Author Archives: Alex

Can We Do It? 7 Roofs, 7 Families, 7 Days… and 7 Questions

Marketing and communications professionals can learn by studying, learning, training and from doing. In the next seven days, I am going to learn by doing and invite you to join me. What exactly do I mean?

In my last post, I shared news about an upcoming trip to Guatemala my mom, my grandma and I are making alongside fellow changemakers. Part of this trip is working to raise funds to provide seven roofs for seven families in seven days, a total of $1100 ($157 per roof).

7 Questions…

Over the next seven days, I also plan to answer seven questions based on things I learn during this process, insights you help me to discover, why I chose CrowdRise over other fudraising platforms, how fundraising relates to social marketing, the role of the free agent and any other items you may be curious about. I hope this seven-day adventure not only raises funds for those who need it–but also helps us grow as professionals.

So Sound Off: What questions do you have when it comes to fundraising change?

flickr credit: Travelin’ Librarian

The One Post I Hope You Read

Three Generations + the Opportunity of a Lifetime

My Mom and Grandmother

Who inspires you? For me, it’s the heart of service that my family has lived for and stood for that inspires me everyday. This is why, I am so thankful, humbled and hopeful that later this month, my mom, my grandma and I are joining a group of good-hearted and high-spirited individuals on a service trip to Guatemala through the organization the Amistad Foundation.

On our trip, we will visit Guatemala City, La Limonada (see picture below) and some of Guatemala’s villages. We will be working with the Guatemalan people to help them develop skills to grow and develop sustainable businesses and relationships. From helping their crop program to teaching them business skills, basic communication and motor skills, as well as administering eye exams and mainly–sharing love and support.

The Guatemalan Situation

La Limonada--The Largest Slum in Central America

Guatemala has recently been served a triple blow: 1) The Pacaya Volcano erupted spewing lava, rocks and debris just south of Guatemala city; 2) This past Sunday, a sinkhole in the middle of Guatemala City swallowed a whole three-story building; and 3) Tropical storm Agathe hit parts of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras causing 150,000 people to evacuate due to heavy flooding and landslides. Adding to the situation, the United Nations recently reported that:

An estimated 43% of Guatemalan children below the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition, one of the worst rates in the world.
Guatemala has been hit by one of the worst droughts in 30 years, causing their worst famine in 30 years with 2.7 million people requiring urgent aid.

#loveroofs: 7 Roofs, 7 Families, 7 Days

Where do you turn during the rainy seasons in your life? For me, it’s home–it’s family. There are families, in one of the villages (vagueness is for security reasons) we are visiting that don’t have a safe place to go when the torrential rain comes. We want to help provide them a safe home by providing them roofs over their shelter–what I call #loveroofs for they will be funded and built with love to support the growth of love. The cost to do this is about $157 per home. Our goal is to raise $1,100 to provide seven roofs to seven families within seven days!

While there, I will be able to capture photos of the people in the village and help us all connect and enjoy in this journey together. Upon my return, I will share the pictures and insights with you so you know your money went to a good cause.

How You Can Help

Can you help us raise $1,100? I’ve been looking into ways to go about this so that we can all see the progress while being transparent at the same time–and I discovered CrowdRise. I’m a first timer, but I hear good things about the platform and will be able to report to you about how it all goes. All funds donated will be donated to the Amistad Foundation who will work with their contacts on the ground in Guatemala to make this happen (and I’ll provide images and updates as well). THANK YOU

DONATE:

Go to http://www.crowdrise.com/loveroofs, and give what you can. Our goal is to raise $1,100 to provide seven roofs to seven families within seven days!

Trust me when I say that both my family and myself understand the economic times–for us, this is truly a trip based in love and faith, so know that I understand if you can’t give–but we’ll take encouragement too. I plan on sharing this post with all those on the trip–so please leave a note of encouragement below. =)

Quote of the Week: Impersonal Engagement

This week’s quote comes from Joseph Yoo of Step by Step–a blogger I discovered through Andrew Conrad. Yoo talks about a time when he was in seminary and worked at the Korean United Methodist Church of Greater Washington. In his post, Yoo shares a story with us about a small significant moment that I think is significant still today and outside the walls of the church.

On this particular day, Yoo was helping out with the church’s youth ministry where the youth would go out to the parks of DC and hand out sandwiches to the less fortunate. On this day though, there were more people than there were sack lunches available and the following interaction occurred:

As the kids were getting in the car, one of the homeless men came up to the passenger window of the van. Thinking he needed a sandwich, the pastor said, “Sorry, we don’t have any more sandwiches. But Jesus loves you.” The man started yelling back, “I know Jesus loves me! But what about you?”

