It’s incredible to see the speed of conversation(s) and mention(s) on Twitter about this Virginia earthquake today. Pat and I pulled up TweetDeck and saw this!

**update** Twitter reported officially that within a minute of the reported earthquake, there were over 40,000 #earthquake related tweets. And there were about 5,500 Tweets per second (TPS). For context, this TPS is more than Osama Bin Laden’s death & on par w/ the Japanese quake.

Last Friday, I was at a Kansas City Royals game and I came across this nifty device (watch this video i took of it). This device is hooked up to a keg, and it can pour up to 50 beers per 1-minute, with just one person using it. The plastic glasses have a floppy fridge-magnet inside, a circle which sticks itself to a corresponding donut-shape strip around the filling-hole (they’re also reported to cost 45 cents per cup each …compared to 10 cents, and $2,000 per dispenser).

I did some research and Wired has a great write-up on “how it works“. These things are made by a company called Grinon Industries and it’s called Bottoms Up.

i took this pic of the fireworks at the Kansas City Royals game friday with my point-n-shoot Canon S95. and i also shot this video blog

You can certainly put this on the list of things I never thought I’d ever do. Doing the DOUGIE with Mike Arrington‘s executive assistant (Greg Barto). While I was in San Francisco, I saw that TechCrunch published a blog post asking people make requests for him to do anything you wanted. That’s right, anything you want. Arrington is invested in a startup from LA/Kansas City called Zaarly (which my GF works at). It’s a really cool startup that is an App/website that allows you to buy and sell stuff (goods and services) …and it’s hyperlocal.

The back story here is I decided to Zaarly $25 bucks for Greg to, “teach the Exact Target CoTweet staff how to DOUGIE” (i was at CoTweet‘s offices for meetings in SF).

So I Zaarly’ed …and then it happened.
Me, the Exact Target team, and some friends all learned how to DOUGIE.

Here’s the TechCrunchTV full episode (below). And Business Insider has a write-up on this.

Jump to 02:05 in the video to see us dancing:

Annnnnnnd i shot a video blog myself with my POV

**update**
featured on…
TechCrunch: Michael Arrington’s New Executive Assistant Did It All For The Labradors
SFGate: Mike Arrington Uses A Startup To Haze The Heck Out Of His Assistant
Forbes: Ashton Kutcher, Tweet Pimps and Federal Crime

The older I get, the more I realize change is hard work.

I’m going to learn to cook.
I want to read more books.
Give up TV.
I’m going to exercise more.
I’m going to wake up earlier.
Call a family member every day.

Resolutions come and go. But in order for you to make a change, you’ve got to work hard.

They say it takes 30-days to develop a new habit. And 30-days to break a habit.
So have you started yet? 30 days of dedication to do something. If you want it badly enough, you’ll find a way.

Commit and do it. I’m in.

–

Sometimes I like to take photos for fun. Photography is just a hobby for me, i dabble (i’m not good enough to make it a full-time gig) . That said, I haven’t edited the full set yet, but i took portraits of my friend Ben yesterday- this one is on the entrance walkway at the new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts here in Kansas City.

And here’s just 1 side of the new Kauffman Center building in Downtown KC. This place looks great doesn’t it? #ilovekansascity

It’s been a while since I’ve shared what I’ve been up to at work. So, it’s time for show and tell
I lead the Social Media practice at @digitalev and we just launched a Facebook Contest that is a case study in the making! (i wish i could share all the stats and analytics) We worked together with the marketing team at Hallmark to develop and launch a contest that supports the focus of “Life is a Special Occasion” (a branding campaign). We have a team of ninja developers that are trained and certified on the Involver Social Media Marketing Platform. This Hallmark contest is built and powered using the Involver social markup language.

Over 11,000+ people entered the contest, their brand page has received a huge spike in LIKES, and it’s resulted in hundreds of thousands+ of Facebook Tab views on their page.

The idea behind the contest was simple. Give away a really awesome prize ($5,000 bucks and record a video of the winner) to the best “any day” special occasion. Hallmark believes that life is made up of small little moments that are special occasions. And we wanted to encourage people to share with everyone what they are!

There were some really creative contest entries received:

Much of the success for this campaign is attributed to the Hallmark marketing team’s drip roll-out across all digital channels, as well as a targeted outreach to mommy bloggers.

…an email was pushed to customers:

A Facebook status update to our 200,000+ FB fans:

Tweets were sent:

…engagement with key “mommy blog” influencers:

This contest campaign resulted in a huge acquisition spike in “New Likes” to the page:

KCTV5 asked me to come on to their morning show with Carol Long to talk about what parents can do to let their kids use social networking tools like Facebook and still keep tabs. During the interview, I shared 5 tips …but I ran out of time and didn’t get to share a new service I think parents should consider. A new service called Zone Alarm SocialGuard allows you to monitor Facebook for your kids. It’s only $2 per month/$20 per year (pretty cheap if you ask me). What I really like about this service is it’s “invisible” (your kids won’t know you’re monitoring them). And the service sends email alerts right away to parents (this way you don’t have to login to see if there are things that need your attention). WSJ has a great review on SocialGuard on it, if you’re interested.

You can watch my interview on KCTV5 here. If you want instructions on my last tip I share in the interview, here are step-by-step instructions on how to follow your kid(s) every time they update their status on Facebook.

@saradavidson made this photo with just her iPhone. Pretty cool huh? She took the photos and used the app Diptic. This was our 3 courses from dinner at CommonwealthSF <– which is darn good BTW! Check out both the app and the restaurant (if you’re ever in Mission, San Francisco).

Creating photos is easy with the Diptic app, you first choose the “grid” layout you want to use (there is lots of options)

…after you have your layout you just tap and add photos from your Camera Roll to each section of the grid.

Well I showed up late. And I only got to see one show. But seeing the inaugural Kanrocksas was fun. I was traveling for work this week, so as soon as I landed Saturday night I drove straight to the music fest! Luckily I caught the last show, which was the headliner: Muse. Look at the video blog I shot of what it was like there.

I also snapped some pics during the Muse show…

Yes, these are giant inflatable EYEBALLS!

Someone gave me a heads-up to kudos on the Twitterverse from a stranger that was browsing and using a website developed by the company I work for (@digitalev). Any time someone says “your website is sexy” = #win! Check it out with your phone: http://m.flykci.com