Earthday
Saving is a prudent choice | Earthday Birthday 2009 |
For some of us, the concept of “Saving” is a quantum leap in our thinking. But we have to remain optimistic especially in this financial crisis. We have to realize that as a collective force, we can make a difference. Whether we may or may not need to evaluate or exercise our feelings regarding the issue of money and consumerism, helping the earth is an issue that requires attention and immediate action. Change will only ever take effect through deeds, not words. We, as consumers, need to curb our lavish spending habits. We are using up the Earth’s scarce resources. These days, the housing market is falling. People have stopped eating out at restaurants and going on vacation. Many of my relatives have down-sized their lifestyles. This is a great time to generate this experiment and consciously adjust our thoughts on saving.
Some economists assert that the rising rate of savings was a natural reaction, penance for America’s spendthrift ways. “If American consumers are less indebted, live within their means and have more money in savings, they are better positioned to spend on a sustainable basis for years to come,” said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com. “As painful as that is economically in the short run, these developments will better serve us in the long run”. On the flip side, consumerism is an important factor in bringing about economic activity to pull the country out of recession.
So this crisis can be contained. We just have to buckle up, re-prioritize and focus our attention to this Earth Day campaign. Collectively, we can all play an active role in contributing our efforts towards the on-going environmental issues. Instead of ordering take-out one night this week, one could just save that money and donate it to the Social Traffic Group concept that is organizing Earth Day (April 22nd). If we all not only pitched in about $10 to the cause, but get another 10 people to do the same, we can collectively raise $1 million and upwards.
I figure we all do our part. Most of us recycle. We keep our friends and families from littering on the streets and use bio-degradable and organic products. Basically, we all do what we can to try to follow a healthy and green lifestyle. But is this making a huge impact on the Earth? One does not have to think or even be an environmentalist. After all, this is OUR Earth. We should limit our spending on worthless consumer goods and focus on saving our planet for our future generations! Think of the world we want to leave our kids.
I mentioned re-prioritizing earlier. We should take a look at the social benefits of saving. The aim should be to have a green environment and enrich our surroundings. If we took the initiative and told 10 of our friends to pitch in $10 from their savings once every year (this being the first of many), and tell them to ensure next year 10 of their friends are on board to do the same, we could end up with a staggering amount of money each year! Since it happens to be our money, we can do whatever we want with it and in this case, we are helping the Earth Day cause. As a citizen of the Earth, it is our responsibility to preserve and protect the global environment.
The concept of saving in order to be able to participate fully in the Earth Day campaign aims to alter one’s thinking about their spending habits and lavish lifestyles. This cause hopes to promote a positive attitude about the Earth and to raise consciousness of environmental protection (especially the rainforests) and calls for the citizens of the Earth to protect their natural surroundings and save energy!
If you have been following us, you’d know that this is more than just about the charities. Its a social marketing experiment to see our community’s ability to call on others to act. People can donate money to whichever organization they want. We are not promoting a specific foundation, we are promoting a movement of people prepared to do what it takes to get others to act. This is where the true value of the Social Traffic Inc (STi) becomes evident. Together we can make a difference in social marketing, that nobody else has done before.
The money amount doesn’t matter - Donating $10 is the easy part. The real challenge is getting another 10 people to follow suit. If everyone could do this we could raise infinite amounts of money, year after year. If we all stick together and work towards common goals the collective sum raised would be influential. The cost to each of us in being able to enjoy the feeling of contributing millions of dollars to a cause we believe in is just $10.
I cannot say this enough. The easy part is donating $10. The challenge is in us recruiting and maintain 10 contacts who we can depend on that will each do the same. Ten contacts who won’t let us down. If each of us can get the latter part right and if we all stick together,…. our capacity to make a difference is exponential. It should be so easy, 10 people capable of maintaining a commitment from another ten people to donate $10 towards a good cause on Earthday. I mean it’s worth $10 just to know what donating $1 million dollars to a good cause feels like. Not to mention knowing we have been pro-active in doing something to ensure the legacy we leave our children is something we can be proud of.
To be honest, I don’t think we were ever in a position to raise a million dollars this year. People need to see us here doing the same thing next year before they were ever going to trust us. People are not going to ask their trusted friends to trust in us until they can be sure we are the real deal. The only way that’s going to happen is for us to be here, executing this same campaign year after year. Earthday birthday was always a 10 year plan. By next year let’s aim to be in a position where we can actually raise $1 million dollars for a good cause by sending an email..
