CASHMORE: Okay, I'm Pete Cashmore. I'm the. 9 founder and CEO of Mashable,
which is a 6-year old news. 10 site with about 13 million monthly readers, and ...
1
THE ASPEN INSTITUTE
ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL 2011
CAN SOCIAL MEDIA BENEFIT THE GREATER GOOD?
Monday, June 27, 2011
2
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS: JERRY MURDOCK Managing Director, Co-Founder Insight Venture Partners Trustee, The Aspen Institute LANCE ARMSTRONG Founder and Chairman, LIVESTRONG DOUG ULMAN CEO, LIVESTRONG MATT FLANNERY Co-Founder and CEO, Kiva CHRIS HUGHES Founder and Executive Director, Jumo Co-Founder, Facebook PETE CASHMORE Founder and CEO, Mashable
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P R O C E E D I N G S
2 3
MR. KEMPNER:
All right.
Good morning, ladies
4
and gentlemen.
5
morning.
6
director of the Aspen Network of Development
7
Entrepreneurs, which is a policy program at the Aspen
8
Institute.
9
entrepreneurs all around the world.
Thank you for coming out this Saturday
My name is Randall Kempner.
I am the executive
We focus on supporting small business On behalf of Aspen
10
and the Atlantic, I am thrilled this morning to introduce
11
to you this panel, and particularly, the moderator, Jerry
12
Murdock.
13
Jerry is a long-time investor.
He's done a lot
14
of work, particularly the Insight Venture Partners in his
15
distinguished career in being a technology investor and
16
knowing a little bit some of the technologies that we'll
17
talk about today.
18
is a trustee of both the Santa Fe Institute and the Aspen
19
Institute.
20 21 22
He is a fan of Forrest's fine wine and
So with that, Jerry, thanks for moderating the panel and let's have a great discussion. MR. MURDOCK:
Thank you very much.
Good
4
1
morning, everybody.
2
the Greater Good.
3
themselves and give us a little bit, sort of, on your
4
thoughts on what social media is and how it impacts the
5
greater good as well.
6
Today's panel is on Social Media and And I like to have the panel introduce
So let's just -- give a personal introduction
7
and then go right into, sort of, what you think the social
8
media is.
9
MR. CASHMORE:
Okay, I'm Pete Cashmore.
I'm the
10
founder and CEO of Mashable, which is a 6-year old news
11
site with about 13 million monthly readers, and we cover
12
social media, digital media, really for the influencers in
13
that demographic.
14
social good, because we have a social good channel and we
15
have a conference every year called the Social Good Summit
16
in New York where we bring together people who are using
17
social media for social good.
18
We have a kind of a unique insight into
I think it's really still in a fairly embryonic
19
phase, but we're really, really excited about how social
20
media can be leveraged for social good and we're really,
21
really optimistic about it, which is why we have a
22
conference every year.
5
1
MR. MURDOCK:
2
MR. HUGHES:
Great.
Thank you.
I'm Chris Hughes.
I'm the founder
3
and executive director of a new social network called
4
Jumo, which aims to help people find high quality,
5
personally relevant charities and then take meaningful
6
action.
7
Facebook, in 2004, with Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin
8
Moskovitz.
9
online organizing for Barack Obama's campaign in 2007 and
10 11
Before that, I was one of the co-founders of
I am into that until I ran -- or I directed
then 2008. So to the question of social media for social
12
good, I think it's still really early.
13
things that I think is most interesting is that it's one
14
of the most successful platforms out there, and there's
15
some folks on this panel who run them, have engaged users
16
in a meaningful way without really piggybacking on top of
17
Facebook, or on top of Twitter, or on top of some of the
18
platforms that we consider a social network.
19
I think one of
So I think we still have an open question: How
20
can social media be used to contribute to the greater good
21
in some meaningful way and at a meaningful scale?
22
hopefully, we will be able to tease out some answers in
So
6
1
the next hour.
2
MR. MURDOCK:
3
MR. FLANNERY:
Matt? Yeah.
Hello, everybody.
My name
4
is Matt Flannery.
5
microfinance platform where people can lend to other
6
people to help alleviate poverty.
7
countries and we've lent about -- over $200 million to the
8
poor in about five years since I started it, and we have
9
about a million users.
10
I started Kiva.org, which is an online
We work in about 60
A little bit about the story of starting it.
I
11
was a restless computer programmer, and about 2005, I
12
wanted to travel the world, so I volunteered in East
13
Africa with some microcredit organizations out there and
14
just started telling the stories of people that I met,
15
entrepreneurs that I met out there and putting them
16
online.
17
children, so I was really interested in how to connect
18
donors and receivers over long distances.
19
interested in the Internet as a tool to do that.
20
eventually stumbled upon the idea of lending, sponsoring a
21
business, instead of sponsoring a child.
22
Eventually, you know, I grew up sponsoring
And so, I was Then
And so I just connected seven people in this one
7
1
village in Eastern Uganda to the local internet cafe,
2
started giving them a voice and allowing them to raise
3
money and pay back money in a two way exchange with
4
basically my parents in Portland, Oregon.
5
letting them blog and then blogging myself and then
6
getting our users onboard to have profiles, and the whole
7
thing just sort of steamrolled because people were able to
8
express themselves in a community like this.
9
And, started
It just -- it worked because we gave people a
10
voice.
11
can really blur the distinctions between organization and
12
the community around the organization.
13
few years I've come to think of the community as the
14
organization rather than sort of a push approach, where
15
the organization markets to the community.
16
community to market to each other.
17
Twitter certainly augment and accelerate that.
18
really excited about it.
I'm really interested in social media, because you
19
MR. MURDOCK:
20
MR. ULMAN:
Okay.
And in the last
We allow the
And Facebook and So I'm
Doug?
My name is Doug Ulman.
I have the
21
honor and privilege of serving as president and CEO of
22
LIVESTRONG foundation, which Lance started many years ago.
8
1
I am a cancer survivor and I believe that social media has
2
democratized philanthropy, and I believe that it has and
3
will continue to revolutionize and transform the way
4
philanthropic organizations in the non-profit sector
5
operate in the future.
6
MR. MURDOCK:
7
(Laughter)
8
MR. ARMSTRONG:
9
otherwise I would just confirm it.
Sir, what's your name?
I don't have my name tag I'm Lance Armstrong.
10
As Doug said, I'm the founder of LIVESTRONG, which
11
actually started out as the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
12
And through the course of time and really through the --
13
because of the success of the yellow wristband, everybody
14
started to know us as LIVESTRONG, so now we're basically
15
the LIVESTRONG Foundation.
16
Proud to be a part-time Aspen resident; proud to
17
be a cancer survivor; proud to be a father of five.
18
the Tour de France started today, which I'm also proud
19
that I'm not there as well.
20
(Laughter)
21
MR. ARMSTRONG:
22
And
I mean, somebody sent me a
message this morning, said, "Are you happy or sad -- on a
9
1
scale of 1 to 10 are you happy or sad, you're not there?"
2
I said it's 11, that I'm not there.
3
be any place else than sitting right here with you all.
4
I would not want to
Social media, it's interesting for me.
It's a
5
little different, I guess.
6
-- there's no commerce involved.
7
with LIVESTRONG in dealing with our constituents and
8
talking to other people about our disease or sharing our
9
stories.
It's not a business.
It's not
Obliviously, we do a lot
That's really where I benefited from having 3
10
million Twitter followers.
11
these stories.
12
that, that's the most powerful thing they can do is share
13
their story.
14
It's just being able to hear
You know, we tell people all the time
And really what -- in the old days you shared
15
your story with a journalist or on TV or through the
16
newspaper, and it kind of trickled down and eventually
17
some people would read it or hear about it.
18
there's no more -- it's not a crooked line; it's a
19
straight line.
20
myself.
21
one that's been diagnosed, and they say, "Can you give him
22
a shout out?"
Today,
And so people can interact directly with
I can interact with them.
If they have a loved
I can give him a shout out.
I can send him
10
1 2
a video. So it's really taken out the middleman.
And so,
3
for me, as a survivor, and us, as an organization, it's
4
been hugely beneficial.
5
could be telling you guys about this festival today or
6
this talk today.
7
tomorrow, where we need 25 volunteers, I guarantee you I
8
could get the 25 volunteers.
9
And it could be on any level.
It
It could be an event in Minneapolis
So it works in a lot of ways.
And at the same
10
time, you can -- and which I think we'll talk about -- I
11
don't think you can abuse it.
12
-- trust people with their faith and their following, and
13
that's an important thing.
