Yes we did it! (Actually YOU did it.) We won the competition for Richard Branson’s first ever Pitch TV show! The details are still coming in but as far as I know the five winners will have their pitches debut on Virgin Atlantic Airlines on June 1st and they will run throughout the month. They will also be available on Virgin.com. There has been quite a bit of angst floating around our house in anticipation of this but I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is just too much FUN!! This has the potential to benefit so many more people now and this is why we are SO excited.
I also know full well this opportunity would not be before us if it weren’t for our supporters – and that means you. I have to give shout-outs to @Ev and @Biz as well, because if it weren’t for Twitter I never would have known about the competition in the first place, nor would I have met all the wonderful people I have on Twitter in just these last few months. I must acknowledge my family, their friends, my friends and their friends, the heroes themselves, their parents and friends, all my Facebook people, and the many many people who have reached out to me on Twitter to acknowledge, vote, congratulate, support, retweet, blog, etc. for this effort. I must acknowledge @SocialPMChick for writing a very nice post about this, as well as @LoobaLee for generating a contest around voting for us. @Jyl_MomIF invited us to be guest tweeters for their GNO party this past week which also was of great help to us. I can’t forget my fellow Citizen Blogger at the Frederick News-Post, Carol Silverman, for also blogging about it. All of you have helped make this happen, and we are eternally grateful.
I cannot finish without acknowledging Sir @RichardBranson himself, as it was he who inspired us to “do more” in the early months of 2008. Now it could be the same person who is the catalyst to help Kids Are Heroes go global just one year later. How cool is that??
I must also give a shout-out to @Morri1111 on Twitter – he is the owner of the Hanukkah Tree Topper which was one of the other winning pitches. He was very supportive of our efforts and I know that this sort of behavior gets rarer as we step into the business world.
Stay tuned as we will reveal more details as they arrive. Again, thanks so much for all of your support!! Here is the official announcement of the winning pitches.
In case you missed it, here is the pitch we sent in.
Yes the suspense IS killing me, but I’m loving it. We are facing our largest opportunity for Kids Are Heroes to date. This also just happens to be one of the coolest things to happen to our family in quite some time. Of course I am speaking of our pitch to Richard Branson for his brand new Pitch TV concept. Sometime soon after Monday, April 27th we will discover whether or not we made it to his first “Pitch TV” show. Not only will this show be offered online, but it will also be part of the inflight entertainment for all Virgin Atlantic flights. Mr. Branson never ceases to amaze me. This is a man who drinks every drop of the life that was bestowed upon him. He is always challenging himself and others to push beyond their own perceptible limits. This is how human greatness is uncovered. He devotes a huge amount of his time and resources to better the world. And now he is extending his hand in an innovative way to help budding entrepreneurs. Ok, by now you must think I’m sucking up to him so that he will help my pitch make it through somehow. (Like he ever reads my blog posts…)
It is really funny how life turns out sometimes. The same man who inspired us to “do something more” in February of 2008 could be the catalyst in launching that same project to a global level one year later. Just the buzz that has been created by our pitch being on his blog site has raised our awareness immensely. I have met new Twitter friends who have seen the pitch and reached out to me. Even one of my “competitors” on the pitch site extended his sincere well wishes. We are now pulling for each other. I lay in bed awake at night thinking about what may happen. Mostly I think about the newfound opportunities for the kids on our web site. Increased exposure for us filters right down to them. Since the start of this project I have wanted to stand up on a mountain somewhere and tell everyone to come visit our site. The reason is not self centered; it is because I know people will be inspired in some way, and then bring their children to be inspirited as well. One of the comments on Sir Richard’s blog site under our pitch reads, “My 10-year-old sat and read ‘hero’ profiles for a half-hour on KAH…”. At the time of this writing there were 52 comments on our pitch and all of them were positive. But that particular comment was my favorite because that’s exactly what we want to see. Once kids see what others are doing and see how “cool” and easy it is to do it, they dream up their own passion and start their own project. I bet that 10-year-old will be featured on our site someday.
