Happy birthday to me (and my type-ity type type) on #july6

Lately, certain things in my life have been left to their own devices or forgotten outright. Such things include regular household cleaning, renewing the license tags on my car, and tending to my garden. My teenager also complains of being left alone too much, forgotten. While he's been touting his alleged neglect for years now like a badge of honor, he enjoys near-constant computing and delicious, homemade I-feel-guilty meals. However, he's probably right on some level. (Just to be clear: not anywhere near the "legal definition of neglect" level.)

All this letting things go by the wayside is because of the type-ity type type.

You may have noticed I tweet a lot about getting ready to, being in the midst of, or just finishing up some type-ity type type. I've been working a lot, for months and months, on something very special. It is hugely ambitious, deeply personal, and requires much balls out soul searching. And a lot of type-ity type type. This leads to laxity in keeping attention on anything else.

For instance, my poor garden. Those tiny spaces in my yard that yield fragrant flowers, alien veggies and mindful clarity has not been touched in months. After planting some onions, peas, and two kinds of lettuce I kind of just...stopped spending time there. And I've missed it. I truly heart my garden and its permission to experiment with nature. Sinking my hands into the soil has always brought my brain to task, triggering in me a state of deeply focused thinking. But lately I've been busy, insanely busy, with the type-ity type type.

Yesterday I finally got the chance to work in my sunny garden for a few hours. The weather was perfect for it, I had the time to get dirty, and I needed an inner dialogue with the voice of experience that comes when I physically connect to the Earth. When I was done kneeling on the ground, pulling weeds and pushing plants into dirt, I had some things figured out, a sense of calm, and 24 mature, rouge, sweet cherry tomato plants. Offspring from last year's crop.



I guess this means my garden was neither neglected nor forgotten, hm?

Today, while I re-potted those 24 tomato plants, my mind entertained the idea that if this special, deeply personal secret project of mine and its intense, intensive hours of type-ity type type didn't kill my garden or starve my teenager or get me a ticket (special thank you to the Portland cop who gave me a warning and waved me along) then maybe. Just maybe. It won't ruin me, either. Maybe it's not only a good idea to move forward with my plans, but a great one. One that could bring great things.

We'll see next Monday, the morning of #july6. That's when I'm setting my project adrift for all the world to see, to ultimately embrace or reject. I hope my hard work, this endless type-ity type type, will all make sense once the journey begins, and I hope the message of it is not lost in the translation, and that the risk and effort I'm making is at the very least respected.

And that night I'm celebrating my birthday at the Leisure Public House (in St. Johns, of course) and will be giving away these rouge sweet cherry tomato plants that grow, with or without me. I hope there's some hardy specialness in them for whomever wants them, and that you join me and in a drink or two.

Won't be the same without you there, telling me how sexy my gynormous balls are on #july6.

RSVP on upcoming.org

Let's go steady!

A Musical Ode to the Social Web

Ah, the social Web. That transparent, mystical place were friends and lovers come together and break apart, where digital footprints are forever (thanks to the Way Back Machine and Google's seemingly infinite file storage space), and where you can easily be found by the boy who held your sweaty hand for three seconds in the shady corner of the playground in the 2nd grade.

This is the age of worldwide community, of Internet Rock stars, of diluted importance on geographical location. Social media allows the walls surrounding information and potential relationships to dissolve, and propels anyone with a good idea and a understanding of social capital (read: Whuffie) a chance to catch the attention of millions of eyeballs. As mediaChick, someone who sees geeks and online media boundary-pushers as the Beatles of our times, the social Web has become a breeding ground for opportunities for true innovation. And I don't toss that word "innovation" around lightly.

I heart it so, this social Web. I heart it for the unlimited possibilities it affords the human race. In honor of my love affair, here's a small collection of music with a social Web bent. Enjoy!

And to the boy on the playground: we've grown apart, I'm afraid. Your Twitter stream is full of hockey scores and weekend hunting stories, and mine has coffee foam art twitpics and punctuation. Consequently, I won't be following you back. Sorry.

MySpace by Chicks on Speed

Craigslist by Weird Al



Twitter by Ingrid Michaelson

Facebook by Rhett and Link

Flickr by Jonathan Coulton

Let's go steady!

How to get rid of boys FAST!

In honor of Ms. Erin Patton's 11th year on this planet, I am re-posting this from another place I used to blog (somewhere that rhymes with ByPlace) because said Ms. Erin modeled for me in the feature photo. She gave it that visual somethin-somethin every how-to article needs.

Happy birthday, girl!

Ladies…have you ever innocently walked down the street, only to be harassed by foul-mouthed boys wanting your love? Are you constantly fending off males who just can't grasp the concept that you're not interested? Sick of horrendously bad pick up lines, such as "If you were a laser, you'd be set on "stunning"? Dead tired of downplaying your beauty and awesome personality so the boys won't follow you home at night? Me too…but NO MORE!

Designed to repel even the most determined males instantly, my Wormlips Technique is portable, user friendly, utterly disgusting, and highly effective. In fact it's so effective that I have used it successfully for many years, keeping the undesirables at bay easily and quickly! My innovative Technique has been tested thoroughly and under the strictest standards and auditing procedures, and now that I am convinced that the Wormlips Technique will CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER!

And now…for a LIMITED TIME only…I'm sharing this valuable Technique with you in the hopes that women everywhere can experience relief from constant unwanted attention.

