New BC Hydro app lets users harness conservation efforts to greening 2010 Winter Games
When BC Hydro asked us to help them develop a new social media project – building on the success of the Green Gifts Facebook app – our thoughts naturally turned to the 2010 Winter Games. BC Hydro is an Official Supporter; organizers are aiming to have their greenest Olympic Winter Games yet; BC Hydro’s ad campaign is built around the slogan “Save power. See the games.”… hmm…
The result is Power the Games, where you commit to reducing your electricity consumption by 10% over the next year, and pledge your efforts to help power the 2010 Winter Games event of your choice.
For a little added fun and conservation goodness, Power the Games offers daily challenges: little tasks that can add up to something big. Like snuggling under a blanket and turning the thermostat down two degrees. Or learning a little about how switching to energy-efficient lighting can cut your costs. Our hope is that this becomes a kind of green tasting menu, helping people to try out conservation-friendly behaviour that just might become healthy habits.
(And if you’re as impressed as we were by the app’s gorgeous design, then let the folks at Work at Play know – they built it for us, and they were, as always, an absolute delight to work with: professional, committed, dedicated and talented.)
Ultimately, this app aims to couple the excitement so many British Columbians feel about the upcoming games with their pride in our province’s environmental reputation… and their personal commitment to conservation.
(By the way, BC Hydro launched their new Facebook page at the same time as Power the Games – please do drop by!)
Personalized video, Facebook widget raising funds for BC Children’s Hospital
As causes go, you can’t get much closer to our hearts than with a children’s hospital. The thought of having to take one of our kids there is wrenching, and I’m sobered by the fact that thousands upon thousands of children – and their parents – go through that every day.
We want those kids to get the care they need swiftly and effectively. We want our best medical knowledge brought to bear, and we want clean, quality facilities that promote good health as well as healing sickness.
So we jumped at the chance to work with the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation, helping them chart a social media strategy for engaging their audiences and raising money. The focus is their “Be a Superhero” campaign, in support of their $200-million plan to create one of the world’s top centres for children’s health.
Our first efforts are now live online, centered around what we believe is the first use of personalized video as a donor recognition and fundraising tool. The Be a Superhero video shows a newscast – using the donor’s or prospect’s name – that either thanks them for being a hero to BC kids, or invites them to step up to the plate.
But it doesn’t end there. You can add your superhero video to your Facebook profile and launch your own Facebook-based fundraising campaign, inviting your friends to be superheroes as well.
(We’ve also been helping the hospital engage their fans on Twitter – you can follow the foundation at @bcchf.)
It’s still early days, but we’re excited about breaking new ground for the hospital, and helping kids like ours across BC… and we’d love it to succeed. If you’d like to help, too, here’s how:
- Watch the video, and send it to as many of your friends as you can.
- Add the Facebook application, and install the fundraising widget on your profile.
- Become a fan of the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation Facebook page.
- Follow BCCHF on Twitter.
And finally…
Vancouver’s Twestival is coming on September 12, organized by the amazing Rebecca Bollwitt, aka Miss604.
Rebecca has launched an online poll to decide which local non-profit should be the beneficiary of the Twestival’s fundraising efforts – and the BC Children’s Hospital is a strong contender.
Voting closes tomorrow (Friday), so if you could take just a moment and vote now, or using the poll on the right-hand side of this page, we’d be delighted… thanks!
Just because there’s no price tag doesn’t make you aren’t paying for it
It happened again today. Every time an online service like Twitter or Facebook hits a roadbump, or stops working altogether, there’s an outcry of protest from its users. Then, just as quickly, comes the backlash: “How dare you complain about a FREE service?”
At one level, I understand the thinking: there is an army of developers, sysadmins, designers, administrators and other great people who work hard to conceive, create and maintain the web apps. And behind that, a lot of money is being invested.
On the other hand, there’s another kind of investment being made in these services, and that’s the time and content that you and I put into participating: the photos we post to Flickr, the videos we share on YouTube, the hours we pour into Facebook – and the millions of observations, complaints, links, updates, insights, jokes, memes and random stuff we tweet on Twitter.
That effort doesn’t just represent an opportunity cost on your part (you could be spending that time working out on your Wii, for example) – it represents value to the owners of the web service you’re using. Facebook’s business model involves delivering highly-targeted eyeballs to advertisers, as does YouTube’s. And while nobody’s quite sure what Twitter’s business model is, it isn’t philanthropy.
Look at it this way. If Twitter was nothing more than its hardware and software, does anyone seriously think people would be bouncing around multi-hundred-dollar valuation estimates?
The implicit bargain between social application provider and user is this: they’ll provide these amazing tools whenever and wherever you want them, and you’ll provide the content, conversations and relationships that create value and help them realize a return on their investment: financially or (in the case of reflected-glory marketing) in brand equity.
Now, most of us understand that these are still early days, and sites will have the occasional hiccup. But when repeated or lengthy outages seriously impair our access to tools, people and content – especially when those outages come without an explanation – then our patience rightly wears thin.
So if you’re a user on a social web site, do cut them some slack (especially during a denial-of-service attack)… but don’t feel you have to apologize for feeling irritated over repeated fail whales and error messages.
And if you’re running a social web site that’s running a mild fever or fending off a cough, thank your users for their patience, explain what’s happening… and do what it takes to get back up and running.
