Did you know that what you had for breakfast has the potential to change the world? Our collective participation in social media is fundamentally shifting our cultural consciousness, as a myriad of new voices enter public conversations. Each of us has a critical role to play; this presentation spells out how to use social media to create building blocks of change: storytelling, trust & empathy. -=-=-=- "Be the change you wish to see in the world." -- Gandhi Social change movements throughout history have always started with three fundamental building blocks: -- Storytelling -- Trust -- Empathy You've got a message to get out into the world, but with all the new media channels, there's also lots of new noise. On the other hand, now that social media tools have opened up the possibilities to create the materials with which we can form these building blocks, we have unprecedented opportunity to create change, starting with our own stories. We've been glued to the same ideas of how to accomplish social change for several generations. But idea generation is a lot like DNA: keep mixing around the same old stuff, and we'll go stale and mutate poorly. Bring in fresh life to the idea gene pool, and we're bound to create progress. With so many previously marginalized voices coming into a myriad of public conversations, we see people taking advantage of the opportunity to shake up cultural norms and systems. Empathy and trust have the power to release us from the increasing isolation and apathy we've experienced as a culture for the last hundred years, and social media can create the pipelines across which they flow. This presentation will provide participants with concrete tools that they'll need to make change through the power of storytelling and the context of social media. Case studies that will be discussed include: * *#AmazonFAIL,* aka, "Have fun stormin' the castle." How an organization-less mob used social media to fix a serious problem with LGBT, feminist and disability books at the online giant's website over a holiday weekend. * *Iranian Election 2009.* Highly emotional, rapid-fire content causes missteps and "slacktivism" (see: http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/09/05/from_slacktivism_to_activism)following the violent protests in Iran, and the US traditional media's coverage of it. How you can avoid this in your work. * *The Racist Pool of Philadelphia.* When a country club banned African-American kids from swimming in its pool in the summer of 2009, outrage ensued. But it was the spontaneous stories of childhood discrimination that were shared during the outrage that brought people together. * *DREAM Activists.* Students across the US who are committed to passing the "DREAM Act" (see: http://www.dreamactivist.org/) are risking security and deportation by using social media tools to share their stories, and have become a critical aggregator and disseminator of immigration news and action. "Change comes from within."(see: http://is.gd/5aC0Y) *Storytelling and the Building Blocks of Change* will give participants actionable steps to connect their message to their communities, as well as cross-pollinate into adjacent communities, through the power of storytelling, trust and empathy. -- Video clips of my media appearances can be viewed here: http://www.deannazandt.com/about/media-clips/ A recent talk on storytelling and social media can be viewed here: http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/12/07/talk-how-sharing-and-storytelling-will-change-the-world/