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Twitter Is A Waste, If…

by Dr.Mani on June 24, 2010

RE-TWEET IT!

Yes, Twitter is a waste.

But only if you consider one hour on it a waste… even if it results in 300 primary school kids getting important teaching aids.

Let me explain how I ‘wasted’ an hour this morning on Twitter. But first, here’s the…

Back Story

It started a few weeks back… with a connection on Twitter.

I read a guest blog post by Veena Verma on the Pratham Books site.

It led (thanks to Maya) to an interesting phone conversation with Veena, who lives and works in Mumbai. Her project of working with primary school students with very limited access to educational aids, and her obvious passion for what she does, got me very enthusiastic about helping in whatever way I could.

As Veena was changing over to a new school within the project, she wasn’t sure about what form this support might take – until yesterday, when she wrote to me.

“I am teaching grade 3 but most of my children are at pre-KG (kindergarden) or KG level. I’m starting with the alphabet and phonic sounds. This is a much bigger challenge than the last time around.”

There are 2 things that are ‘top priority’ for her work:

1. A set of math teaching kits to help the 3rd graders construct knowledge about numbers, place values and number operations.

2. A projector, to help build language skills as soon as possible. Videos and songs will be a great resource. A laptop simply doesn’t work, given the class size.

When I heard her estimated budget, I was surprised. Veena’s choice for the math kit provider was Navnirmiti, a non-profit organization itself, and they unhesitatingly offered a 15% discount on already reasonable prices when they heard about her work.

I instantly agreed to sponsor that portion myself.

The projector is a bit costlier, but definitely NOT expensive. And it will be shared among at least 10 classrooms in the area! Who can resist the chance to help nearly 400 young children get an education?!

Together, the entire cost is $750. I want to try and raise it – by Monday. (Call me an ambitious over-achiever, if you like – but donate first, before you do!)

So, I went to Twitter. And posted a tweet, asking for ideas.

Nothing happened until I went to bed.

An Hour This Morning…

Nothing had happened by the time I logged on this morning, either.

That was surprising. So I tweeted about it.

And then, this did:

Twitter One Hour

Twitter One Hour

To cut a long story short, I now have 2 great ideas, and one influential connection, that will together almost certainly get the kids what they need… by tomorrow.

So, yes, Twitter is a waste… if you don’t place much value on the literacy levels of hundreds of children, or the power and impact of a caring network of people, or in the belief of our existence in a inter-connected global community.

Not if you do.

Do YOU want to be a part of this ‘challenge’? Here’s how you can:

* I’m offering ONLY FIVE slots in my 6 week long Infopreneur mentoring program – for donors who contribute $150 to this project. (regular proposed price $1,497 – currently NOT open to registration)

Here are a few comments recent mentorees made:

“Dr. Mani genuinely wants to help and has extreme experience in what he is saying. You should join the course and follow it to the letter.”
Sanjay Wadhwa, Mumbai, India

“The mentorship is wonderful worth doing it.Its very valuable and informative. Thanks Dr. for having me onboard.”
Joshua Mwakazi

“This is the best program and it is worth the value. its simple to understand and helps you build a business from scratch.”
ikechiawazie

“The information here will help so much by saving you time and infusing you with the knowledge you need to get things off the ground!”
Sharon Mosser

“Unlike most guru who are out just to earn your money, dr mani is really here to help you out. he will help you build a strong foundation and mindset which will help you get far in the internet business. there is a easy to follow system in his program and you can approach him any time when you have any questions.”
Gladwin

(Full disclosure: These reviewers did NOT pay full-price, but are early testers of the process, as I’m refining the program and course material)

There are many more along these lines. And not one of the students enrolled have estimated the value they have received as being less than $197 (even though most are only halfway through the course)

How to donate?

Make your payment via PayPal ONLY to info (at) ezinemarketingcenter.com

That’s Email Address

Please mention that it is for the School Teaching Aids project.

If you’re not among the first 5 to donate, I may not be able to let you join the mentoring program.

Oh, and if you’d like to donate a smaller (or larger) amount, please do. I’ll keep the total updated from time to time.

