You see, he’s about to take off on his motorbike with around 70 other riders traveling 6000km to Alice Springs for a fundraiser called the Black Dog Ride.

Sure, an open road, a nice gig, you might say. He admits it himself, “I love motorcycles – there’s something about them. The freedom, the sound, the fresh air, the countryside you tour through. Here is an opportunity to pursue a dream and see much of our outback, for a good cause.”

Still, he’s sacrificing time with his family @MrsH5 and their three young daughters for two weeks as well as an income – he’s self employed with no paid holidays – to raise funds for The Black Dog Institute.

“Depression is serious. 20% are affected. It has affected my family and friends. I think talking about it will help others who may not be so comfortable talking about it, or feel alone. If we can get others talking, we may save lives. I am putting resources and facts together on my blog to share. I hope to help others and even save lives.”

The other great thing is that he’s sharing this all using Social Media.

“Social Media (or connected media as I prefer to call it now) is my passion: it allows me to connect, share and build relationships with people (my other passion: people!) After participating in The Perfect Gift for a Man in July 2009 I realised that connected media could be used for social good. Social good to me means using what skills and knowledge we have to help other people and our world, be more successful. It’s something I believe I am good at, and think I will be doing this for the rest of my life. “

You can read more about Tony’s Black Dog ride on Posterous: http://bit.ly/TonyBlackDogRideIntro and Twitter @hollingsworth Hashtag: #TonyBlackDogRide. His friends are also raising awareness. The ride is organised by another bloke on Twitter called Steve Andrews @blackdogride.

To donate visit Tony’s Black Dog Fundraising Page

So here I am. A post with no name. No tag. No category. No picture. “Uncategorized”.

It just needed to be written.

And now – I think  I can start writing again.

It’s mother’s day in Australia today (Happy Mothers Day all you mums and carers!!) so I’d like to dedicate a blog post to a worthwhile cause, for a pretty special mama. This campaign “To Mama With Love” has been rapidly created by a bunch of volunteers around the world. I’ve seen it come together on a Google Group over the last couple of weeks, and I noticed on Facebook that it all started from an idea Gia Lyons shared with Stacey Monk.  Ideas turn into reality quickly, these days! Especially when people join together and take a little time to share their skills and ideas.

So what’s it all about? To quote Chris Noble from What Gives?”

“The thing is, most of what we buy for Mom on her day isn’t going to last.  That’s what’s special about the campaign that Stacey Monk and the crew at Epic Change are running this Mother’s Day: They’re giving you a chance to tell your “Mama” you love her, and to make a lasting difference in a child’s life at the same time.

Just visit their site: To Mama With Love and you’ll see.  Each “Heartspace” created is a tribute.  And each tribute drives a donation to help Mama Lucy Kamptoni continue her mission to teach and house children in Tanzania. If the work she’s done so far is any indication, the money you donate will be very well spent. Mama Lucy started a school that grew from 10 students in 2003 to over 400 kids today.  the proceeds from this campaign will help build boarding facilities to house and shelter up to 50 more students.”

So far more than 200  “Heartspaces” have been created, and nearly $12,000 has been generated for the cause over the past few days.

It only takes a minute to dedicate a heartspace to a mother and help to create a boarding facility for these amazing kids in Tanzania . Here are the directions from the site: 

1. Create a heartspace
   for a mom you love by giving in her honor.
2. Show your love
   by personalizing your heartspace with words, photos, and/or video.
3. Send a Mother’s Day e-card
   with a link to the heartspace you”ve created.
4. Your mother’s day present just changed the world.

Here’s mine. Let’s help Mama Lucy reach her goal of $50,000 .

Other posts on this wonderful project:

* Geoff Livingston on Mashable
* Beth Kanter on Beth’s Blog
* Jen Consalvo at Tech Cocktail
* Debra Askanese at Community Organizer 2.0
* Amy Sample Ward at NPTech

Will you tell your mama you love her? Share your words, your art and a small donation over at http://www.tomamawithlove.org/

Okay, so iPhones aren’t really suited to macro photography. But this creative challenge hasn’t been about taking technically perfect shots.

It’s a reminder that there is wonderment to be found in any given moment, any day. It’s the delight of shiny red seeds from a  pomegranate thanks to my in-laws garden. It’s the discovery of a gumleaf near the letterbox cradling pretty rain droplets.

Do you have a photo you’d like to share? Please leave a link in a comment or add it to the Wonderment group and I’ll share images that inspire in my next post

Yes, Chipin was an interesting way to collect money. Especially for a mum like me who had only experienced fundraising through preschool raffle tickets, school chocolate boxes, mango trays and and yes, even apple slinkies. I had a goal of $10,000 to create a Trust Group and I needed something that would work online, so that my social network could make a difference

BUT

I’m not sure that I’ll use Chipin again.

