GreenSmith Consulting

U2, Oxfam America, New York MTA: Green Hypocrites?

2009-11-04T04:00:00-08:00

If you're looking for an example of someone who walks their talk, Mike Lieberman would be your man. Best known as CanarsieBK on the web, this Brooklyn man is a living, breathing demonstration of how one can live sustainably, anywhere. He proves anything is possible, growing a thriving vegetable garden on his fire escape, and demonstrating actionable steps, daily, on how to be personally sustainable. And he's definitely not afraid to speak his mind.

Today Lieberman takes aim at those who don't seem to be walking the talk, balanced with options they could choose to align their actions better with their words. Do you agree with what he says? Have other views? Have other creative solutions for these and other organizations and globe trotting bands? Chime in, below.

With the green movement becoming more trendy, there are lots of high profile companies, organizations and individuals that claim to be green, but are they green hypocrites?  

They talk the green talk, but they don't walk the green walk. Since they are in high profile positions they have the ear of people and are saying one thing, but their actions say otherwise.  

 Arguably the biggest rock band of the past three decades, U2 has been vocal over the years about their stance on the climate and social injustice.  

On their current "No Line on the Horizon" tour, their acts have demonstrated the opposite of what they've been saying. Due to the extravagant stage set, requiring 100 trucks, there is a massive crew (200 people) that need to travel with the band.  

Carbonfootprint.com has said the tour's carbon emissions are equal to "the four band members travelling the 34.125 million miles from Earth to Mars in a passenger plane".  

Carbonfootprint.com also says that the tour will also create as much waste as 6,500 average people in 1 year. To offset this, U2 would have to plant 20,118 trees simply to offset this one tour's dates.  

The band has said that they would pay the carbon offset charges, but is that the solution to just throw money at it?

  I think that this has a pretty simple solution - don't be excessive in your stage set. Yes, it's nice and great for the fans, but if you are going to talk the talk, walk it as well. Otherwise, it's just a PR stunt.

  Oxfam America 

Back in September, Oxfam America held The Human Countdown event in Central Park. Its purpose was to send a message to the world leaders that time is running out to act on climate change.  

Volunteers, including myself, transformed ourselves into the planet earth, which trickled down through an hourglass, then formed the words “tck tck tck.” The purpose and intent of the event was great. It gathered a large group of people to "voice" their message to the world leaders.  

With Oxfam organizing the event, you'd expect everything to be environmentally friendly especially since we were all joined to combat climate change. Unfortunately, this was not the case.  

The ponchos that were given to the volunteers who made up the hourglass were made from thin throwaway plastic. The shirts and hats that were given to the earth volunteers were made in Haiti and Bangladesh, respectively.

  I'm sure pulling off an event like that isn't easy. It's also difficult to do in an environmentally friendly manner as well, but you are saying we are here to combat climate change and on the other you are contributing to the problem.

  A solution for this would be to solicit eco-friendly companies that would likely be willing to attach their names to such an event. Yes, companies aren't going to jump at the chance and several calls would likely need to be placed, but then the message that you are saying would jive with the message that you are sending.  

NYC MTA

 The NYC MTA prides itself on being environmentally conscious. When riding the subways there are ads in the cars saying how environmentally friendly taking the subway is.   On their site they state, "Thanks in large part to the MTA, the energy consumption and CO2 output of New Yorkers is approximately a quarter of the national average." They even have an MTA Effect Calculator.  

This is all fine and dandy, but then you go into the subway station and buy a MetroCard that is disposable. At some stations, notably the AirTrain station going to and from JFK Airport these cards come in plastic packaging as well. Seems like a lot of unnecessary waste to me.  

Solutions to this could be to offer plastic recycle bins at the stations for the cards and packaging. Otherwise, they just go to the landfills. Ideally plastic wouldn't be used at all, but recycling is the next best option.  

