E.F.Stewart Communications creates and manages social media, graphic identity and branding programs for creative professionals, restaurants and other small businesses, as well as nonprofit organizations.
Photo by Daphne Domingo
Eat, Write, Retreat food blogger conference was exhilarating! Held May 4–6 in Washington, DC, this event gave me a chance to learn, network and connect with inspiring friends and colleagues. And, I was proud to be associated with several clients participating in the event. For the second year, I came with photographer Renée Comet (at right, above and below) and stylist Lisa Cherkasky (at left, below) who taught the event’s Food Styling & Photography class again.
We set up a studio/classroom in the hotel ballroom (above). Renée brought a simple lighting set-up, and replicating the arrangement in her own studio, the camera was tethered to her computer so we could view shots immediately in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Here, she used her laptop, which sat on a podium and was tethered to a projector, so all could see their work via Lightroom on the large screen at the other end of the stage.
In several small groups, participants collaborated to experience the process of creating a food photograph, while being given expert insights and critiques. Quickly assembling elements, they selected props brought from Renée’s studio, and from food and equipment products supplied by sponsors.
Photo by Daphe Domingo
Above, participant Emily Nichols Grossi considered adding a green sprig to a glass of iced tea. Behind the camera, Renee gave feedback as the composition came together; while Lisa offered information on styling techniques. Many participants gathered around the set to shoot their groups’ projects with their own cameras, and Renée shot all groups’ compositions in several stages. Renée and Lisa discussed with the groups how various elements of the photo could be improved (by altering props, composition, lighting, camera angle, etc.) and made adjustments until a final composition was shot. In some instances, they followed one of Renée’s basic tenets: “If something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to scrap it and start over.” Several times, groups asked Renee and Lisa to just rearrange their elements, and shoot them from scratch—however they would approach the job themselves.
Photo by Daphne Domingo
Above, Lisa demonstrated a tip: Delicately introducing a touch of dishwashing liquid with a needle-topped squeeze bottle makes a few tiny bubbles, giving fluids more visual interest and a fresh-poured look. The screen displayed a closeup of the bubbles so the whole room could see the technique that Lisa employed.
Photo by Daphne Domingo
Here is Renee’s beautiful final shot. A number of her final shots are found in her event post on her blog, Cometphoto, which I edit.
Photo by Renée Comet
It’s been great to see some of the comments on the class from the group in their event recap blog posts:
Kathy Blake, of The Experimental Gourmand said, “One of my favorite parts of the conference from last year was back…a hands-on food styling and food photography workshop with Lisa Cherkasky and Renée Comet…They let us get our own hands in the mix…to create tantalizing pictures…it was fascinating to me to see how the pros do it.”
Liza Hawkins, of aMusingFoodie said, “Renée Comet and Lisa Cherkasky were nothing short of amazing, and I would gladly watch and learn from them any day.”
A nice comment was also left on Renée’s blog post from Kristy Bernardo, of The Wicked Noodle. (Bernardo won a scholarship to the event from Feastie, based on her own photography.) Kristy said, “This was a great workshop and I have a notebook filled with tips and ideas – thank you!! So wonderful to meet you in person, too!”
The audiovisual setup for the event was facilitated by Marie Joabar. Her connections and expertise were integral in all presentations. An excellent photographer and instructor herself, Marie knows her equipment. She coordinated the audiovisual coverage at last year’s Eat, Write, Retreat, representing her then-employer, Penn Camera photographic equipment. She was Penn Camera’s Education Programs Manager and Corporate Trainer for over ten years. When Penn recently was bought by another company, Marie employed her experience to start her own business, Capital Photography Center (CPC).
She offers classes taught by experienced, professional photographers for “the new camera owner wanting to better understand its features, an amateur photographer aspiring to become professional, or an experienced photographer wanting to learn…Lightroom or Photoshop.” I am proud to be working with Marie on CPC’s social media. She was glad work with Eat, Write, Retreat again this year and hopes that some of the participants will consider classes offered through CPC to help take their blogs’ photography to the next level. She left company brochures and a large, wildly fragrant bundle of rosemary, picked that morning from her own home garden (and bundled into the large totebag gifted to all attendees by sponsor, Feastie). It was almost all gone by Sunday afternoon!
