Amsterbeth

Chapter Six: Arriving at an Idea by Way of Phuket, Rotterdam, and the Office

 

Last April, I took a trip to Thailand.  It was my first trip to southeast Asia and the first time I had any real-life exposure to third-world living.  I noticed how very little money it would require to make a huge difference in the lives of so many people, their animals, and their environment. I imagined the radiant  and cascading benefit of helping one community or  small and actionable cause at a time.  This trip is documented in earlier posts. Here they are if you find you might like to read them.

 Later in the year, I supported a friend of mine who was running a marathon in Rotterdam.  I became acutely aware of how many other events or activities occurred as a result of the marathon: first aid stations, band performances, food vendors, corporate sponsor booths, etc. 

 An idea came to me: Wouldn't it be great to start a business where you could get the attention of large groups of people who are assembling for one reason (concerts, conventions, sporting events), and ask them to make donations for another particular cause. It would be done in real time.  The cause would be specific (not donating to an organization but through an organization),  the individual investment low, the collective impact high. The result would be immediate, affordable, momentous, unifying, gratifying.  A real impact. A real and lasting connection, and a way to reporduce that feeling of people coming together to get something done, just like my colleagues and I felt during our work conference.

 But how does one actually achieve this: SMS'ing or some other device? I was stuck, but I knew that the solution would involve social media.

This past November, I was participating in a training  at our office to facilitate creative thinking and brainstorming sessions.  I shared my idea as I have just described with the group, and we used it to go through the creative facilitation exercise.   Together we came up with the idea of a "Virtual Flash Mob" on Facebook.

 What if we could  rally a "flash mob" on Facebook--so that thousands of people would "gather" at a single "location" at a single instant to raise money for a single cause--like a library for one particular school in Ghana.  

The group's ideas inspired me so much, I asked them if they would join me in trying it out for real.   And then I  came upon an interview on Youtube where the founder of Worldreader.org  explained on CNN how his organization brings Kindle e-readers to communities of children who have access to few or no books.  We had our cause and we decided to go for it.

(If you would like to join the journey toward democratizing charitable donations, please go to my Facebook page and "like" it. Thanks!)

 

Chapter Five: If You Are Getting This Message, Your Roommate is Not

"I'm back in the U.S., I know how it works here, and I'm going to make sure my colleagues have the best time possible."

I was lying atop my bed in a hotel room in Atlanta, Georgia with this thought as my sole companion. It was 2008 and many of my colleagues had travelled across the Atlantic to descend upon the city with over 10,000 other Microsoft employees for the company's annual MGX convention.   We were scattered across several hotels, not always conveniently located next to each other.

I hopped off my bed, took the elevator down to the lobby, and introduced myself to the hotel's concierge. I told him I wanted to organize a few nights out for my coworkers.  There were about a hundred of us, I think. Maybe the number was less or maybe it was much larger.  It could have been 50 or 5,000. It doesn’t really matter and I'll get to that in a minute.

My familiarity with the city didn't extend beyond what I was able to read online.  The concierge opened a binder, turned it toward me and pointed to some of his "favorite" restaurants, reading the text effortlessly even though it was upside down from his perspective. I explained to him this wasn't really what I had in mind. I wasn't interested in just making reservations; I wanted to create an entire experience for my coworkers.

He got on the phone and started making some calls.   We decided upon a sushi place outside of downtown that turns into a club at night.  I made the reservation, requested a guest list (no cover charge for the Dutchies!), and I started texting: "If you are getting this message, your roommate is not. Spread the word: Tonight at Restaurant X, address Y, sushi and DJs...8:00."   I made a list of all the colleagues I could think of and sent the message over and over.  I knew that the colleagues in my immediate team would be there. I didn't know anything else.

Throughout the day I started getting messages back from people I had not directly delivered the SMS to: "Hey, heard there was something going on tonight?"  I'd reply with a confirmation.

That night at this restaurant, everyone showed up--practically our entire subsidiary's roster of attendees.  We were seated against the back wall of the restaurant. When I walked to the tables to take my seat, my colleagues started singing a song...at me. I don't know what the song was. I think it is some Dutch version of "Hip, Hip Hooray."  I reflexively crouched down to eye level with the rest of them--an instinctive move borne out of immediate embarrassment.  I was so happy when the song was over.

We stuffed ourselves with sushi and then took to the dance floor.  Several hours in, the manager of the restaurant approached me: "There are people who say they are with your group, but they don't have any I.D. so I can't let them in."  I peeked outside and saw that some of our most senior managers were waiting at the door.  Their seniority manifested not only in title but in age  (how odd it must be for a European person well into his 40s to be denied admittance into an American establishment because he has on his person no documentation proving his is over the age of 21).

I vouched for their legality, and assured the restaurant manager there was zero chance any of us would be driving ourselves back to our hotels incapacitated.  They were allowed to enter.

I wish there was a better way of getting to the point of this entry without having to expend the first half with what I probably could have reduced to a single sentence: "The second night of a massive corporate convention, I made reservations at a nightclub for my colleagues and everyone showed up."   I'm using my blog as a way to document the journey that has led to the vision of democratizing charitable giving, so I'll ask for your forgiveness and patience.

The thing is, this night was more than just reservations for a corporate dinner.  Something else happened.  My part as initiator in the evening required the lion’s share of effort. I had to make the reservations and I did spend rather a lot of time sending out that initial round of messages. But we did this together. Everyone decided to step up and forward the message to others. It takes initiation and courage to do this as well.  There was a moment when everyone arrived, looked around at everyone else, and like the weather, we all started talking about it because we were all experiencing the exact same thing at the exact same time.  We pulled it off. 

Keep in mind this was the middle of 2008 (time on the internet is so compressed). Facebook was well a part of the mainstream, but at least in Europe, it wasn't quite sitting at the edge of our finger tips through laptop and phone app every second of the day.   Disseminating a message virally through SMS still felt rather new--it was right at the end of its newness, but new nonetheless.

One of the I.D.-less senior managers observed into the air, "Hm...viral marketing in action."  I don't think he quite felt the impact the rest of us did. For that night, something else rather remarkable happened: the leaders followed.  The leaders were the ones outside the door waiting for admittance. The rest of us had already long been inside.

The next night, and the night after that, we did it all over again.  And the following year, and the year after that.

That night changed our group dynamic. It bonded some of us, and forged genuine friendships that extended beyond the office.   People came back from the conference and many couldn't stop talking about how great the week was--for a year. It was a feeling we took back with us that had nothing to do with the reason we all had to be together in the first place.