Earlier this week, Alan sent me an email that introduced me to the Raleigh Twestival. It was something that was right up my alley. It combined twitter, which I am an avid user of, and charity:water, which I am also a big fan of.

I went to the event without really knowing much about it. When I got there, I felt a bit out of place. I asked some of the organizers, "What am I supposed to be doing?" The response included food, beer, networking with people and buying raffle tickets. I was a little confused because I was expecting there to be something about water in there.

It took me a little while and a couple Shotgun Bettys to realize that people weren't necessarily there to talk about water, but if I brought it up, they were willing to talk about it. So, I just started talking to people.

I talked to Nick from Click Optimize. We talked for a few minutes and had a great conversation. Then, he encouraged me to tell my story in front of the camera. MyNC.com was there filming people tell why it was important for them to come out. The interviewer, Lisa Sullivan, said that she had been limiting people to thirty seconds, but she gave me the green light to tell my story.

You can see my interview here:

[NOTE: When I said 503(b), I really meant 501(c)(3). Oops.]

If you are interested in learning more about my project, you can contact me at info (at) dynamicwater (dot) com.

After my two minutes of fame, I mingled a little more. Then, they drew the winners for the raffle. I bought six tickets for a dollar each. It was all the cash I had. I put five of my tickets in raffles for gift cards to restaurants and one of them in for a prize pack from Edward McKay's Used Books.

I ended up winning the EdMcKay raffle. I got the BBC Planet Earth Series on BluRay. To bad I don't have a BluRay player. I hear that it is awesome. I also got five books: Water Wars, Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource, It's Easy Being Green, An Inconvenient Truth, and True Green. I also got an EdMcKay t-shirt. All-in-all, it was a pretty sweet prize for a one dollar raffle ticket.

Before I left, I also met several people from an internet marketing group. One of them, a lady named Cynthia Richards, spent part of her childhood in East Africa. So, she was excited to hear about my water project.

I also met a guy from TriangleBlvd.tv. It turns out that he, Damon, played soccer at NC State and Diana and Jason know him. He was interested in getting me a spot on their site. I hope that comes through. It could be some good publicity.

The first thirty minutes I was at the Raleigh Twestival, I was disappointed. However, when I left, I was more amped than I have been in years. It was an incredible networking opportunity. I'm really glad I went.

Were you there?

Labels: activism, books, dynamicwater, dynamicwater.org, mync.com, raleigh, triangleblvd.tv, twestival, twitter, video, water