hardly hormal

I really don’t know where to start because I have so many stories about social media changing my life and providing a tool to help others. Plus, to be honest, I hate writing about myself. I am also emotionally and physically exhausted right now!

I am typing this at the front desk of a homeless shelter where I am temping for the day. For the most part I have been unemployed since November, 07. Hard to imagine I’ve lasted 19 months! Crazy! I did have two jobs during that period both only lasting three months. I lost my house to foreclosure two months ago and I literally have lived without an income since the middle of March. As God as my witness my fridge only has a few bottles of water and some mayo - that’s it! If it was not for the people who network with me on Twitter and Facebook I don’t even want to think about where I’d be. It still slams my mind that I exist right now only because of the generous hearts who follow me via social media.

Sitting at the front desk of any homeless services organization may be the worst job in the world. It’s not the tremendous patience needed to deal with hurting people but having to turn people away that wrecks me. I am not a fit for this job. Again being honest; if I wasn’t in crisis and needed money I would never sit here. The stories alone will tear apart the hardest heart. Jenny, the girl who usually sits here is an angel, traffic cop and concierge all rolled into one! I love this shelter and believe it’s one of the best. There is just not enough help for all the hurt so the person sitting here is saying no far more than yes!

I only say all that not to get sympathy but so you’ll know how much social media has impacted my life. Also, as a little disclaimer, if some of this post is a little off - I am beat! Insane as it is I just returned from a few days in Seattle making new homeless friends and speaking at a tech firm about social media for social good. Me, the unemployed guy with no food or income traveling to Seattle! Crazy! Whrrl invited me up and treated me like real family! The history and reasons behind the trip I blogged about here. Takepart.com also wrote a great post you can read here. What gets me excited is how much social media can affect real change and how tech companies like Whrrl are providing the tools for nonprofits to tell their stories.  

I’m a storyteller who likes to use media to help tell a story. Whenever I go do my thing social media goes along with me. Homelessness.Change.org and Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog are only two of many blogs that wrote about my visit to Seattle’s tent cities. Below is the embed Whrrl story, “Nickelsville in Seattle. Day 1”

Please know I never planned on any of this. After seeing so much hurt I just had to do something so I started InvisiblePeople.tv with only $45, a laptop (that cannot even cut video), iPhone and Twitter. I started to use twitter for one reason – free! How I use social media is I try and tell a story and engage people to join me for the adventures. I never dreamed people on twitter would be helping me with food and rent!

I am honored that so many great blogs from many different countries have written about me and InvisiblePeople.tv. Here are two Mashable posts that relate the most to social media:

5 People Who Broke the Rules of Social Media and Succeeded – please see my comment

5 Unique Stories of Social Media Saving the Day

Then just now I found a post by one of my heroes Danny Brown who instead of putting me in a nonprofit category classified me under social media! WOW! (Thanks Danny)

Here is the deal. The world is a mess and if I think about it long enough I’ll go nuts. I have a choice: I can get depressed or I can take action to help others. Twice in my life I chased money and I failed. When your priority is helping other people you can only succeed! I cannot help the people in NY or Florida but I can help the hurting directly in front of me. In addition, I can hopefully show the nonprofit world it does not take huge marketing budgets to affect real change. Be real and tell a good story, social media will do the rest!

THANK YOU social media for saving my life and helping me to help others!

I love Eugene Cho’s post, “the blog post no one wants to read”. Here is a little taste:

But how is the [C]hurch responding? How?  I’m more and more convinced that the reason why the [C]hurch feels paralyzed is that our paradigm nearly always involves two things: 1] Sundays and 2]our services in our buildings. If we can just think outside that box, we can unleash so much creative resources.  Understand what I’m trying to say.  I think Sundays and buildings are perfectly acceptable and important but maybe solutions don’t have to intersect with Sundays and buildings.  Literally, we need to think outside the box – or – building

The NYC Rescue Alliance is an organization that is thinking outside of the box. I first heard about what they are doing on Facebook. Someone posted an update that a group of organizations are combining resources like church basements to help get homeless off the streets. I just had to find out more. Churches working together - that alone is a miracle!

Here is the deal: We need to stop being territorial and dogmatic. Instead, we need to embrace genuine compassion. I don’t care what you believe or who you worship, if you’re actively helping hurting people you are my friend and I am going to stand beside you!

I love Don’t Walk By. I hope we’ll see more people joining together to battle a crisis.  Please watch this powerful video. I believe it’s for last years winter season but it is a great example how if we work together we can affect real change.

Don’t Walk By: The Rescue Alliance NYC from bowerymission on Vimeo.

WARNING: this video wrecks me EVERY TIME I watch it! This may be the best video I’ve seen on the homeless crisis!

