Check Out Care2′s Cause Channels

We discontinued posting to this blog when Care’s Cause Channels launched. Check ‘em out!

 

Great New Greenpeace Video on Kleenex

We’ve been following this issue for a while now, with Greenpeace’s Kleercut campaign, and now there’s a great new video on the issue. Unfortunately WordPress doesn’t allow embeds of flash videos outside of a few services (GRRR WordPress!), so I’m going to just have to link to it. There are some great details about the Wall*E + Kleenex = Iron*E campaign on the Greenpeace website.

 

Care2 and The Petition Site Have New Faces!

We are so happy to announce the launch of our newly re-designed Care2.com and thepetitionsite.com! It’s been months in the planning, and after many late nights, our team has launched a beautiful new site. The site is much easier to navigate and really represents the many aspects of how we are trying to help our members make a difference in the world. Check it out!

 

Flutterfrog Ultra Rough Cut Footage

We have a very rough cut of the Flutterfrog’s flight in Portland.

Also check out the great slide show on Flickr.

 

The Flutterfrog’s Maiden Voyage

From Alex F., designer and pilot of Care2′s Flutterfrog:

For those of you who are wondering how the FlutterFrog’s maiden voyage turned out, it was frickin’ awesome. The audience loved our goofy costumes, and laughed in the right places at our skit. Out trip down the runway was straight, our glide was level and respectably long at forty feet, and I’ve had landings much rougher than ours in commercial jetliners. Ultimately, we did not walk away with any prizes, but we did a better job than most of the teams there, we learned a ton, we had a great time, and we’re *SO* on track for a victory in 2009!

Hopefully there’ll be video of her maiden voyage later this week.

 

Flutterfrog and Crew

The Flutterfrog and crew are ready to go.

 

The Care2 Flutterfrog

Every year, Red Bull sponsors a contest called Flugtag USA. Supposedly the challenge is to achieve homemade, human-powered flight, but as near as I can tell, the real goal is to dive off a pier with as much style as possible. That and to have a good time doing it.

The reason I’m bringing it up is because Alex Feinberg, one of Care2′s engineers, was inspired to submit a proposal for Flugtag, and for the past three weeks, the “Flutterfrog” has been slowly coming together in a garage just north of Redwood City.

It’s been a blast building this amalgam of treefrog and butterfly. The team is especially proud that the Flutterfrog is earth-friendly (made from over 90 percent sustainable or recycled materials).

Launch day is Saturday, August 2 in Portland, Oregon’s Tom McCall Waterfront Park. If you’re in the area, come on by and wish the flight team well! If you can’t make it out, wish the FlutterFrog team good luck via ThePetitionSite.

You can also help our team win the people’s choice award by sending a text message to 72855 (RBULL) with TEAM 17 in the body between 11am and 4pm PST on Saturday, August 2. Help us win!

If you’re curious, the San Mateo Daily News and the Daily Journal wrote articles about the project. There’s also a short slideshow slideshow to be found at Flickr. And even a series of short, homemade videos of the Flutterfrog being built:

The folks at Care2—they’re a talented bunch.

 

Netroots – Lawrence Lessig Speech

I have to say, this was one of the highlights of my time at Netroots Nation. Larry Lessig is an amazing speaker, period. His powerpoint presentation was stunning, with individual words and phrases showing up on the big screens as he said them, and many funny and fascinating photos and videos as examples.

The overarching theme of Lessig’s presentation was “9%.” He even had us chant it – “nine per-cent.” After a few examples, he came out with it – 9% is the amount of people who believe that our government is performing its function to the best of its ability. This particularly had to do with the ability of our leaders to stay fair when money comes into the equation.

 

Netroots – Speaker Pelosi, Al Gore

Not much to say about Speaker Pelosi’s q&a session. Frankly, it was a bit lackluster. I heard a lot of people say they were disappointed by how lovingly people welcomed her, with a standing ovation every time she said something that they agreed with, but that she hasn’t really done anything about. There were some Code Pink protesters there, who got a little rowdy at the end, but other than that there was not so much pressure on her when she was answering the questions.

And of course, Al Gore showed up shortly after, and his speech was (as always) breathtaking. He began by equating drilling to solve our gas crisis with drinking a beer in the morning to cure a hangover, which I thought was hilariously awesome. And of course he talked a lot about the Alliance for Climate Protection, and their goal to recruit 10 million activists.

 

Netroots – How Transparency and Interactivity can Make Government More Accountable and Effective

Running a little late, so I’m blogging about yesterday’s sessions. (I know…so much for timeliness). Yesterday and today were very busy, needless to say.

First thought about this session? Wow, that’s a long title. Many of these sessions have excessively long titles, but this session made up for it. I learned about a lot of interesting tools.

Andrew Hoppin started things off – he’s from the NASA CoLab, and has done a lot of work to bring more transparency within NASA. But quickly Micah Sifry took over. Sifry is with the Sunlight Foundation (who are VERY well represented at this conference) and the Personal Democracy Forum. We’ve worked with Sunlight before, and they’re a great organization whose focus is really to improve the legislative process by using the internet and the social web to “shine light” on what goes on in Washington.