Social Media: The New Black

2008-07-17T22:11:00.003-04:00

Hey there!

Several weeks ago on twitter, I tweeted about the Red Tettemer retreat. We were given several challenging pre-retreat assignments that we had to complete pre-retreat and were scheduled for review at the retreat, which was held over several days at the Gatsby-esque Shawnee Inn. Being relatively new at the agency, my only knowledge of what to expect at the retreat were the *many* legendary tales I was told of past retreats and my own awareness of the enormous collective of top talent under the roof at 1 S. Broad St. The word "nervous" doesn't cover what I was feeling leading up to the retreat.

One of our several assignments, as provided by our iconic and much-loved leader, Prez Steve Red, was to bring something that represented our badass selves. Whatever concept/form that may be.

Of course, a ton of the representations blew my concept away. What do you expect, we're an ad agency, with effing awesome creatives;)

Some of my friends on twitter, asked me to post my "badass self" assignment when I could, so here it is.

This is what I see/hear when I think of myself as a baddass.

If you want to see some of the other "badass" submissions, you can go here: RT on Youtube. Sorry it's not better organized on You Tube for you. We'll work on that;)

2008-07-10T01:17:00.003-04:00

Exciting news today from Social Media Club. I'm delighted to be one of 40+ other social media practictioners/enthusiasts who are serving as part of an interim board created to establish the guidelines of this association.

We'll be working collaboratively to create the framework that is necessary for SMC to take off on a national, local and global level. Once this framework is in place, local boards will be established using local, interested corporate and non-corporate members.

So basically, I guess my favorite work-phone greeting "Annie Heckenberger, workin' on your business," rings true here now for any of you reading this and part of the social media community. I'm working on all y'allz business:)

I'm excited to work collaboratively with the other board members; this is a unique opportunity to work with peers whose work I follow and often admire.

I'm also energized to help set up this framework so that more social media enthusiasts can jump in and have a more defined direction to take our emerging field to new, and probably mind-blowing new places.

There's so much talent working in technology, development, social media right now. Everyday as I surf the web, my officemates hear me saying "oh my god. this is freakin' awesome!" And I mean it. I'm regularly wowed with the products and services launching online and via mobile. My hope is that our work for SMC helps support all of that talent and innovation you are putting out there.

Stay tuned for more to come on this!

2008-07-03T22:57:00.004-04:00

So much going on the social media world!

A few weeks back, my favorite new part-time ninja Judson Collier, launched the fun twitter app twitterbash. Check it out, it's fun to rate your favorite tweets.

The much talked about news of the last 24 hours is the launch of potential twitter-killer identi.ca, whose clean, green design is a breathe of fresh air for this social media enthusiast who is tired of social sites weighing themselves down trying to be everything to everyone and designing in blue. Enough with blue already! Use another color! Sadly, identi.ca is already having capacity problems from the legions of twitter users whom have defected, hoping that this will be a microblogging service that may actually *work* rather than be down daily.

Last for now, I'm trying out twitterphone, a phone that lets you phone in your tweets and sends them in text and audio files to your twitter. It's actually working at the moment, I'm impressed, but it should be interesting to see what it does when a user talks over 140 characters. I'll keep you posted on that!

More to come soon...

2008-06-09T23:33:00.006-04:00

As the 4 (including me) readers to this often at-rest blog know, I have an obsession with Twitter. Fortunately, being in this community is a part of my job, so fueling this obsession is actually beneficial to my career.

That said, for all the time I spend tweeting and keeping up with the 650+ people I follow on there, I never seem to make any of the twitter app stats that my colleagues are on. I'll admit, it's shallow, but when I first started tweeting about 17 months ago, I coveted a position on Twitterholic. I marveled at those with huge followings who seemed to tweet golden eggs with every character. Later came Tweeterboard, which I never made either, but the people I tweeted with made it!