14
MR. MURDOCK:
I think you trust people to
That's great.
So, you know,
15
before there was Facebook and before there was Twitter,
16
there was the yellow armband.
17
little bit, Doug and Lance?
18
come to be and how wide -- how many of these things have
19
you guys sold?
20
MR. ARMSTRONG:
21
(Laughter)
22
MR. ARMSTRONG:
Can you talk about this a I mean, sort of how did this
It was all my idea.
You know, we -- and, Doug, we
11
1
were talking before the panel -- I mean, to us, this was
2
the original social media for us, because it gave people
3
an entry point.
4
When you looked at somebody else and you saw the
5
wristband, you said, "Hey, what's -- why are you wearing
6
that?"
7
face-to-face.
8
trying win the Tour de France for the sixth time and Nike
9
came along and they said, "We want to help you.
It gave people an account for a dollar.
And you were able to share your story right there It all came about, because in 2004, I was
In the
10
honor of the sixth Tour, we'd like to help you raise $6
11
million and we're going to start with $1 million
12
donation."
13
We were a small organization in Austin, Texas at
14
the time, and we thought, "Okay, cool, we got a million
15
bucks."
16
million yellow wristbands.
17
wristbands for our basketball players, and we call them
18
ballers."
19
the jokes on me, right?
And they said, "But we're going to give you 5
And so, of course, at the time thinking, okay,
20
(Laughter)
21
MR. ARMSTRONG:
22
We actually make these
This is what happened.
But -- I'm just being honest. So they said, "We were going to
12
1
make 5 million" -- this is true, Jerry, listen.
2
(Laughter)
3
MR. MURDOCK:
4
MR. ARMSTRONG:
5
Anna's not here.
6
I believe you, I'm like looking. What are you looking for?
She'll understand.
MR. ARMSTRONG:
So they were going to give you 5
7
million yellow ballers and we were going to put LIVESTRONG
8
on there.
9
things.
And we thought we'll never get rid of these We'll never be able to sell 200,000.
We started
10
wearing them at the Tour.
11
races, and people started buying them.
12
million.
13
Olympic Games in Greece that summer.
14
million.
15
and now we've sold more than 80 million yellow wristbands.
16
So it was actually a pretty good idea.
We started wearing them at the It went through 5
Nike put them on the wrists of athletes at the It went through 15
It just kept growing and growing and growing,
17
(Applause)
18
MR. ARMSTRONG:
But the joke is that, you know,
19
I said it was all my idea.
20
dumbest idea we'd ever hear.
21
all the time, the guy who started Nike and obviously
22
blessed the project.
We all thought it was the I sit down with Phil Knight
Every time I'm with him, he leans
13
1
over and he goes, "I thought that was the dumbest idea, e
2
ever."
3
So here now that we are at the Ideas Fest, we
4
can talk about what we thought was a bad idea which turned
5
out to be an okay idea.
6
MR. MURDOCK:
7
MR. ARMSTRONG:
8
about your idea?
9
amounts.
10
Dumb ideas that work. It worked. That's great.
And Matt, how
I mean, loaning people money in small
I mean, does anybody ever pay you back? MR. FLANNERY:
You know, people do pay back.
11
Low income people across the world pay back at about 98
12
percent, and they're primarily women; so about 80 percent
13
of the people on our website are women.
14
main reasons they pay back is because they take their
15
loans in groups and they function within a community that
16
holds them responsible.
17
you'll see tons of pictures of groups of primarily women
18
who meet basically every two weeks to discuss their loan,
19
how's it's going and to support each other.
20
sick and can't pay back, the others chip in and make it
21
work.
22
MR. MURDOCK:
And one of the
So if you look on our website,
If one gets
Well, basically, social media is
14
1
about networks -- networks of people, whether it's the
2
yellow wristband, or networks of people or the online
3
version, Facebook, Twitter.
4
You just mentioned that because they know people in the
5
villages that they pay it back.
6
in these networks in order to make them work, in order to
7
have the sort of network effects that we see?
8 9
MR. FLANNERY:
How important is identity?
Yeah.
How important is identity
Well, at Kiva, people are
putting their reputation online, and that's basically all
10
they have.
11
in a sense, it's reputational collateral is what they're
12
putting up.
13
important than many of the things we put up, you know,
14
when we have a credit card and we want to pay it back.
These people don't have collateral.
And they have a lot to lose.
And so,
It's a lot more
15
U.S. credit card repayment rates hover around 60
16
percent, whereas poor people pay back at around 98 percent
17
in these groups.
18
at stake.
19 20 21 22
And it's all because their identity is
MR. MURDOCK:
Where you thinking about that,
Chris, when you guys were hacking away back at Harvard? MR. HUGHES:
Not exactly on that line.
But I do
think that the power of social networks to signal what are
15
1
the important causes can't be underestimated.
2
of the things that I think well before social media, well
3
before the Internet, how did you find out about meaningful
4
opportunities to engage with the world?
5
profit, a great charity?
6
friends, maybe you found out sometimes through media.
7
I mean, one
A great non-
You found out through your
I think today it's -- the paradigm is still the
8
same.
9
have been brought down.
It's just that a lot of the barriers to finding out And so -- you know, on Jumo, for
10
instance, we're built on top on Facebook Connect, and so
11
when you sign up, you immediately are connected to all of
12
your friends from Facebook, and you see what non-profits
13
they support, what issues they care about, if they're
14
donating, whatever action that they're taking.
15
And so, in a lot ways I think, you know, the
16
trend that's happened thus far is taking a lot of the
17
activity that was happening 10 years ago, 15 years ago,
18
putting that online, and then hopefully through a virtuous
19
cycle, increasing the likelihood that people will be
20
inspired by their friends, by their family and will take
21
action and engage.
22
MR. MURDOCK:
Pete, with Mashable, you cover a
16
1
lot of these stories and things.
2
speed at which things happen?
3
company -- I mean, how many -- are you surprised at the
4
speed?
5
you have millions of followers?
6
Are you surprised at the
And even with your own
I mean, your company isn't that old, right, and
MR. CASHMORE:
Well, I think in the social-good
7
space it's been -- I mean, I agree with Chris.
8
fairly embryonic.
9
ways it's somewhat frustrating that we can't move faster
10
in this space because -- you know, one of the challenges
11
we've had, and we've taken multiple runs at it.
12
been doing it -- social good conferences, it'll be our
13
third year.
14
readers in funding raising for charities, for instance,
15
right, for years.
16
It's fairly new space.
It's
And in some
We've
We've been trying to, you know, engage our
And, you know, it's challenging.
The biggest
17
challenge we find in making progress here and in
18
increasing the speed and the velocity is really; how do
19
you take those people who are willing to maybe market a
20
cause and talk about it and convert them to action,
21
convert them to donations?
22
a slow and sometimes frustrating process.
And that's actually been quite And I think,
17
1
you know, one of the breakthroughs that came was around
2
Haiti, when the Red Cross started doing text messaging.
3
So suddenly we had a kind of a breakthrough and
4
there was a sudden increase in velocity, where, you know,
5
suddenly you could just have this tweet that essentially
6
said, "Hey, text this number to give 10 bucks to Haiti."
7
And suddenly we found the way that you actually convert
8
people from talking about these things online, which we
9
got pretty good at, to actually getting people to donate
10 11
money. So in terms of the speed at which it's moving, I
12
would love for it to move faster.
13
MR. MURDOCK:
And, Doug, what about you?
When
14
you guys started LIVESTRONG, how much money have you guys
15
raised, in what period of time, and how important you
16
think social media has been in that process?
17
MR. ULMAN:
Well, I mean we've been blessed with
18
the tremendous generosity of millions and millions of
19
people, and we've been able to generate over $415 million
20
for -- to support cancer survivors and their families.
21
think that, you know, social media has played such a big
22
role for us, not necessarily in terms of generating
I
18
1
revenue, but in terms of connecting communities.
2
And, you know, with cancer, when you're
3
diagnosed, you feel all alone and you want tools and
4
information really quick.
5
allowed us to reach people in a time of need.
6
think from an organizing perspective, so much of our
7
efforts are focused on policy change in grassroots
8
advocacy.
9
media is invaluable.
And so, these tools have And then I
10
And so for those types of initiatives, social
For the transactional things, I agree, we're not
11
there yet.
12
social media for a non-profit has -- it's revolutionized
13
the way we work.
14
small non-profit, I mean you were stuffing envelopes and
15
you were stapling newsletters and you were stamping them
16
and sending them out.
17
self select to hear about the cause and interact with you
18
in real time.
