What does your to-do list look like?
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on August 18th, 2009
Tagged as: Projects, Social Media
The more you put on your plate, the bigger the belly ache.
Here’s a short, macro-list of the things I have to do before December. Let’s not forget that each of these has its own sub-set of impossible obstacles to overcome…
Set up a Limited liability company to handle the following:
1. Expand my professional relationship with my largest client which will help me cope with the sheer amount of work and of course help finance the projects below.
2. Finish and launch the Social Starter initiative.
3. Transfer all domains and online activities over to the new company.
4. Rework The Acer Guy to include officially-sanctioned reviews and charitable causes.
5. Re-commission the Runaway Parents series of sites (starting with Italian). The first time around was a disaster.
6. Start the ball rolling with Language Is Free.
As you can see, there isn’t so much a plan, more like five and right now I’m struggling with #1 and #3. They are quite distinct ideas and activities but represent everything I’ve learned these past years online and practically everything I’m able to offer.
In Italy, you can’t (quite) start in a garage and get lucky, you have to plan for it, build it, bear the impossible fiscal burden and of course finance it virtually from scratch. That’s why it’s taking so long to get going and why it’s so frustrating working here at times.
By way of example, I’m planning on trying to raise money through The Acer Guy to buy computers for schools in the world’s poorest regions but in order to do so, I have to open what’s called an ONLUS (Nonprofit organization) otherwise I’ll be taxed on the donations. For the modest administration cost of approx. €3K-€4K per year.
Now I don’t mind organizing, but would someone explain how you’re supposed to promote micro-donations for specific projects AND then give that much money to the accountants/state just because the law requires you to do so?
Still looking into it and of course ways around it. Suggestions welcome…
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Changes to The Acer Guy
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on August 18th, 2009
Tagged as: Projects, Social Media
I’m writing this post in a kinda-unofficial way right now. Think of it as an electronic sounding board amongst friends.
I’ll get straight to the point: The Acer Education Technology Initiative got me thinking about ways of using social media for worthy causes and I’d like to make a few changes on the direction TAG is heading.
There are two fundamental changes I’m going to introduce.
1) Having Acer recognize TAG as a authoritative resource for its product reviews. This will allow me to get far more people and enthusiasts from the “Acer community” involved in reviewing upcoming and new models directly.
2) Use the traction TAG has earned to adopt “causes”. Basically ask the community to Chip In (that’s the name of the widget) and fund the purchase of new or refurbished Acer PCs through a specific PayPal account that will then be sent to designated schools/charities in some of the world’s poorest areas. Naturally all this is done with maximum transparency and, at least to start with through reputable non-profit organizations like this.
This second initiative might not start there though, as I recently received a wonderful letter from the Operations Manager from the Earthrace initiative asking whether Acer would be interested in sponsoring her with a new computer (her four-year-old TravelMate 8100 is running out of puff). I’ve forwarded it on to the worldwide marcoms manager asking for help and there’s a slim chance he might even agree but if not Earthrace will be the first TAG “cause”…
Like I said I’m still working on the details of how this is going to play out but any suggestions you might have at this point would be very welcome indeed.
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