First of all, my sincere thanks to everyone who participated and/or supported Pink for October 2007. While it’s an obvious statement, it should be said that without you the event would be nothing. Second of all, a few people need special thanks.

Tammie Lister designed Pink for October and put up with me. That in of itself deserves a medal.

Zach Inglis worked very hard trying to get an app he built up and running for us. In the end, it didn’t work, though neither us nor Media Temple (this site’s host) knows why. Regardless, I appreciate the hard work and good code he produced in support of this event.

Kevin Hale of Wufoo (which runs our sign up page) came through for us by getting us set up and going. Something that would have taken us many, many hours of entering data by hand.

Everyone who made blog templates available made it easier for more people to Go Pink. Lowering that bar of entry is a very important thing. Not everyone has the time or knowledge to redesign their site.

How Many People Went Pink?

Not everyone put their site on the official sign up page, so it is difficult to give an accurate count. Based on the sign up page, blog search engines like Technorati, Bloglines, and Google, reports from others from online communities like Bebo, Myspace, and LiveJournal we had roughly 3000 sites Go Pink.

Even though it is an interesting bit of data, it isn’t the most important thing.

What Kind of Impact Did Pink for October Have?

The short answer is: I don’t know exactly. Last year we were happy with getting the event noticed and thinking solely in terms of numbers. This year we talked a lot (and saw a lot of talk) about marketing and the color Pink. Based on what I read on others’ blogs I feel like people were more engaged this year.

I feel we met our goal with many people becoming more aware and knowledgeable about the many issues related to Breast Cancer. In the end, we want people to be smarter consumers. Consumers of products and information. We hope that there are now 3000 people who have more knowledge and/or less fear than they did 31 days ago.

Random Stats

Only because I am a stats junky. And so are you.

165 responses to our survey on the colour pink.
Gained 1669 blog “reactions”a on Technorati since October 1, putting us in the top 4000 blogs they track.
3070 hits on Google’s BlogSearch.
538 hits on BlogPulse.
30,000 unique visits to the site.
“Breast cancer awareness month” was the top search term with “October” a close second.
Biggest referring site was Google, but after that were Abby Winters (nudity, not safe for work) and Derek Punsalan.
402 people joined the cause on Facebook.
300 or so emails received. 299 were positive, 1 was negative. Better ratio than last year.
$105.38 raised, that I know of. If you raised money let me know in the comments.

Apologies

We had a lot planned for this year. Perhaps too much, but not too too much. Some problems with the site at the beginning of the month, couple with getting sick for a week and a half, coupled with being busy at work led to less being done here. But that’s what happens when you have two people working on something like this not-full-time.

Next time we do this, we will need more help. What I really need is a lawyer who specializes in setting up international, not-for-profit organizations who is willing to work pro bono. I also need people who are good citizen journalists and have video cameras. And other help too. Leave a comment or send me an email if you are interested in helping out in these capacities.

I consider this year’s event a complete success, but it was less than we hoped for; solely based on our own expectations of what we wanted to accomplish.

Regardless, I thank you all. You now have 304 days before I start bugging you about Going Pink for October again. You also have 121 days before I start bugging you about Green for April.

Last year I wrote some blather that included the words “How do I ever really know that it’s gone? That it’s not there lurking?”

The answer, of course, is that you don’t. But somehow I was still surprised at the beginning of September this year when they discovered that my cancer has metastasised. Someone had the audacity to tell me that they were never surprised when cancer came back. Well, I was. For all my fears, part of me believed them when they told me good things; when they were positive at me and when people talked about 2 and 5 year survival rates.

So I feel really dumb now that I have cancer in a lung and in my spine and in my lymph nodes. I feel stupid for ever having believed that I could beat cancer. I feel stupid about all the times I chirpily told people that I seemed to be doing well and that I was nearly reaching my 2-year mark which was good news. Not good enough. I feel a bit like I’ve failed. Although I know that it’s nothing to do with what I did or didn’t do. Cancer just does what it likes and it obviously really *loves* me.

It’s a lot harder to be positive this time around because I know that this time there is no chance of happily-ever-after. If I’m lucky then it can be controlled for some time but there’s no chance of a “cure.”

This is a management situation only and I haven’t worked out how to live with a disease that’s trying it’s damnedest to kill me.

—embrook