A brief update for those who are following my new "side job" coordinating SXSW4Japan fund raising efforts with Rob Wu and Hanson Music!

Joseph Jaffe, author of Flip the Funnel, donated his keynote for this cause, has auctioned one of two keynote speeches to Lifelock, for $15,000, bringing our SXSW4Japan total up over $123,000 in just 3 weeks..and that's just in ONLINE donations.  Text donations have yielded hundreds-of-thousands to the Red Cross, and soon, our album sales will, too. 



Also, today we released our SXSW4Japan benefit album, featuring 47 tracks from artists like Ben Folds, Natasha Bedingfield, Micheal Stipe of REM, Bowling for Soup, Widespread Panic, Ozomatli (a new favorite!) Rayland Baxter, The Lonely Forest and many more.  Check out the full lineup and buy the album here:

Finally, today (April 5) at 12pm CST our Live Streaming Telethon begins.  We'll feature 12 hours of the hottest musicians from SXSW along with some special guest contributors you won't want to miss.  For your convenience, the stream and schedule are below. You can get the stream for your own site here  or share it on your facebook page.



Schedule:

Hour 1	John "Jojo" Hermann / Widespread Panic
1pm ET	An Horse
12pm CT	Michael Stipe
11am MT	Miles Zuniga
10am PT	Rooney
	Emergency Blanket
	Orianthi
Hour 2	Tracy Bonham
2pm ET	Johnny Polygon
1pm CT	North Mississippi Allstars
12pm MT	Imani Coppola
11am PT	The Parlotones
Hour 3	Andrew WK
3pm ET	Jenny O
2pm CT	Michael Stipe
1pm MT	Bowling For Soup
12pm PT	Charlie Mars
	The Boxer Rebellion
Hour 4	Stephen Kellogg And The Sixers
4pm ET	Jimmy Gnecco
3pm CT	Grand Atlantic
2pm MT	Alpha Rev
1pm PT	Drawn From Bees
Hour 5	Ben Folds
5pm ET	Leslie Stevens
4pm CT	Anna Nalick
3pm MT	Locksley
2pm PT	papercranes
	Amanda Palmer
Hour 6	North Mississippi Allstars
6pm ET	Rooney
5pm CT	Philip Nelson
4pm MT	Taylor Locke And The Roughs
3pm PT	The Gay Blades
	Kina Grannis
Hour 7	Andrew WK
7pm ET	papercranes
6pm CT	Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr
5pm MT	Michael Stipe
4pm PT	Luke Rathborne
	John "Jojo" Hermann / Widespread Panic
Hour 8	Orianthi
8pm ET	Cary Brothers
7pm CT	Andy Grammer
6pm MT	Natasha Bedingfield
5pm PT	Rayland Baxter
Hour 9	Rayland Baxter
9pm ET	Hey Battlefield
8pm CT	Laura Jansen
7pm MT	Andrew WK
6pm PT	Ben Folds
	The Hours
	Jackson Harris
Hour 10	The Lonely Forest
10pm ET	Michael Stipe
9pm CT	Kina Grannis
8pm MT	Orianthi
7pm PT	John "Jojo" Hermann / Widespread Panic
	Imani Coppola
	Keaton Simons
	Michael Stipe
Hour 11	Bowling For Soup
11pm ET	Ozomatli
10pm CT	Keaton Simons
9pm MT	Johnny Polygon
8pm PT	Jonny Dubowski / Jonny Lives!
	Michael Stipe
	North Mississippi Allstars
	Amanda Palmer
	Rain Phoenix
Hour 12	Ben Folds
12am ET	River City Extension
11pm CT
10pm MT
9pm PT

I wrote about Blog Action Day yesterday to get things flowing as we come together to take action on a single topic: water.  Our goal is to get clean water, safe water, enough water to under served people across the globe.  Since it's Blog Action Day and not just blog "write about it for a day" or blog "make someone else do something day" I wanted to write about two things I am doing to take action.


