Good Works - Servant of Chaos

Give the Gift of Water #BAD10

Age of Conversation, Crowdsourcing, Good Works

Today is Blog Action Day, a day where bloggers from around the world come together to support a single cause. This year’s cause is water.

Right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us.

Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Children are especially vulnerable, as their bodies aren’t strong enough to fight diarrhoea, dysentery and other illnesses. The UN predicts that one tenth of the global disease burden can be prevented simply by improving water supply and sanitation.

And you can make a change in this situation.

For the Age of Conversation 3, we have partnered with charity: water – one of the non-profit partners associated with Blog Action Day. This means that the profit from every book purchase will support the UN’s effort to bring clean, safe water to millions of people.

So what can you do?

Buy a copy of Age of Conversation 3 for each of your customers – they’ll love it and they’ll love you:
Make an additional donation at our charity: water page
Insert the Blog Action Day widget on your blog

Don’t forget to become a Fan of the Age of Conversation on Facebook.

Are You Ready for Blog Action Day on Friday?

Age of Conversation, Good Works

Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Last year, Blog Acton Day was a massive, global initiative, bringing together thousands of blogs around a single, social topic. This year’s Blog Action Day is due to happen this Friday, October 15. Thus far, almost 4000 blogs have been registered from 125 countries – reaching 28 million readers.

To support, Blog Action Day, all you need to do is register your blog and write a post for this Friday. Water has been selected as a globally appropriate topic because:

Right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us who are subject to preventable disease and even death because of something that many of us take for granted.

Access to clean water is not just a human rights issue. It’s an environmental issue. An animal welfare issue. A sustainability issue. Water is a global issue, and it affects all of us.

There are many topics that you can choose to write on. Check out the Blog Action Day site for topics and details – or simply write on a topic of your own choosing. You can also sign the Blog Action Day petition or raise funds to build water wells in developing countries through charity: water.

BUT – if you are looking for a topic – I’d love to have you support our push for The Age of Conversation 3. The profits from the sales of the book go to charity: water – and will have a direct impact on the lives of people living without adequate water.

RUOK? How Can We Change a Life?

Community, Good Works, Life

This Thursday, October 7, is RU OK? Day. It’s the day when we’re all encouraged to ask someone whether they are ok. Sounds trivial, right? But this simple act can help reduce the chance of suicide.

Look around you – at your family, friends and colleagues. Ask “are you ok”? Listen to their response. Be interested. It’s important – it’s important because each year in Australia, suicide claims more lives than the road toll. It’s an epidemic, and yet many people struggle with the isolation and desperation that drives them to take their own lives.

Now, I have written previously about suicide and men’s health – for the Black Dog Institute and Riding4aCause as well as working with Mark Pollard to create and publish a book of stories called The Perfect Gift for a Man on depression and male suicide. I would love for this to no longer be a problem in our society – but it remains a very real issue that touches us in many ways. As Cathie McGinn explains, it is hard to ask the question, but:

I’ll never know if there was anything I could have done, if one single question would have changed the course of events. I don’t know whether it would have changed anything, really, but I’ll always regret not reaching out.

I currently have a member of my extended family experiencing a profound depression. He sits in a chair and cries all day. His family don’t know what to do. Their house is being repossessed. Their young children are distraught. And local doctors would like to hospitalise him, but they do not have medical insurance – and there are no public beds. It’s a powder keg, and it’s completely avoidable. But this one family is being torn apart needlessly. And I am sure it’s not an isolated case.

Asking RUOK? is important. But we also must go much further. We must fix the living tragedy that exists right under our own roofs.

Advice from Fathers to Daughters

Creativity, Good Works, Life

I often find great websites and content by clicking on a random link on Twitter. I then tend to leave the tab open, letting what I read soak into my mind while pursuing other work.

Some could call this multi-tasking – but it’s much less conscious, much less directed. Perhaps it could be considered “creative”.

The other day as I scanned TweetDeck, the tool that I use to manage the vast chattering hoard that is Twitter, I noticed a link to a letter from F Scott Fitzgerald to his daughter. The eleven year old was away at camp, and her eloquent father had written to her to help her navigate where best she placed her energies. This list of things to worry about, things to not worry about, and things to think about I plan to share with my own girls.

Things to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship…

Things not to worry about:
Don't worry about popular opinion
Don't worry about dolls
Don't worry about the past
Don't worry about the future
Don't worry about growing up
Don't worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don't worry about triumph
Don't worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don't worry about mosquitoes
Don't worry about flies
Don't worry about insects in general
Don't worry about parents
Don't worry about boys
Don't worry about disappointments
Don't worry about pleasures
Don't worry about satisfactions

Things to think about:
What am I really aiming at?
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:
(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?

I really love the last bit. It’s about purpose. It’s about our place in the world. And that’s something to seriously think about.

Censorship is a Bad Idea – It’s Time to Tell Your Mum

Activism, Good Works, Politics

I have written many times about internet censorship, but in case you have not heard – censorship is a bad idea.

The Australian Federal Government is about to introduce mandatory internet filtering. If implemented it will make Australia the most heavily censored country in the western world. They’ve told us it’s to protect the kids but the truth is it doesn’t. By telling your mum the facts you will help her realise that if she really wants to protect kids online mandatory filtering isn’t the answer.

To learn more – and to find out how best to explain to your mum just why internet censorship is such a problem (and no it won’t stop child pornography), take a look at the It’s Time to Tell Mum website. It’s in all our interests.

The Long Scar of Australia’s Shame

Good Works, Social Justice

I was watching a re-run of the amazing SBS series, The First Australians, over the weekend – and was again struck by the power of the story, the horror of the impact white Australians had on Aboriginal people and the unbearable sadness brought about by government policies and the willing complicity of the Australian public.

