Today’s Honey: March 29, 2008
Love and technology.
4×4 Pseudo-Secrets for Social
As I told John Wall, a little kidney infection isn’t stopping me from showing up at Blogger Social, which is only a week away now. I plan on being out in full force, wearing my obnoxiously sequined dress and painful strappy Enzos, ready to see and meet some super socialites. Tim Brunelle recently tagged me with the 4×4 meme in preparation for next weekend. So I’ve been sitting here, wondering if there are even 16 interesting things about me that I can share… Here goes:
4 Things I’m Proud Of
1. When I was 12, I heard about a junior high in Oklahoma whose school was trashed by a tornado, and they were trying to raise money so they could still have some big school dance. Since I knew I would be totally devastated if my big middle school dance was canceled, I saved my all babysitting money for a month and sent a check to the school.
2. I pulled off a big surprise dance number at The Dance Place, Inc.’s Susan G. Komen Benefit in November 2007 and also raised $1,150 on behalf of the studio for the cause.
3. I was able to graduate a semester early (with a job waiting for me!) from college with a strong GPA in a notoriously tough school.
4. I returned to dancing en pointe only four months after I broke my ankle/leg in three places. I’m TOUGH.
4 Countries I’d Like to Visit
1. Greece
2. India
3. Spain
4. Brazil
4 Albums That Defined My Adolescence
1. Brand New- Deja Entendu
2. Fiona Apple- When the Pawn…
3. Britney Spears- …Baby One More Time
4. Alanis Morissette- Jagged Little Pill
4 Things That Scare Me
1. Heights
2. This Under Armour commercial
3. Walking alone in the dark
4. Thriller movies, i.e. this.
I don’t tag people with memes, so that’s all, folks. Did you learn anything new about me? See you next Saturday!
Twitter: Get Well Cards 2.0
So, I spent last night in the hospital, where I found out I have a UTI (don’t get any ideas, it isn’t from what you’re thinking) and a kidney infection in my left kidney.
When I tweeted this last night, I had no idea I would receive such an outpouring of kindness, concern and get-well wishes from my friends and followers. Waking up in the middle of the night and seeing your messages made me feel almost as good as the Percocet did. Really, it was heartwarming. There is no way I could ever properly thank you all.
Last night and today, Twitter was my mailbag of get well cards, minus the cheesy artwork and envelopes. And the best part about these “cards” is that they’ll never get lost or thrown out. I was really blown away by how many people reached out just to say they were thinking of me. Below is just a smattering of goodness (edited together very poorly) from some of the wonderful, caring people in my Twitter network:
To everyone who tweeted and sent DMs, you helped me so much when I was feeling terrible. I can’t thank you enough: @skalik, @caseysoftware, @britrock, @pamelump, @dmitrigunn, @jdeverter, @nathansnell, @whojaybe, @rondean, @beckymccray, @ariedana, @taxman45, @etesla, @bruno1378, @jentaro, @jpostman, @cechastain, @conniereece, @susanreynolds, @profr, @timcoyne, @davedelaney, @theburbblog, @dougmeacham, @nazgul, @lisaa123, @ikitty, @tibbon, @alexa, @sbspalding, @jackhodgson, @bigtc, @mattjmcd, @sarahwurrey, @robertcollins, @ialbert, @podcastmama, @vanhoosear, @repcor, @albertmaruggi, @jyarmis, @techpickles, @mobasoft, @bpolensky, @dartagnan373, @disruptive, @strutting, @amyyen, @gregverdino, @hooeyspewer, @travis9to5, @cspenn, @jaffejuice, @uberrob, @jayberkowitz, @chelpixie, @spiver and @tdefren.
If You Give Amanda a Tweetup…
Remember those children’s books If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and If You Give a Moose a Muffin? The little characters get all excited and keep wanting more, more, more. I’m like that with Tweetups. Taking my online friendships offline is always interesting, and with the crew who attended this weekend’s Blogstring Presents: Boston Pubcrawl Tweetup, there’s never a dull moment.
Seeing the lovely miss Julia Roy was a breath of fresh air–it had been far too long, sister. And I absolutely adore the time I spend with Pam Seiple, aka @pamelump. This was her very first Tweetup, so I’m glad she had a great time with us crazy kids. As always, seeing Sarah Wurrey and Nate Burke was A+ all around. Sarah did some sweet Pat Benatar karaoke and Nate wore the greatest shirt ever made. Denton and Paull were silly, of course. Love seeing those boys. Also in attendance: Dmitri Gunn, who I met last week at the SOURCE Boston Tweetup; Bryan Maleszyk, who I don’t think I’ve seen since October 2007; Abe Estrada, who I met on Australia Day in NYC; Sandy Kalik and her boyfriend Nate, who are two seriously awesome kids; Steve Garfield and his wife Carol, who are obviously amazing; and Josh Nichols, aka @techpickles, who I met for the first time last night.
