Totally Incorrect » 12for12k

Big 12for12k bash – Live in Lowell

David — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:07:54 +0000

For the December “Homeless” theme, the New England 12for12k team would love to invite you to Live in Lowell! – a special 12for12k event.

Live in Lowell! takes place on Thursday, December 10th and will be an evening of music, networking and fun in support of MA Coalition for the Homeless.

There will be live music all night with some of the coolest local musicians as well as raffles and auctions.

All in all, a great opportunity to meet with other social media enthusiasts, support a great cause at a time of year they need the help and have a good time as well.

Our venue, The Mambo Grill, is right in Downtown Lowell, Mass – where the American Industrial Revolution was born. Lowell is easy to get to from all the main highways and there is parking on the street or in the garage just around the corner.

Live in Lowell!

At the Mambo Grill
129 Merrimack Street
Lowell, MA 01852

December 10th, 2009
Starting at 7.00PM
$10.00 donation (more if you like) at the door.

If you can’t make it to Lowell, we plan to stream the event live on the 12for12k site.

Want to help out? Great – you can contribute right here:

Free video streaming by Ustream

12for12k Live!

David — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:13:25 +0000

Getting 12for12k out of our computers and right to real people – my friend Rich Marti organized a great live music event at The Rock Cafe in Rocky Hill, CT. This was all in support of Musicians on call – the 12for12k charity for October.

If you missed the event, you can check out my slideshow of images with the soundtrack coming from the live band.

Musicians on Call is a group of great people making life better for unwell people. Please support them. I have 8 Google Wave invites left and if you leave me a message in the comments that you’ve donated $35 or more, I’ll add you to the invite list. How’s that for a win-win!! (November 1st only)

Use the Chip-In widget below to contribute.

I Love Barbara Talisman!

David — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:38:59 +0000

When I was heading out to the office this morning, I glanced at the 12for12k Twitter stream and saw a response from Danny Brown to a blog post that had been written by someone called Barbara Talisman.

Knowing that there is nothing like a good fight to start the day, I felt compelled to read the posts by both parties – Ms. Talisman first.

To say I was surprised was an understatement. You can read her contribution to American literature here. I had no idea at all who this person is, but there was a rather rude person on the weekend 12for12k conference call and I believe it was her. Check out Danny Brown’s much more dignified response on his blog here.

My first assumption was that she must have been drinking when she typed the post – I can imagine anything more bizarre. As a supporter of 12for12k and Danny Brown I was also somewhat offended by what she said.

Anyone that has connected with Danny knows that her accusations are a long way from the truth. Yes, there are quite a lot of social media “experts” that take every opportunity to promote themselves and their businesses, but Danny Brown isn’t one of them. I don’t ever recall him even mentioning his marketing business at the same time as 12for12k, I don’t see him trying to flog his latest book and I don’t see his blog full of affiliate links (well, other than the Headway theme one, but I have a Studiopress theme link so I can’t complain about that).

I often can almost feel the embarrassment of Danny when he responds to those “oooh you are soooo great @DannyBrown” Tweets and he always makes a point of highlighting the fact that 12for12k isn’t Danny Brown, it is a team of dedicated people.

Is 12for12k perfect? Heck no! I don’t believe Danny had any non-profit experience when he came up with the idea and the whole thing is a work in progress – albeit with some expert guidance from people such as Jon Aston, Rich Marti, John Haydon, Mickey Gomez, Sarah Robinson and the unique (but totally crazy) Henie Reisinger.

So why to I love Barbara Talisman?

For a couple of reasons.

First, while she timed her attack for her own reasons, she has done nothing but make Danny Brown and 12for12k look good. A lot of very influential people have come to Danny’s defence and pointed out the gaping holes in her argument.

Second, with the launch of the big Go Global 24 hour event to support Doctors Without Border, 12for12k needed every possible bit of attention on the blogs and social media sites. Barbara made sure we got it.

Thirdly, Ms. Talisman had the good sense to apologize. See this later post on her blog. She is even offering to help – we’ll see if it happens.