Join Earthday Birthday, beyond 2009 here. You will be asked to nominate your ten friends so have their names email addresses handy. Everyone that signs onto the list will be sent an email letting them know how much money we raised for each of the different charities we supported this Earthday, 2009.
Join Earthday birthday, beyond 2009 to receive a list of charities we are supporting here.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
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Selecting a cause to donate funds to |
Social Traffic Earth Day Birthday Campaign:
For over two months now, the social traffic evangelists have been promoting the EarthDay Birthday events. A lot of people raised their hands to say that they will save $10 from their lives to donate to a global cause this Earth Day. Many of them even made videos for Youtube to tell the world how they are saving money in such economic times – it’s a small amount, but it is something – some were sacrificing junk food, haircuts, drinks, others were saving on trips and gas refills. It was interesting to see how people who are motivated act. There always needs to be a cause behind it – something greater than themselves. Without a cause even seemingly good deeds are difficult to do.
We made a group on Facebook that has the names of the donators and the names of the people they refer to next to them. It’s a growing list that is evolving as people add their lists of 10 to it. I mentioned our intentions from this campaign in the previous post. It’s just so powerful to have 10 people who have influence of 10 friends each. This seemingly small divide (2 degrees of separation) results in a group of 100 in the blink of an eye. Next of each of those 100 people have influence on 10 friends as well, then we have a group of 1000. Now if we just go down to 5 levels of separation which is NOT AT ALL impossible, we’d have a group of 100,000 people. Ask each of these 100,000 people to donate just $10 to a cause that they select, and we’d have 1 million dollars worth of donations. Imagine how powerful this model is. Imagine how powerful Social Traffic Inc can get if it could demonstrate this simple theory in real life. It is important for all of you to understand this concept completely in order to become a part of it. The difference between 100 committed Social Traffic members donating $10 this Earth day and 100 Social Traffic members having a network of 10 people who not only donate 10 dollars, but who have also built a network of ten people who will do the same each year $999,999.00. Please, we have two days to run this year. Now is as good a time as any. Start working on building your network of ten people.If not for this year. For next.
Donation option:
It’s time to select a cause to donate to. When we see all of this activity it becomes even more important to select a cause which everyone unanimously votes for. I’ll talk about one donation idea today, you can leave more ideas in the comments.
Instead of blindly donating to a charity organization, why don’t we all pitch in for something much bigger and tangible. Why don’t we find an organization which is so passionate about its cause that we would have no shred of doubt about our money going in the rights hands.
I keep thinking about ideas, but somehow I keep coming back to the thought of being able to buy deforested rain forests and allow someone to give it life again. It serves so many purposes from wild life preservation, atmospheric temperature control, maintenance of environmental balance, all the way to adjusted carbon levels.
Not only that, but it’s a firm statement against brute consumerism, it’s a stand against destroying natural balances, it’s a stand against global oppression for personal benefits. Why do we need to deforest masses of land anyway? So that we can eat, consume, wear a little more? So that we can continue consuming products which we don’t even need, as if there is nothing wrong with it.
One organization that stands apart from a lot of other ones is the Willie Smits foundation.
Here’s what Ode Magazine has to say about him:
“Willie Smits’s accomplishment is the perfect example of finding a best-of-all-worlds solution. Smits did not “merely” create a rainforest in a barren, fire-prone plot of land. He has also involved local people and created 3,000 jobs. He gave people a rainforest and economic incentives to preserve the forest. His meticulously engineered and implemented plan refused to make trade off between his passion for conservation the need of locals for a sustainable lifestyle.”
His motivation to save rainforests began with the plight of the orangutans. According to TED:
“Smits believes that to rebuild orangutan populations, we must first rebuild their forest habitat which means helping local people find options other than the short-term fix of harvesting forests to survive. His Masarang Foundation raises money and awareness to restore habitat forests around the world and to empower local people. In 2007, Masarang opened a palm-sugar factory that uses thermal energy to turn sugar palms (fast-growing trees that thrive in degraded soils) into sugar and even ethanol, returning cash and power to the community and, with luck, starting the cycle toward a better future for people, trees and orangs.”
Lastly, here’s an official appeal from Dr. Willie Smits - Sponsors Needed.