On opening night, Zoe’s Chocolate Company was the diva of the evening, featured at the Dessert Mixer. I am proud to work with Zoe’s on their social media also, administering their active Facebook page and Twitter account. Their customers are very engaged, and it’s impressive to see how much they appreciate the gorgeous, delicious chocolate made by this fantastic family of artisan chocolatiers! It was fun to feel the excitement in the same room with people as they discovered the rich, complexity of Zoe’s excellent chocolates. Store manager Alex represented the company—bearing beribboned party favors, sharing information about the business and serving three flavors of chocolates: Apple Pie, Sesame Crunch (AKA Tahini) and Black Raspberry with Crystallized Rose Petals. Judging from the rapturous post-event tweets I’ve seen mentioning @zoeschocolate, I know some attendees are practically addicted to Zoe’s Chocolates already. Fortunately, Zoe’s has two retail shops and they sell in various other locations (and, they are happy to ship almost anywhere)!
Months ago, when planning Eat, Write, Retreat, organizers Robyn Webb and Casey Benedict told me they wanted to offer the group an opportunity to give back to our DC community. A DC local like me, Robyn is very conscious of the need in our area for food-related services and donations; and, I have joined her for several service projects that she organized. So, I was honored that she asked me to select the recipient group for our project and to coordinate the details. I chose my personal favorite, DC Central Kitchen (DCCK), an organization to whom I donate regularly myself. A dozen pairs of hands made quick work of assembling 100+ individual servings of very healthy trail mix, which DCCK shared with their various partner agencies. When the donation was ready, I handed off the large, heavy carton to DCCK’s friendly driver, Saladine, who happily brought it back to their nearby facility (and photogenically posed for my iPhone pic).
I love DCCK because they “use food as a tool to strengthen our community”—from feeding the hungry in our schools and on our streets, to providing foodservice-industry job training, to raising awareness of nonprofit-organization political power. So, after days of considering food as art, fun and business, this project was a good way to remind us of food’s fundamental purpose—which was a solid way to wrap up the event for me.
Glad I got to meet so many talented, interesting people again this year. I look forward to getting even better acquainted with everyone via the many active conversations that will continue throughout the year on Twitter and Facebook—on behalf of myself and my great clients!
(Renée Comet is the talent behind the tempting principal photography for Zoe’s Chocolate Company marketing, so I thank her for recommending me to Zoe—and to Marie of Capital Photography Center! Thanks, Daphne Domingo for your good event coverage, and for allowing us to use your images.)
- It’s tourist season again in DC! We love our annual guests! But sometimes…it seems as if they could benefit from some handy advice for getting around and getting along in our town. The Washington Post decided to assemble some tips for tourists, asking their staff and readers to contribute, using those tips to create an interactive map.
- I stumbled onto this when I happened to see a Google alert for “Kramer’s” (which I set to monitor mentions of variations on the name of one of my clients, “Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe.” The Google alert showed me a tweet that led me down a geeky Twitter rabbit hole of investigation. And, geekier yet, I just had to Storify it. Spoiler alert: It starts with a simple, kind remark from a single tweeter with a relatively small following, but through the magic of Twitter, it snowballs into millions of possible eyeballs and feet directed to my client. Thanks to all who made this happen.
- How Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe became a clickable location on a Washington Post interactive map with a link that was tweeted to approximately 3 million possible Twitter users (and viewed by many thousands more)…
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The Washington Post tweeted the messages below with links to a story that features an interactive DC-area map showing locations mentioned in “tourist tips.” They crowdsourced part of the article’s content from Twitter followers, asking them to tweet “tips for tourists” to them, using the hashtag, “#tipsfortourists.”
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“Tips for tourists: Where to go and what to see in #DC wapo.st/H7AhhH – Share your tips using #tipsfortourists
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They posted the link to the map/story and asked for tweeted tips from both the main account, @washingtonpost (local & international interest) and @postlocal (primarily of interest to DC, MD, VA residents). @washingtonpost: 925,304 followers; @postlocal: 18,737 followers
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“Hey DC-ers! What’s your advice for tourists visiting the area? Tweet us your best #tipsfortourists wapo.st/HHwZk1
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Cori Ast, a follower of @washingtonpost, kindly recommended to tourists that they eat at Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe. This tweet was seen by her 62 followers and whoever was following the feed for the hashtag, #tipsfortourists.
