One million pictures of one million food bank donations
Help us help food banks around the world. Post your picture of your food bank donation.
Edmonton has thrown down the gauntlet! fusedlogic has kicked-off the fusedlogic Food Bank Challenge.
The goal is 1 million pictures of 1 million food bank donations in 1 year. It’s a busy time of year for food banks and we met with Marjorie Bencz of Edmonton’s Food Bank to get started.
Christmas is such an important time for every food bank. I was surprised to learn that much of Edmonton’s Food Bank’s fundraising supports the food bank well into the new year. Cash and canned food donations are an important contribution.
Food bank needs don’t stop at Christmas. It seems obvious to say it, but people aren’t thinking about it much in the middle of the summer. At fusedlogic, we’re hoping that this joint effort with Edmonton’s Food Bank will get people thinking about helping people throughout the year.
Please join our groups on Facebook and Flickr. Take a picture of you, your family, your coworkers and your friends making a food bank donation. Our goal is to get one million pictures by the end of 2009, but with your help we think we can do it much sooner.
Walter was on SomethingTV yesterday talking about the food bank challenge.
Challenging other cities: Milwaukee. Anyone else?
The goal is to have one million pictures by the end of 2009.
“We” (Edmonton) believe that we can put up more pictures of individual donations to Edmonton’s Food Bank than Milwaukee can. Now certainly this challenge isn’t limited to Edmonton vs. Milwaukee, here in the Edmonton region, well over a million strong ourselves, we’re formidable people. We’ll take on anybody.
I’m sure Edmonton’s southern neighbour, Calgary, may be up to the challenge. Canada’s other major cities like Halifax, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Saskatoon and Winnipeg should be able to find a few people to add photos too. Sorry if we’ve missed your city, but you can join in as well! 
Our press release on the food bank challenge went out this morning and the Edmonton Journal has already interviewed us. Now we’ll see if the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is also up to the challenge. I call upon Tannette Johnson Elie (despite being on holidays) to rise to the challenge and get the word out in Milwaukee about the fact that the great City of Milwaukee has been challenged, in a friendly Canadian manner of course.
Because this is almost entirely designed as a social media event, we anticipate that early on it will be the Edmonton tech community that will rise to the challenge. Organizations such as Techvibes may want to blog about it.
Anyone from Techvibes or TechCrunch want to take on the challenge? Alberta bloggers such as Ken Chapman, Dave Cournoyer, Mack Male, Chris LaBossiere, Brad Grier, Dean Owen and many others have also been a big help in talking about this and helping us promote such a great cause.
If you’re in a position to help, please do! No donation is too small. They are all important. Help set a great example for your family, friends and coworkers. We know it’s a busy time of year and it’s easy to forget that there are many who are much less fortunate than we are.
Thank you and Merry Christmas! : )
Twitter-Mania Goes Mainstream?
What exactly are the key-indicators for when something considered as on the “fringe” transitions into the “mainstream” and can be called as such? In the case of Twitter, does the mainstream label apply once it gets used on CNN? Why not ask Rick Sanchez (@ricksanchezcnn) or Don Lemon (@donlemoncnn). They both do a nice job of integrating Twitter (as well as Facebook) into their respective CNN broadcasts, but do they think Twitter is “mainstream” today in part because of their efforts?
Or does the fact that during CBC’s Canada Votes! election broadcast, Susan Ormiston attempted to look like she actually “gets” Twitter while trying to pull off her best “I-wanna-be-hip-like-John King on CNN” impression by informing the future leader of the Liberal party – the ever unbiased Peter Mansbridge-that there’s this thing called the Internet (Peter, see Bill Curtis ref below) and something called Twitter while finger-scribbling on a SMART board.
I would have almost believed Ormiston if she hadn’t delivered her segment with all the micro-blogging savvy of someone who was briefed about Twitter while getting her make-up done just before going in front of the camera that night.
Thankfully much of her audience not on Twitter were probably blissfully unaware. That’s partly for the reason Twitter is not yet “mainstream,” at least from the Canadian perspective.
Does the fact that the mainstream broadcast media is grappling with micro-blogging and Twitter on television broadcasts mean we can all exclaim Twitter as “mainstream?” No, not yet.
How about if the Wall Street Journal writes an article about Twitter as it did today? A helpful explanation of Twitter (and how some are using it) for the beginner and the more savvy Twitterati to be sure. Does the fact that WSJ (just another “broadcaster” on Twitter) in terms of it’s use as a tool like many pro-journalists mean that Twitter is finally becoming “mainstream” when WSJ starts conversing with others rather than simply pushing updates?
Well maybe. . .
In fact, WSJ only needs to follow and learn from Tannette Johnson-Elie (@telie) of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who uses Twitter very effectively as an unpaid crowd-sourcing tool for stories and sources -myself being one of those sources. She not only updates us on what she’s writing about, but she actually talks with us as if we were…well…”human beings,” just like she is. I suspect many other journalists/broadcasters such as Sanchez and Lemon on Twitter do the same but that still doesn’t mean Twitter is “mainstream.”
Having said all of that, there are certainly signs that we’re at the “tipping-point” for the label to be more realistic. Why? Well for one, many high-profile users are “tweeting.” Barack Obama’s campaign for President of the United States is using Twitter very effectively for their purposes (107K+ followers); Joe Biden has 2600+ followers; McCain, of course, needs Bill Curtis to find the Internet for him, and because of that, McCain has 4174 followers. Sarah Palin has just over 1000.
Actually, the “tipping-point” is fast approaching really because of the collective combination of all of the above. With these high-profile users comes a large communal following. Obviously that certainly helps to spread the word about Twitter into the “mainstream” of society. So, we’re getting there, but we’re not there yet.
No, for me, the litmus test for when I’ll start calling Twitter “mainstream” is when the Republican party and McCain campaign shows a Youtube video of McCain himself using Twitter remotely (a laptop is fine) which is then followed up by a Ross Perot-like SMART board explanation of the micro-blogging technology and culture-at-large that makes John King red with envy.
When that happens “my friends,” then I think it’ll be safe to say Twitter is not only “mainstream,” but more likely just about to be “mothballed.” Not to mention that by that time, Biz Stone and crew will have figured out how to make a buck on Twitter without it caving and everyone jumping ship to Identi for good…
Actually come to think of it, Twitter is perfect for the McCain/Palin ticket. McCain can sum up his entire campaign platform like this “My friends, Maverick, Iraq war, Barracuda, drill baby drill,” and still have 81 characters left of the 140 to talk about his economic plan or “pork-barrel spending.”