Recommending a charity or foundation of your choice:
For those of you promoting Earth Day Birthday, we can also choose from any other event that you have created a page for on Eventslisted.com. This is your chance to make a difference for a cause that you feel will benefit those involved - if you have other ideas for where the donation should go, we’re all ears. Please make your recommendations today. Present your case in the comments. Right now, this is completely your prerogative - I only ask that it should be unanimously agreed so that everyone is comfortable with where their money goes.
Recommend a charity of your preference and include the charities PayPal ID - so that we can create a page for it. If you are recommending a new cause, please qualify the charity to ensure its is genuine using http://www.charitynavigator.org.
How it works:
Of all the charity recommendations that you add to comments, the charities that are mentioned with their charitynavigator.com rating + PayPal email address will be added to the Social Traffic Earth day donation page on our website.
We will add widgets on the STi blog. You will be asked to send your 10 people to a page on the Social Traffic blog this April 22nd. It will have a few of these widgets for people to donate directly into the charity’s PayPal accounts to make the process completely seamless.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
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The Earthday Donation Wall |
Sometimes, you have to come out in the open, not only to validate your words but also to encourage others. I know a lot of you have been preparing for our gift to Earthday - One World One Gift. The exact nature of the gift will be finalized in the weeks to come, but a lot of you have been putting away money for it. Saving and sacrificing money to pitch in for the gift. Whether we end up buying an entire rainforest or donate to a global cause, the fact remains that it is you who made it possible.
We saw beautiful and touchy videos that you all made to tell the world about how you are saving money for this gift to give on Earthday. With just 2 weeks left, I thought we should all put down the amount/value on a wall so that we can see how much we are collecting as we enter the final countdown to Earth day 2009.
I have launched a group with one post where every one joins and lists their 10 people on the wall. You can join the group here. So if you’ve been true to your word throughout the campaign, you can put up your name and the ten people we have trained you to focus on throughout your social media marketing training on the wall for everyone to see. We need to fill this up quickly. It will also give a nice visual representation on the money generated through tiered networks. What happens 6 tiers down the lane? At 6 degrees of separation from each other, we’d have generated 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * $10 = $1 million.
We will copy and paste these 10 by 10 into the group descriptions wall and every time someone new adds their list of 10 we will source them into the list and place a (10) next to their name so by the end of this campaign we can all see who has acted and who has not. Remember Social Traffic gave away over $100,000 worth of Events Listed’s social media training content to evangelists on the condition they all act towards helping us raise awareness for Earth day. We have also asked them to work on ten trusted relationships in circles outside the Social Traffic group to get them to do the same. Our common objective was that everyone save $10 that could be donated to a good Earth centric cause this earth day, and I for one am very interested to see how this pans out.
Do you remember that the Social Traffic shareholders have been the gatekeepers to giving out the passwords to the Social Media training content every week and the condition was that it was only handed out to those evangelists who deserved it through their contribution towards our Earth day campaign. The free $1500 course content and mentoring enjoyed by the evangelists, has been the one leverage Social Traffic has had to demand their team to act for us. By my calculations we should be able to expect at a minimum that our 20 shareholders can attract 10 good people each into acting here. Those 200 should mostly be evangelists from our 3 waves, who if they have been following the campaign will have been working on their 10 people - leading to the 2000 mark. Now, what happens beyond that will come down to the quality of relationships those 2000 people invite to join us beyond the Social Traffic community. Well, its out of my hands now. I have hit the button so all we can do is sit back and see how far she goes.
The wall post will evolve over the next 2 weeks. You will see it grow like a tree. The Social Traffic leadership group of 20 are the roots - their 10 friends who will largely consist of evangelists as well as their trusted network are the trunk. Their further 10 friends will become the branches. And their 10 friends will be the fruits. Without the branches, you can have no fruits. Without the roots you can have no trunk. If you want to see a good social marketing experiment that also demonstrates collective social behaviors, check in to this Facebook group and monitor it over the next 2 weeks. One catch though. We have a door policy that demands you put some skin in the game or you cannot watch. This is not a spectator sport. We have a deadline to raise close to $1 million for Earth Day on April 22. I will post again with some suggestions on where we can donate all this money. Lets see how close the group gets.
To give you an idea of how this works, please take a look at this Facebook Earthday Birthday 10X10X10X10X10X$10 experiment.
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The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes |
When we were younger, how much did we care to know about environmental issues? How much time did we spend to understand the people around us? How much did we fight for global issues? How well-versed were we of policies that effect the world at large. I’d dare say… very incredibly little.
