Where is my VOTE?

Where is my VOTE?, originally uploaded by armin_bb.

I have mixed feelings about the unrest in Iran...

My heart is breaking for the folk who have been killed or beaten for expressing their opinions... and for all the folk feeling disenchanted & ripped off by Ahmadinejad - I feel their sense of injustice. I am praying for a peaceful resolution... and hoping this won't turn into another Tiananmen Square.

I am also excited at the use of social media tools such as Twitter, Flickr, blogs & the like... as a means of disseminating the true story of what's going on. People are bravely circumventing the authorities to tell their stories... and I think that's awesome. This new media is getting to folk like you and me far faster than the traditional media outlets can get it to us. That's mindblowing, if you ask me.

For me... the mobile phone comes into its own here as the key tool in the unrest. Watch footage on the news and you'll see phones in the air capturing the events unfolding.

That said... it terrifies me to think I could help the authorities in some way by linking to key Tweeters / bloggers etc... so I won't. In a similar frame of mind... I hope no one is identified from this pic that I found on Flickr.

Its times like this when I feel deeply humbled. The tools I use to inform my network of my goings on... are being used in far more powerful and meaningful ways. As I said in a tweet earlier...

When I consider all that's going on in Iran... it makes today's issue about album art on my iPhone so insignificant.

If ever there was a convincing demonstration for the useful/meaningfulness of social media then this is it. It may be trivial to us... but its life or death to folk in Iran just now.

Please take time to think/pray for the unrest in Iran... and that a peaceful resolution may be found.