One day last week, my friend Brennen tweeted that I made
Dave Winer's Twitter Spewage List. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I should be excited or concerned about making Winer's Spewage, the word "spew" means vomit and that's really not so nice. That said, Dave's intro made it seem less hateful and hell, a lot of people I respect are on the list; I'm stoked anytime I'm in their company. (BTW: pls note that I am now BEATING Barak Obama on that list. Vote Heckenberger in 2012! w00t!)

Today, however, marks a very exciting day in my shallow social media life, because I made Guy Kawasaki's list of Twitterati on Alltop. Now first, I should note, there is no algorithm to Twitterati. I didn't tweet the most (although some people may contest that), don't have the most followers, don't follow the most people. None of that. Alltop's Twitterati is based on their "gut" and thhe feedback/nominations of the twitter community.

And that's why I'm so stoked about making this "list." Because someone in the community actually took the time to nominate me and somehow, Guy and the people at Alltop listened!

This is what community is all about. Thanks you guys. You made my day.

2008-06-06T14:28:00.001-04:00

Twitter's down again. So now we're all plurking.

2008-06-04T12:21:00.003-04:00

I have a number of blogs and on this one, I vowed that I would keep it dedicated to social media. Today, after being beaten down by Obama supporters in the Obama-dominated Twitter community, I decided to hell with it. This is my blog, under my name and I'm going to write about something that has completely affected my life.

And then I read this. And Amy said everything I was thinking and more. So, without any hesitation, I'm giving her words another screen. My screen.

The following is a post by Citizen Mom:

You're Damn Right I'm Bitter

BY AMY Z. QUINN

Yes, it smarts.

Yes, I'm angry and disappointed today.

And yes, I'll still vote for Barack Obama in November. But you should understand why I'm not feeling great about it this morning.

Now that it's over, now that everybody's been able to run their ecstatic headlines, can we all just admit that the MSM and the Yes! We! Can!-crazed online world had a deep desire to see Obama win, if only so everyone can soak in the aura of the New Kennedy or the first black president or the generational shift, or to have anything but the Clintons to write and talk about for another four or eight years?

Hillary Clinton's announcement in her speech Tuesday night that she would be neither conceding nor endorsing Obama just yet seems to have mystified or angered a lot of people. Even my respected colleague Will Bunch seems to have got it very, very wrong.

Here's what that non-concession sounded like to my ears: Obama may have garnered a sufficient number of delegates to secure a historic nomination for the presidency. He may even beat John McCain, with the support of many Democrats who cast their primary ballots for Clinton -- including me. But he certainly hasn't "won" my vote.

Because for weeks now, I've watched Clinton rack up decisive wins in key battleground states, securing blocks of voters Obama will desperately need in November. Then I listened as each of those victories was called meaningless, simply unneeded because some formula spelled out in the daily Obama campaign email and understood only by cable news anchors had already determined that "mathematically, she can't win."

I heard the voters who chose Clinton in Pennsylvania dispatched with the descriptor "blue-collar whites," which is a polite way of calling someone of a certain socioeconomic status -- my parents, I guess -- some uneducated racist white trash. Or in the case of West Virginia, Dogpatch hillbillies who shouldn't even be allowed to vote.

Was that elitism, or just politics? I can't decide, but I'm damn sure that's what Clinton was talking about when demanded for "the 18 million people who voted for me to be respected, to be heard, and to no longer be invisible."

I watched, with genuine emotion and pride in our country, as women born before women had the right to vote cast their ballot for Clinton, then be lumped in with the rest of the women who were voting with their vaginas. At the same time I read African-Americans only a few generations removed from segregation talk about how moving it was for them to cast a vote for Obama, and saw many black superdelegates who had supported Clinton for years simply switch their allegiance, yet never be accused of "voting race." I read story after story about how the popular vote didn't matter anyway, because the coming tidal wave of superdelegate endorsements would put Obama over the top. How she might as well just drop out now and stop all this nonsense.