Whether the times were easier, or the connectedness was limited, or the situation was less of a threat - nothing justifies closing our eyes and our ears to things that are real, close and extremely daunting.
Unless you’ve been hibernating in a cave for the past 20 years or so, you’d know that things are different today. Our kids are smarter about these global issues. We have better platforms for taking action.
Here’s a video to shake your conscience up. The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
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Becoming the trustee of our own contributions |
I couldn’t sleep well last night thinking about how much we all want to contribute to a tangible cause on earth day, and yet how little options there are to hold our collective contributions. We don’t ‘trust’ the “Trusts” (pun intended), and I know that Social Traffic or any individual wouldn’t want to take on that sole responsibility.
Buried in all of those thoughts I realized that the solution you proposed of keeping the money to ourselves until the time is right, is probably going to work best.
We want to chip money in for getting a present for our earth on Earthday, right? We want to do something that will impact the earth in a positive way, right? We just don’t know which ‘Monetary Trust’ to keep our money until Earthday, right? Why don’t WE ALL become trustees of our own individual contributions? We all trust ourselves to honor our word, right?
So if you decided to save $30 by not going to the barber this month, that money can go into your little piggy bank (or under your pillow), and you should be the person to act like a trustee to that fund. We can put money away in a jar and trust ourselves not to spend it anywhere else. Your contributions are your commitment and resolve to doing something for the world by putting that money away and trusting yourself to honor your commitment. And this is our best chance of getting this program/campaign right.
Are you willing and ready to become a trustee of your own contributions until the time to buy the birthday gift comes?
If you aren’t one of those who have already started to put away money by sacrificing your drinks, turning down the heat, reducing eating out, altering your schedules, using recycled containers, switching to cheap hair product alternatives - then perhaps you should think again. What’s driving these people to do these crazy things? Why should they care? What incentives do they have to make those videos of their oaths. What motivates them to hold on to their word? They’re not crazy. They’re normal people - like you and me. The only difference is, they have big dreams and even bigger hearts.
I think this is far more likely to work than getting people to put their money in a third party independent trust. While the rest of our team is busy supporting and marketing the Earthday Birthday events, we’ll be going around raising funds for the earth’s present.
It’s simple to start. Make a decision on how much you want to donate. Then cut out on things in your life that you can sacrifice in order to save for that donation. Make a video out of it (if possible) to tell the world about it. Uphold your promise. Keep the saved money in a safe place. Vote for a cause when we’re shortlisting where to send the donations. Send the money to the cause when Earthday comes. Simple as that.
So start saving up from today onwards – whether it’s a dollar or more, that’s completely up to you. The idea is to give away something at least, so that you can know in your heart that you were part of the grand Earthday birthday 2009 in a substantive way. Together we have to raise close to $10 million and show the world what we’re capable of achieving together.
I know people who are saving on entertainment expenses for a month by cutting down their movie watching trips. There are those who are putting up garage sales to help save a bit of money for themselves and for this campaign. Some kids are cutting out a percentage of their allowances for two months to save for this. I myself will not go to a barber for a month and save up that money for the Earthday gift. It’s a good feeling to have so many thoughtful people doing all sorts of things by thinking beyond their own personal needs and requirements.
From tomorrow onwards we’re going to aggressively start running this campaign for raising money for Earthday. There are so many remarkable things that we can do with actual tangible and measurable benefit to the earth.
On a side note: We should of course be aware of the fact that working towards solving these prevalent issues is important throughout the year and not just on Earthday. But we’re using the Earthday as a touch-point for all future work done for this cause. We need to adjust our way of life to make it more environment friendly one step at a time. We need to recycle things. We need to choose paper over plastic. We need to switch to renewable sources of energy. We need to watch our carbon emissions. We need to discover and invent newer and better ways of saving our resources.
I guess my point is that this isn’t a means to an end – this is the beginning of a journey and lifestyle. A few years ago it was at everyone’s prerogative to decide – today we don’t have the luxury of such choices. We have to act. We have to be conscious members of the society.
For now, though, we should spread this message far and wide and get as many people to contribute as possible.
I am Simon U Ford, and this is the “One World One Gift” project. We are a group of people who are each contributing to help leave a tangible mark on the Earth’s environment and protection. We want everyone to be a part of this by contributing as little as $1 to the project. We hope to spread this message out far and wide and get millions of people to join it.
