Found this in my daily design blog reading, oddly enough. Apparently a reader was reminded of this video thanks to a weekly "pets on furniture" feature they have. I love that pets on furniture feature. They all look pretty happy in their situations, and a lot of them look like rescue critters, too. From the slammer to the couch - what an excellent turn of events for them. Perhaps we'll take one of Chuck chilling when we get our new couch!
Anyhow - O.K. Go is the best, I've decided.
Also, some other things to make you happy -
Hyperbole and a Half: ever heard of her? Me neither. So I visited her about pageS and continued to die laughing. How completely, awesomely, unhelpful?
I'm not sure who's idea it was to pair Lady GaGa and Beyoncé, but it was inspired. Telephone is the kind of video that makes people stop and watch on the big screen of a gay club instead of dancing while it rolls. Don't ask me how I know that.
Apparently I can't embed it (bah!) but check out the video here. You'll need it for reference before you see my totally awesome spoofs.
First, we have the soldiers of 82nd Airborne, stationed in Afghanistan. Way to find some way to perk up what must be a completely un-fun and most likely downright hellish military assignment. My friend Alex is in Afghanistan. Apparently she's the only expat girl to be found just about anywhere... wonder if any of these guys are single. Alex... the star is pretty much a catch:
Then - I think this awesome, but this might only be amusing to NPR nerds - NPR staffers did a send up inspired by the 82nd. I adore NPR for it's morning news and weekend programming and always secretly thought it'd be awesome to work there. I saw the building every Wednesday on my drive from work down to kickball on the Mall... don't the producers and directors look so young and FUN? I want to be friends with NPR people. The big names (Nina Totenberg - reading like it's a supreme court transcript - ha!) are pretty funny too. Although their dancing skillz leave something to be desired.
Some Thursday enjoyment for you.
And if you do happen to be in a gay bar when this video comes on, you'll know what I mean. It's the new Single Ladies.
So, I found out about this program (organization? movement?) via a design*sponge post and now I'm riveted. How do we get these guys to come to Huntsville, anyway? Naturally, Alabama superchef Frank Stitt (of Bottega and Highlands Grill in Birmingham) has already participated... I know this thanks to OITF's handy Google map of everywhere they've ever had a farm dinner:
(I created one of these for our educators visits of all of the Alabama Math Science Technology Initiative hub sites across the state - love them!)
Anyway, thinking of starting a social media campaign to get them to visit Huntsville. I'm thinking a Ledges/Mezza Luna collaboration. But of course I am biased. Nowhere in their FAQ does OITF break down how to get a meal in your area, so I'm going to go ahead and assume it's all contacts and convincing.
I would definitely save (and save, and save) $200 for an experience like this:
Outstanding in the Field is a roving culinary adventure - literally a restaurant without walls. Since 1999 we have set the long table at farms or gardens, on mountain tops or in sea caves, on islands or at ranches. Occasionally the table is set indoors: a beautiful refurbished barn, a cool greenhouse or a stately museum. Wherever the location, the consistent theme of each dinner is to honor the people whose good work brings nourishment to the table.
Ingredients for the meal are almost all local (sometimes sourced within inches of your seat at the table!) and generally prepared by a celebrated chef of the region. After a tour of the site, we all settle in: farmers, producers, culinary artisans, and diners sharing the long table.
The dinners generally begin at 3 or 4 p.m., depending on the time of the year, and wrap up around sunset. As the days get shorter in the fall, the dinners last until candlelight is required. Length of each event is four to five hours, and guests often linger at-table well past sunset, reluctant to have the magical evening come to a close.
So, who's with me?! Let's get this campaign started so we can have a fabulous meal at a table like this one, in the DC area...
though the store has the potential to completely torpedo my new commitment to a dave ramsey budgeting system (where EVERY PENNY is allocated before it's ever spent...blargh), target remains my all time favorite place to spend a lunch break or a sunday afternoon.
i've always thought their ads were cute, and appreciated the weekly specials in my inbox, but until this particular ad campaign, i hadn't noticed their advertising much.
pictured above: the "i just went in for tape" collection - heh.
behold, target collections target gives you a completely bizarre and seemingly random collection of items you can purchase in the store. you name the collection something clever, then tweet your collection name to #targetcollection for the chance to win a $500 gift card. how fun is that?
and check out the ads they've created so far:
i KNOW this one, all too well -
and this one is pretty good too - best. discovery. ever. don't you agree? -
i won't spam you with all of them, but if you're feeling frisky, you should head over to their youtube channel and check 'em out. awkward valentine is a good one too.
i am so appreciative of clever, audience-participatory advertising... just makes everything more fun. and since i already am a target addict, at least they make my experience a fun one.
