World Swim for Malaria  takes place on Saturday, 3 December. It's a striking idea for a worthy cause. Get a million people to swim that day and raise money to fight malaria, still a scourge of the tropics. It's one guys' idea. An Australian in the UK, Rob Mather; who did 'something'  in 2003 for  a young burns victim called Terri, raising 120,000 pounds, say 200,000 US dollars.

He just decided to 'do a swim'. Asked a few friends to join him, others to sponsor, then more joined in. Afterwards, someone said "what next?"  This was it. Fighting Malaria. With a million people goal.

He's co-opted trustees. An advisory board. Built a charity. And he's got a quarter of a million people projected to swim. Not bad for a first time, eh!

All the money they raise will be spent on providing 5 dollar mosquito nets to stop children and adults being bitten. Simple, direct action. Stuff that works. He's got Price Waterhouse involved. Speedo too. Clearly, an ad advertising agency is on board. Result. All around the world people are doing swims.

But I, a seven day a week, 52 weeks of the year swimmer, mass and internet media professional consumer didn't know about the event until tonight, barely days before the swims.

There's nothing for the obsessed swimmers of Google Groups, only a smattering of blogs mention it, and there's been relatively few major media mentions. On the World Swim site there's no blog, no podcast, no vlog, and, the ad they have on the site must be downloaded, unzipped and then viewed. (I lost it  on download)

So, they have done wonderfully well in a very, straightforward linear way. Brilliantly.

What they haven't done is unleash the reverberating power of the internet, used the nets ability to distribute announcements widely, and send rolling waves of comment, news and opinion around the globe effortlessly, made the net amplifying this worthy effort to a crescendo within moments. 

The silence of the available marketing power and tools of the net is remarkable. A case study really.

Yet it's not too late.

Microsoft are a sponsor. Why not? Bill Gate's personal foundation is also fighting malaria to the tune of 258 million dollars. So. Ask Gates to send one email to all Microsoft staff. In it he asks. Just blog it. One post later, in each of their 3000 company blogs, and unknown personal blogs, and a deed is done. Ask Price Waterhouse the same. One email. All staff. A request. Blog somewhere!

Then stand back and watch. A tidal wave. Search engines would pick it up. Each step would  build on the earlier. If nothing else, it'd be a massive global awareness raiser about malaria. And this event.

And Influence Marketing at work.