19
It saved us time and money.
20
But for us as a cause -- you know, again,
Fifteen years ago, when I started a
And now you connect with people who
And so it's been, again for us, invaluable.
MR. MURDOCK:
You said earlier in your opening
21
comment that you thought that social media is
22
democratizing philanthropy.
19
1
MR. ULMAN:
2
MR. MURDOCK:
3
Totally. Tell us about that?
What happens
to the person -- I mean --
4
MR. ULMAN:
Historically, philanthropy was
5
something you did when you had time and money, so it was a
6
second career.
7
cause and said, for a dollar, you can be a part of it and
8
you're all equal.
9
dollar.
The yellow wristband came along for our
It's not $20.
It's not $200.
It's a
And social media from the technology standpoint
10
has done the same thing.
11
of this movement, regardless of what cause it is.
12
join, you can be engaged, and you can be a part of it for
13
free.
14
don't have to have a lot of extra time, which is
15
phenomenal.
16
Everybody can be an equal member You can
And you don't have to have a lot of money and you
MR. MURDOCK:
And, Matt, what are the average
17
size of those loans that you're doing on Kiva, and how
18
many people are giving them every year?
19
MR. FLANNERY:
The average borrowers are
20
receiving about $400, and that varies, you know, whether
21
you're in Tanzania or Cambodia or even Detroit.
22
launched in Detroit two days ago, so I am excited about
We just
20
1
that.
2
about $25 to three causes in their first transaction, and
3
so the risk is spread across -- you know they might loan
4
to Nicaragua, to Senegal and to Cambodia in the same
5
transaction.
6
continents and three regions, which really creates a more
7
risk tolerant and flexible source of money to be used for
8
a good cause.
The cool thing is that the average lender lends
9
So the risk is spread across these three
MR. MURDOCK:
And, Chris, with you -- you were
10
involved with President Obama's campaign.
11
media, you know, affecting the political process?
12
MR. HUGHES:
How does social
Yeah, well, it's radically altering
13
it.
14
and understand the different pieces of it.
15
the Obama campaign we had, you know, by most accounts, a
16
pretty phenomenal success.
17
about $500 million online to complement the $300 million
18
that was raised -- 500 million online, 300 million
19
offline.
20
about -- of over a million people on the social network
21
called MyBarackObama; 30 million people on an email list;
22
grassroots groups in every state, almost every county in
But I think it's worthwhile to dig in a little bit So in 2008 on
We were able to raise just
And we were able to get a community together of
21
1
the country.
2
powerful one.
3
And, you know, the narrative was a really
What's interesting to see that social media was
4
most useful for us in helping people raise their hands,
5
and say, "Hey, I support this candidate and this
6
campaign."
7
key in to traditional campaign activities.
8
that social media just took the old campaign and
9
completely changed it.
And then corral their friends and family to So it wasn't
It was rather that it made it much
10
easier for people to enter into the traditional campaign
11
activities of holding events, knocking on doors, making
12
phone calls, and then to some extent, fundraising.
13
Social media was probably the least successful
14
on the fundraising count, which is I think a trend that
15
we're, you know, a lot of us up here are expressing; in
16
that the vast majority of money that came in online
17
actually came in through email, which is not traditionally
18
what's considered social media.
19
the center of the campaign would develop, refine, and in
20
some cases, test, and then send out to, you know, the 30
21
million people who were on the email list in hopes that
22
they would respond.
It was a narrative that
And they very often did.
22
1
Now of course, some of those emails were
2
forwarded, there were some grassroots fundraising that
3
happened, but that was not the narrative.
4
the story.
5
That was not
Social media did not help with revenue. And so, you know, it's also interesting to me to
6
think about some of the other more successful groups
7
who've worked online, whether it's Kiva or DonorsChoose or
8
GlobalGiving.
9
a good bit of money for important causes.
10 11
All these are institutions that have raised But social
media hasn't been their entry point to do it. It's doesn't mean that social media isn't
12
valuable, but I'm not sure it's as valuable for
13
fundraising.
14
MR. ARMSTRONG:
15
MR. MURDOCK:
16
MR. ARMSTRONG:
Right.
Can I?
Yeah, jump in. We did a similar thing three or
17
four years ago.
18
called Proposition 15.
19
wristband, early on we didn't collect these people.
20
were just selling these wristbands.
21
thought, "We better start collecting these people, because
22
it's not such a bad idea after all."
We tried to pass an initiative in Texas And with the success of the yellow We
Then after a while I
23
1
MR. MURDOCK:
2
MR. ULMAN:
3
But you just said -At first they were only sold at
retail.
4
MR. ARMSTRONG:
5
MR. ULMAN:
6
MR. ARMSTRONG:
Right.
So it's hard to collect -Eventually we started selling
7
them online through our own sites and we started
8
collecting these people, sort of putting them in our army.
9
And so Prop 15 comes along, which was a $3 billion cancer
10
research initiative in the state of Texas over the course
11
of 10 years, so $300 million a year; the biggest state's
12
initiative that's ever happened.
13
There was opposition.
14
Texas legislature that were opposed to it.
15
day -- believe or not, I know -- back in the day, we were
16
not actively tweeting or Facebooking.
17
these emails.
18
particular, that was opposed to this.
19
simply went to our database and sent out an email, and
20
said, "Here's their email address and here's their phone
21
number.
22
-- you are a constituent and you're in favor of
There were people in the So back in the
But we had all
So there was one particular legislator, in And so, we just
Call them and let them know that you are in favor
24
1
Proposition 15."
2
said, "Okay, please, have your people stop calling.
3
(Laughter)
4
Six hours later the office called and
We will support this."
With the push of that button, I think it equals
5
$3 billion to fight cancer in the state of Texas.
6
back in the day that's what we did.
7
do it through Twitter or Facebook or some other way, but
8
back then we just said, "Okay, wait, we've got this army
9
of people."
10
MR. ULMAN:
Right.
I mean,
I mean, now you might
But using in that fashion
11
for organizing and for policy change is much -- we think
12
much easier right now than it is for direct financial
13
support.
14
MR. MURDOCK:
Let's talk about organizing.
How
15
is social media used for organizing, Pete?
16
seen in the political process or in the -- ways in which
17
you've seen for good that social media is a great
18
organizing tool?
19
MR. CASHMORE:
What have you
Gosh, there's just endless ways.
20
I think, you know, one of the points that Chris speak to
21
is obviously there's that network effect that happens when
22
one person is able to communicate to a larger group.
You
25
1
have, you know, Facebook Groups being established.
2
have Twitter Lists being created of people who are
3
interested in a singular cause.
4
like Chris'.
5
MR. MURDOCK:
You
You obviously have sites
Is that because of transparency?
6
Is that because I can see other people like me and so I
7
can jump in?
8 9
MR. CASHMORE:
I think it's generally speaking
to do with the sense that we can not make great changes as
10
an individual, but we can make a great deal of change if
11
we're united.
12
thousand other people behind this cause, then we're pretty
13
motivated to say:
14
difference here.
15
And I think if we see, you know, there's a
You know what, I think I can make a
And it's really about, you know, seeing other
16
people doing it encourages you to do it.
17
terms of tools sets, there are endless tools sets.
18
are, you know, countless websites.
19
being heavily.
20
by charities to get messages out.
21
transactional stuff, but not to the greatest extent.
22
largely messaging, marketing, getting the word out.
So, I mean, in There
Obviously, Facebook is
Obviously, Twitter is being used heavily To some extent to do It's
26
1
MR. MURDOCK:
Yeah.
So, how did you go from
2
being successful offline, you guys, and then also both of
3
you were on -- got on Twitter.
4
Twitter?
How did you first get on
5
MR. ARMSTRONG:
6
MR. MURDOCK:
7
How did you do it, Doug?
8
He got me on Twitter. He?
Okay. How did you get on
Twitter?
9
MR. ULMAN:
We had two people in our office who
10
came in and they said:
11
Twitter.
12
September of '08.
13
never had a Myspace page.
14
anything about social media, and they convinced me to try
15
it.
16
You need to try this, this thing
This was in, I guess, late '08; the fall of '08, And I didn't have a Facebook page.
I
Just didn't really know
And then I over at his house one day and we're
17
having a meeting, and he saw the icon on my BlackBerry and
18
he said, "What's that?
19
doing?"
What are you
And he's pretty competitive, so he --
20
(Laughter)
21
MR. ULMAN:
22
What are you doing?
then he tried that.
He's like, "I got to try that."
And
You should tell the Australia story.