SoSo stands for Social South - the Deep South’s Social Media Conference. It’s your chance to hear nationally recognized social media professionals at an affordable and easy-to-get-to location.
Their tagline is "Deep Fried Social Media", which cracks me up. The conference is next Friday and Saturday, so I'll be roadtripping to Birmingham for the weekend.
Other good things about the conference?
It's close - Birmingham. And I get to reunite with (and crash with) my good friend, fellow blogger AND Auburn classmate, Katie!
My Style & Design in Public Relations messages teacher and social media mentor, Robert French will be presenting. This will be the first time I've seen him since college as well!
Tracks include:
Social Media Tools – You’ve probably heard that you have to be on Facebook or Twitter, but has anyone told you why? This track explores not only the why, but the rest of the tools out there.
Social Media Communications – Talking to your clients though social media using traditional media language won’t work. Track 2 explores why and how to change your message.
Social Media Strategy – Learning the tools of the trade and the new language is just the first step, without a strategy neither have much of an effect. Track 3 explores how to tie the two together into something effective.
Social Media Case Studies – Are you a business in the Southeast that is seeing results from social media? We want to hear your story – apply here to present it at Social South.
Looking forward to learning how to wrangle all of the social media outlets we use at work into one cohesive message that will drive traffic to our Web site. Also looking forward to seeing old friends. Social media is a funny thing for me because I've been neck deep in these applications since I was a sophomore in college, but that doesn't necessarily make me the best manager for outreach and business uses. I think that a meeting or two on the topic will help me reign all of these outreach efforts in to form something more functional.
Hi. I haven't posted since June 25. Holy crap. I need to pick up the pace. So here begins a spate of new posts.
I recently got engaged to a fabulous guy. One of my favorite things about him is his willingness to check out uncharted territories. He's a great traveler too - good sense of direction, go with the flow attitude about experiences - which makes life awesome. What bugs both of us is that we have never been on a large scale adventure together. I've spent the summer in London, visited Norway and Paris, all while in college studying abroad. He's been to China, seen pandas and walked the Great Wall, all with other friends while I worked in DC.
Naturally, we want to have our first major adventuretogether for our honeymoon. I'm thinking a tour of the Spanish paradores.
Paradores de Turismo de España are a chain of Spanish luxury hotels. They were founded by Alfonso XIII of Spain as a means to promote tourism in Spain, with the first opening in Gredos, Ávila in 1928.
A profitable state-run enterprise, the hotels are often in castles, palaces, fortresses, convents, monasteries and other historic buildings. They stretch from Galicia in the North West through Catalonia to Andalusia in the south of Spain, the Canary Islands and to the Spanish cities in North Africa. (Thanks, Wikipedia)
My parents met in the south of Spain. My mom was traveling with girlfriends, fresh off of a stint in Australia and my dad was stationed in Rota, Spain with the U.S. Navy post-Vietnam. They knew each other for approximately three months before my mom went off to Norway on a road trip with my dad's cousin. When she returned (by plane) he greeted her at the airport, and there it was decided that they'd get married.
So, Spain has definite appeal to me. What better place to start a marriage, than the Mediterranean coast? And on top of that, in the country where my parents met, and kicked off a happy 30-year marriage? There must be something in the water there. My parents always used to talk about driving up the coast and having fancy dinners at the paradores - paella and fresh fish. Yum. And it looks like they're still at it with the food (uh, YUM!?) The other day I began my online parador research and discovered the amazing, comprehensive and completely tantalizing Web site. Seriously considering going to the courthouse to push this marriage thing through so we can honeymoon next week. Ha. There will be some saving of the money before any of that happens, though. But if we do decide to go this route, I will have a goal to push me through the bitter Alabama winter: sunny May skies in Spain. :)
Here's what I'm thinking for the vacay: the site offers rates for routes, scheduled for either three or seven days. (Hello, did I not say that their site is amazingly comprehensive? It's an internet planning addict's dream). All of the routes are themed - culture, nature, WINE, legacy trails through other cultures... Anyway, one of the seven-nighters is a coastal trail. All the way from the northeast corner of Spain, down the Mediterranean coast to the southern tip.