I was still waiting for that tidal wave of endorsements Tuesday night when Obama staggered across the finish line, at the last possible second, as the last votes were being tallied in the last states to hold their primaries. This is a mandate?

For weeks I've listened to Clinton be accused of tearing the Democratic party asunder -- of damaging democracy itself -- by winning. I've heard her viciously criticized for attempting to deny Obama, so clearly a special, once-in-a-lifetime candidate, his destiny by being obstructionist enough to win as many, and often more, votes as he. I watched TV pundits driven to near-maniacal ranting because Clinton had the astounding arrogance to inspire as many people to believe in her ability and experience as believe in Obama's magical historical mandate.

Was that sexism, or just politics? I'm not sure, but I do know that Keith Olbermann can bite me.

Last Saturday, I watched the DNC Rules Committee grudgingly give Clinton half of what she fairly won in Florida, and penalize her -- stripping her of delegates -- in Michigan, then give them to a candidate who chose not to have his name on the ballot. I watched startling assumptions, obviously designed to benefit Obama, be made about the true intentions of thousands of people in Michigan who had already made a choice by voting Undecided. Hell, there weren't even any dangling chads to go by, just exit polls and the desire for it all to be over already.

As for former President Clinton, yes, dude was off the hook at times, but be clear about the fact that he was often absolutely correct. Many in the media were already against Hillary even before they fell so giddily in love with Obama. Obama's campaign did allow others to do their dirty work, and Obama's half-hearted attempt to distance himself from the hate being preached at his church was, in fact, pretty damn slimy.

Some of Obama's most passionate (and annoying) supporters refuse to believe -- simply cannot fathom -- that their guy would lower himself to engage in time-tested street politics like good old-fashioned shit talk. Look, when I first heard about that Rev. Pfleger thing, even I was like "Oh come on, where did they dig this one up?" I kind of agreed with Obama's dismissal of the whole thing as gotcha politicking.

Then I realized this wasn't some nugget culled from the nether regions of YouTube: This shit happened two weeks ago. And if we're going by the reaction of Obama's (now-former) fellow congregants at Trinity United who clapped, cheered, leaped to their feet to express their enthusiastic agreement with a Catholic priest who stood in their consecrated space mocking Clinton's ambition as disgusting entitlement, her desire to win as some racist inability to believe that a black man would dare to defy her, well, then it's hardly she or her supporters who are playing any race cards.

Was that sexism at work, or just politics?

It was certainly repulsive to me as a Christian. Offensive to me as a woman.

But mostly today, it's all just disturbing to me as a Democrat, who will now be expected to shut up and fall into line behind Obama. Talk about a massive sense of entitlement.

2008-05-06T23:49:00.003-04:00

While twitter is down for me (argh!), I'll share some content that stole my heart today.

Straight outta Philly, kickin' everyone and everything in its way, is Shmitten Kitten. A friend at work dropped the URL while we were chatting today, thinking I'd seen it. I logged on only to have my mind blown. It's genius. And I'm not just saying that because one of it's creators and bloggers happens to be my friend Anna and her friend, Shannon. I love me some pop culture and these girls are serving it up fresh..

Expect to see and hear a lot more from Shmitten Kitten.
*~*
Elsewhere in the blogosphere...thanks to Dave Parmet for the shout out on his blog for my agency Red Tettemer AND for raving about our client The Franklin, which he had long standing plans & tickets to see their Star Wars exhibit. And that was none of my doing. I swear! He just *loves* The Franklin! And really, why wouldn't you? The museum is outstanding:) In fairness, Philly is filled with great museums, such as: The Please Touch Museum for kids/families (soon moving to a much larger space this fall), The Brandywine Museum (which I *adore* - I am a Andrew Wyeth FANATIC), The Barnes (expected to move into the City of Philadelphia in the next few years), the PMA (immortalized by Rocky), the fascinating medical oddity Mutter Museum, the Rodin Museum and so many more. Visit them all. They are wonderful.

