Taking a Page From Max Fischer Tuesday August 10, 2010

Twitter’s hiring and taking a page from Rushmore and the underrated playwrite Max Fischer.

(For the record Bottle Rocket was the bomb)

Categories: The-Twitter-verse, The-Blogosphere,

So What The BLEEP is YYC4Haiti? Wednesday January 27, 2010

Alright, so what is all this YYC4Haiti stuff? It’s been all over Twitter, Facebook and all over the media outlets, so what is it?

YYC4Haiti is a fundraiser tweet-up that is going on this Thursday at Flames Central in support of the Canadian Red Cross’ efforts in Haiti.

Yes, yes, yes… I said Tweet-up. I know this word scares most of you. Because it probably conjurers up images of a tribe of nerds making code jokes or people bitching about the Finger Trap Bridge… but please hear me out.

The yyc4Haiti fundraiser started out as a three-way Twitter conversation between Camilla Di Giuseppe (of CFCN Evening News Fame), Alex Ruiz (of Flames TV Fame), and Angela MacIsaac (of a former Sports Reporting fame).

Since then, it has blossomed into the largest (I think I can say that without a doubt) fundraiser for the Haitian Earthquake disaster in the city. Companies have been coming out of the wood work to sponsor and donate raffle prizes and auction items. The Flames have put 110% of their support, by allowing the event to take over Flames Central (on a game night mind you) and by donating Flames ticket packages and even autographed jerseys from Regher, Phaneuf and Kipper. If you don’t believe me check out the impressive list of items up for grabs.

Needless to say ,the whole evolution of the event has been very, very impressive. Like really impressive.

But on top of all of that it’s also started to garner some global buzz and support from international celebrities. Amber Mac (who seems to be every nerds dream date) wrote a piece for Yahoo.ca and even Dr. Fraser Crane tweeted about it. It’s also garnished a whole slew of buzz in the local media circles with Metro and BT Calgary giving it quality air time. Hell even Twitter made it an official Twitter event. Now that’s some street cred.

So hopefully that’s given you a bit more information into the event. I’m definitely going to be down there, as I’ve got my eye on winning a jersey… maybe… If only someone had a Chris Clark Capitals jersey up for grabs… Then I’d be fighting tooth and nail for a piece of the action.

Alright, I digress…

Either way you see it, these ladies (and their volunteers) deserve all the kudos for their hard work. It’s been a real treat to watch the event explode on twitter and watch the yyc community throw their support behind the cause.

So if you’ve got no plans on Thursday, make sure you head down to Flames Central for yyc4Haiti.

Categories: The-Twitter-verse, The-Calgary-Vibe, The Urban, The World

Month Of New Music Tuesday December 1, 2009

It’s December 1st and do you know what that means?

19 days till you’re married c.t.overdrive? Yes, but no.

Twitter and every business under the sun is going red for AIDS in Africa day Again, yes, but no.

It’s the beginning of the yyc Month of New Music. You’re Damn Rights it is

Last year a couple of members of the yyc Twitter community (ch3ls33, cawlin, and wintr) declared December a Month of New Music. The idea was to challenge people from the yyc community to listen to a new record for all 31 days of December. It didn’t have to be a new release or anything, but it just had to be new to you. You tweet the record in the morning (or when you start listening to it) and the post your opinion/initial thoughts once your done. It was a simple idea and it caught on by the end of the month.

But what it did was expose a lot of people to a slew of new music.

So this is a challenge to all your twitter folk who read this partake in Month of New Music. Use the hashtag #monm and see what new music you find. At the end of the month. I’ll post my list of cd’s and thought out the month here for people to read here.

And if you’ve got some records I should check out add them in the comments, I’m pretty low on new music at the moment.