They say on the site that this route takes visitors to some of the best beaches along the Mediterranean coast in Alicante, Murcia, Almería and Malaga. This area is well-known for its tourist attractions but still harbors many pleasant surprises.
I like it. Beach vacation plus culture in Spain. Beach honeymoon meets global trek. And they drive on the right side of the road, don't they?
Don't they??
By the way, I promise this isn't going to be a wedding planning blog from now until May. I have lots of other exciting stuff going on that I'll be posting about, including a Social South new media conference in Birmingham next Friday and Saturday and a trip to San Fran for the Dreamforce (Salesforce users) conference in November to learn how to integrate my work's Facebook, Twitter and other social media efforts with our Web site as well as with our non-profit Salesforce software. Interesting stuff. AND I just signed up for Santa's Village PR again. Whoooeeeee, here comes fall and winter. May will be here before I know it...
I have been all over the place for the past few weeks - planning for DNA Day, then for our first annual fundraising gala. It has been a wild, but wholly professionally fulfilling, past month. I've seen all kinds of things that have inspired me to post something but I haven't had a chance till now. Perhaps this combined "why-music-is-awesome-and-can-change-the-world" post will be more powerful anyway.
As you've probably figured out by now, most of my blog fodder comes from my daily commute to and from work listening to NPR. I really should link them on here. Anyway, this comes from two different stories I heard on the station over the past couple of weeks.
Not surprising, considering how the All Things Considered segment described Folds' stage shows: His dynamic live shows often found Folds leaping on top of the piano, dividing the audience down the middle, and conducting them in two-part (and sometimes even three-part) harmony.
Folds broadcasted the news that he was compiling an a capella album, selecting performances from different university a capella groups across the country via YouTube submissions. The results are pretty impressive, and while I typically shy away from a capella (it reminds me of my younger days and that group from Where in the World is Carmen San Diego...) this could be something to buy on iTunes.
Ben Folds, while depressing at times, could really stand to be livened up and I bet a bunch of peppy and talented collegiate a capella groups could be just the ones to do the livening. Wonder if they covered Rocking the Suburbs on the album... (awww man! Sure don't. Ben?! What happened?)
One album I DEFINITELY downloaded, right away after hearing the piece was the Songs for Peace album - a compilation by a group who call themselves Playing for Change who edit street performers worldwide into one track of a popular song.
Anyway - video of Stand By Me goes viral, producers continue to record mashup-type songs performed by street performers around the world, and they eventually create a CD.
My favorite thing about being in Paris and London were the street performers. There were sidewalk artists and musicians on the street. One girl drew The Birth of Venus in colored sidewalk chalk only to have the effort be washed away by the next rain or street cleaning. One guy played the saxophone by the Thames while balancing on a rope he'd tied between two trees.
In Paris, I heard the Beach Boys and blues standards in the Métro and a bunch of Chilean guys played Hotel California on a pedestrian bridge crossing the Seine. I'm sure I'm idealistic and silly for thinking so, but the idea of bringing these performers from all over the world together shared songs really resonates with me. Singing along with an overplayed Eagles song in Paris may have been cheesy, but it was one of the best nights of my life.
...I'm pretty sure it was the best night because I felt connected to people in a completely different continent because the late July evening was beautiful, the stars were out, the breeze was blowing, the Eiffel Tour was glittering... and we - a mishmash of nationalities, ages and backgrounds - all knew the words to the same damn song.
I love social media at times like this. Watching a YouTube video and listening to some .mp3s won't exactly replicate the feeling of that night on the Seine or those Métro rides, but they will certainly do 'till I can get back out there again.
This just in: Google creates idiot-proof Gmail. Love it. Too bad even though we use Gmail for work, I feed it through Entourage. Potentially even considering switching back to it's pure form 'cause these features are priceless:
Five second send delay - in case you spot an awkward typo or accidental.
"Are you sure?" reply all - so that (potentially snarky?) response intended solely for the sender doesn't reach all of those unintended recipients.
Facemail... corresponding photos with emails showing up in the to: line so that you don't accidentally autofill the wrong name...
Attachment check. I do this at least three times a week. "Hmm. Sorry - here's the attachment." And I always catch it seconds after the darn thing sends.
