I’ve been involved in charity work pretty much my whole life. My parents set the example when I was just a kid. We lived in a very small, isolated community on the west coast of Canada, and every year, my parents would work with the community to broadcast a 21 hour telethon on local tv, and a community of 1800 people would raise over $25,000 for children with disabilities (that was a lot of money back then). Since 1980, the same telethon that my parents helped start has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Helping others is ingrained in me. I’ve worked for non-profits, volunteered countless hours, and our company does a ton of work with charities and non profits in many different capacities.

Charities have taken a big hit in the past couple of years. Lots of people talk these days about “donor fatigue”, especially with the onset of social media. Its seems everywhere you turn someone else is asking for your dollars. The economy has also played a role – the dollars that used to be going into charities are simply drying up, and it’s been quite a blow.

Fundraising and awareness are more challenging than ever. But I have to stress the awareness part. There are basically two ways that charities can successfully raise funds these days…either get a LOT of people to donate a small amount, or get big corporations on board to make large contributions. Both of these strategies take a TONNE of awareness. Way more than your average “pledge-a-thon”.

So it’s great to see people creating events that are putting the emphasis on awareness, and finding really creative ways to do it. 12for12k.org is a prime example of this. Oh sure, it’s raising lots of money (over $50,000 at last count) but it’s raising even more awareness. The charities chosen each month are benefiting from huge amounts of eyeballs, because of the nature of the social network and the “I’ll tell two friends” philosophy at work.

Another great example of creatively gaining awareness was my friend Cheryl’s “Local TV Matters to Local Artists” event, held on October 25th. She invited local musicians to come out and do a free show at a local cafe, to raise awareness for the plight of local television. People showed up in droves for the free concert, found out some more info on the local TV situation, and signed a bunch of support letters. Mission accomplished, and everyone had fun doing it.

An event that I’m really pumped about is coming up here in Ottawa on November 14th. It’s called “Timeraiser”. Put together by the Framework Foundation, the aim of the event is to increase the number of volunteer hours being done in a community. The way it works is, people go to the Timeraiser event, and they go around to different booths and find out about various organizations they can get involved with. Then via silent auction, they bid on works of art with volunteer hours instead of cash. The winning bidders then put in their volunteer hours over the year, and at the end of it they get to take home a beautiful piece of original art. Brilliant!

Here’s more about how the whole thing works.

In the future, I believe charities will make money one of two ways – by large volumes of people giving smaller amounts or by awareness and eyeballs being so high that corporate donors would be crazy not to jump on the opportunity to make large donations and take advantage of all the good that does.

The successful charities will be the ones who can come up with novel ways to raise awareness and encourage people to spread the word in their communities.

I’ll be going to Timeraiser on November 14th, and I hope to see you there. The good people at Timeraiser have been kind enough to offer me two tickets to give away, so here goes. Just reply in the comments with “I wanna go to Timeraiser, Suze!” and I’ll enter you in the draw, which I’ll do on November 9th.

Good luck!

Dom needed some stuff, to help make his life a bit better – to help him get around a bit more. Dom asked his friends to help him out.

But Dom wasn’t content to just make his life better. He wanted to make others’ lives better too.

This weekend, Dom and his friends on Twitter raised over $800. Dom is going to get what he needs to make his life better. But he’s also done something remarkable. Of that $800, he’s selflessly given $300 to 12for12k’s May Charity, the Hospice of Peel.

I am truly humbled, grateful, and overwhelmed, that someone could work so hard to bring his community together to help, that the community would in turn come to his aid, and that after all that, he would in turn, do something so selfless to give back.

Thank you Dom – you’re a truly special person. Your community loves you…don’t ever forget that.

More later.

Big Hearts

Today, after coming home from a few errands I was struck by the thought of the amazing hearts that we have in not only social media, but across the world. Just a day ago a plane crashed just 2 miles from my home and 3/4 of a mile from where I was at the moment of impact. This plane crashed and landed on a home in the township of Clarence just outside of Buffalo. Minutes after, I tweeted about it using hashtag #ClarencePlaneCrash and I was once again embraced by the Huge Hearts of Social media. Currently, I am running a charity fund raiser for the family that lost their home and their father on my blog. I thank one of the biggest hearts I know, Susan Murphy. for allowing me to share my thoughts with her community here on her blog.

