1 Million Shirts Did It Right
April 30th, 2010 by Ernesto Gluecksmann
Have you heard of the campaign to send 1 million shirts to Africa? Probably. And you might not think that it was a very savvy idea. I think it was brilliant.
Jason Sadler from IWearYourShirt.com created 1millionshirts.org and did something right. He got noticed. He didn’t hurt anyone. Now, the question is, what will he do with all of us watching?
Do I think that the notion of sending 1 million t-shirts is ignorant and ill conceived? Yes. But there are many positive outcomes that can come from this mission.
If Jason had spoken to my friends Mariéme Jamme or Teddy Ruge before launching his campaign, he would have made smart choices; or he may have sent just another shipment of one million nets to fight malaria or one million vaccinations. Would you have paid attention to that?
How many Twitter profiles do you know besides Keith Olberman who can get 1,000’s of followers in a week? Not many. Jason painted a cow purple.
Seth Godin says that every person or business needs a “purple cow” to stand out. Jason’s purple cow was starting something kind of stupid. However, now we’re all watching to see what he does next. You feel invested in his next choice. People on Twitter organically have set up a conference call to discuss the implications of this effort.
We can talk all we want. Bloggers are good at getting our voices heard. The hard part is taking action, and I have to hand it to Jason and his team for taking that first step.
I tell my clients to be bold. I don’t want them to be afraid of failure. Try, fail, try, fail, try, succeed. That’s how you learn. How many of you have ever failed in your life? Extra points if you failed publicly. After we fail, we succeed. We can’t march toward success without overcoming those first learning experiences and risks.
I hope that more people come up with ideas to empower people in Africa or in any place about which they are passionate. If you need some feedback or want to help others’ with their own ideas, check out Africa Rural Connect, Changemakers, or Global Giving. Even if you don’t think you have a good idea, throw it out there. Our community is supportive and loud. .As the 1 Million Shirts campaign shows, we’ll listen and get you back on track where you can make a difference.
Keep trying. Keep failing. Then, we’ll get stuff done.
You can follow me @eglue
Tags: Africa, Africa Rural Connect, Global Giving, Seth Godin
April 30th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Failure is good. Trying the impossible is good. Failing at the impossible is inevitable.
That said, the wise person takes on board advice, particularly when they explain to you (preferably in economic terms) why your idea isn’t going to work. Otherwise you tend to lose a lot of money.
Take it from me, I’ve been that particular loser.
May 1st, 2010 at 9:03 pm
You have got to be kidding me. Brilliant? If he did this knowing it would be noticed and stopped, then he is a lier and a fraud. If intended to actually ship T-Shirts to “Africa”, then he is a fool. Try fail, try fail is a nice thing to say from behind your keyboard in DC. Failure out here in the real word destroys lives and livelihoods.
As a bonus, you may win the prize for dumbest blog statement of the week. Who pays attention to a million mosquito nets? The people who get to stay alive, that’s who smart guy.
May 3rd, 2010 at 9:41 am
“he may have sent just another shipment of one million nets to fight malaria or one million vaccinations. Would you have paid attention to that?”
The families getting the bed nets and vaccinations might have paid quite some attention. And if you succeed there, who gives a flying f… how many casually-engaged twitterati pay attention?
“I tell my clients to be bold. I don’t want them to be afraid of failure. Try, fail, try, fail, try, succeed. That’s how you learn.”
Yes, excellent, couldn’t agree more. Except life’s too short for everyone to start at square one and make all the mistakes themselves, and aid and development actors have been trying (and succeeding, and failing!) at this for decades. There’s a certain conceit to thinking the idea you’ve come up with at 3am hasn’t been considered (and possibly discarded) dozens of times before. The simple fact is that @iwearyourshirt simply didn’t do enough due diligence, with the seriousness of approach one would take on a business venture of similar scale. That a swarm of Africans and aid bloggers turned this around (we hope, still TBC as far as I’m concerned) isn’t cause for endless back-slapping, and definitely not grounds to say Jason “did this right”.