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At Hello Cool World, we really are dreamers and it’s a good thing too. We dream of tools for social change, amplification engines for all our visions of alternative futures. The dream is what keeps me going.

We also like to think we are Rabble rousers! And what we are working on now will definitely be rousing, we hope, for those who create or participate in social cause media. We are applying to the Canadian Film Centre’s IdeaBOOST program, to kickstart our “Dream Machine” – an open source distribution platform for media with a progressive message, which is really about connecting both content and communities for the ’cause.’

Please watch our 30 second video and BOOST us!

Way back when we were first working on The Corporation (and then Scared Sacred and The Take) We had a vision for a shared audience engagement engine, and that’s what we built. I remember excited conversations with The Corporation director, Mark Achbar, before the the film was even in production about grassroots outreach and the possiblities of email. We were excited about websites and heady over hypertext.

But the people and projects behind the technology were the point all along. What I fell in love with was the power of connecting people. We had a grassroots hit on our hands armed with little more than an email list. As we foraged forward, we built the technological infrastructure to go with it, a centralized platform to create and launch campaigns. We always like to say that our platform balances content, technology and outreach.

But now it needs to be better. In those days, email alone was the big thing. We had no Twitter, Facebook, and even blogs were babies in the digital woods. So now we are headed in the direction of a truly robust open source platform that will allow collaboration and give tools to social cause media makers to sell their work and launch a sustained campaign. We will be able to offer this economy of scale through using a shared tool-set that gives access to audiences who have an interest in the issues. The tools will also help organize volunteers, something that our decade-plus of experience knows is needed to truly be effective campaigners for any cause.

We’re not trying to be another Avaaz but to have a membership that wants to be more deeply engaged in projects, yet still has critical mass. We’ll be seeking media makers who really want to see something happen because of their work. And we want like-minded folks to help us, for the good of all!

I like to joke that I went into media after seeing Manufacturing Consent, that No Logo made me want to be a ‘brander,’ that my work on The Corporation caused me to incorporate my own small company. What these have in common is an understanding of the power of the media, of social branding, of social good enterprise, and the necessity to not leave it all in the hands of the corporations. Activists need to be in these spaces too. I feel the same about ‘big data.’ Marketers will find us and those of us with a better story to promote need to be seeking our audiences as persistently. Our futures may depend on it.

HOW TO BOOST US:

Help Hello Cool World get a spot in the IdeaBOOST program! It’s fast and free to BOOST (AKA vote for) the idea. Just click on the BOOST button, then give your email address and confirm your boost. That’s all it takes. And the more you like and tweet from the IdeaBOOST site  link, the more your support registers for the idea.

Boosting closes at Midnight Thursday April 25.

Please boost, share, tweet, email and convince your friends to boost us! We need your help.