I’ve been watching with great interest the live tweets that are streaming out of Holland the 29th International Fundraising Congress.
I love it for at least three reasons.
1) There is a live updated billboard that anyone who is there can see who is talking about IFC using the #29thIFC hashtag – I’ve been trying to think of how i can use this to my advantage for promotional means – haha…

Sorry but that is just cool.
2) I can learn (sadly in small sound bites) what some of the speakers are talking about. Things I learned today: “Most people do not want a one to one in person ask for a bequest. Less than 5% It’s too personal!” “There are nine millionaire cats in the UK! Gifts were also left 2 dogs, turtles ponies. Known as ‘Last friend syndrome‘ “Best way to fundraise online: Stop fundraising, start inspiring action” “R.Radcliffe says that Legacy Club members think of it as a free meal but many many don’t leave a gift in will.”
3) I can follow live who is tweeting the most content from the conference:
You can check this out right here.

No it’s not the same as being there by any means (maybe next year?) but it does create a buzz for the event, it allows fundraisers to stay up to date with their colleagues and ’share’ in the event. Heck, I can even ask a question or two and expect someone there will seek the answer for me. Maybe I’m a tweetgeek but here is another fine example of how you can use twitter as a powerful communications and marketing tool. I look forward to seeing more photos and tweets in the next few days.

Last night I was asked to be a volunteer tweeter from the CAMH Unmasked event in Toronto. Have a listen and consider doing it for your next event!

Here are the tweets from before, during and after the event: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23CAMHunmasked

I’ve been really happy with people’s responses on twitter, here on the blog, over at linkedin to the Vanilla Sucks message from Monday. If somehow you missed it – feel free to check it out.

This is about destroying status quo. This is about standing up and being counted. This is about doing things outside your comfort zone. This is about wanting better.

I want to see examples from you! Show me how you are so not vanilla in the things you do, or examples you find online.

This isn’t just about me. This is about you. This is about all of us.

Anyone can be vanilla. That’s easy. But demand more for yourself, your organization, your life… imagine how much fun you will have.

Here is a video of the most un-vanilla wedding I have ever seen. (Thanks to @lkr and the post over at outspokenmedia.com)

Finishing up Seth Godin’s “Tribes”.

He tells the story of the unicorn in the balloon factory… racing through and disrupting the status quo. It disrupts the stability. Not for the sake of it, but because the status quo is so vanilla.

We work in an industry of vanilla – in my humble opinion. Let’s get our 8%, lets not spend more than 90 cents per piece, our board thinks this approach is too creative, let’s include and send this to everyone and exclude no one, I could go on.

Vanilla.

But I’m not going to sit here today and point my finger at anyone except me.

I’ve finished up an 8 week “Creating Fame using social media” course created by Laura Roeder. It was interesting to learn about using the tools of social media to raise the profile of yourself and your business – it wasn’t really about becoming famous. But it struck me part way through – as good as the course has been – I am using a lot of these tools properly and doing everything the way, in theory, I should be. Making connections, building relationships, tribe building… but I don’t feel I am any further ahead than I was a year ago. And I think I’ve figured it out.

I’m vanilla. Damn. I’m a worked at the balloon factory.

Idea Design? That doesn’t say anything about what my colleagues and I are doing for charities.

I look at our home page – and it’s all quite safe, standard… vanilla.

So I want to be chocolate. Actually, I want to be cotton candy!

As I communicated to Mark Haak the other day I want three things for me and my business.

1) I want to work with clients who love us and the work we do for them.

2) I want to work with other creative people who love what they do and love to have fun changing the world.

3) I don’t want to worry about money.

For me, this isn’t about being the next direct response agency, or taking over the country. It’s about doing work we love to do and feeling appreciated for what we are doing for our clients.

We do awesome work, we speak plainly and honestly, we try to educate and learn alongside our clients, we are shamefully inexpensive and we throw in a lot of extras far too often for free…

But we are also passionate. We are world changers. We are brilliant. We make mistakes. We like new stuff and approaches.

We are not vanilla. That’s for sure. So the time is coming to stop looking like we are.

If you are a chocolate or – can I get a ‘hell yah’ – a cotton candy charity and you want to have fun and make a difference, and learn new things – call us, email us, join us.

Vanilla has it’s place, but not in my life.

Stay tuned.

A lot of people ask me how I use twitter or what application I use so I decided to do a quick two minute tutorial to help you out. You can get tweetdeck right here and it’s free! check it out.

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