And I missed him. Love-struck as I am by the music he makes and how much I am called to dance to it, me brudder and me sister were in town from far, far away. And they trump just about anything else. In case you have yet to feel the love of the internationally ranked #1 DJ …
(I can’t find a good link to the event. To track him in DC, follow Ibiza Night Club, Love, etc.)
Is it a lone prankster? A disgruntled group of grumps? A Freedom Movement, here in our li’l patch of historically preserved suburbs?
I’m talking here of the micro-vandalism witnessed on my mother’s car. Well, to be more accurate, the vandalism perpetrated on her magnetic Choose Civility bumper sticker, which happens to be on her car. I got blamed for this act, which I took in good spirit. See, someone has produced a syllabic switch-out; they’ve created mini-stickers to slap on and over the forest green “Choose Civility in Howard County” bumper stickers. My mother’s sticker now says “Choose Senility.”
What do you think? Is this a mild-mannered petty vandal? A no-two-ways-about-it criminal who wrongfully has damaged personal property? Have you seen evidence that this is a multi-messaged campaign with a barrage of new stickers popping up? Speak up, dear citizens. Speak up.
I had a great time at the OM Disco Night party, this past Saturday. For all that the ’70s didn’t produce, at least the decade gave us disco! I find the music so danceable! Plus, as being dressed thematically for the night’s event was encouraged, I found it easy to be playful and dance happy.
Here’s Meg, Mary Kate’s sister, and the third prize winner in the fashion contest.
And, yes, that’s JessieX on the far left of the pic and local blogger Heather to my left. The only thing I regret about the night is that I didn’t get a close up photo of my shoes. My front strap was covered in small squares of mirrors; the shoes literally cast moving flickers of light on my legs as I moved. Disco Rules!!!! Here we are learning The Hustle from the good people at Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Columbia.
Other local bloggers spotted: Dave of Hedgehog Report (thanks for the beer); Anne of Annethologie; and Ilana of Yaks and Snaks.
For those wondering what is this thing called Twitter.
Twitter, at least for now, is my A#1 favorite social tool. Love it, love it, love it.
For the local folk, if you’re looking for a sweet spot to hang out, the Starbucks at the Route 175 and Route 1 crossing has a fabulous space design. The café offers comfy chairs and some nice spaces for a small group gathering. I was just over in that area doing some errands and popped in. I must say I was surprised at how welcoming and stylish the place was.
A colleague sent me a question about how to use Flickr in support of his client’s marketing goals. Removing some of the details, here is the question:
She is trying to start up a group in Flickr that is focused on “ABC.” I think she wants to start a photo journal and eventually publish it. She wants my help to drive traffic to the site and build participation. That’s about all I know. I will be able to fill in blanks later after our conversation. Hope this helps. I appreciate any insight you can provide regarding the inner workings of flickr.
Here’s my response to him. First, I’m not an expert on this subject. Second, this is a long post. Ready? OK, so I’m fudging a bit on my answers, but I’m close enough to get some key points across. See, Flickr, is a classic social media site. It includes –
And it takes work to make it work. In other words, just like any other social media site, it requires purpose, vision, nurturing of relationships, admin, moderation and ongoing and ongoing attention. That said, it can be a wonderful tool to use for accomplishing multiple goals for an individual, business, group or “cause.”
Just some of the things to think about before starting a Flickr group (and this is from my own limited experience with it) –
And perhaps the biggest of all, there’s inertia. Having a purpose, value and mission behind something doesn’t seem to be enough to get the ball moving anymore. At least not through my eyes. So getting a community of people to participate in a Flickr group — by joining, commenting on photos, adding their own photos, et cetera — can be a challenge.
Probably the easiest route to a robust Flickr group is to have any existing group that has personal and meaningful relationships and then to layer in Flickr as an additional means of connection and expression inside the group. But that’s just a guess.
I actually do have two good friends (Strobist and Ozoni11), both local, who have extremely successful Flickr groups. They both happen to be world-class photographers, so they created a social network inside of a tool (Flickr) where their community members already play.
I have another good friend (Mary Kate Murray, of Oakland Mills), also local, who uses Flickr to support the many cool community activities she does. She actively layers Flickr in along with Socializr, Facebook, blog comments, Twitter and other online media. So Flickr is one component of her tool kit for creating and strengthening community. She *works* it. Each picture gets a comment, and on occasion, a hyper-link.
Your client wants you to help drive traffic to her Flickr group, and I’m certain you can do that. What does she want to happen when people get to her Flickr pictures?
In recommending Flickr as a tool for a client, I think it would be helpful to know how comfortable your client is with Web 2.0 technologies and culture. Sometimes seemingly simple stuff can be a huge hurdle to the uninitiated.