27
1
Remember the day watching the inauguration.
2
MR. ARMSTRONG:
3
MR. ULMAN:
4
"I wonder how many followers."
5
What?
When we're in Adelaide and you said,
MR. ARMSTRONG:
Well, the better -- well, that's
6
-- first of all, someone had my name.
7
they had add Lance Armstrong.
8
MR. ULMAN:
9
MR. ARMSTRONG:
10
The fake Lance Armstrong.
(Laughter)
12
MR. ARMSTRONG:
13
Going for a bike ride.
14
my picture.
15
I'm like, who is this person?
"Going for a bike ride." So it wasn't you.
Did you ever
find him? MR. ARMSTRONG:
No.
But we got it back, you
know.
19 20
And he would tweet
Everyday, that's all he did.
MR. MURDOCK:
17 18
Yeah.
everyday "Going for a bike ride -- going for a bike ride."
11
16
In the beginning
MR. MURDOCK:
So what happened when you first
got on?
21
SPEAKER:
22
MR. ARMSTRONG:
How did he get it? I don't know how we got it.
Had
28
1
Doug, who got --
2
SPEAKER:
3
MR. ULMAN:
4 5 6
Somebody at Twitter was able to -Somebody called, and we called up
Twitter and said -MR. ARMSTRONG: -- you know, he really is going to go for a bike ride.
7
(Laughter)
8
MR. MURDOCK:
9
Can we have his name back now?
But it's changed.
I mean, you
guys now, your organization, you got 3 million followers.
10
How's that changed?
11
make your organization stronger, build your army, make
12
things happen?
13
What are you doing with Twitter to
MR. ARMSTRONG:
Well, I use it for not just the
14
-- I mean, for me, it can be a lot of things.
15
it's -- in the beginning, you know, the question was, what
16
are you doing?
17
answer that question.
18
on, you know, on a bunch of things.
19
the question.
20
mean, people were -- not so much anymore.
21
they were interested in what you did for training.
22
many hours you did?
I mean,
So I always felt like I was obliged to I didn't need to fill in my opinion I was going to answer
"Well, here's what I did for a buck."
I
But at the time
How many miles that was?
How
What were
29
1
watts?
2
know all these -- the cycling fans wanted to know that
3
stuff.
4
What were you feeling?
I mean, they wanted to
You could do -- If I was hanging with my kids, I
5
would say, "I was hanging with my kids," because they had
6
asked me, "What am I doing?"
7
really use it, and we really started to use it.
8
a million followers.
9
MR. ULMAN:
10
And then, of course, we can Doug has
How many does @LIVESTRONG have now? Couple of hundred thousand.
MR. ARMSTRONG:
Yeah.
I mean, just millions and
11
millions of people at your fingertips.
12
tricky too, because you don't -- people look at that
13
number and say, "Well you can -- you have bigger reach
14
than the New York Times or something."
15
necessarily true because people start to follow so many
16
people that you really can't -- I mean, if you follow 20
17
or 10, you can really follow them.
18
thousand, you can't follow them.
19
MR. MURDOCK:
Of course, it's
But it's not
If you follow a
You just get -- it's retweeted.
20
And then those 3 million people, even a million retweet it
21
to another -- to all their followers, you have a bigger
22
chance to sort of have a big audience, right.
If you say
30
1
something good.
2 3
MR. ARMSTRONG:
If you say -- or if you show
them something good.
4
MR. MURDOCK:
5
MR. ARMSTRONG:
Yeah. I think the photos are the
6
things that really -- it reassures people that it's you.
7
That's it's real.
8
MR. MURDOCK:
9
MR. ARMSTRONG:
Yeah. I mean, I went for a mountain
10
bike ride the other day -- most of you guys may not be
11
from around here, but it was an epic ride, way up high.
12
There were these bear tracks.
13
wide.
14
and put on Twitter."
15
go, "Whoa!"
16
freaky.
17
I mean, they were this
And I thought, "Hell, I got take a picture of this But people would see that and just
I mean, for the average person that's better
I didn't see the bear, I just saw the tracks.
18
So they realize that, "Wait, this guy's really on a
19
mountain bike ride.
20
bear tracks.
He's tweeting this picture of these
It's got to be him."
21
SPEAKER:
22
MR. ARMSTRONG:
You better not catch up with the bear. No.
They were dry.
31
1
MR. ULMAN:
I think -- Jerry, I just think that
2
for us, as an organization, you know, when you exist to
3
serve a certain constituency, so families and individuals
4
who are suffering with what is now the number one cause of
5
death around the world, you know, the ability to interact
6
with them in real time and get the feedback immediately is
7
critical.
8
are dealing with on a daily basis, and these mediums allow
9
us to ask questions and get feedback so that we can create
10 11
We need to understand what people with cancer
programs and services to improve their lives. And, you know, that feedback loop used to take
12
months, it used to be market research and used to be --
13
and now we can sort of engage --
14
MR. MURDOCK:
15
We are getting people to talk
about their cancer?
16
MR. ULMAN:
17
MR. MURDOCK:
Absolutely. I understand statistically people
18
don't like to talk about that.
19
MR. ULMAN:
Yeah, there's still a great stigma
20
around this disease, especially internationally.
21
we're seeing now in our program we launched in South
22
Africa, is that survivors in South Africa are starting to
What
32
1
use social media to tell their story.
2
start to understand that you can survive the disease,
3
other people will go get screened and will take preventive
4
action.
5
And when people
And so, sharing your story is not only
6
therapeutic for the individual, him or herself, but it's
7
also mobilizing and inspiring a whole community of people
8
to take action.
9
MR. MURDOCK:
It seems that that's what social
10
media does a lot.
11
normally have voices and it sheds light on dark corners of
12
the world out there.
13
value.
14
using Twitter and Facebook to start revolutions or be
15
engaged in revolutions.
16
and death and trouble.
17
be the dark side of social media?
18
shouldn't be happening?
19
something that's a great use of social media?
20
It brings voice to people that don't
And by doing that, we're getting
But on the other side of it, look, people are
MR. CASHMORE:
And that creates a lot of pain I mean, is this something that may It's something that
Or do you guys think this is
Well, I think social media is
21
just a tool, and people are going to use it for good, and
22
in some cases, they're going to use it for not-so-good
33
1
things.
2
sometimes are violent.
3
all agree that those revolutions are a good thing overall.
4
I think, you know, the use of these tools is -- and we had
5
a panel about this yesterday.
6
to these revolutions.
7
I mean, you know, the revolutions, unfortunately, And, you know, I think we would
I mean, it is an accessory
I think it is very, very important.
I don't think it's the sole cause of them.
But
8
I think, you know, they are being used.
9
you know, you talk about oppression and things like that,
I mean one thing,
10
and I was about to bring on the tools conversation that
11
YouTube is sometimes an underrated service in terms of --
12
we talk about Twitter and we talk about Facebook.
13
But you know, one of the things we're covering
14
right now at Mashable is in Saudi Arabia they've started
15
arresting women for driving cars.
16
it's a religious law that's being enacted by the police.
17
And one of the campaigns we've been covering is that Saudi
18
Arabian woman have just started uploading videos of
19
themselves driving, and the more they see of these, the
20
more they feel empowered that, "Hey, everyone else is
21
doing this.
22
It's not illegal, but
I'm going to start driving again because" --
So when you talk about, you know, using it as a
34
1
tool against oppression or, you know, using it in
2
revolutions, I think it is well worth stating that YouTube
3
is actually right up there with Twitter and Facebook in
4
terms of showing people that others are engaged and, you
5
know, driving further engagement.
6
MR. MURDOCK:
Yeah.
But do you think that
7
social media being for the greater good leads to change?
8
And is this change something that people could handle,
9
because of the speed -- the speed of social media.
I
10
mean, companies like Facebook, Twitter didn't exist seven
11
years go, eight years ago in any meaningful way.
12
people handle the speed at which it's going on and change
13
that is driven by social media?
14
MR. HUGHES:
How do
I think -- I think a couple of
15
things.
16
social media is a tool and can be used for good and bad is
17
an important one, and I think most people believe that to
18
be true.
19
point though and let that overshadow the fact that social
20
media does have structural impact on how we communicate
21
and how we live as people.
22
pick up a device in our pocket and have access to pretty
I think it's an important -- the point that
I don't think that we should hold on to that
I mean, the fact that we can
35
1
much close to all of the knowledge ever produced in the
2
history of human civilization -- I mean not to make it too
3
dramatic.
4
live, of course, maybe for the better or not.
5
different.