Post on homelessness.change.org

I happened to run into this slideshow today and it is spot on. Unfortunately most nonprofits either don’t know what their story is or they don’t know how to tell it. The other issue I see is fear of trying something new and/or the fear of not being in control.

I believe two things are happening that create a vicious circle. Nonprofits are desperate because donations are down and the old tricks no longer work. Their reaction to desperation is to scream louder and more frequently. This of course is causing donor fatigue which results in the nonprofit screaming even louder…and so on!

I strongly believe that the majority of nonprofits today are going to get a huge slap in the face unless they change real soon. The sad part is the people hurt most by this are those the nonprofit is trying to help!

Old thinking: Give us money and we’ll go do something good!

New thinking: Let’s talk about how together we can affect positive change.

I’m wrecked. Flat out spun! Most of the day I have been on a high thinking about my crazy adventure going up north to make new homeless friends. This afternoon I received two calls from different people who want me to visit. Both calls made it feel like the right thing to do. I mean, for some time I’ve been thinking about visiting the tent cities in Sacramento. It’s a powerful story that needs to be told by the people themselves - not reporters. But making this journey right now is a huge risk because I don’t have an income and I am also trying to survive this economic crisis. What’s life without a few risks so around noon today I decided I’m going!

After hours of excitement and thinking about the risk I sat down to write this post. There has been lots of press on the tent cities including, New York Times, NPR, and a few great posts from my much loved editor and amazingly cool blogger Shannon Moriarty. (read Tag, You’re Homeless) But my all time favorite has been Schwarzenegger Opens ‘Obamaville’ for Homeless!

Then I saw this page full of powerful pictures and I started to feel their pain. All of a sudden I was slammed with the seriousness of the issue. I wanted to write a happy post about a happy adventure but homelessness is not happy. Yes, I will have some fun and meet some amazing people but I need to stay conscious as to why I am taking this risk and why I’m making this journey. I need to remind myself that the sole purpose of this trip is to give real people a medium to tell their real stories uncontaminated by anyone. Raw, unedited and very real! Their story told in their own words!

I’m speaking at a Hollywood business luncheon this Wednesday and the plan right now is to leave that afternoon. First stop will be The Prado Day Center in San Luis Obispo. They started to follow me on twitter and asked me to visit. San Luis Obispo is a relatively affluent city and it may make a great story showing homelessness is everywhere. Then on Friday Justin McRoberts asked me to speak at the Justice League located near East San Francisco Bay Area. Hopefully I will be able to get a little tour of San Francisco and yes of course meet some homeless peeps.

I tried to get up north last week for San Francisco’s Homeless Connect Day but my New York Dream Center trip was delayed. I’ve made friends with the program manager and I’ll try to connect for at least coffee. Speaking of connecting for coffee have you seen the movie Lord Save Us From Your Followers? Too me, Timmy Ryan (aka Sister Mary Timothy Simplicity) is a rock star. He made that movie for me and I have lots of respect for him. Through Facebook we’ve connected and if schedules permit we are hooking up for coffee. He’s also offered to help me meet some homeless peeps. Woohoo that part of this trip is going to be AWESOME! I’ve written about this before. Too me, the church can learn so much from different lifestyles. Mostly how to genuinely accept and love those different from ourselves! I know as a homeless person there are not very many churches that I would have walked into and felt welcomed. We need to wake up.

After that I am headed over to Sacramento. Dave Ingland has been kind enough to connect me with a reporter who gave me some information. But most of that stage of the journey has yet to be planned. My one and only goal is to make some new homeless friends. When that is done I am headed back to Hollywood!

I hope you all ride along with me on this journey. Primarily I will be updating on twitter @hardlynormal. Twitpic is unreliable so I started to post photos on posterous hardlynormal.com/view. I have been using BrightKite when I want to share my location. For this trip I am going to give Whrrl a test drive. It looks like a great storytelling tool but I’m not sure if it works for sharing linear stories in real-time. The company does have great customer service that is beyond impressive and they honestly listen. I believe I can edit the stories after I return so I am not sure if I’ll broadcast, oops, a dinosaur word just popped out. What I meant to say is I don’t know if I’ll share along the way or wait until it’s polished. We’ll see what fits.

If you would like to help contribute to this tour I’ve set up a PayPal donation page. The places I’m visiting have been gracious enough to offer food and maybe a little help with gas. The rest I have to pull out of savings that I’m guarding to pay next month’s rent. Yes, to a normal person taking this risk right now is insane but we weren’t born to be normal. I honestly feel this short tour around Southern California capturing real stories from real people is something I must do. Besides, I continue to look for work and every day I continue to have a mailbox/inbox filled with rejection letters. Point is I could just sit here and still be in the same crisis. Too me not taking action is always the dumb move!

As more details get finalized I’ll do my best to update this post. For real-time updates catch me on twitter!