funding to build is Website as well as the apps for all of the major mobile platforms needed to match someone with time or skills with others who need them -- and all in real-time, based on where they are now.

* Giiv bills itself as a startup that's all about "texting with benefits." It's a mobile "micro-gifting" platform that lets people instantly send gifts to friends and those in need. How does it work? Find a gift you want to give from among those listed on Giiv's site and then enter the intended recipient's mobile number with a note. Giiv then texts that person a giiv code, which he or she can then redeem for real merchandise or services. Globalgiving and Tom's Shoes are among the first "gift" items listed on the start-up's beta site. (There is a 99-cent processing fee added on to the amount of the gift.)

* Glass is another real-time Web company, but this one lets users place notes on top of any Website, so that contacts "can see your thought together with the moment that inspired it, in context, allowing you to share the experience of being there." Think of it as a clear, digital Post-it note. "It's a virtual sheet of glass that lies over the entire Internet that's yours to affect," founders say. "You can share your thoughts about anything on the Web, right in the moment, by literally placing notes, highlighting text and even placing pictures and videos on top of any Website and share those thoughts with only those you choose." Think of it as a personalized form of "augmented reality" that lets people share a moment and a thought together as an experience. Founders say the application promotes information-exchange and promotes transparency, with the potential for social advocacy organizations looking to quickly share information about specific locations or get up to speed faster in crises locations from those on the ground.

Other unique location-aware ware at SxSW this year? Check out the "Twitter mandala."

Ironically, perhaps, these and other location-tracking platforms come amid some first-day conference sessions devoted to spirited discussions of online privacy, which conference kick-off keynoter danah boyd defined as "being not about hiding your information but about being able to control it in different situations."

Watch this space for updates.

-- By Marcia Stepanek