For anyone who is a Twitter user — it’s worth your time to watch this hilarious animated sketch (you can follow me on Twitter).  What’s so brilliant about it? I think it’s great because it is:

• Punchy and funny
• Clever
• Fast moving
• …they make some fairly well thought-out intellectual observations

Watch it and tell me what you think!

A local publication here in Kansas City contacted me in regards to a feature in their magazine — it’s called My Essentials. The writer asked me to provide her with “10 Things I Can’t Live Without”. I’ll admit, it was fun to force myself to trace my steps and daily habits to figure out what it is I must have (note: my iPhone, iPod and computers are given so they are not on this list).   I’m not sure when it’ll be published officially, but here’s the list I emailed her:

**UPDATE**
I failed to mention that the publication also said “the rules” are that these things must be tangible.  This is so other people can feel like they themselves could purchase or obtain them if they wanted to.  So things like people (sorry Mom and Dad), emotions, or things that are intangible can’t be included on the list.

1.) The Internet
I am a 100% Internet addict. I live, work and play on it. I can’t imagine life without it. I’m fortunate enough the place I consider “play” is also the same place I conduct “work” on. There’s not denying that living without it would be tough.

2.) Canon 40D DSLR
I’m a huge fan of photography — and do some shooting of my own with my Canon 40D. I consider it “my baby” and love that I’m learning something new every time I use it. I’m especially a big fan of capturing “people” and “emotion” shots.

3.) Flip Video Camera
When I shoot my video blogs, this is my gadget of choice to record them with. Why take a picture when you can take video!

4.) npr (National Public Radio)
Every morning on my way to work I listen to NPR. It’s the best start to any day to get caught up on the world and local news before stepping foot in the office.

5.) My Red Nike Running Shoes
I’ve had a pair of red Nike running shoes ever since Freshman year of college and I still run in them. While they’re obnoxiously “loud” in color, they still remain my favorite shoes to run in.

6.) Bose Tri-Port Headphones
I used to DJ in college (University of Kansas) at the bars, now I DJ here in Kansas City at weddings and parties for my friends. These headphones I swear by and love them for both work and just jamming out at home.

7.) Pinot Noir wine from Willamette Valley (Oregon)
ANY wine from this area of the country that’s a pinot noir, consider me a fan. It’s my favorite type of wine to cheers at happy hours and on the weekends.

8.) Twitter.com
Twitter is social networking site is a daily addiction that allows me to keep informed in real-time with everyone — including my friends, thought influencers and other people in the Internet industry.

9.) Brooks Brothers Slim-Fit Dress Shirts
I know, I know — not really a cool things for guys to admit certain clothes are a “must have”, but for the slim-fit shirts Brooks Brothers has can’t be beat. I love everything about how they’re tailored and the material they use.

10.) Orange Gatorade
Easily my favorite drink of choice!  This perfect blend of orangey citrusy electrolytes is awesome.  Nothing in this world beats the plain original Orange Gatorade drink.   It’s my gas station “go to” every time.

What started as a dream, a vision, a “what if” — is now more than just a reality. This year’s 4th Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party is in the books and I thought I’d take a look back at to recap everything and give everyone the whole story start to finish. I feel since we threw such a successful party that exceeded all expectations, it reiterates my firm belief that it’s important to have the passion and patience to dream and dream big.

Here’s the story behind the party:
The Ugly Christmas Sweater Party began in 2005, as a small holiday gathering hosted by a group of friends (me +2 roommates). While cleaning up in 2007, we decided to turn all of our hard work in to good for others, and raise money for a charity.

We chose Operation Breakthrough as our beneficiary because of the great work they do with kids in the Kansas City area. During our first visit to OB, we met with the children who benefit from their programs. That was all it took for us to become a supporter. The organization is truly amazing in all of its efforts and causes it achieves!

A steering committee of 15 volunteers made time to plan this party. We aren’t affiliated with any one organization – we’re just a group of friends who want to give back to our community.

Our goal is to make a positive impact by donating as much money and toys to Operation Breakthrough as possible. Our vision for the Ugly Christmas Sweater Party is to make it the biggest and best annual holiday fundraiser in Kansas City!

