Many Ways to Give

For some reason when I'm on Holidays (or vacation as they say in America) I always feel the urge to donate money. I'll struggle for a week on which TV to buy, looking at features, deals, discounts all in the effort to save a few hundred but then see an ad for Fred Hollows foundation and feel this insatiable urge to donate $1,000. I also had this funny notion that someone there would see my donation and call me personally to thank me for the donation. But alas I got a generic printed letter as if I donated $20 and a bunch of junk mail (a pet peeve).

After seeing this video from Mother where they donated $10,000 USD as cash in a briefcase it got me thinking. It's not the amount that matters it's the gesture. Sure donating $10,000 via an online transaction is nice, but dropping that wad in cash to an actual person, video taping it and putting that video online gives you much more bang for buck.

In fact a briefcase of cash is the best way to pay for anything. I realise now that putting the deposit on my unit would have been much more dramatic (read: awesome) had I filled a briefcase with $60,000 and marched into the bank. I also missed an great photo opportunity.

Seriously though I have a point, so back to my main point.

Donating money to a charity is easy to do if you associate the donation with something tangible. $500 seems like a lot of money but if you say "Well that's just one months Adsense revenue" it has more meaning.

Here's a few ways to easily donate some money to charity without really feeling the pinch.

Adsense Revenue:
Donate a months Adsense revenue. If you earn <$100 a month on this then pledge to donate 6 months worth.

In fact any revenue you make from your site you can donate. For Bannerblog I donate 25% of it. This ends up being a sizeable chunk of my yearly contributions.

eBay Stuff
The digital garage sale. Find some stuff you no longer use. eBay it and donate the money to charity.

Client Gift = Donation
Clients hate this. Well they never will say so but they get nothing, you get he charity donation tax write off and if the client complains they look like douche bags. So it's tough to do every year but slip it into the regime or make it a regular thing for all smaller (read: non important) clients.

No Friday Drinks
Cancel one of the Friday drinks in your office and donate the budget to charity. Or if that's too crazy cut the budget by half and have everyone drink soft drink!

% of ????
Donate a % of something to charity. Your salary, the amount you spend on clothes or the amount you spent on presents.

Karma Offsetting
Download a movie or copy some MP3's? Donate the money you would have paid for those goods instead.

No Coffee Wednesdays
Don't have a coffee on Wednesdays and put that money to a charity fund.

The Coin Jar
Keep a coin jar in your office of home. Dump your coins in there at the end of every day. My coin jars busted out at $187 when I finally got around to counting. So don't tip waiters keep the coins for people who really need it. (Note: this applies to Australia where waiters/bar staff are paid well. Not in the USA)

Provide Links to Charities
Pick a couple of the charities you support and give them prominent links on your site. Ask your workplace to do the same. Go one better by having a small page explaining why you support that charity. I've seen plenty of blogs doing this but not that many small company sites. Banks do it best. I'll have to do this myself :)

Two years ago we bought every major Soap client One Laptop Per Child . We bought $5,000 worth of them! It felt great. The next year we got clients Flip cameras! This year a random assortment of junk.

And remember don't donate in little pieces save it up so you can do one big grand gesture like the briefcase full of money.... no just kidding, give regularly. You'll feel much better.

The added benefit of all this giving is people will buy less shit they don't need thus subtlety saving the environment from making more shit. I just watched the video below so I'm in that anti-consumerism mode. Even though I work in advertising.

Life TODO Update for 2009

Going back to my TODO list from 2003 I'm now able to cross a few more off the list!

1: Travel to Japan
2: Feature on Boingboing.net
3: Write an article for a magazine
4: Write an article for an online mag (Smashing Mag)
5: Speak at a conference in a foreign country IG Digital Day Sao Paulo
6: Do the Bridge climb
7: Bungee Jump
8: Sky Dive
9: Snorkel the Great Barrier Reef (I snorkelled in Bunaken Indonesia but doesn't count)
10: Shoot a gun
11: Write an article in a newspaper
12: Have a photo of mine published in print (The lady with helmet backwards in Who doesn't count as it was uncredited)
13: Design a CD cover that's sold in stores
14: A credit in a Hollywood film
15: Compete in a fun run
16: Own a house/unit
17: Surf a wave on a surfboard
18: Visit Easter Island
19: Visit Antarctica
20: Go bobsledding in a foreign country (ice)
21: Ski in snow
22: See a sumo match in Japan
23: Become a Muslim (what we do for love hey)
24: Learn Indonesian fluently
25: Be an extra in a film (this would knock off #14 too)
26: Swim with a dolphin
27: Learn to juggle
28: Visit Great Wall of China
29: Visit the Pyramids
30: Do a high dive (10mtrs will do)
31: Attend a Comic Festival in costume
32: Attend a Superbowl
33: Buy something at a big auction. One that requires me to hold one of those big numbers
34: Go white water rafting
35: Have a book published
36: Produce a TV show
37: Go water skiing
38: Ride an elephant (came very close to this one)
39: Make a baby
40: Finish one of the GTA's. (Might remove this one)
41: See a UFC fight live
42: Attend a Wrestling Match live. WWF, WWC any will do
43: Get married. I better add that one in case Ervi is reading :)
44: Visit Chernobyl

So just #10: Shoot a Gun, #43: get married and #23: become a Muslim in 2009.

