I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe. —Dalai Lama
There are always celebrations of some kind for every day of the calendar, but a few are actually important
There is something on the calendar for every day of the year, no matter where one lives or what one does. Someone is always celebrating something. For example, today, March 21, is Single Parent’s Day. I’m sure we all know a few single parents who could use a world of encouragement, or maybe a babysitter for three or four hours. Today is also Memory Day, Common Courtesy Day, World Down Syndrome Day, and French Bread Day. Just so you’ll be prepared, tomorrow is National Goof-Off Day; you may want to adjust your plans accordingly.
With so many different days of recognition, it is sometimes difficult to know which ones are truly important versus those that are just rather silly things to toss into a calendar somewhere. I’m not sure exactly what one is supposed to do with French Bread Day, for example, beyond the obvious: Have a baguette. However, there are some days when, especially in the realms of advertising and marketing, the opportunities are great as long as we don’t miss them.
Case in point: Today is Twitter’s 10-year anniversary. They’ve celebrated with this video full of moments when tweeting mattered.
Starting in 🇦🇺 on 3/21 and moving across the 🌍, we thank you for 10 incredible years.
Love, Twitter#LoveTwitterhttps://t.co/pH4WWdgK6q
— Twitter (@twitter) March 20, 2016
Celebrating the anniversary of a social media platform may not seem like all that big a deal, but be certain that any message sent with the #LoveTwitter hashtag is going to get thousands, and quite possibly millions of views. Attaching the hashtag to your tweet, which could include a link back to your website or a product page, has the same potential as a general piece of direct mail. And while we tend to think of tweets as time sensitive, it’s not unusual to get likes and retweets and click-throughs on tweets that are several months old. So, while it may seem on one level that celebrating Twitter’s birthday is a bit shallow, it can potentially be a powerful marketing tool.
At the same time, however, acknowledging special days also gives one the opportunity to align with global causes and charities as a way of showing involvement in one’s community and opens the door for making a broader impact. For example, today is also #HumanRightsDay around the world. Human rights represents a struggle that extends from the farthest reaches of the globe to our own backyard. Gender rights. Race issues. Immigration. Child labor. Hunger. Disease. Anything that involves people, any place where the playing field is not totally even, human rights comes into play.
Not only does participating in Human Rights Day allow others to see that you or your company cares about the condition of people around the world, not participating in such an event also says that one doesn’t care, which can develop into a PR nightmare. Show how diverse your workforce is. Highlight ways in which your company addresses matters related to human rights in a positive fashion. Even better, actually get your employees together and do something, such as such as organizing a clean water drive or volunteering at a homeless shelter as a demonstration of your commitment to human rights.  Use Periscope or Snapchat to broadcast your activity so people can see you’re not just a lot of marketing hot air. Being in touch and participating in days like this is increasingly important in employee and customer retention. People need to know you’re not just out for a quick profit.
Then, you might also want to consider celebrating #WorldPoetryDay both on a personal and professional basis. World Poetry Day was established by UNESCO to, “to support linguistic diversity through poetic expression and to offer endangered languages the opportunity to be heard within their communities.” Poetry is such an incredibly important part of how we communicate, how we express ourselves, that to not celebrate poetry is to ignore one of the most fundamental aspects of free speech. I especially love this quote from Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO:
By paying tribute to the men and women whose only instrument is free speech, who imagine and act, UNESCO recognizes in poetry its value as a symbol of the human spirit’s creativity. By giving form and words to that which has none – such as the unfathomable beauty that surrounds us, the immense suffering and misery of the world – poetry contributes to the expansion of our common humanity, helping to increase its strength, solidarity, and self-awareness.
World Poetry Day is more than just a marketing opportunity. This is a time to celebrate the diversity of language and communication. Poetry is more than just the careful construction of verse, but a key element in the very construct of our civilization. To ignore poetry is itself a form of illiteracy. This is one of those days we should not only celebrate for ourselves, but encourage everyone around us to do so as well, not simply for the literary exercise, but for the betterment of our whole society.
Days like today are important. When we exist at a time where turmoil is ever present, where unrest is a daily reality, where tragedy stands waiting on every street corner in even the most quiet of neighborhoods, we need days like this where we can embrace something good, something positive. Days like today don’t require one to embrace a religious ideology or a political point of view. Days like today simply require us to be human, to embrace ourselves and each other as common survivors of a world in chaos.
We need days like today, you and I. Don’t miss out.
The Great Art Caper
An international crime ring is caught, just like in the movies
The Short Version
Spanish officials announced that they had arrested 75 people who were part of a ring of art thieves. The thieves had stolen over 3,500 pieces of art, many of which had come from countries currently at war. Several different agencies were involved in breaking the ring that had been active all over Europe for several years.
A Little More Detail
Spanish officials are just now letting the world know about a series of arrests that occurred back in November of last year, effectively breaking up a major art theft and trafficking ring that had been active all across Europe. 75 people were arrested and charged with involvement in the ring and over 3,500 pieces of art were recovered. Some of the art had been stolen from museums while others had been looted from countries at war.
This was no small undertaking. The case was known as “Pandora” and not only involved Spanish police, but InterPol, EuroPol, and Unesco, as well as officials from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bosnia- Herzegovina, Cyprus, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K. Can you imagine all the coordination and effort it took to keep all those different government entities working together? Spanish police should receive some kind of commendation just for organizing the whole thing.
The operation was apparently centered in Murcia, Spain, where some 500 artifacts were retrieved, including 19 pieces stolen from that city’s archeological museum in 2014. One link led to another. Over 48,000 people were interviewed as part of the Pandora project. Archeological pieces were tracked through sales around the globe, many of those sales occurring through online facilities such as ebay.com.
While officials said the Pandora investigation is now closed, UNESCO announced that 92 additional investigations have been opened as a result of the Pandora project. We’re thinking this whole thing is just begging to be made into a movie. Interested, Mr. Spielberg?
What’s the take away in all this? Don’t buy antiquities and art pieces online, dumbass. Buyers are responsible for doing appropriate due diligence before purchasing such work. The number of looted artifacts has exploded with the various wars in the Middle East. If you’re in the market, work only through a reputable art dealer and avoid online purchases.
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