I interviewed Tuesday Gutierrez from SaveGuimaras over at blogher. What I didn't include was the in-depth conversation we had about how she has explored and used social networking tools. SaveGuimaras is a group of individuals who are dedicated to raising awareness on the recent oil-spill tragedy in Guimaras, Philippines. Because the international community and media have failed to respond to this environmental disaster, they are bringing the campaign to the Social Web. Their goal is to mobilize grassroots participation by using online networking tools and their blog.
If you check out their blog, you will notice that the group has a presence on myspace, friendster, YouTube, and few other communities. Tuesday shared some of her learnings with me about using these tools. She has been the most successful when the tool matched her audience and outcomes. And, she had to go through a bit of experimentation to learn that!
1. How have social networking tools helped spread the word about your cause?
Friendster is a very popular social network in the Philippines. Almost everyone I know has a Friendster account and its very easy to find people, influential or otherwise in Friendster. When I opened a saveguimaras account, in less than two weeks, we had 200 people who signed up. What´s good about Friendster is that everytime a "member" of your group posts a new entry on your blog, you receive it on your email/ and you see it right away on your Friendster page. This led me to stumble upon Roy Alberto/Joseph Alberto who was a co-founder of 1 fish entertainment who was promoting a rock gig for Guimaras and that was how our relationship started.
MySpace hasn´t taken off like Friendster because the Filipinos I am targeting there are based in the US. To invite people in Myspace is also painstakingly difficult unlike Friendster that you just click a button and invite. Myspace avoids spamming so the members usually blocks people from adding them directly unless you know them personally or their email. So what I have been doing is sending out mails one by one!
YouTube is also good in finding videos about Guimaras. Its pure luck too. Project sunrise, the provincial government led organization (supported by Canadian Urban institute) happened to post their videos and I was given permission to post them in the blog. The IFCP (Independent Filmmakers Coop) in the Philippines just had their Guimaras Short Film project which was shown on television and some moviehouses in Manila.
Unfortunately, there were some short films that were censored by the Movie Television Board (which I want to say is one of the most conservative board of censors in the world! and is really stifling Pinoy creativity) and some directors uploaded some movies on Guimaras (some will upload more videos soon.)
YouTube would have been more helpful for my cause if people in the Philippines have home videocameras and if they have a fast broadbandwidth. Unfortunately, the journalists on the field are still using pen and paper technology which explains why there are not a lot of videos about Guimaras. Because regional flights are more expensive, people from Manila who are supposed to be more technologically equipped do not come to Guimaras to shoot videos/photos which also explains why there is a lack of photos uploaded in Guimaras at Flickr. I rely on photos sent to me by the filmmakers and some journalists on the field.
Mobile technology is more popular in the Philippines and we are looking into how we could use this platform. The only difficulty I find here is that SaveGuimaras is not a non-profit org and is simply running as a webblog therefore, mobile networks might not trust us enough to collaborate with us.
Care2.com has been helpful in a way that other social networks have not been. Although it is difficult to find people or connect with care2.com members, what's good about their system is that you can send out letters to ten members each and for me its much better to send out ten letters once than sending out letters one by one. And yes, I've painstakingly sent out letters to care2.members ten at a time.
I'm only discoveriing about Flickr. Personally I think Flickr is useful if you are two or three in a group but if you're only one person like me running a blog for a social cause, you need something faster.
2. How has your blog connected you with people to help with your cause?
Through this blog we´ve met so many wonderful people who all have the passion and the drive to help the victims of Guimaras. Some have their own projects already in place before they´ve contacted us but we´ve also managed to link people with the same agenda and get them to collaborate with each other. Some organizations have also written expressing their willingness to collaborate with SaveGuimaras and its partners.
For example, Chromatic Experiment, a Filipino band contacted us thru our blog. They are willing to play for free for future rock gigs planned by the team of Joseph, Sazi and Laura (There are more people involved behind this team, but for the sake of brevity we will only mention these three).
3. This is the bonus question and please do not take offense. I've noticed that a lot of folks from Phillipines are really into social networking apps and lots of wonderful communities in places like YouTube, Flickr, etc. Why do you think that is?
Filipinos are very warm people and like to belong always in a group. Thats why these social networks are working for us. Add to this the fact that Filipinos are the no. 1 labor export of the country and there is a diaspora phenomena happening with us so we really need these networks to make us keep in touch with our families. We hate being alone and despise isolation which usually happens when youre living outside the country. A lot of Filipinos wouldn't want to leave if only the government is doing its job but the future
of the Philippines is very bleak.
BTW, we are the no. 1 text messaging capital aside from the fact that sending out text messages is always cheaper than making an actual call.
Source: http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2006/11/meet_tuesday_fr.html