6
But that structurally changes the way that we But that's
Similarly, the issue you bring up about speed I
7
think is really important.
8
I can see a photo of what's going on the other side of the
9
world immediately on my mobile device nearly anywhere that
10
I am, and because of that speed, it makes me be able to be
11
much more responsive to it.
12
I can know within -- you know,
I think the downside of it that I see is that it
13
threatens our ability as people to sort of linger, to
14
concentrate, to spend time on ideas that may not be that
15
simple but may need a lot more consideration.
16
-- we're constantly -- in the attention curve, we're
17
constantly looking for the next new thing, the next new
18
idea.
19
constantly a moving stream.
20
now, what's going now, and then five minutes later, that's
21
down.
22
So we have
You know, Twitter's the best example of this.
It's
You look for what's trending
We saw this in the cable news space 10 years
36
1
ago, where everyone was talking about -- it used be -- you
2
have one news cycle in a day covered on the evening news,
3
and that's what political campaigns or organizations have
4
to deal with.
5
and the story of the minute, and now it's even more
6
extreme online.
7
And then it became the story of the hour
So I think, culturally, we have to really
8
recognize that the speed is extremely fast and we have to
9
be careful to gird ourselves against that or at least to
10
be self aware enough to, you know, put the streams away,
11
or put the screens away, or pause and take some time.
12
MR. MURDOCK:
Given the amount of money that
13
you've been able to give out in loans through Kiva, over
14
200 million -- you said 230 million or something, 300
15
million.
16
places are you changing those places, those communities?
17
And what's the impact on what Kiva's doing?
Whatever that amount of loans is, is in small
18
MR. FLANNERY: Yeah.
19
MR. MURDOCK:
20
Well --
And the speed at which it's doing
it, right?
21
MR. FLANNERY:
22
MR. MURDOCK:
Sure, sure. Where was Kiva, what, three years
37
1
ago.
2
MR. FLANNERY:
When I started Kiva, we were
3
fairly irresponsible.
4
and we just started spraying money into communities,
5
probably faster than was responsible.
6
disasters, where we sent too much money to an NGO to
7
disperse to people in that community, and they couldn't
8
disperse it fast enough and they couldn't collect it fast
9
enough.
10
We didn't know what we were doing,
We had a few small
And so, we had to slow it down and diversify, and
that's why we spread to so many places.
11
I think, you know, one of the impacts of Kiva is
12
that we're including people financially, giving people
13
bank accounts and credit and savings for the first time in
14
their life, which is really an important part of escaping
15
poverty.
16
voice.
17
media leads to digital inclusion, which I'm excited about
18
too.
Another thing we're doing is giving people a And we talk about financial inclusion, but social
19
We've had instances where a borrower in
20
Colombia, in rural Colombia, got contacted by her daughter
21
who was a refugee early in her life and went to live in
22
Texas and they lost complete contact.
And if you're a
38
1
poor person, one of the main aspects of being poor,
2
especially in the developing world, is isolation; social
3
isolation, financial isolation, economic isolation.
4
digital inclusion can help overcome that.
5
And
And so we have this woman finding her mother and
6
contacting her through Kiva for the first time and
7
reuniting.
8
And we see a flattening, where people in rather isolated
9
places are able to participate for the first time.
We have stories like this all over the world.
We've
10
actually had rather poor people in Kenya lend $25 to a
11
taxi driver in New York City.
12
--
13
MR. MURDOCK:
14
MR. FLANNERY:
15
MR. MURDOCK:
16 17
And so, you have a New York
A few more of that. What's that? More of that.
We need more of
that. MR. FLANNERY:
Yeah, so we have New Yorkers
18
paying back Kenyans in this really wonderful flattening
19
democratization of social good in the world.
20
MR. MURDOCK:
Doug, Lance, have you guys seen
21
this at LIVESTRONG?
22
things are changing in peoples' lives in the way we're
Have you guys seen some stories where
39
1
dealing with cancer?
2
MR. ULMAN:
3
MR. ARMSTRONG:
4
MR. MURDOCK:
5
Every day. Every day. What are some of the things you
can share with us?
6
MR. ULMAN:
I mean, you could see a post today
7
that would not be out of the ordinary, of somebody who
8
needs access to a cutting edge clinical trial and has been
9
denied by their insurance carrier, and 200 people on
10
Twitter or Facebook will rally and call the insurance
11
company.
12
the stem cell transplant tomorrow, you know, or the
13
clinical trial or -- you know, just -- those stories
14
happen all the time, and they're very personal.
15
think for a long time people thought, "Oh, people won't be
16
comfortable sharing that."
17
And, you know, all of a sudden the person gets
And I
But when you're dealing with an illness that's
18
as devastating as cancer, you know, you look for every
19
opportunity for hope.
20
around individuals and families --
21 22
MR. MURDOCK: you're building?
And I think building communities
Is it a global community that
40
1
MR. ULMAN:
2
MR. MURDOCK:
Absolutely, absolutely. It seems social media is very
3
instrumental in creating and making real the concept of
4
global citizenship.
5
proud of, you know, in all your years and what you've been
6
able to accomplish?
7
Is that something that you guys are
I mean now, for example, Pete, you did the --
8
that for good sort of conference and you -- I remember you
9
had Ted Turner on stage and you were talking to him about
10
war.
11
all your customers."
12
is a global thinking that a lot of times we don't do.
13
that what's happening in the world out there today.
14
And Ted Turner said, "War, hell, why would you bomb I mean, tell me, I mean, is -- this
MR. CASHMORE:
Is
I think what's changed is it's
15
gone from being one of those -- you know, when something
16
happens in the news, you see these numbers, you say, "Hey,
17
something terrible has happened" and you know there's
18
hundred thousand people affected and you don't have that
19
personal connection.
20
citizenship and the way it ties to these personal stories
21
is it's very different when, you know, you hear a charity
22
say, "Hey, we need to raise a million dollars for this
So I think the way it ties to global
41
1
cause" from something like, "Hey, I'm a dad.
2
cancer.
3
to pay for my treatment."
4
conversation.
5
I am really worried.
I've got
I don't have enough money
That's a very direct
If you're following that person on Twitter and
6
you're following their daily updates, you feel a really
7
personal connection that drives much, much deeper.
8
think that's where the global citizenship comes from.
9
It's you know -- how Kiva works is, when you see a person
10
that needs help, you are much more driven to respond than
11
when you see statistics, numbers and big issues that we
12
really can't relate to.
13
contact, and that's I think what global citizenship is all
14
about.
15 16 17
MR. MURDOCK:
And I
It's got to be that personal
How about you, Matt?
What do you
think? MR. FLANNERY:
You know, one thing I've thought
18
about a lot is just overcoming the sense of the other, of
19
people faraway, and how they're different or their story.
20
I grew up with a lot of images of poor people in Africa
21
as, you know, overcome by starving or starvation and
22
warfare and disease.
And just thought of them as this
42
1
people faraway that I couldn't relate to but I needed to
2
help.
3
And that's kind of demotivating. But when you're actually able to talk to them in
4
real time, you realize you have so much in common and you
5
can enter into a conversation and a financial relationship
6
in a way that you couldn't when I was a child.
7
MR. MURDOCK:
What change -- have you met people
8
through your network that -- stories have just sort of
9
changed the way you thought about cancer and what your own
10
experience is like?
11
MR. ARMSTRONG:
12
MR. MURDOCK:
13 14
Well -You've inspired a lot of people,
so we know that's happened. MR. ARMSTRONG:
No, but that's what -- that's
15
what I tell people all the time is while my story might
16
have been inspirational to them or their family member or
17
their friend or a loved one who is in the middle of the
18
fight, I too get that as well.
19
it's right in the Tour de France and reading my replies
20
and hearing these personal stories from people, that is an
21
inspiration to me.
22
will sort of always be the unfair advantage that I carry
I mean, I, you know -- if
So it comes back in spades, and that
43
1
with me, you know, since the day I was diagnosed.
2
Since you know that there's this army of people.
3
Now we really know.
4
yeah, they sent you letters.
5
diagnosed, I went down to the bookstore to figure out what
6
cancer was all about.
Back in the day, like Doug -- I mean,
7
MR. MURDOCK:
8
MR. ARMSTRONG:
9
I mean, when I was
Oh. You know, there wasn't -- you
couldn't google cancer or google testicular cancer or
10
google -- you know, you went to the bookstore.
11
your neighbor.
12
anybody that has cancer?"
13
And now it is quick.
14
line.
"You ever had cancer?
You ever know
It was so primitive back then.
