This page is a copy of my reply to Philip Smith (communitybandwidth.ca)

Thanks Phillip!

While ‘tool’ is apt for explaining the idea to people who are not familiar with the other advocacy systems, it’s the wrong word to use with you – I am going to create a self reinforcing community of social action, the birth of a deliberative democracy, and a primary driver for political and social involvement of anyone under 25. Are you familiar with the story of text messages bringing down the government in 72 hours in the Philippines? I want that level of ease and efficiency, and more.

All that big stuff aside, the advocacy systems that exist today: a) don’t work well (from a viral replication POV), and b) can’t reach a critical mass that has a truly massive impact. The best practices of viral web marketing have NOT been applied to these tools, especially the open source ones – those were designed by techies for techies. I am going to create a revolution for 13 – 16 year girls (example), where they can create a campaign, and tip the first of 10 million dominos, all without any technical skills. The emotional feedback from this (you just got 10,000 people to do something!) will spawn 1000 new campaigns. Viral x viral. Neat.

<snip!>

Regards,

Simon

——-Original Message——-

From: Phillip Smith [mailto:phillip@communitybandwidth.ca]

Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 9:27 AM

To: Simon Plashkes

Subject: Re: Shuru / a viral future

Hi Simon,

I admire your enthusiasm, and wish you luck on this project. Given how far along you are, I suspect that you’ve done your homework and are aware of the plethora of advocacy systems that are on the market, and of the projects that have come before Shuru that aim to do the many of same things, e.g., e-mail/fax campaigns, tell-a-friend, phone bank, media mentor, social network, etc. And, as you probably know, many of them are open-source software and have significant developer energy behind them.

So, needless to say and given my experience with viral activism—e.g., Billionares for Bush, Greenpeace, Council for Canadians, Marry an American, etc.—I’ve got my online tools pretty much covered for now.

Many thanks for you note and, again, good luck. Please keep me updated on your progress.

Best,

Phillip.