I work in a place where we have a program that encourages helping others through difficult situations.  It is a general help program, but is certainly geared around suicide prevention.  It is known as “wingman policy,” and we are all taught to be each others wingman.  Yet, we still have an issue with the possible penalty of even asking for any such help.  It is inevitable.  Admitting weakness, or personal problems to coworkers when every other system established puts them as your competitors, is naturally something to resist doing.

The solution, in some cases could be an anonymous system.  The main issue in enacting such a system would be a commitment to the anonymity of the program and those participating.  Users could enter an online system that would allow them an anonymous identity (truly), and then they could enter a social network of counselors, or perhaps just folks like themselves who are willing to talk, and have been vetted on the most basic dos and don’ts for the purpose of just being there for someone else.  This would be invaluable not just in situations requiring anonymity, but also in situations where geography limits what is available to a person in need, and perhaps they didn’t use Facebook.

The internet allows us connectivity that we have never had access to before.  We just need to think of more ways to use it.  With some quality oversight, an effective and far reaching program that actually brought help could be enabled and I can’t see why it wouldn’t go viral.  I mean that is Facebook’s number 1 complaint right now – their handling of everyone’s personal information.  If a community could be anonymously set up and information selectively saved, it may not be beneficial to advertisers and data-miners but it could just be better for the lot of us.