Reinterpretation of Red Riding Hood
I found this cool video on Vimeo, my preferred video sharing site. Sure, the views are higher on YouTube, but the videos are cooler on Vimeo and the quality is better. This video tells the story of Red Riding Hood through the use of animated information graphics. The connections and the flow of the graphics work well together, plus some of them are funny, like the nutritional information about Grandma.
6 Reasons to Attend Triangle Startup Weekend
This weekend’s Triangle Startup Weekend is a great event for anyone who wants to collaborate on new businesses ideas and flex their coding skills in interesting ways. But this is not just an event for entrepreneurs or developers, as companies are about more than just ideas and lines of code. These companies need names, logos, press releases, social media campaigns, videos along with their great ideas and shiny websites. So if you are someone who is willing to get behind an idea and work hard all weekend, here are six reasons to consider attending Triangle Startup Weekend at Edge Office in Downtown Raleigh.
1. Choose your function
While you may not be able to find a new job in this economy, you can work in a different area from the one that brings in your paycheck. You may not even be dissatisfied in your job, but are looking for a short-term challenge. If there is a skill that you have been honing in your spare time, but haven’t brought to the professional forefront, this is the perfect opportunity. Startup Weekend participants are helpful and open and generally will assist you in working with those new skills.
2. Choose your project
Unless you currently run a company or manage lots of employees, someone else is telling you what to do and what projects to work on. Startup Weekend gives you the chance to choose which team you would like to be part of. It’s great to pitch an idea to the room, and maybe your idea will be voted to the top. But if it is not, pick the one that best fits with your interests and experience. And the team that you pick Friday night may not be the one you return to on Saturday morning. You are totally in control of your destiny.
3. Lead an area
As the group dynamics develop around skills and interests, you can speak up and lead one of the functional areas. It may be something you normally do, or may be totally new, but there are leadership roles and organizational roles in every project. Someone has to be in charge of defining tasks and making sure they get done. This is even true in a non-programming role where you may be the only one handling the tasks.
4. Work hard and have fun
Everyone on a team has to be committed to the project and work hard to meet the goal: launch by Sunday evening. Does this mean work through 54 hours straight without sleep? That depends on the team. If the project requires that amount of work and everyone has committed to it, then it does. But mainly the amount of work derives from the team’s expectations. If you have committed to building the front end of the website by Saturday, then your team is counting on you to do that. The work needs to be something you enjoy and are happy to do. Of course there will be stress over the weekend, but it is about fun in a business building atmosphere.
5. Network
An obvious benefit of Startup Weekend is that it gives you the opportunity to network. And this is not a few minutes over a craft-brewed beer and some finger food. This is an intense weekend of solving problems, working together, fighting it out and creating something of value. You will get to know people in a real working environment. You may find a new business partner. You may find someone that seems cool, but writes messy code. These connections can be what you make of them, but the goods ones will be stronger than you might expect. Bonding happens in the trenches of building a business.
6. Start a company
The goal of Startup Weekend is for each team to start a company that can launch by Sunday. This is a very lofty goal that requires hard work, the right idea, the right team and lots of coffee. This has been done many times over the lifespan of Startup Weekend nationally, and even locallly. Last July we launched four companies at RTP Startup Weekend. The challenge is to find the time and dedication to sustain that company after the event. This will also depend on the people involved and the demands of everyone’s regular life. It can be done, but it is not the norm.
If you come to Triangle Startup Weekend thinking you will be on the road to your personal recovery as part of a successful startup and the stock options are just around the corner, you may be disappointed. But if you come to experience the thrill of working with great people to build a company in weekend, you will have a great time. See you on Friday.
For more information, go to TriangleStartupWeekend.com.
BMW Paints a Picture
BMW has a long history of art cars, but this may be the first time they have commissioned an artist to paint with a car, rather than on a car. South African artist Robin Rhode used a BMW Z4 roadster to apply paint to a 30 by 40 foot canvas that will be on display in NYC’s Grand Central Station. He developed a different style for each color, and each style referenced another contemporary artist. He used remote control jets near the wheels to spray the paint on the canvas. The whole process from conception to artwork was captured for a series of videos on the microsite, Expressions of Joy, and a complete documentary will be on the Discovery Channel. Art patronage still matters.
Superheroes in Real Life
Mexican-born photographer Dulce Pinzón has spent much of her career dealing with issues related to the duality of Mexican immigrants trying to find their way in the US. Her Superhero project shows Mexican immigrants who toil away in regular jobs, normally unnoticed, but dressed as American and Mexican superheros for the photos. For many of them their real superpower is to provide money for their family back home, each caption includes the amount each sends home each month.
Digital Papercuts Has Moved
This post is primarily for my subscribers who view this blog in their feedreader. I have changed my blogging software to WordPress and that brings many changes. I would be happy to share my experiences with the blog move, and may do so in a future post.
You may see some duplicate content and old content in the feed, but that will clear up soon as I get everything up and running. The duplicate content results from pointing the same feed at a new site. Duplicate content is a small price to pay to keep my posts flowing toward your reader. Some of the older content may be posts that I published on other sites, and have now re-posted here for completeness.
