Changemakers: Tools and Strategies for Digital Advocacy

The 2009 CITS Design Charrette Changemakers took place in April. This short video features some of the participants' thoughts on the event.

Changemakers was an exciting opportunity for people with divergent backgrounds and skills to come together. The event brought together participants from different worlds: non-profit, business, academia, and geeks to discuss common issues and discover and discuss commonalities across sectors. For example, while some groups had dealt with copyright issues years ago, others are just beginning to tackle intellectual property rights. Similarly, use of crowdsourcing is commonplace among some sectors and others learned that this tool can be a very cost-effective and productive way to generate new ideas.

As experiences and best practices were shared, a few takeaway points were highlighted in the video: better use of social media, focusing on live events and the "live web", filtering signal from noise, and finding the audience through listening.

Individuals from these different groups do not always mingle in the same intellectual and social circles. The idea-sharing, collaboration and connections made at Changemakers were valuable for the participants. We hope events like this will become more common in the future.