When my parents come to visit me in Kansas City, they love going to City Market (farmers market). This weekend, they dropped into town and I brought along with me my newly re-purchased Canon S95. You read that right …re-purchased. I lost my camera at a Halloween party earlier this month. Bummer huh? Oh well. The good news is the S95 is the new point-n-shoot model of the camera I had. Below are a couple shots from the full set of photos I took with it.

The top two photos below have the “tilt-shift” effect applied, something that’s an option on the camera. Pretty neat huh?

This weekend I toured the new Kansas City soccer stadium being built for the Wizards (it’s still under construction till June 2011). I shot a quick ‘n short video blog to show you what the progress on the construction looks like. It’s impressive isn’t it!? I played soccer growing up (through high school), so I’ve always been a big fan. This stadium is GOING TO BE INCREDIBLE! (i’m excited for it, if you can’t tell). *update*, the Kansas City Wizards blog has linked to this.

A few facts about the stadium (more):
- 18,500 capacity
- Natural grass field
- Canopy roof
- 300 HDTVs

(click to enlarge the PANO image)

Have you ever been to a rodeo before? This weekend, I went to my FIRST rodeo The American Royal provided me access to this year’s PRCA ProRodeo and gave me free reign to capture whatever was blog worthy. I had no idea what to expect …and I’ve got to say, I had a blast.

Here’s the video blog I cut to share with you what it’s like @the American Royal rodeo:

The bottom-line? Rodeos are FUN! For those with small-n-short attention spans (like me), the competition moves quickly from event to event. You never get too much of 1 thing. Of course, the bull riding at the end, is the most fun to watch. I’d for sure go again with friends and/or my family.

Tickets are cheap too, they start at $17 (which you can get online). This year’s rodeo is the biggest in American Royal history. It’s part of the Gold Tour season for the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA). Translation? …you’ll see the best riders, ropers and wrestlers in the world. If you’re familiar with the sport, the competitors include: Trevor Brazile, Fred Whitfield, Will Lowe, Shery Cervi, Stran Smith and many others.

Want to see photos? I posted my favorites and the full set and slideshow is posted to my flickr.

Have you ever been to a rodeo before? This weekend, I went to my FIRST rodeo The American Royal provided me access to this year’s PRCA ProRodeo (in Kansas City) and gave me free reign to capture whatever was blog worthy. Here are my favorite photos I took when I was there. The full set and slideshow is posted to my flickr.

Want to see video? I posted a vblog on YouTube of what I saw when I was at the rodeo.
PS, you can still grab tickets online for the competition + concert this weekend.

This week, I was notified that a project I worked on, pulled in 2 national awards, the in the W3 contest! (International Academy of the Visual Arts) The website we built, was aimed to recognize and celebrate Hallmark’s 100th birthday. A centennial is a big darn deal for anything. And for such an iconic company as Hallmark, it was important to commemorate it appropriately.

This contest is competitive, there are over 3,000 entries. While hardware, blue ribbons and recognition isn’t everything- it’s certainly nice validation on the hard work. The entire website itself won a Silver W3. And the Hallmark Centennial Flash Timeline won the Gold W3 for “Video or Motion Graphics”.

There were some people that were straight-up rockstars on this project, and did some brilliant mind-blowing work. And in my opinion, they deserve some recognition and a high-five:

Ivan McClellan; did some insanely awesome Flash work on the Timeline piece.
Derek Hamm; showed his wicked skills with the brand appropriate overall website design.
Matt Olson; killed it with strategy and project management.
Ferris Lucas; coded like a mad man. an awesome mad man that is.
Wing Chan: apple fanboy and dope developer
Neal Sharma: provided great strategy and overall direction
Deric Mendez: you think you know CSS? you don’t. Deric knows CSS.
Kenny Powers: just because

A recent study of 1.2 billion Tweets found that only 29% of Tweets actually produce a reaction (RT or @replies). The company that conducted the study, Sysomos, also found that almost all (RT) retweets happen within the first hour after the original Tweet. So, if you are looking to get retweeted …your window of opportunity lasts about 1 hour.

What does this mean? No one reads all your tweets. Get over yourself.

I find it’s easiest to explain to clients that Twitter is like a “river”. It’s a constant stream that is always flowing. At any given time of the day, your followers may choose to jump-in and view the river of content. This means the time of day in which you post to Twitter matters. Your followers will not see everything you post. The more you Tweet, your chance of being noticed in the huge river of Tweets increases.

People who are smart, like Jay Bayer, will Tweet links to his blog posts multiple times during the day …each time, using different headlines. It’s a simple + smart technique.

Tip: if you want to save time and make Twitter easier to manage, when you publish content- go ahead and schedule 2-3 different Tweets in Hootsuite with different headlines to publish during the 9AM-5PM workday.