*****

Why? In an attempt to explain, here are 5 things you should consider if you’re planning to use Chipin. (*note, this was my experience last year and some of this may have changed. I’d love to hear about your own experience)

1. You Can’t Extend The End Date of Your Chipin
I was counting heavily on the last 24 hours of fundraising, because of the Twitter ramp-up to the finish line. I was tweeting like crazy. Others were re-tweeting. People were donating. What a buzz. And then I get a note from someone telling me they can’t donate because the Chipin has expired. WHAT? I had one more day, surely? Unfortunately, Chipin’s timezone is different to my timezone. Once my Chipin expired I couldn’t extend the date. My Chipin had ENDED and I couldn’t reopen it. I lost at least one $50 donation, maybe more.

2. People Couldn’t Work Out How To Pay
Too many people told me they wanted to donate, but couldn’t figure out the conversion rate and left the site. Remember, you need to make it simple for people when asking themto donate online. In the end, I created a Paypal donation button for Australian donors in addition to the Chipin on my fundraiser blog. It would have been nice if Chipin could have done this too. The Paypal process was easy, the only drawback being the lack of social interaction (comments, sharing etc.)

Also some people couldn’t see how to pay by credit card (it’s not glaringly obvious if you don’t use Paypal) so I had some people request to donate directly into my bank account instead.

3. The Figures Didn’t Add Up (at least, not in the widget)

As you can see, this created a bit of a mess, as some donations were now being made in US dollars through Chipin, some in Australian dollars through Paypal, and some directly to me. The benefit was people could choose how they wanted to pay, so I didn’t miss out on donations. The drawback was that only the US dollar donations were being updated in the Chipin widget. It would have been nice to have some flexibility in the admin to manually enter cash donations into the status bar. For example “Chipin donations plus$X cash donations = $90% of total funds raised”.

4. Don’t Use Chipin During a Financial Crisis
Well, what I mean is this – because people donated using US Dollars and suddenly the Australian dollar went up, and the US dollar went down, down, down – some of the initial donations lost a few dollars in conversion rates. For this reason, it’s probably not so good for long term global fundraisers. It meant extra work for me in admin (keeping an eye on the conversion rates, withdrawing from paypal) and account keeping too. It might have worked for a 3 day fundraiser. But in my case I was raising funds over quite a few months from different parts of the world.

5. Chipin Doesn’t Offer Individual Admin Support
I had one particular, important issue I needed Chipin to fix on my Chipin fundraiser. Chipin is free to use, so there isn’t much admin support, just FAQs. In fact, there is no longer any individual support AT ALL. I used their form (now removed) and sent several urgent requests on the same topic. I didn’t receive a single reply. Not an email. Not a tweet. Nothing. This wouldn’t have been so bad if I had more admin functionality. I could have fixed the problem myself.

There were probably a few more things, like their blogging functionality is horrible and there were no alternatives to their Flash generated widget (so I couldn’t put it on this WordPress hosted site ….shhhh) but I think you get the picture. At least, I hope so.

*****

Next time I use a service like Chipin, I’ll probably pay a small fee per transaction for a service like Everyday Hero. This woman is using their service to raise funds for parent beds in a Children’s Hospital (I heard about it via MiscMum)

There are other fundraising sites like Give A Little and Greater Giving. And I have to say, despite it’s shortcomings and my own learnings, Chipin – along with the microfinance fundraiser blog and other social media -allowed me to reach people outside of my own local community. So I’m glad I did it!

What do you think – is Chipin easy to use or do you prefer other social fundraising sites? What’s your experience?

(Note, I’ve been meaning to write this post for aaaages, but @digitalkulcha prompted me in a Tweet today as @silkcharm mentioned it in her session at ConnectNow – see slide 37. This post is for you both!)

One such project last year was  Age of Conversation 2, a follow up to the original Age of Conversation. (I believe you can still purchase both.)

Now a third installment has been created “ Age of Conversation 3: It’s time to get busy!”. The wonderful contributors are listed below. I’ll remind you when the book is ready to order, because not only will you enjoy reading stories and tips from “over 300 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators “-  all funds raised from proceeds this year will be going towards the Make a Wish foundation.

This project is an example of what I like about social networking.

An open invitation to participate is extended to anyone and everyone
(via blog posts, Twitter, Facebook etcetera)
You can join in. Or not.
You can share something. Or not.
You can write something personal. Or not.
You can be part or something. Or not.
You can be ready. Or not.

Thanks to Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan for organising this three years in a row.
And to the publishers of AOC3 Channel V Books.

Update: I think I should explain what I relate to. I relate to this scenario of being slightly bamboozled by a young child’s familiarity with all of this technology.  Obviously it’s scripted, but for me this video raises all kinds of interesting and important questions on how digital natives are processing information, learning and how we can support them along the way – even if that means not giving them everything they think they want all the time

Hat Tip to educator Royan Lee who is also doing a fun and interesting 365 Flickr photo journal project. Take a peek at the mini TED commandments for powerpoint presentations he created with his class.