Dec 1st – Blood Bank – Bon Iver – Thumbs Up. A great, great snowy time EP.
Dec 2nd – The Day Trotter Sessions – Bon Iver – Thumbs Meh. A decent little EP, it was nice to finally hear an original version of Lump Sum. Overall not as good as The Bloodbank EP.
Dec 3rd – First Aid Kit – Drunken Trees – Is the Sket Ulrich to Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twin’s Johnny Depp.
Dec 4th – Dizzie Rascal – Tongue N’ Cheek – Hew was better with Basement Jaxx.

Categories: The-Twitter-verse, The-Calgary-Vibe, The Music

Stomp The Yard vs. Bollywood. Wednesday October 28, 2009

You know what, it’s been far to long since I posted a link to an exceptional Bollywood clip, so when I stumbled upon this sucker, I had to post it.

I imagine this is what would happen if So You Think You Can Dance and Slumdog Millionaire had a horrible drunken one-night stand… But I’m not entirely sure.

Categories: The-Blogosphere, The-Twitter-verse,

Third Tuesdays & Twitterville Monday September 21, 2009

On Wednesday evening I went to my first Third Tuesday Meet-up for Shel Israel’s Canadian book tour for Twitterville. First off, let us all just ignore the fact that it was a Wednesday and not a Tuesday. Logistically, if the tour revolved around the five or six Third Tuesday meet-ups in major Canadian Cities pour Shel would have been cooped up in Canadian hotele for the next 5-6 months … Anyways, I’m digressing.

As this was my first Third Tuesday, I really had no preconceived expectations for this gathering of Social Media Evangelists. But needless to say I was pleasantly surprised with the event. It was really well run and the amount of knowledge passed around in conversation was a kin to the types of dialogue that one would expect to find at SXSW. Which is a dramatic change from the hair pulling frustration of most networking events in Calgary.

Overall, it was fantastic event and definitely one that I will be trying to attend in foreseeable future. So kudos to the organizers.

Twitterville & Shel Israel

So now on to the meat of the evening – Shel Israel and his new book Twitterville.

I won’t go into immense details about the book, as I will probably do a better review on the corporation’s blog later, but I will give a synopsis of some key points that Shel did touch upon.

As a speaker, Shel is a mesmerizing storyteller. The beauty of his talk (and the 50 pages of Twitterville that I’ve leafed through so far) is Shel’s ability to encapsulate a somewhat complex and difficult concept with a handful of choice words and anecdotes. He has a knack for taking the how, what and why of a story and converting it into a logical reason for his cause in a matter of seconds. Something that was completely evident through his hour and a bit chat on Wednesday night.

During his talk, Shel leveraged some of the meaty anecdotes from Twitterville to engage the audience in a dialogue regarding the use of Twitter as a business tool. From his stories regarding Ford’s struggles with the Ford Ranger club to David Alston’s effect on U-Haul’s customer service policy; Shel was able to make key points about twitter as a business tool, while backing them up with simple and provocative examples. For those familiar with Twitter and its professional capabilities, these few quotes might not resonate as strongly for those who haven’t looked at the service in this light before. But below are some of the more interesting morsels of knowledge that Shel brought up during his talk.

Twitter is the place where people act (online) in the most honest of natures.

Twitter encourages and leverages the cult of generosity.

There is nothing faster in a crisis than Twitter (in reference to the Iranian Elections and attacks in Mumbai).

Things [and moments] happen on twitter, that couldn’t happen in real life.

You very rarey begin a business conversation with business. On twitter, businesses cannot connect with their audience unless they interact on a personal level first.

While these tidbits of knowledge probably would have worked better in a twitter stream during the talk, I’ve found them very refreshing. As someone who works with businesses trying to leverage twitter, sometimes the most difficult task is to justify the benefits of Social Media for businesses. Shel’s tidbits are great food for thought and something that people looking at exploring this new marketing avenue should reflect upon.

As mentioned, I plan on exploring Twitterville a little more indepth at a later date, but in the mean time take these tidbits with you and consider picking up a copy at your local book store or at Amazon.

Categories: The-Twitter-verse, The-Calgary-Vibe,