The Lemontree, Poverty & Social Media

Happy Spring Lemonheads!!

Yesterday was the day of the equinox: one of 2 days this year when the sun will cross the equator and we will have an equal amount of daytime and night time. What does this mean to the Lemontree? Well – not much, except that if it were a “real” Lemontree (as opposed to a virtual one), it would certainly appreciate 12 hours of sun! But, that’s not the point, is it now?

The sun, beaming into my window, reminded me that I really should post some more (as in, continue to shed light on our topic of poverty & lack of education – or, rather lack of access to education). And, I really need to apologize for being so sporadic with my posts... But, I’ve encountered something absurdly powerful: Web 2.0 in all its glory. And with so many applications, it can truly get dizzying. So, I’ve been learning about the virtues of a few applications. My recent favourite: Twitter.

Twitter: here is a site, virtually unknown in its inception in 2006. In just a little over 2 years, it has grown by over 700%; and though the exact number of users is unknown, experts peg it between 2-5 million, world-wide, and growing exponentially!

People tweet (a tweet is a 140 character message to the world) about absolutely everything and anything. Twitterers could be anyone from you to me to rock stars (apologies if you are a rock star and I’ve singled you out) to movie stars (ditto) and so many other iterations! OK – so, in less than 3 years, we can create a Website – a virtual social aggregator – that can generate over 700% in user growth, and still... we struggle with poverty.

But – here’s the good news! There are lots of Twitterers who tweet about this issue... and, as I’ve indicated before, awareness is needed first in order to generate action. So, shall we try a little experiment? Let’s test the power of the Internet.

Here’s the challenge – and, I’ll challenge back to the Twitterers too:

• Let’s get the Lemontree message OUT!


• Tweet your thoughts about lack of access to education and its link to poverty;


• You can start by tweeting about this post: click the “TwitThis” button below. If you do not see the TwitThis button, make sure you click on the link for this post itself, not just the main page of the Lemontree. To make sure you are on the post link, select it from the menu on the right-hand side. At the end of your tweet, include the following: #lemontreeblog.


• If you have your own Twitter account, make sure you post your thoughts, followed by #lemontreeblog.


• Post your thoughts on the topic, and solutions – or links to solutions.


• CHALLENGE: 50 Lemontree tweets by March 27th.
  

I will count the posts, and relay them back to a few Twitter accounts myself... Oh yeah – let me know who should get our info!! (I.e. Stephen Harper, Barack Obama?)

Who knows, we may come up with some awesome ideas to bring hope back into our communities, and drive better access to education for all! (If Twitter can change the landscape of the social network... it can be a tool to change the landscape of poverty.)