By Mary Gardner, GET CONNECTED

Everyone knows that social networking takes a ton of our time, but for what? Is anyone getting results?

After speaking with my friend Diana Scimone who is the Director of www.born2fly.org, whose sole goal is to stop child trafficking, I found that big money can be made by holding a Twitterthon!

On Sept 9, 09, Born2fly’s goal was 9000 people each giving $9.  It was a one day fundraiser to distribute materials to kids at risk and to their parents and teachers.

Her results were astounding. With one month to go, she started posting 31 days of blogs and asking Twitterers to spread the information about the fundraiser everywhere. They included links to the website, and had a “Chip in button” where people could donate safely by PayPal or credit card. Diana asked everyone on her personal list and asked them to send it to 9 people.

On 9-9-09, the donations started flowing in and they were from all over the world. Diana kept the website updated all day and gave away prizes. This really helped to keep the interest up and served as a central point of command.

Some heard about it through flyers passed out at a church in Indiana, and most were from people she didn’t know, but were touched through the powerful tool of the internet – on Facebook, through blog posts, through the traditional news media, and of course, through Twitter.

At this point, there are dozens of countries who have heard the awesome work that is being done to educate the kids about child trafficking. And Diana hopes to get to as many people as possible and that she gets there ahead of the traffickers. They didn’t hit their goal of $81,000- yet,  but they did raise a whopping $20,000 on that day!

Who knew that Twitter would be used to serve children and save them from a life of destitution and crime? Being socially responsible through social networking? It’s the new way to play the game!

In the beginning I wrote about futuristic stuff and then it became a lot of my communication coaching and then they asked me to write about Social Media and technology. So, that is now my assignment. I’m excited about it because it forces me to learn about the new Social mediums which I would probably never do if I didn’t really have to. But I’ve found that I really enjoy exploring on the computer and seeing who is doing what and how they’re using the many social networking tools.

Today I’m researching TWITTER. It’s a way for all of your “connected” friends to follow your every move. I think I’m really going to enjoy it, since I have grown addicted to my blackberry just like nearly every other person. So far, I have 4 people following me, although I’m not sure really how to follow others yet, and I haven’t been able to locate my account even though I’ve searched for it, so I’m not sure how others are going to find me. Still, I’ll plug away at it for a few minutes here and a few minutes there until I can write coherently about the subject.

As I research, I find more and more topics that I want to explore and so I feel like I’m discovering a new frontier. It’s very exciting, especially since most people in my age bracket aren’t playing around with these tools like people who are in their 20s and early 30s. So, in a sense, I feel that I’m keeping trendy and edgy by learning these networking avenues and I’m able to pass along this information to my coaching clients. For that I am grateful.

It’s a bit time consuming, and each time I dig into one new tool it brings me to new programs called applications which leads me down a whole new path. In order to “decorate” my pages with the subjects that are of interest to me then I have to read a bit about what they’re promoting in order to see if I “connect” with their message.

I’ll document my learning, or my absence of learning, and I’ll continue to update my Facebook and my Twitter accounts as I grow comfortable and get in the habit of relying on them as a networking and entertainment and learning source.

I hope you’ll take the journey with me and add these tools to your own sales and marketing plan. Make sure you invite me to be your friend!!! And you can become mine!

Verna, who works for Mark Brooks’s company, Courtland Brooks Agency was the press contact who sat me on a bench and brought one interesting entrepreneur to me after another. She kept my plate full with dynamic people doing incredible things on the web.

One such person was a guy by the name of Markus Frind. Markus is a regular kind of guy who looks really smart and wears really cool glasses but when I saw his company name, I nearly got weak at the knees. I started jumping up and down and screaming like I was meeting a rock star. And to me, I was!!! My husband had just recently read an article about Markus who is the owner and founder of the number 1 dating website in the world called Plentyoffish.com Before I stopped screaming and jumping up and down I quickly called my husband and asked him the name of the website we were reading about recently. When he announced it was plentyoffish.com, I promptly handed the phone over to him and introduced the two programmers to one another.

Before you start thinking that I’m a complete geek, let me share, that one report stated that Markus makes about 10 million $ a year off of his free social networking site. Although he didn’t confirm it to me, he told me he stopped sharing the amount of money he was now making. Oh yah, and did I mention, that he only has one employee?? And his biggest competitors, like eharmony or match.com employee 400-500 people? Markus is just ONE person, and he’s recently hired one gal to work for him.