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@washingtonpost and @postlocal saw Cori’s tip, auto-retweeting it from @washingtonpost account to 925,304 followers. Then the location/tip for Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe was added as a clickable pin on the interactive map, by the author/producer of the story, Mark S. Luckie (@marksluckie, National Innovations Editor at The Washington Post).
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A number of other Washington Post Twitter followers retweeted @CoriAst’s original tweet, adding several thousand to the reach—to locations from Spain to California.
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“RT @CoriAst: Enjoy a meal at Kramer’s & Afterwords. Breakfast, lunch, dinner… they never disappoint, #tipsfortourists, @washingtonpost
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Some of @CoriAst’s own followers replied to her tweet also, adding hundreds to the reach.
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“RT @CoriAst: Enjoy a meal at Kramer’s & Afterwords. Breakfast, lunch, dinner… they never disappoint, #tipsfortourists, @washingtonpost
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“RT @CoriAst: Enjoy a meal at Kramer’s & Afterwords. Breakfast, lunch, dinner… they never disappoint, #tipsfortourists, @washingtonpost
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“RT @CoriAst: Enjoy a meal at Kramer’s & Afterwords. Breakfast, lunch, dinner… they never disappoint, #tipsfortourists, @washingtonpost
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“RT @CoriAst: Enjoy a meal at Kramer’s & Afterwords. Breakfast, lunch, dinner… they never disappoint, #tipsfortourists, @washingtonpost
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Kramerbooks retweeted @washingtonpost’s retweet of @CoriAst’s tweet, thanking them (from all 3 of our accounts, @Kramerbooks, @afterwordscafe and @KramersCafe) extending the reach of her kind remarks by several thousand.
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“Thx! RT @washingtonpost RT @CoriAst: Enjoy a meal at Kramer’s & Afterwords. Breakfast, lunch, dinner: they never disappoint #tipsfortourists
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Kramerbooks also tweeted at @washingtonpost and @CoriAst, thanking them directly as well as including the link to the story/map (from all 3 of our accounts, @Kramerbooks, @afterwordscafe and @KramersCafe) extending the reach of story/map by several thousand.
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“Thanks, @washingtonpost @postlocal & @CoriAst 4 incl. us! MT @washingtonpost: Advice for DC tourists? #tipsfortourists wapo.st/HHwZk1
I also got an email from my client, later in the evening, who just happened to see the map. It said, “Click on the map for a Kramer’s mention.” I thanked her for passing it along and explained the whole story, tweet by tweet, along with estimates of snowballing impression stats. I believe they are probably appreciative, but possibly stunned from techno-geek overload.
Thanks to The Washington Post. And, special thanks to Cori Ast and Mark S. Luckie. I’d like to buy you both a drink at Kramer’s!
Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe got an early holiday gift yesterday, two days after Thanksgiving. President Obama and his daughters, Sasha and Malia dropped in around noon to do a little book shopping…
The President declared to the crowd, which included his press pool, “This is Small Business Saturday. So we’re out here supporting small business.” Kramerbooks was a great choice of venue for this message, as they are a single-location, independent, unique business.
The Associated Press swiftly distributed coverage of the event. Immediately, the story, a set of photos and the video were zapping around the world. While story text didn’t include the name of the store, photo captions did, so wherever the photos ran, the name of the business appeared. Coverage from AP and other services ranged from our immediate neighborhood’s excellent news website, Borderstan, to USA Today, to Obama Foodarama (the official White House food blog), to The Daily Mail in the UK, to Reuters India and (probably) thousands of other large and small, US and international news sites.
As I was wrapping up my everyday routine of coffee and social media postings for clients, my day suddenly careened into a 14-hour, mind-blowing voyage on Tweetdeck. Posting my regular, daily tweets for clients, I saw a tweet from a Dupont Circle neighbor mentioning streets by Kramer’s were blocked off, speculating that the President might be inside Kramerbooks. (In DC, we’re accustomed to streets being blocked for Presidential security.) I called the Cafe to confirm, and before I could ask her, Ann the manager said, “Um…You’re not going to believe what I am looking at right now!” I said, “Could it be the President?” And, there went the rest of the day and night… and today.