Impersonal Engagement

Yoo goes on to say how the pastor just kept repeating the same thing: Jesus loves you. And the guy kept asking the same thing: Yes, but what about you? until the car drove off. I won’t do it justice, but Yoo goes on to talk about how impersonal things get sometimes–even when you have good intentions. And that sometimes, to truly make a difference and show you care, you have to get engaged and this may mean you have to roll-up your sleeves, get your hands dirty and get involved.

Your Challenge

Does this sound familiar? I find Yoo’s story relevant because in the world of social media–it gets easy to thank someone for a RT. It gets easy to post a photo. It gets easy to give a #followfriday shout out. It gets easy to ask them for feedback or respond to an inquiry. It’s gets easy…and impersonal. So, here’s your challenge:

Take Five Steps Back

Review your communications. Look through your Twitter feed and Facebook postings. Count the number of times you have an authentic interaction with a customer versus the number of promotional postings or generic responses.
Review the conversations you’ve had with customers. Have you taken the conversation to the next level? Did you answer their question?
Talk to outsiders. For example, call local media–not to pitch a story. But just to ask them what they think about your organization or cause.
Know your competition. Look at your competitor’s website, Twitter, Facebook, blog, etc. How are they engaging people? What can you learn from them? What gaps exist?
Get outside your comfort zone. Talk to people that don’t work in your department or function within your organization. Showing people you care inside the organization will build an attitude of caring.

What else? How can we make sure we are authentically engaging people and building relationships?

Like they say: If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Don’t be everyone. Be unique–this is how you will offer true value to your customers.

flickr credit: Matthew Yaktine

Behavior Change Made Easy (Sort of)

Tuesday was the start of the highly anticipated Mobile Health Conference taking place at Stanford University. Though not an on-site attendee, I’ve been staying up-to-date by tuning into the Twitter chat. You can too by following the hashtag: #mh2010.

While scanning the tweets, I came across what I consider a mother-daddy in the world of behavior change: an easy, do-it-yourself module for behavior change planning (see screenshot below) developed by Dr. BJ Fogg, founder of Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab.

The wizard is designed to help those plan and design behavior change strategies through answering a brief set of questions. Depending on your answer, the wizard will describe the type of behavior you are working towards based upon Dr. Fogg’s Behavior Grid–which identifies 15 ways behavior can change (see image below).

This past week, I’ve been refreshing my knowledge of the different processes and documentation for social marketing and behavior change planning as one of my biggest observances in practice is that people like tangibles. They see a print ad or a PSA, and they can respond. But are those effective? Thus, in my current organization, I’m working to make behavior change and social marketing tangible and relevant–in terms of the new frontier of technology and the human experience. This is why Dr. Fogg’s work excites me–it’s a tangible. It breaks down behavior into bite size pieces we can understand, digest, analyze and follow-up on.

The conference continues on Tuesday, but already, even though I didn’t get to attend in person, I’m enthused to see that many of the presentations on day one got right into the heart of social marketing and behavior change–not just Dr. Fogg.

Why This Is Important to You…

If you are working to influence the world for good, have a mission or cause you are advocating, you need to get plugged into this arena. Social marketing is relevant and if you are doubtful, just scan the tweets from the Mobile Health Conference. We’ve all heard “Mobile is the future,” but social marketing and behavior change are right along with it. Want more evidence? Look at Jen McCabe’s presentation from the conference. The movement is growing. Join us.

Do You Follow Your Head or Your Heart?

I believe you can learn something from just about anything–including The Celebrity Apprentice (stay with me). I haven’t watched the show all season–but tuned into the finale by chance. On the finale, an interesting debate arose: In making decisions, including business decisions, do you follow your head or your heart? Here’s the gist:

THE FINALISTS: The finale came down to two people: Holly Robinson Pete and Bret Michaels. Holly–the top-notch, professional project manager who knows the foundation lingo and raised the most money ever for a charity on the show. And Bret Michaels–the rocker with a heart whose creativity has been a driving force, leading to strong results.

THE CAUSES: Bret’s cause is the American Diabetes Association as he himself was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was six years old. While on The Apprentice, Michaels also learned that his 6-year-old daughter is borderline diabetic as well. Holly’s cause is the HollyRod Foundation–originally inspired by watching her father struggle with Parkinson’s disease, Holly and her husband created the foundation to support families who might not have the means to support a loved one with a serious medical condition. When Holly’s oldest son was diagnosed with autism–the Foundation turned its focus to autism.

