Thanks for sharing the RED rant.

Don’t nearly all web sites drop this ball to a large extent when they try to enter the social mobilisation field without asking people who have done it before?

Most organisations working on AIDS think that social mobilisation (don’t even mention digital advocacy) is something to do with them, but haven’t got a clue. It is the same phenomenon as AIDS organisations that produce fantastic informtion content in printed documents, and then allow them to gather dust as they move on to the next priority.

RED management just showed that they are from the same stable (OK, or they did not have time).

But don’t let’s US drop the same ball by lamenting what RED could do better. This is an extraordinary opportunity. What we should do is develop a generic “do something about AIDS and TB” site that allows people like RED to borrow some smart thinking from people like…. er, well…. us I guess, on an ongoing basis…

One site, the AIDS/TB Action Centre, that ONLY offers options for people to DO stuff. Be the maven for the best “What can I do about AIDS and TB today?” options at any given time, and offer them to RED and all the other digital advocacy illiterates at the same time.

Then on World AIDS Day, we could pick the best-looking campaign or event and ALLOW them to link to our Action Centre. The rest of the year, they ALL could, and Google could place their ad with us (ok, that’s the coffee talking).

I tried to develop an idea like this for the Global Health Council when they released the film ‘A Closer Walk’ about AIDS, which I thought was so great (the film) it would get the masses moving (it didn’t but thinking about it did fire my AIDS Action Centre synapse).

That was about three years ago, and by coincidence I recently (about a week ago) dusted off the flow diagrams again and sent them to to World AIDS Campaign, suggesting that they needed something like this, especially for first-time punters that rolled up to their site on World AIDS Day. They have ONE DAY of the year where everyone is mouthing their slogan and going to their site, and they had NO action steps for people to take either.

The AIDS field is ball-dropping a-go-go when it comes to giving people stuff to DO, and this is a major reason why apathy is creeping in.

If anyone is interested in taking this idea further, (so we could float it for World TB Day on March 24?) I’d be pleased to think through some of the options with you. I have uploaded a dusty pdf here:

http://www.hdnet.org/images/tfactioncentreweb.pdf

Some of the link ideas are obsolete now, but you should get the picture. I think that the: 1. Personal goals; 2. Steps I can take; and 3. Potential impact approach is the best way to also catch the fence-sitters who are not sure if they really want to DO anything.

Each box at level two could be an action linked to a different organisation or campaign. OK, RED could even have a red box if they insist.

Any takers?

Tim

Skype: tim_france

Talk about balls being dropped. No greater way to make people lose confidence in you than forcing them out of a promised or implied 2-way conversation.