FollowFriday
Follow Friday #NaNoWriMo Author @renegadegenius
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 11/13/2009 - 06:57The sound of heavy wind outside only adds to my desire to stay warm and comfortable under the bed covers. It is five in the morning and dark outside. Is the wind and rain are the remnant of Hurricane Ida? I’m not sure but it may make the ride a bit longer. All the more reason to get out of bed and get going.
This weekend is Junior Dad’s Weekend at Mary Baldwin College in Virginia. Miranda, also known as @renegadegenius is a junior this year and wants to do the whole Junior Dad thing. Her older sister @MaireadCH is a senior at Mary Baldwin. She didn’t want to do the Junior Dad thing.
I can understand that. I never was one for a lot of ceremony and the Junior Dad events reek of college marketing infused with old southern ceremony. “Few events in a young woman’s life are more memorable than the day she receives her MBC class ring,“ the page starts off.
Events kick off this afternoon with a “VWIL Honor Ceremony”. VWILs are the members of the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership, “the nation’s premier leadership program for young women” and “the only all-female Corps of Cadets in the world”.
But @MaireadCH and @renegadegenius are not VWIL’s, they are PEGs. PEG is Mary Baldwin’s Program for the Exceptionally Gifted. Like many of their friends in classmates in the PEG Program at Mary Baldwin, @MaireadCH and @renegadegenius both started college at fourteen. It has been a very different sort of experience for both of them, but for both of them, a wonderful, rich and fulfilling experience.
I am not used to all this Dad stuff. I grew up in a family that was not particularly close knit, and only recently, as my father’s brother struggles through Alzheimer’s, have I reconnected with my father and his side of my family. At home, we’ve always tried to talk with our children as peers. They have important thoughts to share and should be part of much of the family decisions. We joke around, and they see me in all my warts, or at least all except a few that I might still manage to hide.
There are times that I feel my life has been hard. The failure of my first marriage was very hard on me. I’ve been very successful at times in my career financially. At other times the successes have been harder won and not financial, but perhaps even more meaningful.
Because of this, I have not been able to give my children everything I wish that I could, and each of them has missed out on things one way or another because of my own inadequacies. Yet each of them are turning out wonderfully.
@renegadegenius, now sixteen, is writing her third novel as part of National Novel Writing Month, or #NaNoWriMo. She self published her first two novels, Subtle Differences and The Silent Serian. I am a couple days behind in my writing, but @renegadegenius is all up to date.
Another struggle I have as a father is how best to praise my children. They are special and I am very proud of them. I don’t want their heads to swell and I don’t want to stimulate sibling rivalries so I am careful in heaping my praises on them. On the other hand, I don’t want them to go through life not knowing how much their father loves and admires them.
So, this weekend, I am driving down through the wind and the rain to celebrate but a portion of Miranda’s many successes. I will dress up and where nice clothes for the “My Precious Someone Champagne Brunch” and the “Junior Dads & Family Ball”. Yet all of this will fall short of giving her the due that she deserves.
Am I a proud dad? Oh yeah!
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Follow Friday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 10/16/2009 - 13:15#cttu @SuziCraig @lisadavenport @ljwaks @jobtutors @kparlin @PicSeshu @MyCaricaturecom @AgentMurphy @cellularchloe @EnzaDandeneau @derekbeere
On Fridays, I attempt to put up a Follow Friday post relating to people that I follow on Twitter and have had recent interactions with. Using TwitterFeed it automatically shows up on Twitter as well. It also shows up on Facebook, and identi.ca, even though some identi.ca people grumpily say they don’t do Follow Friday. Today’s Follow Friday post is around the CT Tweet Crawl. “CT TweetCrawl is a mix of suits, creatives, seasoned pros, media folk and entrepreneurs who connect at local venues worth talking about.“ As a geeky media type, I just barely fit the bill and felt a tad out of place there. However, I did meet a bunch of interesting people and had some great conversations.
Starting off the list is @SuziCraig of Fathom. She organizes the Tweet crawls, does a good job of it, and understands the importance of social media.
The Tweet Crawl’s host as @lisadavenport of Lisa Davenport’s Home Gallery. The Home Gallery was a wonderful setting for the event, even though the decorating motifs seemed more traditional than the geeky pile of spare computer parts that I like to decorate with.
The most interesting discussion I had was with @ljwaks. Dr. Waks writes about Education 2.0. He’s just started his blog, and his posts are long and ponderous. Much different than the 140 characters you find on twitter, but well worth the read.
Another interesting person was Peter Begin of The Alternative Board in Greater Hartford. Peter is a former Fortune 500 CFO who helps owners of small businesses set up ‘alternative boards’ that get together and share ideas on how on make their companies as successful as possible. He is just starting to look at social media and I couldn’t find him on Twitter yet.
