Can The Network Deliver?

Ok, here’s a little test of network theory.

Some background. On February 14 this year, I asked my beautiful partner Linda to marry me. She said yes. Yay! So we are planning a wedding. In fact we are planning two weddings, one in Canada and one in Australia. As you can imagine, there’s a fair bit of expense involved in doing that.

Then a couple of weeks ago, Linda spotted a contest on Facebook where you submit a photo or short video, and get people to vote for you. As most of you know, I haven’t always been very complimentary about my Facebook experiences, but just to support Linda I reactivated my dead account so I could cast a few votes.

Long story short, we’ve ended up doing ok in this contest, in fact for much of the last few weeks we were leading. Unfortunately, right now we are not leading, and have dropped back into third place. The people in number two spot will, I assume, get disqualified since they have submitted copyrighted material, so I’m not too worried about them. But the people in first place are on a real burn and are adding votes VERY quickly…

Normally, I’d just shrug it off and say it’s all just a bit of fun. No reason to take it too seriously. But the first prize is $10,000. Yes $10,000! I probably don’t need to tell you just how helpful that would be for making wedding plans!

So here’s what I’m asking – partly because I’d obviously really like us to win, and partly because I’m really curious to see just how much a network of people like you guys might respond to a request like this.

Could you vote for us. Please. I look at it this way… we are trailing by about 1100 votes. According to Feedburner, this blog has about 1100 subscribers. If each of you voted just once we would be back in the race. If each of you voted twice, we would be hard to beat. If each of you voted just three times, we would be planning the wedding(s) that Linda deserves.

So what do you say? Would you vote for us? Please?

Here’s the link… http://goo.gl/QRN3u

Yes, you need to be a Facebook user, and yes you need to Like the page temporarily to cast a vote. But it’s easy and quick. And you can vote once each hour, as many times as you like. Just 2 or 3 votes from each of you would make a huge difference.

I’d REALLY be grateful. And I’d love to be able to tell this story about how, when I needed it, the network really delivered.

Thanks!

PS. I should mention the contest closes at midnight on Saturday March 31 (Sydney time). So if you want to help us out, just be aware that you’ve only got a short window of time to do it.

Merry Christmas

As we celebrate Christmas and 2010 draws to a close, here’s a little video to make you smile.

Special Christmas wishes to everyone who has been part of my world for the last 12 months.  It’s been a wonderful year, full of learning, fun, travel, meeting interesting people, connecting with my network, and sharing ideas with each other.  I’ve had the good fortune to do some travelling this year and met many wonderful folk in person that I’ve only ever known online, as well as meeting a whole of great new people, and that’s been a real highlight for me.  You know who you are, and I feel so much richer for it.  Thanks!  

I feel like 2010 has been an amazing year of connecting with others, and it’s been incredibly rewarding on many levels.  To everyone who has left comments on the blog, connected via Twitter or Facebook or Skype or email or the many other ways we have of being connected (including face to face of course!), thank you… those connections mean a great deal to me.

Hope you all have a great Christmas with your families and friends, and that 2011 will be a great year for you.

Love, Chris

Thanks to ExcentricPT on YouTube for excellent video!

Happy New Year

Hope 2010 is a great year for you all!

This photo is made of three separate images stitched together with Photoshop.  It’s the calm before the fireworks storm!  I thought it turned out quite well considering I didn’t have a tripod and was just leaning up against the wall to hold the camera steady on a 4 second/f3.5 setting.

CC photo by betchaboy
http://www.flickr.com/photos/betchaboy/4233820172/