This past weekend I attended the Children’s Center for the Visually Impaired (CCVI) night golf tournament. My friend Allison, volunteers for the CCVI and when I heard the words “golf” and “benefit” — I was sold.

What was unique about this golf tournament, was the back 9 was played in the dark. Yes, you read that right — in the DARK. It was AWESOME! They setup glow sticks down the fairway and on the flag pins and you hit with “light-up” golf balls.

I video blogged the experience, watch it below. It was hard capturing the “night footage”, but the video gives you a pretty good idea of what it was like.

Last night I attended for the third time startFEST, an “after work” social gathering geared towards putting together startup companies and members from the investment community. Their promotional flyer describes the event as:

“A social gathering with an aim to create relationships among growth-oriented entrepreneurs, innovative companies, and members from the investment community. StartPATH is a virtual incubator and social network helping entrepreneurs transform concepts into successful companies.”

In my opinion it’s a great event in which other fellow entrepreneurs can see up-and-coming businesses. I love coming to these events to be around people who are “carving their own path” and doing it their way. Having the drive, ambition, and emotional capacity to start your own company isn’t something everyone can do. Everyone is unique with their stories of being motivated and trying to make it all happen.

Check out quick video blog I put together (below). I just started experimenting with YouTube and it’s new annotation feature — which makes commenting over my video pretty cool!

I enjoy watching the video interviews Robert Scoble does for FastCompany.TV — why? It’s not so much for him, but for the REAL people in the industry he gets to discuss their website, product or just about the industry. What I really enjoy hearing and seeing is the “how” other people communicate at different companies. I take mental notes of what they do effectively and what can I adopt in my own style of communication. Communication is everything no matter what industry you are in — but having a “polish” to your presentation always is important.

I wanted to point out after watching an interview Scoble did with the lead product manager at Facebook, Mark Slee, what the rationale behind the new Facebook and it’s new user interface.

You can watch the 20-minute interview like I did… or just read the next couple of paragraphs for my “short and sweet” version.

When the News Feed was orginally launched — it’s objective was to share activity of your friends and what they were doing on Facebook. While it took a while for mass adoption, eventually people realized it truly was a valuable industry changing feature that not only saved time by bringing forward updates of all your friends — but it also help engage users to contribute more so their content would appear in their friends’ News Feeds. It was a brilliant move.

So what’s new in the new Facebook?

Feeds.

The focus of the entire redesign is on feeds. As you can see in my highly technical drawing below (spent a grand total of 4 minutes on it) the main difference is that feeds have now been pulled as the main focus for users profiles. While the old site had a “mini-feed” section, it also contained static areas like “personal information” and “favorite music” which never changed. On the new Facebook the feed is the ONLY item on the initial profile page. Furthermore, feeds are sortable on the homepage by filters; News Feed, Status Updates, Photos, Posted Items and Live Feed.

What does this mean? If users want their profiles to be populated with content — they MUST interact on Facebook. They must post photos, video, write on people’s walls, comment, etc.

If you think about it — this is a big shift. No longer does maintaining the list of your favorite movies and music artists suffice. Creating content is the new focus. Sharing is the new focus. The new Facebook makes sharing easy to do and rewards users with prominence if they do it. Much like the initial launch of News Feed, I think it will take time for mass adoption — but I do believe it’s big step in the user interface that rewards it’s users with value in investing time on the site.

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So check out the logo for the benefit party I’m planning (below). How awesome is this!?!

I posted earlier this month about the benefit party I’m planning — which is help a local organization her in Kansas City, Operation Breakthrough.

I’m really proud of the fact the friends I’m working with are doing everything they can to make this party the best it can be. We’ve already secured the venue which is Tower Tavern — and we have a local “hip-hop” band that will be performing too!

It’s just amazing how much everyone is willing to help out. I can’t tell you how great of a feeling to watch this all come together.
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If you think all these people “poking around” on the Internet who blog, post and share — that their efforts are just a big waste of time, consider the following excerpt in recent issue of Wired magazine:

“The Hollywood gossip site PerezHilton.com averages 198 million page views a month. Ads on his homepage fetch up to $54,000 a day, and his overhead is minimal — his only employee is his sister Barby, who fields emails and corrects typos.” He first created the website using the free blog application, Blogger.”

Need some inspiration?  Read the blog post I wrote that is intended to motivate you about life. Make the most of those 24-hours you have each and every day!

For the past 77 years, a great tradition happens here in Kansas City — the Plaza Art Fair. The Plaza Art Fair is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 5 art festivals. It’s three-day event which features 230 artists from 36 states. The celebration of the arts extends 9-blocks into the streets of the Plaza.

