Above: Patti Coyne Powell with one of her kids

This is the video everyone is watching. Why are they watching it? Simple, Tim and Tina CoyneSmith have dedicated themselves to helping Tina’s sister Patti, who is going through a very difficult time.

Patti is living with incurable stage 4 lung cancer, she’s undergoing aggressive treatment, unable to work, and she is still there for her four kids, ages 2, 15, 18, and 19.

I created the video for a viral video contest at my company, Lenovo. Among other prizes, there was a cash grand prize of $50,000 advertised for the first entrant who could attain 500,000 views by the end of the contest, January 31st, 2015. I wanted my video to have broad appeal and so I got the cutest person I know, my son Nick, to star in it. He’s a big soccer fan and so we decided to feature him learning about his favorite player, Brazilian Neymar Jr. This allowed us to feature the convertible Yoga 2 Laptop PC, plus we used it when we shot the stop motion animated introduction as well.

Left to Right: Nick, Neymar Jr.

The video was doing well and was in 1st place in the competition, but it was becoming clear that we had little chance of reaching the 500,000 view goal. Then on Wednesday January 7th I was having lunch with Tim CoyneSmith who pitched a new idea to me. He proposed that we try to drive more views by promoting it as a way to help Patti, his sister-in-law. By this point I was familiar with her story because he had told me about the difficult situation the family was in. Tim suggested we shoot for the 500,000 view goal with the idea that a portion of the $50,000 grand prize go to Patti. After discussing it with my wife, we decided that really we should just commit to giving the entire cash prize to Patti, in the event we could win.

Left to right: Tim CoyneSmith, Derek V. DeShane

From there we went to work on how to get the message out. My wife and I went to dinner at the CoyneSmith’s house, and over tacos, we aligned our messaging and marketing plans. Thankfully, Tim and Tina have impressively broad social networks they can tap. Friends, family, co-workers, cub-scouts, youth soccer, UNC Chapel Hill, the list goes on and on. The word has already spread so far that, much like some theories about the shape of the universe, the message is arching back toward us with people at our company hearing about it through some far-flung friend, and then talking to us about it. In addition to getting views, we are promoting Patti’s GiveForward page, and that’s brought in $1200 in direct donations since we kicked off the campaign for Patti, so that’s already a win right there as it’s enough to help her family pay rent and buy food for another month.

Tim and Tina have people all over the country watching the video and sharing it with their own networks. Now, there are some newspapers looking to pick up the story and the momentum just keeps building. We’ve been racking up views and especially in the last couple of days we’ve accelerated the pace even further.

So I just want to thank Tim and Tina for what they are doing, and giving me the chance to help Patti with my video. Tim has been a good friend to me as well as a professional colleague. His kids are close to Nick’s age, we talk all the time about youth soccer (he’s the reason we got into 3v3 tournaments), our families, our personal philosophies, comedy, you name it. It’s been cool to get to know the CoyneSmiths even better as a result of this experience.

Today is my birthday, and I could ask for nothing more than to be a part of something that could truly make a difference for Patti. Please if you’ve read this, as a birthday favor to me, share the video with your own network, be a part of this, to give is it’s own reward.

Here’s that link again: Take 2 Minutes to Change a Life

Original birthday art by my sister Linnéa Dickson

What else can I do to help?

1. View the video
2. Share the video
3. Post this on your Facebook page: “Take two minutes to watch this video and change a life.  Patti Coyne Powell, mother of 4, has incurable stage 4 lung cancer and can no longer work. She cannot pay for food or rent.Lenovo is running a viral video contest that ends January 31^st with a $50,000 prize.  To win, we need 500K views.  If we win, we will give the prize money to Patti.500K views will change her life. Please watch this video now and then share it.To donate directly to Patti or learn more about her story, go here: http://gfwd.at/1revWud
4. Tweet this:”Patti has stage4 cancer & can’t work. If we get 500k views by 1/31 we win $50k & give the $ to her. #2minutes4patti http://ow.ly/H7fL9“
5. Do you know anyone or have access to someone who can help make this go viral? If we can get a highly-followed celebrity or blogger to tweet this, then we could potentially hit 500K views within a few days. Be creative, you could change Patti’s life. Please reach out to me here if you have an idea and want to collaborate.

Here’s that link again: Take 2 Minutes to Change a Life