Social media is not a build-it-and-they-will-come world anymore. Your clients idea sounds relatively sound on the surface. As you know, there’s lots involved in making a site successful once people arrive at it. And much of that success has to do with how the site was set up and what you want people to do when they finally do arrive at it. In social media, it also includes a fair amount of admin and content management and the no-two-ways-about-it time-consuming task of creating, developing and nurturing relationships.
Probably the best thing for you, right now, is to
That’s my two yuan on a Friday afternoon.
Sears will not let itself be trashed in a junkyard like some old heap of used appliances. No, no, no. The company has an entirely new, and I’d add, fascinating rebranding and marketing campaign going on. Look for lots of splash about The American Mall. It’s an 87-minute movie (care of The High School Musical folks) with scenes
“shot in a Utah Sears store. Characters wear Sears clothes, which shoppers can purchase. And the characters will appear in Sears advertisements and circulars. Meanwhile, Sears will sell the DVD and sountrack in stores while promoting the film and getting commerical time when the movie airs on MTV on Aug. 11.” And they’ll be “adding a line of street clothes and accessories designed by hip-hop artist LL Cool J.”
Dang. That’s a lot of layered branding, marketing, PR … the works! I am all for this kind of creative work. Really. I am.
Here’s where I think The American Mall misses the mark:
Sears is an old brand. Right? Old! Millennials (born 1982-2002ish) are a generation that aligns behind large, established brands. Their hero is The Common Man. They orient, as a group, toward convention, conformity and hierarchical status where everyone is included in their peer culture, but some are clearly higher and some clearly lower than others.
As consumers, this translates to the fact that some of them will own Coach bags; some will get their purse at Target, but they all *look alike.* See? No one is left out of their peer culture and the right to belong. It’s critical to their generational mindset that all are included in the styles, norms and fashions. And it’s totally OK that someone paid $300 for a purse and someone else paid $14. The main goal is that they look similar!
So, Sears is brilliantly positioned to bring style and options to “the more budget conscious” Millennial consumer. And that’s why I went exploring on their site. Unfortunately, what I found struck me as rather last-wave GenX. It’s a bit too edgy, methinks, to have mass appeal to Millennials. One of the things Millennials have to deal with (and rebel against in their own right), is the deluge of extreme (GenX) and narcissistic (Boomer) media older adults create for them to consume.
I could be dead wrong. I’ve only watched a few vid clips and scanned a handful of character profiles. This campaign could be an absolute hit. I just get the sense that there would be broader appeal, especially by the mid- and younger Millennials, if the characters wore bright colors, looked wholesome and did collegial, good-deed activities together.
Millennials have their own culture in their own right. Like any other generation, it’s best to work *with* natural energies and motivations, rather than to foist foreign culture on a group and then blame the campaign’s lackluster results on something such as “the economy.”
That’s my two yuan.
Last night at the Baltimore contra dance, I noticed two young teens dancing as a couple. At first I just assumed they were brother and sister, as they looked comfortable together. Then, while dancing in a set with them, I witnessed something that quickly corrected my perception: The young man, at the most opportune moment, took his partner’s hand and gave it a gentle kiss … all while executing the dance move fluidly. The young girl, in the most classic and feminine of gestures, lowered her eyes, tilted her head slightly downward and smiled demurely in receipt of his gift.
It was soooo sweet to witness and enjoy that small moment between them.
Not too long ago, I had a slew of blogs. Blogs for this and blogs for that. I still have more than your average American, and by a long shot, but I’ve changed my tact with blogging of late. Yes, I still use blogging for content management, as I never mastered (and don’t plan on it now) the art of website design and coding. But more importantly, I started blogging LESS for my audience and more for me.
Oh, I can hear them now.
Blasphemer.
Heathen.
Stone her.
Hang her.
How dare she ….!
Well, it’s true. I blog for me. I blog because it helps me think. It helps me store information. It helps me figure out what’s important and what’s not, to me and just me. It helps me put my current thinking around content, categorize and tag it and put it in a place where I can most easily find the info: in my own blog.
And, because I learn from others and am interested in knowledge that moves from person-to-person, I put this information in a public blog, visible to anyone with an internet connection.
So, had you asked me — say six months ago — what the purpose of my blog is? I’d have said some high-falutin (and totally appropriate) answer about content, community, conversation and such. Ask me today? I’d say it’s for my own benefit. And blessings to all who benefit from it — and contribute to it — as well.
It’s taken me forever and a day to read The Fourth Turning, the generational theory book that’ll make even the mediocre among us seem like a genius, but I’m almost there. This bit just astounded me so much that I had to turn the computer back on and blog.
