In response to a discussion I had with Hanna Adcock of Citizen Camera about organizations working on participatory video, I thought I'd highlight two stellar organizations working on citizen media and media empowerment among non-traditional producers of media, such as the BoP and marginalized communities. Here they are:
The first is Jessica Mayberry's Channel 19, which I also blogged about here. She is doing innovative work in India and trying to create a "CNN" at the base of the pyramid. She is also an Echoing Green Fellow and the Founder of Video Volunteers.
Next is Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society's Global Voices and Rising Voices, both of which aim to expand and fortify an international online presence of marginalized voices through video, blogging, and other participatory media. Ethan Zuckerman and David Sasaki help run the Voices projects and are strong advocates for citizen-empowered participatory media.
Do you know of other successful participatory media and ICT initiatives? Please let us know as we are always looking to connect with like-minded organizations.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
"Web 2.0 Ventures Reaching out to the Base of the Pyramid." NextBillion.net Announces the BOP Source Social Network
Francisco Noguera of NextBillion.net published a piece today announcing the launch of the BOP Source Social Network. Take a minute to join the Network and please spread the word to your friends and colleagues!
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Reaching the Bottom Billion - Conference
My Mentor and former Professor, Jay Winsten, alerted me to the following upcoming conference, "Reaching the Bottom Billion: Is there a Tipping Point?" It's being held in Geneva on October 20th and you can watch the webcast here.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
"Is it OK to eat pomegranate seeds?"
One thing I've noticed since relocating to Nepal is the absolute pervasiveness of preventable deaths. Left and right I hear friends and family members say, "My Mother died when I was a child," "I have two mothers, because my biological Mom died when I was a small child," "My son drowned," "My friend drowned" and on and on. It's absolutely shocking and I find myself surrounded by death, in a way. What always surprises me is that it is so accepted. People die.
Does this change how people view life and relationships? Do people feel compelled to seek out information on health maintenance, disease prevention, and the like? I've had educated people ask me such strange questions, such as "Is it OK to eat pomegranate seeds? I hear they stay in your belly." And, "You should brush your hair because it stimulates the blood flow in your head. It's not good if you don't brush your hair."
So then I wonder, do people not stop to think about such matters and seek out quality information from experts or from reputable sources online? It's scary to think about the blatant gap in people's socio-economic status and their corresponding health knowledge.
In the U.S., and I imagine in many nations throughout the world, death is such a scary, tragic, and greatly feared fact of life. I imagine it is in Nepal as well, but I cannot help but wonder how the pervasiveness of it must change one's sense of place and permanency in the world. It's unnerving and unfortunate and preventable. Of course preventable deaths won't stop with education alone, but it can certainly help.
Does this change how people view life and relationships? Do people feel compelled to seek out information on health maintenance, disease prevention, and the like? I've had educated people ask me such strange questions, such as "Is it OK to eat pomegranate seeds? I hear they stay in your belly." And, "You should brush your hair because it stimulates the blood flow in your head. It's not good if you don't brush your hair."
So then I wonder, do people not stop to think about such matters and seek out quality information from experts or from reputable sources online? It's scary to think about the blatant gap in people's socio-economic status and their corresponding health knowledge.
In the U.S., and I imagine in many nations throughout the world, death is such a scary, tragic, and greatly feared fact of life. I imagine it is in Nepal as well, but I cannot help but wonder how the pervasiveness of it must change one's sense of place and permanency in the world. It's unnerving and unfortunate and preventable. Of course preventable deaths won't stop with education alone, but it can certainly help.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
BOP Source Launches the First Social Network for the Base of the Pyramid, in Honor of Blog Action Day
Harvard Graduate Bridges Multinational Companies with the World's Poorest People, Through Social Media
For immediate release: Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Kathmandu, Nepal -- Jenara Nerenberg of Bop Source has released the BOP Source Social Network today in honor of Blog Action Day. The BOP Source Social Network allows the 4 billion people living on less than $3 per day, also known as the base of the pyramid (BOP), to directly communicate with companies who want to do business with them, including companies such as Unilever, Nokia, and others. Jenara Nerenberg, the Founder, is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley.
The goal of the BOP Source Social Network is to directly connect consumers at the base of the pyramid with the companies that want to do business with them. The Network benefits both parties; as the site description reads, "At BOP Source, marketing representatives can interact with and get to know BOP consumers and BOP consumers can voice their needs for a particular product, service, information, or other valuable resource."
The BOP are found across the globe, with dense pockets in Central and South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. The proposal that the BOP could be a tappable market of substantial revenue was first introduced by Professor Stuart Hart of Cornell University and C.K. Prahalad of the University of Michigan. Both advocated that as companies exhaust market potential at the higher income tiers of the economic pyramid, companies miss out on substantial financial and social gains that are represented by the BOP. Embedded in their argument was a strong focus on the need for BOP enterprises to create social and economic value for individuals living at the base of the pyramid and that such ventures should be sustainable, both environmentally and in the value they create for BOP consumers. Several BOP ventures have sprouted up since Hart and Prahalad's groundbreaking article, "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," and often focus on themes such as healthcare, electricity, and water sanitation.
