Facebook, Social Media, and 40 other industry players came together along with The 404, to conduct the ‘Empathy Week’ from 2nd to 6th December.
After the success of the pilot event held in London, the 404 and member companies Grey Group, Edelman, Code and Theory and Adobe. They will host a series of workshops to inspire the importance and power of empathy online.
For these workshops, influencers, industry experts and high school students will come together. The event will be conducted at Facebook’s Partner in New York on Friday.
More than a dozen industry experts, influencers and students came together on 29th October in London to be a part of the pilot Empathy Day Event. After the event was completed, almost 81 percent of the students agreed on talking about active participation in spreading their learnings from the event.
According to Shauna Sweeney who is the Head of Global Industry Marketing at Facebook, Facebook is proud to provide support to The 404’s Empathy Week which was held on 2nd December. She also added that the purpose of building Facebook Partner Centers was to create a positive change in society.
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What Industry Experts Feel
Worldwide Chief Innovation Officer of Grey Group, Daniel Bennett, reflecting on the issue added that it is only through education and meaningful communications that the problem of declining empathy among the generation today can be dealt with.
He also added that societal problems are only made worse through social media and this, therefore, makes it important today to educate and support the next generation so that these problems can be mitigated.
Edelman US’ Managing Director, Andrew Foote expressed his excitement about pushing individuals who set an example of empathy through their actions and behavior on social media.
He added that the declining feeling of empathy among the youth today is a matter of serious concern. Hence, there is a requirement of consistent messages on all fronts to demonstrate empathy among the youth and encourage and inspire the masses for the same.
Industry experts collaborating also believed that it should be intentional to cultivate the feeling of empathy.
Dan Gardner, who is the CEO of Code and Theory believes that social and digital media are maturing quickly, but with that, the gap between the impact of social media and its understanding is also increasing.
He added that people should be careful about their choice of words they use online and on social platforms. The people should be educated about what impact their words can have on people.
#ActsOfEmpathy Campaign
Apart from Empathy Week, The 404 is planning to soon launch the campaign called #actofempathy where people will be encouraged to share their stories of empathy with the world. This step is being taken to fuel the movement further towards success.
Social Media Week’s Founder and Executive Director, Toby Daniels, said that Empathy Week was a result of the dedication of six months of a group of people who were working together to create and implement the idea in 2020.
The campaign aims at motivating people across the world to share their acts and instances of empathy and take a step towards making the world a better place to live in.
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About The 404
The 404 is a community of multi-disciplined, digital thought leaders who are brought together to take necessary steps towards solving the problems being faced by the society and to capitalize on the opportunities about how to use social media for the benefit of the society.
It is led by SMW and includes members like Grey Group, Facebook, Adobe, Edelman, Code and Theory, IBM Watson, Whalar, Attention Capital, TBWA, Accenture, Microsoft, Salesforce, GroupM, and Refinery29.