The New York Times is now following you on Twitter! How can we help you?

July 2nd, 2009

When I first learned about the New York Times hiring a Social Media Editor (that link has a good internal memo about their plans), I salivated on my keyboard. Then, reports came in that the job might be more about reigning in prolific reporters (that link is a bit mean, but hey, it’s Gawker), like David Carr, who tweet about whatever they please. That job sounds less fun. I was hoping for innovation, pushing limits, starting new trends…even if that means great crashing fireballs of failure. Anything but mediocrity and safely following the pack. Jump into the fray, NYT!

*Calming down, wiping keyboard*

They hired Jennifer Preston (@NYT_JenPreston), who started out by asking questions about what people would like to see from the Times on Twitter, balanced with talking about her twins’ prom. Fine, human tweets. She also shared a few social media links that were not so savvy, like 10 Golden Rules of Social Media, which is just a poor concept. The first rule of social media is that there are no rules of social media.

After a month, her account abruptly went cold. I started tweeting around to see what happened, asking Carr and some other Times writers, and just asking the universe at large. Nada.

Today, I got this:

oh hai there

Oh, hai there! Savvy move on her part (or whoever is running the account now), it’s a sign of life without actually writing a tweet.

Why do I care? I have high hopes. An institution like the New York Times needs to be making up their own rules, stretching the limits of what social media conveys and how, and a successful editorial role would be gently pushing people to do more, not less, with the medium. Asking what to do on Twitter is a nice, friendly start, but then it’s time to dive right in. Create a new trend and run with it. If it flops, move on.

Right now what I want is an inside view on what they are doing in there, what conversations are happening. Knock knock, let us in! Because it’s the ongoing development that makes for a conversation, and the meeting of minds that makes for dazzling brainstorms. They’re gestating, fine, but let us see the ideas bouncing around. Are they considering standardizing hashtags for key topics? Let us know. Are they thinking about making a twit pic account for the staff? A Flickr stream that users can submit to? Are they going to start asking readers for ideas on all travel pieces, like the Frugal Travler does when he hits a new town?

Maybe I’ll have idiotic suggestions, maybe most of the suggestions will be throwaways. But not all. Social media is able to connect audience to content producer directly, and as a result we audiences have come to expect direct involvement in the process and the final product. We can’t give great or mediocre feedback without some transparency.

So, maybe our role right now is to ask the Times, What are you doing and how can we help?

A creative think tank from Wieden + Kennedy is hiring…get on the Platform. Woot woot! Chugga chugga.

July 1st, 2009

Ad giants/providers of free Heineken and Starbucks Wieden + Kennedy are calling for creatives who are not Mad Men (sartorial 1 ad types) to join a think tank called Platform. Basically, you get 250 pounds per week (it’s London based) for 6 months to pull heads together with other fun people all over the world, working with clients, honing existing skills and digging out new ones, and exploring the outer reaches of creativity.

The application has two parts: First, pick something in the world that bugs you, and make it better. Film or photograph the process and upload the photos to your Flickr 2. Second, create a 3 minute or less video that covers these questions: Who are you? What inspires you? What is your obsession in life? What is your greatest regret? What is your guilty pleasure? Upload the video to YouTube.

Applications are due weekend after next, July 10th (this deadline was extended from earlier). Remote work from another office is ok, so you can hang out on the roof of their awesome Portland building and bug Ava in the W+K radio station and Kirsten down at Literary Arts and everyone at PICA. It’s a regular beehive 3.

A search of Flickr and YouTube for combinations of “Wieden and Kennedy platform,” to check out the submissions, gave nil results. There’s lots of W+K produced videos on YouTube, though, including this, which is the top result for the above search (skip in about a minute):

I learned about Platform from Creativity Online, which gathers interesting print and web work into daily digests. Subscribe, it never fails to inspire.

Footnotes (I’m reading Infinite Jest):
1.) Sartorial=tailored=well dressed. Etymology, as given to me by a New Seasons Market checker last night: Tailors used to do their work by loosely crossing one leg over the other, to create a flat area. The sartorius thigh muscle makes this possible, and would get a little bent out of shape, causing them to walk funny, and they became known as sartorialists. Events like the Academy Awards are often called sartorial events, because everyone is wearing snazzy outfits. You can also use it to describe and compliment someone: Looking sartorial today, good sir! Then there’s the street fashion blog The Sartorialist, which was all I had to contribute to that conversation.
2.) This is a really crappy week for my camera to be broken due to a squirt gun accident while riding a bike dressed as a cowgirl for Pedalpalooza. Thank heavens it worked for David Byrne.
3.) Ava works at the radio station in the Portland W+K radio office, where I had hoped to do a 10 minute segment on the cradle to cradle story of everyday items. How plastic bags are made turned out to be very interesting. But my work got ahead of me, and now they’ve taken the radio off the air to regroup and reform the content. That’s what I get for being a slowpoke.

I made this at work. Sneak peek on an eco scavenger hunt.