Finally, there is one point she made that I do agree with. Where were all these supporters of Danny Brown when they were needed to support the charities? There should have been more raised than there has been and I’m hoping that the 12for12k team (including Barbara, if she is serious about helping) can get to grips with this. The great ideas being put forward for next year are going to make a huge difference so the future looks good!

Oh, one more thing – I was reminded of the huge value there is in thinking before clicking on the Publish button – thanks Barbara, no wonder I love you!

Anyway, what is much more important right now is Go Global 24 hours. Please check the 12for12k Events page for info of how you can help!

Would you like to leverage your social media experience to help others? Support 12for12k!!

12for12k Global Event #GG24

David — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:30:22 +0000

I’ve already written about the program that the 12for12k team has been putting together to support our September charity, Doctors Without Borders,

The month has started really well with the Music as Medicine events proving to be a huge success and going a long way to meeting our goals. It is going to be up to the social media community to take over and finish the month on a high note.

12for12k is planning a gala Go Global 24 hour event that will be accessed from the Go Global 24 portal on the 12for12k site. The host for the whole 24 hours will be Henie Reisinger – one of twitter’s most dynamic and engaging personalities.

Go Global 24 (#GG24) Starts: 3 am Eastern Daylight Time on Tuesday, September 29 and Ends: 2:59:59 am Eastern Daylight Time on Wednesday, September 30.

It is really important that all the friends of 12for12k support the event by blogging and tweeting about what is going on.

We are going to offering sponsorships for 1 hour segments of the event. These can be purchased in advance by business wanting to take part and they will also be auctioned on eBay. The #GG24 sponsorships will offer some huge advantages to the sponsoring businesses.

Sponsors can use #12for12K’s collective global reach to introduce themselves, their latest innovation, their hottest new promotion, their brand… all in a way that adds value.

For example, in their hour, sponsors might conduct a question and answer session, run a contest, host a moderated panel discussion, and/or point fans and prospects to relevant information on their blog, or website, or microsite.

In addition sponsors will receive:

Real-time introductions, comments and thank yous
Will be featured on our event portal during their hour
Permanent thank yous on 12for12K.org
Lots of tweets and retweets and blog posts: before, during, and after the event

This is a huge opportunity for a business established in social media, or just getting started to create a really big impression, get out their message and have fun doing it.

However you choose to support 12for12k, you’ll get to meet a lot of influential social media people and (my favorite part) have a great time while helping others!!

There will be more information released over the next few days, so I’ll be updating this post from time to time.

Important Update: Along with the sponsorships we are also seeking items to be auctioned on eBay at the same time as the event.

If you have something you’d like to have included, you can send details to Jon Aston (jonaston@gmail.com) and he will include on the 12for12k auction site. As an alternative, you can set up the auction on your own account and set it up to donate directly to Doctors Without Borders. (I’m going to be setting one of these myself so once I know how to do it, I’ll post here again).

Should you set up your own auction, please let @12for12k know so we can include links to it. Also let us know the total you raise to update the grand totals.

If you’d like to make a direct contribution to Doctors Without Borders, you can do so via this 12for12k page.

Thanks for the support – as Jon Aston would say “You Rock!”

12for12k – Doctors Without Borders

David — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:08:19 +0000

September promises to be a fantastic month for The 12for12k Challenge. It is going to bring together three powerful ideas:

12for12k: The idea that regular people can use social media to get together and make the World better

Global Patriot: Mark Lovett’s vision that patriotism needed be confined by national or regional boundaries – which I subscribe to 100%

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières using the same philosophy to bring health care to people in need, regardless of race, religion or any of the other reasons for separating people.

With the huge number of people suffering in the World today, there is no question that Médecins Sans Frontières offers the only hope for many and it is a pleasure to be able to support this brave group of dedicated people in doing their good work.

There is a whole program of really cool events being planned for September. One of the first is Music as Medicine, being held in San Diego on September 3rd.

If you are going to be in San Diego that evening, I hope you can go. It will be a great night and you’ll be supporting a great cause. Even if you can’t be there life, I hope you will be able to make a small contribution to the cause.

