[caption id="attachment_2489" align="aligncenter" width="481" caption="Hank & John Start VidCon Early in the Morning (thus the rare shot of empty seats)"][/caption]
VidCon. In a word? WOW. As one friend put it, "it's like the internet exploded into real life". It was surreal, amazing, & awesome to meet people that I've only been able to see through my computer screen.
Even though there wasn't nearly enough time, I'm in awe at how seamlessly online friends turned into "real life" friends. In most cases it's like you've known someone for ages and are just hanging out.
[caption id="attachment_2488" align="aligncenter" width="482" caption="This photo makes me look more ...
My 5 Fact Pitch to Save the Children
It's the first of April, and I'm standing in a dimly lit room with a bright projector light blinding me. In front of me, some high ranking officials who came to hear me speak. This is no April's Fools joke: this was my presentation to Save the Children USA's Global HQ.
[caption id="attachment_2423" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Save the Children's USA HQ (pic by Madge Canning)"][/caption]
After an hour of Keynote slides, graphs, and videos I was pleased to see that my presentation was well received. Lots of nodding heads. But I needed one more thing. I need to drive the message home. It ...
Does Steve Jobs Care about Global Poverty?
Less than 24 hours ago, Apple surpassed Microsoft to become the world's biggest tech company. As someone who used to spell Microsoft with a dollar sign, I can't believe what I'm about to say: this is a bad thing for the world.
The only thing I love more than Apple is what I use my Mac gear for: fighting poverty in developing countries. In this regard, unlike Microsoft & Bill Gates, Apple & Steve Jobs don't seem to care much about poverty and global development.
[caption id="attachment_2235" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="One runs the biggest tech company in the world, the other is a global ...
“YOU are the fortress”
Right now, I'm sitting in a hotel room connected to the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The red glow of the giant "CNN logo" across my room seeps through the drapes and into the room. My journey to help the poor in Bangladesh seems to be taking me everywhere... everywhere except Bangladesh.
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="169" caption="Beth Kanter - Non-Profit Social Media Strategist"][/caption]
I'm spending so much time away from my passion - not because I like time off, but because convincing charities to team up with me seems to be an uphill battle. Imagine my surprise, when I found someone here ...
Since being featured on the YouTube hompage, the biggest difference in the responses to my video have been the change in comments: quality has been replaced by quantity, and positivity has been replaced by negativity. There are tons of videos and websites devoted to how to get featured on YouTube. But what happens after you get featured? How do you handle that?
Here are a few videos that had some pearls of wisdom.
Bernard Smith is this YouTuber who plays a character called Cornelius Blow. When one of his videos got featured, he quickly made a follow-up video where he talked about how to deal with all these new comments (many of which were negative):
Not everyone who gets featured is a professional like Bernard though. Steven and Kelly (aka SteAndKel) are two young YouTubers from the UK who got featured on their very first video. With over one million video views, they have gathered their share of fans (I’m one of them) – but they’ve also gathered their share of haters. Instead of getting sad about it – they brushed it off…. using song and dance. Check it out:
In one of the last courses I took before I left Notre Dame to start this project, I had a professor who was highly critical of the World Economic Forum.
What’s the World Economic Forum? It’s an event that happens once a year in Davos, Switzerland. World leaders, economic leaders, and prominent citizens get together to discuss the future of the world. According to this professor, the World Economic Forum was not only something to be seriously critiqued – it should be boycotted. Many people share this professor’s view and, as a counter to the World Economic Forum, have formed something called the World Social Forum. Why all the criticism of the World Economic Forum? The argument is that the World Economic Forum is too elitist, with not enough grass-roots input, and too undemocratic.
Well in 2008, thanks to YouTube, that all changed.
This year, anyone with a message to world leaders could make a video and put it on YouTube. These videos would then be rated, judged, and evaluated by other YouTube users. Anyone with an account on YouTube can go to the channel called “The Davos Question” and view and vote on which videos should be seen by the World Economic Forum members. The Davos Question was a question put forward by the World Economic Forum asking us – what do we think needs to be done by corporations, individuals, and governments to make the world a better place? The videos with the highest ratings would then be screened in the World Economic Forum. Bono, Bush, and Blair – they would all see what you had to say. All of a sudden, ordinary joes with good ideas got a voice at one of the world’s highest forums. Fancy that.
Okay…. so it’s not that simple….
The biggest problem with getting a message across – no matter how good – is dealing with haters (or “haterz”). Haters are a problem for people who get popular on YouTube. Fortunately, I haven’t run into that problem – which probably speaks to how much I am an unknown on YouTube. But, for many people trying to put good ideas forward in order to answer the The Davos Question, a lot of them are being picked apart by haters. One of my favorite videos to the Davos Question was done by a high school teacher (and fellow Canadian) by the name of Greg. He calls for greater consideration towards the global poor. As you can see in his video, he’s articulate and he makes a passionate plea.
But, after his video got popular, what do the haters have to say?
This is not a charity, organization, or anything formal. It’s my journey to try and make the world a better place - one meaningful difference at a time. It’s about inspiring others to believe that we can be the generation that ends extreme poverty. Hopefully, this project can also show the big multinational organizations that there is a better way to engage people on the issue of global poverty.
About Me
I'm Shawn - a 29 year old Canadian from Toronto. Before starting this project, I was a graduate student on scholarship at Notre Dame University. My life took a turn after I met Dr. Jeffrey Sachs (author of the book "The End of Poverty") when he came to give a speech at Notre Dame. That speech inspired me to withdraw from grad school, liquidate my savings, and begin this journey to try and make the world a better place - one meaningful difference at a time.
