Collective Causes

Question: What kinds of collective causes have you become a part of? Did the cause have a website? How did you learn about the cause? How did you participate? What kind(s) of technology were used to communicate re: the group forming or group action?

Shirky discusses how the group Voice of the Faithful was formed and how it has grown to an astronomical size. This was accomplished because "the old limits of sharing information" (Shirky, 148) no longer prohibit the size of the audience. The days of cutting an article out of the paper and sending it through snail mail no longer exist. The intnert has provided the ease in which "a story to a group is as easy as forwarding it to an individual, and any of the recipeints could forward it to others as easily as the orginial sender had done. Now the relationship for a particular story can be larger than the paper's general audiece" (Shirky, 149). Just like the VOF has formed arround a collective cause I have also become part of a social change group called Awearness. AWEARNESS is a not-for-profit entity that supports, empowers and encourages acts of service, volunteerism and social change through merchandise, events and providing a platform for the inspirational acts of Change Agents – people who see a problem and try to become the solution by striving to make a difference. I have always known about the program, but it wasn't until I interned at Kenneth Cole this summer did I become involved. The cause has a website along with a book. I participated by helping in the design of new merchandise. The forms of technology used to communicate to take group action was primarily inner-office e-mails and external e-mails that the company would send out.