Giving back
This week I’ve taken it upon myself to give back. Why? Why not? We’re so lucky to be living in this land of opportunity. We can help out other people in other countries, and many people like my family come here because of opportunity.
Anyway, this week I attended 100+ Women who care, a women’s organization that comes together every quarter to donate to a charity that’s chosen by the majority. Three charities are announced and you’re supposed to pick one. That is so hard to do! There’s so many people out there that need help: families that have kids with cancer, homeless, migrant workers, women in Africa. Well, they finally chose one, but after speaking with one of the founder’s from Finding Sophia, I couldn’t help but contribute to that as well.
The other organization whose meeting I crashed was Dining For Women. Cari Class is an amazing lady and so empathetic. She couldn’t help to cry when she was talking to us about the Boma Fund, which is the charity they chose for that month. It’s called Dining for Women because every attendee brings a meal, which I forgot to do, (Thankfully there was enough) and donates money to a cause that helps women entrepreneurs in other countries.
I’ve read in a few places that helping women entrepreneurs ultimately empowers and feeds an entire community; and I believe it!
Finally, I have to mention my biggest client’s super awesome cause and campaign: Greenlight Apparel’s 100:1:1 Campaign. Greenlight Apparel is an activist clothing brand with a mission to help eradicate child labor and human trafficking. What an awesome cause! Social Entrepreneurships are the way to go. They do so much for the communities here and abroad. The 100:1:1 campaign means that every time Greenlight Apparel gets 100 Fans on Facebook, they will support one child for one year. The details are still being worked out, but if it’s as easy as “liking” on fb, then why wouldn’t you?
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Latest projects
It’s been a busy past two months and I’m sorry to admit that I’ve completely abandoned my blog. Partly because I want to do a complete makeover and partly because I’ve just had project after project keeping me tied up.
So, here’s what I’ve been up to:
Santa Cruz Film Festival Website. Along with Awake Media, Mike Xu and I developed this site using the Drupal Content Management System, which organizes data better than wordpress. Originally, we were supposed to connect the original HTML based site to the program descriptions and film schedule portion of the site that we were going to make, but ultimately that was not going to be a good idea. So we re-constructed the whole site, because the content that was on the old site was static anyway, so no loss to that. We actually improved the look, navigation, and anyone can update the content now, whereas before they couldn’t, and the layout was also poor, but I made it look clean with my CSS theming skills 
Anyway, check out the site: Santa Cruz Film Festival. There was no designer, so really I just did the best I could by using a color guide they gave us. We also got in free to every film and all the “happy hours” and parties.
Freelance Camp. Based on the BarCamp style; an unconference, this “un-conference” is designed for freelancers to connect, collaborate, share information, and share success stories with other freelancers. I’m so glad I was called in to volunteer for this! The San Francisco Freelance Camp PRO is this Saturday and within a month the volunteers and organizers were able to sell all 100 tickets as well as bring together excellent sponsors and free schwag for the event. The next one is October 2 in Santa Cruz, so the project continues. I’ve blogged a couple of times on the site, mostly about the brown bag lunches that occur every Tuesday at Santa Cruz’ NextSpace Headquarters: How to Make the RIGHT Decision and “Don’t Let It Fester: How to Keep Disputes with Customers, Suppliers, and employees from sidetracking your business.”
Johnson Education Solutions. I had already been working with Jessica Johnson, the founder of the non-profit: Empowerment Today tweeting and updating the facebook profile page, so Jessica hired me on to do social media for the for-profit part of her business as well. I was able to develop a good strategy based on targeting key decision makers in businesses, which we are targeting via the use of various social networks. I’ve also added some content to the site in the form of informational blogs: Families and Money, Corporate Responsibility as a measure of success, and Unmotivated employees may be financially stressed.
IP Society. Patrick Reilly, the Intellectual Property Lawyer that started the business hired me on briefly to promote the monthly events related to Intellectual Property for businesses. The beginning strategy is to use social media to promote the events, but Patrick is busy himself interviewing all kinds of entrepreneurs to share information about startups, law, and more.
So that’s what I’ve been up to. Hate to put it all on one post, but as always, my site will come after all the projects. Stay tuned for a remodel.
Read MoreDare 2B Digital Conference this week in Los Altos Hills
Dare 2B Digital, a conference produced by Invent your future Enterprises, will be held at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills this weekend, Saturday, February 27.
The one day conference is geared toward young women in grades 7-10. While the young women who attend will be able to select from a variety of workshops, inspirational speeches, and demonstrations; the parents will also benefit by attending discussions and workshops designed to help them support their daughter’s future endeavors in technology or engineering.
If I were younger and had an opportunity to go, these are just some of the workshops I would want to attend:
- Making your own Farmville Facebook Game
- Game and Story programming with Scratch
- Creating a video with the Flip hand-held camera
- Intro to programming using Python
- Social networks for companies
- Exploring Artificial Intelligence
While these workshops seem fun, they are also important in the sense that they create a supportive and open environment for girls to explore what the tech field has to offer. With the information from the workshops, they may be more inclined to hone in on one particular subject, or get a sense of everything they could do with technology. With training and support they may empower themselves to be better than their male counterparts and become women leaders in tech and engineering.
A recent article on TechCrunch emphasizes the lack of women as primary owners of tech firms, exclusion of women in management teams within large companies like Apple, and male-dominated Venture Capital firms.
It’s important to support women in tech and entrepreneurship, as can be seen from the TechCrunch article. That’s what I hope events like this accomplish. By introducing more women to technology, it may be possible to bridge the large gap in women owned technology and engineering firms.
Therefore, if you have a daughter, whether you’re a dad or mom, take your daughter to get some exposure to tech. Then continue to train, educate, and support them yourself, by using some of the information provided for the parents at the Dare 2B Digital Conference this weekend.
Don’t forget the children in refugee camps
A post I recently wrote for Greenlight Apparel about the dangers kids face in refugee camps everyday, titled “Children in refugee camps live in fear.”
Life is difficult in other countries devastated by wars and natural disasters, but life in refugee camps for kids that have lost their parents is even more harsh.
Read MoreShark fin soup
I was talking to a friend of mine this weekend who went to a wedding in New York City that served Shark Fin soup.
She understands that it’s not conscious toward the sharks, but she says the Asian culture has been eating shark fin soup as a delicacy for so long, that it’s hard to change.
It’s not only wrong to take the fins off a shark but to toss the shark back into the ocean so that it dies when it tries to swim without fins is a calamity. The sharks are left motionless and unable to acquire oxygen necessary for movement.
What’s worse is that they are sold for so much, have no flavor, and may be hazardous to your health because of the mercury they contain.
Shark populations have decreased by 80% since the 1970s due to overfishing, according to the Ocean Conservancy.
Please visit the Ocean Conservancy. to find out how you can help. It’s worth it. I’d like to see a shark, living in the ocean, undisturbed, even if it is a huge predator to other marine life. We are its biggest predator. It’s not fair.
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