The BOP Source Social Network is open to everyone and has already attracted Nerenberg's fellow graduates from Harvard's elite institutions such as the Harvard Business School, the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health. In addition to bringing new media tools to the BOP and connecting the BOP to companies and NGOs through mobile technology and social networks, Nerenberg is also a Marketing Columnist and a New Media Marketing Consultant.
Among college and graduate students today, there is a rapidly growing interest in the private sector as champions of social, economic, and environmental change. Jenara Nerenberg examined such topics in depth during her graduate studies, with courses across Harvard and MIT and with accomplished Professors such as Kash Rangan, Michael Chu, Jay Winsten, and Alan Trager.
While the BOP may seem out of reach due to their largely rural, poor lifestyles, the BOP Movement as found on sites such as NextBillion.net and Kiva.org show that they are anything but out of reach. Companies, NGOs, students, and governments are actively working with the BOP to create sustainable methods of poverty alleviation and the BOP Source Social Network is one such step toward bridging the global economic and information divide.
For immediate release: Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Kathmandu, Nepal -- Jenara Nerenberg of Bop Source has released the BOP Source Social Network today in honor of Blog Action Day. The BOP Source Social Network allows the 4 billion people living on less than $3 per day, also known as the base of the pyramid (BOP), to directly communicate with companies who want to do business with them, including companies such as Unilever, Nokia, and others. Jenara Nerenberg, the Founder, is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley.
The goal of the BOP Source Social Network is to directly connect consumers at the base of the pyramid with the companies that want to do business with them. The Network benefits both parties; as the site description reads, "At BOP Source, marketing representatives can interact with and get to know BOP consumers and BOP consumers can voice their needs for a particular product, service, information, or other valuable resource."
The BOP are found across the globe, with dense pockets in Central and South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. The proposal that the BOP could be a tappable market of substantial revenue was first introduced by Professor Stuart Hart of Cornell University and C.K. Prahalad of the University of Michigan. Both advocated that as companies exhaust market potential at the higher income tiers of the economic pyramid, companies miss out on substantial financial and social gains that are represented by the BOP. Embedded in their argument was a strong focus on the need for BOP enterprises to create social and economic value for individuals living at the base of the pyramid and that such ventures should be sustainable, both environmentally and in the value they create for BOP consumers. Several BOP ventures have sprouted up since Hart and Prahalad's groundbreaking article, "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," and often focus on themes such as healthcare, electricity, and water sanitation.
The BOP Source Social Network is open to everyone and has already attracted Nerenberg's fellow graduates from Harvard's elite institutions such as the Harvard Business School, the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health. In addition to bringing new media tools to the BOP and connecting the BOP to companies and NGOs through mobile technology and social networks, Nerenberg is also a Marketing Columnist and a New Media Marketing Consultant.
Among college and graduate students today, there is a rapidly growing interest in the private sector as champions of social, economic, and environmental change. Jenara Nerenberg examined such topics in depth during her graduate studies, with courses across Harvard and MIT and with accomplished Professors such as Kash Rangan, Michael Chu, Jay Winsten, and Alan Trager.
While the BOP may seem out of reach due to their largely rural, poor lifestyles, the BOP Movement as found on sites such as NextBillion.net and Kiva.org show that they are anything but out of reach. Companies, NGOs, students, and governments are actively working with the BOP to create sustainable methods of poverty alleviation and the BOP Source Social Network is one such step toward bridging the global economic and information divide.
Guest Post on NextBillion.net: "Imagine the Base of the Pyramid Using Social Networks"
See my piece on marketing and social media innovations at the base of the pyramid here. The article addresses new media marketing and consumer research at the base of the pyramid.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Seoul, Korea is World Design Capital 2010
An interesting BusinessWeek article on the 2010 Design Capital is here.
BOP 1.0, 2.0, or 1.5? Selling vs. Co-Creating
In a conversation I had with Stuart Hart recently, he described the difference between BOP 1.0 and BOP 2.0. BOP 1.0 are the classic BOP ventures that involve "selling to the poor" through distribution channels, while BOP 2.0 ventures are the ones that enter the business development process through "co-creation," in partnership with BOP communities.
This got me thinking about a middle ground. Selling products to the BOP is still a valuable enterprise, as long as the products are genuinely helpful and productive for the BOP community. Who could oppose that? And I think there is a place for the co-creation to happen during consumer research and product development, in a form that hires BOP individuals to be the ethnographers and researchers of their own communities, therefore helping themselves, their communities, and the companies involved (See my post on NextBillion.net for more on the BOP as consumer researchers).
I recently came across several articles about "user anthropology," IDEO's "empathy-based design," and "the anthropology of work,"(See Fortune Magazine, Sept. 29th 2008), which I find fascinating and directly relevant to our work with the BOP. BOP ventures call for an unprecedented, intimate approach to getting to know the consumer, but what is the balance between getting overly involved and staying too far at a distance?
