Broadcasting Brain

My social media friend Kim tagged me some time ago with a meme started by Shari Voigt where the writer must list seven unusual things about themself.

It’s a few weeks later, but I’m getting caught up now. 

OK, Kim had to remind me about it, but better late than never.

Here they are:

1. One of my front teeth is shaped like a molar- it has an extra piece in back that you can’t see.
2. I have an extra sinus; showed up in an X-Ray when I was being checked out for braces, I believe.  No idea if it makes any difference.
3. I used to have the nickname “Spidey” when I played hackeysack - I only played it one summer, however
4. I ran a 10k race when I was 19 - never did anything like that before or after
5. I once drove a car through the inside of a narrow covered bridge at the same time that a utility truck was coming through.  There was probably only a couple of inches of clearance on each side of my car.  I panicked - I didn’t know what else to do except keep going.  My friend, who was carpooling with me, kind of freaked out for a moment.  I don’t blame him.  Anyway, no harm done except to my friend’s nerves.
6. I once ate a jalapeno pepper without changing my expression, although it felt like I had bitten into a sunburn.  The people sitting near me say that I turned bright red.
7. I only pulled one all-nighter during my entire university career - it was near the end of my final year.  I guess they’re supposed to be more common than that. 

Yeah, that’s it, then.

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All right, brains.  I’m creating a meme and I compel all of you fine readers and bloggers to join in.

The name of this meme is “the one thing that I MUST say to the entire world.”

It’s very simple: you have up to 150 characters to say a message to the world.  You can do it in your blog, microblog, tumblelog, or whatever electronic medium.  Please link back to this post so I can try to track the activity of this meme - trackbacks would be cool, too.

Here’s my one thing, as an example:

Leaders:  accept that you are sometimes wrong.  Do not suppress dissent.  Publicly acknowledge your errors.  Then work like mad to make things right or at least better.

In the desire to spread this well and good, I’m going to tag 20 people.

When you respond to the meme, please pass it on to at least 10 people.

Super bonus incentive:

If I get at least 100 responses to this meme, then I’ll volunteer to create an eBook and publish everyone’s responses (at least the ones that I can find!), with a link of their choice (i.e. blog URL, social networking page, etc.) included as well as their name. 

Just think:  we can spread good ideas while letting the world know about us!

So… here’s who I am tagging:

1. Kimberly Bock

2. Shana Albert

3. Scott Marshall

4. David Lind

5. Barbara Doduk

6. James Chartrand

7. Greg Davies

8. Ash Matheson

9. Steve Spalding

10. Sabrina Fowler-Ferguson Harnish

11. Colin Walker

12. Nick James

13. Jason Falls

14. Lisa Rousseau

15. Meg Fowler

16. Ruud Hein

17. Bill at Site Insights

18. Sterling (Chip) Camden

19. Michael Rawdon

20. Kristen Munson

Don’t let me down….  

My cool social media acquaintance Kristen tagged me with a meme (see the post title) so I decided to respond. I was tagged with this once before and responded. I was tagged a second time (I think) but I forgot to respond to that. And so, I’m responding to both Kristen and blogger X with this.

In keeping with the theme of Broadcasting Brain, I’m trying to restrict these 8 random things to be about communications and social media (broadly speaking - I’m including a couple of other creative endeavours):

1. In elementary school I played a shepherd boy in the annual Christmas concert. Unfortunately, my fly was open during the whole performance. At least I had clear underwear on.

2. I won second place an oratorical contest in sixth grade, then never competed again.

3. I gave a horrible, horrible speech (this wasn’t a competition) when I was student council president in my senior year of high school. I started it by saying “Welcome back students to another fun year” in a Stephen Wright-ish voice. It was awful. I tried to make up for it by winning 3rd place in a Liars contest later that year.

4. I once set off a panic at work by using the phrase “no showstoppers” in an E-Mail to some colleagues in France, who apparently misinterpreted the E-Mail to mean that there were problems on our project. Oops.

5. In 1994 I wrote an entry for Project Galactic Guide (sort of a real world version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy) about the longest covered bridge in the world.

