The blogosphere is all a-buzz about an end of the year major magazine publishing tradition. Apparently, I have won the award this year. Read about it from my fellow bloggers: here, here, here, here, here, here .

My response:

Thank you for the thought, but I must respectfully decline.

OK– social media is giving us all new tools to connect with one another and is having an impact business and media. I don’t argue that. However, in the whole scheme of things, I think the selection is a little rediculous. (However, I must respect the magazine’s savvy use of the social media to to generate a buzz and hopefully newsstand purchases). In the magazine’s defense, at least they did not pick some celebrity disgrace— imagine the sales if they had used that picture of Britney Spears on the day she obviously should have been at home doing the laundry.

Since I’m turning down the award, I’d like to propose someone to stand in my stead. I think these types of things should be given to people who make a difference for the better and give me hope that humankind isn’t going to Hell in a handbasket.

I think I’d like to give my award to:

Matt and Jessica Flannery, founders of Kiva. Kiva is an online microfinance portal. The philosophy behind microfinancing is that you loan small amounts of money to people in third world countries or to people with little or no ability to borrow money to start a self-sustaining business. These types of loans are ones that can eventually lift people out of poverty and allow them to feed and clothe their family.

More on the nominees can be found here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

The Kiva Blog can be found here.

I’ve always loved the idea of microfinance and now Kiva makes it easy to have a trusted way to help people whose stories tug at your heart.

OK– now it is your turn. Please chime in with a comment or a trackback. Let this be a meaningful meme that outgrows the buzz of the clearly empty, attention-seeking actions taken by this publication (which I refuse to name or link to –afterall, they do not need any more buzz). Also please tell your friends about this as I have chosen not to tag this post in any way that would garner more attention for ‘you know who.’