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My #15 tip is simple, easy, and it just makes sense. Take advantage of all the space you have for your Facebook page profile photo. The maximum image dimensions are 200 x 600 px. They give you this space, so use it all. Any graphic designer should be able to export a clean .JPG file in these dimensions. Better yet, have them make you a template so you can easily update it in the future, on your own.

What should you do with that 200 x 600 px of space? Be strategic. You have options.

For example, you can demonstrate a level of customer engagement by featuring customers photos like Dunkin Donuts and Oreo does:

Or you can take an integrated marketing approach and highlight your current campaign:

And of course, sex always sells:

You can go with a more traditional style:

Regardless, using all the 200 x 600 space you’re allowed is just stupid simple. Don’t make it hard. Just do it. Try, learn, and refine to see what works best.

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Chicago is the city I most frequently visit for business and vacation. I was there recently on business and snapped a few photos with my point-n-shoot, Canon S90. Here are my favorites from the full set I took.

This was my POV at “the office” one of the days I was working in Chicago. The weather was so incredibly nice, it made you smile. And, I had a decent view, right off a small street called Michigan Ave

A couple of my friends are leading the charge for Movember here in Kansas City. Have you heard of it? I wanted to give them a shout-out and help spread the word (they’ve always been loyal supporters of our benefit party, The Ugly Christmas Sweater Party).

What the heck is Movember? The “M” in Movember comes from the slang term for moustache in Australia, “Mo”. Combined with November, it becomes Movember. Guys are encouraged to grow out their moustache for 30 straight days and raise funds + awareness about cancers that affect men.

It was interesting scanning and studying their website to find out where the funds raised go (i’m that guy, who actually likes to follow the fine print details). The Movember campaign helps with treatments and finding a cure for prostate cancer. The funds also go to LIVESTRONG programs that help people surviving cancer.

How it works: you can start a team and grow out your moustache or go solo on your own. The only rule is you have to be clean shaven on November 1st and go 30 days.

I can see how guys growing out their moustache will get peoples attention, it’s a clever way to drive awareness. If you’re in Kansas City, you can attend the kick-off party at The Brooksider on Wednesday, October 20th @6 pm.

Many of you already know location based social networking is all the rage right now. It’s the current “shiny object”. Over 3 million people (as of August 2010) are “checking-in” on Foursquare and earning badges. As a business owner, understanding how to leverage this platform is important. My tip today, is more of a 201 advanced tip, and not basic 101. This is will be helpful for people who understand the Foursquare basics, and are interested in using it for their business.

I’m the mayor at my local Starbucks here in Kansas City. It’s a popular spot for people to check-in to, and I take (geek) pride knowing I hold the mayor-ship.

What effect has this had on my behavior? Foot traffic into the store (which translates to dollars for Starbucks).

I’m motivated to check-in to keep my mayor-ship AND order my favorite drink. Which is a [deep breath], “iced venti mocha, half caramel, non-fat, no-whip, light ice, with an extra shot” (it’s pathetic, i know).

Foursquare can play the role as a digital loyalty platform (my Starbucks story is the same with other mayors at different businesses everywhere). As a business owner, if your employees are the mayor, you are not enabling the platform to benefit you and (more importantly) your customers. Shouldn’t you give the mayor-ship to your biggest repeat customer? They’ve earned it.

How to block employees from becoming mayor:

1.) First, you’ll need to make sure you’ve claimed your venue (if you’ve got multiple venues claim them all, and if you find duplicates listed, have them fix it)

2.) Find your venue’s page and click ‘Edit Venue’.

3.) Then just add your staff and employees to the venue. This will prevent them from unlocking rewards or prevent them from becoming the mayor.

Ever wonder what it’s like to go to a NASCAR race? I put together this short video blog to show you what it’s like. Pretty crazy huh?

I shot 1 another video blog “behind the scenes” in the garages’ (Team Chevy invited me and other local bloggers) -AND- I also snapped photos and posted them to my flickr account.

Have you ever been to a NASCAR race? Until this weekend, I hadn’t. And I had a blast. I was invited by Team Chevy to this year’s race at the Kansas Speedway. They were nice enough to give myself, and a few other local bloggers a tour of the garage’s before race day. Check out the video blog (i also posted photos).

I also shot and posted 1 other video blog “What it’s like to go to a NASCAR race”.

These are my favorite photos from attending NASCAR this weekend. Even though my ears are still rattling from the sound of the cars, it was a blast. My favorite part was using the radios we rented to tune-in and hear the drivers and pit crew talk to each other. The entire photo slideshow is posted on my flickr.

I also shot 2 video blogs and posted them to YouTube. I went behind the scenes in the garage’s -AND- captured what it’s like on race day, at the Kansas Speedway.