Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.

What’s most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to the People they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of technology, and we are all better for it.

For most of us, social media has changed our lives in some meaningful way. Collectively it is changing the world for good. Given the pace of innovation and adoption, change has become a constant. Every so often we find the need to stop and reflect on its most recent and noteworthy developments, hence the following list.

Please note this is not a top-10 list, nor are these listed in any particular order. It’s also incomplete. So we ask that you add to this conversation in the comments. If you’d like to Retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.

1. Take Social Actions: The nonprofit organization Social Actions aggregates “opportunities to make a difference from over 50 online platforms” through its unique API. It recently held the Change the Web Challenge contest in order to inspire the most innovative applications for that API. The Social Actions Interactive Map won the $5,000 first prize. The result is a virtual tour of the world through the lens of social action. “People are volunteering, donating, signing petitions, making loans and doing other social actions as we speak — all over the world. To capture the context of the where, this project uses sophisticated techniques to extract location information from full text paragraphs.” You can also join the Social Actions Community, which is powered by Ning…which now boasts more than one million individual social networks.

2. Twitter with a Purpose: This list could be exclusive to Twitter. The micro-blogging sensation was featured on our first two lists (a three-tweet), and it’s certain to be a fixture. From Tweetsgiving, the virtual Thanksgiving feast, to the Twestival, which organized 202 off-line events around the world to benefit charity: water, it’s become the de facto tool for organizing and taking action. Tweet Congress won the SXSW activism award, and celebrity Tweeps Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Rose Tweeted their two million followers about ending malaria. Max Gladwell recently initiated the #EcoMonday follow meme as a way to connect and organize the Green Twittersphere.

3. Visit White House 2.0: Inside of its first 100 days, the Obama administration has managed to set the historic benchmark for government transparency and accountability. The President’s virtual town hall meeting used WhiteHouse.gov to crowdsource questions from his 300 million constituents, complete with voting to determine the ones he’d have to answer. All told, 97,937 people submitted 103,978 questions and cast 1,782,650 votes. The White House continues to raise the bar with its official Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter channels. In so doing President Obama is not just setting the standard for state and local government in the U.S. He’s establishing the world standard. The Obama administration is spreading democracy not by force but through example. Because you don’t have to be an American citizen to be a friend or follower of White House 2.0.

4. Claim your Zumbox: What happens when all mail can be sent and delivered online to any street address in a paperless form? That’s the big question for Zumbox, which has created an online mail system with a digital mailbox for every U.S. street address. And while the answer to that question remains to be seen, it promises to be as liberating as it is disruptive. A key quality for Zumbox is that it’s closed system much like that of Facebook, only instead of true identity it’s true address. This will enable people to better connect with their communities including their neighbors, local businesses, and the mayor’s office. The primary agent of change, though, might not be that this uses street addresses but that it enables direct and potentially viral feedback, which is a virtue that e-mail and the USPS do not offer. The first methods are to request exclusive paperless delivery and to block a sender, but others are certain to evolve such as real-time commenting and ways to share mail with friends, family, and colleagues. Welcome to Mail 2.0. (Disclosure: Zumbox is a client of Rob Reed, the founder of Max Gladwell.)

5. Host a Social Media Event: This is the year of the social media event. No meaningful gathering of people is complete without an interactive online audience, especially when it’s so easy and cost effective to pull off. Essential tools include a broadband connection, laptop, video camera, projector, and screen. Add people and a purpose, such as entrepreneurship. Promote it through social media channels, and you have a social media event. A recent example in the green world is the Evolution of Green, which was hosted by Creative Citizen, a green wiki community. It celebrated the launch of a new Web property, EcoMatters, while also establishing a new Twitter tag. By posing the question, “How can we go from green hype to green habit?” and including the #GreenQ hashtag, it sparked a conversation between attendees and the Twittersphere in real time. Thus was born a new mechanism for getting answers to green questions via Twitter.

6. Travel the World: More than anyone else, Tim O’Reilly knows the potential for social media to change the world. In his opening keynote at this year’s Web 2.0 Expo, he called for a new ethic in which we do more with less and create more value than we capture. This provided the context for SalaamGarage founder Amanda Koster, whose presentation followed O’Reilly’s. The idea is that social media has enabled each of us to have an audience. Whether through Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, or a personal blog, each of us can have influence and reach. What’s more, it can be used for good. SalaamGarage coordinates trips for citizen journalists (that means you) to places like India and Vietnam in conjunction with non-government organizations like Seattle-based Peace Trees. The destination is the story, as these humanitarian journalists report on the people they meet and discoveries they make. Their words, images, and video are posted to the social web to gain exposure and because these stories just need to be told.

