Like to repair a vandalized public garden in your neighborhood? Want to reduce trans fats from Doritos? Yes, you are a caring citizen, an ardent backer of certain causes. But you are tired of wasting your time and donations on campaigns that die for lack of sufficient backing. They don’t reach the tipping point to succeed.
That’s literally “The Point” of a website that officially launched yesterday.
On this social media site, you can pledge to take a specific action (donate, boycott, volunteer, etc) for a particular cause, project or campaign. The twist?
You take that action only when you are notified that enough people have offered to do the same thing. The founders hope that The Point becomes, “a community where people can come together to solve the problems that are too big or time-consuming to solve alone.”
As such, you can create a campaign for which you seek others’ support too. As you attract a crowd to your cause, you’ll draw more interest and momentum may build – and reach the critical mass for those who’ve pledge to take action. Now this could get heated (and educational) because you can launch a counter-campaign on the site too.
Also, this approach can help overcome the phenomena called “Prisoner’s Dilemma. That’s where, for example, football players would not wear safety helmets for fear of appearing cowardly until helmets were mandated. Then all players were safer as they were all required to wear helmets. Similarly, The Point enables individuals to act anonymously on behalf of the greater interest of the group by making their support anonymous until the tipping point (the pre-set “target”) of like-minded people is reached on the cause. Only then are the names of anonymous supporters announced.
A side benefit of The Point may be in finding the collective wisdom to turn to one another and becoming more connected
Here in California the recent rash of fires provided a fresh window in ways people connect quickly online to help out.