Also in the business area is Stephen Harvey of @jobtutors. He is a former executive recruiter who now helps train people in how to mount more effective job searches. He is also just starting to get his feet wet in social media. It seems like his business is well suited for exploring wise use of social media as well as modeling that use.
Leading the pack for the creatives is @kparlin. She is about to be launching a new site about creativity called SparkLab. In addition, her husband runs a photography business in Connecticut.
Another photographer at the event was @PicSeshu. On his current site, Seshu.net he describes himself as a “documentary wedding photographer serving multicultural, ethnic & interfaith clients in Connecticut, New England and around the world”. He comes at this with a background in journalism and does some amazing photography. Of course, after everyone gets married, they start having kids and he’s starting to expand his business into children photography as well. He showed some of his work in that area which was quite amazing as well.
If photograph isn’t your thing, you might want to check out @MyCaricaturecom. You should check out some of his work on his website.
I spoke with plenty of other people including @AgentMurphy, @cellularchloe, @EnzaDandeneau, and @derekbeere
So, that’s my #CTTU Follow Friday. There are others that I probably should have mentioned, but perhaps I’ll get them next time around. So, who are you following?
Follow Friday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 10/02/2009 - 09:55@Joakimbaage @joosterizer @MikeCK88 @Bastelyon @gunniho
@gametopius @evcinnyc @moon @MacTavishBest @jst418 @torontocitylife @nathandaschle @TheJusticeDept @tracyrusso @ltoomre
This week’s Follow Friday post is dominated by people from the #nygames conference. Leading the list is @Joakimbaage who was one of the conference organizers. One of the most interesting speakers was @joosterizer who writes the blog Waffler and is working on a PhD at Columbia. His thesis is tentatively titled, “Games as Communication: the Practice of Discursive Game Play“.
@MikeCK88 of NPD was another interesting speaker that was on Twitter. NPD provides great gaming data and Mike does a great job of presenting the data.
There were breakout discussion sessions which I believe is a great thing to have at conferences like this. The session I attended was lead by @Bastelyon of Promethium Marketing. He shares the same last name with me, so perhaps we are distant cousins. In addition, Promethium Marketing has a great URL for those interested in gaming: PMFTW.com.
I also spoke a bit with @gunniho, CEO of Clara. Clara has a tag line, “The web is talking, we are listening.” I was impressed with @gunniho and think that Clara is a company to keep an eye on.
A few other people that I chatted with at the conference and/or on Twitter included @gametopius @evcinnyc and @moon.
@MacTavishBest retweeted one of my posts from the conference. She runs Best PR, a San Francisco based PR firm. She writes some interesting Tweets and I’ll keep an eye on her PR firm.
@jst418 also tweeted a little bit about my coverage of the #nygames conference. He is an old college buddy of mine and it is great to see him on Twitter. @torontocitylife and I also talked a little via Twitter about ideas coming out of the conference. I know @torontocitylife from EntreCard.
Moving beyond the #nygames conference, this week I started following @nathandaschle. Nathan is Executive Director of the Democratic Governors Association. I was on a conference call with him earlier this week. I got a lot of great background information on that call, and I hope to write up some reflections on it soon.
Another interesting new follow for me is @TheJusticeDept. @tracyrusso has been instrumental in the successful launch of their new online presence.
Finally, a special shout out to @ltoomre who is celebrating his birthday today.
That’s it for my Follow Friday post. Who are you following?
Follow Friday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 09/18/2009 - 11:39@digiday @scottyhendo @shivsingh @StephanieSAM @ckieff @JasonDPG @annemai @KenRobbins @sofadude @LizaPost @DragonSearch @fromedome @mmathias @HartHooton @Alirana @tanyachadha @chrisfield
Every Friday many people in Social Media, especially on Twitter, but also on blogs and other sites, share lists of people that they enjoy following on social media sites. On my blog, Orient Lodge, I regularly participate in this. However, after the Digiday conferences in New York on Thursday, I thought it would be an interesting post for Digiday:Daily. I use TwitterFeed to post the title and lede of my blog post, along with a link to Twitter, and I use the Twitter App on Facebook to pull the Tweet and use it as my status on Facebook. With that, let me discuss some of the people from the Digiday events on Thursday that are well worth following.
@scottyhendo presented “The Future of Cause Marketing: Pledge to End Hunger Case Study”. He mentioned that the head of Tyson said a brand engaging in cause marketing should be like the moon, reflecting the light of the cause, in this case hunger. To illustrate his point, he provided a graph of the number of followers that he, Tyson Foods and the Pledge to End Hunger drive had during the campaign. The campaigns followers skyrocketed while his followers and the Tyson food followers remained on a standard trajectory.
