The title of this post might be a little confusing for those not up on their Twitter happenings. First off, Twestival was an event facilitated by Twitter users with parties held in different cities (over 180 cities) around the world on February 12th. The goal of Twestival was to raise money for charity: water. The Twestival movement was extremely successful, raising 250,000 for charity: water in one night. Julia Roy explains it better:
I had the pleasure of working and brainstorming with charity: water (along with many other amazing nyc volunteers) to organize the Twestival in New York event. Twestival was initiated by @amanda, and as her message spread through Twitter 100+ cities began to organize, independently planning twitter-powered events for February 12th to benefit charity: water. On the night of the event Twitterfolk partied, tweeted and donated more than 250,000 to the cause. When a powerful social network comes together to make a difference, it does.
To help out with the charity: water fundraising, various web celebs from the likes of iJustine, Julia Allison and Meghan Asha all the way to Peter Shankman and Chris Brogan created charity auctions on eBay. In particular, Julia Roy held her own Twestival charity auction on eBay, offering a 6 hour dinner and drinks experience with her.
So why am I writing about this?
Yours truly was the winning bidder; exceeding other Twestival auctions by a longshot - for example, an evening with Julia Allison, Mary Rambin and Meghan Asha went for only 586 (and Julia was on the cover of Wired magazine a few months ago..).
Why?
Aside from the obvious reason — helping out charity: water (seriously, take a few minutes to visit their site and you'll see what I'm talking about) — I did this for a few reasons. First off, being able to pick Julia Roy's brain for 6 hours will be quite an experience. Some of you may not be familiar with her background so let me give you the JR101.
- Delicious: juliapatriciaroy
- Facebook: 565295537
- Flickr: juliapatriciaroy
- LinkedIn: juliapatriciaroy
- Twitter: juliaroy
Julia was the first hire for my friend Josh Spear's digital think tank, Undercurrent. I met Josh over the summer when we both had the opportunity to speak at the TTI/Vanguard Generation Techs conference in Rome. Josh is one of the most successful, remarkable and well-traveled people I have ever met. As you can guess Undercurrent is doing just fine. I could explain all of the great things they've done for their big-name clients but that would take some time.
Julia Roy's role at Undercurrent is head of the Social Life department. She's helped CNN get embeddable videos, launch CNN's headline t-shirt initiative, worked with Pepsi Co for their Dewmocracy campaign and more. On the side, Julia runs a popular show called "Tweet Week" on Youtube. That being said, 1,549 is a drop in the bucket for an experience like this. Julia's most recent Tweet Week episode.
What do I hope to gain? Julia won't be getting out of this one easily. I'll have a bunch of questions prepared. The answers to which I hope will help me take Skribit to the next level in terms of branding, marketing and how things are run.
Julia and I haven't set a date yet but I have a year to redeem this. It will probably be sometime after I attend SXSWi.
Thoughts on Twestival? What questions should I ask Julia?
If you live in NYC drop a note and I'll make sure to ping you when I'm up there so we can grab coffee or something.
Hat tip to Lance Weatherby for bringing this auction to my attention.