Creating Tolerance and World Peace

Posts Tagged ‘Social network’

Combining business with helping others is a growing trend for American corporations. They are beginning to understand that they have an obligation to more than just their shareholders and are looking for ways to become a better corporate citizen by giving back to the community. Social entrepreneurship is one of the new buzz words in the industry, and Blake Mycoskie is the poster child.

You may remember Blake Mycoskie for competing on television in “The Amazing Race.” He was able to parlay the fame he achieved on TV into travelling the world. It was during a stop in a small village in Argentina that he discovered a type of shoe unique to that region. These shoes are known as the espadrilles. He decided to bring them back to the States. During his travels, he also came in contact with children around the world who had no shoes for their feet and decided to take up their cause. Mycoskie’s business idea was to donate a pair of shoes to someone in need every time he made a sale.

The company is called Toms Shoes, but there is no Tom. The movement initially was called the Shoes for Tomorrow Project and eventually the name was shortened to Toms. The idea being that when you buy shoes today, Toms will give another pair to someone in need tomorrow. Since Toms shoes started operating on that principle, 400,000 pairs of shoes have been donated.

The 400,000 freeshoes that have been distributed so far have gone to deserving people in 24 different countries including the United States. Needy people in Argentina and China, where Toms Shoes are made, benefit from the program as well. Toms employees and volunteers are invited to go along on shoe drops around the globe to experience the feeling of putting shoes onto the feet of a grateful child who would otherwise have to do without.

Okay, everyone and their dog is on Facebook, right? The thing is so addictive! An online casino? Pornography? Gaming? They’ve got nothing on Facebook, as far as I’m concerned. So you have to admit you might have a teensy-weensy bit of curiosity (or a lot) about the founder of this crazy phenomenon. If so, then you have to go see the new movie The Social Network. It’s an amazing flick, and for most people a fascinating exploration of a true cultural phenomenon. The creator of Facebook is a billionaire and you can only imagine that a lot of people want a piece of the pie that he invented. The movie sucks you in because it’s fast paced and has some great dialogue, and you become invested in all of the characters and their goals and their respective positions. Since its based on reality, anyone can guess how it will all end, but that never causes any boredom, because what’s really interesting is how it will all go down. What also recommends this movie is stellar performances by all of the key actors. The story basically revolves around Mark, the inventor of Facebook, his best friend who helps give him key information to help create the website and back him financially, and a pair of well-off twins who claim they were the ones who came up with the idea in the first place. Things get really sticky when the inventor of Napster hits the scene and starts hanging out with Mark and giving him advice about how to run the website and the business. To find out what happens when you stir up the pot with all these personalities, go see the movie yourself. But know this, Facebook is changing the way we socialize with each other, so this movie seems a bit more than just a movie, it seems like a historical document, somehow, a way of showing how one guy changed the way we communicate forever.

So when you get home from work at night and you’re done eating and you’re ready for some downtime, what do you do? Many of you get on the couch and you watch a little television but many of you probably get on your computer and visit your favorite social media site. You go on there to connect with family and friends and to make sure you up to date on their latest news and happenings. But what you might not be aware of is that you are now also going on there to be targeted by various social causes trying to promote peace and civil and human rights.

The problem with social causes is that there hasn’t been much of a venue for them. There was a time when you could go to school, like a college campus and learn all about the ills that were troubling the world and what you could do to help but with an overload of information already on college campuses you can’t even count non them to help you figure it out. Well the people who support these just and social causes take to the internet now and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to mobilize people into taking up these social causes. They realized that there was a well of people who would be interested in hearing what they had to say and they decided to put the issue right in front of them.

Many people have decided to take up a facebook page to suit their social cause. They begin by writing about the cause and linking it to their website where you can get further information that will help you fight for whatever cause it seems to be. Then they start inviting people to join the page and from there they start forwarding the great cause to other friends. It’s the way social media and social networking operate and it could save end up making a big change in the world one person at a time. It’s a reason why the Internet is improving lives.