Just JudyJudyJudy » Social Media

Antisocial Media: Use Avoidr To Stay Away From Peeps You Can’t Stand

Judy Grundstrom — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:45:57 +0000

I guess it was a mere matter of time before we saw the release of a tool like Avoidr - an antisocial location-based tool. The concept that lies at the heart of it is anything but complicated, as using Avoidr you will be able to keep yourself from running into people that you can’t stand on Foursquare.

The way this application works is by letting you adjudicate a “name” (IE, an insult) to the ones that you don’t want to meet and then learning where they are located when using Foursquare. That’s it. The service is a simple one, it probably took not too long to be implemented by the team behind it, and it works quite well in practice. It is very easy to categorize people based on their degree of annoyance, and learn about these places that you should avoid like the plague.

Using Avoidr implies nothing more than logging in using your Foursquare credentials and specifying who the ones who bug you are. There is no need to create an account or anything like that – if you are on Foursquare, you will already be capable of employing Avoidr to the full.

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Tuesday Draws The Titans

Judy Grundstrom — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:36:38 +0000

My six year old daughter Tuesday decided to join me while I was drawing the portraits of the Twin Cities Top Ten Titans In Social Media earlier this week. Here are her the portraits that she drew of the Titans.

DUSTY TRICE: POLITICAL NINJA

KELLY GROEHLER: MAY THE TWELPFORCE BE WITH YOU

JASON MATHESON & ALEXIS THOMPSON: STAR CATCHERS

JENNIFER KANE: SOCIAL MEDIA MENTOR

JASON DERUSHA: BUZZ FEEDER

(On a really funny side note about the Jason DeRusha portrait, when my three year old son Churchill saw the actual photograph that Jason had sent me he exclaimed, “That guy is a really great guy. I like this guy.” You can count Churchill Grundstrom as Jason DeRusha’s newest (and probably youngest) fan.

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The Winners 1-5: Twin Cities Top Ten Titans In Social Media

Judy Grundstrom — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:27:20 +0000

1. DUSTY TRICE: POLITICAL NINJA

Dusty is a political consultant well known for his social and new media skills, specializing in graphic design, video production and viral marketing. Having worked on 9 campaigns, most recently on Sen. Al Franken’s 2008 campaign, he has been a trusted name in Midwest politics for the last 14 years.

The amazing story with Dusty this year, and the reason he is number one on this list, is that he just started blogging in March of 2009. The other really outstanding thing about Dusty is that he is completely independent and self funded. Dusty started a political gossip blog, dustytrice.com, that was frequently featured on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, The Ed Schultz Show, FOX and Friends, The Washington Post, Gawker, Boing Boing, TPM, Politico, Wonkette, City Pages and numerous other national outlets. The blog was one of the top read political blogs in Minnesota, spawned several viral youtube hits with over half a million views and was banned in China. Yes, it was banned in China, believe it.

Unfortunately, Dusty recently quit blogging to focus on taking new clients and projects outside the political realm. Dusty’s story truly is the “Twin Cities Social Media Story of 2009”. Watch Dusty’s now famous video of Al Franken talking down an angry mob.

If you want to follow Dusty (and I highly suggest that you do) click here.

2. BLOIS OLSON & DAVID ERICKSON: PR-MAGEDDON

David and Blois are two leaders at Tunheim of what is emerging as the most innovative social media team at a larger agency in the Twin Cities. The two first teamed up in 1998 to launch the first email newsletter on Minnesota politics with MN-Politics.com.

An example of how Blois and David use social media to help clients is what they did for Punch Pizza. Blois and David used social media and online strategies to make up for a reduction in Punch Pizza’s paid marketing efforts. One was Snowmagedon, when they generated a Twitter offer to their followers when a blizzard was about to hit the Twin Cities. The offer, allowed Punch to be profitable on a night they would have otherwise not been due to built in labor and food costs.

