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Tag: diabetes community

Share a Story Contests – Too Many or Too Few – Your Thoughts?

Chris Stocker

From here on out, every Friday is going to be an opinionated blog.  Let’s call it, ‘Fired Up Friday’.  During the week I typically blog about things that are going on in my life, hence the Life of a Diabetic blog name.  I try to detail things that can go on while living with diabetes or living normally with diabetes as I call it.  There are a lot of things out in the D world that you may or may not agree with.  In the case of some of my Friday blogs, you may or may not agree with them, if you don’t I would really appreciate your feedback and comments.  The way I look at every situation is this; I may have an opinion on something because I don’t know enough about the other side to form a positive opinion.

Today’s idea came about because of noticing how many different diabetes story contests there are out there.  STOP!

There are enough story submission, share your story, whatever you want to call it contests and sites around, don’t try to create another one.  This is more geared towards companies than it is the d-bloggers.  I am all about d-bloggers sharing their story; in fact I think that part is awesome.  I think guest-blogging is one of the greatest ideas in the world (I am starting a weekly guest blog on February, so don’t be surprised if you get an e-mail from me soon), but all these contests need to stop.  Find a more creative way to engage us diabetics and your “customers”.

The first share your story type of post I saw was on Kerri’s site.  I submitted my story to her when I first started blogging and she published it on her site and I, still to this day, am very grateful and appreciative of that.  These are the type of story submissions that should stay, but I have seen a few companies recently start collecting stories for gifts, and I think it is just one big ploy to get business.

Majority of you know where I used to work, if you don’t e-mail me and we can discuss it on the side, I wouldn’t give them the recognition on my blog.  Bitter?  No, just know the behind the scenes and not legally allowed to speak about it in a public forum like this.  But reason I bring that up is that there was a story submission contest and at the end of it, I didn’t see the corporate benefits of it.  I can definitely see the benefits for the community, because you get to read a lot of people’s stories that you don’t normally see.  Maybe they don’t have a blog, so they aren’t writing about their daily lives, or maybe they have a blog, but you just don’t know about it.

So, I will end this blog with this.  I am all for sharing your story, but with the diabetes OC, not with corporate contests, because you just become an e-mail on a mailing list.

What are your thoughts?  Do you think that there is too many share your story contests out there or do you think that there is not enough?  I am interested to hear your opinions.

Diabetes Awareness Month, I am Challenging Jay Cutler’s People – Stand Up, Stand Together

Chris Stocker

In yesterday’s post I brought up the point of not always working together for the same goal.  I think that the way everybody is working together for IDF and World Diabetes Day is phenomenal.  In the month of November can we band together to do one more thing?  Can we work together to get a sport to support diabetes month?  Just like wearing pink for all the games, let’s wear the blue circle on the back of the helmets or on the arm of the jersey’s or on an NBA jersey.  I think this is a huge opportunity for awareness for diabetes.  But where do we start?

We all have a voice online now, so I say we all dedicate a blog post some time this week and Tweet about it all week until people start to listen.  If we can get one celebrity or a bigger voice than myself on board, I think it will be easy.  I know, let’s start with Jay Cutler.  I admire Jay Cutler, as a former quarterback myself, tremendously.  He may be too tough to get to, so how about Jay’s people.  My people can try and get in touch with his people.  Wait, I don’t have people, I have a blog and Twitter account and some other social media accounts.  So, if Jay Cutler’s people are listening, well reading now, I am challenging you.  I am challenging you to get the NFL to support Diabetes the way they support Breast Cancer awareness.

With November 1 coming up which marks the beginning of Diabetes Awareness month, it may be tough, but things happen a lot faster now with the tools that we all have.  By the way, November 1 is my birthday, sorry little side note.  It is also the day the Eagles play the Giants.  But back to the subject.  I know I am not the only one that believes in this and I know for a fact there’s others out there that are more passionate about it as I am, so work with me, let’s all work together.  Think of how big of an accomplishment this can be for diabetes.

Yesterday when JA Happ of the Phillies won the rookie of the year, he announced that the bonus money they receive for winning the award goes to a charity of their choice, he chose the Diabetes Research Institute.  He even talked about type 1 diabetes like he was an educator.  This is what we need, more people like JA Happ.  I would start with reaching out to him, but quite honestly, I want him focusing on sweeping the Yankees, sorry the Philly fan had to come out somewhere in here 🙂

Whether you are type 1, type 2, type whatever, a family member, a friend, a co-worker, if you have even just ever heard of the word diabetes, commit just one post this week, that’s it, just one short post about this and it can be a great start.  I thank you all in advance.

Diabetes 2.0 at Diabetes Research Institute

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Quick follow up from yesterday’s post about the gnocci’s, 425 blood sugar at 1 a.m.  Enough said.  Now onto some other things that are more important.  I signed up finally today to go to the Diabetes 2.0 conference at the Diabetes Research Institute on November, 7.  I am very excited to attend this year.  I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to attend, but my football schedule changed, so now I can go.  There is so much going on down there so I don’t know what I am the most excited about.

I have met Jay Skyler before and he was one of the best speakers that I have ever heard, so I can’t wait to get another chance to speak with him.  Then there is all of the fellow members of the diabetes community.  I feel like I know all of you already, but have never met any of you, well some.  I was able to finally meet Kerri and Sara up in Orlando at the Children with Diabetes Friends for Life conference this past year.  Definitely looking forward to finally meeting Manny, Allison and Gina.

Then there is so many good things going on at once, so I don’t know which to go to.  I went to a conference in New York back in August and all of the sessions were video-taped and attendees were given a username and password weeks later in order to view the recordings of all the sessions, because it was impossible to make it to all of them.  I love this idea and think that all conferences should be exactly the same way.  Of course it will increase the cost of the conference, but you get more out of it.  All in all, I’m still excited about this one.

I know there are petitions going around, can we start one to get an additional 4 hours in in the day so I can have more time to catch up on blogs.  I thought working through college was tough and time consuming, yeah right!  I’m doing more learning and reading now then I ever did in college.

Time to get back to living the life of a diabetic.