2008-04-30T23:49:00.005-04:00

This new version of Firefox totally blows. It's not showing the background of my twitter page on my PC (works on my mac) and it doesn't pull up my blog (this one right here, if you can get to it and read it!) on either PC or mac.Firefox, please get better! We rely on you!

Today I'm loving the Twitter companion app Who Should I Follow, in which you plug your Twitter username it gives you suggestions of other twitizens who may be of interest to you. (hat tip to twitter pal, Laura Fitton for that gem.)

I'm also one of the beta users of new mobile/web app Brightkite, a "location-based social network" where you "track your friends" (not as creepy as that sounds in real life, I swear!), "see where your friends are and what they're up to, in real time" and "meet people around you."

It is cool. Today I meet via text, someone else who works in my office building. That was novel. What I wish it had, was the functionality of my beloved and much missed Dodgeball, which a huge group of my friends used in NYC and we could see where we all were as we bar hopped or dined and often, meet up later at the same location by texting where hanging out throughout an evening. In NYC, where bar hopping is the norm and the options are endless, dodgeball was a great way to meet up with more and more friends throughout the night, or keep at-home friends posted on our whereabouts and potentially persuade them, via our Dodgeballs, that they were missing out on a great time and lure them out to meet us. In Philly, I didn't find much of a Dodgeball community when I moved here, which was disappointing, but alleviated by the robustness of our tweeters.

I have high hopes for Brightkite as a Dodgeball place filler for me. I'll keep you posted!

2008-04-28T21:25:00.001-04:00

Do you love this SouthPark clip as much as I do?

I will admit, I kept thinking, doesn't anyone in SouthPark have EVDO?

2008-04-23T00:04:00.006-04:00

And local blogger-slash-fellow smores lover (long story), Citizen Mom, captures the photo of the night here in Primary Central aka Philadelphia.

When I was a little girl, my mother tutored me as a toddler so that I would be prepared or even advanced when I started school. She used to patiently show me flash cards of letters and numbers, quizzing me and helping me to start reading and counting. I remember it being hard to sit still for these exercises but she was consistent and patient in tutoring me. It was during this time that I remember my Mom telling me that when I grew up, I could be anything I wanted to be. From a dogwalker to a teacher to President of the United States.

I never realized the enormous significance behind my smart, optimistic mother telling me that in the 1970's, until Hillary Clinton's speech tonight. America has had 43 Presidents in its' lifespan. That's 43 men of various creeds, economic status and ethnic backgrounds. Not one woman. And in fairness, not a black man (that we know of!), either.

Just like social media is a global movement that the US must embrace, so are candidates of change.

2008-04-15T22:25:00.003-04:00

I know, I know, some of you who read this blog may taser me if I write another Twitter entry, but trust me, I have good reason. First, thanks to fellow Philly Blogger and Twitter friend Amy Z. Quinn for including me in a story about twitter that she filed for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

I know that companies big and small are still toeing the waters on connecting with people via CGM and social networks, having heard horror stories of bloggers and their readers that have criticized or bashed corporations online. That said, I recently had a personal experience with a major corporation actively participating in a social network so fluidly and helpfully, that I have to share the story.

Comcast, a major corporation that has taken a lump or two from unhappy customers online. (NOTE: Comcast is a client. However, I did not counsel or work on the tactic I am going to share with you. Comcast did not ask me to blog this. Nor did my employer.)

Recently, I learned that Comcast is actively using social media platforms to monitor mentions of their Brand online, when I read this incredible story by TechCrunch co-founder and blog mogul, Michael Arrington. In the blog post, (which you should read), Arrington explains how his comcast broadband went out, he called Comcast to find out what was going on, only to be told it was a California wide outage. However, when he spoke with other area friends with comcast, their cable was working, and Arrington ended up taking his laptop to work at a friend's place, which turned into a major distraction (read the story!). Frustrated, Arrington began tearing into Comcast on Twitter, and within 20 minutes of his first tweet, an executive from Comcast in Philadelphia, called him to sort out the problem.