 These are three groups and companies that are in the spotlight and are vocal about the "green" movement, yet their actions say something else. On one hand they are bringing awareness to the problem by talking about it, but they aren't showing people what can be done about it.  

Are U2, Oxfam, and MTA being green hypocrites or is just them bringing awareness to the situations enough?

Ok readers, you heard him. Your thoughts? To me, it's a gray issue, as sometimes with events and companies, it's difficult to get all the moving parts in sync, all at once. For others, it's pure laziness, doing the minimum to get by. Some, they just don't know, and need to be made aware of inconsistencies. I'd say for all, it's acknowledging what's been done well, and encouraging, however it will most have effect and be listened to, that they keep going further. U2? I'm sorry, no excuse, to me that tour is ridiculously inexcusable, as it is now.

Coming soon...

2009-10-28T11:50:34-07:00

I've got something bubbling up inside me, and it's all Chris Brogan's fault. The man who I'm sure has a stunt double or two for all that he does, issued a challenge in a recent video, Overnight Success Part 2 - A Call to Arms.

In it, he said that it's time for us to stop just playing small, playing remedial when it comes to using social media to its full potential. Time to level up, together, as it were.

It knocked something loose in me.

I began to write all sorts of thoughts, not necessarily focused on social media, but instead on sustainability, and how I see people and businesses practicing it and shifting others towards it in a healthier and well, more sustainable, enjoyable fashion than is prevalent now. Social Media definitely plays a part.

What I've been writing has more questions then answers, and when it comes together to something I'd like to share with you, you'll be the first to see. Something big is bubbling inside me, and it's time to let it out. And I want your minds and hearts in on it too.

Stay tuned...

Do You Know Your Community? Does the Community Know You?

2009-10-21T05:00:00-07:00

I believe that we learn best by hearing from many different voices. And in this case, I'm learning along with you in our latest guest post. Like many of you, I use my deep, broad online resources almost exclusively for getting new business, and with the exception of one client, all are from other parts of the country, or even out of the country. Here we have Victoria Klein reminding us to pay attention to and make best use of what's going on right in our local communities, in terms of business, and gives several excellent resources to best explore it. Please share any we've missed, of which I'm sure you know some gems.

The wide wide World Wide Web has become an indispensable business tool in a very short amount of time. Websites, blogs, social media accounts – the way we do business has forever changed … or has it?

No matter how many virtual meetings we share, nothing can replace the importance of talking and collaborating face-to-face. The same concept goes for promoting and growing your business. You can have clients in all parts of the world, but does the mom-and-pop store down the street known what you do? With their own unique needs and perspectives, local residents and businesses are indispensable source for a business of any size. They are the original world of social networking.

But where do you start? How can you bring your knowledge, experience, and services to those who may need you the most – the folks right in your city? The answer is much simpler than the question: walk and talk. Now is the time to put in the time and effort to call or visit local ventures to, at the very least, introduce yourself and pass on a business card.

I’m not encouraging you to walk into this blind. Nor do I want you to desperately try to sell yourself like a telemarketer. Like any important project, step one is research. Delve into your local business community to find those that would benefit the most from you services. Start with:

BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies
Yahoo! Local
GenGreen Life Directory

Seek out local business organizations for advertising opportunities and networking events, which are more common than ever. Use your talents to volunteer with a local non-profit – another networking goldmine. Don’t overlook any opportunity to talk with a real human about your work: hobby meetups, library events, weekly farmers’ markets, high school reunions … the possibilities are endless.

You don’t need to join yet another website to get the word out about your business – just knock on your neighbor’s door. Watch the 6 degrees of separation in action by joining in and sharing with your local community.

Readers: So, what do you think? What other resources do you use to connect with and learn about your local community and its resources, businesses? Let's talk about it below.

