Knight News Challenge: CTR & TheLi.st

changetheratio:

So! CTR is on the move. We love how far we’ve come (seriously, that #changetheratio hashtag is like the best batsignal ever, flashing to us from far and wide) but we know that more can be done. We need to scale. Enter TheLi.st - and, hopefully, the Knight Foundation News Challenge. The blueprint for what we plan to do is below. 

newschallenge:

1. What do you propose to do? [20 words]

Scale the private listserv I run for female leaders in technology/media into an open network of and for women.

2. Is anyone doing something like this now and how is your project different? [30 words]

No. This segment is vastly underserved. There are massive information asymmetries between men and women that broaden over time. This network will correct them through curation, crowdsourcing and social connection.

3. Describe the network with which you intend to build or work. [50 words]

I plan to formalize The List (at www.TheLi.st) as an email newsletter featuring curated news, original features and key resources for entrepreneurs. I plan to build an associated social network with profiles featuring members and, where germane, their rates. This will vastly improve visibility, access and opportunies for women.

4. Why will it work? [100 words]

I have already seen it work - incredibly well, and incredibly fast - within the context of the private, ad-hoc listserv for women that I currently run. Women sharing information, contacts, opportunities, war stories, giving each other props and encouragement, using each other’s wisdom, networks and resources to pull each other upward - it has been incredible to watch. There is huge demand for this, one I can’t fill alone, on the side. It’s not just for women - The List will be a key resource for anyone - and, as a portal to amazing women, for VCs as well.

5. Who is working on it? [100 words]

Right now it is just me. I have an extensive network of terrific women involved, whose incredible contributions power the listserv with multiple postings (and incredibly high repeat viewership) per day, but I run and moderate the listserv, organize events and make connections among members and provide offline connection that I am desperate to automate. I have concepted a shared-equity model of 20 advisers, mostly women, each with 0.5% of The List, helping it grow and develop. Thus far, eight are on board.

6. What part of the project have you already built? [100 words]

I come to this table with a listserv of almost 300 women, and a deep bench of nominations and requests to join. I also come with an extensive network across media, tech, business and entertainment that I have been working with consistently in the process of building Change The Ratio, the not-for-profit organization/movement I co-founded in spring 2010 to elevate and de-invisibilize awesome women through increasing visibility, leading to increased access and increased opportunities. Almost two years later, Change The Ratio is a well-known brand ready to be taken to the next level.

7. How would you sustain the project after the funding expires? [50 words]

Sponsors, advertisers and premium events - on one hand, creating incredible learning and networking opportunities for our high-level membership, and on the other, providing sponsors and advertisers access to their brain and market power via targeted campaigns and visibility opportunities. This network is already amazing - wait ‘til it scales.

Requested amount from Knight News Challenge: $250,000

Expected amount of time required to complete project: 12 months (4 to build the infrastructure, 8 more to become self-sustaining)

Total Project Cost: $500,000

Name: Rachel Sklar

Twitter: @rachelsklar

Organization: Change The Ratio

Country: USA (via Canada)

(Source: newschallenge1)

Change The Ratio: The XX Voting Bloc

changetheratio:

It’s barely two months old, but 2012 has already been incredibly interesting - and specifically, interesting for women. From an instant bestseller focusing on the Obama presidency as a partnership with the First Lady to the massive Komen backlash to the sudden and furious contraception debate, the power and influence and voice of women have suddenly been impossible to ignore.

I say “suddenly” because, well, it hasn’t been so impossible in the past. Even in 2008, in a historic race with the first-ever viable female presidential candidate and a (sometimes scarily viable) female vice-presidential candidate, the race was less about issues relating to women as a whole than these women, and what they represented and how they challenged us and the national paradigm. But we didn’t see the raw flexing of collective muscle that much - except in the case of the PUMAs, older women and Hillary supporters who felt they’d been rendered invisible, and were mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Suddenly this demographic group came together, and swung around a pretty hefty political chip: their vote. 

That chip, mostly ignored over the ramp-up to 2012 (hi, GOP race!), has now come sharply into focus.  Women as a raw demographic unit exercise incredible power across every element of American life. They control the lion’s share of household spending, drive product, move merch, and unleash markets. They are the engine of the online social explosion - and they put their money there, too. So it only makes sense that in 2012, that raw demographic power would bring its heft to electoral politics.

In 2012, far more than in 2008, there is social media - an amped-up, globe-spanning  Facebook and Twitter; the incredible instant window of Instagram; even a budding political tool in Pinterest. In 2012, our social networks are so far developed as to regularly supplant the distribution tools we relied upon in 2008. And in 2012, those social networks are making the difference for women, flexing political might with a fist that swings larger, comes faster and hits harder than ever before.

There’s more.

"What is real? What is fake? What is Kardashian? I think 2012 will demand that we say so up front."

Predictin’.

Filter bubbles burst, blind spots shrunk, curation over SEO: Rachel Sklar’s predictions for 2012 [Nieman Lab]