Would you give a homeless kid 50 cents?

 

My friend, Eric Weaver was asked to help out for a good and novel cause.  I followed Weave’s advice, signed up for the conference email and now am republishing his request.

Originally published on Branddialogue, which I encourage you to read, by the way.

      Kids at the Shelter Network

Ahh, dear readers. I really dig connecting with you here and hope to god I’m not spamming you to death with updates and notes and links and STUFF. Our lives are full of “stuff,” aren’t they? Things clamoring for our attention and time. As you know from my 2009 resolutions, I’m trying to use my time more meaningfully and have fewer things of better quality in my life.

I’ve been approached by Lee Dryburgh, who organizes the eComm Emerging Community Conference. This conference covers primarily mobile technologies, with topics like Open Handsets, Mobile Social Networking, social media, etc. Lee’s facing a similar conundrum to other conference organizers: how do I generate awareness of my event? Normally one would pay for an email database and blast away hoping to snag some subscribers. Lee had another idea: rather than buying names, he’s reaching out to social media types to ask for their promotional help. For every person who joins his mailing list, he will donate 50 cents to the Shelter Network.

If you’re a frequent conference goer and you dig the mobile space, that’s a bonus. For those of you with too much stuff in your life, the conference, or an unwanted email, may not be very interesting.

Here’s the thing: you could say to yourself, “Self, I don’t need any more email. I’ll just donate 50 cents to a cause.” Realistically, if you’re like me at least, that won’t happen, not really. So I’m going to ask that you visit this URL and sign up for the conference email. It’ll take a second or two, you’ll learn a bit about this conference (one of the more progressive ones in the mobile space) and you’ll help homeless kids through the Shelter Network without it costing you anything but a moment of time. All you will have done is signed up for an email. If you find it completely uninteresting, you can always unsubscribe.

The problem seems overwhelming. But it’s not.

There are a million good causes out there. A million issues nagging for our attention. When things get rough, we tend to retreat - and that’s exactly the time when kids like these need us the most. Just click here and sign up for the email. Even if you don’t read it or you unsubscribe, you will have helped a child with that simple action.

Homelessness is a growing problem that can easily be solved, if we just faced it. And no one likes being asked for money. So here’s one way we can help others without touching our pocketbooks. I hope you’ll take a moment and sign up.

I promise I’ll always be sensitive to your time and attention.