Like I said earlier, it's a direct
15
MR. MURDOCK:
16
a chance to change their story.
17
overcome it like Lance.
18
You asked
MR. ARMSTRONG:
We give a chance -- we give people "I got cancer but I can
I can do something different." And that's the thing that people
19
-- people ask me all the time, "You know, what do you say
20
to somebody who's been diagnosed if you're visiting a
21
hospital?
22
What do you say to those people?" MR. MURDOCK:
Yeah.
44
1 2
MR. ARMSTRONG:
And the answer is I don't say
anything.
3
MR. MURDOCK:
4
MR. ARMSTRONG:
5
MR. MURDOCK:
6
MR. ARMSTRONG:
Right. I listen. Right. And so that's the beauty of at
7
least social media for me, is I can listen to what they're
8
saying.
9
MR. MURDOCK:
10
Right.
MR. ARMSTRONG:
So then people don't expect me
11
or Doug or any of us to walk in and go, "Okay, here's what
12
you do.
13
Here's the doctors you should see."
14
vast majority of the time, they want to say, "Here's what
15
I'm doing.
16
my chances."
17
of the day, they just want you to give them a hug and say
18
good luck and we're thinking about you and let us know if
19
we can help.
Here's what you eat.
20 21 22
Most of the time, the
Here's what I've been diagnosed with. And they want you to listen.
Here's
And at the end
That's what they want.
MR. MURDOCK: of people.
Here's how you exercise.
So you can give hugs to millions
That's great. MR. ARMSTRONG:
Just type "big hug."
45
1 2
MR. MURDOCK:
MR. ARMSTRONG:
I've never written that
actually.
5
(Laughter)
6
MR. ARMSTRONG:
7
So, Chris -- Chris
tell us --
3 4
That's great.
But I do think -- I want to say
--
8
MR. MURDOCK:
9
MR. ARMSTRONG:
You thought about it --- is this thing I do think what
10
Chris touched on I think it's, is it moving too fast and
11
is -- there are certainly people out there that will say
12
it moved way too fast for them.
13
MR. MURDOCK:
14
MR. ARMSTRONG:
15
Right. Certain politicians and certain
people, they just -- they got caught up in it.
16
MR. MURDOCK:
17
(Laughter)
18
MR. ARMSTRONG:
19
MR. MURDOCK:
Right.
But it's true.
I mean --
With your help, of course.
That
20
politician in Texas with your help they got caught up in
21
it.
22
MR. ARMSTRONG:
Yeah, well -- yeah.
But other -
46
1
- visibly.
2
wasn't alive -- but you know, people listened to the news
3
or sports or whatever on these little transistor radios.
4
And then you had television.
5
you had three channels.
6
you had more cable TV.
7
and you had blogs; you had news sites; you have Facebook,
8
Twitter -- I mean, now it's -- I mean, the plane lands in
9
the Hudson, the guy is standing on the wing tweeting, live
10 11 12 13
But you know, back in the day, you know -- I
You had one channel.
Then you had cable TV, and then And then the Internet came along
from the wing. I mean, I'm sorry, but CNN and the New York Times and the Wall Street -- they're screwed. MR. MURDOCK:
Or they can get better.
14
they have to change to get better.
15
MR. ARMSTRONG:
16
Then
I mean,
But they're not on the wing
right then.
17
(Laughter)
18
MR. MURDOCK:
19
MR. ARMSTRONG:
That's right, they're not. And I'm not saying they done,
20
done, but I'm just saying it's -- it moves quick.
21
real time now and in the future.
22
happen live, literally, I suspect.
It's
We're going to see it
47
1 2
MR. MURDOCK:
Or we all are going to have to get
faster.
3
MR. ARMSTRONG:
4
MR. MURDOCK:
5
MR. ARMSTRONG:
It's going to get faster. Right. And with it getting faster, all
6
of us have to be careful.
7
going to be somebody there to capture that moment.
8
so, if you're a politician, if you're an athlete, if
9
you're a public figure -- you better be careful, because
10
everybody's got a device waiting.
11 12
MR. MURDOCK:
And
So it's --
Somebody said in the panel
yesterday that --
13 14
I mean, because there's always
MR. ARMSTRONG: yourself.
Or sometimes you have the device
I don't know.
15
(Laughter)
16
MR. MURDOCK:
Someone said yesterday that beware
17
that institution that is not supporting the will of the
18
people.
19
guys?
20
the will of the people, or has the support of the will of
21
the people.
22
Do you agree with that statement?
Any of you
Beware the institution that is no longer supporting
And you can think about the Middle East and the
48
1
Arab Spring.
2
know, able to sort of gather the support of the people,
3
and the people are revolting against this.
4
that's going to be a sort of thing we're going to see as
5
part of the future that we're dealing with right now, and
6
not only just in governments, but also in all kinds of
7
fields?
These institutions that are longer, you
8
MR. CASHMORE:
9
whole trend is about empowerment.
You think
I think clearly this, you know, And when you have, you
10
know, people that's empowered, then obviously the
11
institutions break down because, you know, what sustained
12
them was obviously centralized power.
13
becomes distributed, then clearly it's an unsustainable
14
situation where the people are going to rise up.
15 16 17
If the power
So, I mean, absolutely I agree with him.
I
think social media is really all about empowerment. MR. MURDOCK:
Yeah.
Chris, when you got
18
involved with President Obama's campaign and you were
19
involved with social media for him in the strategy, what
20
was your goal?
21 22
What were you hoping to accomplish?
MR. HUGHES:
To give people a voice.
The idea
was -- I mean, particularly with the campaign -- you know,
49
1
what we did not want to do is throw out the precedent of
2
what had made campaigns work in the past, you know, the
3
proxy for that or the example that's often talked about.
4
It's like sort of the Howard Dean in 2004; like, just let
5
the Internet take control.
6
That was not the idea.
On the other hand, there was clearly, you know,
7
at that point, I think 70 million domestic Facebook users.
8
Now it's 140 or 150.
9
People were getting their news on the Internet.
10
There was a lot of pent up interest.
Technology had really shifted.
11
And so, the idea was to sort of take a hybrid
12
approach and build technology that would enable people to
13
tell their own stories and to really give them their own
14
voice.
15
on that campaign website anybody in this room could come
16
in, and in 10 minutes, create a blog post that would say
17
anything they wanted about the president, about any of his
18
policies, about any of his opponents.
19
top it says BarackObama.com.
20
It's a reason that most campaigns when the idea --
And right up at the
And you know, from a campaign, old school
21
campaign perspective, you want to control the message, you
22
want to keep it very -- you want to keep it in the lines.
50
1
And we took an approach where we wanted to empower as many
2
people to tell their own stories and have their voice as
3
possible, which was a real structural shift.
4
we definitely wanted to direct all of that energy into
5
what we knew would actually help us win.
6
That said,
So, you know, if in -- during the primaries, it
7
was about organizing to win in Iowa, and then --
8
unfortunately, not so much in New Hampshire.
9
Carolina and Nevada, and as the primary states rolled on.
But in South
10
I mean, it ended up being about focusing and people.
11
it wasn't just like, "Have a bake sale for Obama on
12
Saturday."
13
undecideds in your neighborhood.
14
door and talk to them."
15
definitely focusing as much of that energy as possible.
16
It wasn't just let a thousand flowers bloom.
17
intentional.
18
So
It was like actually, "Here's a list of
MR. CASHMORE:
Why don't you go door to
So it was much more -- we were
It was quite
It's just incredibly important to
19
remember, and I think, you know, Lance said it as well, we
20
have so much information coming at us now.
21
organizations are not completely focused on a singular
22
goal -- I mean, you've got to get your message into 140
If these
51
1
characters right now, and that's really challenging.
2
you have a complex goal -- it comes back to the speed
3
issue to some extent as well.
4
into 140 characters?
5
get real depth?
If
Can you get your message
We have so much brevity now.
Can we
6
But, you know, it's really up to these
7
organizations to have a very, very focused message, a very
8
specific message.
9
have brevity online these days, you know.
Messages can't travel if they don't We're talking
10
about these very short updates that get retweeted and
11
things.
12
noise if it's a too complex a message, because we have so
13
many sources of information now that we're just not going
14
hear that singular one unless the message is really clear
15
and concise.
16
And they will essentially get drowned out in the
MR. MURDOCK:
Yeah.
What's your message you
17
guys were trying to do with cancer now?
18
on the personal impact, and you said you're trying to
19
impact policy, right.
20
up, is there policy initiatives that you guys are thinking
21
about?
