MiniMonos
Friday Featured Friend: Michael Q Todd
Our absolutely lovely and love-inspiring friend for this Friday is Michael Q Todd. He is a self-proclaimed "recovering know-it-all, recovering lawyer, and a love promoter". With such humility, love, and generosity of spirit, I couldn't wait to share his story with you this week! Michael is a New Zealander who now lives in Tokyo because he loves Japan, the Japanese people and because he believes that Japan has a key role to play in creating our sustainable future, given its amazing technological advances. Plus, he says, it is "the center of the world"!
Michael coaches businesses and non-profits on how to use Twitter effectively through his non-profit social marketing organization. Michael does so many amazing things using social media for good that it's hard to
know where to begin or end, but that's just as well because his is an ever-evolving journey!
By way of background to Michael's meteoric rise in the social media world (it seems to me he is connected to everyone, one way or other!), Michael tells me that he used to be a lawyer but that he woke up one day and realized that it had all been about him, and that his dreams from his youth of being more actively involved in environment and social good needed nourishing anew. Although he had continued to donate time, legal skills, and money to various important causes such as Greenpeace, Michael felt that it was time to answer one simple but significant question: "How can I make a bigger difference?". It meant leaving "lawyerdom" and striking out on a completely new and still-being-mapped path of social media as the means for giving back, doing good, and helping us all to make the changes we want to see in this world.
Michael has been instrumental in helping non-profits improve their outreach using social media, and he is especially passionate about helping causes that will make a difference to our way of living and the health of the planet. For example, he is actively involved in transactional giving, the process by which the purchase of a product or service gives back to those in need (for example, MiniMonos does this through B1G1, whereby your children's memberships contribute to the donation of clean drinking water to children in India). Michael has facilitated numerous transactional giving processes including giving bikes to children for each car sold (for Hamilton (NZ) based Bikes for Kids), giving malaria nets for each bed sheet sold, and giving clay pots for each water filter sold (Abundant Water). He is thoroughly convinced of the immediate and ongoing value of transactional giving as a way to ensure that the cycle of virtue continues for all participants, starting with manufacturer, to retailer, to consumer, and back to those with particular needs. I am right with you on the worth of this cyclical way of giving back to the world!
Michael, along with his team, has also recently set the world on fire through his social media promotion of the "Beers for Books" initiative in which a book is donated for a beer. This initiative was started 10 months ago and since then, has donated 70,000 books to children! This has taken place in at least 16 cities around the world (that he knows of, and he says the real success comes when these events are held without his knowledge!). Via Room to Read, the books themselves are sourced from the countries in which they are made, for example, books made in Pakistan, India, and Ghana are given to the children in those same countries. He is also planning a "Bubbly for Books", and to those of you who are New Zealanders, he tells me that there is yet to be a "Beers for Books" in New Zealand, so here's an idea for your weekend! (You can find out how to hold an event here and you can check out the Facebook group here.)
At the moment, as well as developing his value-giving approaches through social media, Michael has some particular environmental concerns that he wanted to share with us. He is very alarmed at the rapid and inexplicable disappearance of our bees across the world. Without bees, our food chain won't be pollinated and all won't be right with the world. He is also extremely worried about the loss of sharks, the ocean's top predator that dates back 450 million years. Without them, he says, the ocean life will be thrown into chaos. And still on oceans, Michael is concerned about the ever-increasing acidification of our oceans through the additional CO2 load entering them, something that will take thousands of years to rectify. He is looking at ways he can actively promote information about what we can do to help.
A committed father, Michael speaks really fondly of his four children, ages 6, 10, 14, and 20. Some are in different parts of the world from him and he treasures each of them deeply. He says much of what he is doing is because he wants to be reassured that the world will be on a better, more mindful trajectory by the time that this generation become adults. He also told me that at least one of his children is dabbling in MiniMonos now and then, and that he thinks what Minimonos is doing is just incredible, which made me feel very proud!
When Michael isn't deeply busy doing all he can to spread the word about the importance of connecting via social media and doing our bit for the planet, he loves to visit his youngest daughter's school, to read to the children and surprise them with his passion for juggling, a hobby he uses to relax and wind down. In fact, Michael told me that he "loves teaching juggling to children because it teaches them balance and self-confidence". And I also found out that he's a top notch golfer, scuba diver, rugby player, and tennis player! Phew!
I will own up to having enjoyed a 2.5 hour conversation with Michael when preparing this post. So, it has been very hard to condense all the amazing things he is doing into one concise article! Instead, I truly recommend that if you have not done so already, that you connect with Michael via his Twitter account @mqtodd and on Facebook. Thanks Michael, both for sharing your time with me to tell me not only more about yourself, and also some much appreciated social media tips too!
