Online Media | ModeShift

Climate Change Is A New Global Organizing Principle

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 27, 2007September 28, 20075

Â NEW YORKÂ — The X Prize Foundation, which developed a new philanthropic idea called “revolution through competition,” toldÂ participants today at the Clinton Global Initiative that it would commit $300 milion in the nextÂ seven years to help solve global crises in each of the four CGI focus areas. The foundation said it is developing new prizes to increase access to renewable fuels, improve energy efficiency, and promote use of cleaner fuels. It also will have …

Onward to Clinton Global Initiative in New York

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 25, 2007September 25, 20070

[youtube]9Jhu6uk3sMw[/youtube] Three years ago when he founded the Clinton Global Initiative, which has emerged as one of the most influential and prestigious annual gatherings of world leaders, former President Bill Clinton understood that the new century’s formative operating principles depended on collaboration, not hierarchy. Only through the efforts ofÂ untraditional allies working together could people make progress on any idea or project of real significance. If you doubt this, just consider that in the 20th …

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 23, 2007April 24, 20214

As a lifelongÂ member of the tribe of career adventuristsÂ it’sÂ time to announce another turn in the journey. I am leaving the Michigan Land Use Institute to take a new position as senior editor and strategist for Circle of Blue, an independent online journalism, research, and movement building organization focused on helping to solve theÂ freshwater crisis.Â What’s especially keen, along with the great promise of a new way to influence aÂ global environmental and economic crisis,Â is thatÂ I won’t have …

Flip: Finding A Heavy Breeze

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 18, 2007September 24, 20070

Â This entry in Mode Shift’s Flip category, which spotlights great online applications of multi-media technology,Â introduces a brand new mapping tool to help local government officials, utilities, and entrepreneurs identify suitable places to buildÂ commercial-scale wind turbines in Michigan. Developed by the Land Policy Institute at Michigan State University, and dubbed the Michigan Prospecting Tool by itsÂ developers, Charles McKeown and Benjamin Calnin, the online toolÂ provides users an easy and elegant wayÂ to find the windiest places in …

Flip: Interactively Documenting Factory Farms

by Keith SchneiderJuly 31, 2007August 1, 20073

Â Among the priority hazards of joining capital and technology the way we doÂ in the 21st CenturyÂ is that it can blow upÂ the ordinary and familiar — a farm, for instance — into shapes and sizes that are extraordinary. That is what’s happening in Michigan and in many other states in animal agriculture. American meat, poultry, and milk, increasingly, are produced on immenseÂ sites that have come to be known as “factory farms.”Â For those who haven’t followed …

Flip: CFR.org Sets Multi-Media Trends for Non-Profits

by Keith SchneiderJune 19, 2007June 20, 20070

Mike Moran, a journalist, editor, and multi-media specialist who spent nine years of his career at MSNBC.com, an incubator of great talent and technique in the late 1990s,Â has been executive editor since August 2005 of CFR.org, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Internet site. CFR.org, one of the best sites in the non-profit universe, is doing a lot of things very well in making the complex world of foreign affairs simpler to understand, easier to access, …

On Her 100th Birthday: Big Green’s Silent Spring For Rachel Carson

by Keith SchneiderMay 27, 2007May 28, 20073

Across the country this weekend, and especially today, thousands of Americans honored Rachel Carson, the author of “Silent Spring,” who was born 100 years ago on a 65-acre farm in Springdale, Pennsylvania, northeast of Pittsburgh.Â Carson’s legacyÂ was extolled by grassroots activists, lauded by newspaper writers, and commemorated by institutions. She also was villified as a cause of global genocide by conservative free market critics,Â and a Congressional resolution honoring the centennial of her birth was blocked by …

Circle of Blue

by Keith SchneiderMay 16, 2007January 8, 20135

Not long after he earned a graduate degree in journalism fromÂ Northwestern University Carl Ganter made a name for himself here in Traverse City, his hometown,Â as a young writer and photojournalist with an unerring grasp for great stories, and a superb eye for color, light, character, and drama. He could make an ordinary windmill, its blades lit against a dramatic dawn sky, look like the most exotic piece of energy technology ever invented.Â His wife, Eileen Ganter, …

New Measure of Community Vitality: Neighborhoods That Blog

by Keith SchneiderApril 30, 2007April 30, 20072

Outside.in isÂ a Web site launched last year to gatherÂ the panoply of writers doingÂ place-based blogging.Â The site is the brain child of Steven Johnson, aÂ prominent writer and bloggerÂ in New York who’s written five books and contributes to, among others, the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Johnson was helped by John Geraci, a social media specialist, and John Seely Brown, the former chiefÂ scientist of the Xerox Corporation and member of the board ofÂ Amazon and the MacArthur Foundation. …

Brand Associations That Are Helping Cities, Hammering Suburbs

by Keith SchneiderApril 29, 20071

Nielsen Buzzmetrics, which has offices in New York and Cincinnati,Â is one of the top shopsÂ for usingÂ Internet search engine technology and sophisticated analysis programs toÂ understandÂ consumer attitudesÂ and predict powerful trends.Â The company combs millions of conversations occurring on blogs, message boards, and in chat rooms, sifts outÂ salient details, and analyzes the results to forecast consumer behavior and values.Â Earlier this month Pete Blackshaw, one of the company’s senior leaders, published a Buzzmetrics brand association map (see graphic) that …