So, this is Thursday. Four more days until we discover our fate. Regardless of what happens, we will have come out ahead just as a result of the experience. But of course we don’t want this fun to stop. So, if you have a mind to and you support what we are doing, please vote for our pitch at http://richard.virgin.com/vote. Thank you.
This is going to be a really fun week. For the first time we have been invited to be guest panelists for a prominent Twitter force called “Mom It Forward“. These are a group of mostly moms that get together and share information about parenting and other things. They all have the same drive to help different charities so that they may be able to bring their children up with a philanthropic edge to them. MaryMargaret will be the youngest panelist ever for their “GNO” (Girl’s Night Out) party from 9-11PM on Tuesday April 21st on Twitter. We are really looking forward to sharing information as well as all the exciting news that we are enjoying lately. If you are on Twitter and you want to join us, use the #gno hash tag. Don’t know what a hash tag is? See the post I wrote on it. If you like I can even send you a custom TweetGrid for you to use so it makes it simpler to follow the party. Just @reply to @KidsAreHeroes and ask me for it.
The other part of the week will be spent in anticipation of what happens with our pitch. As many of you know, we submitted a pitch to Richard Branson’s “Pitch TV” concept at the end of March. The point of this is that entrepreneurs send in a two minute video to pitch their ideas. A few would be selected to be posted on his blog site. From there, readers can pick their favorite that once chosen, will be played as part of the in-flight entertainment on all Virgin Atlantic flights. Wealthy business people can decide whether or not they want to be a part of investing in or funding a project. Well our pitch made the blog site and the voting ends on Monday, April 27th. This is by far the best opportunity that has confronted us. This could be the springboard for us to realize our vision of taking Kids Are Heroes to a global level. We have no way of knowing how we are doing and I like it that way. Sometimes the anticipation of what could turn out to be is the most fun of all. We will spend this whole week losing sleep and enjoying it immensely. Oh and by the way, if you care to throw a vote in for us and tell others about it we won’t put up a fuss. ;) http://entrepreneur.virgin.com/vote.
Have you ever felt that you were sitting on top of a volcano just before it went off? That’s really how I feel about Kids Are Heroes these days. This project has grown nicely since my daughter MaryMargaret and I started in in March of 2008. We have had quite a bit of press about it over the year. But now it seems that something big is about to happen. We have our first major presentation in front of a school this Tuesday. MaryMargaret’s spring break is different than that of Middletown Elementary, which gives her the unique opportunity to speak to them about Kids Are Heroes. Entering schools is our natural progression. I feel this will be just the beginning. We are starting to connect with all the right people. Twitter has also been a great resource. We have so far been featured in the Denver Post (with ongoing coverage) and have been guests for a podcast thanks to @tumblondad. We will soon be guest “twitterers” during a #gno (Girl’s Night Out) party thanks to the folks at “Mom it Forward”, a subgroup of those that gather at twittermoms.com. This is an incredibly exciting time for us.
We also have a lot of new heroes in the works. Some come from our connections on Twitter and others are local. This next year will be really interesting. We recently produced a video as a “pitch” in response to a call by Richard Branson. As of this writing I have not seen it on his web site, but it is out there for people to see. I honestly think we are very close to having the right people discover us, so that we can make Kids Are Heroes a common household phrase.
If you are interested, we would love to have you be a part of this. If you are a teacher or are involved in your children’s school, please let them know about us. Many schools across the country have a “Character Counts” program, and it just so happens that the leader of that effort at Middletown Elementary was the one who invited us. Teachers can have the students read the stories on the web site. They can be asked to report back about which hero or heroes were their favorites. Perhaps they all can vote on something they would like to do based on further discussion. Parents can bring their own children to the site. Read the stories with your children. See if something sparks. Kids will see how others do it and then find their own passion and start from there. This is a life changing exercise for those that have gone down this road. Every mother and father of the heroes I have spoken with to date are filled with pride and happiness to see how this aids in the development of their child. If you are in the media consider doing a story on Kids Are Heroes. If you know of someone that might be willing to help, please send off the information to them. I can’t wait to see what’s around the corner.