Victoria Klein is a writer, eco-consultant, and photographer who uses her creative interests to explore the delight and difficulty of the human experience, and our effect on the planet. You can read her blog here.

image credit: itzafineday on Flickr

Modwalls Green Tiles Video Review - Taking Junk and Creating Beauty

2009-10-01T11:56:19-07:00

Being on Twitter, I come across a lot of interesting finds. Like Modwalls, that makes some gorgeous, thoroughly sustainable tiles, made from things like recycled car windshields, reclaimed building glass, tumbled soda bottle pieces, and wine corks! They spin gold from these modest sounding origins, as you'll see in the video review I did, below.

I was impressed with the depth of their sustainability, as even their packing materials are these innovative triangle shaped pieces of paper. I suspect they're much more likely by people to be recycled then, say, soy or corn starch based "popcorn" are going to be composted. They take CarbonFund's advice, reducing what they can, and offsetting the rest.

Enough words, let's see these tiles! If you have some creative, interesting green building finds to share, please do, below. And if you've got a blog on this area that people would enjoy, let us know too!

The Best Feature of Snow Leopard: What it's Missing

2009-09-15T04:00:00-07:00

In recent weeks there have been several articles on the best and least known features of Apple's new operating system, Snow Leopard. From Quicktime's ability to record and edit audio, video, and screencasts, to its Exchange support, to the small but pleasing ability to minimize documents to their respective app icons in the dock (rather then to the side of the dock in a messy jumble) there has been a lot covered.

But perhaps the best and least heralded feature of Snow Leopard is what it's missing: 10% of its energy use, compared to its predecessor, Leopard.

Among the factors contributing to that are Snow Leopard's fuller use of 64-bit technology, which according to CNET, "…allows application developers to allocate more memory to complete tasks so that the software runs faster and more smoothly."

What does this mean?

For you as a user, it means things like their iChat application using a third of the memory it did in Leopard, allowing for more robust interactions including slide presentations, without either excessively taxing the computer or crashing the application.

But there's a broader, bigger implication here: 10% energy savings per computer, added up across a company, across the millions who will buy this operating system, is going to mean a huge impact, both on cost savings and resources needed. And when unplugged, the resulting increased battery life will mean both longer usefulness per charge and less frequent replacements of the battery.

According to Environmental Leader, "Considering Apple’s annual sales of about 10 million computers, the savings will translate to more than 80 million kWh a year, or nearly $10 million in electricity, calculated against a power systems review of the new operating system from CNET."

So, set aside your qualms about whether Snow Leopard counts as a true update or merely a service pack, Snow Leopard will both make your Mac a more efficient ally to what you're working on, and how much energy you consume doing it. Now if Apple could fix its packaging issues when buying it from them online, this would be a real home run.

Readers: What's been your experience with Snow Leopard? Anything you've discovered we should know about? What other examples of "green coding" have you seen out there recently, or have in development?

What's in Your Bag?

2009-08-27T11:37:28-07:00

Sometimes you find inspiration in the most unusual places. This time it showed up at breakfast, in the most humble of origins.

I like to read with my breakfast. Totally against the high minded Ayurvedic digestive principles of my wife Vanessa, aka @CoachVanessa. But my mind needs feeding just like my stomach, and sometimes there's some surprising treats to be found.

Like this morning, with nothing close at hand to read, I began to look at the nearest thing, a bag containing the brown paper lunch bags we use for scooping cat litter in to.

These Safeway Basic Red lunch bags contained a surprise.

Just below the words LUNCH BAGS, it said:

SELF STANDING • FLAT BOTTOM • EASY TO OPEN

I had to laugh, as of course they're all these things. That copywriter must have been bleeding out the ears trying to come up with "features."

But then I thought, If a simple brown paper bag can be stretched to fit such previously un-thought of features, what is there about your company that we should know about that you haven't told us yet? What do you take for granted that we'd see as special, worth supporting? We're waiting.