Another great campaign was the Bacon Chocolate Conan O’Brien Head. Conan O’Brien declared he would bring his show to the Minnesota State Fair if he could get his weight in some delicious chocolate-covered bacon. Unfortunately, he had to remain in Los Angeles, so a likeness was commissioned in his spirit by No Name Premium Meats (including bacon!) and seafood. Using white chocolate for his complexion and bacon to capture his wavy hair, the bust was delivered to his studio on Tuesday, August 25. The bacon-chocolate likeness made it on the air, and it was really funny too.

Follow Blois or David on Twitter by clicking here.

3. KELLY GROEHLER: MAY THE TWELPFORCE BE WITH YOU

Kelly works for Best Buy Co., Inc., a key player in one of the most fascinating and rapidly-changing industry sectors: consumer electronics and technology. She initially joined Best Buy to help build a reputation management framework, so the company could better understand stakeholder perceptions at a time of massive business growth, expansion, and transformation.

Today, her team helps guide the actions and words of Best Buy in ways that tell their story of continued, sustainable growth and differentiation as the technology sector evolves. She also leads an initiative to overhaul the role of public relations within the company: Through use of consumer technology, including social media, they can create, aggregate, and distribute news and information that keeps pace with the rapidly-changing global media landscape – and actively engages our employees, consumers, journalists, communities and stakeholders worldwide. (Watch her for the unveiling of The BBY in fiscal 2011!)

Kelly is one of the people at Best Buy that helped to shape the corporate social media guidelines for employees and started the innovative Twelpforce at Best Buy. Twelpforce is a way for employees of Best Buy to share and stream Twitter feeds so a big company can communicate and connect with each other as well as with customers.

Kelly currently serves as a member of the advisory board for the M.A. in Strategic Communication program at the University of Minnesota. She also volunteers for women’s and public policy causes, including the communications committee of the Citizens League. Follow Kelly on Twitter here.

4. JASON MATHESON & ALEXIS THOMPSON: STAR CATCHERS

Jason Matheson was just a simple boy with a dream. That dream was to get in touch with Katie Couric. This is where his co-host on the popular FM107.1 radio show Jason & Alexis, Alexis Thompson, and social media come in and make this dream come true.

A Facebook group was started named “Katie Couric please call Jason Matheson and give him a CBS hat and mug.” Within a short period of time the group had over 200 members (including me, I am a contributor to the Jason & Alexis show) and the group had also launched a grassroots Twitter campaign of people contacting Katie to call into Jason’s show. After a few months, Katie Couric did contact Jason via Twitter, letting him know that both she and her staff were aware of the Facebook group and thought it was a hoot. Since that initial contact Couric has been on the Jason & Alexis show, recorded promo’s for the show, and been in contact via Twitter frequently. I would say that this is truly a social media dream come true.

Jason & Alexis also hold seminars teach people over 40 how to use Facebook, and create really funny videos that are posted to the FM107.1 Facebook group (I highly suggest watching some of these.) Listen to Jason & Alexis on FM107.1 or follow Jason or Alexis by clicking.

5. JENNIFER KANE: SOCIAL MEDIA MENTOR

Jennifer Kane is principal of Kane Consulting, a social media marketing and PR firm that specializes in research, strategy and measurement/monitoring, in addition to producing events and providing training in these areas. She is an award-winning strategic planner with more than 15 years of experience in marketing, and is a sought after speaker, writer and facilitator. She also tweets an awful lot.

Jennifer is a member of the Editorial Board for Minnesota Meetings and Events Magazine (for whom she writes columns about social media), is on the Ambassador Council for Author Teleseminars, and in 2009 was named one of the Top 20 Social Media Innovators in the Twin Cities.

In 2009 she developed and produced “Kane Camps,” a series of day-long seminars and evening classes designed to introduce small businesses to social media, which attracted more than 200 participants. These camps have been so successful, and Jennifer so popular, that she received more nominations for this award than any other person, mainly from past camp attendees. To become one of Jennifer’s “followers” click here.

