The last two days were awesome with promotions, tweets, posts, mails, adding people, requesting people, facing challenges, pumping up people's mood...
Slowly the whole team started to getting to know each other, better working with each other’s limitations and constraints with so much care devotion and love. Conference calls via Skype and Google talk were happening globally and people were getting all the more excited as the lead narrowed down. We just passed Twloha Inc for the second place. We were thirsty for first place. Not just for the one million dollars which was going to be used for Isha Vidhya in India and Isha Care Clinic in the US. For the recognition that was long due to Isha's volunteers.
We all felt the oneness in the process. People didn't sleep that night. We doubled up the pace of what we doing.
It was still amazing to see the spirits of the people I was working with. Some of them twice my age, some younger by a few years. People I never imagined I would be so close with, and forever I treat them better than I would treat myself or family.
For several days, the Isha centre in Tamil Nadu had gotten its strong base of volunteers to come out and vote. There were line ups in places likes hostels, centers, and cyber cafes. Votes were gathering fast and the lead had reduced drastically. Only Invisible Children was ahead of us.
Both Isha and Invisible Children were moving at a rate of more than 3000 votes an hour in the final few hours. We were catching up, moving at 4 votes/second and the Facebook server got hung up due to overload when there was an hour left. A big jolt to our path to victory.
We were hoping as a result Chase would extend the 12 am deadline but it did not happen. By this time all the activities started getting media attention and smear campaigns started taking off. It wasn’t the best thing to happen when charities, who were trying to contribute for the benefit of humanity, played dirty games like this. This become a hot topic in our discussion, but by now moving at such a speed, all we could do was sit and watch every minute.
During the last hour we were on Invisible Children's heals. The lead had come down to a few thousands. Both of us crossed 100,000 votes. My folks in India didn't need much support to stay awake, other than a few songs by Sounds of Isha and the speed of our scoreboard.
In the last few minutes, all eyes were oscillating form the scoreboard to the clock. 3000 votes and 15 minutes left. It looked like we could do it, yet it looked far off.
Down to five mins 2000 votes ... all eyes on the clock and the leaderboard, pressing f5 every 2 seconds.
Finally it stopped, the competition ended.
$1MM
Invisible Children Inc
San Diego, CA
123990 votes
$100K
Isha Foundation Inc
McMinnville, TN
122742 votes
We lost by 1200 votes. There were tears in my eyes. Not because we lost, but because so many people around the world cared enough to vote for a better place to live in. Out of all the wars we have been a been a part of, this one was for the well being of the planet, for us and for our kids. It was a victory for humanity no matter which team had won.
Congratulation messages, acknowledgements, sharings... We had become closer than a family in a span less than a week without looking at the sun, food, sleep. Nothing mattered in the last few days. It had come to an end and we didn't want to part. My people back home hadn’t slept the whole night and didn't want to leave too. We wanted to share the moment and joy together.
At some point we had to get moving on, but we knew we are always working together on some level of heart, mind, and soul for Isha and for a better planet.
In one week I had a crash course and experience in social media marketing. I became friends with so many different people and backgrounds. Many sacrificed kids, food and other activities in life. All have become a huge part of my life and we are always in touch like a family. People I have never met before.
I do hope I will be fortunate enough to meet them in this life time and surely we will remember the glorious days where we raced for the Chase competition and experienced grace and care in a way we never imagined before. These moments and people will live in my heart. Forever.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Chase Race Grace
It was the 15th of January 2010, the beginning of one of the most extraordinary weeks in my life. I met some of the best people in my life who, even though I haven’t met or spoken to them, are up there in my top list forever! It was the final round of the Chase Community Giving Contest on Facebook to win $1 million.
Being in Canada, I was not too aware of the promotion happening in India and USA where Isha has stronger presence. But, having the privilege of being the moderator in Isha’s huge Orkut community where a decent buzz was generated, led to one of the most intense experiences of my life.
So, the voting started. I thought I would cast my vote and that would more or less be it.
After, I noticed that the Orkut forum had gotten active about the voting. I answered some questions and cleared some people’s doubt on how to generate more votes. I decided to create a new post on how to gather up votes.
It was well received and people started contributing, seeing Isha move up and down on the scoreboard. Initially, I remember we had around 8000 votes and we were in 8th place. I was telling everyone, "If we get around 10000 more votes, we will win," but how wrong was I!!