UPDATE: As of 4/13/09 the video has made it to Richard Branson’s web site!! VOTING HAS BEGUN and is open till April 27th. The link to vote is here. Scroll down past the links to the videos, fill in your info and select Kids Are Heroes from the dropdown list, check the boxes and click the Submit button. PLEASE pass this information on to others so they can vote. This has the potential of being life changing for children and families all over the world. (Did someone say “about to explode”?)
I find numbers can be fascinating. Especially as to how they apply to Twitter. There are all kinds of postings and links telling you how to get more followers. I will admit that acquiring more followers can be intoxicating. People might say that they don’t care about followers – it’s the connections you make on Twitter that are important. This is absolutely true – followers without connections mean absolutely nothing. However you cannot tell me that a sudden onrush of followers doesn’t make you feel good. It’s simply human nature to enjoy the concept that people are interested in you. I will readily admit that my numbers are important to me. I crave them not for my ego, but for more exposure for Kids Are Heroes. When I embarked on this social media journey the fuel for me was to gain exposure for this web site because it is an application that works on a global level. And it is indeed working. So I do crave numbers – I said it. However, I will not utilize the methods of gaining them that do so in a cavalier manner. Just today I received a reply in Twitter from someone I wasn’t even following telling me about their free auto-follow program. You can even pay for a program that promises so many followers after just a few months. They claim they are “targeted followers”. I don’t use any of these pyramid schemes to get followers (and I immediately unfollowed the guy who sent me that link). At the time of this update I have over 9,000 followers. By the time I reach my six-month Twitter anniversary I will have reached 10,000. I say that not to be boastful, but to save you from paying for one of those “get more followers” programs. I am going to reveal the “secret” to you how I got my “followers” (I prefer the term “colleagues”). I get Twitter followers by 1) being active on Twitter,by 2) engaging and making connections, 3) maintaining an unreproachable reputation, and 4) effectively managing my following/follower ratio. How do I manage my ratio? By keeping an eye on who returns my follows. (See the tools I use for managing followers at the bottom of this post.) I have said in the past that I do not automatically follow people who follow me, but I do return the follow much of the time. (If you would like to see why I follow and unfollow certain people, see my post on this subject here.) This gets more difficult as time progresses because the more followers you acquire the more spammers you must weed through. http://twellow.com and http://wefollow.com are good sites to look for people to follow. I will also use the Twitter search feature to find new people to follow. I will search for hash tags such as #parenting, #education and #philanthropy. If I find someone I like I will check out their followers to see who else likes them – I might like them too. I also see who they follow – if it’s someone I know well I trust them to have already weeded out the spammers. I look at their profile to see if I might like to follow them and if so I do it. If after a week or so I see that they are not following me back, then I assume they are not interested in me. So I unfollow them. I have also said in the past that the best way to connect with people is if there is a mutual following there, otherwise at least one person isn’t listening. As your numbers grow over 2000, Twitter will limit the number of people you can follow to no more than 10% above the number of people that follow you. This is also a good way of maintaining the proper ratio.
Just last week I saw a notice from Sir Richard Branson that he was asking for “pitches” to be sent to him via two-minute videos. Some of them would be viewable online and the ones from that crop that get the most votes would be aired on his “Pitch TV” show on Virgin Atlantic Airlines as part of their in-flight entertainment. The idea here is that people who fly his airline regularly might be in the position and also might be willing to help young entrepreneurs by funding their projects. Last February I happened to catch the interview Charlie Rose conducted with Richard Branson, and I must say that it was so inspirational to me that it was a major factor in starting the Kids Are Heroes project, which inspires children to change the world by showcasing those that are in the process of doing just that. So how appropriate is it that I send him the Kids Are Heroes pitch? The ideal situation for us is that we get funded just so we can focus solely on this effort, and to help ensure a bright and global future for the Kids Are Heroes concept.
