Can a tweet confront hatred? Can tagging photos prevent prejudice? Can a Facebook fan page promote human dignity? Can a mobile phone strengthen democracy?

The Conscience Un-Conference: Using Social Media for Good is a free, one-day “un-conference” co-hosted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media. It intends to bring together interesting and interested people to talk about the problems, practicalities, and opportunities of using social media to further the missions of “institutions of conscience”—those concerned with violence and atrocities, human rights, and related issues.

The “un-conference” will be held on Saturday, December 5, 2009 from 8:30am to 5:30pm in Washington, DC.

The application process to attend the Conscience Un-Conference is now closed. We encourage you to follow the conversation remotely via the RSS of this blog and Twitter (#conconf).

**PLEASE READ: Participants, the coding problem we were having is now fixed. Thank you for your patience and flexibility.**

Latest Posts

Better late than never?

Thursday, May 20th, 2010 | awong |

The Conscience Un-Conference concluded the afternoon of Saturday, December 5, 2009. One of the products we hoped to produce on the Holocaust Museum’s end was a “tweetbook” of the tweets generated by the un-conference. Various issues have held up the completion of that project, but it’s finally finished and is now available for download. It includes a table of contents based on session and a resource guide of links, separated by general topic, shared in the tweets. Download the pdf of The Conscience Un-Conference: A Twitter Compendium and let me know if it’s of help.

Rescheduled tweet-up on mobile technologies: March 22.

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 | awong |

Due to the snowpocalypse that hit the DC area in early February, the Holocaust Museum’s first attempt at organizing a tweet-up was canceled. We have now rescheduled for Monday, March 22, 2010. Details below:

The first tweet-up will focus on the hot topic of mobile technologies. It is scheduled for Monday, March 22, from 5:30 to 7:30pm at RFD (810 7th Street NW; Metro: Red, exit Gallery Place/Chinatown; http://www.lovethebeer.com/rfd-directions.html).

Joining us to set the stage will be Nancy Proctor, Head of New Media at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and writer of the blog MuseumMobile, http://museummobile.info/. Questions we hope to cover include: When should one create an iPhone app vs. using the mobile Web? What are important considerations when structuring a mobile giving campaign? What are best practices for integrating multimedia and text in mobile programming? What are the most innovative uses of user-generated content in mobile programming?

Come prepared to share your experiences, whether successes and failures, and above all else, just come to hang out, reconnect with your colleagues, make some new connections, and have a few beers.

To ensure we have enough chairs set up at RFD, please RSVP to my e-mail awong@ushmm.org or at the twtvite for this event: http://twtvite.com/mt2vfe.

If you have ideas for future tweet-ups, please share those as well!

Feb. 8, 2010: Tweet-up regarding mobile technologies.

Monday, February 1st, 2010 | awong |

*This event has been canceled due to inclement weather. It will be rescheduled soon.*

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is launching a series of tweet-ups to continue discussions begun at The Conscience Un-Conference: Using Social Media for Social Good in December 2009. These informal gatherings are open to anyone interested in the application of social media and emerging technologies to further the missions of “institutions of conscience” or simply to people grappling with how to best use social media for “social good.”

The first tweet-up will focus on the hot topic of mobile technologies. It is scheduled for Monday, February 8, from 5:30 to 7:30pm at RFD (810 7th Street NW; Metro: Red, exit Gallery Place/Chinatown; http://www.lovethebeer.com/rfd-directions.html).

Joining us to set the stage will be Nancy Proctor, Head of New Media at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and writer of the blog MuseumMobile, http://museummobile.info/. Questions we hope to cover include: When should one create an iPhone app vs. using the mobile Web? What are important considerations when structuring a mobile giving campaign? What are best practices for integrating multimedia and text in mobile programming? What are the most innovative uses of user-generated content in mobile programming?

Come prepared to share your experiences, whether successes and failures, and above all else, just come to hang out, reconnect with your colleagues, make some new connections, and have a few beers.

To ensure we have enough chairs set up at RFD, please RSVP to my e-mail awong@ushmm.org or at the twtvite for this event: http://twtvite.com/yxpe9f.

If you have ideas for future tweet-ups, please share those as well!