What is it about your company, your culture, your product, that you take for granted that, when shared with others, would be seen as extraordinary? Help us see what you do, are, or offer that will make our lives better, expands our possibilities, is a boon to the planet, and is just plain a pleasure to experience. And please, don't deal in trivialities, give us something of substance. We'll thank you, and tell others.

And internally, what might be the effect of seeing yourself and your company in a new light? It's a no cost, high benefit endeavor I'd say.

Get to work. And tell us what you come up with, here in the comments.

How do you turn a Billboard from Eyesore to Treasure?

2009-07-29T05:30:00-07:00

Did you ever wonder what happens to billboards when they're taken down? The reality is this: These thick, largely unrecyclable masses of material typically get thrown away. On average, 10,000 tons, or 3 million billboards annually in the US alone.

TerraCycle saw an opportunity here, leveraging the material's extreme durability, something that could be considered a liability when seen in terms of waste disposal, with the idea of making backpacks, messenger bags and more, with a lifetime warranty. Not something many other $35 bags can say!

Each bag is completely unique, as it comes from various parts of billboards, forming an attractive, cohesive design. Rather than wrestle with how to go about making something they'd never attempted, they enlisted the expertise of YakPak, a company with an ideal combination of decades of bag making experience and high integrity in their employee relations.

Instead of writing all about the bag I got to test, I decided to show you, in GreenSmith Consulting's first ever video review. Enjoy!

A bag like this sparks the imagination. Where did each part of it come from? What did this small piece on the front look like from a distance, up there on a billboard? What else could be done with other likewise "unrecyclable" materials?

For kids, and I imagine adults, having something that comes directly from its previous source, rather then something whose original source has been obscured as it's melted, shredded, and otherwise made unrecognizable from its previous incarnation, will be a very satisfying experience, one that they can share with friends and colleagues, serving both as an ego boost for the owner and an educational experience for those asking about it.

Readers: What other interesting examples of upcycling have you seen out there? What other materials that aren't currently being recycled could you see being upcycled into products? Do you own a Terracycle bag? If so, what's been your experience? Comment below please.

I Hate to Break it to You About Neoprene, But....

2009-07-22T04:00:00-07:00

It's easy to say you haven't got something in your product. Encouraged even. Petroleum free is a popular one. And yet, what are the consequences of what's used in its place? GreenSmart faced this quandry, and came up with an interesting, evolving solution. Read on...

I have a confession to make: I like the smell of gas. And neoprene too. Yes, two things made from a substance that, as a sustainable business consultant, I should be by default expressing some cartoonish righteous indignation about their being petroleum based products.

And yet, there's something that hits my nostrils in such a pleasant way, I can't help it. But, at least when it comes to neoprene, I'd better.

You see, as I learned from the folks at GreenSmart (client) that neoprene, especially what's used to glue it to other things, is nasty business. Formaldehyde. Toluene. Phthalate. Chlorine. "Hang on, Toluene, what's that," you say? According to Wikipedia, "It is an aromatic hydrocarbon that is widely used as an industrial feedstock and as a solvent. Like other solvents, toluene is also used as an inhalant drug for its intoxicating properties; however this causes severe neurological harm."

Ah, brain damaging glue. No thanks.

What about neoprene itself? Again, let's tune in to Wikipedia:

"Although neoprene itself is not a skin contact sensitizer, certain neoprene adhesives contain 4% rosin (CAS No. 8050-09-7, previously known as "colophony"), which is a skin contact sensitizer under the European Union Dangerous Preparations Directive 1999/45/EC.[1] Some people are allergic to neoprene while others can get dermatitis from thiourea, a compound used to vulcanize rubber into neoprene which can be left over after the manufacturing process.

Lead-containing compounds, such as litharge (lead(II) oxide), are used as compounding agents to prepare finished products made of neoprene, and these can have a toxic effect on human blood, kidneys, and reproductive systems."

That doesn't sound good.

