Snapshot Chronicles

Susan Getgood's personal blog

Boston BlogHer BBQ

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cross posted to Boston-area BlogHers Group

I was honored when Elisa, Lisa and Jory asked me to set up a Boston-area BlogHer group and coordinate a meet-up this month for Boston area BlogHers. I have been a supporter of the BlogHer community since it began in 2005 and cherish the friendships I have made as a result. If they gave out 5-year pins, I’d qualify!

Why pre-BlogHer conference meet-ups? Newcomers tend to have a little stress about entering a seemingly entrenched community, altough BlogHer IS one of the most open I have ever participated in.  Tickets also sold out DAMN FAST!! Many folks who wanted to come, just can’t. No room at the inn.

Faced with planning the June meet-up, the simplest thing seemed to be to offer our house in Hudson MA (address on the BlogHer thread) for a potluck BBQ. We’ve got the combined outdoor and indoor room to host a significant group and setting a place from the outset seemed to move us ahead a lot quicker. A good thing, since as I write, the RSVP list for our BBQ on June 13th from 2- 6pm is  about 40 adults and 23 kids of various ages.

Initially, I had conceived of the meetup as a potluck, but when sponsors were suggested, I reached out to some people I knew, as did some other BlogHers, and simultaneously, sponsors contacted me.

As a result, our BBQ is mostly funded. Donations should cover the main BBQ items – hamburgers, veggie burgers, hot dogs and all the fixings plus some munchies, soft drinks and paper goods. Plus dessert. More about our generous sponsors in a moment.

What do BlogHers need to bring:

  • a side dish/salad/munchies/dessert of their choice. A brave volunteer has offered to try and do a BlogHer cake to go with our sponsor-provided ice cream dessert, and if someone really has the yen to bake, go for it! Please tell everyone else what you are bringing on this post at the BlogHer thread.
  • beverage of choice if not coke/diet coke/sprite/juice box/water. Note: I’ll be drinking some wine, so feel free to bring alcoholic beverage of choice.
  • lawn or portable chair. We’ve got some but let’s be clear: NOT 60!!!

We’re trying to put together some door prizes — more about that as it evolves, but if you are coming and have something to contribute, let me know!!

Now to our sponsors. I am overwhelmed at their generosity, and encourage everyone to give them some love. As I am about to do.

Peapod

Peapod serves 22 U.S. markets in communities in the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey.  Peapod features more than 8,000 products in a range of categories: produce; meat and seafood; deli items; prepared foods; natural and organic foods; Kosher foods; office and school supplies; seasonal items; and video products; pet items; health and beauty aids; wine, beer and spirits (in specific markets) and private labels from Stop & Shop and Giant. They recently launched a Facebook fan page.

Peapod gave us a significant donation toward the grocery bill. Plus,  they’ve offered BlogHers $15 off their first delivery. CODE: BLOGHER.

Terms: Save $15 on your first delivery.  Limit one per household.  Cannot be combined with any other offer.  Expires 8/31/2009.

Springpad

Springpad (http://springpadit.com) is a free online personal organizer that helps you collect, organize and manage life – from food and entertainment to parenting and managing the day to day. It’s integrated with the Web’s most popular services; and makes it easy to interact, personalize and share information from trusted friends and bloggers.

Springpad — also a national conference sponsor — contributed to the grocery fund and has offered to host a meet-up in the fall.

Friendly’s

Friendly’s is sending us ice cream dessert for the crowd. Not sure what it will be, but it will be cold and yummy. Check out Friendly’s Facebook page and if you are in New England, be sure to get your free ice cream on Saturday June 6th.

Home Free Treats

We have some guests with food allergies, and the folks at Home Free Treats were happy to send us some of their nummy treats. These peanut free, egg free, tree nut free, dairy free treats let kids with food allergies enjoy dessert with everyone else!

Hebrew National

Fellow BlogHer Kim Moldofsky connected us with Hebrew National, which is sending us hot dogs for Saturday’s BBQ.

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Obviously, companies in this post were given promotional consideration in gratitude for their sponsorship of the  Boston BlogHer BBQ.

Updated 6/8/2009 with two new sponsors

Ghost-tweeting can be creepy

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I like Guy Kawasaki. His books are great. He’s an engaging speaker. A nice smart guy.

But, I just can’t get behind this ghost-tweeting thing.

Even though I can see the little initials at the end of the tweets signifying that the “real” source of many of his tweets is one of his ghweeters (ghost tweeters), I just find it creepy to see tweets like this from a man’s account:

guy1

guy2

Call me a prude if you like, but it seems a bit like bad porno spam.

And creepy.

Today’s reasons why Twitter is not a waste of time

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During my social media 101 workshops, I segue into the topic of Twitter by asking the class how many of them have heard of Twitter. If enough of them have, my next question is: how many of you think it is a total waste of time?

When most of them raise their hands, I tell them that they are not alone. Almost everyone who has been using Twitter for a while had a “what possible use are these 140-character messages” moment early on. I’ve been a Twitter user since March 2007 and you can read my early posts on Marketing Roadmaps here, here and here.

Over time, though, I have come to appreciate Twitter for many reasons. Connecting immediately with friends without the latency of email. Getting a quick answer to a question that might have taken some time to research, even with Google. Discovering new people — the friends of friends, though that doesn’t work quite the way it used to (see #fixreplies). Getting a heads up on news stories. Finding the interesting blog posts and more obscure news items that I might catch in my feed reader, if I were keeping up…

What I do not do is worry about what’s happening online when I am not “there.”  I figure if it’s interesting enough, topical enough, funny enough or even stupid enough, it’ll come around again. Just like the chorus of Alice’s Restaurant.

Gratuitous Arlo Guthrie Clip. Just Because.

So, back to today’s point – two reasons I was glad for Twitter today.

1. @AmandaGBeals retweeted Richard Laermer’s (@laermer) link to a post about a HARO (Help A Reporter Out) copycat. A friend had alerted me to the copycat site a few weeks ago, but I didn’t realize, until Richard’s tweet and post, that the copycat was targeting @skydiver (the founder of HARO Peter Shankman) followers on Twitter. Yuck. I read the Bad Pitch Blog, where the post appeared, but as I noted above, I am WAY behind on reading. Without Twitter, I wouldn’t have seen this great post today.

2. @bnmeeks (Brock Meeks) tweeted about the first case of “cybersquatting” to make it to a lawsuit. Someone on Twitter was impersonating Anthony La Russa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. He sued Twitter after an unknown Twitter user pretended to post updates as La Russa. [The fake account has been removed.] Why is this so interesting? La Russa’s  attorneys tried to call the folks at Twitter before suing, but got no response. As I commented this afternoon, does that mean the only way to reach Twitter is through… Twitter? Um… that would be like the phone company not reading its mail….

These things are the sort of things that capture my attention, and why, today, Twitter was far from a waste of time.