The Community is Growing – Through the internet, travel, and your help spreading the word we’re gradually growing. Please get involved no matter where you are by joining us on facebook or by sharing great content on twitter. If you have written or done something that fits here please contact us so we can share.

Splintering Your Brand – The conclusion of this series is coming up, where I’ll give some simple, practical tips to help in your project management. As a bonus, I’ll be sharing an interview with Tom Potisit of the Global Expedition for the World’s Greatest King. After flying around the world Tom recently held an exhibition to sale his photographs. Hear how his project developed and how he’ll use the money he raised to reinvest into his country.

Microphilanthropy – Before the end of the month I plan to announce our own microphilanthropy project. This means we will be directly helping people and reporting the results here. Donations will be accepted on the website (tax-deductible for US residents). This project will be our own version of the 100 Friends project. This is a big step and we’ll need you to play a role.

The Urban Garden Project – This project is moving along. We have already raised about 6000b ($200 US) through our May charity tweetup event. The next big event is LUSH, a poolside dance party at the Fraser Suites Sukumvit on June 19th. We’ve had some obstacles overcoming the issue of limited space for making a garden accessible in community centers and slums. BUT we’re persistent and we’re engaging more people on this project to find a way to make it happen (If it was easy, someone would have already done it).

Washington Leadership Academy – I’m speaking next week in Bangkok to encourage students to get active helping people. In addition to my lecture they’ll visit the UN and some other ngo’s and non profits. After a few days they’ll have a chance to put what they’ve learned in action and I’ll tag along for their projects outside the city. Should be fun and I will report back more to let you know how it goes.

“Dream big, work smart, start local.”

~Dwight

Shortly after getting settled in with friends in Bali, I headed down to a local shop and spent about $25 US buying gifts for kids in one of the poorer urban areas of Denpasar. That’s about what you may normally spend for a night out.

For the price of dinner and drinks, I bought party favorites like balloons and noisemakers, mixing them in with the store’s entire rack of kiddy toothbrushes. What great value! Of course, they didn’t last long and the group of kids and moms grew and grew.

This is just a peek at what’s to come (See more pictures on flickr). We’re making plans to do more activities like this, thanks to your great input. Also, we’ll be sharing info on the great organizations we were able to visit while in Bali. Happy Friday and keep brainstorming small ways you can make a big difference in your community.

“Dream big, work smart, start local.”

~Dwight (@insearchofsanuk)

From Twestival giving hard to reach places fresh water, to the use of the site Alex Brown Racing to push the cause of the welfare of horses (I’ve posted an interview with Alex below) there are countless examples of the ways great causes have now found a renewed voice online. And you don’t have to take my word for it because Mashable has already crunched the numbers.

Do you have a cause yet? What project are you working on? Are you using social media to get people interested? Are you following change makers on twitter? I’d be glad to recommend a few:

1 @TannersDad A dad fighting for the truth about autism
2 @Causecast Site where you can get connected quickly
3 @Perthtones A guy with a soft spot for refugees
4 @Wine_to_water Wine to water project
5 Link: Twit-face, The house that twitter and facebook built.

This list could go on for days, but I will instead limit it to five causes and depend you to look back at the previous follow friday posts for more great people. Don’t forget the Alex Brown video below.

Take some great tips from Alex Brown and use them as examples of how to grow your cause. ~Dwight

For me this week has gone exceptionally awry. For example, when things did go right (i.e. I was on time for a meeting), it was only to find out later that things were not as they seemed (i.e. the meeting was scheduled for the following day). Please don’t misconstrue my venting. As a matter of fact, you may be thinking my examples about missing meetings seem pretty minuscule in contrast to this week’s feature post, Welcome to Hell. I don’t mean to sound self-centered and ungrateful. However, I am curious about how we perceive failure. In particular, do you let quickly collecting small scale failures build up to some whale-sized monstrosity that drags us down (not as vivid without the twitter failwhale picture stuck in your head)?

Join the discussion by leaving a comment and checkout my #followfriday recommendations:

Great Discussion: Joined a webinar with Buy1Give1′s @pauldunn who is a co-founder and working to change the way we give.

Most helpful tweep: @michaelqtodd aka “The Green Guy” (He’s posting good stuff all over the web)

I’m fresh on the tracks of (the last five twppl I followed): @Viralogy @sweisbrot @isAMare @hmaust @ShawnRobinson

Gotta see (a link I caught this week that should be passed on): In a Senegalese Slum, a Building Material Both Primitive and Perilous (via @PatriciaDeWit). Really disturbing after just posting about the children in the dumps in Cambodia.

Not enough? Follow some people I’m looking forward to seeing at next weekend’s BKK Charity Tweetup: @codymckibb @underexpose @ruskie818 @simplyshimona @pradt @CallumLaing @nuttyknot @RobinThailand & more!

Have a good weekend and don’t be afraid to follow interesting people. ~@insearchofsanuk

]]> http://www.insearchofsanuk.com/2009/05/f-words/feed/ 0 http://www.insearchofsanuk.com/2009/04/followfriday/ http://www.insearchofsanuk.com/2009/04/followfriday/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:17:29 +0000 Dwight Turner http://www.insearchofsanuk.com/?p=705 Your experience on twitter is definitely made or shattered by who you’re following. I’ll be posting my recommendations here every Friday. I hope you follow, meet, and engage cool tweeple.

Recommending you get your dosage of do-gooders by following (I will post 10 twppl and why you should follow them here weekly): @CharityIdeas @Cars4Causes @perthtones @10best @hardlynormal @abales @invisiblepeople @OperationNICE @BRCthai @smileproject

I’m fresh on the tracks of (the last five twppl I followed): @RobinThailand @kathyoreilly @theIRC @kimsuree @dvdlpz

This week’s most interesting conversation was with: @expatcoach (see her latest post: Culture Crossing: A Valuable Resource for Expats Living & Working Abroad)

Gotta see (a link I caught this week that should be passed on): This link (via @hardlynormal) was shocking because I used to live in Sacramento – Hardly Normal’s Day 2 Sacramento Tent Cities.

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Thanks for reading. I’ll be glad to follow you or someone you think is worthwhile. Leave a comment with their id so other readers call follow them too. (For more recommendations see the recent post: The Basics of Tweeting Responsibly)

Enjoy ~@insearchofsanuk