And finally, I have changed the feed to summary mode rather than the full posts, so you can come to my site and give me some feedback on the new look. It is a work in progress that still needs some more tweaks, but I wanted to share ideas, videos and photos and couldn’t wait any longer. After a little while I may change the feed back to showing full posts. Please let me know your thoughts on that below.
Social Media at NC State Fair
I recently sat down with Karlie Justus, a PR/social media officer with the NC State Fair and NC Department of Agriculture and we talked about her integrated social media campaign for the 2008 State Fair. Read more
Launch of New Social Media B2B Site
Earlier this week Kipp Bodnar announced the launch of a new site focusing on the impact of social media on B2B companies. Below are both his announcement and a video explaining the site. I am including them here for two reasons. The first is that I am involved in the project and they are good explanations of why we are doing what we are doing. The second is they include shoutouts to me, so I wanted to share a collaborator’s thoughts about my social media insight.
Over the course of the past year I noticed a lack of conversation about how social media would change the way B2B companies operate and market their businesses. At the same time clients were asking me for examples of social media’s applications in B2B situations. It is these two factors and some other discussions with friends that lead me to start SocialMediaB2B.com. Big thanks to Jeff Cohen who has stepped up to help lead this project.
I plan to post excerpts of the my SocialMediaB2B.com posts here as well, so look for those in the Social Media category. They will be taqgged socialmediaB2B. If you are interested in social media in a B2B environment, make sure you subscribe over on the site. We have lots of great posts in the works.
Kipp Bodnar Talks about Social Media Breakfast Raleigh
Even though Kipp spends so much time in front of the camera himself, I thought I would take this opportunity to ask him a few questions about Social Media Breakfast in Raleigh, NC. Originally started in Boston by Bryan Person, Social Media Breakfast has now expanded into others cities with local organizers in each city. Social Media Breakfast gives local communities an opportunity to come together once a month and discuss various topics related to social media. Go to the Social Media Breakfast Raleigh website for more information about upcoming events and planned speakers. And join us next month.
Grace’s Big Adventure
On Wednesday I was meeting a friend for lunch when my phone rang. It was my daughter’s school principal telling me that Grace had fallen on the playground and hurt her back. The nurse and others were keeping her immobilized while they waited for the paramedics to arrive. I told the principal I would be there in 10 minutes.
On my way, a fire truck passed me. I knew it was headed to the school because I know that fireman are frequently the first respondents to an emergency. I made it to the playground and saw Grace lying still under the slide. She was up on her side, and covered with a blanket. It was a bit scary to see her like that, but she was calm and lucid. Apparently she was on the wooden platform of a play structure and slipped on someone’s coat. She fell off the edge, about five feet to the ground, and hit her back and neck on the structure on the way down. The impact with the ground did not appear to cause any injury.
The firemen made it to the playground and did a preliminary check of her condition and put a brace on Grace’s neck to keep it still. She described the pain to them as a “7.” Soon the paramedics arrived and secured Grace to a board for transport. Another girl was having a severe asthma attack, and also needed to go to the hospital. Grace, the other girl, one of the paramedic and I rode in the back of an ambulance (my first ride, ever) to the hospital.
We pulled up to the ER and Grace, and the transport board she was riding on, were put on a rolling hospital bed and taken inside. After checking in we were rolled down to the exam room. All this time I had been trying to get in touch with Grace’s mom, but was unable to. The endless stream of people came in. Two nurses, an admissions person, a resident, a med student and eventually a doctor. Everybody asked the same questions, and Grace calmly repeated the answers.
There was one bit of confusion when Grace told the residence that her head hurt. I know that part of the exam is to see how Grace responds to questions, but I intervened on this one and told Grace to tell the residence why her head hurt. From lying on this board, she said. The resident took this to mean that Grace did not get hurt in the fall, so we had to straighten all that out. The doctor led a brief exam and determined that she had some bony tenderness in her mid and lower back, as well as her neck. He would evaluate further after xrays.
They rolled Grace down the hall for a series of xrays of her neck and back, including one weird shot where the tech had her open her mouth so they could see her spine at the back of her head. While we were in the xray room, Grace’s mom showed up. I had finally been able to get in touch with her and tell her where we were, but she had never gotten any messages from school, so she didn’t know what had happened. I filled her in and we went back to a different exam room. This one was bigger, since Grace now had both parents with her.
After the doctor reviewed her xrays, and Grace did some mobility tests (turn your head this way, now that way), she was released. The doctor told her to take is easy, and that she might be sore. She had completely recovered and was fine at school the next day.
Here’s a link to the rest of the photos on Flickr.
24 Heures
Belgian brewer Stella Artois and the Mother agency of London have created a series of short films that re-imagine the stories of contemporary cinema and television in the style of French New Wave. You can find all three shorts on Smoothoriginals.com, but my favorite is the updated, laid-back version of 24.