THE DIFFERENCE? Storytelling. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I think Joan Rivers said it best when she said something along these lines: “If it were as it should be, it would be Holly hands down. But Bret has my vote–the emotion he’s brought to it–you got to go with him.” In sum: Bret shared his story and went behind telling us his story. He drew us in with his raw personality–sharing the effects of diabetes, living his passion and opening his heart. In the end, the crowd and Trump himself, wanted to be a part of that story–they wanted Bret’s story and his mission to be triumphant.

THE WINNER: Bret Michaels.

Holly’s story was personal–but she was more professional. At one point, she said, “I know how to impress executives.” That might be true, but at the end of the day, you’re selling yourself, your story and your mission. Holly impressed us from a professional perspective–she did everything right. But, Bret made it personal. Thus, the big question, do you follow your head or your heart? The case of The Celebrity Apprentice just goes to show–that there are times when the heart wins out, despite all the logic, Excel modules, planning and preparation.

So your challenge–Are you speaking to the head or to the heart? To executives–or to the people? Know your story and share it–real, raw and right to the core.

PS: Join us @read4change and our special guest Stacey Monk of Epic Change as we talk about how storytelling and its role in creating change.

The Difference Between Making the News and Being the News

Collaboration. It’s such a great word. It’s also one of those words that is great say and believe in, but much harder to execute and implement. However, this is not so true for some of the top research universities in the United States, the U.K and Canada. Why? Get to know Futurity.org.

According to the website, Futurity.org aggregates the best research news from a number of top universities (see image below for the list). The site, which is hosted at the University of Rochester, covers research findings in a range of topics, including the environment, health, science, and society–and it’s interesting and made relevant even for the general consumer.

But here’s the best part: Rather than try to get their research in the news, they have become the news. And this my friends, marks a huge shift. Because I’m going to go to THEM, rather than them having to try to find their way to ME. Now–what if government did something similiar?

So let’s talk about the government:

This past week, the great Susannah Fox posted the tweet shown to the right. There’s been conversations about government opening up its data–but opening up can mean more. It can also mean content-wise. What is the government followed Futurity’s model? You don’t need to look too far to know there’s a lot of content on .govs–as well as duplicative content. But there are also the hidden gems. But to find the hidden gems, you have to dig, be savvy and subscribe to a number of different RSS feeds, blogs and email lists. Also in the content equation, the government, like universities, have worked with journalists for years to communicate their work to the public–spending both time and resources. When, we don’t have to go too far to know that in-depth and technical reporting is on the decline as newspapers are slimming down.

So, I say, bravo to the universities of Futurity.org, you’ve gone from trying to make the news–to becoming the news. Quite a big bridge to build and you’ve turned your gems into online currency I can easily find, comprehend and share. Thank you.

Collaboration + Aggregation

To see another example of what happens when collaboration meets aggregation, head over to Alltop.com. How we communicate is evolving–don’t think about how you can make the news. Instead, think about how you can be the news.

Telling the Story of Change

May’s #read4change topic is “Stories of Change,” looking at the concept and use of storytelling in creating change. Teaching us is young William Kamkwamba, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.

On SB, we recently talked about the cost of dreams, and Kamkwamba is a true testament on not giving up on his dream despite his challenges. On May 26 at 8pm EST the @read4change Book Club is meeting via Twitter to discuss Kamkwamba’s true story as told in the book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. If you are feeling overwhelmed about how one person can make a difference, then this book is for you.

If you are interested in:

The effect and influence of storytelling,
Examples of strong storytelling from different organizations,
Messaging and its relationship with storytelling,
The role of innovation in creating change,
The application of innovation versus invention,

…and much more, then we invite you to join us.

Ways to Get Involved

FOLLOW us @read4change on Twitter.
DISCUSS the book by joining us on Twitter the last Wednesday of the month, May 26 at 8pm EST using the #read4change hashtag.
VOTE on the book we should read in June. The topic is economics.

UPDATE: Stacey Monk of Epic Change will be our special guest for May’s #read4change chat. Stacey and EpicChange do an amazing job at using storytelling to share the mission of their Tanzanian partner, Mama Lucy. Most recently, Epic Change launched to ToMamaWithLove.org, using the Web to connect your story with Mama Lucy’s.

Quote of the Week: The Cost of Dreams

They say the best things in life are free. They also say that everyone has their price. Up in the Air, a movie starring George Clooney, puts these two sayings on the line.

The storyline is based on Clooney’s character, Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizing expert who fires people for a living. This quote is taken from the movie during one of the time’s Clooney’s character is firing someone:

This is a wake-up call…Your resume says you minored in French Culinary Arts. Most students work the frier at KFC. You busted tables at IL Picatorre to support yourself. Then you got out of college and started working here. How much did they pay you to give up on your dreams? At what point, were you going to stop and go back to what made you happy?

