Make your computer an activist for The Zeitgeist Movement!

We need your help to reach a goal of 25,000 active members on this team, so that TZM can rival some of today’s most powerful supercomputers. This will bring mainstream media recognition to the movement as an organization of substance and goodwill.

By participating in this project, we also get to:

• Show the world the collaborative power of the movement
• Contribute to advancing scientific research
• Accelerate research in Quantum Computing and help revolutionize computer science
• Trigger curiosity about the movement among the research community
• Be recognized by the media and the research community, as a ready-to-help positive organization
• Build a good relationship with the scientists at the company behind this project, who have the technological knowledge to help us build a central computer for RBE city systems

After starting out at #350, we’re already at the #5 spot in team rankings. We hope this number will keep rising, thanks to your efforts. 

Join The Zeitgeist Movement BOINC Project (It only takes you 10-20 minutes to set up and join, and it’s all automated after that.)

Also read the link on the ZeitNews for more information:

Meet Douglas Mallette, one of the names behind the idea. Also check out his YouTube channel TZM Social Evolution.

Good luck!

This is a great chance to literally lend your voice and your face to the movement. All you need to do is make a video of yourself talking about why YOU advocate a Resource Based Economy, in your own words. You can use a videocam or your webcam to shoot the video, and upload it on YouTube. You can go to YouTube now and search for “Why I Advocate” videos. You’ll be surprised by the numbers flowing in every day. Peter Joseph will eventually combine clips from all your videos to make the mothership of all arguments in favor of an RBE 

Once you’re done, send an email to info@tzmindia.com and we’ll post your video on this blog as well.

So make it powerful. Make it ironic. Make it witty. Make it funny. Make it compelling. Or just make it different. Whatever it is — make it REAL. Because your point of view counts. And that’s the point of this movement. It belongs to not one or two or three leaders. It belongs to over 550000 leaders, and growing.

For a country like India, with a population of over a billion people, and thousands of languages and dialects, translation is vital for increasing awareness of a Resource Based Economy among the masses.

Over the last few months, a number of supporters have inquired whether the movies Zeitgeist Addendum or Zeitgeist Moving Forward are available in Hindi or other Indian languages. Some of you have also wanted to find out in what way you can help get this done. If you’d like to help with translating TZM-related content into Indian languages, you can start here.

We have currently a few projects that need to be translated at the earliest.

• Zeitgeist Addendum
• Zeitgeist Moving Forward
• Zeitgeist: The Movie (Low Priority)

Here’s what you need to get started.

Watch this presentation to get an overview of the process.

Dot SUB

Register yourself on dotSUB. Then click the respective link below to start translating using the online dotSUB editor. Also watch this video to learn how to use dotSUB.

Select the Project (Movie)

Pick the video and language you wish to translate by clicking the link below.

• Zeitgeist Addendum
• Zeitgeist Moving Forward
• Zeitgeist: The Movie

Translate Tools

To type in the script of a language that doesn’t use the English alphabet, you can try using any of these software tools & services.

• Google Translate
• Shabdkosh: This site provides English to Hindi as well as Hindi to English Dictionary.
• Google Transliterate or Bookmarklet. Bookmarklet is a small piece of code that you store in your browser. Once stored, you can type in Hindi or other languages in any text box on any website of your choice.
• Tamil Translator.
• Thesaurus
• Urban Dictionary helps you understand the meaning of English phrases.

File Compare Tool

You can use Google Docs to compare two SRT files. This comes in handy when you want to compare a translated script with a translated-and-proofread script.

The Steps:

• Take both SRT files and open in a text editor like Wordpad or Write.
• Go to Google Docs and create a new document.
• Copy and paste the contents of the first SRT file to Google Doc.
• Copy and paste the contents of the second file over the contents of the existing Google Doc (Overwrite).
• Under File menu, choose “See revision history”, select the two versions and click “Compare Ticked”. It will highlight the changes.

Communicate and Collaborate

To communicate, collaborate and stay in sync with other members of your team across the globe, use these handy tools

Forums

Join the forums to contact other volunteers who are part of the linguistic teams. Here are few of the forums specific to languages spoken in India.

• Hindi
• Bengali
• Gujarati
• Marathi
• Sindhi
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Urdu
• Punjabi
• Malayalam

The purpose of these groups is for people to post questions related to translation of those specific languages. It is also for tracking everyone’s progress and for asking any help needed from all other language teams.

If your language is not listed here, please contact Ray (Gman) to help you create a group for that specific language.