There will be more exciting 12for12k and Global Patriot events throughout the month. Search on #12for12k on Twitter or check out the 12for 12k and Global Patriot sites for more info.

It’s time to get involved – time to make a difference!!

What do you think? do you have any ideas to make this program better and more effective? If you do, we’d love to chat with you.

Oh, don’t you agree the Music as Medicine poster is just way cool? I love it =)

Blog of the Week – Global Patriot

David — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:18:11 +0000

I came across Mark Lovett, the Global Patriot guy during the recent 12for12k 24 hour event. Mark has had a successful business career and now is devoting a lot of his time to helping others.

Marks idea is that being a Global Patriot is different to being a National Patriot. While a National Patriot is concerned with people and events within a single country or region, the Global Patriot wants to do and create things that are good for everyone.

As someone living in a different continent to where I grew up, I can completely relate to this idea.

Mark reminds us in a post about patriotism that the concept has changed over the centuries and is still evolving today. It is very true that old style National Patriotism has been responsible for many of the wars over the past few hundred years as well as many of the problems we face today.

The key question Mark presents us with today is:

“Can we envision patriotism from a global perspective…embracing patriotism without borders?“

Personally I believe that not only we can, but we have to. That is also one of the features of the 12for12k campaign. While 12for12k certainly supports local charities (the Eye Care for Kids” in Utah being a great example) there has also been support on a global with UNICEF and more to come.

The Global Patriot concept fits in really well with 12for12k and the teams will be working closely together later this year. Both are natural tie ins with social media, which brings people from all over the world together. Maybe in time, social media will show just how artificial traditional borders are – letting people bypass the traditional blocks and communicate together directly.

Personally, I’m proud to call myself a Global Patriot and really pleased to have Global Patriot as Blog of the Week!

Where do you stand? Are you a Global Patriot? How should we be working together to make life better for everyone?

Why Support Eye Care for Kids?

David — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:07:32 +0000

A few days ago I wrote about Eye Care for Kids being the July charity for 12for12k.

As the first charity of the second half of the year, this is quite a contrast to the June charity, UNICEF. Whereas UNICEF operates on a global scale, Eye Care for Kids works on a much smaller scale, covering the US state of Utah.

This is one of the great things about being a 12for12k supporter, the opportunity to make a difference to a diverse range of people, all of whom could certainly use our help.

Based in Salt Lake City, Eye Care for Kids concentrates on the poorer areas of the state, including the Native American reservations. So far they have helped nearly 20,000 visually impaired, low income children – not bad hey?

One of the good things with these smaller charities is that every single donation can be seen to make a real difference. For example, a donation of $25.00 is enough to provide an eye exam and eye glasses to a deserving child. Giving a child the gift of good vision can have a fantastic effect on their life.

For most of my life, I’ve done very little to help charities. I’ve been too busy, too broke, too lazy or thought that the small amount I could give would make no difference. That’s the idea of 12for12k, if we join together and each donate a small amount, the result will indeed make a difference.

If you are like me and enjoy all the things that social media gives us for free, you might feel it is time to contribute just a little back. Bring vision to America’s kids!

Want to lean more about 12for12k? Head over to the site.

I’m in – are you?

12for12k – Eye Care for Kids

David — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:34:13 +0000

We are pleased that the July charity for 12for12k is Eye Care for Kids.

This continues lasts months theme of using Social Media to raise funds for children who need help.

Eye Care For Kids is based in Utah and helps kids throughout the state, focusing (no pun intended) on rural areas and the Native American reservations.

Your contribution to 12for12k this month can make a huge difference. A $25 donation is enough to provide for an eye exam and glasses for a child that really needs them.

Read more about 12for12k and this month’s charity on the 12for12k site.

Ready to contribute and make a difference? You can do it right here:

12for12k Special 12 hour video-a thon

David — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:00:48 +0000

This is short notice, but very important.

As you’ll have noticed, I’m a supporter of The 12for12k Challenge, a great team of social media enthusiasts looking to bring people together to help worthwhile causes.

