Crafts and Charity

September 29, 2012 by Margie Clayman 1 Comment

#vetsmatter and we can help one

As some of you may have seen, I started an initiative a couple of weeks ago called #vetsmatter. The idea is to get the hashtag to trend on Twitter in lots of places *before* Veterans Day and it’s also the hope that that awareness will help raise funds for various organizations that support veterans since our government seems to be backing away from such efforts.

Well, serendipity has struck. We have a chance to make a real difference in a veteran’s life and we can watch the results come in!

A couple of days ago my friend Raúl Colon pointed me to the direction of Mark Horvath’s blog. Mark (known as @hardlynormal on Twitter) works tirelessly on behalf of the homeless, and right now he has one person in mind, his “brother” Lanny. Lanny has been homeless for four years and finally has gotten a place to stay, but he has no furnishings or other essentials that you need for home-living.

That’s where we come in.

Mark is trying to raise just $1,000, but we only have until October 2nd. So here’s my idea.

We write blog posts about veterans – your experiences if you are a vet, your parents, your friends, thoughts in general, whatever you want, and then at the end you link to Mark’s blog and raise awareness for this (measurable) effort. Tweet out your posts with the #vetsmatter hashtag and feel free to CC me when your post goes live.

Does this sound good? I hope so, because we only have a couple of days to make this happen! Let’s do it!

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisgold/5901794855/ via Creative Commons

September 10, 2012 by Margie Clayman 40 Comments

Help me petition to deactivate driver-side airbags for Little People

When I was in high school, I really wanted to learn how to drive, but it seemed impossible. As a 4’5 young lady, I knew that regular driving instructors wouldn’t be equipped to help me out. I figured I’d have to buy a car and get it outfitted specially for me then learn how to drive, and of course, buying a car when you’re a high school student seems downright impossible. When I finally did learn how to drive, it seemed like a dream come true. But then I learned a little something about driving as a Little Person. It turns out that even with pedal extenders, I have to sit super close to the steering wheel. You can see my set-up in this picture.

So, the problem with this is that if my airbag deploys, which it does with a lot of force, it can seriously injure me or even kill me. This means a simple fender bender could be enough to change my life forever.

I am an action sort of person, so when I learned all of this I asked what I could do about it. I of course wanted to see if I could deactivate the airbag. I talked to my car dealer and did some research, and essentially, it is extremely difficult to get someone to deactivate the airbag because of liability issues, as you might suspect. Change needs to come from higher up.

With that in mind, I have started a petition at change.org. I’m targeting the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration because they have tried to work on this issue in the past. Maybe with some signatures behind them they’ll be able to get the job done. At the very least, I’d like to open up the conversation. I feel I and people like me should be able to drive without fear.

If you agree, please sign my petition. If you really agree, I’d greatly appreciate it if you could help spread the word. Thank you!

June 13, 2012 by Margie Clayman Leave a Comment

You can help five companies in one quick minute

Often times, people say that they like to be able to look back on a day and say, “Hey, I did something that could be called a good deed!” Well, today is your lucky day. I’m going to tell you how you can help five companies in the span of one minute. Such a deal! And it’s a GREAT cause that will really help these companies out. See, this is for the Chase Mission: Small Business contest, and 12 companies will be awarded a $250,000 grant. That’s a major lift, as you might imagine!

There are five companies that I’m suggesting you help in this minute of your time. They are:

Manty Web Designs of Cypress, TX

Miller Finch Media of Acworth, GA

You’re First LLC of Cypress, TX

Center for the Greater Good of Eagle, ID

Ms. Julie’s Kitchen and Ms. Julie’s Cafe of my own hometown, Akron, OH

All you have to do

Step 1: Go to https://www.missionsmallbusiness.com/ and log-in with Facebook. I know that a lot of people don’t like using their FB log-in for things, but I promise, this is a good cause!

Once you log-in, you’ll be taken to a page, and you’ll need to scroll down all the way to the bottom. You should see something like this:

Step 2: In the search button, type in the name of the first company up there, Manty Web Designs. Now, the search can be a bit finnicky. So:

for Manty Web Designs, you want to type in Mantyweb.

for Miller Finch Media, just typing in Miller Finch will work.

You’re First works for You’re First LLC

Center for the Greater Good works for the Eagle Idaho company

Julie’s Kitchen works for the last one

Don’t worry about the city drop-down. These name searches take you to where you want to go.

3. Click Vote. After you type in the name of each company as indicated above, be sure to press the blue “vote” button.

And that’s it.

Typing in each company name will take you about 5 seconds. Clicking vote will take you about 1 second. Six seconds times five companies – hey, 30 seconds. Now that’s not such a bad investment of half-a-minute, right?

Vote and pass it on 🙂 I thank you!

March 9, 2012 by Margie Clayman 7 Comments

A Bit On Slacktivism

Running rampant through the world of social media this past week has been a 30-minute documentary developed by a group called Invisible Children. Their purpose, as they state it, is to capture Ugandan war lord Joseph Kony by December 2012. Given that many feel the “sweet spot” length for an online video is no more than 2 minutes, the fact that a 30-minute video went viral across YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter is pretty amazing. However, shortly after the video began to spread, questions began to arise about Invisible Children. Were they keeping over 30% of the money they were raising? Are they supporting organizations that may be just as bad as Kony? Are they putting Ugandan citizens even more at risk?