But what to do? The formulation for neoprene, and what's been used with it, has stayed largely the same since it's creation in the 1930s. Patagonia has done an admirable job attempting to create a non petroleum based neoprene, but it misses the mark on two points: It's limestone based, another non renewable resource, and it still uses those toxic solvents.

GreenSmart, previously known for converting their entire line of products to recycled plastic bottle based fabric has now created Neogreene. What's different, aside from a catchy name?

No toxic solvents. Water based, in fact. No VOCs. (that Neoprene smell, oh I'll miss it!) 25% less energy to make their products. 25% less petroleum, too. I know, petroleum is still in there, and they intend to reduce/eliminate that as well, but it's going to take thorough thinking, finding a replacement that doesn't likewise deplete resources.

All fine and good, but how's the gear they make with it?

Having tried a sample of both their laptop sleeve and water bottle tote, I can confirm they've done their homework on the rest of the product as well. You can see holes punched in the Neogreene at the base of their laptop sleeves, where your laptop is likely to still be cooling off after you've closed it. Two simple zipper pulls, with a nicely sized rubber grip on each.

And, you'll notice something missing.

No big box or cardboard frame around the sleeve when you buy it in a store. Just a small elastic loop to hang it up on the rack, and a small tag + sticker for your laptop.

On the sleeve itself there is stylized column of words detailing what it does and doesn't have. The color is just slightly different then the sleeve itself, so it manages to be subtle yet noticeable.

The water bottle tote repeats this same design scheme, helping de-granolify this most useful accessory for people wanting to carry their water bottles around while hiking, out on the trail, or on the train. And the green coloring of the Neogreene? Water based dyes (neoprene cannot be dyed)

Would I recommend them? Definitely. Yes they're my clients, and yet it should be noted I only work with companies I can respect. GreenSmart definitely earns that.

Want to dig deeper in to what Neogreene is about, learn for yourself about it? See for yourself here. (It's both a web page and a pdf download.)

And before you say it, yes please, do contact them to tell them you're interested in wetsuits out to them. I've stopped being surprised after hearing it 4 times now. Hmm, an unmet need just waiting to be filled. You never know! They're making lunchbags next, why not scuba gear? Ok, perhaps not, but they can pass on interest to their partner in creation of Neogreene.

Readers: What other things that we all use are in need of a sustainable rehaul? What are some examples of success at that? Please comment below.

Note To Twitter Users: Please Stop Doing #FollowFriday Tweets

2009-07-15T03:00:00-07:00

Nothing anybody tells you to do on Twitter is an absolute. Nothing. How you use it is truly up to you. That is, of course, unless you're an avid spammer, in which case you'll be dropped off Twitter. Other then that, it's your party.

But if there's one thing I'm feeling more & more strong about, it's advocating that you stop doing #FollowFriday tweets. And #EcoMonday while you're at it too. Well, not stop, but stop using it mindlessly.

Let me back up.

For those of you unfamiliar, #FollowFriday and #EcoMonday are two examples of hashtags, words marked with a # sign to help easily gather and make searchable tweets on a certain subject. In this case, it's people that you recommend others follow, the former being anybody you know, the latter being green/enviro/sustainability oriented people.

Why would I recommend against such a friendly, helpful sounding practice?

Because in most cases, it's lost any significance and lasting value. Most people simply list a huge number of people, with a #followfriday or #ff at the end. Or even worse, they retweet what someone else has tweeted. Why bother? It shows little thought and that you're doing this as a chore, not for any real benefit for those you mention.

For some this may be just being efficient, but to me it's a sign they've not taken any time to really consider who you're recommending, or how to effectively do it.

While it can have some value in the short term - those you mention following back, returning the recommendation, other people possibly choosing to follow your reccomendations - the mass of #followfriday and #ecomonday tweets don't result in an appreciable increase in followers.

I'm not saying don't do this, but do it smarter, resulting in more benefit for those you recommend, and for yourself, showing you care more then to just drop a big scoop of names in people's timelines.

