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vangogh
08-22-2008, 02:41 PM
Do you want to help fight poverty around the world?

On October 15th, bloggers from around the world will unite to post something about poverty on their blogs. The idea comes from the people behind Blog Action Day (http://blogactionday.org/).

Last year's inaugural topic was the environment and this year the topic is poverty. If you haven't heard of Blog Action Day before:


Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

You can write about anything you want, but the idea is to get as many of us as possible all talking about the same thing on a single day to help raise global awareness of the subject.

There's a lot more info at the Blog Action Day (http://blogactionday.org/) site, including resources to help you research your post and or simply inform yourself to the causes of and solutions for fighting poverty.

Take a look at the site and get involved. Help spread the word and if you blog set aside October 15th to write about poverty.

KristineS
08-22-2008, 03:17 PM
I think that's a neat idea. Thanks for pointing it out.

vangogh
08-22-2008, 03:56 PM
Yeah, I wasn't sure how many people here would know about it. It's a great idea.

KristineS
10-16-2008, 04:06 PM
Did anyone participate in this? I know I didn't. I remember seeing something about it yesterday, but I'm in a bit of a writing funk at the moment.

vangogh
10-16-2008, 07:21 PM
I did. I won't say it was my greatest post, but I offered some stats in the hopes that people would take them to heart. Mostly I just wanted to post something to help raise awareness for the issue.

When I was going through my feed reader today I did come across quite a few posts on the topic.

KristineS
10-16-2008, 08:56 PM
As soon as I posted that question I realized I hadn't stopped by your blog in a few days.

I'm glad you remembered. I'm sure a lot of other people did too.

vangogh
10-16-2008, 10:55 PM
It's the first post I've written in awhile. I haven't had much time for blogging the last few weeks, but I wanted to make sure I published something yesterday. I really like the whole concept of blog action day. They don't ask you to choose sides in any issue. You can write anything you want. Their mission is simply to get bloggers talking about a single issue that's important to the people of the world on one day each year.

greenoak
10-16-2008, 11:13 PM
...i missed this and probably never would have thought of taking any blog action.....i can plug my favorite charity on the blog...its the local ministers who work hard and raise money for food and clothes for a big christmas project for the needy kids here... and they take no overhead, so its a great place to donate...
we have a ...be an angel for christmas ... thing at the store, giving a percent of candle sales to the project...
ann

orion_joel
10-17-2008, 02:59 AM
Hmmm, it does sound like an interesting approach, however in reality i am not to sure about how much this sort of thing will do really. Yes it will get people talking, and maybe because it is the internet and blogs it will come up from time to time when people come across someone's blog, however it is kind of a one hit thing.

Kind of like the Earth hour thingy a few months ago, where everyone was asked to turn off all lights for 1 hour. The claimed impact and actual figures are probably two different thing's and in reality it takes more then a one time effort to solve the problem in the long term.

Sorry to be a little negative on this, but in my opinion if a large group of musicians doing massive concerts worldwide cannot put much of a dent into poverty then how is blogging about it.

vangogh
10-17-2008, 03:14 AM
I think the idea is just to get people talking about a specific issue for one day. If you check who registered to participate (http://blogactionday.org/en/blogs) you can see close to 13,000 blogs with a subscriber base almost 13.5 million readers. Some of those readers will overlap and read more than one blog on the list, but at the same time many bloggers like myself didn't register their blogs and so aren't counted in the numbers.

13.5 million is hardly the whole planet, but it's still a lot of people.

I can understand the cynical attitude, but you have to start somewhere. If each blog gets even a few people digging a little deeper into the issue it makes a difference.

KristineS
10-17-2008, 08:50 AM
I just went over and read your post vangogh. It was a good one.

I also agree that things like Blog Action Day can make a difference. Blogs can influence a lot of people. Writing about something can actually bring about change.

I agree, things like everyone turning their lights off for an hour or sleeping outside in a cardboard box to dramatize the plight of the homeless probably won't do much. Writing about an issue and educating your readers might.

vangogh
10-17-2008, 03:11 PM
Thanks Kristine. With making a difference you have to start somewhere. It's that think globally, act locally mentality. Will a single blog post change anything dramatically? Will 10,000 blog posts change things dramatically? Maybe the answer to both questions is probably not. But not writing those blog posts certainly changes nothing.

KristineS
10-17-2008, 03:51 PM
I think that's the trap a lot of people fall in to and it causes them to fail to act. People think that the little bit they can do won't make any difference so why bother. I'm always of the opinion that every little bit helps. Even a small action can start a ripple that eventually results in a big change.

vangogh
10-17-2008, 07:55 PM
Yep. It's an easy trap to fall into. I've fallen into it many times myself.

At some point you have to realize that even influencing one other person is still important and brings you that much closer to changing things. If you read The Tipping Point or looked into viral marketing in general you can see that you doesn't necessarily have to reach a lot of people for your message to spread. You have to reach the right people under the right conditions.

KristineS
10-17-2008, 08:46 PM
The Tipping Point is a great book. It's so true that it matters more who your message gets communicated too than how many people hear what you're saying. I wish more people who are trying to do their own marketing could understand that.

vangogh
10-18-2008, 01:01 AM
Too many people still see it as a numbers game. They just look to get something, anything out to a lot of people without really thinking about whether or not any of those people even might be interested in the slightest. They think more about the numbers than getting out a message that's aligned with their offering and getting that message in front of the people most likely to be receptive to it.

Hopefully some of the discussions we have here will get some people to see differently.

KristineS
10-18-2008, 08:19 AM
I think you're right about that. I always try to educate people on that point. It's not getting to a large number of people, it's getting to the right people. Also, your target market cannot be "everyone". Even if your product is something like Coke which has universal appeal, you still have to target your message to specific market segments.

I hope you're right that the subjects we cover here will help.