[...]the lawyer for Eli Lilly who wanted to e-mail her co-counsel Bradford Berenson details of a negotiation but instead sent them to Alex Berenson, a reporter for the New York Times. The result was a front-page scoop revealing that Eli Lilly was talking with the government about a billion-dollar fine for improperly marketing its anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa. (Andso much for the effectiveness of those lengthy legal disclaimers at the bottom of corporate e-mails.) - from Slate
Because sometimes doing something as easy as activating "Undo Send" in Gmail Labs under Settings, and you’ll see a new “Undo” link on every sent mail confirmation. Click “Undo,” Gmail grabs the message before it’s sent and take you right back to compose. Woohoo! Check out the full post here.
Now if only they'd create similar features for Facebook...
Did you know that the massive U.S. economic stimulus plan has a Web site? And a logo?! I did not, until just now.
Going to have to check this out further when I am not up to my eyeballs in work projects because I am woefully under informed as far as the stimulus package goes.
Upon initial glance, though, I'm impressed with the site. I'm sure that a lot of it is pure PR, but as a PR person myself, I'm appreciating the language used on the site, timelines and graphs.
From recovery.gov:
This is your money. You have a right to know where it's going and how it's being spent. Learn what steps we're taking to ensure that you can track our progress every step of the way.
The site includes, among other things, a scrollable timeline with milestones, a place to share recovery stories, a link list of state specific recovery sites (only available in 12 states so far...), the full bill for reviewing and a message from the president.
Checking it out more thoroughly soon... What does everyone else think? Do you buy this? Are you skeptical? At this point for me, any sign of transparency and progress is better than nothing at all - and the approach taken here with an interactive Web site updated regularly is a great way to start.
Among other things for work, I have been tasked with analyzing the major social media outlets and recommending which of them I feel would be a good fit for our organization, and at what level of participation.
Between Facebook, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Digg, countless Ning communities, Twitter and the countless other outlets out there, I've come to a couple of major realizations:
In order to remain current in social media you have to be one of two things (1) young, with time on your hands and the confidence to play with each new wave or (2) an early adopter.
Becoming an effective early adopter of every. trend. out. there. requires time. Lots and lots of time. Like, full time.
While I am a devotee of social media (thanks initially to Robert French and a little class called Style and Design in Public Relations Messages), I do get overwhelmed. This is not my full time job. This is one aspect of a much larger job - and as the designated "social media girl" I am the only one officially charting these waters at the office for the organization.
Questions I'll work on - and pass along here - as I find answers:
What new media outlets are the best for organizations? Specifically, non-profit, science heavy organizations? It seems to me a lot of social media (Twitter, online communities and others) are best utilized by individuals unoficially tied to an org.
How much time out of my work day should I spend on these outlets? On which should I concentrate most of that time?
Other than reading Mashable and Twitter... and about 500 marcom pro's blogs religiously, is there a good, consistent way to stay current with the latest technologies?
Staying current is key, and I am aware of this - but I also want to tailor these outlets to work for me (as an individual) and more importantly, for my organization. Any ideas or suggestions for a new approach? I'm overwhelmed!
3. We never get drunk at parties and get photographed holding beer bottles in suggestive positions. We wish we still did that. But we don't. (See pictures of Beer Country in Denver.)
Funny, while I'm slightly irked about the fogies overrunning Facebook, I am envious that they (aside from the occasional, unphotographed, indescresion) have outgrown this phase. I have not.
Enjoy!
And, if you have some pointers for me about the former, please help!
...Or, how citizen journalism combined with social media continues to out report mainstream media.
The first time I remember regular people witnessing and recording newsworthy events with camera phones and pushing those images out through social media was during the terror attacks in London in 2005. Oddly enough, I was there. Two days after I arrived to Middlesex University outside of London for summer marketing classes, it was announced that London would host the 2012 summer Olympics.
The following morning, London erupted. Metro stations and city buses exploded with homemade explosives accompanied by homegrown terrorists. Young men from UK soil, brainwashed into demolishing their countrymen and women, systematically blew up local London transportation hubs.
After calling my mom and J to let them know that I was, in fact, alive and well (at 6 a.m. their time, before they even knew anything was amiss... "Uh, don't worry. Everything blew up here. I'm fine. Sorry to spring this on you first thing in the morning....") we all parked in front of the news, looking for answers about what happened, how many were killed... and why. The photo at the left is one that sticks in my mind from the days following those attacks... Passengers trapped in the tube after a tunnel caved in.
