This week I participated in an all day “Tweetathon.”  No, there were no packed stadiums of adoring fans. No, I didn’t have to get all sweaty. No, there was no lifetime of preparation.  The event was held on Twitter and the focus was to raise awareness for the United Nation’s ongoing work to assist refugees worldwide — their Blue Key Campaign.

So why talk about it in my blog?  Well, there are a couple of good reasons:

Social Media:
The Blue Key Campaign is aggressively and successfully using social media to get the word out about their efforts and to increase awareness of their cause. Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, LinkedIn, YouTube and Flickr are all part of the mix.

How Do You View Charity?:
My good friend Dan Rickert and I have been working on a new, large-scale project that, fundamentally, asks the question, “What are you doing daily to give back to the world?” This is a tough question to ask and, more importantly it’s often a much tougher question to answer.

Let’s face it. Most of us don’t have billions of dollars like Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet, George Soros or Oprah Winfrey.  Their combined, personal philanthropic efforts in just the past few years is pushing $100 BILLION dollars!  A problem with this is these heavy hitters get the press coverage because it’s a WOW story, leaving the rest of us mere mortals feeling like our contributions would be small, petty or even unnoticed.  This is faulty thinking.  One big player ponying up a million dollars, or a million less wealthy individuals pooling together $1 each, is identical in how it impacts the world.

In this vein, the Blue Key Campaign simply asks for a small donation of $5 but (here’s the beautiful part) ALSO asks you to help spread the word through your own social network of family, friends and business contacts.  This costs you nothing and helps out the cause immensely.

Giving and helping DON’T have to make you feel all scritchy and uncomfortable!

So, how many causes, campaigns, fundraisers, non-profits, charities and philanthropic organizations can you think of that you would fully believe in and MIGHT need your support today?  Can’t come up with any off the top of your head? … check out CharityNavigator.org or CharityWatch.org to find some of the biggies.  But don’t stop there!  Think about your local community; local soup kitchens, Rotary, Lions Club, local schools (sports, arts, music), Boy/Girl Scouts … the list is endless!

… OR, if you need a simple way to get the ball rolling, support the Blue Key Campaign with $5.

A designer’s job is not just to make a logo “pretty.”  There are a myriad number of issues that need to be weighed and balanced.  And, none are more important than color selection, contrast and readability.  Let’s consider what MIGHT happen if these were not considered carefully…

Another great catch from my wife as we were driving to a friend’s house.  She simply asked, “Don’t you think a company name of Saint Rage is really odd?”  This, of course, caught me off guard but I had to agree.  After a couple of seconds of more thought, I just HAD to see this company sign so we turned around and drove back a couple of miles.  Although she only saw the sign for just a fraction of a second, here’s what she saw:

She knew that it was a storage facility and her brain figured it out after just a second or two, but her FIRST impression was registered as “St. Rage Pros”.  I explained to her the issues of color contrast, how the brain works and the importance of time in absorbing content in signage (especially with billboards.)

Can this be fixed? SURE! Here are some suggestions:

• Make the white outer stroke on the lock a little more bold so it’s seen as a large circle.
• Change the color of the lock to a brighter/lighter color to increase the contrast with the background blue.
• Put an outer white glow around the lock to make it pop.

With this next photo, all I’ve done is desaturated the colors and increased the contrast to exaggerate the effect. Here’s what her brain saw the first time:

And, yes, the cats and dogs in the neighborhood have been seeing it this way all along.

[Note: My wife's starting to get so good at catching these little sign gaffs, I've added a new blog category called "There's Your Sign."  If you've got any crazy, funny, great or really bad signs in your area, snap a picture and send them along!]

Ford’s Scott Monty pointed us to this Fast Compnay article about Facebook’s new feature enhancement where you can now tag a brand, organization, company, celebrity … anyone with a fan page … and have the tag link to their fan page. Cool.

In the article, a question is raised about whether the entire Facebook Like system has any value to brands, asserting that “Social media experts have begun to look askance at the Like system.” And, then asking important questions like;

• What does it really signify?
• If you “Like” a kind of soda, for example, does that actually mean that you’re buying the item?
• Or just that you like the idea of the item?
• How do you really know how engaged with the product any particular Liker actually is?

Although these are, indeed, great questions and worthy of deep discussions at a social media professional event or a marketing executive team meeting, I think the article misses a point.  An important point.  There’s more going on in social media than just marketing brands!

Our online social networks are an extension of our “meat space” social networks and, as such, we are discovering new and innovative ways to communication important social concepts to each other — in the absence of visual and verbal queues.

The Like concept gives us insight into the most basic thoughts, beliefs and desires of our friends, families and the closest of contacts in our social graph.  It’s like sticking a wet finger up in the air to get a quick gauge of wind direction.  It’s not fancy. It’s not techno-slick. But it works.  Take a dive into a book called “CONNECTED. The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. How your friends’ friends’ friends affect everything you feel, think, and do” to see what I mean.

Now, let me lay down some of my core beliefs about social media, in the hopes we can all review these comments, years in the future, to beat up on me if I’m wrong … OR praise me for my genius foresight if I’m right (wink);

• I hear the comment a LOT lately how “we’re losing our ability to socialize.”  This is said most often in the context of our kid’s development, as if we adults are somehow perfectly adjusted socially and immune to the impacts of the changes going on around us.  I DISAGREE! I think we are all just starting to socialize  (in a global context) and haven’t yet figured out the right way to do this.
• As we discover many of the pitfalls inherent in this new world of global, instantaneous socializing, we’ll make a lot of mistakes along the way.  When we pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off and move forward, we’ll do it with more sensitivity to how we can be better social communicators.  More importantly, we’ll figure out how to best teach our children — by example.
• Here’s a biggie prediction; As soon as we make significant strides in figuring this stuff out, the impact of global social systems on our lives is going to change our world view.  It’s going to change mankind. It’s going to change us as individuals.  All for the better.  But, we’re just starting out and we have a LONG way to go before this actually comes to fruition.

With the realization that social media is here to stay, we all need to chip in to figure out how to navigate its rough waters. We need to not be pessimists, and not simply be optimists … we need to be leaders.

“The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The Leader adjusts the sails.” — John Maxwell