Mr. President is in the know.
Like everyone else in the world we signed up for Twitter. And like everyone else in the world we went on a mad following spree. The first people to follow us back: me (uh, duh), Boo (our design super-star) and THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Yeah, I know he follows everyone ’cause he’s nice like that but I was still giddy to capture the moment.
Wanna get in on the action? You’ll find us here: www.twitter.com/altrooist
"My Fortune to you" by Ashley E. Meadows
I love Flickr. The many awe-inspiring photos and the people who take them. The abundance of clever captions. The endless supply of kitten pics. And this: a tag search for “kindness” produced pages and pages of search results that made my heart swell.
I quickly favorited a handful and started e-mailing the shutter-flies behind them asking for an interview. Sending short emails with brief explanations of Altrooist and what we hope to do — happily I got lots of yeses. And here is the first.
The photo above was taken by Ashley E. Meadows. Here are her answers to my 5 questions:
1. What caught your eye that made you stop and take this picture?
I always loved getting fortune cookies and this one in particular caught my eye because of the saying. One of those “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”…spread kindness to one and hopefully it will trickle to everyone around you.
2. Pick a color for kindness:
Peach
3. What’s your favorite way to be nice?
Surprising someone you know who is down or who just needs a pick me up with their favorite drink from Starbucks or a card and flowers.
4. Who is your kindness hero?
Mother Teresa. She was so inspiring.
5. Pick one word to describe your best intentions:
Faithful
We are a small, self-funded company with a big dream. We don’t have offices or get paychecks. We’re making this happen because the dream is just that good. It’s worth the long days and the shrinking savings account. Like most ideas that have grown in the hearts and minds of do-gooders, it’s all about doing good.
So, welcome to Altrooist: a site dedicated to the idea that small actions make for big change.
Altrooist will let you post your good deeds and random acts of kindness, and connect with others doing the same. You’ll be able to form teams and issue challenges. You’ll see your good deeds and those of others added to an ever-growing chronology of kindness. We get excited thinking about how this can change attitudes, brighten days, and introduce us to our neighbors. We get excited thinking about the what-ifs: What if a whole high school class joined Altrooist? What if people formed a team to give a million hugs? What if we really make a difference?
Our developer, Eric, is writing the code to turn these ideas into functionality. Our designer, Boo, is making it look amazing. Our CSS mastermind, Shane, is building the bridge between the two. And me, I’m Heather, I’m running the business.
On our teaser site, you can sign up for updates and volunteer for the upcoming beta test. If you’d like to do that, that would be awesome. A good deed, even. Really! Here is the link.
In the meantime, we’ll keep blogging: unveil screen shots, test out ideas, and share things we find inspiring. We hope they’ll inspire you, too.
Do good,
Heather