Nobody will be required to send their money to a trust, since they themselves are the trustees of their own funds. When the Earthday Birthday comes close, we will ask you to contribute your trusted money to a cause – the exact cause hasn’t been decided by the community yet but it might be along the lines of buying back land for reforestation of barren lands. We would like everyone to contribute as much as possible for this cause to help do something worthwhile for the Earth. Join our cause and help tell your friends about it.
Visit my blog and comment on a heart felt video published by one of the Social Traffic crew
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The complexities of trust in fund raising |
I was told since very young that our actions are more important than words. If we have been blessed with an articulate tongue then we should work even harder to make sure that we honor our words. Whatever we say or do should reflect upon our characters and values. This is where a lot of marketers around me fail to draw the line. If you lie to build up a facade just in order to create an aura of importance - then you’ve already lost the game. On the contrary, if you’re really passionate about something, it will shine through from you. It will take you where you want to be, and it will open doors you never thought existed. As I always say, if you work hard for your goal and have faith, the world conspires to help you.
The standing applause for Willi Smits at TED was a product of his resolute passion to save rainforests. He spoke from his heart. He spoke with compassion. He shook everyone in that room with stats that would sends shivers down the toughest of spines. That calls for an applause. His passion was contagious enough to get more people to join his cause.
A dream to do something tangible for our Earth - where will the money go?
Earth day Birthday is just a little over a month away. This year, instead of just a message, we should actually contribute to making the earth healthier and more livable. We don’t just want to talk about the issues facing the Earth. We don’t just want to give out noisy messages like empty barrels. We want to act. We want to do something tangible together that can have an actual physical positive effect.
We’ve been talking about raising funds for Earth Day collectively. No matter how big individual contributions are, they cannot be big enough to get an actual tangible result. Getting other people involved in raising this money is very important, the more people the more this will spread and the higher the account. So yesterday we explored the pyramid model of collecting a large amount of funds in a short time. It’s an overwhelming feeling to see so many people willing to put their $10 into the cause. But the truth is that it is a big responsibility on our part to make sure that the money is spent wisely.
So, when I look at all the wonderful videos sprouting everywhere (thanks to Shane Balceto for managing our youtube group by leading by example), I feel even more responsible for making sure that each and every penny collected goes into the right cause. Trust me it’s a huge responsibility on our part to ensure that the sacrifices made by all of you are for a cause that will benefit the global world in a real and actionable way.
If you want to see dozens of more videos like these made by people contributing to our Earth day Birthday gift, go to http://www.Youtube.com/group/EarthDay.
The collective power of movements is so much more stronger than any individual ever can be. If we decide to collect cash for spending it on a cause to help the earth, then we need some kind of a trust to hold our contributions. Although I’m not sure who to make our trustee to keep the funds. The ironic thing is that no matter how good our intentions are, there are so many roadblocks to one’s path.
There seem to be so many regulations, laws, legal implications, infrastructure estimates associated with dealing with trusts for a longer period of time. I suppose this is a catch 22 situation in many ways. Sometimes, if you want to get something, you have to let go of inhibitions and annoyances. Since this is a community driven project, I would like all of you to decide how to go about this.
The issues that I have with such bodies is a simple human nature problem - they’ve added layers of complexities of making a simple thing quite disgruntling. A lot of the money simply goes into maintaining their long work flows, red-tapism and mushrooming checkpoints. They make simple things complex, probably for good reasons of course - but we’re at a point where we want lesser headaches.
I’ll be honest with you - if it was my money, I wouldn’t be so bothered about it. But when I see all of you guys who are sacrificing things in your daily lives in this rough economic time-belt to take money out for this cause, then I am the one who has to make it my personal mission to make sure that each penny is accounted for. I’m a simple man when it comes to business, to me a person’s word is his word.
