Mental illness affects many people in Australia, some numbers suggest as many as 20% of Australians will experience a mental illness at some stage in their life. Chances are mental illness does, or will, affect those you know and love, however the stigma associated with it prevents many people from speaking out or seeking help.

That is unacceptable.

As members of the tech industry, a group of people who are more equipped than most to leverage the power of new technology to spread information, we’re obliged to act.

For those who don’t know, this month is Anxiety and Depression Awareness month.

Beyond Blue is an organisation that does excellent work in this area and this year, thanks mainly to Michael Specht and his tireless efforts, the tech community is showing their support through Blue Day.

Blue Day 2008 is tomorrow (October 10th) and coincides with World Mental Health day. There are a series of events that you can attend, or things you can do, to show your support and help raise awareness.

These include:

• Changing of social media avatars to blue for October 10. To help people there are several prepared.
• Meetups arranged across Australia, details confirmed for Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Canberra.
• Blog, podcast, post photos & videos for the day under the tag blueday2008
• If people do not have a blog or want to blog anonymously they can over at http://blueday2008.org
• A Flickr group setup by @dnwallace
• A Second Life Event being run on Jokaydia Island
• There is even a FaceBook group so folks can become a Fan of raising awareness,
• Michael Specht will also be aggregating all content tagged with blueday2008 on to the main site at http://blueday2008.org

It makes me proud to be a member of a community that can look beyond itself for such an important cause.