In response, the man being fired answers: $27,000. During the interaction, you learn that the man has worked for the same company his whole life and now makes $90,000 but that all those years, there was never one happy day on the job. For one blogger, he recounts the day he was offered $9,000/year to work full-time at Kay Bee Toys as the same day he gave up on his dreams. This breaks down to $4.25 an hour. What’s your price?

In January, Taylor Marsh of the Huffington Post wrote that this movie was the best of 2009–saying that it represents a walk through today’s America and captures our current economic moment. I know times are tough–back home, many of our neighbors are looking for jobs. These are smart, talented people who are good at what they do–from lawyers to accountants–the full spectrum. The impact is real.

Dreams Survive

I have to hold on to the idea that dreams are not dead. This isn’t being idealistic–it’s being hopeful. To see what I mean, watch the clip below from the Lemonade Movement. It’s based on one of those other sayings–turning lemons into lemonade. See how 16 people answered their “wake up call:”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJltcT7DH7g&feature=player_embedded

No matter your situation, believe in yourself and your dreams. It’s easier said than done–there’s worries of health insurance, the pressure to provide, there’s reality–so find support, write down your thoughts, reflect and do. Your dreams are waiting for you.

flickr credit: THQInsider

Do Big Ideas Need Big Leaders?

Lots of people have big ideas–the next ‘big’ thing. Not everyone executes. This isn’t only applicable to individuals, but also to teams and organizations. Many teams have great ambitions, same with organizations–and some are successful in achieving that idea. But, they may not have reached a point of bigness. Teams need leaders. Organizations need leaders–but to what degree?

Thank You Tim O’Reilly

Inc Magazine recently published an article highlighting Tim O’Reilly and the visionary leadership he is bringing to Washington. Out of all the great things covered in the article and that Tim O’Reilly has said, this one line lives with me the most:

“My original business model — I actually wrote this down — was ‘interesting work for interesting people.’ “

Interesting work for interesting people. The word “interesting” is most critical in this phrase, as, people define interesting differently. I find interesting to mean work that meets more than a bottom-line, that influences people and behaviors for good, that is innovative and leverages the latest research, technologies, and approaches for social change. This is quite specific.

Define Interesting

What Mr. O’Reilly says is applicable not only to organizations–but also to people I often say: “Own your education. Own your career.” To be able to do this, you need to know what is interesting.

Then, you need to find people who you also find interesting–who share similar interests, people you admire, people who are one step ahead of you, people who think differently that you, motivate you–but again–to find the people, you need to know what interests you in others.

The Role of Leadership

Have you ever been on the other side of a big idea–where, you want to go from good to great? Is it possible to reach bigness without it? Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, I think best gets to the bottom of why leadership is crucial:

“…more than anything else, real people in real companies want to be part of a winning team. They want to contribute to producing real results. They want to feel the excitement and the satisfaction of being part of something that just flat-out works. When people begin to feel the magic of momentum—when they begin to see tangible results and can feel the flywheel start to build speed—that’s when they line up, throw their shoulders to the wheel, and push.”

Interesting needs interesting.

Do you know what interests you?

flickr credit: TechShowNetwork

Quote of the Week: Unleashing Love

This week’s quote comes from one of my favorite people in the non-profit tech community, Stacey Monk of Epic Change:

In America alone, we spend $14.6B annually on Mother’s Day for “stuff” that could just never say what’s in our hearts. What if instead, we all just unleashed that love on the world? How would it impact our world if we stopped using stuff as a surrogate for love? What if we invested that love to make the world a better place for Mamas & children everywhere?

Love Your Mama

This thinking led to Epic Change’s latest fundraising initiative, ToMaMaWithLove.org in honor of mothers everywhere–including Mama Lucy. Mama Lucy is Epic Change’s Tanzanian partner–the money raised from the effort will go towards the children’s home Mama Lucy wants to build for her primary school.

To date, over 200 mamas have been honored and over $11,000 has been raised–making a home for 12 children. The goal is to create a home for 50 children. You can contribute by unleashing your love and honoring your own mama by create a heart space–an online, visual tribute to your mom over at ToMamaWithLove.org.

Unleashing Love

The idea of unleashing love, however, can live beyond Mother’s Day and can be applied towards an organization as well.

Have your employees felt appreciated lately?
Is there an organization with an unmet need in your community?
Are you following the golden rule–treating others as you want to be treated?

These are just a few examples–but you get the picture, we can unleash love in our daily lives. As As Stacey suggests–What type of impact would that make? Imagine how that could change our world–your world?

So go love–unleashed and with wild abandon.

SocialButterfly

Exploring the Art + Science of Social Change.