The following is a guest post by my friend, Keith Burtis. Below, Keith talks about the immense generosity he finds within the social media community. Keith himself sets an outstanding example of the generosity and kindness that he talks about here. Check him out on his blog at www.keithburtis.com.
Big Hearts
Today, after coming home from a few errands I was struck by the thought of the amazing hearts that we have in not only social media, but across the world. Just a day ago a plane crashed just 2 miles from my home and 3/4 of a mile from where I was at the moment of impact. This plane crashed and landed on a home in the township of Clarence just outside of Buffalo. Minutes after, I tweeted about it using hashtag #ClarencePlaneCrash and I was once again embraced by the Huge Hearts of Social media. Currently, I am running a charity fund raiser for the family that lost their home and their father on my blog. I thank one of the biggest hearts I know, Susan Murphy. for allowing me to share my thoughts with her community here on her blog.
Two Years of Wow!
I have been involved in the social media space for two years, and I am wow’ed! almost daily by the actions that I see in the social media space. We have a pool here of some of the smartest, forward thinking, and giving people I have ever come across.
Some of the amazing things I have seen are:
The Frozen Pea Friday Meme that went to help raise needed funds for Breast Cancer.
Gradon Tripps initiative of Social Media for Social Change (SM4SC).
Earth Day 2008! as well as the new Earth Day 2009 coming soon.
12for12k, using social media to raise $12,000 a month throughout 2009.
Twestival that took place Feb 12th 2009 to help struggling countries find clean water.
Dave Fleet’s effort in social media. Tying his Boston Marathon efforts to Charity.
There are many, many more instances of huge hearts in the social media space and I encourage you to share them here in the comments. As a sort of Valentines Day theme I wanted to get these thoughts out and share some the amazing things that I have seen over the past couple years. Have an amazing day, and keep opening your hearts. It’s amazing what you get back in satisfaction and love.
Keith.
4 Comments
Thanks for a great reminder of just a handful of the good things that happen through social media. It really warms my heart that we all have the opportunity to get involved so quickly, so passionately, and so globally.
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Correction: The book is entitled “love ebook”
Thanks,
Henie
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Hi Suze and Keith…
While I am only about a month old with Blogging and Twitter, I can wholeheartedly express the same awe and gratefulness toward this community for not only embracing causes but for helping me with arms open wide! I would like to add to your list Julie @ http://www.writingroads.com who has published an ebook entitled “elove.” While it is free to download the book, any donations go towards helping people who are greatly affected by this grave economic downturn…the recession.
Thank you for an uplifting and heartfelt post! :~)
My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, family and friends of the crash.
Best Always,
Henie
Henie’s last blog post..Passion 101
Thanks Keith/Suze … nice post … i haven’t been actively on Twitter as long as both of you guys, but in my short time, the number of these kinds of events have really blown me away …to the point where I sometimes get a little defensive when others who don’t know that much about Twitter understand it as a platform for “kids in the basement with grey complexions with nothing else to do” … such enormous potential to make a real difference in the lives of many — all good!
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