5 years ago, when I was 19 I wrote a 5 year plan, a little try hard, I know. I identified goals, dreams, conquests, everything my teenage brain could handle and hoped for professionally. I came across that 5 year plan recently, and was in awe. Nearly everything has come true. I am currently working on a project called Summit on the Summit, it is a mix of everything I love and find inspiration from. A project where celebrities, musicians, activists, educators, corporations and organizations come together for a GREATER GOOD all in the playground of the interactive web.

Currently Santigold, Lupe Fiasco, Emile Hirsch, Jessica Biel, Alexandra Cousteau, Elizabeth Gore, Dr Greg Allgood, Kick Kennedy, & Simon Isaacs amongst others are well on their way to the top of Mt Kilimanjaro. They are all doing it in the name of clean water. Every 15 seconds a child dies from a preventable water related disease - that is the equivalent of crashing a 747 jet, filled with children, into a mountainside… every 2 hours every day of the year. There are plenty of water related organizations, but this conquest will no doubt bring a level of awareness to an issue that many did not know existed.

My job holds a title that did not really even hold a space a few years ago. I am the Social Media Director, I take content and connect it on the platforms people use every day, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and blogs. I work with our amazing sponsors and beneficiaries to bring people in, give them the tools to get involved, get active, educated and truly make a difference in the spaces they share with their friends and their family.

The social media space is getting smarter - people can see an advertisment from a mile away, know when you are genuine, when you are pitching, and when you have something to get behind. The best part about SMM is people will do all of your advertising FOR YOU. Imagine that, a world where the people choose when they want to take something viral, when the word is worth spreading, and will simply delete, block, or ignore you if you aren’t being true to what you are. And that is really it, if you are true to your product, your purpose, your cause, then your niche will find you and show you more support than you could dream of from a paid, rehearsed 30 second clip on TV. This project has been a dream, I pinch myself daily (and I bruise like a peach!) and know we are making history in the making - some celebrities attend galas, others scale mountains.

Follow our journey:
www.twitter.com/SOTSK
www.facebook.com/summitonthesummit
www.summitonthesummit.com

You can find me tweeting about everything from cupcakes to the water crisis on @lovesocial

Azita Ardakani, partlySunny Guest Writer

*Photo Credit:  Christine Chang