It’s just a great outdoor event here in KC.

This year I went during the day to grab a late lunch and meet some friends. I noticed so many people love bringing their dogs to the Art Fair. In fact, this year I got more of a kick out of seeing some of the exotic dogs than the art!

One thing still holds true, if I ever want to own some of this cool art featured at these shows — I’m going to need a lot of money.

Meet my friend and co-worker Ferris — and his cell phone. He has your standard traditional flip-phone. However, what isn’t so traditional is it’s missing the screen. COMPLETELY. While the “flip” part has broken off, the phone somehow still works. Watch how Ferris still manages to use his cell phone, even though it’s half-way broken… and has no screen or earpiece. Hil-arious.

I totally called this! No really — want proof? Prior to this SNL sketch, during the Republican National Convention, when Palin gave her first speech, I Twittered the following message:

So in a unexpected turn of events last week, an opportunity to move downtown here in Kansas City has presented itself. And I’m totally going for it. I’M SO STOKED! Downtown KC is exploding with growth and seems like a great place to be, especially given my own personal situation <– (what the heck does that mean Ramsey?)

The process of moving makes one go through a thought process that we’re not faced with on a day-to-day basis. However it’s extremely significant considering the decision making you’re faced with. Having to pick up and move to a location makes one reevaluate what’s important to you. It even made me personally think through bigger life questions such as; what living environment do I need to be happy?

I realized my life can literally be moved in exactly 5 boxes.

Now, I determined this could be looked at in one of two ways:

A.) Cool. I’m not tied down to many material possessions I feel need to be “moved” with me.
-or-
B.) Holy jeez, my life fits into only 5 boxes! Really? …is that a bad thing?

I’ve come to the conclusion I’m happy with the fact that I’ve got a simplistic set of “things” I must have. It’s actually refreshing. However, I will disclose the majority of those 5 boxes my life fits into… is mainly comprised of electronics and computers (which isn’t a surprise)

Downtown Kansas City, October 1st — here I come!
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**UPDATE**
There was a piece I remember watching on 60 Minutes by Andy Rooney that is semi-sorta-related to my post. In the video (below) he discusses how people carry around “more stuff” than ever before.  It’s completely a Seinfeld-like observation — but nevertheless very true.

For those of you that know me well — you know that I enjoy running for fun. As crazy as that is to say, it’s one of those few things that helps me “decompress”. Running outside is a preferred (as long as the weather is above 30 degrees). I can’t stand running on treadmills, they make me feel like I’m a “lab rat’ in some sort of experiment. Fighting the elements is much more fulfilling and enjoyable than running “in place”.

If I’m running I HAVE to have music. Call me a “product of modern technology” or someone with A.D.D., but I look forward to rockin’ a new set of songs for my runs. I try to mix some old stuff with some new — and always keep it random.

I thought I’d share my most recent playlist (below). You can click on any of the songs to listen to them. If you haven’t heard of these artists, you should check ‘em out.

1.) “Numba 1″ – Kardinal Offishall
2.) “Mayday!!!” – Flobots
3.) “One More Time / Aerodynamic (live)” – Daft Punk
4.) “Remember the Name” – Fort Minor
5.) “Mr Brightside” – The Killers
6.) “Ocean Avenue” – Yellowcard
7.) “Bawitadaba” – Kid Rock
8.) “Break Stuff” – Limp Bizkit
9.) “Crying For The Queen” – Little Jackie
10.) “Squeeze Me” – Kraak And Smaak
11.) “Play Your Part (Part 1)” – Girl Talk
12.) “Got Money” – Lil Wayne

What do YOU listen to when you work out? I’d be curious to see what you listen to when you workout?

This weekend I DJ’ed two weddings. During one of the weddings, a bridesmaid totally called me out about accusing me of being an “apple fanboy”. I was shocked. I’m not at all “married” to either OS. In my opinion, the tasks you are looking to accomplish determines “go PC” or “go Apple”.

It’s funny to think how defensive I was when I was “accused” of only liking Apple — but it did make me realize I’m completely agnostic and objective about what I choose. With technology, there’s so many choices — it’s dumb to have any brand loyalty to any company.

If you haven’t heard or seen the commercials already — Microsoft has allocated $300 million on a new marketing/ad campaign using Jerry Seinfeld. So what are they trying to do? While they may not admit it, I think they’re desperately trying to make Microsoft look “cool”.

Sadly, unless my humor neurons are completely tangled and jammed — I just don’t think any these commercials are funny.  More importantly, I’m not sure how this is repositioning the brand Microsoft brand. Who the heck is running this Mickey Mouse Show?