Wormlips Technique: Explained
As seen in the photo, the Wormlips Technique causes the lower face to appear as if there are a couple of large, fat worms surrounding the mouth. (Modeling my Wormlips Technique is my protégé genius Ms. Erin, aged 8. Her form is perfect, no?) Contorting the face like this makes the stomach of all XY chromosome-based human life forms to churn. Next, an involuntary grimace of disgust appears, followed by the avoidance of eye contact and quick abandonment of the goal to get you into bed. Hurray!

Wormlips Technique: Three Easy Steps!

1. Fold your lower lip down, exposing the worm-flesh colored skin and covering up your lower lip. If you can't keep your lip folded over, you will need to practice this. Keep at it! However, if you're one of the unfortunates with a mouth that "just isn't built that way" then you are destined to be harassed by depraved men who blatantly undress you with their eyes. Sorry. Everyone else, on to Step 2!
2. Stick your flattened tongue out halfway, folding it up to cover up your upper lip. Viola! The Wormlips Technique in its full glory!
3. Engage in the Technique and reclaim your right to be a beautiful, self-fulfilled woman without risk of attracting that loser who just won't take "no" for an answer.

See how easy it is? Don't let another minute go by… reclaim your life and ACT NOW!

Monetary donations are accepted.

Let's go steady!

Social media learning: for business AND pleasure

Last week, Kevin Jones of Engaged Learning invited me to participate in his Working/Learning Carnival. This is where a bunch of people write blog posts with a theme and the host of the Carnival, that would be Mr. Jones, gathers up the post links and lists them all in a post on the host's blog.

I met Kevin last year at an eLearning convention in San Jose. It was on this trip that I took those awesomesauce* photos of the Leonardo exhibit at the Tech. Remember? Go read My First (Dead Man) Crush for the whole, geeky story. I was at this convention courtesy of what most people would consider my "real" job. I have a full time job with benefits and a 401(k) that pays me to produce multimedia education elements and concern myself with maintaining the company's online reputation. I know I'm lucky to have this job, and I work very hard planning and producing, 40 hours a week.

Kevin's presentation at the convention was about overcoming the objections to using social media in learning environments. It impressed me. More important than impressing me was that Kevin is from Portland, Oregon. That day he pretty much guaranteed himself a spot in my Twitter stream. In case you aren't aware of the inner-workings of the mind of mediaChick (which is an experience in and of itself and not a recommended activity within one hour of eating) being from Portland is always going to get you my Gold Star of Awesomeness (GSA). Especially when mediaChick is far from home in a land of strangers and weirdly shaped trees with pointy bark and gynormous** green fans shooting out of the top of them.

Editorial note: Please don't move here solely for the purpose of getting a GSA unless you already have a job lined up. You'll be inflating our unemployment numbers and that just ain't Gold Star of Awesome.

I spend a fair amount of time keeping up with the constant influx of new technologies, theories and trends that affect my job. This means I get to spend time learning for work and go to conventions in places with strange foliage, and this is a beautiful thing. I love to learn! If information was a tangible thing, I would figure out a way to wear it, eat it and breath it. At the same time. Learning for work is a perk for me, and provides me with another bonus: the opportunity to learn things that also help me as a social media consultant.

Yes, in addition to writing and producing eLearning media, I am a social media consultant in my (I have no) spare time. It has become an eye-roller lately, this moniker "social media consultant." It joins "expert" and "guru" as labels that once meant a lot, if applied legitimately, but with overuse has become diluted. Look at what's happened to the word "innovative." So much is "innovative" now. This is the age of mashups, for a reason. You dig? And while some wonderful things are admittedly Super-Cool (read: mp3 players, GPS, the Googles) they're only Super-Cool, not "innovative." Innovative is the electric switch, the automobile and the silicon wafer. But does that discredit the Super-Coolness of the mp3 player technology? Nope.

I'm fine with being merely Super-Cool as a social media consultant, and not a guru or expert. I don't consult to be known as one. I'm happy enough reveling in the real power behind consulting and teaching the what and the how of using social media: all the learning that it requires. That spells A-W-S-O-M-E-S-A-U-C-E, yo. With a capital A.

Being a consultant is about sharing information, listening and advising. My job is to teach people what social media is and why they might care to know more about it. And if they want me to, I give them a plan on how to use social media tools to their benefit. Yes, I also execute brand strategy and build reputation dashboard monitors and all that other buzzword stuff...but the more I consult and listen and share my social media knowledge, the more I realize that my expertise (and all the real fun) is in the counseling.

I enjoy figuring out where a person or business is in their social media life, where they want to be, and helping them figure out how to get there. And in the process of learning and researching things that might help this person or that business, I am provided the bonus opportunity of learning things that also help me in my "real" job.

Social media isn't innovative. It's not hard to figure out, or implement. There is certainly no lack of information available online and off, written by amazing people with blogs waaaay more popular than mine. (Go read Connie Bensen, Maki and Dawn Foster's words.) These are smart, professional people who teach and listen and advise, for money. Like I do. There are a lot of social media consultants in the world today, but I don't see them as my competition. There's plenty of learning and teaching to go around. And as long as my job (or jobs, I should say) involve the opportunity to learn, I am satisfied.

I know there's nothing more Super-Cool than empowering another person with information that has empowered you.

I will link to Kevin's Working/Learning Carnival post when it is up. In the meantime, I wanna hear it: what are your thoughts on working and learning?

awesomesauce* For the record, I first heard this little ditty in a tweet from either @caseorganic or @corvida. Regardless of the source and the fact that everyone else on this planet has been "awesomesaucing" themselves silly without me all this time, they're both awesomesauce and you should be following them on Twitter.

gynormous** For the record, I came up with this little ditty. I think. And also for the record, the best part about it is the "gyn". Because secretly I am a 12 year old boy.

Let's go steady!