22
MR. ULMAN:
You've made a lot
For the election year 2012 coming
Well, the biggest policy initiative
52
1
we're working on right now is the United Nations is
2
hosting a General Assembly special session in September.
3
They've had about 22 of these special sessions since the
4
General Assembly began and only one of them, previous to
5
this September, has been on health.
6
the focus of this session is going to be on non-
7
communicable disease.
8
disease, diabetes, and lung disease.
9
And this September
So basically, cancer, heart
And you know, those kill more people every year
10
than anything else we've ever known.
11
making sure that global leaders make non-communicable
12
disease a priority.
13
policies that can be enacted all over the world that today
14
will save millions of lives without developing one new
15
drug or one new therapy.
16
based on who they are, where they live and what resources
17
they have; and that is unacceptable.
18 19 20
And so, for us, it's
And so -- you know, there are so many
We are allowing people to die
That goes back to Matt's point of the other.
If
we continue to look at people as others, we're all doomed. MR. MURDOCK:
Right.
21
quick break.
22
want to have time for questions.
Listen I'm going to take
We will only have a few minutes left and so And there's going to
53
1
someone with a microphone, and we are going to have just
2
time for one or two questions.
3
-- no preambles, and right on point would be really
4
helpful.
5
MS. SCHILLER:
And, please, no preambles
I'll be really concise.
My name
6
is Vivian Schiller (phonetic).
7
Clearly, the social media campaign around the Obama
8
campaign was widely successful, but it seems to have
9
sputtered during an Obama presidency.
10
MR. HUGHES:
My question is for Chris.
Why is that?
I think -- a couple of things.
I
11
think governing is completely different structurally than
12
campaigning.
13
line.
14
people's stories and narratives and people, and about
15
Obama as an individual.
16
sense of focus around a single objective can't really be
17
underestimated.
18
Campaigning has a goal.
Campaigns are about ideals.
Campaign has a time
Campaigns are about
And so, I think there is that
In governing, I think -- you know, I think two
19
things have happened.
20
separate out the Whitehouse.gov from what happened with
21
the rest of the organizing community that was part of the
22
2008 campaign.
I think it's really important to
Because of the law, the 13 million people,
54
1
the community that had been developed could not be brought
2
into the Barack Obama White House.
3
the DNC, which meant that it was -- you know, which was a
4
big structural challenge, which I don't think was
5
completely -- I mean, which a lot of people have been
6
really disappointed about.
7
MR. MURDOCK:
8
MR. HUGHES:
9
They had to stay at
How does that -That one didn't happen.
But what
the White House -- I do -- I think it's really important
10
to know what the White House has done.
11
what Obama is doing next week with the Twitter Town Hall,
12
to his Facebook Town Halls, to the Open Government
13
Initiatives, opening up the datasets.
14
done more as an administration in the course of two years
15
than I ever expected for them to be able to do.
16
Everything from
I mean, they have
On the downside, the community of really excited
17
activists is not nearly as strong as it was in 2008, and
18
now the president and the reelection campaign has a huge
19
expectation to get them reignited.
20
social media to do that.
21
months, they're using person to person telephone calls to
22
reignite every single volunteer and every single donor to
And they're using the
I mean, just in the next few
55
1
say, "What do you think about what the president's done?
2
What could have happened better?
3
in this campaign coming up in the next couple of years?
4
And where can we go?"
5
What do you want to see
So, as long as the campaign stays true to those
6
principles and values, then I think we'll see a real
7
serious invigoration of that.
8 9
MR. MURDOCK:
How are organizations like
Townhall.org going to change things, because they didn't
10
have that when you were involved in the last election?
11
How will that change the effectiveness of White House and
12
Obama and everything else?
13
MR. HUGHES:
I'm terribly skeptic on a lot of
14
the Town Hall stuff.
15
remember the YouTube CNN debate back in like 2007, which
16
essentially was like repurposing the questions that most
17
moderators ask in these debates but you know having
18
everyday people ask them.
19
it's better to do it that way than not.
20
it was a huge structural change.
21 22
I think -- I don't know if you guys
So it's important, and I think But I don't think
Where I think the structural change happens with Town Halls is in enforcing either the candidates or the
56
1
people in office to listen to the response.
2
you can filter the questions you can't filter Twitter, you
3
know, and you can't filter Facebook when people are
4
responding directly to you.
5
those live streams of, you know, what these days is
6
frustration, a feeling of being left behind, feeling of
7
challenge, is something that I think is good for Barack
8
Obama and for anybody else in office to see.
9
got -- I mean, we have an uphill battle as a country.
10
MR. MURDOCK:
11
here from the audience?
12
there.
13
Because while
And so, you know, watching
Okay.
Because he's
We have another question
I see -- grab a microphone right
Yeah, go ahead. SPEAKER:
Thank you.
Quick question, gentlemen.
14
How do woman use social media, particularly in the cause
15
based social media?
16
MR. CASHMORE:
It's a pretty open question.
17
MR. ARMSTRONG:
The six guys are like huh?
18
(Laughter)
19
SPEAKER:
A little bit of a permeable.
So I
20
come from a background in not-for-profit, one donor $22
21
million.
22
women and environment, we said, "Do we want to go with
And when we started a not-for-profit to engage
57
1
that model?
2
But we said, "No, this is -- you know, social media is the
3
way to go."
4
getting woman engaged in environment.
5
that includes cancer -- I was just in rural Tanzania,
6
cervical cancer outbreak women are cutting down forests to
7
pay for it.
8
includes all of these components.
9
I am an idiot when it comes to the social marketing and
It's a long shot, but it's a good model."
But it's a women focused organization, And it turns out
It includes poverty alleviation, and it But we don't know how.
10
social media.
11
looking at your guy's websites, which we spend a lot of
12
time on, what works for women?
13
Is it -- and on the feedback side and the -- you know,
14
when you're hearing from the field, when you're hearing
15
from the cancer survivors, do they tell their stories
16
differently?
17
So we have no idea.
MR. ARMSTRONG:
From, you know,
You know, is it blogging?
One thing I can tell you about
18
social media and girls.
19
the United States, now there are more women in college
20
than men.
21
boys for the first time ever.
22
evidence, but it's attributed to social media; that women,
First of all, in the history of
In high school now, girls are doing better than A lot of this is anecdotal
58
1
girls particularly, use social media better than boys at
2
this -- in their early development stages.
3
MR. CASHMORE:
I think at Mashable we're fairly
4
like, you know -- we've traditionally been placed in this
5
realm of these tech publications, and we're pretty
6
fortunate that we are about 55 percent male, 45 percent
7
female.
8
readers because they share more.
9
more.
So it's fairly balanced.
They communicate more.
And we want more female They talk about things
When they learn things,
10
they share them more.
11
purely from a business perspective, that's great for us.
12
I think from the campaign and causes
So for social media, I mean, just
13
perspective, it's also fantastic.
14
there is a huge gender divide here.
15
though the panel might be largely male.
16
agree that largely --
17
(Laughter)
18
MR. ARMSTRONG:
19
(Laughter)
20
MR. ARMSTRONG:
21
MR. ULMAN:
22
MR. CASHMORE:
We -- I don't think I don't think -- even I think we'd all
Doug, has something to tell us.
Go ahead, Doug.
I -Sorry, Doug.
59
1
MR. ARMSTRONG:
2
MR. CASHMORE:
Sorry, buddy. I didn't know where to go with
3
that one there.
4
question, I think, you know, in this country we don't see
5
a great divide because we are not in a stage where women
6
are as oppressed as elsewhere in the world, let's put it
7
that way.
8
obviously there's oppression going on there.
9
women are using these tools just as much as men.
I think with regard to the specific
So when you talk about the Saudi Arabian story, Obviously, I don't
10
see a great gender divide.
11
in using them.
12
that women do tend to communicate a great deal more with
13
these tools.
14
all of your causes because they're a great asset.
15
I don't see a great difference
What I would say from our experience is
So, you really want women to be involved in
MR. FLANNERY:
Yeah, I think there's a consensus
16
that more women than men use social media and they share
17
more.
18 19 20
I mean -MR. CASHMORE: SPEAKER:
At least in the West --
The majority are female right.
MR. CASHMORE:
Yeah.
I mean I don't know how it
21
breaks down when you start bringing in other --
22
internationally.
At least domestically, it definitely
60
1 2
women -- more women and the women share more. MR. ULMAN:
Yeah.
I mean, I think -- our
3
experience is that, I mean, women tend to help organize
4
medical information for their families and women also tend
5
to be in charge of philanthropic dollars.