7. Build It on Drupal: You may not have noticed, but the open-source Drupal content management system (CMS) has quickly become the dominant player on the social web. While we still prefer WordPress as a strict blogging application, Drupal has emerged as the go-to platform for building scalable, community-driven Web sites. It powers Recovery.gov, a key part of President Obama’s commitment to transparency and accountability. PopRule uses it as a social news platform for politics. And Drupal will soon become the platform for Causecast, a site where “media, philanthropy, social networking, entertainment and education converge to serve a greater purpose.” This is especially significant because Causecast CEO Ryan Scott is transitioning the site off of Ruby on Rails because Drupal has proved more efficient, user friendly, and cost effective. (Disclosure: Max Gladwell founder Rob Reed is co-founder of PopRule.)

8. Green Your iPhone: Looking for an organic diner within biking distance that has a three-star green rating? There’s a app for that. It’s called 3rd Whale, and you can download it for free. (Except that the star rating is actually a whale rating.) Complete with Facebook Connect, this iPhone app locates green products and businesses in 30 major North American cities. It uses the iPhone’s dial function to select a category (food), sub-category (restaurants), and distance (walking, biking, or driving). In Santa Monica, this might give you Swingers diner for its selection of veggie and vegan fare. You could then get directions from your current location using the iPhone’s built-in Google map, rate your experience on the three-whale scale, and write up a quick review. 3rd Whale recently released a new feature that integrates green-living tips, which can show how much energy or waste you’ll save by taking a given action.

9. Unite the World Through Video: Matt’s dancing around the world video inspired many to tears. Today, more than 20 million people have viewed his YouTube masterpiece, where he performs a kooky dance with the citizens of planet earth. The most recent example of this approach is Playing for Change, which connects the world through song. The project started in Santa Monica with a street performance of the classic Stand By Me and expanded to New Orleans, New Mexico, France, Brazil, Italy, Venezuela, South Africa, Spain, and The Netherlands. The project was superbly executed via social media, complete with a YouTube channel, MySpace, Facebook, and Blog. It’s received tremendous mainstream media exposure and also benefits a foundation of the same name.

10. Rate a Company: The conversation about corporate social responsibility (CSR) takes place across the social web on blogs, Twitter, and YouTube, but a central hub for this information and opinion is still to be determined. SocialYell seeks to address this by building an online community around the CSR conversation, where users can submit reviews of companies together with nonprofit organizations and even public figures like Michelle Obama. The major topics are the Environment, Health, Social Equity, Consumer Advocacy, and Charity. The reviews are voted and commented on by the community in a Reddit-like fashion with both up (Yell) and down (shhh) voting. The site is relatively new and still gaining traction, but there’s no question that a resource like this is needed to shine a bright light on CSR and and other related issues.

11. Publish a collective, simultaneous blog post on a universal topic: As Nigel Tufnel might say, this list goes to eleven. Let the #10Ways conversation begin…

Final note: This is Max Gladwell’s third list of “10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media.” The first was posted a year ago today on Sustainablog.org, and the sequel followed five months later. If a single headline can capture the Max Gladwell raison d’etre, this is it.

I will be speaking tonight for the Kentucky – Indiana Personal Computer Users Group (KIPCUG) at the CCUM Assembly Hall at 7:30pm. Networking will begin at 6:30pm, so if you are in the area, would love to see you there!

The topic will be using social media to connect with family, friends, and for job searching. We will be broadcasting live via Ustream – watch your Tweets for the start.
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Well, off we go on our first week of the 10 in 10 experiment. In case you missed it, I’m on a mission to meet 10 folks that I’ve never met in real life before over the next 10 weeks. I’ll start making a hashtag in Twitter for this as well for future easy tracking: #10in10.

I think that 10 in 10 provides an interesting alternative that other in person networking events and online social media interactions do not necessarily cover:

• Introverts are more comfortable with a one-on-one setting: less pressure, easier to open up
• Networking events might not allow you enough quality time with an individual
• Networking events may have some cliques already, and if you’re not a part of them, that sucks
• You often will gravitate towards people you already know, so you miss out on meeting new people
• Social media is a great way to connect, but you don’t necessarily know who you are dealing with
• There is more to meeting people than a handshake and a business card

So this week I had the pleasure of meeting David Finch, Producer at Vupal Network LLC.

I learned some good things about David and what he does for a living. I knew that he blogged on his site, but I didn’t know much about his main gig over at Vupal. And by the look of things, they are producing some awesome content that is all about food. Dear readers, I suggest you check out some of their sites:

• foodvu.com
• groceryschool.com
• therookiecookshow.com

It was also cool to hear that David is fairly new to Louisville as well. We’ve been here for about a year and a half now, so it’s always good to hear how other people wind up here as well

I knew of David before, but now I’ve been able to spend some quality time with him. I’m sure we’ll see each other again, and perhaps we’ll be able to help each other out in each other’s efforts as well. So as you can see, we’re really off to a great start! Looking forward to our next 10 in 10 this coming Tuesday where I’ll be meeting a Mr. Kevin Mason who is graciously driving all the way from Nashville!