Soon the magic of Isha and the competition swept us over. People contacted me asking, "What to do?" We started brain-storming on how to go ahead and “make it happen." We started posting in Orkut communities such as the India one with over a 100000 members and amazingly very active. We had to keep generating new ideas pretty frequently. We started tweeting too, and assisting people unfamiliar with social media became my full-time job.
This was a totally joyous process. Love and care of the highest order is always taken for granted in Isha. We all personally buzzed and annoyed our friends to vote over two days. The score board wasn't what we hoped. A close friend of mine worked in a pretty well-known radio channel in Chennai, and was sweet enough to use her influential powers and get a free minute of prime time radio time. Becky at the ashram was able to coordinate things.
Soon the contacts were starting to grow, both in the US and India. People in both the centers, people who never even heard of each other before were all working like a single organism towards one goal like we had known each other for life times.
Still the lead had not come down. We were in third place, the top two were 20000 votes away and we had no idea how to get there. Soon Kavitha Chibber and Chris Rado voiced their support. Actress Gul Panag, of whom I had never heard, tweeted about the contest and I bungled on the RT! Time was running out and we had to act fast.
I went to sleep after 4 am for two days in a row. Chase was the only thing I was doing. I hadn't stepped out of my bedroom for two days and I almost did not get any fresh air or sunshine during that time. I had dominated the only computer at home for one week.
People's dedication was overwhelming and inspiring and it kept me going.
I did not go to college for class on Thursday. On Friday, the college was taking the newcomers to a ski trip a few hours away for ski lessons and practise for a dirt cheap price and I had signed up. My good friend was talking about how he was bunking college. Inside I felt I should be going on the last day of voting, so I lied to everyone that I was not well and I pulled out of the trip. And I am so glad I did.
To be continued...
Being in Canada, I was not too aware of the promotion happening in India and USA where Isha has stronger presence. But, having the privilege of being the moderator in Isha’s huge Orkut community where a decent buzz was generated, led to one of the most intense experiences of my life.
So, the voting started. I thought I would cast my vote and that would more or less be it.
After, I noticed that the Orkut forum had gotten active about the voting. I answered some questions and cleared some people’s doubt on how to generate more votes. I decided to create a new post on how to gather up votes.
It was well received and people started contributing, seeing Isha move up and down on the scoreboard. Initially, I remember we had around 8000 votes and we were in 8th place. I was telling everyone, "If we get around 10000 more votes, we will win," but how wrong was I!!
Soon the magic of Isha and the competition swept us over. People contacted me asking, "What to do?" We started brain-storming on how to go ahead and “make it happen." We started posting in Orkut communities such as the India one with over a 100000 members and amazingly very active. We had to keep generating new ideas pretty frequently. We started tweeting too, and assisting people unfamiliar with social media became my full-time job.
This was a totally joyous process. Love and care of the highest order is always taken for granted in Isha. We all personally buzzed and annoyed our friends to vote over two days. The score board wasn't what we hoped. A close friend of mine worked in a pretty well-known radio channel in Chennai, and was sweet enough to use her influential powers and get a free minute of prime time radio time. Becky at the ashram was able to coordinate things.
Soon the contacts were starting to grow, both in the US and India. People in both the centers, people who never even heard of each other before were all working like a single organism towards one goal like we had known each other for life times.
Still the lead had not come down. We were in third place, the top two were 20000 votes away and we had no idea how to get there. Soon Kavitha Chibber and Chris Rado voiced their support. Actress Gul Panag, of whom I had never heard, tweeted about the contest and I bungled on the RT! Time was running out and we had to act fast.
I went to sleep after 4 am for two days in a row. Chase was the only thing I was doing. I hadn't stepped out of my bedroom for two days and I almost did not get any fresh air or sunshine during that time. I had dominated the only computer at home for one week.
People's dedication was overwhelming and inspiring and it kept me going.
I did not go to college for class on Thursday. On Friday, the college was taking the newcomers to a ski trip a few hours away for ski lessons and practise for a dirt cheap price and I had signed up. My good friend was talking about how he was bunking college. Inside I felt I should be going on the last day of voting, so I lied to everyone that I was not well and I pulled out of the trip. And I am so glad I did.
To be continued...
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