In doing some research about this I found an article from Mashable asking if the whole thing was a hoax. The article said this may be the latest example of slacktivism. As it turns out, a lot of people really don’t like the idea of “slacktivism,” or the concept that “liking” or “retweeting” something is a form of activism. So, let’s talk about this a bit in detail.

Of marketing myths and activist legends

If you read my blog posts on occasion, you know that one of my great concerns is that businesses are being misled as we plod through the 21st century. Companies are being told that “engaging” online is enough to grow their businesses, and they are also being told that there is no way to measure the impact of their social media marketing. “Try to tell me what the ROI is of your mother,” they are told.

Of course, this is inaccurate. Companies need to make money still. And of course, there *are* ways to measure your social media marketing. You can measure how much time (and hence how much money) you are investing, and you can measure what you get back. That’s ROI in a nutshell. If you are putting a ton of time in and not making any sales, well, that’s going to be a big problem in short order.

I worry that this same sort of mind-block is invading the world of social good. Now, the term “slacktivism” seems pretty harsh. And hey, I believe in online serendipity. I believe that if you can get the right information to just the right person, amazing things can happen. So if you change your avatar purple and someone asks you why you did that, you have a chance to explain it’s for yada yada cause, and maybe that person has just what that organization needs to really jump forward. Social Media makes these types of things possible. But not all of the time. And for some causes, serendipity is too fluffy and it takes too long.

Now, here’s the disconcerting part. If we keep traveling down this path of “raising awareness,” which is very much like the “engagement” that businesses are taught about in the online world, we are going to forget about what these organizations need RIGHT NOW. They need money. They need volunteers. Some need blood or organ donations. Some need blankets and canned goods. Some need people who can dig for water in local villages. It’s really dangerously easy to forget about these things as you immerse yourself in the world of social media, just like it’s really easy to forget that what your business needs is sales, not friends.

Isn’t it easy to think to yourself, “Phew, I shared that video. That’s my good deed for the day!” Of course it is. Isn’t it easy to think, “Well, I “liked” that cause on Facebook and I was the 100th person. So that’s great. They’re on their way.” Of course it is. But just like businesses are in danger of going broke without even noticing it, we are at risk of becoming lazy when it comes to doing social good. I don’t think we’re there yet, but the seeds have been planted. The best of intentions in the world of social media can slowly mold into a sort of hypnotized “Friends and contacts are all I need” mentality. This could mean tremendous problems for all levels of our society, from the individual to the business to the social good campaign.

Back to Kony

So what do we make of the Kony 2012 campaign? Is it good that we are talking about Uganda, a country where children have been raped and abused en masse for years? Sure. Is it good that we are talking about Ugandan citizens and what they are facing? Yes. Is it good that the video went viral? Could be. It’s interesting at any rate.

But is this enough to disprove slacktivism? I’m not sure. How many people shared the video without watching the whole thing? How many people donated based only on the video without doing further research?

Social Media makes it so easy. So easy to feel successful. So easy to feel that you’ve accomplished your business or societal goals for the day or the week. This might be the greatest danger of social media. A lot of voices make a loud roar, but a lot of people only yelling just creates noise.

What do you think about all of this? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/advocacy_project/518031316/ via Creative Commons

March 8, 2012 by Margie Clayman 6 Comments

Join the fun at #usXsw!

It’s that time of year again. SXSW is in full swing (almost) down in Austin, Texas. I remember the first time I heard about SXSW. It was back during my Lost fangirl days, and a friend of mine got to meet Dominic Monaghan down there. And Elijah Wood. We’re still friends, but it was rocky for awhile. Little did I know that just a few years later, SXSW time would become a much talked-about social media orgy! I meant…conference. Conference. But here we are.

Sadly, I could not make it down to SXSW this year. Part of it may have been that I didn’t really try. But I know that a lot of people are feeling sort of listless knowing that this weekend is going to be filled with drunken tweets from the heart of Texas, and gosh..what can the rest of us do?

Well, fret no more, my friends. Jeannette Baer and Joseph Ruiz have you 100% covered. The second annual Twitter event – #usXsw – is about to begin!

What is #usXsw?

The #usXsw even takes the heart and soul of the #usguys group and ramps it up to SXSW caliber. Starting on Friday, March 9 and lasting on through to Sunday the 11th, you will find lots of great stuff happening in this stream, including chats led by some of the best people around, trivia games, prizes, and some plugs for charities and social good. And that’s not all. You can do it all from the comfort of your own home. You can even wear your PJs! Now really, what could be better than participating in a SXSW type-event in your jammies? I can’t think of hardly anything.

As for me, I will be heading up a discussion on Saturday night from 8 PM till 10 PM EST. Our topic will be how storytelling brings together communities and and helps businesses. Yep – some things in the online world can accomplish both things. Is that crazy or what?!?

If you want to follow the schedule of events, just keep your eyes glued to the #usXsw stream, and bookmark the UsXsw site for information.

Hope to see you in this virtual realm of awesomeness. If you stop by, make sure you tip your hat to Jeannette (@myagenda) and Joseph (@smsJoe) because they put a LOT of work into this baby. And thank the loverly sponsors, too. Cuz they rock!

Got it? Get it? Good!

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/omarsc/454707209/ via Creative Commons