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The Winners 6-10: Twin Cities Top Ten Titans In Social Media

Judy Grundstrom — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:27:01 +0000

6. JASON DERUSHA: BUZZ-FEEDER

Jason DeRusha is a reporter, blogger, Twitterer and Facebooker at WCCO-TV. He’s been answering “Good Questions” since 2007, using social media not just to promote his work, rather to involved the community in helping to craft his work.

Jason was named to the Top Ten Outstanding Young Minnesotans by the Minnesota Jaycees in 2009. He’s been profiled in Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine (as the “Twitter guy”), featured nationally (twice) in Mashable.com, won the City Pages 2009 Best of Award for Online Personality.

The social media community directly led to Jason DeRusha Day in Minneapolis on September 21. Jason organized a day, threw together a party, and raised nearly $1000 for People Serving People (half of which was me Jason personally matching the donations of people who came to the party.) Let me mention, this was an actual day that was proclaimed “Jason DeRusha Day” by the Mayor R.T. Rybak of Minneapolis. I was at the party. It was totally awesome.

If you aren’t already doing it, click here to follow Jason on Twitter.

7. NANCY LYONS & MEGHAN WILKER: THE GEEK GIRLS

Nancy Lyons and Meghan Wilker launched the Geek Girls Guide in January 2008 as a place to publish their perspective on the Interactive industry and demystify technology for non-technical audiences. Their mission is to make web technology accessible and exciting and cultivate a movement of empowered women and men online. Since the beginning the Geek Girls have been making connections, but more importantly, creating meaningful conversations.

Nancy is the President and CEO of Clockwork Active Media Systems where she enjoys the daily challenges of making web technology simple and accessible for a wide variety of audiences. In May of 2001, Nancy was chosen as one of the Twin Cities’ 40 under 40 by City Business and in July of 2004 Nancy was chosen as one of the Twin Cities’ Women To Watch by the Business Journal. Meghan is the Managing Director or Clockwork Active Media Systems and in 2009 was named one of the 25 Women to Watch by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.

Click here to follow Nancy on Twitter and here for Meghan.

8. KATE IVERSON: EDITOR OF THE ARTS

Kate is the editor in chief for l’etoile magazine, an online arts, fashion, and entertainment site/blog that is known for its uber-hip weekend event listings, branded parties. She is also also the arts editor for Secrets Of The City (formerly The Rake) and arts and culture writer for the651.com.

The past year has been good to Kate, she recently won “Best Social Director” in MN Monthly’s “Best of 2009″ issue. She also won a Metro 100 award for the being editor of the l’etoile blog. Metro called l’etoile “the online magazine with the biggest Rolodex in town!

To become part of that Rolodex, or at least find out where the parties are at, follow Kate here on Twitter.

9. RACHEL DYKOSKI: SOCIAL MEDIAL ACTIVIST

Rachel’s interests are driven by her life. She lives with a disability and she finds getting out and about is impacted by her limitations. But on the cyber-side she is everywhere, engaged and connected. Rachel has found this offers her a way to give back to the community.

Rachel helped to start The Video Brigade that was awarded COMPAS grant to educate at-risk teens in citizen journalism. She is also a board member of MSSoftserve, an online community for people with MS.

In the area of advocacy Rachel works online for the Hip Hop Caucus, Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota, and the National MS Society. She does everything from Twittering for these organizations to helping launch online games to provided mulit-media interviews in their advocacy/outreach efforts.

Not just happy to work in the activist role, Rachel is also a blogger and post on multiple blogs. Rachel worked on the Twin Cities Daily Planet connecting folks to the Green Jobs conference in Washington DC via their blog in February. She also blogged about Al Franked for The UpTake. To get up to speed with what Rachel is doing, follow her here on Twitter.

10. TOM PICK: B2B VIRTUOSO

Tom Pick is an online marketing executive with KC Associates, a marketing and PR firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota, focused on b2b technology clients. He also writes the award-winning WebMarketCentral blog, a blog about B2B lead generation, social media, interactive PR, SEO and search engine marketing.

