Idea: Level 2 Social Media

See the category Category:Is-Level 2 Social Media for some (mostly imperfect) examples of this idea.

"Level 2" social media is where the media is used by helpers to help "other" people.

• Most social media is aimed at allowing people to use it to connect to other people for themselves. We're calling this "level 1" social media.
• Level 1 social media allows people to connect to new friends, old friends, services and a variety of useful resources for themselves.
• The idea behind Level 2 social media is that the Users have "clients." The clients can be friends, relatives, members of their church, neighbors, or actual clients of a social service organization. The users can be individuals, neighborhood leaders, neighborhood "helpers," social workers, political operatives, or anyone who wishes to be helpful to people that are primarily not themselves.
• A unique characteristic of level 2 social media is the potential for users to introduce people to each other. Match-making is therefore one of the uses for level 2 social media. Some web sites already do that. For example see Necter, a Philadelphia-based level 2 social media.

Level 2 social media is used by "Helpers"

• To keep demographic and needs information about clients.
• To allow anonymous information about clients to be shared so it can be found by other helpers.
• To maintain contacts with other helpers.
• To build trust relationships with other helpers.
• To enable each helper to better know the skills and resources of other helpers.
• To enable each helper to have access to information about the kinds of clients other helpers are working to help.
• To seek out potential connections that may be beneficial to the clients.
• To work with other helpers to suggest potential appropriate matches between their clients.

Introducing the "Social Argonaut"

• The Argonauts (Ancient Greek: Ἀργοναῦται Argonautai) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War, around 1300 BC, accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece.
  • Definition of Argonauts from Wikipedia
• The Social Argonaut could be any hero who uses their talent for being helpful to move society towards an era of Golden Peace
• Social Argonauts could be defined as the "helpers" and "users" of Social Media Level 2. Their quest and adventure is using level 2 social media to be helpful to the people they are serving. They become heroes by making people's lives easier and social interactions more meaningful.

Networked Social Work: The Connecting People Study

• One of the most powerful ideas I have seen concerning community development is embedded within a project called the Connecting People Study. This project conducted research on what might be called "community-based networked social work." However, I believe that by limiting the scope of the idea to social work in a mental health setting, the project lost steam. I will be adding info here about the status of the project as I find it. In the mean time, Check out the video below...
• Here is a link to the animated video demonstrating the idea behind the Connecting People Intervention Model.

• • The Animated Connecting People Intervention Model

See Also Background and Examples

• The Commons and The Helpfulness Machine
• Idea: Philadelphia Shared Housing Network
• Crowd Helping: the more expansive Level 2 social media going beyond housing as a central purpose.
• Necter
• Invisible People
  • Social Media Changed My Life and Helps Me To Help Others
  • C3 is proof LA County can end homelessness