Last Wednesday the Canadian government finally issued an official apology for the injustice of the residential schools forced upon Canada’s Aboriginal people.
This apology was long overdue. The residential school system was meant to ‘assimilate’ Canadian aboriginal people into white culture. They were taken from their parents and left at the mercy of the churches who ran these programs. It’s one of the many injustices Canada has perpetrated against aboriginal people in this country – redressing these injustices is probably the most important social justice in Canada right now.
A friend sent along this campaign, run by some Stanford students. It is a simple site built around an amateur video. The video has shaky camera work, wooden acting and is a shade too long. I love it for a number of reasons.
It is far more effective than a wall of text explaining how you should upgrade your computer instead of getting a new one. Imagine for a moment how compelling this campaign would be without the disarming video? And the video tells a story and goes for a homemade, dorky vibe – it doesn’t even try to be ‘professional’.
I suspect this is the key to doing YouTube well on a budget: be homemade, look homemade and have fun with it. Celebrate your dorkiness. And to be honest, I think it’s harder than it looks! Continue Reading »
Last week I had the honour of presenting at the skill building retreat for Global Citizens for Change, a public engagement initiative of volunteer cooperation agencies in Canada.
Once again I went with the ‘walk before you run’ theme. My presentation was in four parts: the basics of online campaign communications, the basics of campaign websites, list engagement for campaigns and ‘everything else’ : how to evaluate other online opportunities (which admittedly was pretty short: how does it compare to email?).
The key learnings were:
1. Campaigning online is primarily a communications challenge, not a technological challenge.
2. The internet is made by and for people.
3. ‘Best list wins’: create, engage and grow your list before you…
4. Choose wisely from the low hanging fruit.
Last Wednesday the Canadian government finally issued an official apology for the injustice of the residential schools forced upon Canada’s Aboriginal people.