Being part of this growing group of friends is so much fun. I get to have awesome conversations about social media, careers and life. We’re sharing and laughing for hours–we’re a comfy bunch. Like I said–never a dull moment. Some people are skeptical of relationships that form online, thinking that legitimate friends are only formed face-to-face. But I’ve made some really excellent friends from Twitter! Tweetups: quite possibly the key to my heart. Join us sometime.
If you haven’t been tempted by any of the links above, you can see all my photos from the night here, and Sarah Wurrey’s photos (along with a choice moment from Halloween 2007) here.
Coming soon: Blogger Social and Podcamp NYC!
Words from Mom, Part 1
In honor of tonight’s Tweetup, I’d like to share a short SMS exchange I had with my mother last night, out of nowhere:
Mom: Is a twit up like spit up?
Me: LOL no!
Mom: How is it diff
Me: It’s people meeting up in a social place. People who are active on Twitter. You’re ridiculous.
Mom: No suh
My mom is the cutest.
Social Media Vocab: Friend
The word “friend” is thrown around a lot in the socnet space. What is interesting to me is that the new definitions sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are creating seem to be spilling over into everyday life (yes, outside of social networks). Variations like “de-friend” “friend me!” and “friend request” aren’t just buzzwords on social sites–I hear them spoken aloud all the time. It’s strange. I mean, since when do you meet someone and formally request her friendship? It’s not like a proposal or something. Oh yeah, before you request my friendship, maybe you should ask my dad for permission first… So, so weird. In my opinion, the definition of “friend” has undeniably and permanently changed.
Tonight I deleted 90 “friends” from my Facebook network. I was at 1,097 friends. In my opinion, that’s pretty absurd. I don’t have that many friends! A lot of the people in my Facebook network are acquaintances, friends of friends, classmates, teammates, colleagues, family members, exes… MOST of those 1,000-something people aren’t even my friends in the traditional sense of the word. But the meaning of the word “friend” has changed, so if we met once at a party or worked on a project in class sophomore year and are connected on Facebook, I guess we’re friends. Weird, huh?
Earlier this evening, I asked my Twitter network to define the word friend. Below is a screen shot of the results:
These are some pretty good definitions, I think. But I’m not sure what a friend REALLY is anymore–all I know is that the word “friend” has been distorted because of social networks and it is often used in ways that do not reflect what we all grew up believing friendship to mean. It’s not a bad thing, necessarily–just different meanings for an old word.
Are we friends?
Now it’s your turn to take a stab at it. Give me your definition.
Boston Tweetups + Security Conferences = Fun
Last night I had the pleasure of attending another Tweetup here in Beantown. Ah, I love me a good Tweetup. The night, which started at Fajitas & Ritas and led us to FELT and Good Life’s Vodka Bar, was full of great conversation, new friends and footage captured on Alexa Scordato’s MacBook Pro (coming soon).
There’s something about the people who use Twitter that inspires a fun, electric energy at meetup events. It seems there’s never a dull moment, and I always end up learning new things. At this particular Tweetup, I met Jennifer Leggio (@mediaphyter), Raffael Marty (@zrlram), Dmitri Gunn (@dmitrigunn), Adam and Sophy O’Donnell, Kee Hinckley and a bunch of other movers and shakers in the security industry who were in town for the SOURCE Boston conference.
Topics of conversation ranged from security compliance standards (how cool is it that I got to bring up SOX and PCI outside of work?!), to what, if anything, can or should be done to correct malicious online behavior among teens and college students, to glitter MySpace layouts, to Danny, the door guy at Good Life, being a seriously cool dude.
Thank you to Bryan Person and Joe C for being cool cats and making the night awesome.
Tool I Love: HubSpot’s Website Grader
(Disclosure: HubSpot is a SHIFT client.)
As an entry level PR professional, I spend a lot of time in the trenches scanning, tracking, compiling, reporting, monitoring… You get the picture. I’m sure the other newbies out there know what I’m talking about, w00t. It’s part of the job, and even though it’s sometimes tedious and time consuming, this stuff is important to our clients and supportive for our account teams.