Which is why I think we’ll be much better off keeping the money to ourselves and then putting it in only after we’ve collectively decided what organization to support. I’d like to hear your thoughts on it too.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
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Raising funds for Earth Day - the good type of pyramid scheme |
We have this exciting discussion going on on Facebook about collecting the donations into one pool eventually so that we can do something on a much more grander scale than seen before. The good thing about our presence on social networks is that it’s possible for us to be able to raise tens and thousands of dollars if we approach it the right way. If our core 100 people just get 10 of their trusted friends to join the cause… and if everyone just puts away $10… we’d have $10,000 off the bat right there and then. Now instead of increasing the amount per person, we can just spread the message out horizontally to a larger audience base, consequently inviting more people to join in. The best and most tested social approach of doing that is to choose the right ten people in the front place - if you get 10 people who believe in the cause, suave to same moves, beat the same drums; then they would easily be able to invite ten of their close friends as well. So that can effectively result in 100 (core) * 10 (friends) * 10 (friends of friends) * $10 each = $100,000 within a day or so with zero marketing. I mean lets face it, in a world where people have at least 200 online friends here, a good 300 online friends there - finding ten isn’t the problem… the real problem is making sure you choose the right kind of people.
So this sounds all good in theory - but exactly how does it work? It comes down to three things: a- the caliber of the people that you invite, b- your relationship with the person invited, c- the amount of money donated per person. If any one of these elements goes missing the entire equilibrium breaks down into tiny pieces. The best analogy that comes to my mind is that of the airplane game which was pretty popular back in the 80’s before becoming illegal in most parts of the world.
Understanding the Pyramid Scheme Model:
Basically the concept of the game was based on a pyramid scheme of a group of people who got together at fortune parties - the pyramid was made out of different participatory levels from passengers to flight attendants, all the way up to co-pilots and pilots. So in a group of 30 people if each passenger level person added $1000 to enter the game, the top pilot would get a $16,000 payout when piloted out at the top of the scheme, with the option of coming back into the game again as a passenger. So the top players would fly high for a good few times while the bottom rungs would slowly be thrown out of the pyramid and replaced with new lots. So if you had 16 people in the bottom rung, you’d get 16 new people with a $1000 each (the amount typically ranged between $10-$1500) every week. The thing that made the game interesting (and banned) was the gambling model that it was based on - you could never really tell whether or not you would get lucky - and it would usually be a good idea to step out before losing everything that you won - so pulling yourself out of it was like leaving a casino when you’re winning. Let’s just say, it took a lot of will. The system starts to break down when you bring in greed, gullibility, desperation and animosity - which is why it was eventually banned. What I’m talking about is the basic concept, not the validity of the game.
It’s a game where the best players stick, the weaker links are replaced each week - so that the collective power of the group is increased over time. The stronger the bonds that they share the more money they collectively make up. So when the caliber of the new people decreases the game would start to lose momentum - which is why the smart winners would step out of the game after flying high 4-5 times just to be safe. But if you keep playing well as a whole then the party could easily make over 16 to 100 grands eventually.
If the relationship with the new people that you invite as passengers isn’t good, then the trust issues lead to desperation which results in the game losing momentum. So it’s not always just about the caliber of the people that matters - its also about how much they trust you and how much are they willing to push through their comfort zones for you. So you can bring in a person of very high caliber but if he has friction with the team, he’d bring more harm to the plane than good.
How simple is it to raise funds for Earth Day?
So the key to winning the game is to pick really good quality people from the start - the stronger the team the better. In our case, of course, it’s not about one person winning. It’s not about piloting anyone out. It’s about one person putting down money for a cause and recruiting 10 people to put down their money, who can in turn recruit ten more people to the cause who put down their money. It’s not about sending your money to anyone - you just have to put it under your pillow until YOU decide what organization you want to donate it to. It’s just a model of exponential increase in the collective funds being raised - and the truth is that with the Earth day just 40 days away this geometric progression is the best way to be able to buy that gift that we’ve been working so hard for. After all, it’s your party - you can care if you want to. Here’s a laugh:
So, like I said earlier the other day, the success of our Earth day Campaign would all come down to the caliber of friends that the first 100 people invite. If the second group of 1000 people are of the caliber that I know the first 100 are of, then we could really achieve this without a doubt.
Think about this for a second: How difficult is it really? And how much can something so small make the world a better place?
Here’s a beautiful video for you to watch, enjoy and learn from - as humans there’s no boundaries to what we are capable of achieving if only we can put our egos aside and work together. Here’s to a great team who has been proving it week after week that we’re in for a bigger game!
If you are reading this on facebook you are going to have to visit my blog to watch the video. Go to my website and search the header, use the key words “pyramid scheme” to watch the video.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
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Raping what we love the most; our deceptive relationship with Earth |
We need to plant some seeds of change… we need to sow meaningful thoughts… we need to tell the world that we’re ready to collectively solve its problems, rather than become instruments of its destruction.