The end of June marks the half way point of this year’s challenge and we want to mark this in spectacular style.

As a result there is going to be a 24 hour video-a-thon, tweetathon starting at 10.00 AM EST on Monday.

There is going to be a fantastic lineup of entertainment and some great prizes and giveaways – including a special one from me.

To find out more head over the the 12for12k site without delay. You can also follow 12for12k or me at Twitter.

12for12k is a great community of really cool people. Why not join in with us in helping ordinary people do great things. Let’s get the June UNICEF campaign finished on a high and build some momentum for next month.

Want to get involved with hleping other? Join us in 12for12k!!

UNICEF & 12for12k

David — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:43:59 +0000

Since The 12for12k Challenge folks (of whom I’m a huge supporter) chose UNICEF’s Believe in Zero campaign as the June charity, there has been a lot of activity, not all of it positive.

First one of the 12for12k blog partners decided he didn’t like UNICEF after originally posting in support.

There have also been attacks on the choice of this charity on Twitter and other social media sites and even the venerable old sage of 12for12k Danny Brown has come in for some stick.

So I find myself wondering what is going on here? What is it about UNICEF that causes so many different opinions, from those that support the organization and those that seem to think it has no merit at all.

I thought it might be worthwile to do a little investigating and see what this organization is all about.

History.

UNICEF was founded in 1946 to help deal with the problem of millions of starving children in the aftermath of the Second World War. Here’s a video, narrated by Sir Roger Moore on the organization’s history:

I don’t think anyone would disagree with UNICEF’s mission – there is no question that the it has saved many thousands of children’s lives since 1946 and played a part in improving the lives of many many more.

So why would the choice of an organization doing such good work, where it’s workers are dedicated enough to literally put their lives on the line (see the clippings I’ve included) in some of the toughest parts of the world cause so much controversy? Surely people working to protect children, often right in the middle of active conflicts, deserve support from those of us safe at home with our families?

I’m inclined to believe that the biggest issue UNICEF has is that it is part of the United Nations. The UN isn’t the most popular organization here in the United States, largely due to its history of poor management, but also because the UN is structured so that the US doesn’t get its way all the time. The fact that any of the five permanent Security Council members (US, UK, France, Russia and China) has a power of veto has often stopped the US from pushing through its agenda. Actually, I see this as a good thing since the US doesn’t have a very good foreign policy track record of late!

So UNICEF is having to operate in the field while carrying the burden of its unpopular owner – easy to see why there is a lack of enthusiasm. Of course, there are also advantages with being part of the UN, worldwide scope, access to government leaders and funding way above what any other childrens charity could hope to attain. I wonder if the huge budget of UNICEF is also an issue for 12for12k supporters? No matter what we were to raise, it is unlikely to show as a big line item on the UNICEF balance sheet.

While I do believe that UNICEF does great work and I’ve personally contributed to 12for12k this month (and certainly encourage you to do the same, because it is a great cause) I am somewhat disappointed that UNICEF has not played any role in the June campaign. The 12for12k Challenge relies on support – not just from supporters and contributors, but from the charities themselves. UNICEF could had actively supported 12for12k on their site and their various blogs, to the benefit of both. It would raise more for UNICEF in June and making more people aware of 12for12k would create a higher public awareness and better results for the charities lined up for the rest of the year. Instead UNICEF has been silent. Not my idea of a partner.

So today, I feel a little let down. Let down by people who could do more to support 12for12k instead of just complaining and by UNICEF which I thought could do so much to help, but has not come through. I’m certainly not feeling let down by the actual UNICEF workers and supporters who are doing great things or by social media users who have made contributions to the campaign.

So please contribute to support the great work being done by UNICEF and please consider becoming an active supporter of 12for12k. It is a great opportunity for us regular people to get together and actually make a difference. Rather than sit back and criticize, get involved and make it better. Go to 12for12k.org for more info.

I’d love to know if you agree with my thoughts. How can we work together to help 12for12k be more effective? What about that Roger Moore video commentary? Would you view UNICEF differently if it was part of the Gates Foundation rather than the UN?