I received a text message from my dear friend and wonderful actress, Ashley Judd. Ashley was launching an effort with Kevin Bacon called 6 degrees. The program allows individuals to raise money for their favorite charities by placing a custom badge on their own web page or blog. Ashley had asked me to take a look at this early on, and it seemed like a great idea.

In a nutshell, it makes it super easy for someone to tell others about their favorite charities and make it easy to collect donations. Ashley invited me to the kick-off at Sundance this weekend with Bac-o and others. My assistant is franticly trying to juggle things to make it possible for me to attend, including locating my snowboard which got lost my last time flying.

This campaign has all the markings of a successful internet campaign:
1- It is easy to make it my own – The fun comes in making your own badge as well as using a celebrities. In a way you become your own little celebrity. You can embed images and or video along with your own special message. For those of us with blogs, it is easy to add it to the blog.
2- It is easy for someone else to take action – The other person can start the donation process in one click
3- It visibly shows progress – The donation summary is always kept up to date in the badge. I don’t have to update anything to show what is happening.
4- It has an initial push to start the ball rolling – Kevin Bacon and the other celebs give it real star power. Even great ideas like this need some initial push, which the launch at Sundance will do.

With some many worthy charities out there, Kevin feels that it takes a personal recommendation like this for people to act. Regardless, it gets us thinking about the ‘six degrees of Kevin Bacon’ game some more.