Two Years of Wow!

I have been involved in the social media space for two years, and I am wow’ed! almost daily by the actions that I see in the social media space. We have a pool here of some of the smartest, forward thinking, and giving people I have ever come across.

Some of the amazing things I have seen are:

The Frozen Pea Friday Meme that went to help raise needed funds for Breast Cancer.
Gradon Tripps initiative of Social Media for Social Change (SM4SC).
Earth Day 2008! as well as the new Earth Day 2009 coming soon.
12for12k, using social media to raise $12,000 a month throughout 2009.
Twestival that took place Feb 12th 2009 to help struggling countries find clean water.
Dave Fleet’s effort in social media. Tying his Boston Marathon efforts to Charity.

There are many, many more instances of huge hearts in the social media space and I encourage you to share them here in the comments. As a sort of Valentines Day theme I wanted to get these thoughts out and share some the amazing things that I have seen over the past couple years. Have an amazing day, and keep opening your hearts. It’s amazing what you get back in satisfaction and love.

Keith.

Community these days seems to be a tricky thing for some. I feel that the concept of community is way over-analyzed in this online world. People are trying force communities into existence, then keep them afloat through tactics that are sometimes questionable.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not out to slam those whose job it is to build and manage communities. People like Scott Monty and Keith Burtis are excelling in this area right now. Why? Because they get it. They do it well because they understand how communities work, and how they need to work within them to make them succeed. What I’m saying is that communities can’t be forced.

Whether you want to create, join, lead or participate in a community, there are a few fundamental principles to abide by. I’ve been involved in communities all my life. Perhaps it comes somewhat naturally to me because I grew up in small, isolated towns. Perhaps it’s because of the influence of my parents, who were both active participants and leaders in the communities in which we lived. Perhaps it’s because of my experience working in community television – where it’s ALL about being part of a community. I suspect it’s a combination of these. Regardless, here are a few things I’ve learned about how to succeed with communities. I’d love to hear your tips in the comments too.

You can’t force it to be the way you want it to be. I know this is the third time I’ve said it, but communities cannot be forced. They can be facilitated, to be sure. Most communities begin with an idea. That idea gets spread around to a few people, and they tell two friends, and so on. Before you know it, you have lots of people communicating and collaborating and making things happen. The key is that communities are created by unique, individual people. Those unique voices are what creates the dynamic of the community. Different voices? Different dynamic. You can’t change that. The community evolves into what it will be. You can guide it along the path, but ultimately, you can’t (and shouldn’t) control everything about it.

To lead, you must listen. The brilliant thing about communities is the way the participants shape the community. Communities never work when they are top heavy. When the leaders are the ones dictating the way the community should run, what the community should talk about, and what the community should accomplish, then people lose interest really quickly. A community works when all of the participants have an equal opportunity to have their ideas and opinions heard. This takes listening, and listening closely.

Danny Brown does this exceptionally well. Since he started the 12for12k project, he’s been listening intently to the ideas that people have put forth to him. He’s accepting of people’s opinions and thoughts, and is happy to work with community members to help make their ideas come to fruition. He’s doing more listening than talking. And as a result, he’s doing more leading, and his community is succeeding in amazing ways.

Once a community evolves, it won’t need you as much. Every year at the community TV station, I’d get one or two more new studio shows put on my plate. New shows were a lot of work.  I was responsible for creating them from the ground up – building sets, designing the lighting, finding hosts, creating the elements (opening, titles, etc.), and figuring out the concept and content. I was also in charge of finding my volunteer crew and training them.

At first, I’d be doing everything. I’d be writing the show, coaching the hosts, training volunteers on how to set up the studio, light it and do all the technical production. When I wasn’t training someone to operate cameras or clip on microphones, I was editing all the pre-taped segments. The first show day was usually about an 18-20 hour affair. I would have to answer about 5000 questions a day and fight about the same number of fires. At the same time, I’d also have to make sure I was paying individual attention to my hosts and crew. I’d have to make sure they were feeling happy and challenged and engaged.