1. Charity:Water

As I mentioned yesterday, my co-authors and I are donating 100% of the proceeds from the sale of Age of Conversation 3: Time to Get Busy to charity:water.  This is a smart business book, great for your library or as a gift for business associates, clients, partners and friends.  Because all proceeds are donated, purchasing it is a bit like giving two gifts in one!
I purchased my copy, and a few extras for friends. You can get yours in hardcover,  paperback or for the Kindle. (Note - these are affiliate links and the affiliate proceeds are also donated!  Image above courtesy of Charity:water)

2. GFA's Water Program

My family and I are long-time supporters of Gospel for Asia, which has a tremendous water program that is bringing life and hope to many across Asia.  It's no secret that many villages do not have ready access to water, and people must walk miles to gather precious rations to sustain them each day.

While lack of water may be an availability issue -  very often gaining access to available water sources is a larger one. Tribal, caste, feudal or even faith issues prohibit "unclean" individuals from gaining access to drinking water - whether they are men, women or innocent children.  As a result, people suffer. GFA's Jesus Wells are established in the Spirit of their namesake. They are open to everyone - without discrimination. They often found near churches and become a center of communal life, and outreach, building bridges between peoples, supporting a better way of life, promoting economic growth and bringing hope to all who thirst.  Here's some field video from a GFA photographer in Ragasthan, India that will tell you more (This is pretty long - from a conference, I think)


GFA's well program is one of the most efficiently run water programs around.  Donate a well to a village for $1000 .  Send a BioSand filter for $30 to a family, and help them purify polluted water. All of your money will go to the cause you select.  There is no money subtracted for overhead, administration, marketing (etc.) because every GFA staff member raises his/her own support.  GFA also employs native workers and uses native resources for its work, creating employment and economic growth in each country. Supporting GFA has been some the best money we ever spent. They even call to ask how we are doing, periodically!


Purchasing Age of Conversation 3: Time to Get Busy, supporting charity:water and GFA are just three places to take action today.   If these don't line up with your vision, passion, faith or conviction, there are many other terrific charities on the Blog Action Day website.  Take action today!

You've seen it in conference presentations, tweets, facebook posts. You've heard it in discussions, webinars and conference calls:  It's the new mantra -- the new admonishment - the key to success for all of us developing the next great brand or the next great customer experience -- especially in social media circles:

"BE AUTHENTIC!!!"

Say it with confetti, fanfare... raise the pom poms high -- as I gag audibly ... Perhaps it's my mood, or the fact that I don't have time to write an overly sensitive post, but I have to call "foul!" here.  The truth is this:

AUTHENTIC ISN'T ALWAYS GOOD!

When I have a bad experience, it's authentically bad.  Perhaps the whole thing sucked.... or maybe a chain of experiences sucked.   I was disappionted.  It was sucky ....and authentically ugly:  None of it was "inauthentic" at all.

THERE IS PLENTY OF AUTHENTIC BAD!

If the experiences we offer our prospects and customers fail to authentically aligned to the values we claim to have, they've gotta be fixed.  If you are on twitter auto following everyone, DM spamming people, and merely tweeting your press releases, you are making some authentically bad decisions.  If you have a broken communications infrastructure where various departments aren't talking to each other -- you've got some authentically bad issues to deal with.  If your customer service is flawed and you are breaking promises and creating ill will - it's authentically ugly to deal with.  The good news is this -- you can choose to...

BE AUTHENTICALLY GOOD!

Authentically good people and brands understand ethics, boundaries, and how to build relationships based on open exchange, giving and reciprocity.  Authentically good people and brands know that they won't always be perfect, but they can admit fault and fix things.  Authentically good people and brands don't rip off the competition -- they learn from the competition, and do things better.  In fact, authentically good people and brands are working hard to "create better" every day.

WHERE ARE YOU TODAY?

Dump the "lemming speak" and focus your energy -- regardless of where you are in the pecking order of your company -- on being authentically good and doing authentically great work.  Speak the truth with love, produce your best, serve others well, think outside your box (and your comfort zone) and strive to make things better.  The best brands alive are defined by the outstanding experiences they deliver.  Make this your focus and you'll feel the difference. Your customers will feel it, too!