Online Text Editors

Google Docs is a great way to collaborate online. There are other online text editors as well, like PiratePad, Typewith.me, Sync.in, Open Etherpad but there have been times the documents get deleted. All of them are real-time online text editors which are very powerful collaboration tools for a team of people working together. They can be used to update the translation status of a particular video. You will find a link that points to the respective language above.

Voice Chat

Skype

This is used to communicate with other team members using text, audio and video. Since we’re scattered across the globe, this is a great tool for two or a small group of four to five people to communicate effectively with each other verbally.

TeamSpeak

This platform is extensively used by people to enter an audio conference. Ideal for a large number of people trying to connect and talk with each other. All global meets are held here. Watch a video tutorial on configuring TeamSpeak on your computer.

Team Speak Server information

• server: ts.zmdev.net
• password: tzm

Language Coordinators

Click here for the list of Language Coordinators. You can contact them via email or skype for any help or clarification. 

If you'd like to become a Language Coordinator listen to this conversation with Ray (Gman), who is the International Linguistic Coordinator. You may realize what a wonderful opportunity it is to become one and be part of the Linguistic Team.

Pootle

Pootle enables us to translate webpage contents, presentations, PDF files, menus and many other items.

Click here to register at the pootle server.

Wiki

Click here to access the collaborative central repository for information related to the global Linguistic Team, global Developers Team and other related projects.

For any further queries, feel free to email info@tzmindia.com

For a grassroots initiative like TZM to reach all sections of society, it is crucial to take the efforts into every nook and corner of the country, and indeed the world. If there is no Chapter in your city yet, you can create a Chapter and link it to this blog for others in your city to connect with you. Get started on creating a Chapter here. Alternatively, you can also mail us your Chapter link so we can add it to the page. 

If there is already a Chapter in your city, you can contact and collaborate with the people in that Chapter and help strengthen their efforts further.

When people first learn about The Zeitgeist Movement and want to be part of it, they aren’t really sure about what needs to be done. Although we feel that each one has to figure out on their own what they want to do about it, our primary suggestion is to consider spreading awareness through 3 simple steps:

1. Learn
2. Share
3. Repeat

Learn

Ask questions (not disguised as opinions) to get direction on learning the subject more. So if you are pointed in the direction of watching a video documentary, do watch the video documentary. This may lead you to more questions, which you must ask on the forums. That might bring you directions to watch yet another documentary, and this could go on for a while. Your questions will eventually clear themselves out, but don’t stop asking questions for they will keep the learning process alive.

Video documentaries are a great way to spread awareness because they are:

• FREE FROM INTERRUPTIONS: The viewer can’t interrupt a documentary unless he/she decides to stop it 
• MORE EFFECTIVE: A documentary is far more effective as it combines video and audio information which helps the viewer receive higher clarity directly.
• SCALABLE: A documentary is scalable and can be used as a tool to spread information to the masses. One human being simply cannot repeat the same information over and over again. A DVD can be duplicated. A video can be viewed online. It can be downloaded, copied and distributed on a pen drive and so on.

Share

Talk to others. A good way to spark such conversations is by showing them videos like Zeitgeist Addendum for a start. When they ask questions, you would be in a position to answer them because you’ve spent some time on step 1, which is learning. It is possible that you may not know the answer to a question, which would bring you to the third and most important step.

Repeat

In order to get maximum clarity on how to proceed with these tasks, it is imperative to continue the process of Learning and Sharing. Soon your own understanding will be crystal-clear and you will be a natural genius at spreading the word too! 

After the highly successful worldwide release of Zeitgeist Moving Forward in Jan 2011, including a number of premieres in India, the movie is now available online for free to watch as well as download. Now is a great time to organize a movie screening in your school, college, workplace or locality. If you need a speaker in your city, please see the available list of speakers here.

Here are some general tips to keep in mind if you’re doing a screening.

Find a venue

• Some venues can be used for free for projects related to creative/social awareness. Try and find one like that in your city. If you do, please let us know so we can create and expand a list of such venues around the country.
• Educational institutions are a good place to screen these films and conduct Q&A sessions, since students are more receptive to new information and therefore more eager to explore it and pass it on.
• If your venue comes with a price tag, get in touch with fellow TZM supporters from your city/area, and try to raise the money collectively.
• If no venues are available, TZM volunteers can always conduct screenings for small gatherings in their own homes.
• Ensure you obtain a written confirmation from your venue, and/or the required permissions (if any) from proper authorities.

