I was struck today by two different campaigns that are coming out of the USA, but striving for a global audience. The first one was from IdeaList.org - Action Without Borders - and the next from AVAAZ.org - The World In Action.

Idealist's present campaign is to get folks together during the week of February 5-11 "to help launch a global network of people who want to change their communities and the world by connecting people, ideas, and resources in every possible way." This does seem like a very interesting challenge to use the virtual world to challenge people to get together in the physical world. By having the opportunity to meet face-to-face and look at the opportunities we have to work together there is a chance make the world a better place. Over 200 people have organized events around the world to meet and discuss and look for potential opportunities for collaboration.

AVAAZ's campaign seems to be a more traditional appeal to join their Internet March for global peace. I signed up like the 68,370 people before me. Their goal is to get 75,000 people to join them by signing their petition. Hopefully, we'll be contacted on January 27th when they attempt to see the "rebirth of the US peace movement." Eli Pariser from MoveOn.org sent out this notice to his list, as have others so there is quite a bit of momentum behind this. I was a bit surprised that there wasn't any kind of action requested of those people who signed up.

It will be interesting to see what type of follow-up comes from these campaigns in February. In the mean time, please consider participating in both of them.