Becoming the Change We Wish to See in this World

San Francisco fashion takes center stage on Saturday night, April 26^th with the third annual Discarded to Divine 2008 Fashion Show and Auction being held at the Academy of Art University at their Brannan Street campus. The Saint Vincent De Paul Society of San Francisco will show roughly one hundred new designs from local fashion designers from San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area. The money raised will help pay for the continued services needed to keep their shelters open. Thousands of homeless people roam the streets of San Francisco every day and night.

Only in San Francisco can sustainable fashion create the buzz necessary to elevate the under served raison d’etre of the St. Vincent De Paul Society (SVDP-SF). Some of the pieces have been in full view to the general public at Macy’s on Union Square. Earlier this month, some of the recycled apparel was open to viewing at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. Using fashion as a vehicle to raise much needed donations and awareness is an ingenious way to involve young creative local artists and engage the community in a fun and exciting venue that brings social responsibility using recycled fashions to help renew the lives of those less fortunate. Although they do not have enough resources to help every homeless person in the city, they provide the services utilizing an extremely chic venue that raises awareness for the general public about their mission of raising money for their shelters.

I, along with some employees from Macy’s, Gensler, and other local higher academic institutions have been donating much of our time and resources for the Fashion Show and Auction. This is their first year where they have leveraged social media and Web 2.0 technologies to help spread the word for this event. With pictures and movies served up on sites like Flickr and other social networks, it is the follow through of engaging our friends and family (online and off) from the day after the event to the following year’s event where one can make a long term impact.

But, just because the event happens yearly does not mean that the giving and/or donations should only happen on an annual basis. This is where those that have been involved from the fashion designers to the models and the volunteers (me included) should make it a routine within their lives to spread the word of the SVDP’s mission. The main idea to take away from the event is that no matter who or what has been ‘discarded’ by someone, it can be turned into a ‘divine’ form be it apparel or more apparently, people.

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It has been some time since I have been writing for my own blog. I have really tried to make great strides to put in time for a cause that I know needs to be changed immediately. My latest endeavor has been working with the Saint Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco and creating an online marketing plan (and implementation) from scratch for their gala fashion event. They have utilized this fashion event as a vehicle to raise awareness and funds for their local programs and shelters. This will be their third year throwing the Discarded to Divine Fashion event taking place in Soma in San Francisco on April 26th. My contribution (linked below) should be thought of as a primer on how to assess the online landscape and what can be done using today’s most relevant online channels and effective distribution. This contribution is especially useful for non-profits that have been neglected by the “marketing experts” so that they can help their own causes.

Fashion designers are given an old piece of apparel and transform it into incredible one-of-a-kind couture. The apparel that I have seen as of now is extremely sophisticated and comparable to designs from the fashion shows that I have seen in New York, Paris, and Miami. Working side by side with other startups when covering events and writing for Bubblicious, I knew that online engagement was essential in getting the word out. As a project management professional (PMP), I took it upon myself to make a statement of work as well as getting the proper support from key administrative staff.
When working with others, it is important to document what you see as is (a snapshot of that moment) and what you wish to make within a specified time. Once I presented what I had observed and planned, they were delighted to see that I had the necessary knowledge in this space. After numerous meetings, I presented a proper timeline to execute (which I am in the middle of) in conjunction to traditional marketing practices (such as snail mail, radio public service announcements, etc…). The online marketing assessment was a very basic but fundamental building block on how to go about running an effective online marketing plan that is search engine friendly, social media optimized, and can be measured through the use of social network engagement and web analytics. You can see a link to my basic primer and others on my page (here).

Being part of the local San Francisco Fashion Industry and focusing on eco-friendly and green haute couture is very exciting to say the least. I will say that I have been very lucky to work with other great people within St. Vincent DePaul Society and others who represent large firms in the Bay Area and beyond. The greatest asset has been working with Ms. Yetunde Schuhmann, president of the IFCSF, who has been setting up local events on a monthly basis (with my help) at Dekker/Muse Studios on 6th Street.

