Last week I saw the most tech equipped bus I’ve ever seen. Turns out it was the John Lennon Peace Bus. Read on for more information and check out when the bus is in your city.
The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is a non-profit 501(c)(3) mobile audio and HD video recording and production facility. Since 1998, the Bus has provided free hands-on programs to hundreds of high schools, colleges, Boys and Girls Clubs, music festivals, concerts, conventions and community organizations. Working together with some of the biggest names in music, the Lennon Bus encourages students to play music, write songs, engineer recording sessions and produce video projects using the latest audio, video, and live sound equipment.
The interior is divided into three separate studio environments that can be opened to create one large studio. The front studio is a cutting-edge audio and video production room. The rear studio offers pro-level recording and mixing at the highest possible resolution, as well as an iso booth for acoustic recordings, and a chromate (green screen) booth. Powered by Apple computers, the studios feature traditional musical instruments and the latest Sony HD products and solutions. Also on-board is a Mackie P.A. system enabling performances on the side of the Bus.
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in a square hole, the ones who see things differently. They are not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them, because they change things. They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as crazy ones, we see genius, because the people, who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who’ll do it.”
Every Dot Connects, Podcasting News, and Mashable highlighted examples of Web 2.0 services being used to prepare for Hurricane Gustav, mainly Twitter. But what is the net effect of our digital conversations and connections in an emergency like this? How can we show that people changed their behavior, hopefully to make better decisions, because of social media?
One surface indicator is simply how many people interacted with these services. This could be an engagement score that aggregates metrics such as comments, page views, etc. from a number of websites. The basic conclusion here is that x amount of people from y places in the world used social media in z ways during the emergency period. For example, trending from Twitter shows that the word Gustav peaked at over 2,000 tweets on September 1st. Similarly, there is a Google search volume of 100 for Gustav especially in states like Louisiana. The interesting insight from this data is how many people outside the emergency areas engaged in social media to help others out.
Another method that gets us closer to the tangible impact of social media is collecting transactional data from both brick and click sources. For example, how many people found a shelter because of an online group like ShelterFinder? The problem is that transactional data is heavily guarded in silos and we have yet to achieve data portability between the government and social media platforms. However, basic e-commerce stats should help us track the dollar from applications like Causes which has raised $1167 among various Hurricane Gustav relief efforts. Micropayments offer clear hope but the key is showing people that a convenient $5 really made a difference in someone’s life.
Future directions of Web 2.0 during emergencies :
1.Mobile
More work in the mobile space is needed because chances are people will not have online access in a disaster. SMS offers a potentially robust platform that we discussed at our Texting 4 Health conference.
2. Data Portability
Imagine every time there is an emergency, websites “turn-on” an application that works across platforms to collect valuable insights about social media impact.
3. ?
Share your thoughts on what the future Web 2.0 applications should do!
The Persuasive Technology Lab,
led by Dr. BJ Fogg, creates insight into how computing products — from websites to mobile phone software — can be designed to change what people believe and what they do.
The lab’s primary website is: http://captology.stanford.edu
Our Goal
The vision of our 30-year project is to offer a new generation the idea that more peaceful environments (at all levels: intra-personal, inter-personal, group, inter-state, global) may be created via shifts in attitudes, facilitated by the use of new technologies.
Read more...
