2 The Next Level

Archive for February, 2009

I have to give credit where credit is due but this post is a little more personal when it comes to the subject matter. You see I got a call from my sister at about 1 am on January 28, 2009, she was crying and screaming so loud I could hardly understand what she was trying to say to me. At first I thought the worst and feared someone had died or was injured severly.  I then told her to calm down and to please tell me what was wrong.  All she could say at first was that mom is okay.  After reasuring me that our mother was ok she then told me the devistating news that our childhood home in the Bronx went up in flames that night.

After speaking to my mom who reassured me that she was ok and on her way to the hospital, I then took to the Internet to find out any information on how this unfortunate incident could have happened.

I first tried to get the news from several websites of the local television station in New York. I then tried to get a local New York news radio station. Both proved to be very confusing and had no news about what happened to my mother”s house.

I then did a Twitter search on “Bronx Fire” and came up with the below results. All of which gave me more information on what happened to my mother’s house.

These search results not only gave me what I needed in more information but they also gave me up to date video coverage of what happened with the fire.

NYP and they were able to give me more detailed information on the damage of the fire.

As much as I am sad that my childhood home has gone up in flames, I am truely thankful and blessed that my mom was not seriously insured. I am also thankful to those who used Twitter that night and gave me the updates I needed to fill in all the blanks I was getting from traditional media.

The power of Twitter has become very real to me these past couple of days since the fire. I am now using Twitter to find out more on fire insurance and how to deal with public adjusters.

I will keep you all posted on my findings. Stay strong in this economy Solopreneurs.

All the best

JB

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Popularity: 3% [?]

This past weekend I went to my second SoCon event. This years theme was “In Search of the Southeast’s Social Media Niche.”  I was so impressed with last years event that I signed up early for this years event because they only allow 300 people to attend. The SoCon conference is a two day event starting with a Friday networking dinner followed by Saturday’s main forum of keynote speakers followed by afternoon breakout sessions.

The highlight of the morning session was culminated by a video conference call with Ruth Ann Harnisch, President of the Harnisch Foundation announcing a 1.5 million dollar gift to Kennesaw State College to establish the Center for Sustainable Journalism. Lenard Witt one of the founders of SoCon will oversee this generous gift. The center’s mission is to discover innovative ways to produce financially sustainable, high quality and ethically sound journalism.

Mr. Witt made mention that he was encouraged by a professor at MIT to share his idea with the world on his blog and not keep it as a secret hoping that one day he will have to chance implement his idea of  Representative Journalism.  He was then contacted by Ms. Harnisch who read his blog post and was inspired to act on helping him bring this idea to its full reality.

The morning session was then followed by and networking luncheon that really got the afternoon going. I met so many like minded people during this luncheon that I really didn’t want to leave my table to attend the afternoon breakout sessions.

After reluctantly leaving networking luncheon I then attended a breakout session lead by James Andrews, Director at Ketchum Interactive. His topic was Social Media in Public Relations. I then attended the late afternoon session lead by Josh Hallet. His topic was Return on Investment in Social Media.

All in all I thought the whole unconference was well worth the small price paid to attend. The keynote speakers of the morning session were not as good as last years but all of that was made up for with the networking luncheon and the afternoon breakout sessions.

I look forward to attending SoCon again in 2010.

All the best

JB

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Popularity: 1% [?]