What’s amazing to look back on the entire effort in organizing this party, is all the wonderful things we accomplished:

Money. This year, our first year in organizing the party as a benefit, we raised $7,125.50 to give back to Operation Breakthrough! Yes, you read that right — $7,125.50. In my wildest dreams (and our Excel spreadsheet that had our estimated financial goals) we never even thought it was possible that we could raise this much in the first year. This pleasant surprise really validates a lot of the long nights and hard work myself and the entire steering committee put into planning this party.

Awareness. I’ve had more than a handful of people tell me they are now volunteering at Operation Breakthrough and had no idea of their existence until they heard about our party. How awesome is that!?! Furthermore, it’s great to see my friends engaging in the community and actively wanting to participate. Planning this benefit party really has made me realize there’s a lot of people out there that sincerely want to do good in this world, they just don’t haven’t had the right opportunity to do it.  We were also fortunate enough that two major local publications here in Kansas City published content about our party! Lawrence.com featured us on the COVER of their December issue.  Inkkc.com featured photos and a mini-story about our party as well!

Foundation. At the very first meeting with the steering committee I told everyone that the vision for “The Ugly Sweater Christmas Party” is to become the biggest and best yearly holiday fund raiser in Kansas City. We certainly have a long way to go in becoming the “largest” — but now that we have laid the groundwork, we’ve got great momentum going into next year’s 5th Annual. We reached out on our Website (www.kcsweaterparty.com), Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube to connect with our audience — and there was GREAT reception in online the community.  Much more than we projected.

Watch my YouTube video blog from this years 4th Annual party:

Here’s some pictures (taken by Zach Cobb, a professional photographer who donated his services for the party!):

Today is Blog Action Day! Dude, what’s that you ask? It’s simple: It’s one day of the year bloggers across the world agree to discuss and blog about one single issue – “poverty”. The goal is aim to raise awareness, initiate action. (p.s. last year’s topic was “the environment”).

This year’s topic couldn’t be anymore PERFECT because the benefit party I’m planning is actually dedicated to Operation Breakthrough. They are an organization here in Kansas City who assists children who are living in poverty. They provide them a safe environment to learn and have fun. I wanted to share a little bit about this great organization and all the great things that they do.

Here’s some fast facts about Operation Breakthrough:

• At any given time 25% of Operation Breakthrough’s children are homeless and 25% are in foster care. Many are in need of therapeutic services due to language development delays, sensory integration problems, and/or traumas associated with an unstable home environment.

• Operation Breakthrough began 35 years ago when a group of working-poor parents in the central city voiced their need for child care to Sister Corita and Sister Sailer.

• Operation Breakthrough only receives half its funding from government sources – city, state and federal. Grants from foundations and corporate and individual donations make up the rest. Without private support, Operation Breakthrough would be unable to offer its many service programs.

When I had a chance to visit Operation Breakthrough — seeing the faces and hearing the stories of what these children are experiencing was one of those moments in life when a hard, loud, sobering feeling hits your soul. It made me realize that so many things I’m fortunate to experience and be able to the things I do in my life. I’ve made a commitment really to helping O.B. after seeing how PASSIONATE the employees were and how they were really able to help make a huge difference in each of these kids lives (if you’ve read my motivational blog post before, you know I’m a big a big fan of passion).

I’m a huge proponent of Kansas City and what a great city it is, being a local organization — this is vital to several families and their well being. While poverty exists throughout the U.S. and the world, supporting a local organization that really is making a dent is little to ask for anyone who’s fortunate and able to give back anything they can — whether it be time, physical effort or money.

Check them out! They’ve got this great video on their website too. Annnnnd don’t forget to attend on December 12th — the 4th Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party. Psssssst, our website will be launching soon!
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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:

Jonah Hill is hilarious in this sketch (below). And It’s amazing to think the “Britney Effect” still exists even after all her shenanigans.

…for the record, I only watch the MTV for their award shows (it’s almost unbearable to watch their programming). While they fall flat on their face in regards to sitcoms and programming, their award shows always manage to showcase innovative design aesthetics and graphics. It’s actually really refreshing. I consider watching the VMAs and Video Awards Research & Development

This is a mash-up:

So I really don’t think EVERYONE should blog — but we quote this YouTube video (below) at our office all the time. It’s hilarious (or at least to us it is).

Within the past week Twitter has been blowing up about the website www.faceyourmanga.com. This site has completely gone viral — which is just fancy corporate jiber-jab-er for “everyone is telling everyone about it and everyone is doing it” (I swear that makes sense in my head).