After getting over my initial shock that I was sitting with Markus Frind, the founder of www.plentyoffish.com, I settled in on asking the questions that I wanted to know! I wasn’t interested in how he did it necessarily; I was more interested how one person could achieve such dramatic results, and what sort of person he was to focus on one major purpose like he did.

So my questions started: why did he pick opening a dating website? Because he wanted to service as many people in the general population as possible. How did he do it with just one person? He focused every single day on how to make it better and while he would listen to the feedback from the participants, he ultimately listened to his gut instinct. Why was his site so special I asked? Not because it looked good he told me. He said programmers like bells and whistles, but the average person just wants it to work. That’s all they care about! He doesn’t try to make it look good. He just wants it to be great at allowing people to meet. Then I asked where he worked and what sort of person he was? He told me he grew up on a farm in Canada, originally from Germany and he didn’t know the language when he moved there, but over time he grew up and found he liked programming. He told me he lived in a 2 bedroom apartment and didn’t any distractions. He was competitive, and just loved that he was like David in David and Goliath. I loved that scenario. I loved it that he was sitting in an apartment continuing to make his site better and better, and not out spending all of his money on himself. He didn’t get caught up in the glamour of the money and continued to keep his life simple. I commented to him that now he could afford boats and cars and houses anywhere. He did admit to buying a BMW, but that was about it. He also travels a lot now but other than that, he still likes things simple.

It was such a pleasure to meet Markus. I am impressed by his accomplishment of course, but more than that, by how he chooses to live. He lives simply and without the bravado. It made me want to scale back, and to stop the thousands of things that I do, and think about the ONE thing that I want to achieve.

What about you? Do you have one project that gets you up early every day and keeps you up at night? Do you spend your precious energy thinking about how to make it better or more improved?

Just think about what one person can do. When one person gets completely focused, and puts all of their heart, mind and soul behind a project, the possibilities are limitless.

The power of One.
It’s all we really need.
The power of ONE.

Today I wrote a sentimental letter to about 10 people who I considered my closest friends from when I was a little kid. I reminded them of the fun relays we used to have, and the swim meets where we spent time unified as a team, and reminded my first boyfriend of our childhood dates to McDonalds. It was a simpler time then, when as 8 and 10 year olds, we could ride our bikes a couple of miles to the pool by ourselves, spend the whole day and come home for dinner. We’d stay and play after swim practice and our parents didn’t have a care in the world because they knew who everyone was and that all of us were being taken care of by the other parents.

Thinking back to the old times and to the people that we were has been a wonderful experience for me. None of us had really gone through any awkward social times by that time, and all of the boys and girls hung out with each other with no expectations and no agendas. I remember years later when my first boyfriend from 7th grade made fun of me in front of others in high school and I remember thinking that he had changed somehow, and that he was no longer the boy who I knew “way back then.” I publicly ignored his taunting, but it did hurt to know that we didn’t share that special friendship any more.

Then, he grew up and became a very successful and powerful professional in the Orlando area and someone I’d probably never have the chance to meet as an adult. But today in an email, I reminded him of whom he was when he was 9 years old, and who I was and I know that he smiled when he clicked the “send” button to let me know that he’d love to come to a swim team reunion.

Our coach was one of the most important people in my life. He believed in me and told me on the side of the pool one day that I could be anybody I wanted to be in life.. He told me that if I worked hard, if I wanted to swim in the Olympics, that I had the talent to do so. While that never came true, I still remember feeling special, and often credited him as the person who gave me that extra push in life.

Last night when I was reminiscing due to spending time at the “old” pool, but not seeing anyone have NEAR as much fun as we used to have, I decided to throw an old reunion for my former team members. So this morning I wrote to as many people as possible from the old team and reminded them of the good ol’ days. I wrote about the pizza parties, the relays, the late summer nights, the slumber parties, the swim meets and the pranks we pulled on each other. Then I told them that they were all very special to me, and that I’d love to see them again and suggested we have a reunion. I shared with them that I’ve been to too many funerals lately, and it seems that too many people share the same thought: “I wish I would have told him how special he was to me.”

So now, I sit at my computer anxiously awaiting the response. Will they think I’m incredibly corny? Will they be embarrassed for the stories I told? Will they want to forget those ol’ Happy Days and not live in the past? Or will they chuckle and for a moment, revert back to being a kid in their minds, and remember the great times we all shared and know that they wouldn’t miss this reunion for the world?

I’ll take a risk to be corny, and to be called mushy or whatever else they come up with for me after reading my invitation. I just feel content that I’m not waiting to let these people know how special they are, before it’s too late.