And if you want to ‘waste’ a little more time on Twitter, re-tweet a link to this post :-)

UPDATE:

Target amount to raise by Monday: $750
Amount we have raised until now: $750

Yes, we hit our target – and it isn’t even tomorrow yet! YAY!!!

Special thanks: Wendy Landes and Nicole Dean

UPDATE #2:

I might run a special offer for some of my best ebooks, as an additional fundraiser. If this interests you, please stay informed by joining my email list.

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My Tactical Plan

by Dr.Mani on May 13, 2010

RE-TWEET IT!

I’ve been reviewing some things in my business, non-profit and other online work, found areas that needed modification, and came up with this set of tactical steps to take – starting right now!

1. Focus on offline fundraising, rather than devoting all my time to online efforts.

2. Take a break from all active social networking (except on Fridays).

3. Re-build my info-product portfolio, and integrate the 50+ relevant ones I have created/licenced into a catalog.

4. Enhance my affiliate program to allow many others to become ‘instant infopreneurs’ (by reselling my infoproduct catalog).

5. Work on growing my contact list much bigger, as the existing one has become abysmal in responsiveness. Target: 100,000 in 2 years.

6. Focus a lot of time and energy in blogging at “Information Marketing Made EASY“. Keep it tightly themed on infopreneur topics.

7. Update and share the dozens of special reports lying idle on my hard drive with budding information marketers.

8. Negotiate joint venture co-promotions for my best work, ‘Think, Write & Retire‘ – to get it into the hands of 25,000 people within a year.

9. Stop thinking about having a large following, or being mentioned on various lists – and focus on growing my business, step by step (like I did at the beginning, in 1995).

10. Use multiple channels to reach prospects, and test multiple marketing messages. Heavy emphasis on testing paid media traffic, and other scalable systems.

11. Stop dreaming too big right away. Focus instead of acting on small goals, achieving them, and scaling up gradually.

12. Go back to the past. Do what worked once, and still works for others – except that I stopped doing them now, because I got complacent/lazy!

13. Use Twitter for personal connection, NOT marketing my business stuff. Focus on my non-profit activities and my own interests/passions.

14. Make this list HAPPEN… and not lose focus to move on to other things!

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Being IN the Long Tail of Non-Profits

Chris Anderson’s “Long Tail”, as a concept, exists in the world of non-profits too. And I’m right IN it!
This morning, I was reading Beth Kanter’s post on how to leverage non-profits on Twitter, and saw that Twitter (the social media network with several million users) was now featuring a list of “suggested users” – [...]

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Transparency, Authenticity, & Trust

Today, I posted my 10,000th tweet on Twitter. And of these thousands, one has been very widely re-tweeted… it says:

“Transparency is the new risk – Authenticity is the new currency – Trust is the new reward.”
Maybe because it encapsulates the essence of social media networking. Or maybe because it sounds nice and snappy. [...]

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Retweets Don't Make A Best-Seller

On August 25th, 2009, I had a fun-filled day launching my first ever print book, “Think, Write & Retire – How To Turn Words Into Wealth, Easily!“.
And in keeping with this era of social networking and marketing online, I was on Twitter most of the day, watching with mounting excitement as the buzz spread.
Tweet after [...]

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27 Months of Twitter

Insights, Lessons and Suggestions to Make the Most of Twitter
It has been 27 months since I started using Twitter, the micro-blogging service that has set the social networking universe afire.
Over this period, I have learned many things about Twitter, tried out different ideas and modified the way I use this fascinating service. And interesting [...]

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At The Elbow Of Connections

I was reading an interview with Chris Brogan, who is shortly launching his new book, TRUST AGENTS, in which he says:
“Trust agents are at the elbow of connections.”
Cool, I thought. And then watched this interview with Twitter MASTER, Maynas Eric Chua on TV (which aired across Asia) – where he mentions the role trust [...]

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Integrating Twitter Into Everything Else

When it comes to using Twitter, the micro-blogging phenomenon of the year, I’m ahead of the curve. That’s because I’ve been using it since around June 2007.
Many people are talking about Twitter, excited about the potential, lecturing others on the best or most effective way to use it – and it reminds me of [...]

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