June 30th, 2009

scavenger-hunt

Ok, so the image is not the snazziest thing you’ve ever seen, but I don’t even have Photoshop on this computer at work, so I made this with a program called Pixelmator, which is free and has all the basic gadgets and gizmos as Photoshop.

For our July newsletter I wanted to create fun, original content, because we’ve really been lacking in that lately. I’ve been so busy with the research and writing of the 2010 books (6! Portland, Seattle, Twin Cities, Berkeley/Oakland…and new this year Silicon Valley and Denver!) that I’ve had little time to write and create new pieces. It was high time for some original editorial content. Read the rest of this entry »

The AP Stylebook is on Twitter! Rejoice!

June 29th, 2009

And they say a mobile app is in the near future! Double rejoice! I so enjoy being a nerd.

AP!twitter.com/APStylebook

My favorite spam yet: I am of the school of thought that believes in the maxim that says it is good to love and be loved

June 29th, 2009

I used to have a blogger blog where I posted all the hilarious spam I received at an old job, and I nearly restarted it at my current job, but then I encouraged my company to move to Google Apps and now we get very little spam. Ahem. Today, this little gem wiggled through to my inbox. Love the formatting, and for once, I can say I identify with this spam:

from abigirl konte <abigirlkont1@gmail.com>
to abigirl_k@yahoo.com

Hello,
I am lovely and cute,Accomodative,caring,

Affectionate and very lively,I am of
the school of thought that believes in the maxim that says It is good to love
and be Loved.Love should be sharing ,True,Honest and caring.I need a man who
posses all this Attributes and Qualities.I have all the Qualities that a man
desires and Craves in a woman.
Thanks,
(Abigirl),

Michael Jackson’s Wikipedia entry changing in the hours after his death

June 29th, 2009

I’m stoked that someone had a similar idea to my Twitter MJ trend tracking, and executed it better.

By Justin Day and via Uppity Stuff: emptyage, a social media type dude who is now on my blogroll.

M.I.P. MJ, Moonwalk in Peace. And I joined a Four LOCO fueled book club.

June 26th, 2009

moonwalk-in-peaceHow could I not join a bookclub of super friendly people who let my bbq share their table and who are reading Persepolis and Blankets…AND who have a club initiation where you slam a can of Four Loco (like Sparks)? Right?

Bookclub member Michael made and was wearing this shirt. Buy it for $20.

#Michael Jackson dead! How Twitter crediting works on breaking news, and tracking trending topics over the death vs media announcing the death(s)

June 25th, 2009

truly an icon

Kind of makes you wish you’d bought something at the online estate sale, huh?

The LA Times released the death annoucement, the New York Times live blogged it, and Twitter went down almost immediately and then went crazy.

I had a few interesting interactions on Twitter, including finding out the news. When stuff like this breaks, the string of credits can get lengthy. In the following string, I think we all handled it very well, crediting correctly and responding to each other. Read the rest of this entry »

Other blogs to read: A Continuous Lean (for the dudes, mostly)

June 25th, 2009

If you’re a dude, or like quality dude things, you should be reading A Continuous Lean, which is as ‘cool guy’ as it sounds.

He recently took a trip up to Vancouver, BC, for a tour of the Arcteryx factory. Arcteryx is one of my favorite brands, up there with Mountain Hardware. There’s a big difference between brands like Columbia Sportswear and real mountain gear that you would actually want on your back at the top of a peak. Speaking of which, one of my pre-30s goals is to climb a good number of the Rocky Mountains, more on that later.

David Byrne at the Portland Schnitz

June 24th, 2009

GUYS, I got a last minute, free ticket to the David Byrne show last night by posting a plea on craigslist. It turned out to be front row center.

Here’s a video to entice. They allowed cameras, and I happened to have mine from work, so I have many, many awesome pics to upload, but I wanted to wait until the Seattle show is over tonight so as not to put up any spoilers.

Holy cow. Holy cats! I didn’t sleep for 3 hours after, the energy took so long to wind down!

Hooray for life.

Video is after the jump because it’s too big for my homepage… Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when you wanted to be a zookeeper?

June 23rd, 2009

Yeah, me too. Just wait until 1 minute in, when these baby snow leopards squeak.

Squee!

Always with the cuteness, Color Me Katie! Silhouette portraits

June 22nd, 2009

so cute!

Subscribe to Color Me Katie if you don’t already. She makes fun stuff like these portraits all the time. I wish I spent more time at home doing things like this.

Should I learn how to sk8? I think yes.

June 18th, 2009

nikitaA few weeks ago I got all sorts of tipsy at a BBQ put on by a friend who is a sommelier and wine importer, which = excellent free wine all night. He kept appearing with delicious bottles of things I can’t afford at the store, and I kept drinking them. It was loads of fun, and though I regretted it the next morning, I did discover that I like German white wines. Along with the hangover, I woke up with the aftermath of a conversation where I vowed to learn skateboarding.

And I plan to stick to it. If I can snowboard well, I feel like this can’t be all that different. Growing up in Telluride (where many wrote the zip code as sk81435), you just had to hit the slopes. Being in Portland, I’ve learned to bike well, and now I’m ready for a new sport. A sport that can pack in a small bag and fit in the overhead bin on a plane.

