LatinTroublemaker’s blog

So I took a few days to celebrate my birthday over the weekend.... It was a chance to catch up with friends from both here and elsewhere, including a friend who came down from NYC.  Besides the normal party type stuff there was the chance to explore the Richmond region some more, even though I have been here for a few years now.  For example I finally got a chance to check out Belle Isle as well as local winery only minutes from downtown....

Downtown Richmond

James River Cellars Winery

Rapids at Belle Isle

James River Cellars

Today was a awesome day!!!! Last night my Jaycees Chapter (Greater Ashland, VA) voted to make a generous donation to a great cause that a few of us members volunteer for: Comfort Zone Camp and I was allowed to hand deliver it to them today!   Three of us serve as Big Buddies on weekends for this touching organization and it really lives an impact on your life. 

If you are looking for a great non-profit to volunteer for, they are it!  (Also if you are in the Central VA region, they are holding a training session December 5th in Richmond)

Info on them:

Mission

Comfort Zone provides grieving children with a voice, a place and a community in which to heal, grow and lead more fulfilling lives.

Vision

Comfort Zone envisions a world where grieving children are not forgotten or left to grieve alone, and are supported by a wide community that understands and appreciates them.

About Comfort Zone Camp

Comfort Zone Camp is the nation’s largest bereavement camp. Comfort Zone Camps are offered free of charge to children ages 7-17 who have experienced the death of a parent, sibling or primary caregiver. The camps are held year-round in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Texas, and Virginia.

Comfort Zone Camps create an environment where grieving children can have fun and break the isolation death often brings, while learning valuable coping skills for their daily lives.

Reach

Comfort Zone Camp has hosted campers from 43 States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

A coworker found this new video player/presentation tool that conducts 360 panaromic video presentations: YellowBird Showcase, http://player.yb.nl/showcase/index.html 

It's six cameras blended into one, in the demop video, the skiing one is so cool!

Check it Out and Share any thoughts!

So our team has been asked to look into the various ways and tools to measure social media and its impact on our Newspapers and Television Stations websites... Ranging from referrals to leads, gender to occupation and so forth. 

With that being said we have begun looking at various tools and applications out there for Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc... and found an interesting one for Twitter called Twitter Analyizer.  So far it looks promising on an account by account basis but we have hundreds of accounts to review and this maybe get a cumbersome on our end.  The application itself is web-based and gives you data per account including:

• Followers
• Retweeters
• Hashmark Tracking
• Gender
• Occupation
• Activitity
• Etc...

Looking for anyone who maybe using this product or something similar to review!

So I was going thru all my social media/networking sites and realized that my VOX account had dropped off the face of the Earth!  Time to correct that.

It's been a crazy year since that last post with many changes occuring personally and at work.  In the office we underwent a complete reorganization which has me teamed up with a fellow VOX member (Sugar Mountain) to take ownership our company's social media program/product. We've spent the past few months evaluating many programs, applications, tools, concepts and more to get things in line. So being back on VOX is important too.

So as November kicks off so does my return to VOX that should have not slipped away before.

Always looking for any social media/networking ideas, new tools and fads to review, so please share!

Check out the story and video from the CBS station in Johnson City, TN that reported on a father naming his baby in honor of John McCain and Sarah Palin... Plus apparently he didn't tell his wife he was going to do it....

It has been picked by BLOGER'S and websites from around the country since yesterday!

Web Link to Story and Video:
http://www.tricities.com/tri/news/local/article/new_father_names_baby_after_republican_ticket/15054/

So I am planning on visiting my family this coming weekend, so I figured I would pick out one or two DVD's to take with me to watch with my little niece and nephew... they are Disney fans.  My little neice said she has never seen Alice in Wonderland, so I went online to my Netflix account and searched for Alice in Wonderland and click on it to add to my queue.

Couple of days later i got the DVD's BUT.......   When I looked at the  folder for the DVD it said Alice in Wonderland alright, but not the one you would expect...  Apparently I did not look carefully enough when I made my selection becuase I got Alice in Wonderland: An Adult Musical Comedy.  (needless to say, not for kids)

I thought maybe Netflix messed up --- so I went into my account and checked my lists and low and behold it was listed there as the same as the folder on the DVD, I CAN'T BELIEVE I MISSED THAT ONE!  (My error not Netflixs)

Lesson Learned:  make sure you carefully check things out before you hit SAVE or finalzie your order.

On a lighter note: I did share this story with a coworker who then in-turn took a look at the DVD with her husband and they LAUGHED their heads off at it.

For months now my colleagues in the office have been picking on me for not having a BLOG since part of department is social networking.... So here I am and I don't know where to start.... Any suggestions?