How can you do it smarter?

I tweet with just 3-4 people, each with a brief, informative, or funny blurb by their name. This does two things: Gives context and reduces overload on the part of the recipient, increasing the likelihood they'll actually follow up on your recommendation, resulting in a meaningful connection.

Want to do something even smarter?

If you aren't already, follow @MrTweet and wait for them to follow you back, giving you your unique account url. I can already hear some of your Twitter veterans, retorts at the ready, shooting down this service, which up until recently I would have agreed was in many ways a waste of time.

But now, it's improved in a few appreciable ways:

It allows you to recommend people you think others should follow, giving you the choice of ones it thinks you'd want to recommend, or allowing you to specify who you'd like to recommend. It does still seem to skew to the already popular for who it suggests, a problem I continue to have with it, as I'm more of the mind of recommending the lesser known and those that people might appreciate discovering.

If you don't agree with who Mr. Tweet is suggesting you recommend , you can either remove that account from your list, or at the bottom, you can rate how useful Mr. Tweet is to your needs, along with whatever specifics you'd like to share. Triple covering things, there is a Uservoice feedback tab on the side of the page, allowing you to suggest/vote for feature requests. A sign of a service that actually cares what you have to share.

Mr. Tweet makes it simple and quick to recommend others, with "I recommend Exampleperson because:" already set to go, plus the prompt "he/she is great in..." You just quickly jot down why you think people should follow them, it shows you what resulting message it will broadcast, and off you go, it's been tweeted (if you choose)

Now how is this different than doing a #FollowFriday or #EcoMonday tweet?

A crucial difference is this: Much like StumbleUpon, the more someone is recommended by others, the more Mr. Tweet will recommend them to others using Mr. Tweet. In fact, they say, "People with recommendations are 32x more likely to be suggested." On my account, it says I was suggested to 1936 people in 26 days!

Mr. Tweet's recommendations also give context from within your existing network, telling you who's retweeted them, who follows them now, and giving you the option to see more of each, plus what they've recently tweeted. Taken together, this is a powerful tool to quickly assess if you think following this person is a wise use of your time. Not something a grocery list of people's names followed by #followfriday can do.

So please, as I said at the beginning of this article, do as you see fit, use the resources and advise that work for you. But if you'd like to build your network and reputation capital, I'd highly encourage these practices.

Readers: What practices have worked for you in using Twitter that we could all learn from? What questions do you have that I might answer (or tweet to find out!) What other areas of social media are you using, considering, have questions about?

10 Ways to Support Charity Through Social Media

2009-07-14T09:00:00-07:00

This guest post is a collaboration between Mashable's Summer of Social Good charitable fundraiser and Max Gladwell's "10 Ways" series. The post is being simultaneously published across more than 100 blogs. Social media is about connecting people and providing the tools necessary to have a conversation. That global conversation is an extremely powerful platform for spreading information and awareness about social causes and issues. That's one of the reasons charities can benefit so greatly from being active on social media channels. But you can also do a lot to help your favorite charity or causes you are passionate about through social media.

Below is a list of 10 ways you can use social media to show your support for issues that are important to you. If you can think of any other ways to help charities via social web tools, please add them 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. Write a Blog Post

Blogging is one of the easiest ways you can help a charity or cause you feel passionate about. Almost everyone has an outlet for blogging these days -- whether that means a site running WordPress, an account at LiveJournal, or a blog on MySpace or Facebook. By writing about issues you're passionate about, you're helping to spread awareness among your social circle. Because your friends or readers already trust you, what you say is influential.

Recently, a group of green bloggers banded together to raise individual $1 donations from their readers. The beneficiaries included Sustainable Harvest, Kiva, Healthy Child, Healthy World, Environmental Working Group, and Water for People. The blog-driven campaign included voting to determine how the funds would be distributed between the charities. You can read about the results here. You should also consider taking part in Blog Action Day, a once a year event in which thousands of blogs pledge to write at least one post about a specific social cause (last year it was fighting poverty). Blog Action Day will be on October 15 this year.