Everything on Earth came with a balance. A balance of gases. A balance of minerals. A balance between water and land. A balance between dark and light. In came us humans – driven by our desire to capitalize, monetize and usurp. It’s incredibly eye opening to see how selfish we are capable of getting – wiping out wildlife as if we have a born-right to do that, destroying the Earth’s natural balances as if it’s not going to effect the lives of our future generations. We just think about now – what am I getting now – what do I need now – how do I meet my needs now. Now. Now. Now.
This impulsiveness… packed with corrupt (and loaded) big-wigs, international power struggles and a ‘might is right’ attitude, we now have a very sad Earth. We have an Earth who is raped, humiliated and on the brink of being destroyed. While all it did for us was give give and give – we continue to take everything for granted.
Haven’t it ever occurred to you that perhaps this Earth was a gift to us? Or worse, perhaps it was a test? Are we passing that test?
As I write this post, 1.5 acres of rainforest are lost each second. In the past 10 minutes that it took me to write the above paragraphs, a good 900 acres of rainforests took their last breaths. And with them we said good-bye to more than 30 plant, animal and insect species. Those species were put there for a reason. The insects were loosening the land to keep it fertile and becoming food for some of the animals. The animals were forming the natural circle of life. The plants were managing oxygen and humidity levels for the surrounding areas, and providing us with food. There is a whole ecosystem behind everything that we just don’t care about – even though indirectly its ALL for us. This is why when I hear stats of how we are losing close to 50,000 species a year due to deforestation, I feel sickened to the core. 50,000 species!
A friend Maury nailed it when he said: “The gift of nature is our humanity. The reality of destruction is the mass consciousness of mankind led by a few of greed and great ugliness, supported by the ongoing race for more, regardless of the price. When on a conscious path of abundance do we consider the trade off of our actions versus its implications? When we drive down the street in our shiny nice car, even with great intentions, what is the bigger price we never see. Is the term globe trotting environmentalist an oxymoron? This is the question I seem to be looking for an answer to.”
Maury, that’s a question we are all looking for an answer to.
The image above is a sad result of the constant deforestation around us. As humans we should have very deep links to nature – nature is life. Someone came to me today with a desperate and helpless expression saying;
“I’m doing all I can – recycling, switching to alternative energy, reducing my carbon emissions – but my contribution is such a small speck that its not going to change anything… I don’t feel like I’ve done all I could..”
I was touched by her empathy, I was moved by her passion, and most of all I was shaken up her cold hard truth. Don’t get me wrong, you should do all of those things, every little step in the right direction will eventually lead to someone following you. But, you also have a chance of doing something more on the side, by giving away so little of your time and capital. By showing the world you are donating $10 to a worthy cause this Earthday will lead someone else to do the same. Now, what if you did more? What if you personally saw to it that 10 people in your life did the same? What if you chose these people well and you asked each of them to look you in the eye and commit to doing the exact same thing and so on. I mean, it’s not like they are doing us a favor, isn’t it all “our” earth?
How much do you think we could raise? Let’s say we inspired 100 people to commit to doing this together. If we all keep our word that would be 1,000 people donating $10 on Earth day. Now if each of our ten friends that got on board, meet their commitment and do the same that would be 10,000 people donating $10 on Earth day. Now - ideally speaking - if these people chose 10 people who actually honored their commitments too, we would have 100,000 people all donating $10 on Earth day. Then 1 million, then 10 million and you know what’s interesting… the 10 million people donating a total of $100 million on April 22nd would only be separate by 6 degrees of separation. That’s how powerful we are as a collective force.
I guess it would all come down to the caliber of friends that the first 100 people invite. If the second group of 1000 people are of the caliber that I know the first 100 are of, then we could really achieve this without a moment of hesitation. If not this year, we could do it without any doubts next year.
When I introduced the idea of tucking some money away for collectively buying rainforests to preserve them – I didn’t know what kind of a reaction I would get from all of you. Their are a lot of organizations that we can support, but I just didn’t know if you would understand why I feel so deeply about this issue.
We’ve agreed to saving a penny here and a penny there to buy back $250 million dollars worth of land for reforestation by Earth day 2020. If you want to help preserve the Earth, go to this page and get involved, share a video, blog post, idea, or whatever you can offer.
Meanwhile, here is a video of Willie Smits which will surely make the hardest of hearts soften and swell. Watch it with intent ears, clear eyes and an open heart. So the next time someone says “why would anyone want to invest in a rainforest”, you should able to snap back with some facts, stats and bitter realities.