Next year I will tackle fun run. I came close this year. I'll miss #41: UFC fight asI'll be overseas when they are in Sydney :(

2009 Looking Back on a Big Year

In the grand scheme of things 2009 has been my biggest year ever.

I got married

Which reminds me I haven't uploaded all the photos from the wedding. Here's a few Ervi picked out.

I converted to Muslim
A few days before getting married I said the Shahadat, signed the papers, shook the hands and become a 100% Muslim

I bought an investment property
It's 2 doors down and the exact flip of my apartment

I bought a LCD TV
I held out long enough and can now watch stuff on a screen that doesn't make an annoying buzz sound.

Started Running
Running 3 times does count as starting :) Here's me on Nike+

Got the rest of my Wisdom teeth out

Photos here for those interested

I went on a Detox

Although I've slipped back into bad eating habits I am drinking much more water. As Rob noted "I've seen you pee at work now! WTF is up"

Auditioned and failed for Gruen Transfer
Need to up my cheeseburger talk. It did help Soap get the guest spot on the show though.

I sold my WTFcostumes blog
When it did 3 million visitors in October I kinda wish I had kept WTFcostumes but I had too many things to update as it is

Did a lot of Travel

Not as much as 2008 which was nuts but still pretty hefty
Married in Indonesia.
Judged at One Show in NY and went to a stopover in LA
Spoke at AGIdeas in Melbourne
Spoke at MADC in Melbourne (thanks to Bob at Host for pulling out to make room for me :)
Spoke at PADC in Perth

Shot a Real Gun

Tick that MOFO off my life todo list. I did this in LA and the Gold Coast.

Got my head scanned in 3D

While small I'd wanted to do this for ages! This was at the GDC in San Fran which was interesting seeing the gaming industry struggle and ask the same questions as the advertising industry.

Contributed to a book

Well I drew some cocks but hey that's the fine print no one will read. Tick that off the life todo also.

What about Soap!

And all of this is personal stuff. Soap itself had a huge year and even with the GFC (which did affect us) we had one of our best years ever creatively. There's still ups and downs, miscommunication, assumptions, egos, rivalries, enemies, friends, emotions, wins, losses and all the other stuff that comes from helping run an agency with 2 offices and 30+ people.

In some ways the quite month and half we had this year was good for us. We were able to put 4 developers onto iPhone R&D which has already begun to bear fruit.

We were named Highly Commended by B&T for Digital Agency of the Year coming runner up to Deepend. It was tough to not win again (this is our 4th finalist but no win title across B&T and Adnews) but you can't hate on Deepend they do nice stuff. We're still wondering what that magic formula is that wins you an "Agency of the Year" title.

The Meeting Game cards.

We finally finished them! They were in the works for over 2 years and it's finally done! Complete and better than I imagined. I wish I could find the original docs or trace back what date the initial idea came up in as it'd be an interesting look at the timeline.

2010 will be a big year for us at Soap. New staff, new clients and the US office at a place where it can stand on it's own.

Blogging for 2010
Looking back at my blogging on here for 2009 it has been pretty sparse. I used Twitter much more this year and also Flickr to dump my images. I didn't see the need to blog that much. Factor in updating Sleevage occasionally (Alex has been keeping it alive for me) and Bannerblog every few days it took all my blogging juice. Also having a game console at home didn't help either.

Next year will mark 10 years I've been blogging. O F'n G I know. Here's me talking about Social Media in 2004 if I need to lay down some more creds.

Not that getting into something earlier makes you any good at something.

I look forward to 2010. There's plenty of things/people/situations I wish I could change but overall I've netted out with a good deck of cards.

All My Santa Photos

I thought there was more. Maybe a few got lost. Can you spot the year I cut my own hair?

Cahier Moleskines 1-8 | 18.3.2008 - 15.12.2009

I've used these everyday since March 2008 after reading Getting Things Done. I carry them everywhere and they have allowed me to become much more organised. I still forget stuff but only when I don't have them with me. Also if I arrive to work and I forget my notepad I feel naked and useless.

I also remember seeing Russ from Tequila write stuff down when people told him URLs or books to read when at industry functions. I looked at him doing it thinking "you write shit down to remember" so simple. This was what inspired me to carry these suckers with me everywhere.
www.moleskineus.com/cahier-pocket-graph.html