It’s been a while since I’ve posted an entry, I realize. No, I haven’t been lazy… my father passed away unexpectedly and I’ve been away taking care of all his affairs and being sad in general. Yeah… I know.

But I’m back now – kinda anyway – and the events of the past few weeks have me thinking about our collective conscience, and the role social can play in mobilizing individuals to be better human beings all around.

For years now, we’ve all had to suffer through the irritating chain emails some of our friends and family members insist on sending to everyone in their contacts folder. Despite many of these messages being positive, uplifting and inspiring, I feel morally compelled to hit “delete” the minute I see the “FW: RE: FW: FW: RE: ” string in the subject line lest I contribute to any unproductive load on our networks. I’m sure you’re no different…

So how did we manage to screw this up? Shouldn’t it be easier / less offensive to share messages of joy and positivity?! Well, being the optimist I am, my thoughts are that it has to do with the medium we use to disseminate these memes, and not that we’re all cynics at heart. Email just doesn’t cut it, does it? 

But, my friends, not all hope is lost! With a little creative thought, and through the intelligent application of social media, I think we can really make productive use of virality and contextual social interactions to share messages that our peace lovin’, tree huggin’ brethren of the 60’s would be proud of, and not totally piss people off in the process. In other words, we can use social to let these messages spread themselves, as it were, and to people who are interested in seeing them at a point of relevance in their daily life.  How, you ask? Well, that’s for you to figure out – I’m just here to give you ideas

More seriously, though, here’s an excellent case in point. Check out this simple but powerful presentation – I’m all for that combination, as you well know – recently featured on one of my favorite blogs (Presentation Zen):

I don’t know about you, but I thought this was well presented, enjoyed the experience, felt good afterward and so on and so forth… and it didn’t even piss me off! Awesome.

Now, forward this to ten people and you’ll have good luck for the rest of your life…  ;)

D