Keep it free

• Since this is a self-funded initiative, try and keep all your events free of any monetary exchange.
• If you are incurring heavy costs for venue, equipment, etc. which you can’t raise internally, you may charge a small fee to cover these expenses.
• If you are charging a fee for a screening, ensure that you use any leftover money to fund future screenings, as well as events such as Z-Day.

Get down to details

• Check the venue physically, in terms of seating arrangements, washrooms, parking facilities, police permissions (where applicable), level of outside noise, weather protection, drinking water cooler, availability of air conditioning, option of serving refreshments etc.
• If the venue has many windows with lots of daylight coming in, try choosing a time in the evening to screen your movie, preferably after sunset.
• For large halls it’s important to get a good sound system, as a room with a lot of tile can make the sound completely flat.
• Arrange for a sound system, a projector and a screen. You can usually hire these for about Rs 2000-2500. Some venues may also provide these for free.

Collect data

• Assign someone to handle a Registration Desk, to capture contact details of the people attending the event: Name, Number, City and Email. This information can be used to send out news related to The Zeitgeist Movement.
• Ideally try to organize a computer/laptop at the desk, so that it’s easier to store details directly on to an excel spreadsheet

Share TZM INFO

• Keep a set of A4 flyers carrying information about the movement and its goals. Make sure it covers The Zeitgeist Movement and a Resource Based Economy.
• Distribute DVDs of the films. We suggest you charge for the DVDs (not exceeding your basic cost price of buying and burning blank DVDs) since our experience shows that FREE DVDs end up in the trash. That’s the ‘Paisa Vasool’ syndrome!

Record IT

• Have a friend accompany you so that he/she can take pictures of the event.
• If you can, get someone to also record a video of the event, particularly the Q&A session so it can help other activists in the future.
• Post your event pictures and videos on The Zeitgeist Movement India Chapter Facebook Group and Facebook Page, and share the links on the TZM India GoogleGroup.
• Send your material to info@tzmindia.com so we can upload it to this website and the TZM India YouTube Channel.

Interact

• To handle a Q&A session after the screening, make sure you have a microphone so that you can be heard by everyone no matter where they’re seated.
• If you’re shooting the event, make sure the cameraman first captures the person asking the question, and then the person answering it.
• Direct the cameraman to capture the speaker while he’s addressing the audience, and not pan across the audience too much.
• Go through this video and understand it properly before you handle questions.
• Check out the Q&A videos posted on our blog to see how others handle questions.

Take breaks

• If the movie is too long, like in the case of Zeitgeist Moving Forward, people might tend to get restless and want to leave. In such scenarios, a small break for tea/coffee and refreshments is advisable.
• Aim to do this at a minimal cost. Simple tea and coffee would do. Depending on the place and number of people, you can look at including accompaniments (like biscuits or dal-wadas or a similar cost-effective snack). Keep it sasta & tikau. 

If you have any questions or get stuck along the way, please mail us on info@tzmindia.com

You can also screen the following copyright-free movies:

• Zeitgeist
• Zeitgeist Addendum
• Awakening
• Our Technical Reality

To screen copyrighted material like “Future By Design”, you need to purchase a copy of it from the film producer William Gazecki. Click here to order your copy of this DVD.

If you have good technical skills which can help us in the online space, please join the TZM Web Tech Group 

We can use help with people having the following skills

• Word Press
• HTML
• Photoshop
• Flash
• PHP
• MySQL
• Video Editing
• Mailing Lists
• Mail Server
• PHP List

Use our standard flyer or get creative with your own TZM flyers to be handed out to people at screenings, gatherings and crowded locations.

You can also create and distribute DVDs of movies/videos like

• Zeitgeist Addendum
• Zeitgeist Moving Forward
• Awakening
• Our Technical Reality
• Zeitgeist – The Summary

If you would like to mass duplicate DVDs you can contact these vendors.

Mumbai

Bhupendra Patel. KMEDIA. +91 9702933999, +91 9833326663. bj1960@gmail.com, www.kmedia.in

If you’d like to catch up with other TZM India members in your city, you can organize a meeting yourself.

Fill out the details in the form and register your event.

TZM India Event Form

You can also have a registration form so that people can register for the event. Take a look at Google Docs for getting this.

We will broadcast this event to the registered members on the TZM India newsgroup.

Remember to carry a camera, click pictures and post them on The Zeitgeist Movement India Chapter Facebook Group.