Origins of The Social Service Platform

On January 31, 2007, we invited Peter M. Senge, a professor from MIT whois also the author of 'The Fifth Discipline,” to visit Taiwan to discuss with 250 leaders from all walks of life on “how to useenterprise strategies to innovate social services.”This was the first time that Taiwan had gathered leaders from all industries that had genuine interest in doing social services.The conclusion of the conference was that Taiwan needed a social service platform so that labor power and resources could be exchanged to assist each other mutually.
 
As a result, Flow began to construct this social service platform.
 

The Concept of A Social Service Platform

From the various interviews and research that we have done, we havefound out what users reckon the most important functions of this social service platform are:
 
l Information on transparent trust
l Tocombine each other’stalents to do social service together instead of only providing money
l To track your own efforts andother peoples’ influences
l User-friendly interface
 
We have condensed the prospects of the social service platform by associating it with a collection of functional methods:「Participation in social services by using creative methodsto earn the trust of the public and to get a foot on user-friendliness.」
 
Creative methodsthat emphasize the spirit of volunteers - Do Something! Not Pay Money. With the new Web2.0 technology, there is a lot more interaction among the volunteers as they share their thoughts and experiences oftheir participation.
 
The basis of trust includes the résumé of individuals and organizations and their transparent cases. Social service résumés allows the public to see how much time and money individuals and organizations have contributed. Transparent caseskeep the publicin the know on current events or situations, the execution process as well as sudden changesor influences that occur afterwards. The more transparent andtrue your experiences are, the more that the information you share will allow people to get a better understandingand the more easier it is to obtain each other’s trust so that you can put more enthusiasm in return services to others.
 
“User-friendly” refers to a simple interface and process which has proper search engines and clear website classification.
 
The conclusion of our interview was “joint participation” because everybody likes to bring family members, friends, schoolmates or colleagues to participate in social service together. Furthermore, you may meet new friends as well aspotential groups that you would like to offer your services to. You may also experience and understand a different way of life and get a better outlook of things byexperiencing different cultures, your maturity levelbecomes more complete, and your passion and enthusiasm endeavors for the less fortunate half of the world.

Functions of The Social Service Platform

Search: Find the kind of volunteering activity that interests you.
 
Social Profile:The display of transparency enables the masses to believe in the activities that are on the platform which is depicted throughthe accumulation of information and feedback from activities and the establishment of each person’s or each organization's social service résumé.
 
Personal banking: Through the connection of friends and the network, you will be able to find friends on the platform who have the same common goal as you.
 
Social activity: There are not only volunteering activities initiated by NPO, enterprises, schools, and social service organizations on the network platform, as long as you have a complete plan, you can also initiate social service projects.
 
Social service piggy bank: Your achievements are not only appraisals, it is more of an accumulation of honor and pride as you monitor your achievements after the assessment of feedback from activities, volunteering hours, and the accumulation of activities.In the end, each person can increase their social service piggy bank to make it more abundant.
 
Social service calendar: Through the use of Google calendar, you can add friends as well as schedules of social serviceorganizations; you can make it more convenient for the users by helping them get a clearer understanding of the arrangement and volunteering times of activities.
 
Assessment of feedback:The outcome of the activities as well as the efforts made by the volunteers become more apparent after the volunteers’assessments on the activities, teamworkand the subject matter of the activities.
 
Social Widget: A social widget will be displayed on theblog or the website. When you click on the widget, you will be directed to the social service platform and into your own personal or your organization’s “social service résumé.”Your social service journey will be displayed objectively and will also show your transparent records so that everyonecan see your achievements or the achievements of your organization to establish an exclusive and unique social image.