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Last night, after a week of stillness and silence, British airspace reopened. Today the sun came up, I woke up to the drone of a faraway plane, and I felt just a little bit less alone.

After a six-day flight ban affecting just about all of Western Europe, the beginning of a return to normality, even for someone who hasn’t been stranded somewhere or had her travel plans thwarted, is a welcome thing.

Over the course of less than a week, the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano — an Act of God, technically speaking — has grounded close to 100,000 flights and cost the airline industry $1.7 billion, or £1.1 billion. Hundreds of thousands of passengers have been stranded, the lucky ones put up in hotels on their insurers’ or their airlines’ expense, the unlucky ones left at the airport to hope for the best. The skies above London, usually buzzing with air traffic from 6am until 11pm, have been utterly still. 

No one has been getting in, and no one has been getting out. 

The Eurostar and the ferries that connect the UK to the mainland have, of course, been chockerblock-full. Despite extra services being laid on by everyone from small cruise operators to the Royal Navy, the flow of human traffic has come to a near-complete halt. For love or money, you you can’t get on — or off — the island right now. 

The volcano was a surprise for most people, myself included. But for me, more surprising than the smoke, the ash, the lava and the flight ban was what followed: my own bizarre reaction to this volcano-induced exile. 

A friend, ex-teammate, and heroine of mine is cycling 11,900 km through Africa.* Carola is making this epic trek in aid of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, a Canadian organization doing major things for people affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa, and the Tour D’Afrique Foundation… yeah, who?

The Tour D’Afrique Foundation is a six-year-old David in a peloton of Goliaths. Little guys like this can get lost in the fundraising fray, so it’s no surprise I had never heard of them — the budget is small, they have few international associations and there are no celeb ambassadors to sex things up. But they DO something clever and logical and important — they provide bikes to health-care workers and other people who help make communities work. As they operate on a small, agile scale, you can easily see the difference twenty Euros makes. Children are taught, babies immunised and adults supported because of organizations like this one. This is truly good work.

Where does social media come into all this, then?

Well, that’s the annoying bit. It doesn’t — yet. Looking at a — doubtlessly under-resourced — charity like the Tour D’Afrique Foundation, social media tools could and should be harnessed to get this cause blipping on more people’s radars, but the digital divide is still getting in the way. Their site is clunky, hard to navigate, and does a good job of hiding the best bits about them.

But I think change is coming.

One of the things that makes me so excited about social media is that these tools are easy to use. Sure, I’m an early adaptor, but I’m also a tech-phobe who still can’t reset the microwave clock. And I am very hopeful that this new wave of user-loving social media tools will offer voices like this one everything they need to be heard… and that the audience will continue to grow.

I’m listening, and I bet I’m not alone.

*Like on a pedal bike, with a hard little bum-pinching seat, and sleeping in a tent, and forgoing hot showers, and all this for three months. I’m all for putting my money where my mouth is, but the buck, for me, stops a LONG way short of 12,000 clicks on a two-wheeler. Brava, girl.

Prediction two: the most compelling and effective campaigns will be those which are most human, not necessarily those with the most recognizable brands.

I think campaigns for change tend to stick close to the brand of the organization in question — and for good reason. By developing credible, recognizable brands, charities and NGOs legitimize themselves as businesses, at least in the eyes of would-be donors. There’s an element of practicality to it: just as the meter reader brings his ID when he comes a-knockin, so do so many organizations when they come an-askin’.

But I think social media tools offers the possibility to set aside the brand and humanize the cause, and by doing this over time, to foster meaningful relationships between the consumer and the cause.

dynamic relationships with real people
Nora Younis is an Egyptian journalist and blogger who tweets about daily life in Gaza. Her story is compelling, I think, because it is human and ongoing. As her community (and as the consumers of her messaging), we grow to know her cast of characters and fear for them and hope for them as we would our own friends.

traditional media: gone as far as it can go?
AMV BBDO’s ‘Jane and Adam’ campaign for BT is maybe the most recent example of traditional media telling personal, human stories over a period of time. Television and print campaigns tend to go single-serving with their stories, maybe because it’s so easy to get the serial approach wrong.

brass tacks
Traditional media is pricey, inflexible, requires huge lead-time and several layers of production. Web2 offers the possibility of free-to-cheap campaigns that are agile, portable, instant and almost without artifice. The obvious hurdle is trust — the online community deplores a hoax — but that’s a non-issue for an ethical campaign.