Image by Jonah G.S.

I had some difficulty naming this theme. I was going to call it Give, or Connect,  or Activate, and even…wait for it…Shine.
But I finally settled with Create, because creation is such an important part of social media – creating content and creating connections through that content. What do you think?

Create is about using social media make a difference. It’s not just about “how to use Twitter”.  It’s more to do with developing your unique online presence so that you can create positive change.  How can you build up your online brand? How can you raise funds through social media events? Who is using social media to change the world? How can you introduce social media into your organisation? How can you create compelling content to connect people?  I’d love to know what you are interested in for this particular theme.

So there you go. Three themes for 2010. And this is where I’d really like to hear from you. Do any of these themes resonate with you? What would you like to explore further?

“Nancy & I met first online when we did a podcast around “blended communities” with Ed Mitchell (from the UK) and then F2F in Seattle last year.” Matt has seen the need for a workshop focusing on online communities emerge as the topic surfaced in many different areas over the last 12 months,  including learning, marketing and government.

Nancy White recently finished a book with Etienne Wenger & John D Smith called “Digital Habitats. Matt explains that  people attending the workshops can expect “practical tools to help them with online community management, based on many collective decades of experience from Nancy, Etienne, John & others. They’ll get a workshop session that will practice what it preaches in terms of interactivity & blended technology use. And finally, well, Nancy is a live wire – there will not be one dull moment (promise). ” (I believe you Matt, Nancy is on my “must meet in real life” list, especially after her inspiring contribution to WorldShapers pp 41-43)

Nancy White also shared what she hopes people will get out of the workshops. ” I’ll offer some of the frameworks we developed in the book – which have particular application I believe for work based groups, communities of practice and virtual teams.”

“I’d also like to put on the table some of the emerging distinctions between online group facilitation and something that, for lack of a better word, I’d describe as network facilitation, which in fact is new and emerging.”

If you’re interested in attending one of Nancy White’s workshops in Australia this November, check out the time and dates over on Innotecture’s blog. As somone who has experienced both the positive and more challenging aspects of participating in and moderating  online communities,  I’m really looking forward to joining in with her Melbourne workshop!

Last year people around the world joined in #Tweetsgiving and helped to raise $11,000 US in less than 48 hours online for nonprofit Epic Change. The funds raised from the last TweetsGiving have now built a classroom in Tanzania where the Twitter handles of donors are painted on the walls!

Epic Change helped a woman called “Mama Lucy”Kamptoni. Mama Lucy once sold chickens, and from what little money she earned built a school near her home in Arusha, Tanzania. She started in 2003 on rented land with only 6 students, and has now built a school that serves over 350 local kids. Last year, the school participated in national exams in Tanzania for the very first time, scoring #1 in the Arusha district, ahead of 116 other schools, including some internationally led with millions in funding.

From Tanzania, Stacey Monk writes,

“The funds raised this year will be used for a dormitory/orphanage, an additional classroom for students to move into Class 7 (the school doesn’t have enough classrooms to have a Class 7 today), as well as the school’s first library and cafeteria. The school has now grown to over 350 local students ages 3-13, and these new facilities are much needed.

We hope that money raised during TweetsGiving will help us find and fund new Epic Change partners and fellows in other parts of the world. Beginning in 2010, our current plan is to begin searching for additional changemakers and social entrepreneurs like Mama Lucy who are transforming their own communities in remarkable ways. We believe there are remarkable people like her who create hope in all parts of the world – and at Epic Change, we intend to invest in their efforts.”

You can continue to donate online and this year you can even help by throwing a gratitude party/Tweetup on November 24th or 25th. From the event details page “Organizers also reach out to local businesses who are willing to make cash or in-kind donations of venue, food, music, and other resources to make your event a success. Epic Change will facilitate online ticket purchase and promote your event on the TweetsGiving community website.

We simply ask that every party provide an opportunity for guests to celebrate and express their gratitude – whether it be for one another, members of your community or unheralded changemakers in the world at large.”

This is where YOU come into the picture. While I’d love to see this happen, Tweetsgiving needs your help. The organisers are leaving it up to each party in each city to come up with a gratitude event idea “You can plan an art project, a concert, an act of guerrilla goodness, a letter writing station, a novel way of highlighting the work of a local changemaker, or something else entirely – we’ll share our ideas with you soon and we can’t wait to see the joyful ideas you all dream up!”

If you have an idea, or would like to be involved in organising a Tweetsgiving event in Australia (or anywhere else) please leave a comment so we can talk about ideas together or get in touch with the Tweetsgiving organisers directly.

Will you join in to create a Big Aussie Tweetup?