Friday Featured Friend: Michael Q Todd
Our absolutely lovely and love-inspiring friend for this Friday is Michael Q Todd. He is a self-proclaimed "recovering know-it-all, recovering lawyer, and a love promoter". With such humility, love, and generosity of spirit, I couldn't wait to share his story with you this week! Michael is a New Zealander who now lives in Tokyo because he loves Japan, the Japanese people and because he believes that Japan has a key role to play in creating our sustainable future, given its amazing technological advances. Plus, he says, it is "the center of the world"!
Michael coaches businesses and non-profits on how to use Twitter effectively through his non-profit social marketing organization. Michael does so many amazing things using social media for good that it's hard to
know where to begin or end, but that's just as well because his is an ever-evolving journey!
By way of background to Michael's meteoric rise in the social media world (it seems to me he is connected to everyone, one way or other!), Michael tells me that he used to be a lawyer but that he woke up one day and realized that it had all been about him, and that his dreams from his youth of being more actively involved in environment and social good needed nourishing anew. Although he had continued to donate time, legal skills, and money to various important causes such as Greenpeace, Michael felt that it was time to answer one simple but significant question: "How can I make a bigger difference?". It meant leaving "lawyerdom" and striking out on a completely new and still-being-mapped path of social media as the means for giving back, doing good, and helping us all to make the changes we want to see in this world.
Michael has been instrumental in helping non-profits improve their outreach using social media, and he is especially passionate about helping causes that will make a difference to our way of living and the health of the planet. For example, he is actively involved in transactional giving, the process by which the purchase of a product or service gives back to those in need (for example, MiniMonos does this through B1G1, whereby your children's memberships contribute to the donation of clean drinking water to children in India). Michael has facilitated numerous transactional giving processes including giving bikes to children for each car sold (for Hamilton (NZ) based Bikes for Kids), giving malaria nets for each bed sheet sold, and giving clay pots for each water filter sold (Abundant Water). He is thoroughly convinced of the immediate and ongoing value of transactional giving as a way to ensure that the cycle of virtue continues for all participants, starting with manufacturer, to retailer, to consumer, and back to those with particular needs. I am right with you on the worth of this cyclical way of giving back to the world!
Michael, along with his team, has also recently set the world on fire through his social media promotion of the "Beers for Books" initiative in which a book is donated for a beer. This initiative was started 10 months ago and since then, has donated 70,000 books to children! This has taken place in at least 16 cities around the world (that he knows of, and he says the real success comes when these events are held without his knowledge!). Via Room to Read, the books themselves are sourced from the countries in which they are made, for example, books made in Pakistan, India, and Ghana are given to the children in those same countries. He is also planning a "Bubbly for Books", and to those of you who are New Zealanders, he tells me that there is yet to be a "Beers for Books" in New Zealand, so here's an idea for your weekend! (You can find out how to hold an event here and you can check out the Facebook group here.)
At the moment, as well as developing his value-giving approaches through social media, Michael has some particular environmental concerns that he wanted to share with us. He is very alarmed at the rapid and inexplicable disappearance of our bees across the world. Without bees, our food chain won't be pollinated and all won't be right with the world. He is also extremely worried about the loss of sharks, the ocean's top predator that dates back 450 million years. Without them, he says, the ocean life will be thrown into chaos. And still on oceans, Michael is concerned about the ever-increasing acidification of our oceans through the additional CO2 load entering them, something that will take thousands of years to rectify. He is looking at ways he can actively promote information about what we can do to help.
A committed father, Michael speaks really fondly of his four children, ages 6, 10, 14, and 20. Some are in different parts of the world from him and he treasures each of them deeply. He says much of what he is doing is because he wants to be reassured that the world will be on a better, more mindful trajectory by the time that this generation become adults. He also told me that at least one of his children is dabbling in MiniMonos now and then, and that he thinks what Minimonos is doing is just incredible, which made me feel very proud!
When Michael isn't deeply busy doing all he can to spread the word about the importance of connecting via social media and doing our bit for the planet, he loves to visit his youngest daughter's school, to read to the children and surprise them with his passion for juggling, a hobby he uses to relax and wind down. In fact, Michael told me that he "loves teaching juggling to children because it teaches them balance and self-confidence". And I also found out that he's a top notch golfer, scuba diver, rugby player, and tennis player! Phew!
I will own up to having enjoyed a 2.5 hour conversation with Michael when preparing this post. So, it has been very hard to condense all the amazing things he is doing into one concise article! Instead, I truly recommend that if you have not done so already, that you connect with Michael via his Twitter account @mqtodd and on Facebook. Thanks Michael, both for sharing your time with me to tell me not only more about yourself, and also some much appreciated social media tips too!