featsoftweet.com

If you’ve been following Feats Of Tweet on Twitter, you’ll know that next Thursday (3rd September) is when individuals can submit their feats for the first time.

Obviously we have to begin somewhere, but I don’t think we’ve achieved critical mass in terms of followers yet. That said, we probably won’t until people see how it all works. Our course is set so we’ll see what happens. I’ll spend the next week tweaking and tweeting so we’re good to go, and in the meantime I’d like to ask for your help.

If you haven’t already, please read the FAQ and the first blog entry to see how Feats Of Tweet works. Then tell everyone about it, any way you can – send a tweet, retweet this post (there’s a very handy button at the top), write about Feats Of Tweet on your blog. Tattoo the logo on your forehead, ask your local supermarket to announce it from the tannoy. If you’re the sort of person much loved by advertising executives that frequents water coolers to exchange views with like-minded colleagues, make it today’s first topic of conversation.

Photo by Caro Wallis on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Ideally I’d like to reach 1,000 followers by next Thursday – there’ll be no fireworks are parades if we break four figures, but it’ll further our chances of success.

If you need anything, have a question or query, please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email or @reply. I’m manually following everyone who follows @FeatsOfTweet so you should be able to send me a DM if you’d like to.

Barely a month ago, having discussed this idea with a handful of people for several weeks before ignoring it because it felt far too scary, I found courage in a fourth glass of cheap sangria while on holiday and registered the Twitter account for Feats Of Tweet.

One of the first tweets I sent was this:

I’ve used WordPress blogs for years but I’m technically clueless, so asking the Twitter community for help building the website seemed a reasonable way of providing proof of concept for the project.

Around a dozen people offered their services – a very decent effort considering the account had less than 200 followers at the time. I found four with the skills that complimented one another:

@andybee works for Global Radio in Bristol – Andy created the logo and colour scheme

@minxlj is the fabulous Leanne who (along with @alistair) provided me with my ticket to Amsterdam during the Twitchhiker project. Leanne is a graphic designer in Newcastle, and she provided the design for the site.

@bryanwilliams is a web developer in Connecticut, and was responsible for re-skinning WordPress with Leanne’s design

@M4RKM was my brilliant host in New York in March, and this site is sitting on Mark’s servers

The website is relatively straight forward – it’s a basic WordPress blog with some tweaks here and there -  so what’s the big deal?

I needed this website to happen. Four people elsewhere in the world came together to ensure it did, by donating not only their expertise but their time – a very precious commodity right now. It’s not a particularly big deal but it was important to me and to this project. Thank you guys – hopefully it’ll be the first of many feats of tweet to come.

PS – Andy chose the font for the site – it was produced by an artist called Lydia. I’ve tried contacting her but her email account has been closed. Wherever you are – thank you!

Feats Of Tweet has finally arrived! If you’ve been following us on Twitter since this project was announced last month, thank you. You’ve probably got plenty of questions.

So what is this all about, and how can it change the world one tweet at a time?

Feats Of Tweet is about helping individuals and organisations achieve their goals and ambitions. It’s not just about charities, though – we all have hopes and dreams, so Feats Of Tweet is about creating positive change in the world, whether it’s for one person or many.

Image by LiminalMike on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Think about how many millions of people there are on Twitter – chances are, through just a couple of degrees of separation, people following @FeatsOfTweet can find anyone to help us achieve anything. And as more followers join us, it’s more likely that this help will come from within.

So to help realise these dreams and ambitions – or “feats” as we’ll call them – we’re going to ask for the Twitter community’s help. Some feats may need the help of several hundred tweeps, others may just need assistance from one – the right one, admittedly, but if we can spread the word far enough, there’s a good chance we can find them.

How will we do this? You can read more in the FAQ section, but in a nutshell:

- every Thursday, tweeps tell us what feat they want @FeatsOfTweet to help them achieve, by sending a public tweet mentioning the feat and adding the tag #Feat so we can find it. Easy!

- we’ll put together a shortlist, verify it and the following Monday – wherever you are in the world – you vote on which feat we should support.

- once chosen, we all agree to support that tweet for 30 days and do our best to make it happen. If it does, brilliant – we have a feat of tweet! If we can’t make it happen in 30 days, we wave goodbye and vote for another the following Monday.

And that’s it. All we want to do is to make good things happen through the goodwill and generosity of Twitter.

Don’t send your feats just yet – we’ll be starting up properly in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, it’s important to get as many people following @FeatsOfTweet as possible. Please retweet the site address as little or as often as you feel comfortable – the more followers we have, the more we can achieve.