The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis

In his Blog, PR 2.0, http://www.briansolis.com/index.htm
Brian Solis presents a visual that really brings things together for me about current social media and its uses.
http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism.html
He says:

Last year, Robert Scoble and Darren Barefoot debuted the Social Media Starfish to visualize and document the rapidly evolving landscape for social tools, services, and networks.

If you work in marketing, public relations, advertising, customer service, product development, or any discipline that's motivated, shaped, and directed by customers, peers, stakeholders and influencers, monitoring and in some cases, participating in online conversations is critical in competing for the future.

Over the last month, I worked with Jesse Thomas of JESS3, to create a new graphic that helps chart online conversations between the people that populate communities as well as the networks that connect the Social Web. The Conversation Prism is free to use and share. It's our contribution to a new era of media education and literacy.

Even though Brian and his colleagues talk about marketing and seem to be addressing those who are in the business of using these tools to make profits, all this applies to those who are advocating, organizing, and trying to create positive social change in schools and other institutions.
For those of us focusing on family leadership in education these tools can give us more connections, accelerate actions and allow us to make more use of data and information.
The conversation prism affects all social conversations including those about social change.