WebEx: Ideas in Motion

Fred Mednick Live! Thursday, June 4th! Register Now!

If it looks like we are excited, its because we are! Fred Mednick, the founder of Teachers Without Borders, will be talking about how he shared his idea and made it better as it grew into one incredible organization.

In a moving presentation, you'll hear the story of how Teachers Without Borders got started and the incredible impact the organization has had on communities around the world.  It now operates in more than 160 countries and his vision empowers millions of teachers to deliver hope of a positive, sustainable future

Register today to tap into the insight and inspiration of his pioneering spirit.

Details:
WebEx Seminar featuring Fred Mednick
Thursday, June 4th at 9AM PDT | 12PM EDT (UTC-7 hours)

Idea: Clean Up the North Pacific Trash Gyre

 A few months ago, my daughter came home from a sailing field trip with the O’Neill Sea Odyssey team (pretty cool field trip for a public school!). She was all fired up about the trash gyre in the Pacific Ocean. She immediately wrote a letter to President Obama and mobilized the kids at school to sign a petition. She wants it cleaned up…

So imagine my delight when I saw one of the ideas on PasstheBall.com that specifically targets the pollution. The Ocean Cure idea proposes the following:

Develop a $10M prize program (The O (Ocean) Prize) to fund the best solution for eliminating the floating debris pile in the Pacific Ocean. The best solution would:  eliminate waste faster than it accumulates, generate a sustainable profit, provide good jobs, is replicable to tackle other ocean clean up jobs and is net zero in carbon emissions.

Now that’s thinking big. And so many of the ideas on the site are big ideas (we have lots of great small ideas too). And you don't have to have an idea to enjoy the site.

If you haven’t visited to rate or comment on ideas, we invite you to do just that. Like the Ocean Cure? Click in and add your thoughts. We’d like to see some of these ideas come to fruition and we’ll be using WebEx to facilitate those discussions. Look for more on our Idea Forums in the weeks to come.

Passing the Ball - it takes a (global) village...

Don't worry, I appreciate the irony of writing in English while trying to reach out to folks in Germany and France. But I have to start somewhere!

We've had an amazing "first week" with PasstheBall.com in the United States. In face, we have attracted ideas from Russia, Malaysia and Egypt! But we want to reach out to a few more languages - we are starting with German and French (hopefully with more to come).

We are kicking off these sites this week and we'd like to have everyone reach out to folks who read/write German or French and invite them to Pass the Ball! Here are the links to the sites:

German: passtheball.de
French: passtheball.fr

Remember, the more people we get to participate, the more donations are triggered for Teachers Without Borders. And you don't have to post an idea - you can come in, register and comment, join a team, rate ideas - or just share ideas with your friends on Facebook, Twitter or whereever you share good news.

Thank you everyone. And if you are in the UK, don't forget the big event on Wednesday. We hope to see you there!

Meet us at Victoria Station, London on Weds, May 27th

Look for the huge WebEx Ball Booth on the central concourse. To kick off Pass the Ball UK, we are going just a little bit nuts!

We'll have a booth where you can video tape your ideas that we will be sharing with everyone as part of our "Pass the Ball" efforts. When you share, you'll trigger a donation to Teachers Without Borders and you'll have the opportunity to win a year of free WebEx!

We realize some people are camera shy - you don't have to record an idea. But you can still come see us - in fact bring a friend or two. We are giving away fun promotional items and there should be lots of excitement.

And to make it fun, when you go, be sure to come back here and comment on this story with links to your photos. Some of us are stuck in California working so we'll want to see the event through your eyes!

In the meantime, you don't have to wait for the big event. You can start posting your ideas on the UK, French or German sites right now! (And yep, the US site too!). If you don't have an idea, then see what's there and rate, comment or join an Idea Team.

Don't forget, Weds at Victoria Station, Main Concourse - come start the ball rolling!

Anatomy of an idea: "Hungry for Change"

I love going to PasstheBall.com every morning and checking out the new ideas. While clicking around, one caught my eye - it connected with a post on the WebEx Facebook fan page - it was an idea called "Hungry for Change."

I clicked into the idea and read it: 

"...every time you use your participating bank card, your purchase amount is rounded up to the nearest dollar, and your spare change is donated to the cause of your choice."

Wow - that sounded awesome. It gave a link to a video on YouTube which explained even more. And I realized, what's happening here is exactly what we want PasstheBall.com to do. Be a place for people to share great ideas and get help - from everyone else out there - to make them grow. Clearly Jamie Pullman at Hungry for Change has been working on his idea for awhile - but he hasn't done it alone!

As people join your team and as you build momentum for your idea, we'll host a WebEx Forum to facilitate discussion among your team members. If there's an expert you'd like to weigh in, let us know because we'll even see if we can make that happen.

So it's up to you. Jump in, post your idea or support the ideas already percolating on the site. And remember, every time you do, you are triggering a donation to Teachers Without Borders.

When you act, Teachers Without Borders benefits...

Our Pass the Ball campaign was created to do three things:

1. Give people a place to share their ideas and get others to collaborate with them with the hope some amazing things will happen;

2. Help Teachers Without Borders - a organization built around the notion of sharing ideas - in fact the founder, Fred Melnick, started the whole thing with a wild idea he shared with a friend; and

3. Expose new people to WebEx - a tool we think does a great job of helping people share ideas with others with the end result being a better outcome.

We are just getting started,
but so far so good!

Our thought was, every time someone posts or rates an idea, it would trigger a donation to Teachers Without Borders (affectionately known at TWB around here). We have already logged over 300 ideas with our launch this week and that translates to free training for three teachers in the TWB program.

We have at least triple those numbers in ratings and we can see our visitors are doing their best to share their ideas on Facebook, Twitter and more. We are so glad the notion of Passing the Ball has caught on.

Keep it up!

Go back and visit your idea - there are a lot of comments being posted and someone may have left one for you. And if you haven't done so already, be sure to add a picture or an image. Owning your idea helps bring it to life! And if you have ideas about how to make the web site better, post it here - we want to hear from you!

Share ideas on Facebook - it's easy...

Did you know you can share the great ideas you see on PassTheBall.com with your friends on Facebook? It's easy. Here's all you need to do:

1. On PassTheBall.com, go to the specific idea's page - where you can see the details of your or another person's idea (find an idea and click on it - it will take you there).

2. Under the red "Join Team" button on the left, choose the "share this idea" link.

3. When you see the list, choose Facebook (you'll see there are lots of ways to share, don't be shy - try many!).

4. Add your comments or thoughts to the Facebook interface (it's a splash page that will come up) and then click post.

The idea will post with your comments and a direct link to the idea right on your Facebook page.

This is a great way to get people to vote on your ideas. It's also a good way to drive traffic to ideas you think are worth noticing. Remember, winning ideas will get a free year of WebEx - so it's not too soon to start campaigning!

Pass the Ball: share your ideas!

If you have always had a great idea that you thought should happen, now's your chance to share it! In fact, when you share it, you might even make it better.

On our new website, PassTheBall.com, we are encouraging everyone to share ideas, rate ideas, comment and even join "Idea Teams" to make good things happen. When you log-in and share an idea, you'll be eligible to win a free year of WebEx.

Most importantly, every time you do something on the site - share, rate, comment - you will trigger a donation to Teachers Without Borders (TWB). TWB does a great job sharing ideas around the world as they educate people who would otherwise not have access to education.

So, have an idea (or not)? Come check it out. As we say - go on, Pass The Ball!