featsoftweet.com

On Thursday @FeatsOfTweet received over a dozen requests for help. Tomorrow, I’ll ask everyone on Twitter to vote on one cause from a shortlist of five. We can’t help everyone, but of course there’s no reason why you can’t help any of the causes we mention – those you’ve read about here or that were tweeted on Thursday. This project is about choosing one specific cause a week, highlighting it, supporting it for 30 days and trying to make it happen through our collective efforts; if others benefit through the preliminary promotion (which is already happening), that’s no bad thing at all!

For this first week I’ll choose the final five to vote myself. This will probably be the case for several weeks, before I begin handing over the decision to a panel of Twitter users. I haven’t decided how this will work yet, but trust me – as soon as I figure out who should be making these decisions that process will begin. Having to choose has cost me sleep and made me feel uncomfortable, even question why I started this project – I don’t want anybody to be disappointed, but inevitably plenty of people will be.

Voting will begin tomorrow at 12pm GMT and continue for 24 hours – keep an eye on both Twitter and the site to find out more. In the meantime, I want to explain a little of my thinking behind the types of feats I’ll be choosing for you to vote on. I think there are certain requests the Twitter community will respond to, and others that will kill this project if pursued, so by shaping these first few weeks I’ll hopefully ensure we make good on our intention to bring about positive change.

So in no particular order, some thoughts on the types of feat I’d like to encourage and those I don’t think are a good fit:

- this project needs feats that can be measured, not open ended requests; this process can only be managed if we know what we’re being asked to do and how we’ll know when we’ve achieved it

- we’re not out to make any one person or website famous on Twitter – Feats Of Tweet will do itself no favours if it becomes a spambot

- we’re not here to do your thinking or live your life for you ; if you want to change an aspect of your life you’re unhappy with, then in the majority of cases there’s only one person preventing you from doing so – you. I appreciate people have situations that make change complicated, but we can’t be expected to resolve every issue or hand out tailored solutions

- that doesn’t mean a feat can’t be a request to help yourself; tomorrow we’ll see a couple of examples of people in very particular situations who simply want encouragement, advice and support to improve their lives

You may disagree with some, none or all of this – if you do think I’ve got this wrong, leave a comment below. This project belongs to everyone, I’m simply the caretaker; Feats Of Tweet will inevitably evolve as a project and your contribution may help that happen.

And of course, by limiting the shortlist to only five will inevitably mean some perfectly worthy requests aren’t included. Let me apologise in advance to anybody disappointed by tomorrow’s decisions; hopefully the exposure you receive by making your request either encourages you or others to make a difference.

Before asking for people to tweet their feats on Thursday, I didn’t really know what to expect or if anybody would care enough to get involved. In the end, our first round of Thursday Feats attracted plenty of interest, and on Monday you’ll vote for the feat you want to help make happen in the coming 30 days. I’ll write more about this process tomorrow.

Back to Thursday for now. As #feats began appearing I decided to retweet them so followers could see what sort of requests people were making. I didn’t expect anything to come of this, and a few people stopped following as a result. Thankfully, others were paying close attention.

One of the first #feats came from Phillip Newman in New Zealand:

I’ll be honest, I didn’t think much of this – I thought it was some chancer after free video equipment. So I was both ecstatically delighted and desperately guilty for being so cynical when Phillip emailed me yesterday:

“A local company who was watching the twitter feed came forward and has expressed interest in donating their time and expertise to my cause.

“Through this contact I’ve managed to get a couple other contacts who’ve said they would like to chip in something towards getting the video gear needed for me to complete this newly renamed #feat.

“If you remember I’m the guy who wanted to get the pro video gear to be able to go to charity events in my area and provide them a free video for their promotional purposes. My company has all ready been involved in this and it’s been welcomed but there as you can imagine limitations with a small handy cam.

“I’m really happy you’ve started this – that tweet could have been the best thing I’ve done to get me on the right track.”

With the support of just a few hundred people, we’re already bringing about positive change. That’s not a bad start. The more people who follow and don’t mind retweeting one or two tweets a week, the greater the chance of making a difference.

Best of luck to Phillip, and if you’re the tweep who saw his #feat and decided to get involved, thank you for acting.

So here we go! Feats Of Tweet will kick off tomorrow. From 9am BST, you can tweet the hopes, ambitions or goals that you’d like Twitter’s help to achieve.

They can be charitable, personal, big or small. They may make a difference to many people if achieved, or just you. It doesn’t matter – all we want to do is create some positive change in the world through goodwill. Read the FAQ for more ideas.

So here’s how it works:

- Wherever you are in the world, you can get involved – geography is irrelevant

- You have 24 hours from tomorrow at 9am BST – so 3am tomorrow morning in New York, 2am in Wichita and 8pm tomorrow evening in Auckland – to tweet the task you want help with (your “feat”).

- You must send it to @FeatsOfTweet from a public Twitter account and add the hashtag #feat

And that’s it!

After that, I’ll check details with some or all of those who have tweeted their feats, and there’ll be a poll on Monday; you get to choose which feat Twitter will support and attempt to make happen.

I’m a little apprehensive about this working, so please take a moment to retweet this post and encourage your followers to join in – they may have a feat they’d like help with, or they may just be the one person that can make it happen for somebody else.

Thank you!