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My friend Chris Heuer organized the H(app)athon Project event on March 20th and I'm happy he did. The event is a mini hackathon that combines quantified self, internet of things and Bhutan's Gross National Happiness Indicator. Basically we're taking trending technology like Nike Fuel bands and real-time operational intelligence and applying them to improving people's lives. What I find most interesting about this project is that while it applies to Bhutanese models, it doesn't carry a sense of "otherness" that a number of "social good for tech" projects do. This project doesn't have to be about saving others, it's actually alright to save ourselves. It's completely within our capabilities to hack on increasing our own standards of living, education, psychological well-being, health, work satisfaction, community vitality and ecological diversity. There's even a personal indicator survey to help you determine your own happiness. While it may seem counter-intuitive to approach this from a selfish perspective, it's completely natural. In the Details: How to Lose Potential Leaders I've worked as an anti-poverty and feminist organizer and I've seen where we lose people. It's easy to rally around an injustice or grievance, but when we drill down into specificity -- that's the point where people diverge. The fact is, you can't tear down one all-encompassing pseudo-solution only to prop up another one. Society isn't a homogenous mass and I have my suspicions that it doesn't want to be one. Rather than offering partisan one-off solutions for healthcare, housing etc., it's better to offer a platform and assume that iteration outside of an administration is inevitable. Don't build apps and force them on people, build platforms and watch them grow. The Civil Rights movement and the Green Revolution weren't about a single issue being solved. They were conceptualized as larger platforms for civic engagement. The fact that there were offshoots meant that there could be leadership and recognition at a number of different levels. This feeling of ownership and achievement is very important. Administrative grunt work is a necessity and any self-respecting person should get their hands dirty. But let's face it, we're not all benevolent and selfless beings. When we work in social justice or volunteer with an organization, most of us want to do more than alphabetize the filing system. The H(app)athon Project is part of a larger trend we're seeing alongside groups like Code for America. We are looking at society as a platform waiting for a better app environment. But don't take my word for it, Tim O'Reilly has been saying this for years. The videos from our H(app)athon project brainstorm will be available here and for more on the project itself visit happathon.com.