Plus, I’ve always found ladies who skate sexy, and I’m ready to join the club. With wrist guards at first. And I don’t plan to do any tricks, just get from point A to point B with a few curbs between.

One of my coworkers runs a snowboarding club at Mt Hood, and offered to take me out skating (or sk8ing as she put it) a bit. Plus, there’s a ladies skate night at Dept. of Skateboarding here in town. So it’s all matching up. Now I just need this cute mock neck sweatshirt by Nikita (sold at Zumiez, no less!), and I’ll be on my way.

Eat these: Garlic spears

June 16th, 2009

garlic-spear

Grill them, put them in soup, take them to the next BBQ and wow your friends. The smaller the head (the flower!) the better.

garlic whispers

Twettiquete and netiquette. You’re going to get followers: Don’t be creeped out, reciprocate.

June 16th, 2009

A note to friends: I have realized that people are presenting themselves as social media experts who the things I know, and they’re getting editorial jobs because of it. Or, at least, most editorial jobs these days have some social media savvy requirement. This is a practice in explaining the things I know, to be transferred to my online portfolio to show that I’m fancy with the internet. I’d appreciate your feedback here if you have any.

twitter-followWhenever people are new to Twitter, they talk about how weird it is that people are following them. “I haven’t written anything!” or “I don’t even know who they are!” they cry, weirded out and slightly thrilled.

Anytime you are putting something on the internet, you have to assume people are reading it, and they have their own wacky and varied reasons for doing so. A formal follow on Twitter just lets you know who they are, and that’s a courtesy, not a threat. Sure, there’s someone (or a bandstand of someones) staring in your virtual window, but when they follow you it’s like a tap on the glass to let you know they’re there.

follower For people who aren’t bloggers, this is an understandably strange idea, but an important lesson. People put things on their Facebook and Flickr pages all the time that make me gasp. That drunken bday photo? Once it’s out there, you can’t assume that you control who sees it, and taking it down doesn’t prevent someone from copying and re-hosting it somewhere else. Using Twitter on your phone makes this even easier: beware the flippant tweet. Read the rest of this entry »

Something big is happening with TV tonight, I think Facebook takes over?

June 12th, 2009

I don’t know, because I watch stuff like this, Target Women by Sarah Haskins:


Anyway, in between shopping and asking my lady friends for advice on scented candles, I’m going to Powell’s tonight for a lecture by David Carr (former addict –> NY Times columnist), and then to On Gallery where there is FREE BEER from sponsor Lagunitas and we’re ringing in the new social digital age…where Facebook takes over the TV waves and gives cool people usernames or something. I just hope we can turn off status updates. 10pm-2am, with the Facebook takeover at midnight. Come on by.

#Tgif #RIPTv

Who loves cheese? Who?

June 11th, 2009

justin-is-a-hunk-of-cheeseThis is Justin, hugging some cheese. He went to Lewis & Clark with us, and lived with Kirsten of Dress of the Month Club, but to me his biggest star point is being a writer for…Cat Fancy! Yeah!

Justin recently turned 30, ditched Portland, and moved to LA to become an actor. Isn’t that rad? Some people hit 30 and mope. He headed to the land of the stars, and blogs about trying to make it at Parade of Delusion. Good luck, dude! Way to chase the dream!

Bangs

June 10th, 2009

Got em’.

hello!

Bonus link: Sorry I Missed Your Party on how women think about bangs as often as men think about sex.

Your Daily Nap with Ricky Raccoon

June 9th, 2009

a big nap after stealing campers' food

Flickr CC/Ricky Racoon

Coveting expensive beds, stalking designers, and “How much a… can you take?”

June 5th, 2009

snuggy time in my bed

That there is the Blu Dot Dodu bed, a $1,599 felt bed with French seams that I really frickin’ love. A few months ago I decided to email Blu Dot to say, Pretty please keep me in mind should one of these beds happen to fall off a truck and need to be discretely sold on the cheap. Their customer service specialist Joanna very nicely wrote back with a list of local retailers who may order, and (fingers crossed) drop, and need to get rid of such a bed. Cool.

Then I got their new catalog, and this scruffalufagus (in my bed) has a fascinating tattoo across his chest. Matthew and I pieced together the lettering from his various open robe shots and came up with “HOW MUCH A… CAN YOU TAKE?” What’s the A? Art or ass or analogy were my guesses, with money on art. Check it out:

Much...Take...Can You...?

How to know? Well, why not email my new friend Joanna? Here’s what she said:

Hello Carissa.

Thanks for your email and interest in Blu Dot!

You and your boyfriend are correct; the gentleman’s tattoo does say “How Much Art Can You Take?” Good detective work!

Feel free to contact is with any further questions or to place that Dodu Bed order!

Kind Regards,
Joanna

Ok, so the Blu Dot people may think I’m stalking them (they’re from Minnesota, and probably glad for it), but they get an A++ for customer service.

Case closed. Sign up for their catalog.