We all got the picture that the Democrats and Republicans have just been so out of whack for 20 years. Right? Dems are all about old consumption promises (no sacrifice required, entitlements for every victim) with no plan or capacity to make it through the winter. Republicans pursue an endless quest for more individualism that they’ll starve and shut down an agency to make a point. That’s all fine for the era of the last 20 years: Boom-bust-boom.
But in a Crisis Era, as articulated in generational theory (and right about now), the style of leadership that reigns supreme for a generation is the one that combines enough public sacrifice to infuse team spirit in a new generation (Millennials) plus enough public authority in government to infuse civic spirit.
From what I’m reading, the push-pull, 50-50 voter quagmire that’s been going on for the last decade or so will suddenly become undesirable (and unelectable). Leaders — local and national — who can quickly and persuasively create a new paradigm combining the concepts of personal sacrifice plus public authority will reign. And not just for a term, but for a generation. (This info is from pp 311-312 of The Fourth Turning).
Segueing not so gracefully into one of my rants: Yo, politicians: Cut it out now with all these save the homeowners from foreclosure programs. As I see it, the “personal sacrifice” is for people to live within their means. The “public authority” is to help them do that … not to burden taxpayers with another person’s unsustainable mortgage. Public authority and services could be used to help people transition to more affordable homes and lifestyles, even if that means helping them find a place in semi-rural Pennsylvania, or a row house in the not-sexy part of Baltimore, where they can afford to live and raise a family.
A call to personal sacrifice plus public authority is the flavor of the next 15-20 years. At least that’s how I read the generational theory info.
This sales technique is not up everyone’s alley. Nor everyone’s style. But this housing certainly isn’t what most folk go looking for. It’s called cohousing, and curiosity got the better of me, so I clicked on a Google ad inside Gmail. Check this out! This property has mini profiles of current residents in the neighborhood where homes are for sale. Different. Interesting. Thought I’d just pass it along in case you might find it interesting, too.
There’s JessieX, and then there’s Essie Ecks. Essie Ecks, which when read out loud, sounds a heckuva lot like JessieX, is the name of one of the team players in the Mobtown Mods. Never heard of them? They’re the “Agents of Mayhem” and one of the teams in Charm City Roller Girls League. I just came back from my first bout and have to say I like it quite a bit. The audience seats were hard. But I guess that’s nothing compared to being down there on the floor with the Agents of Mayhem.
Oh, my goodness. I just read this player’s name aloud and heard something really different this time: S. E. X. Lord, have mercy!
I spent most of today on the National Defense University campus at a most-fascinatingworkshop on US government strategic communications. I’d never been to NDU before. It’s really quite lovely. And right on the water.
One thing I noticed was the people and how consistently friendly the military personnel were. People I passed in the parking lot, in hallways and on the campus actually said “hi” to me. I found it a nice reprieve from the mostly staid suburban experience I have where folk routinely avoid eye contact in a rush to get to their cars as quickly as possible.
I’m headed back to the campus tomorrow to finish up the project with the work group to which I was assigned. Tomorrow is the NDU graduation ceremony. Man, I can’t wait to see that. Even if from a distance. From my experience, I think the military is doing a fine job of raising the level of basic manners and cordiality among its personnel.
Right on. Right on.
I host a lot of parties. All kinds of parties. Cocktail parties. Living Locally parties. Geek parties. Picnic parties. Hula hooper parties. You name it. I find parties to be an excellent personal branding system and means to keep in touch with friends, particularly weak social ties: you know, people I like but just don’t see that often.
Plus, parties are just way fun.
Now, as more of my friends have elem and middle-school-aged kids, I’ve become more cognizant of their schedule pressures. So, I just switched up my parties, especially the cocktail parties, and made them kid-inclusive. Now, this is a very specific word choice I’m using. These are not kid-friendly parties. There’s no face-painting. There’s no kid-friendly food. And, frankly, there will be drinking and alcohol. I hope my adult friends will give stern looks to interrupting children who forget their manners. And I hope that, when we’re at a more upscale place, that the parents will take advantage of the teaching opportunity to discern appropriate clothing for different events. A cocktail party is a cocktail party. It’s not an outdoor picnic.
The last 15-20 years of American culture — as I see it — have leaned toward parents and adults putting kids first and then socializing around the edges of their children’s activities. I understand this. I understand generational influences. I understand cultural shifts. And it’s all cool.
I also believe that what has become the norm is now shifting and the kid-inclusive adult events, rather than the kid-focused family events, will start to become more common place and will shift the culture in a new direction. In either case, whether I’m right or wrong, this is how I’m doing it. My parties are kid-inclusive. But, please, parents, understand (and help your kids understand) the subtle nuanced differences of kid-friendly and kid-inclusive.
