How nice are you? The xocial online community is calculating and curating “competitive kindness” to help people out-nice each other, and make the world a better place.
One entrepreneur’s optimism-laden online community called xocial (pronounced soh-shuhl) is now connecting people and entire organizations to causes they care about, inspiring them to take action in the form of friendly competition. And, the xocial platform also actually measures and quantifies one’s “niceness,” or positive social impact, in the form of an “XO Score.” “An XO score is a representation of a person or organization’s overall positive social impact,” says CEO Colin Duetta. The XO Score methodology provides a benchmark that helps spur the spirit of competition—the favorable kind where everyone ultimately wins.
“The numerical XO Score measurements allow users to compete with each other to see who can do the most good,” Duetta explains. “The XO score also puts the phenomenon of social media to more productive use. Instead of measuring popularity, xocial measures an individual’s or organization’s positive social impact. We want technology to make people better parents, friends, coworkers, bosses and citizens, and also help enable businesses to promote the greater good.”
“We want the competitive kindness movement to inspire the next generation of social responsibility,” Duetta continued. “xocial’s goal is to channel the universal human drive to ‘compete’ into actions that benefit the causes an individual cares about.” He further explains that, while traditional philanthropy focuses on financial giving or attending singular or one-off events, the xocial platform engages both first-time and lifestyle do-gooders in supporting social causes regardless of their level of skill, special interest or financial donation.
The bottom line? xocial allows anyone to become a superhero (cape not required). Simple campaigns can be built online for free, and anyone can create one: moms, dads, grandparents, kids, companies, charities, schools, teachers, hospitals, offices and neighborhood groups — there are no limitations on who can organize a campaign or join one already underway.
Just search for a cause you care about, click to join and compete in challenges to earn points. It’s up to each campaign organizer whether they want to offer prizes or special recognition for top-scoring participants. But, when the competition is about compassion, all participants are winners, right?
Individuals can revel in the knowledge they are making a real difference; families can be brought closer together; teamwork can be improved; businesses can establish a new hub of corporate social responsibility and amplify existing efforts; employers can create a more positive workplace culture; charities can increase fundraising, create more buzz and attract, engage and retain the next generation of do-gooders; and teachers can instill real-world character-building lessons using technology to help others…not just for “selfies.” Thanks to xocial, good vs. good is a better equation that benefits us all.