The video is the best I can do with limited funding and even more limited software (anyone want to donate a Mac??). However, I would appreciate feedback, and if you can think of anyone who might like to become involved in a serious way, please point them in our direction. Here is the link to what Richard is doing with his Pitch TV.
UPDATE: As of 4/13/09 the video has made it to Richard Branson’s web site!! VOTING HAS BEGUN and is open till April 27th. The link to vote is here. Scroll down past the links to the videos, fill in your info and select Kids Are Heroes from the dropdown list, check the boxes and click the Submit button. PLEASE pass this information on to others so they can vote. This has the potential of being life changing for children and families all over the world.
Beginning Friday, April 3, we will use a hash tag on Twitter for our Twitterthons. We will append the hash tag ‘#kah’ to each of our tweets so that it is much easier to see what we and all the other Twitterthon participants are saying at the same time. If you use TweetChat or TweetGrid (recommended), you can set up one column to search for #kah which will update automatically. If you participate, you can even tweet from Tweetgrid, and there is a hash tag box that will append all of your tweets with the given tag (kah). This way you will see what all participants are saying regardless of whom you follow. We have even set up a custom Tweetgrid here. Don’t forget to add ‘kah’ (no quotes) to the hash tag box.
If you would like more information on hash tags, please read this post.
So what is a Twitterthon? This is a two hour block held every Friday night that starts at 8PM EST. It is hosted by the two founders of Kids Are Heroes. MaryMargaret (a ten-year-old) will be at the helm of @MMsMusicforLifewhere she will send her favorite contemporary tunes your way along with a few YouTube videos sprinkled in. Her dad will be manning @KidsAreHeroesand @TeamCharlie.@KidsAreHeroeswill send out fascinating tidbits and host a trivia game – categories selected by the contestants. @TeamCharliewill send out a selection of music from totally different genres. Requests are not only welcomed but encouraged.
This is all to benefit MaryMargaret’s Music for Life program – an ambitious project to purchase 150 MP3 players for children at the Children’s Medical Center in Washington, D.C.. If you have enjoyed these evenings please recommend us and consider a small donation to help MaryMargaret realize her goal. This can be done via check or credit card online. All funds are being handled by the Kiwanis Club of Suburban Frederick. For more details, please visit our web site! Thank you!!
Oh and thanks to @Carissa_MomIF for her encouragement and help setting up the Tweetgrid!!
Update: This week (4/10) we have a new permanent co-host. Follow @BootsMeow our cat! She is not just any cat – she has the president of the United States following her!
6 Comments to Read 
Yes the suspense IS killing me, but I’m loving it. We are facing our largest opportunity for Kids Are Heroes to date. This also just happens to be one of the coolest things to happen to our family in quite some time. Of course I am speaking of our 
Have you ever felt that you were sitting on top of a volcano just before it went off? That’s really how I feel about 
I find numbers can be fascinating. Especially as to how they apply to Twitter. There are all kinds of postings and links telling you how to get more followers. I will admit that acquiring more followers can be intoxicating. People might say that they don’t care about followers – it’s the connections you make on Twitter that are important. This is absolutely true – followers without connections mean absolutely nothing. However you cannot tell me that a sudden onrush of followers doesn’t make you feel good. It’s simply human nature to enjoy the concept that people are interested in you. I will readily admit that my numbers are important to me. I crave them not for my ego, but for more exposure for 
Beginning Friday, April 3, we will use a hash tag on Twitter for our Twitterthons. We will append the hash tag ‘#kah’ to each of our tweets so that it is much easier to see what we and all the other Twitterthon participants are saying at the same time. If you use 
