The first linker is a non-governmental organization, called The Urgenta Foundation. Following is an excerpt from their website: “The Urgenta Foundation is a Dutch non-profit volunteer charity organization (NGO) engaged in community development aid to Eastern European developing countries like Romania and Moldova.”

As you can see, this is a perfect match as through Kiva one can micro-finance projects in Eastern Europe. I know this might not bring much added value for those of you that are surfing this site because of log homes, but I promise it will remain the main focus of the site.

Ok, one dollar going for Kiva and 999 more pending, deadline being the last of February. Then it is time to change the project. Let’s see how much we get to donate in links and in money.

I remember the first time that I was dealing with Americans. Whenever I met people on the street that I knew, they said, “Hi, how are you doing?” I stopped there in the middle of the road “Well, now that you asked…” but they didn’t stop neither looked back they just kept on walking to the opposite direction. I wondered why they pretended to be interested but then just walked away?

That above memory came to my mind when I was reading an article at Seth Godin. He tells an example about corporate communication that sets expectations high. If you listen to the customer but don’t act accordingly, you will leave them standing on the street wondering whether to keep on walking or running after a real communication.

For few times I have sat in a development meeting where customer feedback has been the topic of the day. Just as many times the conclusion of those meetings has been that we need to change our marketing communication to better fit the image that customers have on us. We promised to deliver in seven days, but too often the delivery was few days late. Solution: we started to talk about two weeks as a delivery time. Problem solved. My experience is that customer feedback rarely changes business operations.

Nobody emailed me about linking to the One House At A Time organization. It is really hard to get people aboard on something, even if it is good. We could be so busy with our lives that there is time for reading the web not for doing the web.

Anyhow, February’s linkdonating target is Kiva. For me this word is especially nice, because in Finnish it means “nice”. I must say that this non-profit is Kiva indeed. Rules are basically the same as before:

1. Link to Kiva
2. Email me and point me to that link
3. I will link to you
4. I will donate one US dollar for Kiva for your link
5. I will write about your site

The fifth rule is there to further sweeten the pot. So you get to donate one dollar, you get a link and an article about your site. Do good.

I seem to be in a downward spiral into the world of charity. I was reading Seth Godin’s post about smart non-profits and an idea came to me (surprising, I must confess). What if it would be possible to push Google from that passive “don’t be evil”- philosophy towards “do good”- philosophy? They could introduce an improvement into adsense, which would enable us to earmark a share of revenue to some fitting non-profit organization. We could just mind our own websites and adsense beneficiary would… well, benefit.

Now, about that list of 59 smart non-profit organizations. I support Kiva.

Even nobody has been enthusiastic enough to take part into my link charity drive I’m still going to introduce a new category that highlights various charity organizations. I don’t know how I’m going to go about with this, but it could be something, which combines blog carnivals and linkdonating. Anyway, first I’ll follow through my current linkdonating project, and I’ll go from there.

All these people have linked to One House At A Time:

None yet.

Edit: this was January’s project and nobody notified me about their links to One House At A Time, hence no links here. February project is already doing bit better.

Yesterday I was minding my own business and surfing real estate sites. I happened to notice an advertisement that promoted One House At A Time charity. I have never been much of a charity person, but this one stopped me. It was about building houses for people who lost their home for hurricane Katrina.

After being stopped for quite some time, I started thinking. What if I drop my “don’t be evil attitude” and pick up a “do good attitude”. I want to be part of providing houses for those in need, and I want to do even more. Here’s my plan: I ask people to link to One House At A Time and as a reward I will link to their site and donate one dollar for One House At A Time project. I hope I won’t run out of money.

Edit: Oh, just a short addition, send me an email after you have the link up and I’ll add you to a list with everyone that has taken part into linking. Just use “loghomes” and my domain when you send the email.

Edit2: I will run this project until the end of January and I set a limit of 1000 dollars, in case there are thousands and thousands of people wanting to give a link to One House At A Time.

Edit3: Maybe this is the final edit move that I have to do. The rules are:

1. Email me the link to the page, where you give them a link and I will link to you.
2. I will give one dollar for One House At A Time for your link.

I got tired fighting against a tidal wave of spammy comments so I turned them off and slept my nights like a baby.

However, I read this post at Lifehack.org and felt the nasty sting of a bad conscious. I think I should make it easier for you to interact with the stuff that I write.

It’s again comments open here at Loghomescabin, in case someone would like to ask a question or give a comment, without the hassle of writing an email to me. Now the next task waits ahead. I’d better write an introductory page where you can get all the necessary background information about me and this site.

Here is a good visit if you are interested in real estate – BiggerPockets. They have a group writing project called “2007 Real Estate Goals Group Writing Project” that I want to be part of.

Related to log cabins and log homes, I have three goals that are worth to mention for the year 2007.

1. Complete the lakeside log cabin sauna.
This is the most time sensitive project that I have going at the moment. For the moment the sauna is in weather-locked state. It can manage these terrible weather conditions (constantly raining here) that Finland has had during this winter. However, it is pretty much out of use, as there is no floor, just the concrete foundation etc. I have to finish the inside work to be able to test it by Mid Summer. Future master log home that will be erected just next to the log cabin sauna is not on the to-do-list during this year since financial requirements are too massive. Possibly during 2008 or 2009, oh… who knows… Anyway, ask me how the sauna felt just after Mid Summer.

2. Complete an agent agreement with one Finnish log home company.
Being an agent has been one of my long-term goals and until now I haven’t been actively pushing this forward. During the 2007 I want to set this project in motion, anyway it will still be a long-term plan or could I say part of my lifestyle. I know majority of Finnish log home companies and I definitely have my favorites. My choice is among mid-sized players, because bigger companies already have extensive foreign sales network and smaller companies can’t provide enough support. Announcements should come before year’s end.

3. Find a nice piece of land for coming residential log home project.
I have a plan to build an urban log home for my family to live in. Since this is a permanent home location has to be perfect for all eternity. The picture on the top of my website comes pretty close but unfortunately is protected so building is forbidden. Tricky thing here is that finding the perfect place might happen or might not. I can only promise that I start to study available lots and get an accurate image of overall prices. Knowing the market makes coming decisions easier.

This time I expect that we have much wider spread of goals than what we had with blogging habits. Therefore I am not going to make statistical analysis of submitted posts. However, I am going to write a comment on every single submission and give my feedback to you all (here and here). Oh, by the way, did you notice how Darren goes from numbers to letters?