If you had told me when I was at high school that one day I would be working for a for-profit company, let alone running one, I would have said you were crazy. But I am interested in how you can empower individuals to make change, and Causes is doing just that.

I do play football no-holds-barred. Any edge I can get, I'll take. I'd grab a face mask only in a fit of anger. Uncontrolled anger is damn near insane.

The way to get people civically engaged, not just during the election but throughout the year, is to tap into Facebook and let them do it with their friends.

Even when I was playing, I never thought much about the individual honors. I wanted to go to the Super Bowl.

Altruism is one of the most fundamentally social impulses, and doing things for others without expecting anything in return is core to what makes us human. This is why, from the day Facebook Platform launched in 2007, Causes has been honored to be one of the most popular applications, with over 140 million users.

Remember all of the 'me too' social networks built just to have a social feature Facebook and MySpace didn't have? I built one for political discussion called Essembly. It enabled unique and potentially transformative social interactions, but only 20,000 people ever used it.

When all is said and done and the e-book is written about politics and the Internet, it is not going to be about the presidential election. It will be about the smaller elections in aggregate that have a huge effect on people's lives.