But I was also heartened by the remembrance of The Apology to Aboriginal people by Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. I remember what it meant to hear and take part in. I thought it was a turning point.

But sadly, it seems that institutionalised racism continues to manifest in the thoughts and deeds of individuals and in the judgements of our courts.

Michael Brull writes of a case in the Northern Territory where “Top Blokes” Beat an Aboriginal Man to Death (via Derek Jenkins). The post details the exploits of five friends who drink, drive and terrorise multiple groups of Aboriginal people sleeping in the river bed of the Todd River. These events ultimately lead to the death of one man and leave yet another lasting scar on the heart of the Australian nation. In the case R v Doody in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, Chief Justice Martin, however, concluded that this “crime is toward the lower end of the scale of seriousness for crimes of manslaughter”.

Take a few minutes to read the details of this case and then consider this:

Justice Martin went out of his way to provide character references for every single defendant. Doody is ‘a person of positive good character’. Hird is a ‘solid, hard-working young man of good character’. Kloeden has an ‘underlying good character’. Spears is a ‘person of very good character’. Swain, like Kloeden, was a ‘person of underlying good character’.

On the face of it, this doesn’t seem to be “justice served”. And a judgement which COULD have been used to launch a scathing attack on the thoughtless culture and uncaring attitudes of “top blokes” everywhere, seems to have turned into little more than a slap on the wrists.

But if silence can be taken as complicity, I for one, say NO. Not good enough. This needs to be looked at again – in the courts, in our schools and in our hearts. Is this an Australia you’re happy to live in?

COP16: 16 Journeys from 16 Countries in 16 Weeks – Can I Count You In?

Activism, Community, Corporate Social Responsibility, Crowdsourcing, Good Works

Last year, as Christmas came around, there was a powerful groundswell around climate change, culminating in the COP15 conference in Copenhagen (COP15 stands for the 15th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). You may remember I was quite excited about “Hopenhagen” and the crowd sourced ambassador program put together by the Huffington Post. But it all felt too rushed. There was not enough time to build momentum outside the web world – we needed businesses on our side, governments to commit and we needed a grass roots, community activation plan that no one could ignore.

Despite the noise generated by Copenhagen, it was clear that the agreements not to agree, had been hammered out well beforehand. The groundswell arrived too late. It was all noise but no movement.

So I want to start early this year. COP16, to be held in Mexico in December, is the next global rallying point. But to make this successful, we need to do a lot more preparation in the lead up. And that means STARTING NOW.

What I am proposing is this …

COP16 – 16 Journeys from 16 Countries in 16 Weeks

I am looking for teams of participants in 16 countries. These teams will travel from their country of origin to Mexico, but they will do so over 16 weeks. They will travel where possible using sustainable technologies – electric or diesel cars, trains, boats, gliders – whatever comes to hand. The teams may hand off to others relay-style or stay the course from beginning to end.

Their task is not just to ARRIVE, but to EDUCATE, HARNESS and MOTIVATE people along the way. The aim is to create awareness and build a movement, town by town, truck stop by truck stop.

But this is not just about people. It’s also about business. We’ll be asking those sustainable businesses around the world how they can help. Who can provide the cars, the support, the transport, the logistics and the planning? Who can help us bridge the world’s oceans? Who can demonstrate their business innovation and global leadership by helping us achieve these aims?

And, of course, this is about stories. About the real stories of people touched already by climate change. It’s about the future stories of generations – that these teams can begin to also tell.

But this is also about YOU. These are only beginning ideas. I need you to rally around. Share your thoughts and best ideas. I need you to think about your NETWORKS – about who you know and how they can help. Share this idea – build on it – and let’s make sure that COP16 is not a cop-out.

Just don’t be silent!

A Perfect Gift from Blurb

Books, Crowdsourcing, Good Works, Web 2.0

Self publishing is one of the amazing developments of the “social web”. Not only can we simply and easily share insights, analysis, stories, poems, movies, music or any other types of creative work – thanks to applications like Blurb.com, we can also turn these into publications – books, calendars and so on.

I have been involved in a number of collaborations that bridge the digital and offline worlds. There has been the marketing focused Age of Conversation books, my own self publishing efforts around blogging, and most recently, The Perfect Gift for a Man.

The Perfect Gift for a Man was a book that Mark Pollard and I edited and published through Blurb. But when it came to promoting the book, there was nothing that made it easy for us to share the book across the web (we ended up creating our own image based widget). Now, Blurb is trialling a new widget that allows you to embed, share, preview and buy books directly from your blog. I think it’s a huge and much needed improvement. Here it is below:

The Perfect Gift for a Man by Mark Pollard and Gavin Heaton

Boost Mobile to Help Reduce Homeless – there’s only 32,000 To Go

Good Works

I don’t know about you, but I can remember what it was like to be 24 years old. I thought I knew it all – or most of what “it” was. I was bright, cocky even. But life was tenuous – I was earning just enough to feed and house myself – with very little left over. I trundled from share house to share house, wearing out the already-worn furniture that I could call “mine” – and all the while feeling like I was one unexpected bill away from the breadline.

I remember being told about the poverty cycle – and how, without savings and support, all it takes is an unexpected expense – or the loss of a job – to find yourself on the streets. Through good fortune I was spared this situation – but there are over 32,000 young Australians who find themselves on the street every night.

With sponsorship from Boost Mobile, The Salvos Oasis Youth Support Network are aiming to help reduce the number of homeless young people. For every Facebook fan and Twitter follower, Boost Mobile will donate $1 to Oasis (up to $20,000). Find out more at the 32000 to Go website – and don’t forget to become a Fan and a Follower.