6
donors financially tend to skew more women.
7
other thing I would say is that we've actually had the
8
opposite problem.
9
breast cancer have led the advocacy charge for decades.
10
And then, you know, Lance came along honestly as a young
11
kid in Texas talking about testicular cancer, and it
12
really opened up the doors for a lot of men to talk about
13
prostate cancer, colon cancer, whatever it may have been.
14
And so, our The only
I mean in the cancer world, women with
MR. ARMSTRONG:
Yeah, but I wouldn't have -- at
15
25 -- trust me, 25 years old, in 1996, you weren't running
16
out to tell a bunch of Texans about testicular cancer.
17
(Laughter)
18
MR. ARMSTRONG:
They had -- it's true, and
19
again, it's true.
20
textbooks --- in the whole entire state of Texas, they had
21
removed testicular self exam and breast self exam out of
22
the textbooks.
They had actually just removed in the
So initially, that was our -- our first
61
1
goal was to get them put back in.
2
this Pink Army that came along 30 years ago, and said,
3
"Okay, there's some stigma associated this.
4
embarrassing.
5
going to talk about my body, about my health, about what
6
I'm dealing with."
7
But if it wasn't for
This is uncomfortable for me.
This might be But I'm
Us guys, we're in big trouble, because then
8
older men don't talk about prostate cancer, people
9
sensitive about colon cancer.
I mean, all these sensitive
10
health issues.
11
women, primarily the Komen Organization and this Pink
12
Army, hadn't come along and changed it, we wouldn't have
13
done it, a bunch of guys.
If these women, these brave group of
14
MR. MURDOCK:
15
SPEAKER:
No way.
Right.
Kitty (phonetic).
My question is about the 220 -- what
16
is it -- 2012 election.
17
lead the way for Obama to be the king of social media
18
during the last election, but that's not going to be the
19
same in the next election.
20
candidates distinguish themselves in the social media
21
world as we look at the next year?
22
MR. HUGHES:
And, Chris, I mean you sort of
So my question is how will
Will they be able to?
I think you're absolutely right to
62
1
say that it's completely different.
2
four years away.
3
is different, the campaign is different, the message will
4
be different, but the Internet is completely different.
5
mean, Twitter -- you were saying you guys signed up in
6
late 2008.
7
but it was -- you know, frankly -- I mean, it wasn't -- it
8
was almost a joke, because there weren't a lot of people
9
using it.
I mean, it's only
But not only, obviously, the candidate
I
I mean, we had Twitter on the Obama campaign
And at that time it seemed like totally
10
narcissistic and you're just blasting messages out.
11
in, you know, the course of the past three years, it's
12
certainly not that way.
And
13
And then you think about the advent of mobile
14
devices and how often people are using those to receive
15
email, to organize.
16
to door and talk to undecideds in the neighborhood if you
17
have real time information on your phone.
18
you know, election day, when you can actually go to each
19
door of somebody who's previously told you, "I'm going to
20
vote," and make sure they've gone out.
Think about what it means to go door
Let alone on,
21
So the technology is completely different and it
22
makes it really exciting, and it means that, you know, the
63
1
reelection campaign for the Democrats is all about
2
reinventing how the technology is used.
3
On the question of how the candidates set
4
themselves apart and standout, I really think that, you
5
know, the smartest ones who have authentic voice on the
6
web and will make sure that their supporters understand
7
and have internalized the message of the campaign and are
8
telling that story for them, and then the challenge is
9
roping all of those excited people in to actually get them
10 11 12 13
to give money. MR. MURDOCK:
Okay, we have one more question?
All right, you sir? MR. WALTERS:
I am Lauren Walters.
I'm the
14
founder of a social enterprise, Two Degrees.
15
whether -- you talk about -- using social media to
16
democratize philanthropy.
17
using it for social enterprise are different than ordinary
18
commercial business or ordinary philanthropy?
And I wonder
Whether your thoughts about
Thanks.
19
MR. FLANNERY:
20
trip coming from Detroit to Aspen.
21
two great places.
22
enterprise get loan funding on the Internet through Kiva.
I was just in Detroit, and it's a Big context change but
And we were helping a lot of social
64
1
But also what we noticed is we were driving people to the
2
Twitter feeds, and so we helped these small businesses in
3
inner-city Detroit get on Twitter, get on Facebook, and
4
then put that -- combine that with Kiva to drive interest
5
to the businesses as well as just loan capital.
6
And we're actually seeing that it's working.
So
7
you have Detroiters from maybe outside of Detroit or
8
wealthier areas in Detroit coming into the inner-city and
9
supporting local social enterprises that way.
So I think
10
it's a great way to unlock that generosity that people
11
have to help other people, especially within their own
12
community, and give them a channel to do that, whereas
13
they might not have known how to do this before.
14
think there's a lot of promise for that.
15
MR. ARMSTRONG:
16
MR. MURDOCK:
17
MR. ARMSTRONG:
So I
If I can -Go ahead. My situation is a little maybe a
18
little different than Doug's because I have corporate
19
relationships.
I'm an athlete, you have sponsors, you
20
have partners.
And of course, they see -- you know, their
21
business is to sell stuff, if it's food or shoes or drinks
22
or bikes or cars.
They see 3 million followers so they're
65
1
initial instinct is, "Wait, we'll get this guy to just
2
talk about our stuff all the time."
3
replies, like with the replies with regard to LIVESTRONG.
4
I never have any resistance to that.
5
And you see with the
If you start, it has to be authentic and organic
6
and unique.
7
and say, "Listen, quit selling me" you know.
8
- they're not -- so it's kind of a delicate dance for me
9
at least, because while I'm a key partner to these people
10
and loyal and you want to do whatever you can to help and
11
help honor the deal, you also don't want your followers to
12
think, "This guy's got this account just so I go buy a
13
track bike or I wear a Nike shoes or I, you know -- or I
14
go to RadioShack."
15
(phonetic) these days.
16
you have to be -- I think you have to be sensitive there.
17
If you start selling, people will write back That's not -
That's -- they call "be as quick"
MR. MURDOCK:
Everything's quick these days.
We talked about in social media
18
the importance of identity and transparency, and
19
authenticity you just brought up.
20
important is authenticity in your business, Pete?
21 22
MR. CASHMORE: everything.
So
I think -- how
Well, I think authenticity is
I mean, it's what Lance speaks to.
And the
66
1
difference with commercial interests -- actually, in some
2
ways there's less suspicion when you're talking about a
3
non-profit cause, because you don't have any commercial
4
interest in it.
5
value based.
6
there's no commercial interest whatsoever.
7
Your pure interest is, you know, it's
It's very much around helping a cause and
I think authenticity is key.
Identity is
8
important.
9
essentially created identity on the web and forced people
We talk about, you know, Facebook Connect
10
to have identities.
11
important for trust.
12
you're trying to convince someone to do something like
13
donate money or market a message for you, you really need
14
to get them onboard in terms of trust initially.
I think identity is incredibly And what we're talking about when
15
MR. MURDOCK:
16
MR. FLANNERY:
Right.
How about you, Matt?
It's like being at a big dinner
17
party and you have all your friends there.
18
build the relationships with those people and build a
19
foundation of trust and knowledge in order to start
20
selling them stuff.
21
pitch them on something new everyday, you'll burn that
22
connection really fast and burn those bridges.
You have to
If you just try to use Twitter to
67
1
And so, it's really about entering into a
2
conversation, getting to know people, and then, when the
3
time is right, if you have a great cause that you really
4
believe in, promoting it appropriately.
5
MR. MURDOCK:
Could you do your job, Doug, if
6
you weren't a cancer survivor, and a three time cancer
7
survivor as well, you think?
8
important that you can speak to it?
9
MR. ULMAN:
Don't you think it's
Well, I think there's value in that.
10
I think there's a lot of people out there who've had
11
personal experiences with the disease or with someone in
12
their family that could do the same.
13
yes.
14
experience?
15
I keep thinking of is community, and I talk about this all
16
the time.
17
You have to invest in the community.
18
media in that way and everybody invests, then the
19
community gets stronger and ultimately can create more
20
good and more value I think.
21 22
For me, personally,
Is it advantageous to be able to talk about my own Absolutely.
It helps to be -- the word that
In a community you have to put in to benefit.
MR. MURDOCK:
And if we use social
Well, self expression is an
important part of that, right?
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1
MR. ULMAN:
2
MR. MURDOCK:
3 4 5
think that's it.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Okay.
We're out of time.
(Applause) *
*
*
*
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Well, look, guys, I Thank you very much.
