Me, My Mo and I

People keep asking me – what’s with the moustache? What’s with the caterpillar on your top lip? What’s with the bum fluff? Insert bad ‘tache gag here.

The answer, my friends, is pretty simple. I have joined the Movember movement, in support of prostate cancer awareness. How I plan to raise awareness when you could hardly see the darned thing is probably a good question.

Intriguingly the mo has worked really from a business perspective. I gave two presentations last week and used the ‘tache as an icebreaker.

“Most of you have heard about The Cloud, but defining it is hard. Definitions are nearly as indistinct as my moustache.”

Luckily the line got a laugh in both cases, one with a Linux crowd, and one with business performance management folks. The ice was broken, the audiences were on side. Facial hair for the win.

Another thing I have discovered is that lots of men can’t grow facial hair or don’t think they can. When I started tweeting about Movember lots of folks pinged be to say so. Its kind of a taboo subject. Which brings us nicely back to prostate cancer awareness.

Movember is an annual, month-long celebration of the moustache, highlighting men’s health issues, specifically prostate cancer.

Mo Bros, supported by their Mo Sistas, start Movember (November 1st) clean shaven and then have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their moustache. During Movember, each Mo Bro effectively becomes a walking billboard for men’s health and, via their Mo, raises essential funds and awareness for Movember’s men’s health partner – The Prostate Cancer Charity. At the end of Movember, a series of Gala Partés are held to thank Mo Bros and Sistas for their support and fund raising efforts.

Movember has continued to grow each year, both in terms of participation numbers and funds raised. In its first year, 30 Mo Bros took part in Movember and last year, across the globe more than 173,000 Mo Bro & Sistas got on board, raising more than £14 million across the Movember’s men’s health partners globally.

To date, Movember has raised over £30 million globally for the fight against prostate cancer and depression in men

Please donate. You can do so here.

I realise that current state of the art in “evidence-based medicine” is pushing back against regular breast exams, but it seems to me that firstly that’s just plain wrong, and secondly, prostate cancer awareness is a long way behind women’s health issues.

If I have to look like a 70s porn star to help with the issue I am only too happy to do so.