After getting that confirmation from Ann, I tweeted for Kramer’s: “Very exciting that President Obama has chosen to support local business & #indie bookstores by shopping w/us today! #SmallBizSat”
After I saw the first AP photo posted (by doing a Google search that yielded an AP photo posted via INM, an Irish news agency), I tweeted again: “Thx to Pres. Obama, & Sasha & Malia for shopping w/us today! #SmallBizSat Photo via “AP Photo” via Irish Independent bit.ly/rw9hQY”
Using the hashtag “#SmallBizSat” brought its own considerable audience. That effort, advertised for weeks by American Express, was extensively promoted on social media all day, to help boost small businesses (and AMEX usage), as opposed to the “Black Friday” retail effect of the previous day, which is traditionally dominated by the corporate, big box stores. Including #SmallBizSat in my tweets introduced Kramerbooks to many new eyes who followed that stream, and prompted many old friends of Kramer’s to discover them on Twitter as well.
It occured to me that I should look to see if the official White House Twitter account, @WhiteHouse, was mentioning this visit, so I looked at their feed. I was utterly stunned to see that there were two retweets of my tweets from @kramerbooks in their feed!
The screen grab above shows my (cluttered) desktop, with my Tweetdeck dashboard. In the righthand column is the @WhiteHouse timeline showing their icon, miniaturized and superimposed on the @kramerbooks ampersand logo icon. Apparently, the White House tweeter used the auto-retweet button, so I hadn’t realized my tweet was retweeted. So glad I thought to look at this timeline. The White House has 2,518,163 followers. The retweeted @kramerbooks 2x. I had hit PR/socmedia geek gold!
(FYI…Social media expert Sree Sreenivasan (AKA @sree), my professor at Columbia School of Journalism, always recommends manually retweeting—and including the Twitter handle—for this reason: If you say something nice for/about someone, it lets them know!)
I kind of stopped counting potential Twitter exposure for @kramerbooks after I got to the 5 million of the two @WhiteHouse mentions… And, just when I thought things couldn’t get any crazier/better, @WhiteHouse decided that one of the AP shots would be “Photo of the Day”!
Announcing this, they @-mentioned @kramerbooks in their own tweet—so my own unofficial counting method totally jumped the shark to almost 8 million. (I did notice that tweet via my @-mentions.) In my Tweetdeck screen grab, the top of that @WhiteHouse tweet is just visible on the bottom of the @kramerbooks “Mentions” column next to the @White House timeline column.
I thought I was hallucinating at that point. I may, or may not have done a cartoon double-take and rubbed my eyes… So, I made a screen grab of it. I guess that makes me an official social media geek/dork and bit of a braggart. (In my spare time—ha—I may actually Storify all this—thus elevating me to super-geek status.)
This attention brought many tweets, retweets and comments from all over the world (mostly very nice), from: our excited, loyal Dupont Circle neighbors and customers; other indie bookstores, US and international; nostalgic longtime customers now living far away; and anyone with a social or political axe to grind (Obama supporters and haters). Even the US ambassador to Thailand, Kristie Kenney, and the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur retweeted the @WhiteHouse Photo of the Day tweet!
Meanwhile, on Facebook, the conversation was also buzzing. I posted links and shared them via my own biz page and personal profile accounts (It was the *President*! So, I was excited, OK?!). The posts garnered many positive comments from all over the world (US, Denmark, Ireland, France, etc.) and were shared by several other people and pages.
On Twitter, @kramerbooks gained 283 new followers within 24 hours. On Facebook their page gained 24 new fans in 24 hours (usual rate has been approximately 10 new FB fans per month). I created bit.ly links to track most of the urls I shared. They were off the charts, compared to the usual traffic. My first photo link has had 3,722 clicks from at least four countries: https://bitly.com/rw9hQY+
Especially exciting to this geek was the mention (w/a link to Kramer’s website) on Mashable Business in their own coverage of social media and Small Business Saturday! Of course, they also tweeted from @Mashable w/a link to their post (which was retweeted x 100+).