The website is simple, it’s a tool for creating your own avatar. There tons of choices and options (much like the Nintendo Mii). Pointless? Maybe. Fun? Yep! Check out mine below and (i’m still not convinced it looks exactly like me) go to www.faceyourmanga.com and make your own.

I read an article in the New York Times regarding last months launch of www.criminalsearches.com. Essentially it’s a free service that lets you search government records criminal backgrounds. And you can search for everyone… in every state. Keep in mind, it’s using all public data that’s available — except now it’s online and for free. Whoaaaaa – what!?!

“…the site draws data directly from local courthouses and offers records of arrests and convictions in connection with everything from murder to minor infractions like blowing past a stop sign — at least for jurisdictions that include traffic violations in their criminal data. It also lets users view a map showing addresses and names of all those arrested or convicted of a crime in a specific neighborhood, and to place alerts that prompt e-mail when someone in their life gets busted or someone with a record moves in nearby (via).”

It’s increasingly more common for everyone — not just HR departments to “Google” your name to see what kind of information they can find out about you. I’m sure there are critics out there that will say this is “creepy” and “unfair”. However, if the information is not restricted in any way, placing it online for reference is was inevitable. Try it out, you know you want to .

» www.criminalsearches.com

Brilliant interpretation of lolspeak! I love it.

For anyone involved or around graphic design, typography or branding, you might find yourself chuckling at this “Font Conference” sketch (I know I did). Personally my current favorite font is Trajan (it changes frequently — 3 months ago it was Garamond). The fact I have a favorite font — is a CLEAR indication I’m totally a geek.

Over dinner tonight I found this snippet in Wired magazine about “What Not to Say in a Facebook Status Update”:

1. Rockin’ Freebird!
2. Rubbing cream on that thing I noticed last weekend. Doesn’t seem to be working.
3. Buying DC Universe Classics Wave 5 the Atom at Wal-Mart! Build-a-figure Metallo is complete!
4. Feeling trapped in this male body.
5. Jesus, I’m lonely.
6. D’oh! Accidentally trimmed my pickin’ nail.
7. Watching The Notebook again.
8. Quick! Does anyone know the age of consent in Kentucky?
9. Just came up with a new emoticon for sanguine [:<≠>
10. Thinking about maybe talking to someone.

On a related note, I had interesting dialogue today with a client in which I was describing the increasing importance of managing your own Personal Brand. Facebook status updates are one piece of the puzzle to building your Personal Brand. The keys to success with Facebook status updates? Be authentic, compelling (add value), be consistent, and update it frequently. You’ll be surprised the mileage you can get out of utilizing Facebook status updates when you follow those principles.

So like the rest of America, I went to see the new Batman movie this weekend anxiously anticipating “the hype” of the Oscar winning performance given by Maggie Gyllenhaal Heath Ledger.

Do yourself a favor and go see it.

While a highly critical person like myself could find minor flaws and make arguments against it, it’s an impressive motion picture that holistically is a masterpiece. Period. No matter what I do to describe the movie, regardless of your expectations and knowledge prior to seeing the movie — it will pale in comparison with what The Dark Knight is prepared to deliver. It’s full of surprises you don’t see coming.

Most comic book action movies are shallow at delivering substance. Why? Because most action movie story lines and acting suck. This movie brings a deeper dimension not only to the Batman series, but for action movies in general.

After you watch the movie consider this; the poetic delivery of the theme “evil” and “darkness” throughout the movie is ambivalent. I personally found myself drawn in to Ledgers’ morbid visceral creepy performance of the Joker so brilliant it was hard to swallow the fact I was falling in love with the villain of the movie — not the superhero.  Here’s a video comparing the performances of both Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger.  Who do you think was is better?

(Joker “Jack Nicholson” vs. Joker “Heath Ledger”)

• Did you know… the orchestral score of the movie was done by Hans Zimmer and James Howard. Zimmer and Howard gave the director an iPod filled with 10 hours of music cues based on just the script, which Zimmer contends the director memorized on flights to and from Hong Kong.

• Did you know… IMAX technology was used to shoot some of the action scenes.

• Did you know… the caterers on the film provided intricately thought-out fruit plates for Christian Bale that were a bit more composed and deliberate, whereas the food for Heath Ledger was arranged in a more frazzled, chaotic, Joker-like fashion.

My favorite shot/scene from the entire movie is actually only a 5-second clip — the part with the Joker, when he has his head out of the cop car. What a beautiful shot.