New site: www.DoTheRightThing.com
I love this new site! One of the co-founders (Rod) contacted me directly with a pre-launch password, and I explored it just now - it's awesome.
Basically, Do The Right Thing is a grassroots system for evaluating the social impact (positive or negative) of various companies. You can post news stories/summaries/analysis, rate others' postings, and look directly at company profiles. The site seems to use a technology similar to Digg, but has tweaked the software to suit its own purposes. The result, hopefully, will be that a quick visit to the site will allow a busy person to read something interesting and relevant right away - while at the same time allowing enthusiasts to add real depth to the content.
On a systemic level, this is an incredibly important tool. I'm a huge proponent of individuals acting on their values in their purchasing, investing, and other economic decisions - because that provides incentives for companies to adopt those values. But there's an information gap, since individuals have limited time to research these issues, and the information itself is both scattered and biased.
As corporations pay more and more attention to CSR, they increasingly focus on PR strategies to appear responsible - and these can be difficult to distinguish from real action. Having a very democratic system of filtering through all this information can allow individuals to see what other like-minded individuals have to say about certain companies.
If, for example, Company X were to be involved in a scandal, this network could quickly organize a boycott to show its disapproval. Alternatively, if Company X were to launch a product with impressive environmental qualities, individuals might buy it as gifts for family and friends. If a company wanted to know how a certain incident or product was affecting its reputation, it could look on the website to see how related posts were being ranked (each receives a score for impact, either negative or positive). These are all ways in which DoTheRightThing could, to put it in economist terms, make the market for values more efficient.
They launch in a few days, so check it out!
Basically, Do The Right Thing is a grassroots system for evaluating the social impact (positive or negative) of various companies. You can post news stories/summaries/analysis, rate others' postings, and look directly at company profiles. The site seems to use a technology similar to Digg, but has tweaked the software to suit its own purposes. The result, hopefully, will be that a quick visit to the site will allow a busy person to read something interesting and relevant right away - while at the same time allowing enthusiasts to add real depth to the content.
On a systemic level, this is an incredibly important tool. I'm a huge proponent of individuals acting on their values in their purchasing, investing, and other economic decisions - because that provides incentives for companies to adopt those values. But there's an information gap, since individuals have limited time to research these issues, and the information itself is both scattered and biased.
As corporations pay more and more attention to CSR, they increasingly focus on PR strategies to appear responsible - and these can be difficult to distinguish from real action. Having a very democratic system of filtering through all this information can allow individuals to see what other like-minded individuals have to say about certain companies.
If, for example, Company X were to be involved in a scandal, this network could quickly organize a boycott to show its disapproval. Alternatively, if Company X were to launch a product with impressive environmental qualities, individuals might buy it as gifts for family and friends. If a company wanted to know how a certain incident or product was affecting its reputation, it could look on the website to see how related posts were being ranked (each receives a score for impact, either negative or positive). These are all ways in which DoTheRightThing could, to put it in economist terms, make the market for values more efficient.
They launch in a few days, so check it out!
posted by Melissa Paschall at 11/22/2006 09:41:00 AM
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