It was, big business using social media to connect directly with customers and offer a better user experience. It is, essentially underheard of.

Since this modern day miracle last week, I have been following Comcast Customer Outreach guy Frank Eliason, the person behind the username ComcastCares on twitter. This guy is absolutely incredible. From answering questions to helping resolve appointment and billing issues, using only the 140 characters Twitter allows!, he is speaking with Comcast customers in the Twitter community promptly and like a real person. Comcast, is HEARING and RESPONDING TO, their customers by trusting one smart and reliable employee, to represent the brand and products in community. Even more incredible, is that Frank doesn't just twitter 9-5PM, he keeps the extended hours that many of use in the tech community keep, as we use the tool like our right hands.

This week, I had a comcast issue come up, but it was minor and I didn't want to bother Frank, as word has spread among the broadband-reliant community - many of whom are comcast customers and live in breathe in twitter, so speaking to comcast where they live and breathe is a dream come true. A twitter friend urged me to ask Frank about my problem and I heard back from him in under 10 minutes. He personally resolved my problem in under 24 hours, via 140 characters and a couple of follow up emails.

I applaud Comcast for being an example of how to be a valued Brand/Corp in community. You'll keep my business.

2008-04-12T00:34:00.008-04:00

I am freshly back from Travelcom 2008 in Chicago, where I was invited to join Yahoo's panel discussion of quantifying the social media behavior of online travelers. I was invited by Yahoo's Brad King, who heard about me through Forrester's Sarah Rotman Epps, whom previously interviewed me about Philadelphia's unique uwishunu social media campaign. Sarah analyzed our social media work for uwishunu and wrote about it as a case study for a new social media analysis model she/Forrester created (collaboratively with Compete Inc., I believe). Sarah used the uwishunu case study in this session and I was particularly pleased that she included the point that it was a team of people at GPTMC who made uwishunu and our social media tactics a success. A social media director is a great start for an agency or organization but it takes the dedication of a whole team to make it all work.

Also on the panel were Greg Saks from Compete and Aaron Cooper from Orbitz.

Pretty diverse group of us and it was an interesting discussion all around.
~*~
Of course, it wouldn't be a trip without a travel fiasco for me. I was caught up in the American Airlines debacle en route to Chicago. Fortunately, I had the sense to immediately call their 1-800 number as we all queued up to be rebooked and I secured one of the last seats out of Philly that night. Unfortunately, there was a lightening storm in Chicago, and my flight was forced to move on to Indianapolis, where we touched down for about an hour and eventually headed back to O'Hare for a very late arrival.

I arrived at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, a massive hotel complex, only to find that the day shift had allegedly made some mistakes with bookings that left me without my reserved room with a king-sized bed. Instead, this massive hotel complex told my tired and harried self that they had a sofabed room for me. Huh? Wha..?

Frankly, I was too tired to fight. I was too tired to hit the streets with luggage and a laptop and find another hotel after midnight. I was *speaking* at a conference in *this* hotel in the morning!

Unhappy but resigned, I sighed and asked if the sofabed was at least pulled out and made up for me. The front desk clerk assured me it was. So I schlepped with my luggage - not a bellhop in sight, even when I stepped out of the taxi at the front entrance - over a skywalk and to the West Tower.

Of course my key card didn't work for the elevator, luckily another guest arrived and his worked. I went up to my floor, 36 (the top floor, maybe there's a view!). I arrived at my floor, confused, because I stepped out and saw conference rooms. One said "Chicago Board of Trade" on it. Clearly this is not right. These aren't hotel rooms. Additionally, there was a group of security huddled around the body of a semi-conscious drunk man laying on the floor next to my room door.

Honesty, I didn't care about the drunk guy. I was TIRED. Get me a bed. I keyed into the room, and I found...a meeting room. Yes, you heard me, a meeting room. Two couches, neither are a pullout. Now I was pissed.

