Hey everyone! A few updates regarding the Global Youth Assembly if you haven’t been following along—we’re chugging along and things are shaping up. The workshops are almost finalized so be sure to have a look when they do. Don’t forget to register! If you haven’t done so already, what’s holding you back?
One of the things we at the GYA like to do is share with you inspirational stories of taking action for positive change by youth and young professionals. How are others making a positive change in their communities? You might not realize it but change doesn’t have to result in big flashy headlines or generate a lot of news. Change can also be personal or community-based and it can be done through a variety of media. An extremely popular form of communications for change these days is obviously the internet and social media.
Social media is rapidly becoming a powerhouse in global communications because the internet reaches almost everywhere with near impunity. We want to share with you a great example of a young professional using social media for change by questioning the very notion of change itself. His name is Matt Cheuvront and he hails from Nashville, Tennessee. He runs a blog creatively named Life without Pants and has worked hard to develop a community of interesting folks who comment and interact with Matt and others on a variety of topics.
There’s a lot to be said about Matt and his blog. Firstly, it’s a great example of how social media has becoming a powerful force in bringing people together without having to plan a huge conference. He’s clearly using Life without Pants as a forum as well as a soapbox to get his ideas out there and to engage, network and learn from others who participate. While there’s nothing unique about this per se, it emphasizes exactly the point: change begins on the local level. In Matt’s case, his local level includes anyone on the internet from all parts of the world.
The second thing that we wanted to highlight was Matt’s excellent Inconvenience of Change post series. Featuring a series of posts from various young professional bloggers, Matt has created a mini-movement around a single topic and got everyone talking. Haven’t heard of it? That’s because instead of trying to make it viral, Matt aimed to make it productive and genuine. The discussion on his blog has been amazing filled with new insights and thoughtful responses and that’s the kind of community that we ought to be building—online and off.
Matt is a great example of a twenty-something young professional utilizing social media to build a movement and we strongly encourage you to head over to his blog and participate. Matt has also graciously agreed to write a guest post for this blog, which will be forthcoming on Thursday. Be sure to come back and check it out!
Be part of the change and ignite change now!
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Thank you (very much) for this amazing write up. It’s humbling for me to see others think highly of who I am and what I’m trying to accomplish through blogging and other social media tools. When I launched my blog, I always had in mind that I wanted it to be a COMMUNITY – I want to talk with people, not at them, so I encourage community discussion, and for this past month, I’ve handed the entire blog over to guest writers from around the web – some would call it stupid, that my blog is losing MY voice, but I call it brilliant. A simple idea has turned into a change ‘revolution’ – with over 50 bloggers from around the web contributing their voice.
The next step, converting the amazing series into an ebook. I’m doing some exciting things with that so be on the lookout and I encourage you and all of your readers to visit http://www.inconvenienceofchange.com – pre-order a copy of the ebook that I’m pulling together and should have released by July.
Thanks again, it is a pleasure and an honor to be featured by the GYA organization. Cheers to you, and keep doing what you do!