A tool I’ve been using in my scanning and monitoring work is Hubspot’s Website Grader. Since Technorati isn’t all that comprehensive or reliable on its own when it comes to ranking and scoring blogs, I love that I have this tool to help me give meaning to the content I track. Why does this service rock? From the Website Grader home page:
Website Grader is a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
I like that the grading doesn’t just give you a number or a score, but that it shows you how the tool derives that number (AND how to better optimize your content if you want to improve your score). Website Grader pulls from different resources like Technorati, Google Page Rank, del.icio.us and Alexa (not to be confused with this Alexa), and gives you a table-view snapshot of your results. So simple. It helps people like me to explain the authority of certain blogs as opposed to others with easy-to-understand evidence supporting my recommendations. I love this tool.
If you have been tasked with scoring blogs, have you used Website Grader? What do you think?
Remember the Why
I’ve noticed now that I’m in the working world, I don’t spend a lot of time during my days thinking about the greater significance of my work and the various tasks I do. I realized this today and I wondered how many people out there consciously keep their job’s significance top of mind during the daily grind. I’ve been finding lately that I get sucked into the “doing” and I don’t step back enough and think about the “why.”
I guess I have a new mental exercise: Remember the why. Do you?
A PR Girl Gets Ink(ed), or Amanda Goes to the Tattoo Parlor
As you may have seen on Twitter or heard on Utterz, I got a tattoo today. Behold:
Since people had been wrinkling noses at and asking questions about my tat before I got it, I wanted to take this opportunity to explain what it means to me. My first one (the letter A on my left foot) never required a lengthy explanation, but this one seems to baffle people. And honestly, I don’t want to have to explain the meaning of my tattoo a billion times, so if you ask me about it in real life, I’ll probably just direct you to this post instead of actually telling you. Sah-reez, yo.
Let’s discuss.
So, back in November, Chris Brogan tagged me at Jeff Pulver’s Boston Real-time Social Networking party with a tiny sticker on my shoulder. I looked down, and it said “The Future” on it. I remember thinking, “Wow, that is not only the coolest compliment I’ve ever received, but it’s a really excellent perspective-framing concept.” Sure, it was just a couple of words on a sticker, but the more I thought about it, the more it struck me in a few different ways and influenced the tattoo I got today:
We spend so much time quick-sanding in our past and swamped in our present–we don’t dream enough. We don’t imagine ourselves, our lives, the world around us how we really hope things will be in the future. We don’t have time for that crap, right? Well, since 2008 began, I’ve been trying to take that step back so I can look forward and visualize things the way I want them to be. That’s half the battle anyway. I don’t think of myself as all that optimistic or Pollyanna in my general outlook, but taking a few minutes each day or a couple times a week to remind myself that there is a future that’s going to happen so I better do what I can to make it look the way I want, is really good for me. I recommend trying it. My tattoo is a reminder to acknowledge that the future is inevitably and continually about to happen, so I should prepare for and influence it as best I can to achieve the outcomes I desire of it.
I’m not gonna lie–I like to think of myself as the future. I’m young, so I’m still allowed to believe that I’m going to have a great life and do some good things along the way. My peers and I have been called the “entitlement generation” and it’s often said that we’re overconfident and expect too much. Of course I’m biased, but I think our drive and unwillingness to settle make us poised to turn the future into a pretty awesome place. (And please don’t forget that we learned our behaviors and perspectives from our parents, teachers and other socializing agents when we were young. We aren’t pulling our uncompromising views out of nowhere–the adults who molded us as children helped form these traits that drive us toward our respective futures.) So, say what you will about me and my generation, but I really am the future. My tattoo is a reminder to demand and create the future I hope for and expect in myself and the world around me.
Part of incorporating the perspective frame of “the future” into my identity is the sense that it’s not just about me. In my idea of the future, there are a lot of other people with me who need to get from this point A to that point B, too. Part of my “job” as an agent for future-shaping is helping the people around me to achieve their goals and wants as well. Life would be less rich if the people I know and love weren’t part of my future with me. My tattoo is a reminder to help others along the way as we each move toward our own futures that are undeniably strengthened by our collective, connected success.
As my Grade-A new friend Alexa Scordato pointed out today, “The placement of your tattoo is perfect. It shows that your feet are always headed in the right direction… the future.” So, come to the future with me. It’ll be good.
Thank you to Stingray Body Art in Boston for putting up with my squeamish tendencies and for creating this tattoo for me. Extra special thanks to my artist Nate Stevens for being completely adorable and talented, and to Brenda Wynne for being hilarious and making my friend’s tattoo beautiful.
Also, Mom and Dad, you probably thought I was kidding and/or I wouldn’t get this tattoo after Mom called me a dope, but I hope that after reading this you don’t mind too much. You’re part of my future too. Love you.