I called the front desk, explained my problem and they transferred me to a general voicemail for the hotel. I kid you not. I called back, asked them to please not transfer me again and explained there was no pullout in my room. The woman on the phone gaves me attitude, like I am making this UP! I asked her to just send a cot up.

The cot took about 20-25 minutes to arrive. In the meantime, I stepped into the hall and briefly chatted with security, who were still huddled around the unconscious drunk; then I fell asleep on the couch. The cot arrived with no pillows or blankets. The housekeeping man told me to take them from the closet. I found some musty pillows and blanket, wrapped a towel around the dusty pillow and used it. Basically, I reverting to tactics one might use in their 20's while staying in a European hostel.

At this pointed, I'd twittered the whole saga.

I used my phone as an alarm clock and hit the hay.

I will say, the Hyatt Regency Chicago charged me half price for the room and gave me a voucher for breakfast, but why didn't they find me a room in another Hyatt in Chicago? Or another hotel?

You can bet I won't stay at the Hyatt Regency Chicago again, even though the clerk at check out made me smile. After he apologized twice for the room ordeal, he looked at me and said, "Miss Heckenberger, I can only hope that the Eagles or the Phillies win a championship for you this year." I don't know how he knew I was from Philly, I checked in with my passport which identifies NYC as my hometown, but he won me over for a moment and I twittered that too;)

2008-03-28T15:35:00.001-04:00

What's up, yo? You doing the "Social Media Rap"?

2008-03-26T17:49:00.003-04:00

It used to be you knew you made it when you had a gay rumor spread about you. Now you know made it if you have a firefox plug-in. The latest plug-in to cross my radar blows me away - it's an anti-rickroll plug-in.

Now, this is a godsend if you are one of those people with idiotic friends who rick-roll you regularly, ie - spam you with links disguised as something you want to click on but instead direct you to a video of Rick Astley singing "Never Gonna Give You Up." (Note: you will not be rick-rolled in this post. I am over 30 and over the rick-roll).

Congrats to the sick individual who created the rick roll and rolled it out globally. You now have your own firefox plug-in blocker.

And Rick Astley, once again, retreats to the dusty annals of our minds.

2008-03-25T01:50:00.004-04:00

These links are a day late (and a dollar short?) but who cares, I think they are effing genius!

Now, apparently, some of my twitter friends (that's YOU, Colleen Coplick!) are anti-Peep! I heart the Peeps! And NOT just because the company is based in the town next to where I grew up.

I mean, COME ON. Peeps are marshmellow/sugar goodness. They have a chance to rock it primarily once a year, although the website appears to be marketing other holidays for peep love. I'm down with that.

I'll tell you what else I am down with. Check this photo gallery of Peep diorama's the WAPO ran. Totally rad. But even more amazing? Check the PEEP online FILM FEST that YesButNoButYes hosted. Possibly one of the most amazing CGM brand executions I've seen online and ironically, I can't say Peeps was involved nor spent a single marketing dollar on this. That's Brand equity and loyalty at its finest. F'ing marshmellows! Microsoft or FOX will likely acquire Peeps in 2 days for multi-million, billion, quadrillion dollars;) Vampire bite widgets of Peeps are sure to follow.

But wait! here's the dopest of them all. Check it:

2008-03-20T22:26:00.002-04:00

I started my new job with advertising/interactive agency Red Tettemer 5 days ago. Prior to that, I took a few days to decompress and rest up, which included leaving my computer behind. Just my handheld for contact, I checked in with Twitter and text and otherwise unplugged. Not surprisingly, my carpel tunnel faded and I was able to sleep well at length.

My first week at RT has exceeded my expectations, the agency is an even more seemless fit for how I work than I anticipated. The staff is enormously creative and strategic, which makes work days even more fun as we cook up new ways for our clients to connect with customers.