The 2nd edition of the BOP Protocol lays out an "embedded" framework, where company representatives fully immerse themselves in the communities they want to engage in business and they even spend nights in their homes. This is an interesting idea, but not entirely realistic for everyone.
Isn't there a place in the BOP framework for companies to deal with the BOP primarily as consumers, like classic businesses do? Having worked in the NGO world and in social work clinics for the homeless, I am concerned that BOP ventures will take on an almost charity-like, social service-type ethic. So much of the inefficiencies among the non-profit world are due to the people who run them, where emotional harmony and a sort of "Cumbiah" feeling reigns. This leads to management problems and colleague quarrels, when things become too personal and involved at work and not professional enough. Crudely speaking, it is the heart factor over a more rational, business approach.
With that said, user anthropology and human-centered design offer the chance to get to know BOP consumers intimately, but still maintain a healthy professional distance, as a business would do with any target consumer, wealthy or not. To avoid the flack associated with mere "selling to the poor" and in order to involve the BOP as producers, I propose the BOP become the consumer ethnographers of their own communities, therefore striking a balance where 1) the BOP are co-creators, 2) they do not become overly enmeshed to the point where they share their homes with company representatives, and 3) the BOP are not kept at a far distance and viewed as consumers through a solely profit-generating lens.
It would be a shame for companies with potential BOP-serving businesses to shy away because of a framework that requires drastically different business practices than previously held. There has to be a middle ground to accommodate the diversity in approaches and to ensure that anyone who wants to, can do business with the BOP in a mutually valuable way.
This got me thinking about a middle ground. Selling products to the BOP is still a valuable enterprise, as long as the products are genuinely helpful and productive for the BOP community. Who could oppose that? And I think there is a place for the co-creation to happen during consumer research and product development, in a form that hires BOP individuals to be the ethnographers and researchers of their own communities, therefore helping themselves, their communities, and the companies involved (See my post on NextBillion.net for more on the BOP as consumer researchers).
I recently came across several articles about "user anthropology," IDEO's "empathy-based design," and "the anthropology of work,"(See Fortune Magazine, Sept. 29th 2008), which I find fascinating and directly relevant to our work with the BOP. BOP ventures call for an unprecedented, intimate approach to getting to know the consumer, but what is the balance between getting overly involved and staying too far at a distance?
The 2nd edition of the BOP Protocol lays out an "embedded" framework, where company representatives fully immerse themselves in the communities they want to engage in business and they even spend nights in their homes. This is an interesting idea, but not entirely realistic for everyone.
Isn't there a place in the BOP framework for companies to deal with the BOP primarily as consumers, like classic businesses do? Having worked in the NGO world and in social work clinics for the homeless, I am concerned that BOP ventures will take on an almost charity-like, social service-type ethic. So much of the inefficiencies among the non-profit world are due to the people who run them, where emotional harmony and a sort of "Cumbiah" feeling reigns. This leads to management problems and colleague quarrels, when things become too personal and involved at work and not professional enough. Crudely speaking, it is the heart factor over a more rational, business approach.
With that said, user anthropology and human-centered design offer the chance to get to know BOP consumers intimately, but still maintain a healthy professional distance, as a business would do with any target consumer, wealthy or not. To avoid the flack associated with mere "selling to the poor" and in order to involve the BOP as producers, I propose the BOP become the consumer ethnographers of their own communities, therefore striking a balance where 1) the BOP are co-creators, 2) they do not become overly enmeshed to the point where they share their homes with company representatives, and 3) the BOP are not kept at a far distance and viewed as consumers through a solely profit-generating lens.
It would be a shame for companies with potential BOP-serving businesses to shy away because of a framework that requires drastically different business practices than previously held. There has to be a middle ground to accommodate the diversity in approaches and to ensure that anyone who wants to, can do business with the BOP in a mutually valuable way.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Global Entrepreneurship Week
I just found out about Global Entrepreneurship Week. During the week of November 17-23, events will be held around the world that encourage creativity and entrepreneurship among young people. Check out the site to see what's happening in your country!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Blog Action Day 2008: POVERTY
Blog Action Day 2008 is on October 15th and the theme is POVERTY. Blog Action Day is a day when bloggers and podcasters from all over the world blog about the same topic and engage people in important conversations about social change.
BOP Source will be participating with a special post on October 15th, so stay tuned! And I encourage you all to register your blog, participate on October 15th, and spread the word. Isn't it exciting how potent new media is in galvanizing people all over the world and creating social change?
If you have ideas you want to bounce around or you are based in Nepal, please share your thoughts in the comments section below or email me at Jenara@bopsource.com.
BOP Source will be participating with a special post on October 15th, so stay tuned! And I encourage you all to register your blog, participate on October 15th, and spread the word. Isn't it exciting how potent new media is in galvanizing people all over the world and creating social change?
If you have ideas you want to bounce around or you are based in Nepal, please share your thoughts in the comments section below or email me at Jenara@bopsource.com.
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