Cancer Research Evangelism and The Power of NOW

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I am building momentum in my role as the Cancer Research Evangelist - with the help of many amazing people. This is not in the religious sense, not preaching about the gospel. No, another meaning for evangelist is “a zealous advocate of something”. Years ago, Guy Kawasaki became the Chief Evangelist at Apple, and popularized the word evangelist in marketing the Macintosh for Apple and the concept of evangelist marketing. In 2006 he wrote about the art of evangelism, and even today it resonates with me because its tenets are perfectly suited for advocating for cancer research. I’ve been writing for months about the need for someone to tenaciously advocate, or “evangelize” about supporting scientists that have to spend 75% of their time fundraising. I was at the CANCERx conference recently and heard Dr. Phil Sharp from MIT reinforce the importance of basic cancer research, and how the NIH needs to lead the way.

With this in mind, I’m looking forward to speaking at Jeff Pulver’s next conference, the #140Conf, “State of NOW” on November 14th in Los Angeles. Jeff is a VoIP pioneer, communications visionary, and connector. I met Jeff last year at the Gratitude and Trust conference he co-hosted in NYC, and am a believer in his vision for real time web communication. Since June 2009, Jeff has brought together people from many different backgrounds, from all over the world to share their stories. He calls it “The State of NOW Experience”.  In Jeff’s words, “these conferences provide a platform for people to listen, connect, share, and engage with each other, while collectively exploring the effects of the real-time web on business and in their personal lives.”

I am so grateful for the opportunity to speak at the conference about how I became the Cancer Research Evangelist and why it matters. I’ll talk about how the real time Internet has helped me connect with an amazing community of people who share my passion for supporting cancer research. I call it surrounding myself with good people. People that care.

#Gratitude

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