When I get a chance, I have a few social media items to discuss here. For now, I just want to plug Twitter Karma, the tool many of us on Twitter have been eagerly asking/waiting for! This service shows you who u follow and who follows you or more importantly, who you don't follow and who doesn't follow you! Very helpful, if like me, you view Twitter as a dialogue platform.

Oh! I can't believe I almost forgot this! I'm on the cover of PRWeek this week with my esteemed GPTMC colleagues for our work with new/social media & uwishunu to promote Philly. Very exciting stuff. PRWeek has always been the bible for my industry and it's a thrill for our work to be recognized by the publication and so prominently.

2008-03-06T10:09:00.002-05:00

Some very cool social media news created by my absolute FAVORITE band:

SIGUR ROS
YouTube Global Takeover
Friday March 7

Sigur Ros and YouTube make a little bit of history this Friday (Mar 7) with the band taking over the entire front page of the site around the world for a whole day, becoming the first group to ever have a feature-length music DVD streamed on the channel, with their acclaimed 'Heima' documentary shown in its complete 97-minute glory.

All 12 available slots on YouTube's home page will be devoted to the Icelandic quartet for a full 24-hours, putting them before a global audience of hundreds of millions. The link-up follows the success of 'Minn Heima', a competition hosted by YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/group/MinnHeima) for fans of the band to create their own little version of 'Heima', using audio and video clips posted online. The 10 best entries, as judged by the band, will be featured on the home page, alongside the film itself, as well as a special message from the band, taking time off from recording their new album in Reykjavik.

YouTube has only previously hosted a handful of long form presentations, none for music DVDs. It is the first ever UK home page 'takeover' since the launch of http://uk.youtube.com - the localized home page that allows for country-specific video rankings and comments.
Simultaneous with the YouTube promotion, the band will launch www.sigurros.com, giving away a free audio-visual download clip of the song 'Ny Batteri' filmed live in Reykjavik in the summer of 2006 as part of the Heima tour. 'Ny Batteri' is just one of a dozen additional songs not featured in the film that the band are intending to make available via the site in the near future. Information about the forthcoming album will also be revealed via www.sigurros.com…
~*~
Now the question is, can I view uk.youtube???

2008-03-04T11:42:00.002-05:00

Any designers out there looking for a simple project that will get in-community play/attention? Dave Coustan is seeking a designer to create a cool domain placeholder design. Help him out!

2008-02-27T18:59:00.003-05:00

I have some news.

I've decided to make a change professionally; I will be leaving Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp and joining Red Tettemer in a similar social media position.

This move offers the best of both worlds to me; RT is an advertising agency of record for GPTMC and as such, I will still have opportunity to work on the Philadelphia "brand" that I am passionate about, including our insider-y Philadelphia campaign that includes the community blog uwishunu. I'll just be working on them from 3 blocks away.

I'll also have the pleasure of working with a collection of many of the most creative people I've had the pleasure of meeting. These are the people who brought you iMate just a few weeks ago, just for fun, and yes, those are their REAL employees.

It's been an educational and exciting year and a half working for GPTMC, the only non-profit organization I've known that is so teeming with talent and smarts that they are marketing on the same high level of Fortune 500 companies with 10x the budget.

I'll be at GPTMC for another week and then I'm taking some time off before joining RT on March 13th. Expect to see big things from Red Tettemer in the near future. I am going in with social media gunz a-blazing and we are going to make a lot of noise in the SM space.

BTW, I've been playing around with some ideas for my new title. Digital Revolutionary (Viva La Revolucion!)? Connections Strategist? Or Community Evangelist? I'm open to ideas! Bring it!

2008-02-26T16:42:00.002-05:00

Officially, my favorite new widget, the Snoop Dogg "Shizzolate Your Twitters"! I am worshiping at the altar of Snoop's marketing team right now. Fo' shizzle, bizzle!

