Entries Tagged 'press' ↓

Apologies for what was a very long delay.  The daily excuses: For a few weeks I had to work to not fail my course (which meant rapidly catching up for many weeks lost to running the campaign!) and then I ventured into the Pacific Northwest forest for a brief surf trip.  But I’m back.

There’s some pretty solid coverage of the campaign and how it fits in the broader MBA-for-social-aims movement in the recent issue of McLean’s, a prominent Canadian news magazine.

Check it out here.

On thing the author got right: the money is going to EWB and MSF.  I just have to make sure I’ve double checked all the amounts and then fire off the donations.  I’m happy to share that Wayne Robertson, Executive Director of the Law Foundation of British Columbia, has agreed to review the process and report on it.  I’m hoping that Wayne’s involvement, which brings a great deal of expertise and credibility in legal and non-profit affairs, will satisfy people that the campaign is being resolved in a forthright, honest and transparent way.

I’ll post more on this in the next few days, as well as on some next steps and cool opportunities.

B

I’m excited that I got a chance to blog about the project on The Huffington Post.  You may or may not know about HP, but it’s big.  Very big.  Among my fellow bloggers in the last week?  Hillary Clinton.

100% pure awesome.

Also: Vancouverites, check out a copy of Metro tomorrow morning for an interview.

The attention is starting to pick up!

B

Sorry about the silence.  It doesn’t mean I don’t care!

There’s been some interesting news though.  Word of the campaign is spreading in odd ways.  It has spread back to Oxford, which has certainly helped (if anyone feels like bugging Oxford’s Said Business School about the project, pelase do!).  Another example: friends of mine got into a dinner conversation the other night: ‘did you hear about the guy raising MBA tuition from 30,000 people?’ somebody said.  My friends: ‘uhhh, yep, we know him!’

All of this is really quite encouraging.  Particularly when people and organizations just up and decided to get behind me.  Such is the case with tuitionbids.com.  They are a new website that seeks to fill a particular need of students by finding them the best student loans out there.  They’ve decided that, well, they understand how hard it can be to fund tuition and they like my unconventional approach.  So they’ve highlighted the campaign on their site, and offered to match the next $300 in donations!

While the path I have taken and the one tuitionbids.com facilitates with students are slightly different, I feel the underlying aims are the same.  It’s all about getting funding to the right people, as they seek the education to launch careers.  If my goal to get to $90K works, I won’t need help like that offered by tuitionbids.com.  But it would have been nice to have an them around about 7 years ago in Canada when I first dipped into student loans!  Whether spreading the word to thousands to ask for $3 or linking up students with the best rates on loans, life is getting slightly easier for students who seek to get the education to fulfill their dreams.

Brendan

Steve is not allowed  to donate to 3bucksforbrendan.com.  Why?  Because it was his guidance (and the tolerance of his firm, Industrial Brand Creative as he took skype call after skype call during working hours) that helped launch the site.  Still, he expects a call from me at 5:30 or so Vancouver time (1:30 am here) pretty much every day with some annoying question about the site.  Apparently he’s not sick of me yet though, as he’s posted about the project on IBC’s blog.  Apparently they get 100,000 views a month, so heck, it can’t hurt!

As well, The Suburbia Clothing has posted about the project.  Check out their clothing too - great stuff.  I especially like this one (pure art on a shirt, IMO), which, quite accurately depicts life before our morning coffee for some of us.  Perhaps this one is more hopeful though.  I mean, don’t all of us, deep down somewhere, want to fly away in a VW bus?  My wonderful mother has been suggesting getting Tshirts done for the project, I’m not sure she had such elegant designs in mind though.

I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but Xativa.es has done their part to spread the word in Spanish.  I have been told the project is also making its way through Brazillian engineering lists and German contact networks.  Nice!

Also, yes, the project is on Digg here.  It could use a couple diggs though, so if you’re one of the cool kids that knows just what this digg thing is all about, then feel free to give it a boost.

Cheers,
B

If you google 3bucksforbrendan right now, you’ll get more than just the site. The project is making the rounds of the blogosphere and something the cool kids call Twitter (apparently I need to join?). All of which is good. Here’ s the latest (and I know there’s a couple of supporters who I’ve missed for now - sorry!)

John Chow is apparently near the tops in internet marketing. Seems to be true, as mention on the site triggered a great boost in traffic to www.3bucksforbrendan.com, as well as many times 3 dollars. Nice to know the project is controversial, as comments range from the cynical (’screw him, tell him to go get a job like everyone else’) to supportive (’I gave him $10. He seems like a nice enough guy’). Nice guy? Thanks!

I’m pretty sure John triggered this post at Startsnakken (I will start snackin!), which, although in German, seems to be about the site. That would explain more than a few German donations today!

The buzz machine calls this project ‘crowdsourcing’, i.e. getting the resources from many to do something. Nice to know I’m on the cutting edge of marketing! And 7 Day Buzz wonders if I’m a scam, and has started a poll to help him decide if I get his three bucks. I love it!

Again, I know I’ve forgotten a couple of blogs that people have forwarded to me. Please reply to this post with ‘em if you can remember.

Cheers,
Brendan