I’ve often wondered how appearing at a conference like Digiday:Mobile or Digiday:Social affects the number of followers a speaker has. @shivsingh provided the keynote for Digiday:Social, “The Social MediaInfluencers: How Brands Become Connectors on the Social Web” which was very well received and I expect he may have picked up quite a few followers as a result.
@StephanieSAM led a panel on making sense of social media data, “Data Here, Data There, Data Everywhere! Making Sense of Social Data“. At one point in the discussion someone brought up a request from a brand about making a viral video. This led to a good discussion on Twitter about how a request to make a viral video is sort of like a request to make a hit TV show. Good content goes viral, but if you set out to make something go viral, it is probably less likely to have good content and go viral.
One person to join in this discussion was @ckieff. I’ve met Chris at many events and he let me know that he is now working on his own at 1 Good Reason. His card describes himself as a ‘Social Marketing Evangalist’. Normally, that would be enough for me to throw the card in the trash. Everyone and their brother on Twitter is a social marketing evangelist. However, Chris really does understand digital marketing strategy, and I encourage people to follow him on Twitter.
After the event, I had a chance to speak to many interesting people. Two that I speak with at many such events are @JasonDPG and @annemai. They are both well worth the follow. I also had a very interesting discussion with @KenRobbins. Ken is the President of Response Mine Interactive, one of the Sammy award winners.
During the conference and the awards ceremony, there were lots of interesting discussions on Twitter. Perhaps the most interesting comment came from @sofadude They observed that Weber Shandwick, one of the finalists for Best Twitter Branding, was a PR firm and not an ad shop. They went on to say that if social media is all about the conversation, then perhaps it is best to let public relations and communications firms handle your brand, as well as noting that this may be more cost efficient. Of course, they managed to communicate the idea in 140 characters.
There were several other people that contributed a lot to the discussion on Twitter about the conference and they deserve a shout out as well: @LizaPost @DragonSearch @fromedome @mmathias @HartHooton @Alirana @tanyachadha @chrisfield
So, whether you attend any of the Digiday events on Thursday, these are some of the people that I considered influencers and I hope you follow them. Of course, I hope you follow me on Twitter as well. I’m @ahynes1. Then, join the discussion and share your Follow Friday favorites and if you attended any of the Digiday events, what you thought the highpoints were.
(Cross posted at DigidayDaily.)
Follow Friday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 09/11/2009 - 16:38@2gov @cornyman @redheadranting @larrybrauner @chinren @paulbaines @JoeTaxpayerBlog @sadermaxx @LohmanTrading
This week’s Follow Friday is again a bit of a mish-mash.
Starting the list is @2gov. Their website says:
@2gov is civic participation for the 21st Century. Once registered, simply include @2gov in tweets about issues that matter to you.
We take your tweet, match it to your specific officials, and send it to them in a professional report (even if they aren't on Twitter!)
Seems like a cool idea to me.
The rest of the people I mention are from EntreCard. @cornyman is running a contest on his blog to encourage EntreCard users to comment on each others’ blogs. Go out and add some comments. The contest sponsors include Kamila the Camel, The Fitness Diva, Work At Home, A Little Boy's blog, and EzGreatLife - Family, Fitness and Finances
Next up is @redheadranting. She writes several blogs and on Sunday asked people to follower her on Twitter in her House Cleaning Blog Style blog post. I’ve been following her on Twitter for quite a while.
The rest of the folks are people that are current ‘top droppers’ on my blog. This used to mean a lot more when EntreCard gave you credits when people dropped a card on you. They no longer do this, the value of recognizing top droppers has decreased a lot. However, you still get a higher ranking on EntreCard based on the number of people that drop cards on you and this affects your advertising rate, so it is still worth it to note various people.
At the top of the list is @larrybrauner. Larry writes Online Social Networking. It’s a good blog for people looking for ways to promote their businesses using online social networking. It is worth noting that he is currently following nearly 40,000 people on Twitter, so if he follows you, you’re part of a large group. He has an EntreCard ad coming up on my site soon.
Next is @chinren who writes Writing in China. It is a fun blog to read.
@paulbaines was a top dropper on my from two different blogs, Buy Tees and his art blog. I always enjoy it when one of his blogs shows up in the rotation. He also has an advertisement coming up on my site soon.
@JoeTaxpayerBlog is next in the list. His blog is called JoeTaxpayer. I suspect we disagree on various political issues, but he does offer helpful advice here and there.
@sadermaxx is another top dropper. The blog is mostly pet pictures. I like the blog. However, many of the recent tweets have been on some game called
#MobsterWorld which I find someone annoying.
Likewise @LohmanTrading blogs at lohmantrading.com and was a top dropper. Most of the tweets there begin #crafts on #ArtFire.
So, that’s my Follow Friday for today. For all of you EntreCard users, I would appreciate not only a card drop but also a follow.
