Blog Action Day 2008

So, I’ve registered this blog as part of blog action day 2008 … I’d better say something.

I’ve not given this post anywhere near the level of thought and attention it deserves so we’ll have to wait and see if I ever get around to mentioning poverty, this year’s blogging theme.  What the day has done is to reminded me about the power of online networks, the fact that so far over 11,000 blogs have committed to blog today, with a combined readership of over 12 million.

Whenever someone dismisses new technologies as something just for kids or a flash in the pan, it’s days like these that demonstrate just how powerful a committed network of people can be, they’ve probably never met or ever likely to but all share a passion to change the world, one small step at a time, and see opportunities to do it through technology.

Beth Kanter has suggested 30 ways to fight poverty with technology, I’ve picked out a few here that you might like to consider (Beth is in the US, hence the $):

1. Lend $1 to an entrepreneur in poverty for every new person who subscribes to your blog in a given time period. You can adjust this number to more or less, depending on how much you want to give and how many subscribers you already have.
2. Lend $5 to an entrepreneur in poverty for every one person who links to your blog in a given time period.
3. Donate spare or old technology to a family living in poverty (an old computer, for example).
4. Donate $1 for every 1,000 page views or visitors to your blog or website in a given time period (i.e. one month).
5. Join or create a Facebook group dedicated to reducing poverty.
6. Use Twitter to share a good article on poverty (and reducing it).
7. Share Blog Action Day posts in Google Reader.
8. Create a Flickr photoset of images that tell a story about poverty.
9. Create a video to raise awareness about poverty and share it on YouTube.
10. Review a product on your blog or website and use an affiliate link. Lend your earnings to another entrepreneur somewhere else in the world.
11. Use your blog or website to tell the story of someone who overcame poverty.
12. Encourage your blog’s reader-base to donate or lend to battle poverty today.
13. Give a poverty-battling organization some free advertising on your blog or website.

Here’s a few links to posts for BAD, I will try and pull together any other links I find at www.delicious.com/ICT_Hub/BAD08.

• Blog Action Day – http://blogactionday.org/
• Watford Gap – http://watfordgap.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/blog-action-day-little-actions-make-big-changes/
• Lloyd Davis – http://perfectpath.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/poverty-best-not-to-think-about-it/
• Birmingham social media surgery – http://www.podnosh.com/blog/2008/10/13/whos-coming-to-the-birmingham-social-media-surgery-bad08/
• Beth Kanter – http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/10/blog-action-day-can-one-person-make-a-difference-challenging-poverty-with-social-media.html
• Laura Whitehead – http://laura.popokatea.co.uk/2008/10/15/nonprofits-on-the-net-for-blog-action-day/