The Next Cure For Boring

“These trips are all the same. And there’s one every week. It’s boring.”

These words from a friend confirmed what I already suspected to be true. Blogging trips are boring.

These Trips Are All The Same

For five years Compassion Bloggers has been taking bloggers overseas to see the ministry of Compassion International and write about it.  And every trip, like computers in the 1980s, looks the same. The size of the group is always the same. The schedule of each day during the trip is always the same. The things we see and write about? The same. The reactions by the bloggers to seeing poverty for the first time? Same.

And There’s One Every Week

Compassion International was the only non-profit partnering with bloggers in 2008. But not anymore. Today, there are at least thirteen organizations similar to Compassion International who have launched blog marketing programs like ours. A lot like ours. These programs seem to be using Compassion Bloggers as their template at times.

So not only is Compassion Bloggers making beige boxes. So is everyone else.

It’s Boring

Apple invented the personal computer. And by 1993 the world was flooded with them. An engineer could tell you what made each one different but to the consumer? All the same. And all boring.

When I was in college I read an article about an experimental computer being tinkered with at Apple called the iMac. A round computer in a rectangular marketplace. A brightly colored machine in a world of boring beige. Steve Jobs decided it was time for a computer that was intentionally and obviously different. Apple believed it had superior technology that deserved to be noticed.

I bought Apple stock when I was 19. I made a down payment on a house when I sold it years later. “Think different” kinda worked.

What’s Next For Compassion Bloggers?

Compassion Bloggers is evolving in 2014. Slowly but surely. Starting with our trip to Uganda January 27-31.

No more beige. Instead of one kind of trip, we’ll have at least three. They will be different from each other and different from anything anyone else is doing too. Because what Compassion is doing in the lives of children around the world deserves to be noticed.

How You Can Help

If you have ideas, criticism or encouragement for us as we evolve, you can email [email protected]. Our best ideas have always come from you. Thank you.

Compassion Bloggers Uganda January 27-31