Never before has the need for help been more urgent and we all is thinking a lot about what we all can do to ease the suffering of the people that’s been subjected to the past months big catastrophes. First in Haiti with the horrible earthquake that made so many people homeless and more than 200 k people lost their lives. Not to mention all the children that lost their family/parents and schools. I don’t think it’s possible for us to understand what hard work that lays ahead for the Haitians to rebuild their Country.
Then the next big catastrophe, this time in Chile. That earthquake was so strong that our planet Earth was shook out of it’s orbit a tiny bit. Imagine that, a force so strong that our planet is shook out…..
They’re better prepared in Chile for earthquakes, but still the material damages is enormous and also here people have lost their livelihood due to the catastrophe. Children has lost their schools and the supply of water is damaged and/or contaminated.
Obviously we can’t help ourselves everywhere, it’s not possible. But what we can do and should do, is to donate money to the help organizations working at the different places. Maybe we can arrange a garage sale with our neighbors and that way raise money? Or contact our local organizations and see if there’s anything material that we can donate.
Charity 2.0 isn’t that well developed yet, that’s for sure and I have some thoughts on how it could be developed. When i read the streams at my Charity 2.0 channel at Twingly channels I realize that one thing need quickly is a Kiva like website where people can donate to project in the Regions that suffered from this catastrophes. That way we can build sustainable solutions with the money that are returned when they’re back in normal situations. Microloans is starting to get a more and more important role in the economics of help or aid. With a microloan we get the money back and they can be reinvested in other projects in the same are or maybe somewhere else in the world where the need for help is more urgent later on. I wonder what help organization will start building/adding this type of possibility to their services. Or maybe Kiva will add another part to their own already incredibly well developed site?
I think that help organizations need to start rethinking both the possibilities to donate but also how to use the money. We need more sustainable solutions that’s for sure and we need them as soon as possible. Because catastrophes like the one in Haiti will not be the only one, more will come and where will organizations get their money that time?
I guess it happens all bloggers or writers for that instance too, that they have thing to write about. But the right words doesn’t seem to be there to write it down. And it’s in this position I’m right now, also writing in a language not my own native one makes it harder of course. But I hope I don’t have to many stupid mistakes in my writing, you see ever since I was married to an American lady I dream, and talk to myself mainly in English. I found out something else that was strange about 10 years ago, I can type on my keyboard in English and talk to someone in Swedish at the same time, but not the other way around….
I have a planned series of posts for this blog right now, but for some reason, as I said in the beginning, the right word will not get to me. Nothing I’m worried about, guess I just have to let it rest a little more before I publish it,
My professional career has started to spinoff now, I have an assignment for one of the political parties here in Sweden now. I work with their online web school and write instructional posts about blogging, Google Docs and other much needed training material. It’s really interesting to write educational material, and for me that always shared my knowledge it’s nothing new. I love to share and also to learn new things from others, and what better environment than Social communities online to do that?
Oh, yes almost forgot, I now have professional photos for press etc. Go to my other blog and this address and see them!
Soon it is two years since I started to use Google Docs and also uploaded the documents I had on my computer, and soon enough I was very aware that was on of the smartest things I had done. My harddrive crashed and it was by the end of the month, Bills to pay and reports to be given to the unemployment agency. Luckily I had a disc with a live version of Ubuntu which gave me access to Internet and also Google Docs plus my other favourite Evernote. I was this way allowed to go online and make my banking and also to save the summary of my payments as a PDF file to Google Docs.
My report to the unemployment agency was a piece of cake due to my online journal in Evernote, but I also made two applications during my wait for an exchange harddrive. I had my CV uploaded to Google Docs and also my prepared personal letters there. And sending them from within Google Docs is very easy, so I didn’t loose either pace or speed.
Google Docs gives me all I need from an office suite, you can make document (wordlike). spreadsheets (excelllike) and presentations (Powerpointlike) online, share them very easy with other, embed them on your blog. You can cooperate in documents and that way you don’t even have to be in the same country to do work together. You can also make forms to do easy surveys and embed them also on your blog. The result comes to you in a spreadsheet that is created at the same time as the form. My guess is that when people realizes the potential that lays within Google Docs they will start using that instead of MSoffice or Open Office.
For me I try to find online solutions for all my software needs, and I look forward to further developments in that field. Both form a users perspective as well as from my Consultant perspective where I can cooperate easier with my partners, instead of sending emails back and forth…
I will return later on here about how to work smarter by using online tools.