6. Also in 1994, I wrote a silly little story/thing called “The Bobby Chronicles” that was somehow published online and was listed in John Labovitz’s e-zine-list. I appear to have lost any electronic copies of that document, but here’s what I submitted for the E-Zine listing:

“Tales and commentary about the lives of Generation X types trapped in rural New Brunswick, Canada. More often than not, the zine will be short, mostly factual, and not terribly serious. “Bobby” has several meanings, including ‘redneck’. This zine is -not- written from a redneck’s point of view. A stop on one of the dirt roads feeding into the info highway.”

It was an inside joke and you had to be there to get it, I guess. However, I was interviewed on the radio in 1994 or 1995 because of this E-Zine, which was quite bizarre at the time.

7. I used to belong to amateur press associations for many years. One of them, APA Centauri, is still active today.

8. I used to be part of a group that did some really small-scale improv a la “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” A few people still remember those times with great fondness to this very day.

So, in the spirit of this meme idea, I’m hereby tagging Nick, Steve, and Jeff.  Have at it, guys!

Nina Munteanu sent me this book meme. I haven’t been responding to memes for awhile (shame, shame) but I thought this one might be interesting.

Here’s how it goes:
1. look up page 123 in the nearest book to you at the time;
2. find the fifth sentence and write it down. Then write down the three sentences that follow.
3. once you’ve done this find three other suck–er…. em… people you’d like to tag and send along.  (Sorry, not going to do this part)

The book in question is The New Influencers:  A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media by Paul Gillin.

Page 153 is the start of Chapter 7 - Putting “Public” Back Into Public Relations

David Meerman Scott has a beef with the PR business.  He had long believed that the public relations profession was too focused on the media.  His epiphany came in 1995, when Yahoo! made the decision to start including press releases along with mainstream media coverage on its financial news wires.  When you searched on a company name, a press release was just as likely to appear in the search results as a Reuters story.

Oddly enough, I read the following blog post, and comments within, with interest this week.  It talks about PR, but it focuses on PR’s role as a part of the overall sales and marketing objectives of an organization.  It led to a lively discussion within the blog’s comments about the role of public relations within an organization.

I’m not a marketing or public relations professional, but I did find the post very interesting.  Social media is definitely a place where these professions can spread their messages.  In fact, they help make social media a pretty exciting place to be.

I recommend both the book and the blog post as interesting reading.

Lisa at Mesh East tagged me with a 8 for 2008 meme. Well, why not?

In keeping with the theme, here are eight facts that you probably don’t know about me:

1. I ran a 10K race when I was 19. Well, I jogged it, really, but I did complete it without walking and I even managed a bit of a sprint at the end. I haven’t done anything that remarkable since then except?
2. I climbed Mt. Katahdin in Maine when I was 21. It’s made up of walking trails although it can be quite a chore to move upward in some places. I haven’t done anything that remarkable since then.
3. I almost had an article published in a short-lived Canadian magazine called Onset back in 1994 or 1995. My article got pulled by the editor shortly before publication and I never heard back afterward. It’s a long-standing source of chagrin for me, but I shall have my revenge in 2008!
4. I went to a Motley Crue concert in 1990. I put my hands over my ears at one point and it didn’t make a darned bit of difference.
5. I visited Vimy Ridge in France in 1998. The Vimy Ridge site is actually Canadian soil, given to Canada by the French government after World War I.
6. I own a copy of Adventure Comics #300 which would be worth about $500.00 in top condition. My copy is mid-gradeish, but it?s still worth something.
7. I used to buy and sell collectible card game (CCG) cards on eBay as a hobby.
8. Jimi Hendrix was one of my musical idols in my 20s.  I still think that he was a musical genius.

Alas, I shall not pass on the meme, but, of course, anyone may carry it forward if they wish.

Nina Munteanu tagged me with a meme where I’m supposed to compare my personality against the traits of people born in the same month.

First the rules…
Here they are:

1. Mention the person who tagged you and create a link back to them.

2. Copy-paste the traits for all the twelve months or provide a link to the list, like I’m doing here.

3. Pick your month of birth.

4. Highlight the traits that apply to you.

5. Tag 12 people and let them know by visiting their blogs and leaving a comment for them.

6. Let the person who tagged you know when you?ve done it!

I was born in May, so here’s the scoop.

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