Yesterday I mentioned that I frequently put up #startup on Twitter with a call for anyone working on a startup to contact me, purely because I love to see what is going on. Well, after that blog went up I was contacted by entrepreneur Tom Packer. Tom is someone who I have known for awhile, a creative web programmer who has come up with some great ideas, some that have been great ideas but have struggled to take off. However, Tom let me know about an idea he launched and created at the weekend, bktrack.com which I love!
Bktrack is a website that enables you to see images of key moments in the world, in whatever year you choose to want to see. You may look at the year you were born, the year you got married, the year your parents met – whatever tear you choose. Bktrack is a crowd sourced idea meaning that it is calling up on the public to upload images of key moments of throughout the years.
I really like the idea, it is a sort of cross between instagr.am and wiki that has huge potential. There are many ways to monetize this site and, indeed, Tom has let me in on a few of these ideas. Some ideas that I could imagine include – brand sponsorship of brands key moments, advertising, merchandise around specific years and timelines such as T-shirts and posters and stuff. There are endless possibilities for development here from launching personal timelines, group timelines, being able to post your images on your blog and website etc. It is just a really cool idea.
Of course, the success of this business depends on the public uploading images so, head over to bktrack.com and get involved!
Like Bktrack? Hate it? Thinking of ways it could be improved? Post your comments I would love to hear!
Congratulations to Tom, cannot wait to see where this goes!
Recently I have started to throw out the following question on Twitter: Who is working on a #startup today? I would love to hear about it!. It’s awesome – people search for the #startup and so I get some pretty cool responses from people all over the world who are working on the ‘next big thing’. So, I decided to write a blog about the one’s that particularly catch my attention.
First up we have, payumi.com. It’s amazingly simple, this is a website for people who need to collect money from groups of people. I remember at Uni, in a shared house and whenever the time came to pay the bills it was always a pain to get money off housemates as individuals wrestled to keep as much beer money as possible! Of course the same situation occurs with the likes of mother groups, children’s activities like dance or football, holidays, for example. The list is endless.
All you have to do is set up an account, send payment reminders and the money will come straight into your paypal account.
I think it is an absolutely genius idea and has heaps of potential. The only question swirling through my mind is what the difference is between this site and simply using your paypal account in order to make a payment request? If there is absolutely no difference it almost makes the site redundant. I cannot even begin to describe how much I want there to be a massive difference. I will ask the payumi team directly on their twitter account @payumicom and let you know what they say. I will post an update as soon as I have one!
Watch this very powerful talk by Steve Jobs on ‘How to live before you die’ – this is an incredibly powerful piece of footage. Get inspired.
As many of you know I am all giveaway crazy at the moment because of the launch of my new start up Big American Giveaway. Whilst researching today I came across a couple who are giving away an ipad in order to help raise money to adopt a child. The ipad bit is irrelevant, but the story, the journey and the passion is quite exciting.
The Tucker family, a white, middle-class, Christian all American family have launched a website Subtracting by Adding in order to raise money to help adopt a child from Taiwan. The introduction that I have just given could sound quite negative, the Tucker family already have two biological children and it could easily sound like ‘White middle class Christian super-hero couple save the day’. But, you know what, that is exactly what it is and I would love to see more couples think about adoption.
One of the comments that the family have put on their website is a comment that I wholeheartedly believe in – they have two biological children and, there are heaps of children around the world without a family so why not provide a loving family for one of them. What a great sentiment!
I have seen, first hand, the sadness of children living without families in orphanages. Many orphanages do an incredible job and fair play to them. Nevertheless, children were built to be loved, to have the loving support of a family and they were created to bloom in such an environment. I will never forget time that I have spent in Kenya. I was in a boys orphanage talking to the children about how they are unique, they are individual, they exist for a very special purpose and, even without natural families they are very much loved. As I ended my talk the children came forward, they wanted to be hugged! As a small 5 year old boy wrapped his arms around my legs, he would not let go. This little boy could not speak a word of English and I have never been fluent in Swahili, but, nevertheless, we had shared an incredible moment. Not only was this orphaned boy loved, but, so was I. Needless to say, I was in tears!
The Tuckers’ goal of adopting a child, ‘Cambell’ from Taiwan is a powerful example of how many other couples could reach out and change lives of young children around the world. I remember reading a book on the work of Tearfund, a Christian organisation and one of the titles of the chapters seriously stood out, “They can’t eat prayer”.
Whether we are of a religious background or not, the sentiment is the same. We can look on in despair at those who are less fortunate, who need help, who struggle to survive or who need a little bit of love and we wish them all the best, “they can’t eat wishes”.
Well done and congratulations to the Tucker family, we are right behind you. May your example be a shining one, to many.
I had a conversation with a friends Mum this weekend, and, don’t get me wrong, I am not going all ‘religious’ on you, but I think that it is a great shame that the UK has moved away from it’s Christian foundations. Please allow me to explain why.
We live in a greed obsessed society. We want what we cannot afford to have and, as we have seen, those who cannot afford their ‘wants’ resort to other means to ensure that they get them. We loot, whether it is young people on the streets or MP’s who go against the rules that they created in order to make more money. Our marketing is highly consumerised (my spell check tells me that no such word exists but please go with it). If we are not happy with our partner we trade them in for another model, or many have their cake and eat it. Family values have been exchanged for gang alliance. The religion that we worship is the football team that we support. Our nation is fame hungry. We update our Twitter and Facebook status’ in the belief that ‘my story’ is the only story that needs to be heard.
Let’s face it, in many ways, collectively, we have become immoral. Not only are we becoming immoral but our collective moral conscience is slowly being worn down.
Of course, I am not perfect, I am by no means a saint. It would be easy to read this post and agree that ‘they’ are like that. However, I am a firm believer that, wrongly, our morals are flexible when it comes to our own self interests.
So, back to religion. I am not saying that in an age before ours, when the accepted behavior was that families attended Church, was a perfect world. It wasn’t. But there is something about being reminded of good Christian values that reminds us as individuals that we are part of a whole, that the world does not revolve around ‘me’ and our outlook on life changes.
Basic Christian values can be exchanged for a ‘good’ moral code. Gluttony, greed, selfish ambition, pride, jealousy, envy are all common traits in today’s society. However, at least hearing about Christian values, being reminded of them by family, at Church, at school provides our minds with a moral ‘check’, a simple reminder of the way that we should live our lives.
We do not have to subscribe to the whole package. The whole Christian story is not one that we have to believe in, however, at a very basic level, whether purely as a man who existed or as a character in a book, the person of Jesus maintained a life-style that we would all benefit to follow both personally and as a collective.
I have spent some time in some poor countries, Kenya and Fiji, whose residents still remind each other of basic Christian values and, in all honesty, they are seriously humble places to live. I have met people who have nothing, but what they have they would not hesitate to share. I have been involved in business deals (with Tribewanted) where an individuals word is the basis of an agreed contract. I have seen, first hand, communities where they consider each of their children as their own. There is no selfish attitude, only an attitude of greatfulness and otherness.
I know reading this post, people will comment – why does it have to be Christian and not other religious beliefs. I know that there are many perceived flaws in what I am saying because, as individuals, we now have an in-built intolerance to anything relating to ‘God’.
I don’t have all the answers and, in no way, am I suggesting that we should all be going to church on a Sunday morning. I just merely believe that or moral framework has suffered in direct correlation towards a decline in our attitude towards the church and our engagement with anything ‘christian’.
Something has to change, for the sake of individuals, communities and generations to come. If our moral code only reduces, where do we end up?
Please do feel free to comment, add your thoughts, agree, disagree in the comment section below. It would be great to hear, listen, learn!