2. Share Stories with Friends

Another way to spread awareness among your social graph is to share links to blog posts and news articles via sites like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, and even through email. Your network of friends is likely interested in what you have to say, so you have influence wherever you've gathered a social network. You'll be doing charities you support a great service when you share links to their campaigns, or to articles about causes you care about.

3. Follow Charities on Social Networks

In addition to sharing links to articles about issues you come across, you should also follow charities you support on the social networks where they are active. By increasing the size of their social graph, you're increasing the size of their reach.

When your charities tweet or post information about a campaign or a cause, statistics or a link to a good article, consider retweeting that post on Twitter, liking it on Facebook, or blogging about it. Following charities on social media sites is a great way to keep in the loop and get updates, and it's a great way to help the charity increase its reach by spreading information to your friends and followers. You can follow the Summer of Social Good Charities:

Oxfam America (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube) The Humane Society (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr) LIVESTRONG (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr) WWF (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr)

4. Support Causes on Awareness Hubs

Another way you can show your support for the charities you care about is to rally around them on awareness hubs like Change.org, Care2, or the Facebook Causes application. These are social networks or applications specifically built with non-profits in mind. They offer special tools and opportunities for charities to spread awareness of issues, take action, and raise money.

It's important to follow and support organizations on these sites because they're another point of access for you to gather information about a charity or cause, and because by supporting your charity you'll be increasing their overall reach. The more people they have following them and receiving their updates, the greater the chance that information they put out will spread virally.

5. Find Volunteer Opportunities

Using social media online can help connect you with volunteer opportunities offline, and according to web analytics firm Compete, traffic to volunteering sites is actually up sharply in 2009. Two of the biggest sites for locating volunteer opportunities are VolunteerMatch, which has almost 60,000 opportunities listed, and Idealist.org, which also lists paying jobs in the non-profit sector, in addition to maintaining databases of both volunteer jobs and willing volunteers.

For those who are interested in helping out when volunteers are urgently needed in crisis situations, check out HelpInDisaster.org, a site which helps register and educate those who want to help during disasters so that local resources are not tied up directing the calls of eager volunteers. Teenagers, meanwhile, should check out DoSomething.org, a site targeted at young adults seeking volunteer opportunities in their communities.

6. Embed a Widget on Your Site

Many charities offer embeddable widgets or badges that you can use on your social networking profiles or blogs to show your support. These badges generally serve one of two purposes (or both). They raise awareness of an issue and offer up a link or links to additional information. And very often they are used to raise money. Mashable's Summer of Social Good campaign, for example, has a widget that does both. The embeddable widget, which was custom built using Sprout (the creators of ChipIn), can both collect funds and offer information about the four charities the campaign supports.

7. Organize a Tweetup

You can use online social media tools to organize offline events, which are a great way to gather together like-minded people to raise awareness, raise money, or just discuss an issue that's important to you. Getting people together offline to learn about an important issue can really kick start the conversation and make supporting the cause seem more real. Be sure to check out Mashable's guide to organizing a tweetup to make sure yours goes off without a hitch, or check to see if there are any tweetups in your area to attend that are already organized.

8. Express Yourself Using Video

As mentioned, blog posts are great, but a picture really says a thousand words. The web has become a lot more visual in recent years and there are now a large number of social tools to help you express yourself using video. When you record a video plea or call to action about your issue or charity, you can make your message sound more authentic and real.

You can use sites like 12seconds.tv, Vimeo, and YouTube to easily record and spread your video message. Last week, the Summer of Social Good campaign encouraged people to use video to show support for charity. The #12forGood campaign challenged people to submit a 12 second video of themselves doing something for the Summer of Social Good.