2008-02-22T09:56:00.002-05:00

Hats off today to Doritos for taking a big leap of faith and into social media stardom by showing their sense of humor and supporting this "artist". Who woulda thunk Frito Lay could be so cool?

*Video may be NSFW.*

2008-02-22T09:27:00.002-05:00

I'll be speaking here again soon. In the meantime, watch the attached video. This was my favorite show as a kid and I would sit indian-style in front of the tv everyday and stare up, enraptured with Carole and Paula and the chucklepatch. I loved the chucklepatch but my very favorite part of the "The Magic Garden" was singing along to this song at the end. In fact, to this day I often find myself singing it in my head when I'm walking around by myself.

My officemate suspects they may have indoctrinated me into a cult as a child via this program. I say thank God for being a child of the 70's. We need more flower power these days. Three cheers for nostalgia on the internet!

2008-01-17T14:24:00.000-05:00

And today we thank Target, for making the WORST PR decision of the day.

Walmart, anyone?

2008-01-10T21:57:00.000-05:00

Welcome to 2008.

I was thinking recently, about Twitter and how it's really become the only social network that I regularly use. I decided to take a closer look at the platform and think about why I prefer Twitter over Facebook or Pownce or Jaiku. Yes, I like the mobility of being able to connect to it from my phone or the web or aim, and I like the simplicity of communicating in 140 characters but what I *love* about twitter is the community of people in it.

When I thought about it, I realized that Twitter is the first social network or "socnet" as many of us now call them, populated first by people of my own age. And it's not just Gen X, Baby Boomers and beyond in twitter - there are plenty of younger peeps using it. Speaking for myself, I have built a solid following of likeminded professionals that I "tweet" with every day, whom are my peers. That is very unique for a social network thus far. What is it, when you think about it, is a club. A meeting place, a hang out, a group of compatriots - but a virtual club - meeting at any time you choose. A proverbial treehouse where you can always find a friend inside.

These "tweets" or short dialogue conversations among people, have truly differentiated Twitter for me, because it's finally a "socnet" where people seem like, well, *people*. They aren't just bands who automatically "friend" me or profile pages with colorful widgets and photo albums, they are real time conversations with real people.

What twitter has done, is taken the chat room/bulletin board concept and made it accessible to many people globally and portable. Connecting and communicating from anywhere with large groups of people. That is HUGE. It's changing everything, for me. It's widening my circle of friends, contacts, knowledge, interests, thought processes and more.

Today, The Washington Post talked about the power behind Twitter, featuring the Frozen Pea Movement that I previewed for you just as it started. As of this afternoon, The Frozen Pea Fund had raised $7,171 for breast cancer research.

Not too shabby for a buncha socnet geeks;)

2007-12-28T20:19:00.000-05:00

So last night, as I was twittering while reading a book, watching tv and returning phone calls/text messaging I wondered if 10 years from now, there may be cyber-rehab for all of us who are superconnected *allthetime* and addicted to it.

Naturally, I threw this theory out to my twitter peeps and not surprisingly, a few people thought they'd be ready for cyber-deprogramming group. My pal Connie Reece quickly sent a tweet alerting me I'm a candidate for Socnet Rehab.

Now, while Socnet Rehab may be a clever spoof, I really suspect that cyber-rehab isn't far away. Many of us *are* addicted to our communication tools, as crazy as that may sound. Withdrawal from social media communities can result in depression, anxiety and yes, in severe cases, even panic! Even more telling, as more and more entrepreneurs make money via social media and online/mobile platforms, they have more money to spend on access points to their addiction. They also have money to pay for costly rehab programs.

My question is, what do you think the gateway drug is for us cyber/tech-addicts? Was it e-mail? Text Messaging? Will we have to swear off mobile phones (please God, no).

I hope we can get a group rate somewhere. And they'd better have a hand surgeon on-hand. I don't know about the rest of you, but my carpal tunnel is getting worse; I'm going to need surgery upon check in.