One of Us

Sharlyn Lauby

26 Jan 2010

I’m currently reading Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s book Trust Agents.
So far, it’s a good read and I’m learning a lot from it. One concept I’m enjoying is the idea of being “one of us”. Meaning that, in order to be trusted, you have to be human and real (for lack of a better word.)

This takes me to Mike VanDervort’s recent project to collect resources from different blogs about ways to help with the earthquake disaster in Haiti. Mike will be publishing those tomorrow over at his Human Race Horses blog, so be sure to check it out.

Well, I wanted to tell you about a human resources colleague of mine and what she is doing to help Haiti. I’ve known Kristen Nevils for what seems like forever (and I mean that in the nicest way possible). We’ve sat on local SHRM boards together and have been involved in many community events. Kristen is truly “one of us”.

A couple of years ago, Kristen and her husband made local headlines by winning an Inventor’s Contest. Yep, here’s an HR pro who put her business savvy to work. Her invention is called Watersafe. The product allows people to keep an emergency supply of clean water in a bathtub. Smaller versions are available for sinks as well as larger stand-alone versions.

You can see where I’m going with this. The Watersafe product can be shipped to Haiti, opened at the airport or nearby location, filled with safe, clean water, and transported to places in need.

When the earthquake happened in Haiti, Kristen was flooded (no pun intended) with calls about how to make her product available in Haiti. So she did what any business person would do – she grabbed her accountant and reworked her numbers. She found a way to offer Watersafes, ship them to Haiti and cover her expenses.

Here’s the deal. If you purchase a 65-gallon or 55-gallon Watersafe, they will send a 5-gallon Watersafe to Haiti. If you just want to send a Watersafe to Haiti, you can do that too. Visit the Watersafe site for details here.

You can check out the testimonials page for stories from people and organizations that have used Watersafe.

I understand there are many charities out there gathering supplies and resources for Haiti. And that’s great. But I also think it’s great when I can talk about a colleague – one of us – who used her business expertise and creativity to invent a product and start a business that fills a critical need. And, who is in the position to forgo profits and offer a promotion to send her product to Haiti.

That’s cool. That’s very cool.

So I hope you’ll take a moment and check out Watersafe. Thank you for supporting the Haiti relief efforts from one of us.