Watching the Colbert Report last night I was pleasantly surprised to see Clay Shirky make a guest appearance to talk about his new book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.  I happened to have finished the book yesterday and heard him speak at The New America Founation a month ago.  Shirky's thesis is that revolutionary social change happens when technology becomes widely used and accepted, which is what we've seen in the last 5 years with the internet and new media.  The challenge to traditional institutions, as you can see from the subtitle of the book, is to see the power of the people in creating change for themselves, not having it made on their behalf.

The banter on The Report last night led Shirky to challenge Colbert's fans to do something interesting with his Dorito Peabody Award stickers, not just go around sticking them on bags of tortilla chips in the gorcery store.  Reading his book, I learned that the first flash mobs were designed to make fun of hipster culture, similar to Colbert's original challenge.  Later flash mobs have been used to stand up to the police state in Belarus.

What does all this mean for Common Cause?

Today is the last day to vote in NetSquared's "Mashup Challenge". There are 122 projects in the running, all of which merge data in new and interesting ways to work towards social change.

You have to vote for at least five and no more than ten projects.  To get you started, take a look at my three favorites: Mapping the Media Change Movement by the fabulous folks at the Media and Democracy Coalition, My Polling Place, and MAPLight.org: Mapping Money and Politics. 

If you think these or any of the other projects on the NetSquared site are worthy of winning $100,000, go vote before 5pm pacific time today!  The voting process is a tad complicated, but I know the nonprofits that are competing for the prize money will appreciate you taking the time to help them out.