Building, designing, creating. Individual attention. Answering questions. Happy, challenged and engaged. Kind of like a community manager, eh?

Each week, we’d do another show. And each week, the community (i.e. the crew) would become a little more independent. Eventually it got to the point where I only had to roll in about an hour before the show went on, and roll out an hour after. My 18 hour days were now 3 or 4 hour days. The community had taken over. I was now just a guide, a facilitator – a listener. I would provide coaching when needed, and fight fires if they occurred (but my community even got good at that!). The show continued to improve, got more viewers, and most importantly, the community was strong and vibrant.

Don’t feel bad if your community doesn’t need you much after a while. It means you’ve done your job. And, hey, it frees you up to go build another community!

There you have it – my tips on building healthy, strong communities. But I want to hear from you. Many of you are experts at this, too. Please add your thoughts to the comments, I’d love to hear what you think.

I am so NOT a video post kind of person. (Ironic, considering I work in video). But today, I just felt that I wasn’t able to say what I needed to say in text. So here you go. I hope it’s clear.

Making a Difference from Sue Murphy on Vimeo.

CityNews Online 12for12k story

But, you may ask, what does one write on a 2009 To Do list? It could get very long and intensive. Well, it doesn’t have to be extensive. I’ve broken it in to three simple items.

Make an Effort to Connect with Your Online Network in Different Ways
I had a crazy realization the other day. I was about to jump on a conference call with my co-creative partners in the 12for12k Challenge, Danny Brown and Kathryn Jennex, when I realized that until that point, my entire friendship with Danny had been through text (I’d spoken to Kathryn at another point a few weeks back). In the 6 or so months we’ve been consipiring collaborating, we’d never spoken once in person! We’ve written blog posts together, he’s interviewed me for his blog, and we’d been working on 12for12k for weeks up till that point.

It’s not to say that text-based connections can’t work. After all, Danny and I have been able to not only accomplish a lot, but get to know each other as friends in the process. What I am saying is, it’s important, at some point in your relationship with others, to actually connect in person. This is not always possible because of geography. After our call that day, I felt even MORE of a connection with Danny and Kathryn.

So, in 2009, try to connect with some of your online network in different ways. Instead of Twitter or email, try a Skype call or Gmail Video Chat. It’s really amazing when you get to finally put a voice or face to a name. Maybe try to attend a couple of events or conferences. I have plans to go to Podcamp Toronto this year, and wild fantasies of going to SXSW. The very prospect of meeting some of my online friends face to face finally is very exciting to me! Can’t make it to a conference, or no time to schedule a call? Try a video blog. That’s right, set up your web cam and just press “record”. Say your next blog post instead of writing it. You’ll make a whole new level of connection with your audience. (Newsflash: Look for more video posts from yours truly this year!)

Find a Way to Make a Difference
I have a confession to make. I don’t really watch the news anymore. It’s too upsetting. I know, some people frown on folks like me who ignore the tragedies that are occurring in the Gaza strip, or the natural disasters that are occurring around the world, or the state of the economic crisis. But I just can’t accept that amount of negativity in my life. I read enough and hear enough to have a sense of what’s going on around me, what the underlying issues are. But I can’t stare hour after hour at images of bloodshed and heartache and worry. It’s not productive for me.

If you find yourself getting wrapped up in the problems of the world, I suggest taking a more proactive approach. Turn off the TV. Close the news web sites. And then, focus your energy on what you can do to make a difference.

There are so many great charities and causes out there, so many ways you can help, from being a foster parent (I am), to working with the homeless, to giving of your time and money to any organization that means something to you. If you are worried about the innocent children being affected by the atrocities of war, don’t feed into the negativity by watching endless news coverage. Go to War Child. Make a donation. Volunteer. Instead of making yourself sick with worry about those kids, do something that might just make a difference in their lives.

