So, what’s the deal with this Twitter account?

Someone asked me why I created a Twitter account called @AbolishCancer , and my response was simple. Why not? Nobody wants to hear from their doctor those terrible words, “you’ve got cancer”. Not that I have experienced that personally, I know of many people who have heard those numbing words. Since I can’t name a single person who hasn’t been affected by cancer in some manner, I felt this was a worthy cause that we could all rally around…….the search for a cure.

You see, I’m an educator who has a passion for technology and for the idea of “crowdsourcing”, getting unlike people together to solve problems. This has been enhanced with social media tools that allow such ease of sharing- ideas, businesses, problems, etc. So I figured, why not let the “power of the crowd” pull together to fight cancer. I have to admit that I give Jeff Jarvis a great deal of credit for the idea. In his book, “What Would Google Do”, Jeff talks about developing platforms that make a difference.

Some may think I have an ulterior motive. Not really. Sure I would like to see the site grow and to gain critical mass for personal reasons, but more importantly, I would like to see that the power of the people can come together for a common cause to help win this war vs cancer.

Here’s the basic premise. I have a Twitter site called @AbolishCancer . I ask for people to “sponsor” the site for a day, meaning they agree to pay $1 for every new follower that day to the American Cancer Society. I, in turn, tweet about the person or business on my blog to give them “some love” and PR at the same time. At the end of the day, the sponsor agrees to pay ACS the amount for the new followers that came on board. This is an honor system. I’m not collecting any money, just asking whoever sponsors to follow through with their payment. Obviously, the greater the number of followers to my twitter feed, the more press the sponsor will get when they sign up.

Pretty simple huh? What could come of this in the end? Just think if we got a sponsor for 300 days out of the year with an average # of new followers at 50. We would collect $15,000 by the end of the year.

What happens if we run out of followers some day? Then I will say that we have made a dent towards providing monies towards cancer research, and perhaps found the ultimate goal, a cure.

Please pass along so we can get the power of the people rolling………