Leveraging 'Slacktivism': Turn Content into Object.

Leveraging ‘Slacktivism’: Turn Content into Object.

Whether right or wrong, the physical still dominates the ephemeral in terms of creating impact. One of the most interesting features of the rising voice that digital media is giving the average citizen is that the influential value of something physical seems to remain constant, whereas every additional voice seems to only reduce the impact of an individual thought online.

The internet is fantastic for spreading thought, but not great at spreading action, until things are maniftested physically.

An area where this is supremely evident is politics. While there is a vibrant and informed conversation online about nearly any political issue, actual phone calls and letters still hold more sway, even in much smaller amounts, than emails, blog posts, facebook groups or retweets. The easier it is for someone to share an opinion, the less valued that opinion becomes - our society considers sacrifice and suffering key contributing factors to the validity of a request for change, even if the ‘sacrifice’ is printing something, putting it in an envelope, and mailing it to your Member of Parliament.

Luckily, bringing dissent from the digital to the physical is an automation problem. Aggregation, printing, addressing, and mass mail deliveries. Postage to elected officials is free in Canada. If someone was so inclined, they could collect and screencap every tweet with a politically minded hashtag, print, fold, address and package. If someone was so inclined, they could pick a topic, and then flood the office of the minister responsible with physical evidence of online opinion.

If a company was smart, connected, and inclined, they could sponsor the operating costs of this, and put together a little video explaining the project, the rationale behind it, and the potential impact.

This isn’t limited to companies that work in a field related to printing / reproduction, although a copier company sponsoring something like this, targeted at public opinion on copyright issues would be fantastic. It would work for any company that has a brand and an audience that is aligned with a political issue.

This isn’t just taking advantage of a psychological failing that ranks things we can touch over things we can’t. This is enabling activism without the friction that keeps people from changing things.

People like the guy who takes their talk, and turns it into action.