Social Honeycomb

Wearing Christmas Cheer on Your Sleeve? Check Out My Holiday Sweater

From the jolly folks who brought us Elf Yourself last winter, this season we have My Holiday Sweater. But let’s be clear. With all the fashion-help TV shows out there, funny-ugly sweater photos, as well as friends and mirrors, there is just no reason to be caught dead actually wearing one of these super-festive, overly bedazzled sweaters. It’s just inexcusable.

However, to celebrate this absurd seasonal fashion faux pas, OfficeMax brings us My Holiday Sweater, where you can create your very own googly-eyed, snowflaked, reindeer-embroidered sweater and send it to family and friends. What a thoughtful gift! Thankfully, it’s only digital. Go nuts, kids.

[via geeksugar.]

Five Minutes of 2008

It’s been quite a year. Looking back, I feel blessed to have had so many moments of laughing, hugging, dancing, smiling, learning, sharing, celebrating, and loving this year. As the song says, these photos are all evidence of my life…

Sakurako Shimizu’s Tech-Chic Creations

It’s all about the accessories, right? Right. Innovative artist Sakurako Shimizu has found a way to elegantly marry technology with chic jewelry–this stuff is wearable, clever, and amazingly cool.

There’s the HTML earrings that put your head in between code:

The HTML Jewelry-Tag necklace:

And the Waveform series, that turns sound waves into shiny accessories.  This one is a giggle:

Hat tip the lovely Jessica Sutton for pointing out this talented artist.

14+1 Social Media Seers Take a Look Into 2009

2009 is barreling toward us, so Peter Kim got some seriously bright social media minds together to share their thoughts on what this new year has in store. In a forward-thinking e-book, Peter gives 14 experts, including mah boo and mah boss, the floor, and everyone has some interesting thoughts and ideas about how this space is evolving. Even Jaffe.

Want a taste of what Peter’s prophets have to say about 2009? Whet your appetite with the following:

• “Although it is now cheaper to launch an initiative leveraging Web 2.0 technology – it requires qualified and passionate people to make them successful.” – David Armano
• “You may not always start the year as a leader, but you can certainly finish it that way.” – Rohit Bhargava
• “Intimacy touches emotion; emotion powers conversation.” – Pete Blackshaw
• “Doors are going to close all over the social web. Why? Because the money didn’t come the way people thought it would.” – Chris Brogan
• “The tipping point has not only *not* been reached, but could still tilt *away* from Social Media.” – Todd Defren
• “There’s a lot of fixing that needs to be done.” – Jason Falls
• “Dwindling budgets suddenly make low-cost social media look like the pretty girl at the ball.” – Ann Handley
• “We’re going to develop a set of better metrics to help guide, direct and validate ‘commitment’.” – Joseph Jaffe
• “The movement is rooted in a desire to have quality, not quantity, as people cocoon in the face of the economic crisis.” – Charlene Li
• “After a pre-qualifying wrestling match…” – Ben McConnell
• “These will be cumulative events and interactions that will build brand loyalty for the companies that pay attention to them.” – Scott Monty
• “The recession will force revenue results out of social technologies.” – Jeremiah Owyang
• “Companies that focus on earning love will thrive during hard times, and kick ass when good times return.” – Andy Sernovitz
• “Suddenly, being Facebook friends with your mom will seem less ridiculous than following 4,000 strangers on Twitter.” – Greg “the other half of @gremanda” Verdino

If you want more (you know you do), you can find the full deal by downloading the PDF. Take a read through all the brilliance, and don’t be shy–share your feedback and questions with the authors on their blogs (or start a discussion here).

How will you take these ideas–and predictions of your own–into the new year? How does your social media palm read?

Good Thing This is a Personal Blog…

Bored. Sick. Shopping. Sandwich. Sniffles. Enjoy?

Five iPhone Apps for Holiday Shopping

I’ve done about 0.2% of the holiday shopping I need to do. With limited time, a limited budget and a 45-minute public transportation commute to my nearest accessible shopping destination, I need to make sure I plan a smart attack on the stores. Consequently, I’ve been checking out some holiday-themed productivity apps in the iPhone App Store today, and wanted to share my favorites with you. There’s a lot of overlap, but take a look.

Christmas Shopping List: This one is probably my favorite of the bunch. It allows you to enter gift recipients’ names, your overall budget, and how much you’re spending on each person. When you click on each person’s name, you can create a list of gifts you plan to purchase for them. Seems like a really great app, and for $1.99 I think I can get it for myself as a gift!

Gift List Budget Shopper: This one’s a little slicker-looking, but busy. It lets you categorize and manage your gift-shopping, by individual and occasion. What it adds to the mix is a spot to enter the stores where you’re buying gifts. You can also import wish lists sent to you by family and friends.

Nice List Holiday Gift Manager: This one celebrates the naughty and nice concept around Christmas gift-giving. You can add people directly from your contact list, and then mark gifts on the list as purchased, wrapped or shipped, accordingly. You better hope you’re on someone’s nice list this year…

WishList: This one really boils it down. It’s a really basic way to create a list of people, their wish lists, and the stores where you’ll find those wishes. If you’re into simplicity, this app’s for you.

GiftBox: This one has cute little gift box icons that represent if you’ve finished shopping for someone, have it under control, or haven’t started yet. You can also make notes for gift ideas and take photos of gifts while you’re shopping or after you’ve wrapped so you know exactly what gifts you bought and who they’re for.

HubSpot Music Video: You Oughta Know Inbound Marketing

My girl Rebecca can sing.

If you haven’t already, check out the music video @repcor made for HubSpot, that couples mid-90s angst with inbound marketing. HubSpot is also encouraging viewers to create their own remixes of the video–if you’re so inclined, you can grab all the info you need on the HubSpot blog.

“What the hell is this Internet crap? If you’re not dialing, I’m not smiling.”

SHIFT’s Todd Defren, One of PRWeek’s 40 Under 40

Congratulations to SHIFT’s fearless under-40 leader, Mr. Todd Defren, for bringing yet another award home for the agency.  Todd, at a very young 39 years of age, is one of PRWeek’s 40 Under 40 (subscription required), recognized for his passionate, forward-thinking ideas about PR, social media and marketing, and his ongoing success as principal at SHIFT Communications.

From working with Todd at SHIFT, I can attest that this award is definitely well-deserved.  Readers of his blog, PR Squared, and every person in the Boston and San Francisco offices can tell you that Todd puts his values and beliefs first, and his enthusiasm for public relations and bringing the industry to the next level is evident in all that he does.  Todd’s built a killer army of smart, driven, fearless PR pros, and everyone here is proud to work with him.  SHIFTers, clients and industry peers should all consider themselves lucky to know this cool cat.  And all this before 40!

Congrats, TD!

The Most Amazing Thing I’ve Ever Seen

Call me a blond-highlighted, navel-pierced teenager, but I could be locked in a room and forced to watch this masterpiece of pop a billion times and never get sick of it.  Click and watch.  Click and watch.  Click and watch.

The Sixth Photo Meme

Mr. Steve Garfield tagged me in a fun little meme last night. It works like this: you go to the sixth page of your Flickr photostream, and click on the sixth photo, and then post it to your blog.

For me, the resulting photo is quite a cute shot of my dear friends Rebecca Corliss (@repcor) and Dave Fisher (@tibbon) from a Pulver meetup at John Harvard’s in Cambridge.

To pass the meme on, I tag CC Chapman, Paisano, Jenny Frazier, Brian Solis, Pamela Seiple, and Greg BabyPoo.