Want to use your social media addiction to make a difference in the world? Learn how Derek Cowan’s doing just that! And you don’t even have to go to Vietnam – you can travel the world with Derek and make a difference from the comfort of your armchair!
Derek’s journey began as one of self-discovery. In sharing his journey with the world on Periscope, he’s grown an international community of like-minded people who want to share the adventure and make a difference to the world.
Derek’s journey caught the attention of Ryan Bell at Periscope, and he’s been invited as a speaker to the Periscope Summit on 24th September in New York City! Derek could use this platform for self-promotion. But he has bigger plans than that! He’s going to bring the world’s attention to his 50/50 project and make a difference to 50 charities in 50 countries.
This video captures the moment when Derek saw the potential impact of sharing his adventure as I asked him at 10min 14sec ‘Will you jump in the water if you get 100K hearts?!’. It seemed a huge milestone at the time, late in June. It’s hard to believe he now has over 6 million hearts!
This was the ‘scope that saw Derek’s audience really start to grow as Global Periscope picked up on the excitement surrounding his journey and sent out a tweet.
As Derek realised he could reach the 100K heart milestone, he started to see the possibilities for growing his community.
From those early exciting days, it was obvious something special was happening. Derek set up a Facebook group, and the vibe in it is incredible! People from all over the world came together with a passion for travel, Periscope, sharing their stories and making a difference.
Genuine friendships have blossomed across the continents as we’ve encouraged each other to perform #RAK (Random Acts of Kindness). As we’ve got to know each other and shared our stories, we’ve realised that we share compassion for people suffering from homelessness, mental health issues and poverty. With members of the community sharing personal experiences of these issues that have touched their lives.
As one person opened up about their experiences, others felt accepted, less alone and inspired to share their journey.
Inspired by the plight of communities he visited, and tiny charities ploughing what meagre resources they could muster into improving lives for those in the greatest need, Derek has embarked on his 50/50 journey.
His goal is to help 50 charities in 50 countries by bringing the world’s attention and funds to help them.
We, Derek’s community, have sprung into action to help maximise the impact of his journey to make a difference in the world.
If you ever thought you want to make a difference and don’t know how, here’s your chance.
How can you make a difference?
Follow Derek on Periscope window.twttr=function(t,e,r){var n,i=t.getElementsByTagName(e)[0],w=window.twttr||{};return t.getElementById(r)?w:(n=t.createElement(e),n.id=r,n.src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”,i.parentNode.insertBefore(n,i),w._e=[],w.ready=function(t){w._e.push(t)},w)}(document,”script”,”twitter-wjs”)@EntrepreneurOAJ
Share his scopes on Periscope, Twitter, Facebook and all your platforms using #RAK and #HelpTheJourney
Visit https://www.helpthejourney.com/ to volunteer and / or support Derek’s quest.
Use your Periscope addiction to make a difference! #HelpTheJourney
Laura Lucas lives about 40 miles from Derek’s Kirkcaldy home in Dundee and has adopted Derek as her cyber-bro – so don’t mess or you’ll have Laura to deal with! Although they live close by and have friends in common they’d never met until Laura started following Derek’s journey on Periscope. Laura supports #HelpTheJourney by inspiring (or bossing!) members of the community to contribute their specific talents to make the maximum difference to the world.
