When we tell people about Movember, the men’s cancer research charity founded by Adam Garone and a bunch of friends who, over beers, decided to both give back and revive the moustache, we usually hear a couple of standard things:
- I can’t grow a moustache
- My wife won’t let me grow a moustache
Movember is not really not about growing a moustache. The good ones are cherished and so are the bad ones. Movember is about giving and it is about bonding. Movember is a community of people who are passionate about the destruction of cancer. That’s right. Movember is a global community of men and women in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Europe and the United States. Movember is about stories of friends and loved ones who have been affected by this terrible disease, raising awareness, making research possible and celebrating the efforts of those who are involved. But it is not all warm and fuzzy, Movember is also a little competitive.
Graham Nelson told me about Movember. I remember the day he told me informed me that I would have to shave my beard in order to grow a moustache to raise money for cancer research and treatment. It took some convincing. I like my beard. Graham talked about challenging our friends in Austin to raise more money than us and that we could use any means necessary to spread the word. The Movember Digital Challenge was born. Last year Team Boston devastated Team Austin by raising near $25,000 dollars to Austin’s 20,000+. The components of the challenge were events, videos, photos and good old fashioned smack talk!
As a participant last year, I felt the need to step up my own involvement in the organization. I recently appointed myself Digital Challenge “Chief of Global Team Expansion”, a promotion from my last week’s title, VP Director of Expansion. The beauty of Movember is that people feel passionate about the cause. It’s easy to do. It’s rewarding. It’s impactful and yes, it’s fun. You can pretty much decide to just do stuff and it happens.
I am happy to announce the 2010 Movember Digital Challenge to kick off on October 31, 2010 with the annual “shaving of the facial hair”. Is it a #MoUp? Nope. Its a #MoDown [I want to remind all participants that a beard is not a moustache. Shave down to nothing and no "connecting" for the month of November.]
Teams from across the globe will be competing for the title of Grand Champion. The idea is to use any legal, means necessary to raise money for the cause. This means holding events, creating content via twitter, youtube, facebook… hell even dribbble – whatever it takes. This year’s Movember site will have a Digital Challenge leaderboard which will show team progress as well as individual leaders.
Teams captains are being named now and can be found on the official Digital Challenge Movember Team Captains list.
Last year teams made videos, created flickr albums, got corporate sponsors, had events and even made calendars. There was trashed talking alsoside camaraderie. There was showmanship, particularly when David Armano and Team Austin leapfrogged Team Boston with a generous donation from The Art of Shaving. This year people have been promising to go bigger. Last year we started planning in late September. This year? Well as of today, it’s still April.
Here is the official list of team captains as of now. Talk to them about joining their team. The official team site is not open yet, so we are suggestion that team captains keep a list (perhaps an email newsletter, twitter list or a Facebook group) of people who are interested in joining. More details about the challenge will be released as they arise.
The Original 2
Team Austin : #TeamAUS : Aaron Strout
Team Boston : #TeamBOS : Graham Nelson
Expansion Teams
Team Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill : #TeamRDU : Gregory Ng
Team Toronto: #TeamTOR : Sean Moffitt
Team New York City : #TeamNYC : Lisa Kolodny
Team Charleston : #TeamCHS : Chad Norman*
Team Salt Lake City : #TeamSLC : DJ Waldow
Team Seattle : #TeamSEA: Damon Cortesi*
* = mostly committed
TBD:
United States
Team San Francisco : #TeamSFO
Team Denver: #TeamDEN
Team Chicago: #TeamORD
Your City
Global
Team Melbourne: #TeamMEL
Team Sydney : #TeamSYD
Team Dublin : #TeamDUB
Team London : #TeamLHR
Team Aukland : #TeamAKL
Your City
TeamBOS News
#TeamBOS (This year we are shortening and standardizing the hashtags) has already had several major developments: Jim Storer has named himself Director of Recruiting. Derek Peplau on the very same day told Jim that he would be sharing the job! Karen “Pumpkin Spice” Costa aka. VanillaBean45 appointed herself Director of Corporate Relationships.