Rock on.
A Romanian love song. Sung by three-year-old Cleopatra Stratan. Ghita
Actively. Passionately. With super-hero efforts, good cheer and indomitable spirit, I have moved, acted and committed myself to a future that I believe is coming. And sooner than most would believe possible. I have been smirked at, questioned with bemused looks and occasionally (and with growing frequency) received a knowing and appreciative nod.
I’m speaking of what I believe is the need to weave face-to-face interactions with online social media interactions. The two have to be connected for either and both to work. No longer is it functional for an organization, business or municipality to broadcast their message and call it a day. No longer is it functional for organizations to hold meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting, without layering in social media connections, networking and collaboration.
At least that’s how I see it. And I have a surprising acuity in spotting both short- and long-cycle trends.
So, I write this because a few minutes ago, an email about the Rob Curley- LoudonExtra- Washington Post-hyperlocal news dud came my way. In the media, marketing and social media worlds, it’s been quite the talk of the town. And there’s plenty of info on the web to read more about it.
This one bit below caught my eye, as it speaks to what I have done for the last two years. First, with my best friend, Thinking Buddy and co-believer in “preparing for a future that hasn’t yet arrived.” And now, more, with other social media and energizing community people we’re meeting.
The technology was there, but the human touch was missing. Ventures like this need a “community weaver” – a local native who is passionate both about the community and about fostering community relationships online — and face to face.
Community Weavers. That’s what we are. Whether our community is defined by geography, niche interest, values or just liking each other, we’re finding each other, using social media more and more, and deepening connections, meaning and resource sharing.
Oh dear, I gotta go. The Oakland Mills Indie Movie Night Series starts tonight. Hometown kitsch entertainment, and social media networking, at its finest.
Most of my afternoon I’d already scheduled to be out at meetings and such, so today’s sudden power outage just pushed me out the door a bit earlier than originally planned. Coming home, after 7:30 p.m., and still finding the power out, I turned to one of the few electricity-free activities at the ready: hula hooping. Loving as I do to hoop to music, I brought my iPod and portable speaker-things outside to continue my blindfolded hooping practice. Dang, if my batteries didn’t start to die in short order.
No electricity. No batteries in my iPod. Sunlight starting to fade. I saw across the street, by the light of his cel phone screen, my neighbor sitting on his porch. Now, this neighbor and I are often outside at the same time and just somehow manage never to look at each other or say, “hi.” I decided to go for it, so I traipsed on over and an easy conversation followed. His wife came home shortly after, and we kept talking.
Last fall we lost power in the evening and a few neighbors came out of their dark houses onto the dark streets lit only by the gas lights. That night, I met a new couple that had moved in recently.
Earlier today, I made a few phone calls to check in with some people I’d invited to an upcoming party. Simple stuff. Make sure they got the invitation. Light talk. Hope to see them, etc. It was rather awkward to call people, many of whom are weak social ties, to chat and just check in. I just don’t typically call my weak social ties to say “hi.”
So, I think I was more aware tonight about how easy it was to talk to my neighbors when the power was out. I didn’t feel as though I was interrupting them, or slowing down their fast-paced movement to some important goal. My neighbor was on his front step cuz not much a-nuttin’ was going on. And a friendly conversation seemed just the thing to do.
It was sweet.
Oh, I have officially welcomed Maryland “summer” nights. I came in the house with five whopping mosquito bite welts. *Sigh.*
I took a break from working, mid-day today. Officially, it might have looked like procrastination, as I was facing a big, deep-thinking project, but I knew that I needed to do something other than sit at my computer What a great time to start my new Samurai Hooper practice. So off I went, outside, iPod and portable speaker in one hand; blindfold and hula hoop in the other. Once blindfolded, I started to do some of the new hoop practices I’d learned this past weekend.
Now, I live in a pleasant and quiet suburban spot and it can be astounding at times how quiet the neighborhood is, especially given how many houses are in our little cul-de-sac upon cul-de-sac world. But, the minute I put my blindfold on, I suddenly started to hear sounds all over. Sounds to the left of me. Behind me. Down the street a bit and far in the distance. It was wild to notice how quickly my brain compensated for the intentional and temporary removal of sight as a sense.
I also noticed that I became even more expressive, fluid and confident in my moves. I found that interesting. And really fun. Can’t wait to try it again soon.
Regarding my project, I still did procrastinate, but that had more to do with the fact that I don’t have an externally imposed deadline. Ugh. The power and pressure of a deadline to evoke creative and intelligent work in short order. Well, I gave myself a deadline, and just finished the first phase of the project just in the last hour. Phew.