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It’s amazing how Facebook has shot up at an astounding rate (Check out the numbers from Facebook Lead Engineer Lucas Nealon, from last month’s Geek Sessions at the SF City Club). It is also way greater than any phenomena that I have witnessed in my thirty plus years of living. Although LinkedIn started much earlier than Facebook , its beginnings are primarily focused as a way for professionals on linking in with one another. Yet, Facebook’s humble beginnings as a way for college students to keep informed about one anothers daily events has that innocence and transparency that has no or very little ulterior motive behind friending someone. I believe this is a much better way of virtually connecting or maintaining a relationship.

A LinkedIn connection is somewhat professional but it has that aura of (What’s In It For Me) in my opinion. When making public recommendations, this validates the person’s interaction to be of a professional and reliable nature (which is better than a credit report). There is that layer of business that makes all social interaction a bit apprehensive for both parties. That can cause a barrier of trust from the onset of the connection. That intrinsic and authentic trust is lost to a large degree on LinkedIn, but with the recommendations, a person’s trust can be regained and presented online.

But in Facebook, that friend request is very articulate. It asks where that person met the other and when (and how if the two friends acknowledge it). LinkedIn does have a similar feature but it is not as detailed and I think it does not help in this issue of trust. The Facebook Social Graph already has that trust as a pre-defined notion where it is not so necessarily in LinkedIn. LinkedIn has a much more formal demeanor about itself.That is why when I post on my blog and others, I will ask to connect on Hi5 or Facebook.

I think this question of trust flows into most online marketing techniques from email marketing, to word of mouth marketing. Word of Mouth is a referral based method (there is a notion of trust based on the person giving the referral). This is possibly where one can predict if a product’s messaging campaign will do better (not discounting the product, or the salesforce).

We are dealing with much more than just technology here. The transparency and authenticity that people in social networks transcends socio-economic roles of people. It is through this, that a true democratization and equality is experienced through this interaction. Coming from the pretentiousness of places such as New York or Los Angeles (hey, I have lived in NY for many moons), an individual’s status plays second fiddle to that person’s relevance in that online ’social’ network. From my perspective, trust and Facebook application innovation are the two overall reasons that gives Facebook a much more powerful foundation than most social networks. It many ways, this democratization gives a sense of safety and some security for the common user (in a sociable way) too. This will be argued by many and I also see the potential pitfalls in it.

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Having been away from the Bay Area and the parties that I normally attend for Bubblicious, I’ve been speaking with non-English speakers. I realized that their reach into the United States is not as vast as it could be. Their meta tags and keywords focus on their local language. But, a tremendous benefit would be if Google could translate their content automatically into English.

The obvious bias of Google is that most words focus on the English language. In all seriousness, the most powerful online company does not do this. And why should they? They have been profiting off of the English language. Now, they do have different teams in the local markets (e.g. Google in Spanish, Google in France, etc…). But can you imagine if there were less barriers to entry other than language especially online? I would love to read the viewpoints of a Chinese blogger on his/her thoughts of the U.S. for example. Can you imagine if Google could translate what they’re writing? They already cache a lot of the content on their own. What more would it cost to have that content (or even just the SEO terms) already translated?

This would not only help in foreign ideas reaching a new audience, it would put foreign merchants on par with their English speaking competitors. This is something that Yahoo or Microsoft could do to outwit Google. How’s that for true global competition?

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My dear friend, SestinaVerde (who also is a grad school colleague from NYU), has had her blog for more than one year. It focuses on ‘Convenient, personally satisfying and eco-friendly tips for reducing clutter’. She was definitely an inspiration for me taking the plunge into blogging.

I also went to see Ms. Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post on Thursday night in San Francisco’s Herbst Theater. She interviewed Cathie Black, who heads Hearst Publications (blog post coming soon on Bubblicious). I also have to thank my friend, Ms. Lorna Li for her publication Mariri. Both she and Sestinaverde are just one of many examples of how ethically aware citizens of the Earth are doing their part in conserving the world and educating others about it. Because of knowing these two strong ladies, I must say that I feel empowered to continue writing and Becoming the Change We Wish to See in This World (Which will turn 1 next week).

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