What did the Bookstore and Cafe staff members think about this exciting event? I think they are too swamped with the usual weekend brunch and book-shopping traffic (made heavier with the holiday weekend and the publicity)! But the video shows the excitement among the Cafe staff on the line (barely visible behind the pastry case facing into the bookstore) when the President greeted them. He reached over the glass case filled with cakes and pies to shake hands with the cheering workers, even commenting on how the food looked “pretty good back there”!
Responding to an email from Cafe manager Denis (with the subject line, “Obama was here” ), co-owner, Henry Posner, vacationing in Paris, commented, “Cool—did you offer him an Obamlet?”!
Denis replied, “I could not get past the secret service, and we don’t have the Obamlet on the menu today…It was very cool.”
(“The Barack Obamlet”, above, is a rotating brunch special omelet, made with the Obama Family Chili: Café ground beef shoulder; onion, pepper & red beans; cumin, oregano, turmeric, basil, chili powder; tomato; w/cheddar, red onion, scallion; sweet peppers & sour cream).
Henry replied, modestly, “Great news for the bookstore—and the cafe.” Indeed!
WAMU 88.5, DC’s NPR affiliate covered the event in their story on small business and quoted bookstore manager, C.K. Penchant. Summing up what seems to be the sentiment of the #SmallBizSat groundswell I observed, C.K. said that the book-buying visit from President Obama, and Sasha and Malia was “a welcome surprise at a time when many brick-and-mortar bookstores are struggling.”
Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe was named one of “DC’s 44 Most Powerful Restaurants” in a June Washington City Paper feature. They cite Kramer’s for “Magnetism” and “Staying Power.” Their reason: “Powerful Because: It figured out a way to keep bookstores in business: Serve dinner!”
In 2011, Kramer’s marks its 35th year of this succesfully symbiotic concept: selling books, and serving food and drinks. The article affirms that my client has become something of a landmark, saying, “When a commercial establishment, like Kramerbooks, is commonly used as a geographic reference point, it asserts its power through its brand.”
As a nice contrast and tribute to the diverse appeal of Kramer’s, The Washington Post’s Going Out Guide also just named them one of six “Best Places To Go If You Are Under 21.” Citing it as a “Best Bet” for these young patrons, the Post said, “Dupont Circle bustles 24 hours a day, and Kramer’s is no exception. The vast bookstore and charming cafe are both open 24 hours on Saturday and Sunday. Peruse the store’s impressive selection and then gather on the patio for a late-night dinner or delectable dessert. All ages.”
That patio is the subject of these illustrations, by DC-area artist Enid Romanek. She captured Kramerbooks & Afterwords in its earliest days (at bottom), when it was noted as as one of DC’s very rare sidewalk cafes. Since then, the business expanded to two Connecticut Avenue storefronts; and the original patio on 19th Street expanded also, part becoming the solarium. To celebrate Kramer’s 30th anniversary in 2006, I commissioned Romanek to give us her update of the same scene, as it looks today (at top).
As Kramer’s social media and advertising manager, I listen to the public conversation via Twitter, Facebook and review sites, like yelp!. I see tweets by: international travelers, recommending the bookstore and bar; new students at GW, AU, Howard and Georgetown planning meet-ups; and, many old friends recalling fond memories of drinks, dinners and brunches. As a longtime Dupont Circle resident who’s loved Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe since it was brand new (Quiche and Chardonnay…at a sidwalk cafe…am I in Paris?!), it’s just great to know that customers of all ages are still discovering it and returning to it as an old favorite.
A longtime client recently changed their name. They needed a new logo and other materials to reflect that name change. We wanted to retain the branding we established with the monogram-inspired logo I designed for them several years ago. So, incorporating their new initials, I adapted their logo symbol, using the same font and colors. Presentation of the organization’s name changed seamlessly to “Woodull Sexual Freedom Alliance” (WSFA, above) from “Woodhull Freedom Foundation” (WFF, below).
