Rachel Botsman posted this via Twitter today, and I suspect it would be of interest to readers here – an excellent examination of “viral” and an argument against using that term (which I wholeheartedly support).

There’s many quotable quotes in the preso, but one that caught my attention:

“When we say something is viral we focus entirely on the content itself and not on the needs of the people that we are asking to spread our ideas” @Faris

To me that cuts to the core of the argument. I often say (and I think I once read it somewhere, though I’ve long since lost the reference) that viral is something that happens, not some attribute we can design into a communication – i.e. you don’t “make a viral”, you create something that “goes viral”. @Faris’ comment sums this up beautifully.

The preso also hints at something Duncan Watts covers in his book 6 Degrees, which is that for something to spread through networks successfully, it needs to cross different community network boundaries.

This is the power of connectors in networks – often we focus our attention on the hubs (i.e. targeting a-list bloggers, or people with large follower counts) but the connectors, the people that enable memes to jump between disparate networks, are key to the spread of ideas.

Another quick note to mention that Amnesty International Australia are hiring – from the AIA team:

AIA is recruiting! We’re looking for an experienced, energetic digital marketing professional to help us with our ambitious growth objectives. The role is responsible for designing and implementing online initiatives to recruit, retain and mobilise supporters. They need to be a whizz at copywriting, e-comms, design optimisation, SEM, SEO and social media — plus a bit of a data geek.

More information about the position is on the AIA site.

Just a quick note to mention that Eventbrite, a popular event organising web application, has announced discount pricing for non-profits and charities – Eventbrite for causes.

The blog post makes mention of the U.S. requirements, but the pricing extends to non-profits in other countries as well.

As mentioned previously, I’m attending the Social Innovation Camp organised by ASIX this weekend – now only one sleep to go.

I was going to write a quick post on my hopes for the weekend, but I read James Dellow’s take on it this morning and he says it better than I could, so head over and have a read of what he said ;)

I, too, will be attending in a “roving ‘mentor’” capacity, and I’m very much looking forward to participating in developing the variety of interesting and inspiring projects that have been invited to the camp. Should be a lot of fun…

Registration for attending the camp is now closed, but for those of you who want to follow proceedings from afar, follow AuSIX on Twitter, or search for the #ozsicamp hash tag.