Not sure where to begin? What cause to choose? I invite you to check out 12for12k.org. We’re doing something really special over there, and it doesn’t take much to get involved.

No matter what cause you end up choosing the most important thing is to choose to make a difference.

Positive Thinking Works Magic
Okay, well you are probably thinking – oh my, she’s really gone off the deep end now. We’re about to get a lecture on positive thinking and laws of attraction and yadda yadda yadda. Well, before you reach for that unsubscribe button, hear me out.

There are times when I get really wrapped up in negative thoughts. I’m a lot better than I used to be, but it’s something I still struggle with, especially when I’m over tired, haven’t been eating well, or have been overly stressed. Here’s the problem with negative thinking, in my experience. It makes EVERYTHING worse. If I’m in a pissy mood, then everything becomes 10 times more frustrating. My computer crashes. My car won’t start. All my bills arrive in the mailbox on the same day. And it all just escalates.

However, if I stay focused and present and don’t spend all my mental energy thinking and worrying about thing that have happened in the past or might happen in the future, it’s like magic. I get the new contract. My mailbox has cheques in it. I get that email I’ve been waiting for. My morning coffee is extra-delicious. I have amazing conversations.

This year, put at the top of your to-do list that you are going to do everything you can to avoid getting trapped in negative thinking. It’s challenging this time of year, especially if you live up north like me. Lack of daylight and endless snow and cold are enough to drag anyone down. But try, try TRY to find the positive. The real magic of the universe will open up to you if you do.

That’s it! Three items. Hmmm – I guess that’s my three words, and I didn’t even know it till this very moment!

Connect. Difference. Positive.

Happy new year!

Suppose all the information stored on computers everywhere were linked, I thought. Suppose I could program my computer to create a space in which anything could be linked to anything.” — Tim Berners-Lee, “Weaving the Web”.

It all started with a simple link.

Contrary to popular belief, Tim Berners-Lee didn’t invent the concept of “hypertext”. There were guys like Ted Nelson and Doug Englebart toying with the concept back in the 1960’s. But Berners-Lee was the guy that did something remarkable with that concept. His vision, that any piece of information could be linked to any other piece of information, gave birth to what we know today as the World Wide Web. Not since the invention of the telephone has there been such a fundamental shift in the way human beings communicate.

And it’s kind of throwing us for a loop, don’t you think?

I’m a firm believer that in order to know where we are going, we must know where we have come from. That’s why Berners-Lee’s book, “Weaving the Web”, sits beside me while I work away on my computers every day, exploring and creating and expanding my understanding of what is really going on in this new medium. I reference it often, for I find that for all the time we spend trying to figure out what all this Web 2.0 business is about, much of it has already been put forth by guys like Berners-Lee.

Though we originally took the Web to be a simply a means of presenting information, Berners-Lee actually invented the Web as a means of communication and collaboration. 12 years after its rise in popularity, we are finally figuring that part out. It’s not wrong that we didn’t get it right away. It was necessary for it to evolve to that point.

When Alexander Graham Bell first invented the telephone, he had spend a lot of time convincing the rest of the world of its usefulness. It wasn’t immediately apparent. After all, if I wanted to talk to someone far away, I could just mail them a letter, and if I wanted to talk to my neighbour down the street, I could just go over to them. Why would I ever need to call them on a telephone?

Nearly 20 years passed from the time Bell invented the telephone until it was mainstream. The Web is no different. You see, the Web, like the telephone, was not something we knew we needed. That means we need to figure out what to do with it now that we’ve got it. It’s a process.

So here we are, at the end of 2008, and we are still on the journey that started with one little hyperlink. Everyday, millions and millions of new links are being made, and they aren’t just text on a page. The links are with real people, doing real things. As a result, movements are starting. 12for12k.org is one of them. There are many others. People are realizing that social media is about much, much more than just chatting till all hours of the night with a bunch of people you’ve never met in person. It’s even about more than just promoting your business. It’s about finding ways that we can help one another to learn, to grow, to succeed, in whatever it is we set out to do.

So how are you going to make more links in 2009?