The shirts all meant something. If it was purple, it was abuse against someone based on sexual persuasion. If it was green, it was a survivor of incest. And so on. There were all kinds of stories on the line. Each shirt was fabric art designed by someone (there wasn’t much in the way of a description), and each story was painful in its own way. Hank and I just read a bunch of the shirts and thought about it.

Hank found a few students who were related to the project, and they explained it (somewhat) to us. It was meant to raise awareness, to tell a story, to get us to think. And I guess it did all of those things. They mentioned that it was somewhat related to Take Back the Night. While listening to them talk, I was struck by the realization that this was a display that would be seen mostly by college people (1 in 4 college women suffers some kind of assault, we read on a shirt). But it would only be people on this campus seeing the effort. Further, none of the tee shirts gave us a URL for information, etc.

At moments like this, I get a mixed feeling. I appreciate the effort. I get that it’s meant to educate me, and it did. It moved me. But then, I start thinking, but we have to tell more people. We have to get the message to spread further. We have to do something bigger than a bunch of tee shirts, if we want to make the message have an impact and help others. I’m not sure it’s the right feeling to get, but that’s what I feel. I start by feeling moved. I finish by feeling we have to use our voices to get the story to travel further.

My friend, Julie Roads is promoting the movie, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, based on the book by Steig Larsson. The story has lots about domestic violence, and the book (which I just finished) also had quotes and facts about it. To me, this project will get lots more awareness, and yet, like the shirts, there won’t be a direct and obvious line between the feeling we’ll experience, and some next action we can take.

This, to me, is where marketing has a big responsibility and/or opportunity. We need to get you from the “I feel bad about this” to the “I can help in some small – or big! – way, by doing ____.” It’s just not enough to feel aware only. To me.

Am I alone in this? What’s your experience? And what do you think about when you see the shirts in this project? What else would you do to help people take back their voices?

The site, Skip1.org is set up to allow people to build a profile and do repeat giving. For those of you who like challenges and game mechanics, there’s a leaderboard to see where your skipping stacks up. (That might not be for everyone, but lots of people are motivated by competitions, so I can see it working for them.)

Founder Shelene Bryan and I met a few months back in Orange County, CA, at the Brandtailers event put on by Cheril Hendry (who is helping with Skip1 as well), and we had a great conversation about how the cause intends to move things forward. Instead of telling you, however, I thought I’d use their own video to show you. If you can’t see the video, click here.

Now, if that works for you, and if it makes sense, let’s do two things next.

1. Go to Skip1.org, make an account, and skip something.
2. Tell your friends on Twitter, Facebook, your blogs, wherever, and let’s really spread the cause out there.

Fair? Let’s skip something.

By the way, this was uploaded to Viddler. Get a free account and you can comment, notate, and video comment on the platform.

The four books I mention:

Make Millions and Make Change.

What do you think? Should I videoblog more often?

I’m inspired in part by a conversation with Britt Raybould tonight, about how the tech community is fairly insulated in our little fishbowl, and that we’re not really looking at things we could be doing to make a difference.

This was also one of the themes of PodCamp Boston this year, that we needed to take what we learned and start doing something with it. Further, I believe it was Christopher S. Penn who shared/linked to a story by Heather Ryan about what it was like to take her family to a soup kitchen for the first time. I’m also inspired by the work of Beth Kanter, and how she got a bunch of geeks to send a Cambodian woman to college again!

There are real world things you can do to help others while doing social media things. Here are some starting points:

Money Never Hurts

Affiliate Marketers Give Back is a campaign by Missy Ward and others in the affiliate marketing space dedicated to helping fund charitable giving via the affiliate marketing community.

Christopher S. Penn recently posted his new public speaking policy and it involves getting his fee handled in scholarship points to support college education.

Kiva.org is a microlending project, where you can fund several projects with great impact in other countries by giving a reasonably small amount of money in the form of a loan. My wife, Katrina, is involved with Kiva.org, and when I reviewed the projects she’d funded (Kat chose all women’s projects), I was impressed and moved by how much these loans could impact the people in need. Even $30 went a long way with certain projects in certain communities.

Or you could be Angel Djambazov and decide to send a good friend a few Flip video cameras for a generation-spanning project whose goal is only (only?) understanding between grandparents and kids.

There are other ways to help, too.

Startups to Solve More Pressing Problems

I came up with one idea where I feel a startup could make a difference, instead of trying to recreate the next Twitter killer yet again. Most modern grocery stores are all digitized. Every can of green beans is accounted for in a system. There are many people who receive financial assistance to support their food needs.

Could we build a system that automatically calculates the best possible food purchase choices, based on the amount of money available to spend divided by the number of people in the family, and built around the best possible nutrition choices? Could we print that list and even provide aisle/shelf numbers to make it even easier?

I saw an advertisement for a new show on Discovery called Project Earth. Essentially, it’s a science program, where they intend to do really big projects to attempt to impact various environmental issues. Too out there? Though it was a bit hokey and in the vein of reality TV, I give Discovery credit for education efforts via shows like Battleground Earth, where musical celebrities (Ludacris and Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee) perform eco-friendly challenges while educating us on how to make a difference in the environment.

Are there other ways we can use our technology and media skills that could benefit people in need?

It doesn’t always have to be a large gesture. Today, the effort with Beth Kanter cost as little as $10, and took up a few minutes of anyone’s time.

Want to see some other interesting and useful causes that could use your help in some small way?

Check out sm4sc- social media for social causes. This has lots of opportunities, especially for companies looking to get involved at a larger-than-individual level.

Check out this list from the nptech site.

So what can you do to help? What blocks us from taking action? How else might you share what you know in a way that would help others?

Photo credit, Joe M500

WHY I Did It

Much as I support giving to cancer as a worthy thing, my main reason for getting people to give was more about showing others how they can use Twitter and other social platforms to support charitable causes. Is it sustainable? Not really. Is it the BEST way to raise tons of money for a cause? No.

Did it make a lot of people feel good about themselves for a cost of only $10 – 20 *and* support a worthy cause? Yes!

Don’t ask me to raise money for your cause. Use these tools and your networks and raise it yourself. That’s the major point. YOU can do this. There’s nothing that makes my request any better than anyone else’s. I just sent the request and asked others to spread it across their own networks. Ultimately, people give because it makes them feel better.

Go ahead, make some change in the world, and show them that things like Twitter are for much more than talking about being stuck in traffic.

Last October, we helped send a Cambodian woman to college. Superstar nonprofit cause driver Beth Kanter raised half the money in a day, so I asked Twitter to raise the other half in two hours.

Beth has a similar goal in mind here. Read that article and come back, if you want. Essentially, Beth is asking YOU (and I mean you) for $10 (USD) to help another great cause. If you’re sold already, donate here. If not, consider this:

$10 is two latte drinks at Starbucks.
$10 is an appetizer at a restaurant.
$10 is six or seven sodas out of an office vending machine.
$10 is part of someone’s future in your hands today.

Ready to feel good? Donate here.

Why I Support Social Causes

Besides the obvious “it’s the right thing to do” type of answer, my other reasons are as follows: It’s something way more interesting thank talking about Twitter and Facebook (meaning it’s using the tools instead of talking about them). It’s a way to prove that we have power beyond what we tend to believe about ourselves. It’s a way to demonstrate to other parts of the world that those of us with the privilege of technology can do something meaningful elsewhere.

No fuss. No hullabaloo. Let’s just give $10 and go from there. Cool?