I recently had the opportunity to be a guest on Chicago Public Radio 89.5 / Vocalo.org. The host for the show was Molly Adams.  Also on the show as a guest was Brad Flora of WindyCitizen.com.

We discussed things such as the Haiti relief efforts and how positive the response from the American people has been.  I know that I was really impressed to find out that as a nation we’ve contributed over $30,000,000.00 just via text messages.  But that’s just a portion of the $305,000,000.00 that has been raised as of January 21st.  It’s amazing to see how much people world wide have responded.  With times such as these, people have been cutting costs everywhere they can to save money.  So to see how willing people have been to give money to the Haitian people is really encouraging.  It’s not always easy to part with $10, let alone $1,000,000.00 or more.  But realizing that there are people that need it more than we do is what makes the difference.  Action is what makes a difference.

We also discussed how the internet has transformed the way we get our news.  We are no longer simply content consumers, being fed advertising ,marketing, and spin by the conglomerates.  We are now content producers.  Whether by blogs, Twitter, crowd sourcing sites, and all the other options, we are able to tell the world what is happening and how we feel about it.  In addition to that, we are able to decide how we get our news.  Whether this is good or bad is up for discussion.  On one hand, you no longer have to just take whatever news is fed to you.  You can avoid the opinion and spin.  On the other hand, a person could easily only consume news that is in line with their opinion and views.  I do believe that there is value in hearing the spectrum.  There is a benefit to having a balance.

We also talked briefly about the validity of social media.  Some may scoff at Twitter, Facebook, and foursquare, but the reality is that these platforms are helping advance businesses, relationships, and more.  These tools have not been around nearly long enough for us to realize their full benefit.  We are constantly revising the way we interact with these tools.  With that, I look forward to seeing how we use them in 5 years.  Or if they’re even still around for that matter.

Overall, I really enjoyed talking with Molly and Brad.  I encourage you to keep up with them on Twitter and their individual sites.

You can connect with Molly by following:

Vocalo.org on Twitter or
Molly on Twitter
Molly’s blog

and keep up with Brad at:

Brad Flora on Twitter
The Windy Citizen on Twitter
The Windy Citizen website

As usual, thank you all for reading and following.  We’re all in this together, so let me know your thoughts and feedback.

Cheers,

Josh Walker