In time, this is a cause I might want to donate my $10 to.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
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The Social Map |
There has been a lot of discussion to understand the social ecosystem that has been built around a person’s online existence. Because of my interest in anthropology and sociology, I spend a significant amount of my time studying online trends. What’s most interesting is that when you start plotting your social network on a graph it comes up with such an intertwined complex network consisting of different platforms and nodes - all relevant to your online existence in some way or another.
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A lot of people have used complicated ways to illustrate our online social maps. In theory it’s actually quite simple. If you think about the different websites or applications that you use, you’ll notice that there is an actual thing (or object) that forms the basic cohesive power. When I go to Wikipedia, the object is information. When I go to Ebay, the object is the product. When I go to Flickr, the objects are the pictures. The objects are the underlying value that the site offers and differentiates itself with. Websites that forget to focus on an object, lose the social media game. The reason why we call them objects is because we want you to feel like they are actual entities that form the heart of the application. Building your own applications may be difficult in this fast-paced cut-throat business, but associating yourself with existing social networks is easy. Instead of spending 5 to 20 thousand dollars to build a site which will have zero traffic initially, you can build a presence on different social networks at no cost and create hundreds of thousands of dollars of opportunities through it. The purpose of this book is to help you figure out how to do that on your own.
The image above is my view of the social map. It contains two key elements: collaboration and sharing. A few categories of sites emerge from these (marked in grey boxes), like “information”. These basic categories are sub-divided into different types of online applications (marked in red boxes). Everything outside the dotted box is based on an object of value offered. For example, when sharing information on your personal blog, the object of value is your “thoughts”.
In practice, when I started plotting those graphs I realized that Milgram’s “Six Degrees of Separation” theory isn’t that far from reality. The way the internet has evolved - specifically web 2.0 technologies - we can effectively reach out to people we could never have previously dreamed of. The important thing for us to learn is how to make the most of these online networks without giving away or risking too much.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
Today’s tip! One stop shopping for all your event marketing in social media needs you can’t go past my Events Listed networking and marketing platform. It’s invite only, here’s a backdoor pass on me.
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Earth Day Birthday – Promoted by the Social Traffic Inc |
I wanted to publicly announce the Social Traffic Inc’s involvement with EarthDay Birthday for all external readers who haven’t been following us.
There are a number of interesting stories in this project. Basically this project is being done by the Social Traffic team for their first client Eventslisted.com. The Social Traffic Team was a byproduct of a collaborative thought leadership group on Facebook. These people met and talked about the social web and sought to help make it more quality-centric and relationship-based.
Through the outcomes of those discussions, the basis of this separate social marketing company came into existence – and today it rides on their collective capabilities. The group went through a few weeks of screening process through which is transparently elected its leadership group based on the input and skill levels of the initial members. After a few weeks of working together, it came down to a handful of strong passionate personalities, while the weaker or less committed ones faded away in the background.
Although all of their systems, models and strategies are different, what really set it apart was how intricately each shareholder’s value was linked to the selection process. Everything was based on the value added to what has become a “team-first” community – people who provide the most value and spend the most time, will earn the greatest stake in the organization. This system was tricky, it had to be transparent to work – it has effectively filtered out the non-value-providers, eventually resulting in the current, tightly aligned group left standing.
Earth Day
After the months of planning, the Social Traffic group is finally rolling out their first extensive marketing outreach for the EarthDay Birthday campaign.
Basically, anyone who would want to host an event on Earth Day (April 22nd) can get on board the EDBD program. By doing that, Social Traffic Inc will help promote their events for them across social media. Events Listed offer a state of the art event management and social networking marketing platform, the can publish event pages that showcase audio, video and up to 30 other plug and play feeds and capsules for marketing their events. Social Traffic will help them manage brochures and posters as well as electronic invitations and viral ticketing commissions. They will also provide resources for managing budgets, tasks, sign ups, tickets etc driving hundreds of thousands of people into the Earth Day event pages.
For this first project, Social Traffic Inc will be doing all of this for free for those event organizers hosting Earth Day celebrations. The concept behind Earth Day is something very close to heart for the Social Traffic Inc and is their perfect way of officially launching their marketing services online. We’ll post out a list of the core group members along with their capabilities in a few days.
Watch out and let us know if you think you can help spread the cause in any manner.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
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