Simple, elegant honesty defines photographer Renee Comet’s style. She brings all of those elements to her recent work on Ritz-Carlton Classic Desserts Redefined, which just received several Gold ADDY Awards for photography. Here are some tempting pieces…
“The Telephone Hour” scene from Bye Bye Birdie is social media in action, 1960s teen-angst-style.
TMI…Too…Much…Information!
TMI…Qualitative Output: the continuum from sharing to oversharing
What is considered TMI now? In sharing, what is fair game to some, is off-limits to others—from breakfast choices to bathroom habits, from sexual exploits to financial dealings. 61% of online adults use social networking services according to the Pew internet Research Report Generations 2010. Many commonly share intimate information—even their most intimate moments—almost immediately via Facebook (FB) and Twitter. Not for nothing, was “overshare” declared Webster’s 2008 Word of the Year! Social media expert Sree Sreenivasan pleads, “Please stop oversharing!” in his useful and funny column on the NYC hyperlocal website, DNAinfo. He suggests, “…people aren’t paying enough attention to what they are doing. I think oversharing is contagious. As folks see their friends and contacts talking about their lives in ridiculous detail, they might be more inclined to do so as well.”
On the continuum from private to public, deciding where a given moment falls on the “appropriateness” scale is a highly personal choice and a learning process. While FB CEO Mark Zuckerberg expects us to opt-in to often-confusing privacy settings and famously doesn’t believe in privacy, a vocal contingent of users are appalled by this, including danah boyd, an ethnologist, a Social Media Researcher at Microsoft, and a Fellow at Harvard. Boyd declares, “No matter how many times a privileged straight white male technology executive pronounces the death of privacy, Privacy Is Not Dead.” In her address to the 2010 SXSW media conference, boyd stated, “People of all ages care deeply about privacy. And they care just as much about privacy online as they do offline….Fundamentally, privacy is about having control over how information flows…”
Whether single, within a partner relationship or a family, how do people make public/social-media life coexist comfortably with private/domestic life? Do a search on FB itself for “Facebook ruined my relationship,” and the results scroll on for pages. Divorces now feature social media evidence. There are even pop-psychology tips on defending marriage against the threats of social media.
To maintain personal/domestic integrity, how do people exercise discretion in controlling how their own information flows? I asked one very active social-media maven how she makes it work at home. Nakeva Corothers is a photographer and events promoter who lives with her partner and children near Washington, DC. Describing her social media habits, she says,” Sharing is almost like breathing.”
Nakeva has websites for her businesses, a personal FB profile and several FB business pages and Twitter accounts. She taught her partner how to use Twitter, and says, “when we realized we shared the same love of technology and social media, it added something else we have in common.” They set boundaries, she says, “The only rules about sharing on FB or Twitter is to say ‘nothing personal’ (we know what that means), and ‘no talking about each other’s health’ (unless responding to the other that started the conversation).”
As for social media content causing disagreements, she says, “A few times I was annoyed with certain things being tweeted, but we talked about it. If it reaches a new sensitivity level, it is discussed.”
Nakeva and her partner seem to be navigating the social media waters in a loveboat, so far. She says, “There have been occasions that we tweet each other saying funny or loving things, and found out it made other people happy or [helped them to] get closer to their own partner. Also, knowing how each of us feels about how much ‘mushy stuff’ is shared and respected keeps us going strong.”
Specifying a “relationship status” on social media is an entire topic in itself. Nakeva and her partner were proud to be able to take advantage of the new FB relationship category: “in a domestic partnership.”
“It’s complicated” is the alternative FB status chosen my friend New York City sex educator Lolita Wolf and her lover. They have an open relationship and are avid social media users: both have several blogs, use FB & Twitter. She is totally out as a sex blogger and about teaching sex education to adults; and he teaches art to college students. Due to the differing social norms (and legal considerations) of their respective careers, they have differing boundaries regarding what they can disclose publicly. So, they have mutually agreed upon rules for what they share, and he has a private Twitter account for close, personal friends, as distinguished from his professional-interest account.
They even met via social media, on Live Journal (LJ) in 2006. Subscribed to mutual LJ friends’ journals, they were intrigued by each other’s comments on those friends’ posts; and they began an online flirtation. When Lolita blogs or tweets about him, she uses the identifying label of “lover,” and the pet pseudonyms “Don Quixote” and “My Jellybean.”
