New Social: The Campaign, The Designer, & The Box
An improvise as you go classic.
Once there were three adults whose names were Michael, Freddie, and Saskia. This story is about something that happened to them when they decided to do something to help raise awareness for New Social in the UK.
When I started FORbetter, I never imagined I'd one day be writing about a physical campaign sent directly to 250 of the most influential people in the world of UK journalism, charity, and academia.
I should've known better.
At the Newsmast Foundation, we're working to grow New Social. We're working hard.
We're an educational charity. We dabble in tech, using our position to help develop the New Social space for those who currently don't have a place in it, but we do it because of the education it can bring. An open network that lets you control your presence but also allows you to learn directly from the experts. No more distorted whispers and he said she said.
A lot of what we do is behind the scenes. I don't think many realise how hard it is to grow a charity that explores ideas which are brand new to many - without the publicity a celebrity name on an open letter or cute animals can bring. All of it organic, on platforms which don't yet help the growth of small accounts.
On top of it all, everything keeps changing. In only a month, we've watched platforms we once celebrated celebrate bigotry. We've watched organisations we've been trying to break through to double down on platforms that directly oppose them. We've watched people admit the platforms they're on are bad, but stay anyway.
That's why we decided we needed to do something different. Something physical. We've taken the digital world to the real world doorstep of important people.
Behind the scenes
Putting this together was a whirlwind. Late nights, screen induced blurry vision, stress induced breakouts, perhaps even the odd tear. But it was all worth it.
I have never worked on anything like this. I'm not sure any of us have. We're not marketing professionals (although the misinfo-mill seems to think we are - I'm still taking it as a compliment), so we learnt on the job.
What was supposed to be a week or two of work transformed into a month and a bit.
I imagine Freddie probably started dreaming about types of paper. I dreamt in shades of orange.
Everything in the kit we sent out was hand-designed by yours truly, with the assistance and ideas of both Michael and Freddie.
Not all of it turned out perfect, there were some little issues when it came to print, but they don't detract from the success of this project.
When I pitched the New Year, New Social campaign, I was imagining some themed social posts. Maybe even a video or two. Instead, it grew to a size far-beyond that than a little charity like ours had any right to pull off.
The last week, before posting, was chaos. We had to remake multiple designs multiple times as we wrestled with the printers. We had to organise postage of every box. Freddie had to drag a suitcase full of leaflets through central London and escort them up to Cheltenham on the train. Then the team put it all together by hand in one morning - the day before they were due to post.
Somehow, we did it.
What next?
It's hard to say what comes next after a campaign like that.
Our aim is to raise awareness, to introduce these people to the idea of New Social. We have no way of measuring that.
Hopefully, a few more curious individuals will get in touch. Maybe, if we're really lucky, one of the journalists will write a story about it - about New Social. Maybe then we can start talking about New Social as something here and now in the UK, rather than a glimpse into the future because the tech is here - it just need the people (and money) to make it work.
But, for Freddie, Michael and I, I think we should celebrate. We should be proud. We did it and, for the first time ever, leading educators across the UK will have something in their hand telling them about New Social, open, decentralised, democratic social media. Could it really come at any better time?
You can learn more about New Social (and even see a few of the designs) on the Newsmast Foundation website.