The news was thoroughly disappointing. They knew nothing. All they covered were statements from public officials and interviews with stunned victims and witnesses from the attack. The most compelling new information was consistently provided by those on the scene, snapping images with their phones and emailing them to friends and contacts from all over the world. These images, when they finally reached the news media, were far more informative than anything that London journalists were able to gather with their cutting edge video and camera equipment.
What's happened recently is one step beyond London.
Not only are witnesses and victims alike taking photos, but they are going further than emailing their captures to one friend at a time... They are posting images to social media outlets like Twitter in real time.
Within minutes there were hundreds of Tweets about the crash, complete with pictures from eyewitnesses and even one person who was on a NYC ferry headed to the crash site to pick up passengers.
Crash photos linked from Twitter were circulating all over the world before the story was even picked up by any of the major news outlets - and I'm talking websites, not just televised news! NYTimes.com, CNN.com, FoxNews.com... NOTHING.
Hell, back in December when another Continental flight skidded off of a Denver runway, crashing, a passenger live Tweeted the incident (this is actually kind of funny.... from The Guardian)
14 December, 4.06pm Whew! Christmas shopping pretty much done. 100% online except for a couple of gift certs.
20 December, 5.25pm Holy fucking shit, I was just in a plane crash!
5.58pm This was crash No 2 for me. Maybe I should start taking the bus.
8.22pm You have your wits scared out of you, drag your butt out of a flaming ball of wreckage and you can't even get a vodka-tonic. Boo.
11.22pm [From computer at home] Sorry for the radio silence, but my battery died in the middle of all this and I just made it home.
11.57pm Pretty exhausted at this point, so I'm heading off to bed. Good night!
21 December, 8.29am Waiting in the continental club for the "replacement" flight. Noticing I'm a little sore.
5.25pm I'm sitting as close to the exit as possible this time.
7.57pm Touchdown! Crowd goes wild!
All I can say is that if something this traumatic ever happens to me, I hope I have this guy's sense of humor about the scenario. And Tweeting it?! I barely have enough going on in my life to keep tweeting on a regular basis anyway. I guess a crisis might spice things up a bit...
So, I found out about this program (organization? movement?) via a design*sponge post and now I'm riveted. How do we get these guys to come to Huntsville, anyway? Naturally, Alabama superchef Frank Stitt (of Bottega and Highlands Grill in Birmingham) has already participated... I know this thanks to OITF's handy Google map of everywhere they've ever had a farm dinner:
So, who's with me?! Let's get this campaign started so we can have a fabulous meal at a table like this one, in the DC area...
though the store has the potential to completely torpedo my new commitment to a dave ramsey budgeting system (where EVERY PENNY is allocated before it's ever spent...blargh), target remains my all time favorite place to spend a lunch break or a sunday afternoon.
...is not the name of a conference featuring all things mediocre.
So, Spain has definite appeal to me. What better place to start a marriage, than the Mediterranean coast? And on top of that, in the country where my parents met, and kicked off a happy 30-year marriage? There must be something in the water there.
routes are themed - culture, nature, WINE, legacy trails through other cultures... Anyway, one of the seven-nighters is a coastal trail. All the way from the northeast corner of Spain, down the Mediterranean coast to the southern tip.
I have been all over the place for the past few weeks - planning for DNA Day, then for our first annual fundraising gala. It has been a wild, but wholly professionally fulfilling, past month. I've seen all kinds of things that have inspired me to post something but I haven't had a chance till now. Perhaps this combined "why-music-is-awesome-and-can-change-the-world" post will be more powerful anyway.
This just in: Google creates idiot-proof Gmail. Love it. Too bad even though we use Gmail for work, I feed it through Entourage. Potentially even considering switching back to it's pure form 'cause these features are priceless:
Did you know that the massive U.S. economic stimulus plan has a Web site? And a logo?! I did not, until just now.
Oh yeah - and I think I'm quitting Facebook soon -
After calling my mom and J to let them know that I was, in fact, alive and well (at 6 a.m. their time, before they even knew anything was amiss... "Uh, don't worry. Everything blew up here. I'm fine. Sorry to spring this on you first thing in the morning....") we all parked in front of the news, looking for answers about what happened, how many were killed... and why. The photo at the left is one that sticks in my mind from the days following those attacks... Passengers trapped in the tube after a tunnel caved in.
Crash photos linked from Twitter were circulating all over the world before the story was even picked up by any of the major news outlets - and I'm talking websites, not just televised news! NYTimes.com, CNN.com, FoxNews.com... NOTHING.