Being single also brings up privacy concerns related to relationships of all kinds; and everyone has their own comfort zone regarding self-disclosure about partners and activities on social media.
Viviane is a New York City researcher who has a blog on sexually-related cultural issues, and uses FB and Twitter. “I’m not currently in a relationship….I generally don’t tweet about whether I’m with intimate…partners, even if it’s just going out to dinner.” She says she has grown more private with time, “…as the number of people following me has increased, the more constrained I feel about tweeting, and it’s confined to more informational tweets.”
A single woman with an active dating life who handles inherently delicate issues with tact, taste and straightforward confidence is Stef of CityGirlBlogs, in Washington, DC. In her writing on her website, blog, FB and Twitter, she frankly recounts her own dating and sexual experiences. She discusses her boundaries on her website.
One rule is that she doesn’t blog in “real time.” Her reasoning is, “DC is small. Lilliputian small. If guys knew that whatever happened that night would appear in a post the following day, I doubt that many guys would want to date me.”
In addition to sex and relationships, now Stef also addresses another topic which many people would find highly personal and private, her recent experiences with breast cancer. Like Jeff Jarvis, the journalist who is very open on his blog and in the media with his prostate cancer experience, Stef has decided to share this highly personal experience with the goal of helping others.
Strengthened by these challenges, she even decided it would be best for her to “own” her identity as a sex blogger, even within her family, to embrace her own authenticity, despite the risks of judgement and rejection. Having blogged anonymously due to professional concerns in her legal career, she recently came out. She is using her first name and now shows the world her face and her current self: bold, bald and beautiful.
Writing about herself in a storybook style in third person, she says, “…She also realized that there’s much more for her to do as an advocate and that it’s time to come out from behind her laptop. If she can help one more person through her blog, her photographs or her interviews, it’s worth it. She accepts that she may never work again in the legal policy arena…Once upon a time, there was a City Girl with long, red hair named Stef. She’s bald now, but she still feels feminine and sexy. Although she’s not exactly sure what will happen next, she trusts that she will live happily ever after.”
So, how much “I” is TMI? This group of sharp, social- media-savvy women make thoughtful choices for themselves, being discreet in their own fashion, even about some matters that many would consider inherently indiscreet. As danah boyd said, “…what privacy means may not be what you think.”
“Technology Loop” is a sketch from the Independent Film Channel television comedy series, “Portlandia,” featuring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein.
TMI…Too…Much…Information!
TMI…Quantitative Input: digital & social media overload
Digital input and output are accelerating as we integrate the use of social media into our lives.
I am deeply in love with my iPhone. And I love its Darling Daddy, Apple. (I’ve been drinking Steve Jobs’ Kool-Aid for many, many years and it is still suh-weet.) But, I am sooo not in love with my iPhone’s Mean Mommy, AT&T!
So, it was with giddy delight that I just read in The Wall Street Journal that iPhone will soon be available on Verizon! Sure, AT&T will figure out a way to make it a bitch to dump them, and my 18-month-old 3GS is “still good,” so I can’t really justify a 4 (I keep telling myself), but man, when Verizon is an alternative, and my contract is up, I am sooo out of there. Yeah, I sound like a surly 14-year-old threatening to run away from home (So big deal, who made you the boss of me?). Apparently I am not alone…
The WSJ article has a poll asking: “When Verizon starts carrying iPhones, will you switch your cellphone or service?” 71.7% said yes (17,325—so far— the article is dated tomorrow!).
iPhone lovers: Would you leave AT&T for Verizon?
Speaking of smart phones, this just in… 40% of tweets are sent via mobile phones, so said Twitter CEO Dick Costolo today at the Consumer Electronics Show. Mobile use increased by 62% 4 months ago (from 8 months ago). Also 4 months ago, 16% of Twitter users started tweeting via apps on mobile phones, up from only 5% 8 months ago.
So, look for me to be tweeting from a new Verizon iPhone, as soon as I can get away from Mean Mommy AT&T (AKA Ma Bell).
