I recently discovered twipple, a movement  that uses Twitter to spread and encourage random acts of kindness.
Here’s a short video about twipple featuring Cunning Creative Director Floyd Hayes. (This is an independent project from Floyd).
I love this idea!
A quick review of the most recent acts posted on their twitter page includes:
95: Give the gift of hard drive space and offer to back up a friends computer!
94: Call I.T support just to ask how they are. (They are people too…)
93: Call in a radio song request for someone sat near you in the office.
92: Print and frame a picture of a friend for a surprise gift.
91: Please help the people of Haiti: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/?ITO=1482
90: Make your loved ones or colleagues some hot chocolate!
89: Clear someones path of snow.
88: Help someone with their New Year Resolutions.
87: Be the designated driver tonight!
86: Secret Santa a Stranger!
85: Write a neighbor a xmas card, even if you don’t know them.
In honor of twipple’s first birthday, Floyd has created a book that  brings together the best twipple suggestions with gorgeous , full color illustrations provided by Peter Bonnin who trained at the Glasgow School of Art.
50% of the profit from this book will be donated to NY Cares an organization that matches NY volunteers with opportunities to help out.
You can find out more about the book and order your copy here. You can also order other twipple products like t-shirts and buttons with donations supporting NY Cares.
I think twipple is a great idea. It leverages social media for good and it “lives its brand” through its actions (like donating the book proceeds).
I think now more than ever, we need to get out of our own heads and help those around us. I love that it takes a medium that is increasingly become commercial and focused on celebrity and gossip and provides an alternative way to use it for good.
Bravo Floyd!
That’s my point of view. What’s your twist?
Do you/will you twipple?
I guess this is the 21st Century way of spreading the word of “paying it forward”. While I am not much of a tweeter per se, I do LOVE the idea, and I will definitely see what I can do to add to the twipple-effect.
I’ve got to admit that I still don’t understand what this is and how it works. Is it just that this guy tweets suggestions to folks about kind things to do for others?
Great stuff Floyd – I have just found this on Twitter and will be becoming Twippler as soon as I have finished this. In fact, I already am in a way because I manage the social media for UOWHO.COM and tweet about acts of kindness every day. We do things in a slightly different way – with silicon ‘giving’ bracelets which have an emphasis on encouraging people to pay forward acts of kindness done for them. By wearing the bracelet you are reminded to look out for people who might need some help. Having helped the person you pull out one of the ten little tabs on the bracelet and give the bracelet to the kindness recipient and ask them to pay it forward. That way, each bracelet has the potential to reach 10 people in a continual chain of giving.
What’s even better is that the bracelets can be ‘branded’ for nonprofits, schools, church groups and even companies who can then use them for fundraising or creating awareness of a pet cause. The International Advocacy Network have just signed on to do just such a campaign.
We firmly believe in the ripple effect and are getting great feedback in terms of people using our bracelets. They are a very proactive and fun way of spreading kindness & keeping our awareness focused on others instead of ourselves. Check them out at http://uowho.com and come join in!
It sounds too much like a mashup of Snapple and nipple for me. I’ll have to do my good deeds elsewhere.
Thanks for the post Julie – a really nice morning surprise.
A bit of background:
I was getting bored (as a marketing person) of “Flash Mobs” being presented as an idea to promote stuff. I appreciate how many people can get together for these things (3000 in London for T-Mobile!) and how smoothly social media integrated into flash mobs, but felt it was all a bit of a waste of time. All that tech, effort and time for what?
I was also involved in an online debate with someone who hated twitter, the narcism of it in particular. I felt blaming the tool was a bit off – after a hammer can make a doll’s house or kill someone…
Plus, I wanted to learn more about social media / twitter a few years ago and so decided to try and combine flash mobs with twitter but with a “socially useful” twist.
Initially I thought that creating large flash mobs of people doing good (picking up litter in a park say) could be really interesting but decided it was too prescriptive. People should be inspired by the twipples but feel free to do them when and where they please.
@Shelley – it’s a ripple of good will paired with a twitter – twipple, see? Also, nothing wrong with nipples…we’d look weird without them 🙂
@Jasper – many thanks for the kind words – I’m off to look at your site now!
@adam
Exactly that. Also people send me their random acts of kindness ideas too.
fun, free, easy ripples of goodness..
@Jasper I just checked out your site http://uowho.com and I love it. I think the bracelets would be a great Bar/Bat Mitzvah favor or a great gift in general for tweens. Teaching them to appreciate what they have and inspiring acts of kindness in others. I forwarded it to @mitzvahmarket it would be great if they could highlight you guys on their blog. Thanks so much for sharing.
@Floyd: You’re right – nipples are swell, but so are ripples and twitters. Well played, sir.
This just made my day 🙂
@shelley@Floyd what’s all this nipple talk on my blog? Closest thing I will ever get to x-rated content. LOL. Thanks for all the comments.
OI! My 6 week year old has no problems with nipples, so rest easy. 🙂
great idea floyd!
twipple is a nice reminder to be kind, do good! i think it’s a great idea.
Comments are closed.