Written by Mhairi Petrovic, October 09th, 2009
Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices. Will you blog for climate change on October 15th?
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, April 16th, 2009
Earth weekend is almost upon us and the good folks over at the Vancouver Aquarium are partnering up with our friends from Fresh Start Recycling as part of their Earth Weekend celebrations on April 25th and 26th. The fun includes earth themed activities, face painting, as well as the salmon fry release. Fresh Start will be collecting e Waste at the event so bring along any old electronics for recycling.
This is slightly off topic but Thomas Goodall contacted me as part of a blogger outreach campaign to promote the event so how could I resist an opportunity to help use social media to spread the good word about reducing, re-using and recycling.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, February 12th, 2009
Tonight’s Vancouver Twestival - the Twitter festival to raise awareness of charity: water. If you don’t have a ticket and want to go this great event, Hippo Water Roller is giving one away. Direct message @hipporoller if you are interested.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, October 31st, 2008
Amid all the gloom and doom of the economic world its difficult to see the silver lining these days. However, we have discovered so many reasons to be cheerful this month that we may have another Reasons To Be Cheerful in mid November so that we can share them all with you.
Our number one reason to be cheerful is that amid all this turmoil and recession we know that Internet and Social media marketing will prevail. Why? Because its more effective, less expensive and easier to track than traditional marketing efforts.
Now to our new media reasons of the month:
Caught the Twitter bug? Then you’ll be interested in your Twitter statistics perhaps. TweetStats reveals your Twitter habits. I’ve been on Twitter (@outsmarts) since March 2007 and it interesting to see how my interest waned then waxed.
Another great tool discovered this month is Ping.fm. Ping lets you post once to any number of social networking tools (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn and the list goes on). Very handy if you are trying to be everywhere at once.
Another most excellent discovery this month is the social advertising community AdHack – this is people powered advertising at its best.
Another great resource is HARO – Help A Reporter Out. Its a service that connects reporters with people who have content to share. Its a great way to share your material but watch out for email overload.
GivenGain is another site we came across this month. They facilitate giving. If you are a charity looking to set up a donations stream or if you are looking to give then check this out.
Lastly, WigglyWigglers - a fantastic example of how one company harnessed social media to the max.
Until next time – stay cheerful!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, October 15th, 2008
Today is Blog Action Day, a day when bloggers around the world unite to spread awareness of a cause or issue. This year’s topic is poverty and over 9500 blogs are registered from around the world to participate in this blogathon. Its another great example of how social media is being harnessed by the masses to better the world we live in.
Poverty is a hot topic in Vancouver. With one of the warmest climates in Canada, our city is home to many homeless people – too many. The hot property market is making it harder and harder for ordinary people to afford to live here and many who do, especially in the downtown east side, live in poverty.
Last year I bought the Hope In Shadows calendar and it hangs on my kitchen wall. Its a collection of photographs taken in the community by amateur photographers from the downtown east side. Profits the sale of the calendars go back to the community. Its a poignant reminder of the people in my town who are struggling to survive and certainly puts my bad days in perspective. Last week Hope in Shadows published its top 40 images for next year’s calendar. Its well worth a look and while you are at it you might want to buy one and do your part to help reduce poverty.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, January 21st, 2008
After quite a while waiting our XO is finally here and I can only say good things about it so far. Firstly its much smaller than I had expected and not cheap and tacky at all (for a $200 laptop you expect it to be crappy to some degree). Its compact and easy to use – my kids are already making music on it albeit chicken sounds.
The best part is that, after spending hours at CES hunting down the ideal blogging device, it was on its way to me all along. Indeed, I could see using this nifty little machine to blog from practically anywhere: after all it is weather proof so it will endure the rainy season and the battery lasts for ages. Given that for each one you buy another is donated to a needy child, I wish I had bought another so I wouldn’t have to fight my kids for it!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, November 21st, 2007
Yesterday I blogged about the new Kindle but I am much more excited about the XO. This laptop project has been in development for years and is aimed at empowering children in the third world to learn by providing them with access to low cost computers that are child friendly. With that in mind the laptop has been designed to be rugged, easy to use, to view, has great power efficiency and it uses free open source software thats helps keep the costs low.
The aim of the project is to provide an XO to as many kids around the world as possible to make it easier for them to learn. Right now if you give a donation of a laptop another will be shipped to you. Its a great cause (the donation can be written off) but the promotion is only on until 26th November and the response has been overwhelming so get cracking.