Which brings me to another point…toying with the idea of giving a small prize to the person that travels the farthest – anyone want to get in on that action?

You know what happened? Jason Calacanis said “follow him.” (I took out my angst on the picture, can you tell?)

I really enjoyed refreshing every 3 seconds to see another dozen or so followers adding Mr. Modine, and some automatic bot adding them back (Twitter couldn’t even keep up, if you’ll note the sole icon down in the bottom).

It happens every day – but that’s how Twitter works.

“Last month Alex Iskold suggested that there are 3 basic types of Twitter users.

There are listeners, who pull in a lot of information but don’t send much out. Talkers, who push information out to a lot of users, but don’t take much in. And there are hubs, people who both follow and are followed.

“Think of Twitter as a large network for information dissemination,” wrote Iskold. “It typically starts with talkers, flows through the hubs and ends up at listeners.” ” – ReadWriteWeb on TwitterMeThis

And it is this flow of Twitter that sent one of my favorite follows packing. Hugh MacLeod writes “I liked Twitter. But I found it too easy” as his lame excuse for leaving all his adoring fans hanging. We’ll miss you!

gapingvoid : No, seriously. I’m leaving Twitter. Cheerio. [Big Kiss]

I guess it’s back to Google, Yahoo, TechCrunch, Flickr, Youtube, Web 2.0, and blogs for the tweeter formerly known as @gapingvoid.

#YIF: Why I Follow

So there’s this thing called hashtags for Twitter, in case you didn’t know about them. Basically people stick them in their tweets and the themes get aggregated by hashtag aggregators, like Hashtags.org.

There’s all kinds of hashtags, like for conferences (#sxsw tracked the live micro-blogging of the South by Southwest Interactive conference) and political debates. #yif is the hashtag for “why I follow,” and you can really do some data mining with the stuff people say.

jljohansen: @chrisbrogan The 3 people I talk with the most on Twitter are @ikepigott @dough and recently @swhitley Always good conversations. #yif

danieljohnsonjr: @scottsigler #yif bcuz w/ his twisted mind, better to know where he’s coming from & going to. Infected: April 1st!

BarbaraKB: @CathleenRitt #yif Admits to “getting nothing done,” shares hair stories, does stand-up comedy while practicing financial wizardy in NYC.

To me, this is revolutionary. What other social tools encourage people to not only publicly state why they like you, but also track those responses for all the world to analyze?

Nowhere else but Twitter do you get an open book test on being popular.

#YUT: Why You Twitter

sonnygill@nowsourcing Never mocked, was just skeptical on its usefulness…boy was I wrong. Able to connect & converse w/industry leaders, how great.18 minutes ago from web in reply to nowsourcing

MarkLaymon @nowsourcing your obsessive talking about it made me follow it more, in doing so I have found it as an easy way to follow the smm industry 23 minutes ago from web in reply to nowsourcing

kdpaine @nowsourcing the iowa caucuses 24 minutes ago from web in reply to nowsourcing

TheNanny612 @nowsourcing The people, the conversation, the humor, great questions with helpful and inspiring answers. It is like IM on speed… love it!26 minutes ago from twhirlin reply to nowsourcing

bdthomas @nowsourcing I started out loving twitter, now I mock it. Regardless, I’m still addicted. 27 minutes ago from twitterrific in reply to nowsourcing

BarbaraKB @nowsourcing never knocked it. been an addict for a year now. may need to delete like @gapingvoid… 28 minutes ago from web in reply to nowsourcing

SilentJay74 @nowsourcing you talking to me? 29 minutes ago from web in reply to nowsourcing

gideonshalwick @mayobrains – gutsy survey, but i love it! @jtunkelo and i have been talking about the virtues of twitter for the last year! http://web20marketinglive.com 1 minute ago from im in reply to mayobrains

melaniephung @mayobrains I still have no earthly idea. There’s something about the constant updates that just sucks me in. half a minute ago from web in reply to mayobrains

hyperlinked @mayobrains Although I didn’t mock, I didn’t see the point. Did it: My friends joined, I met new people, got recent news updates. 3 minutes ago from twitterrific in reply to mayobrains

UtahSEOpro @mayobrains the fact that everyone else uses Twitter too. if it had a lower user-base then i couldn’t communicate as pervasively 2 minutes ago from TwitterFox in reply to mayobrains

What outrageously great things have you seen on Twitter this week?