His blog has been around since 2005, has won several awards (including MarketingSherpa recognition). He has also written guest posts for several blogs, including recently BtoBbloggers and Business.com. He is an advisor to FYIndOut.com, a b2b-focused social media site, and one of the two original founders of B2BMarketingZone.com, a b2b blog aggregation site.

He has spoken about social media at conferences such as the Blogging for Business conference in Salt Lake City last year, and sat on a b2b social media panel here in Minneapolis this spring hosted by Minnesota BMA (Business Marketing Association).

Tom was recently named to a list of the 50 most influential b2b marketing thought leaders. You can follow Tom on Twitter here.

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The Judges: Twin Cities Top Ten Titans In Social Media

Judy Grundstrom — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:38:54 +0000

I thought this would be a good time to introduce everyone to this years judges for the Twin Cities Top Ten Titans In Social Media. I selected the judges because each one of them is involved in social media in the Twin Cities in a completely different arena. Each on is a total superstar, not just in social media, but in life. Here they are, in no particular order.

CHUCK OLSEN

Chuck Olsen is an award-winning web and video producer, social media pioneer and journalist. In 2007, he co-founded The UpTake, an innovative non-profit dedicated to training and distributing the work of video-based citizen journalists. In 2005, Chuck founded Minnesota Stories, called “one of the best videoblogs” by the New York Times. He is the producer-director of “Blogumentary,” the first documentary film about the rise of political and personal blogs.

In a previous life, Chuck was Senior Web Producer at Twin Cities Public Television where he managed the design, technology, and strategy of the corporate web site serving many audiences. More recently, Chuck worked as a media specialist at Clockwork Active Media Systems. See Chuck’s Minnesota Stories website here or click here to follow him on Twitter.

JACKIE BATEMAN

A twentysomething Minnesota political hotshot, Jackie Bateman is on the scene. She was the Finance Director for Tim Walz during his successful Congressional campaign. Jackie also helped elect Al Franken to US Senate as his Deputy Finance Director. Now as the Finance Director of the Minnesota DFL she is looking for other things to win.

Jackie runs an Twitter account that can be described as interesting, saucy, and sarcastic. She also “ghost” Twitters on a number of accounts from professional to just for fun. I could tell you what those accounts are but I would have to kill you. For work Jackie has to organize a number of events on Facebook and she runs a number of those groups. An expert at running “the numbers” Ms. Bateman knows how to get the people out to your event. Jackie would also like to see Friendster make a comeback. Follow Jackie on Twitter by clicking here.

BRIAN GRUIDL

Brian Gruidl gets around. Between playing in three bands (the Alarmists, So It Goes and Chatham Rise), and managing the email marketing program for Fingerhut Direct Marketing, he uses a variety of tools to keep in contact with friends and industry insiders. While he has a solid understanding of the benefits of social media, he firmly believes that the majority of pedestrian falls now occur because of attention being focused on mobile devices. Brian is a Twin Cities native and currently resides in Minneapolis, but doesn’t sleep much.

As someone who uses social media to promote music and bands in the Twin Cities Brian uses Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace with a specific end goal in mind. As one of the more successful musicians in the Twin Cities he is achieving that goal. Not just sticking to one medium and Twittering as himself and not just his band, Brian is using social media in different way than most musicians. Click here to follow Brian on Twitter.

JUDY GRUNDSTROM: A.K.A. ME

I am a straight shooting, can-do architect who loves to talk with people. If you spend a little time with me, you will discover that I think good architects are simply highly educated “problem solvers” who find creative solutions to meet people’s needs. I have a background in corporate and community branding strategies that assist me in arriving at a powerful and cohesive place making solutions that impacts signage, graphics, public art, and the broad range of elements, materials, and fixtures that constitute the built environment.

This is why that even though I am an architect I have gone like a “fish to water” so to speak into social media. I run a number of different Twitter accounts for private and non-profit groups. I also run about a dozen different Facebook pages and groups for both private companies and non-profit groups. I use social media to reach out to people, spread messages, publicize events, and for public relations. To find out more about me read this blog.

Nominations will be taken through November 25th. The winners will be announced the first week of December 2009.

