I was already familiar with the blog, and Social Butterfly’s twitter, too.  But, I realized the blog wasn’t in my RSS reader and thus I was missing many wonderful posts!  I suggest that if you are interested in social media, marketing, and the intersection of the two, you subscribe as well.

Social Butterfly’s post about Blog Action Day, really caught my eye.  Here’s how it begins:

What is poverty?

In researching the answer to this question, I couldn’t escape the purpose behind a campaign by the Association of Public Health Schools and the Pfizer Foundation recently created called “What is public health?” This campaign works to better brand ‘public health’ to the public, while also raising awareness, education and encouraging participation in the public health conversation. Participants are asked to put red “This is public health stickers” on items that they feel represent public health. My challenge: What would this look like if the question: “What is poverty?” was asked?

I read on, and encourage you to as well, but that question stuck in my head.  If we were going to try to put a sticker on everything that labeled it as, “This is Poverty,” how would we even begin? The definition of poverty, or at least as we think of it in public service work and public policy, is so vast and multifaceted.  The number of stickers we would need is unbelievable!

Then, as if she was reading my thoughts, I saw this tweet from my friend Audrey:

spinnerin:  Frustrated by people’s tendency to talk for everyone outside developed countries as though we know exactly what they need.

It’s such a fitting point.  When I first started thinking about sticking those “This is Poverty” stickers on things, I started thinking with my home town first, then my home state, and home country.  After that, I started thinking about London, and the UK as I’m now based here and learning a great deal about the world as it is here.  But to start thinking about puting those stickers on things in developing countries was almost unfair.  I can think of many things to put those stickers on, but I don’t live there every day nor do I face or even really understand the real issues, and definitions of poverty as they exist in developing countries.  By putting a sticker on those things, the issues as we see them from elsewhere, are we even setting the stage for help and change?

How do we first get the people IN poverty, to label things with these metaphoric and real stickers of “This is Poverty” so that help can be defined and created most effectively?

Thanks, Social Butterfly for giving me a moment to relfect on my own post from Blog Action Day, and rediscover your wonderful blog!  And, thanks to the Nonprofit Blog Exchange for connecting us!

What’s the point of bloggers (over 11,000 at the time of this posting!) all talking about poverty today?  The more people talking about poverty and its related issues, the larger and larger the conversation.  When lots of people start talking about something, they naturally get excited and start sharing ideas and making plans and then start taking action to make change!

So really, Blog Action Day = Action Day!

There are so many bloggers in the discussion today, and many great ideas, organizations and projects highlighted, and so much more – I really encourage you to check out the rolling list of participating blogs to read more and jump into the conversation!

Here’s what I’m thinking…

The social web is really about aggregation and redistribution. So, we should be pulling together opportunities for people to do something about poverty, both locally and on a global scale.  Many groups, individuals and even platforms are working on doing this already, at least for social change in general, including poverty-related actions.  Tools like SocialActions aggregate the social web of social actions for you, and then let you repurpose the results the way you want – like in a widget on your blog, on an automatic footer, etc.  SocialActions still has a long way to go with how much functionality and opportunity it hopes to provide users, so check it out and see how you can participate!

We should also be pulling together and pushing out resources and information about services for people in poverty looking for help.  I’ve seen this take shape in various forms, including One Economy’s Beehive websites that provide localized information and connections to services.  But, I still think there is a lot more to be done that doesn’t require too much ‘new’ work, just new combinations.

What if…

What if there was a way that someone looking for a social service could use a touch screen monitor in a grocery store to locate the physical building where they could get help? Grocery stores are much more abundant and easily accessed than pretty much anything else in most cities, and using the touch screen monitor means you have much less technological experience required to use the tool.  Finding the address, the specific services available, hours of operation, etc. in an easy-to-access way means that person could then get on the bus, taxi, or walk to the location without having to find one social service facility just to start the process.  I love maps though, so we should add in some mapping to the process maybe a map can show all of the locations providing the service needed and the user can pick and choose if they want.

What if there was a shared technology van for your city that would travel between homeless shelters, social service centers, and adult education facilities providing exposure and on-the-spot training to individuals on using a computer, a digital camera, navigating the web, creating an email account, etc.? This would give people facing an uphill battle to find a job and improve their financial/economic situation some basic tools to be on their way to working in an office or even just participating in the technology-heavy demands of the 21st century.  One van wouldn’t need to cost that much, especially if a national organization was behind it and regulating it.  I’m sure that software and hardware developers (whether it is laptops, cameras, video cameras, phones, or computer applications, etc.) out there would gladly donate machines or discount them (just think of how many people they are helping to become customers!); the vehicles could be donated or discounted or come from vehicle donation services; staffing of the vehicle could be a full-time standard hour job paid for by a grant or membership fees that are very small contributed/combined from all of the facilities who have a share of the exposure.

What do you guys think of either of those ideas?  Are they doable?  Do you have better ideas?  I’d LOVE to hear them!

"Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion."

Blogging, as I have talked about many times in the past, is really about conversations and I think the idea behind Blog Action Day is the perfect example of that.  By encouraging as many people to focus on the same issue for one day we can ignite ideas, conversations, and even actions to help fight poverty and the issues related to it.

I’m excited to participate and hope to blog about some great examples of social media use by poverty-focused organizations as well as the missions and work of those groups.  So, join me for Blog Action Day this year and help further the reach of the conversation!