That could be anything, from singing a song to reciting a poem to just dancing around like a maniac -- the idea was to use the power of video to spread awareness about the campaign and the charities it supports. If you're more into watching videos than recording them, Givzy.com enables you to raise funds for charities like Unicef and St. Jude's Children's Hospital by sharing viral videos by e-mail.

9. Sign or Start a Petition

There aren't many more powerful ways to support a cause than to sign your name to a petition. Petitions spread awareness and, when successfully carried out, can demonstrate massive support for an issue. By making petitions viral, the social web has arguably made them even more powerful tools for social change.

There are a large number of petition creation and hosting web sites out there. One of the biggest is The Petition Site, which is operated by the social awareness network Care2, or PetitionOnline.com, which has collected more than 79 million signatures over the years. Petitions are extremely powerful, because they can strike a chord, spread virally, and serve as a visual demonstration of the support that an issue has gathered.

Social media fans will want to check out a fairly new option for creating and spreading petitions: Twitition, an application that allows people to create, spread, and sign petitions via Twitter.

10. Organize an Online Event

Social media is a great way to organize offline, but you can also use online tools to organize effective online events. That can mean free form fund raising drives, like the Twitter-and-blog-powered campaign to raise money for a crisis center in Illinois last month that took in over $130,000 in just two weeks. Or it could mean an organized "tweet-a-thon" like the ones run by the 12for12k group, which aims to raise $12,000 each month for a different charity.

In March, 12for12k ran a 12-hour tweet-a-thon, in which any donation of at least $12 over a 12 hour period gained the person donating an entry into a drawing for prizes like an iPod Touch or a Nintendo Wii Fit. Last month, 12for12k took a different approach to an online event by holding a more ambitious 24-hour live video-a-thon, which included video interviews, music and sketch comedy performances, call-ins, and drawings for a large number of prizes given out to anyone who donated $12 or more.

11. Let Your Customers Decide Where you Donate Money

This recent development bears mentioning as well:

In these times when the public gets an increasing voice in so many matters, why not let them decide where you donate a portion of your revenue to? 3rdWhale, a green mobile app maker, decided to do this when they joined 1% For The Planet as the first mobile app developer member, committing to go even further, donating 25 cents for every app sold.

Using their Facebook Page as a platform, Twitter and blogging allies to get the word out, and some encouraging videos to egg on/encourage the proceedings, more than 600 people from around the world made their voices heard for a number of organizations, including Architecture For Humanity, Global Footprint Network, Rocky Mountain Institute, and Terralingua

The winners were Orangutan Outreach, Heart of the World Project, and WiserEarth.

In making the voting process public, people had a chance to learn about many organizations, both from what 3rdWhale found about them, and from what NGO staff and supporters wrote about them in the voting & nomination forums.

Bonus: Think Outside the Box

Social media provides almost limitless opportunity for being creative. You can think outside the box to come up with all sorts of innovative ways to raise money or awareness for a charity or cause. When Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer, for example, he created Blame Drew's Cancer, a campaign that encourages people to blow off steam by blaming his cancer for bad things in their lives using the Twitter hashtag #BlameDrewsCancer.

Over 16,000 things have been blamed on Drew's cancer, and he intends to find sponsors to turn those tweets into donations to LIVESTRONG once he beats the disease. Or check out Nathan Winters, who is biking across the United States and documenting the entire trip using social media tools, in order to raise money and awareness for The Nature Conservancy.

The number of innovative things you can do using social media to support a charity or spread information about an issue is nearly endless. Can you think of any others? Please share them in the comments below.

Special thanks to VPS.net

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About the "10 Ways" Series

The "10 Ways" Series was originated by Max Gladwell. This is the second simultaneous blog post in the series. The first ran on more than 80 blogs, including Mashable. Among other things, it is a social media experiment and the exploration of a new content distribution model. You can follow Max Gladwell on Twitter. This content was originally written by Mashable's Josh Catone.