Who should be nominated? People who you think are movers and shakers in the Social Media world. These people don’t necessarily have to be active across multiple social media platforms, but possibly making a huge mark in just one of them. Look for people who may run a number of different accounts for a variety of reasons and communicate in new ways. These people shouldn’t be run of the mill but people who break rules and innovate with new types of media. People who Twitter, Facebook, blog, MySpace, and everything else under the sun qualify.

How do you nominate someone? Feel free to send me a message via my contact page, drop me a line on Twitter, or post a nomination on my Facebook wall. I will look in all of these places for suggestions so don’t worry that I might miss your nomination. And yes, it is perfectly alright to nominate yourself. In fact, it is encouraged.

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Twin Cities Top Ten Titians In Social Media: Nominations Still Open

Judy Grundstrom — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:09:18 +0000

I opened up nominations for the first annual Twin Cities Top 10 Titans in Social Media last week. I will be taking through November 25th. I will announce the list the first week of December.

The panel of judges have been set and look for a future blog post on the judges in the very near future. We look forward to all of your nominations over the next few weeks and to publishing the list in December.

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Call For Nominations: Twin Cities Top 10 Titans In Social Media 2009

Judy Grundstrom — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:52:37 +0000

Get ready for the first annual Twin Cities Top 10 Titans in Social Media. The inaugural kick-off for this list is starting with a call for nominations. I will be taking nominations starting today, November 9, through November 25th. I will announce the list the first week of December.

Who will judge the nominations and compile the final list? I will have a small focus group of people that are active in the Twin Cities social media scene look over the nominations with me. I will make the final decision on who makes the list. I look forward to all of your nominations over the next few weeks and to publishing the list in December.

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Dudes Like To Promote Other Dudes On Twitter

Judy Grundstrom — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:39:48 +0000

An item posted on Gawker today titled, “Measure Your Twitter Manhood in Exciting New Way“, caught my attention. The post talks about how Twitter’s hard-core users are mainly men and how these men are now using a new feature on Twitter called “Twitter Lists” to promote other men. The reason this caught my attention is because I have been already noticed this being done within the Twitter users that I follow.

One of the people I follow works for an online publication. He created a list of all the people at his publication who Tweet. I noticed that the list had only 4 women on it out of 22 people and commented on this. My “twitter friend” replied back that it was the best he could do, as way more men than women were using Twitter at his organization, but he was actively trying to recruit more women.

Another way that men have been promoting other men on Twitter that I have noticed is by creating “Top Social Media (fill in the blank)” lists. A few of these have sprung up in the Twin Cities in the past year, and each one I have read has been made by a man and heavily features male social media users.

One Top Social Media list that has received a lot of attention is Arik Hanson’s “Top 20 Twin Cities Social Media Innovators” list. Arik asked for nominations from people to compile this list. After getting 300 nominations the list of 20 only had 2 women on it. This isn’t Arik’s fault, but his list does fall in line with research that suggests that men like to Twitter to other men and about other men. Another list that came out earlier in the year was City Pages, “Twitter’s Top 10 Twin Cities must-follow journalists“. The list is completely made of male journalists who Tweet, even there are a number of high profile female journalists who use Twitter in the Twin Cities.

Back in June Harvard Business Publishing released a report they called, “New Twitter Research: Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets“. I was thrilled when this study came out because it put data and numbers to a lot of the trends I see on Twitter myself. Findings from the study include:

Although men and women follow a similar number of Twitter users, men have 15% more followers than women.

An average man is almost twice more likely to follow another man than a woman.

I personally don’t fall into the typical female Twitter user profile. With over 4,000 followers and what can only be described as HEAVY twitter use I am not your typical female Twitter user. I encourage my female friends to start using Twitter and suggest that we write to each other often on the service, which we all do. I suggest the rest of you to do the same with your female friends and colleagues. What about all the male dominated “Top Twitter Lists”? Look for my list of “The Top 10 Social Media Users In the Twin Cities” on this blog soon, and look for it to be female dominated.

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