More than Money Where Your Mouth Is

My old high school buddy Kathy Nguyen called me with a creatively genius notion for helping the people of Haiti. She decided to do a Yele Haiti Run/Walk-a-thon fundraiser despite not exactly being a social networking geek. She had questions about Twitter, how to create a group/event on Facebook, how to contact Wyclef Jean himself, etc. In less than a week’s time she put it together, drafted a donation form that looks professional, contacted a local radio station and spread the word to 135 Facebook friends who have untold numbers of friends themselves. One week! Are you serious?

What’s most impressive is not just the determination of Kathy and her friends to contribute on a larger scale to easing the horrifying reality Haitians face in the wake of last week’s earthquake. But the simple fact that she was able to mobilize this effort via technology unavailable 10 years earlier is enough to make one marvel. The mom, working professional, the impoverished junior high school student all have in common the world of online connectivity. From the time news occurs in the world, notifications are immediately exchanged, discussed on profile pages like an impromptu blog. Somewhere between status updates and the upper echelon Tweets of public figures like professional athletes, entertainers and politicians, the ability to link arms for worthy causes has never been easier.

Even more amazing is that the sophisticated world of online networking continues to prove user friendly. No manual needed and what can’t be figured out from a help link can probably be resolved by the very network you’re attempting to inform. If you don’t know how to get the word out about your run/walk-athon scheduled for 7 days in the future, there’s probably a friend three thousand miles away who is available as soon as you write on the wall, “Doin’ this big event…lost…hit me back like yesterday.” It’s done and you can look for the photo album of the successful event the following Monday. More importantly, you’ve pressed past the limitations of geography to extend love to those who need a tangible version of it.

I guess the moral of the story is that for all the horror we see,  excuses for non-participation in combating the ills of the world are farther away and fewer in number thanks to technology. Kip loved it because of LaFonda. I dig the efficiency. The planet is a much cooler place to reside when you feel like you can impact what happens on it.