Social Media Revolution

Based on #1 International Best Selling Socialnomics by Erik Qualman this is the latest in the most watch social media series in the world.

This is the long version produced June 2011

We Take Too Much For Granted Everyday

Alice Pyne is a 15 year old girl who knows she is running out of time. She has hopes and dreams like we all do - she would have liked to have been a dolphin trainer - but she knows that some of those things will now, in her words, "remain dreams."

I became aware of Alice yesterday when her blog went viral with her bucket list - and one of the things she wanted was to trend on twitter. For me there is something inherently human in this desire to reach out - a need to be known, to be thought of - simply to say "I'm here, I exist, I live... and there's so much stuff that I still want to do." I know to some extent we all can relate to this.

One of the items on Alice's bucket list is to "make everyone sign up to be a bone marrow donor." This is something that is simple for most of us to do and I highly recommend it. I've been on the bone marrow registry for years and I hope that one day I might be able to help someone, like Alice, to keep on working through their bucket list and to live all of their dreams. In Canada you can start the process HERE. In the United States go HERE. For everyone else, google "bone marrow donation" and your country and it should bring up the program you need.

Another thing Alice challenges us to do is consider what it is we are putting off doing and why. If something is important to the way we want to live our life then we should start making that a priority and look for the opportunities we need. We're all relatively guilty of getting bogged down in the mundane daily tasks we feel responsible to participate in and we always put things off because we will get around to them, eventually. But what happens when you run out of time? As Alice asks in her blog profile - "If today was your last day on this earth, how would you spend it?"

It's worth some time today to ponder that question, right after you sign up for the bone marrow donor program in your jurisdiction.

We are all running out of time, just most of us don't know it. Keep on dreaming, my friends.

Do you have your (e)ALLIE yet?

(e)ALLIE is on the way up! Come on along for the ride!

Mooooo!

I was very excited to come home and find that my Moo Cards had arrived! I loves them! These are the little business cards I have on my key chain that everyone asks about, looks at and then chooses their favourite - I find they are quite popular. I print them with pictures I have taken myself and this batch of Moo Cards has my social media info printed on the back.

I highly recommend Moo Cards to anyone who is looking for a fun and non-traditional style of business cards that they can put their own personality into (these would also work well as gift tags). Check out Moo.com for other items you can create and have printed and you too can have the great experience and customer service that keeps me coming back year after year! Also, if you would like to order something let me know as I have some promo codes for 15% off your next order - I'd be happy to send one to you.

Edmonton Tweetup!

I am soooo tired in this picture...

Finishing off a very busy week (including Beyond 2010, the Hackathon, the Yeg Girl Geek Mixer, and the Empire Avenue Boardroom) was a great BBQ tweetup hosted at the iNews880 Radio station. A HUGE thank you goes out to Edmonton's fabulous Brittney LeBlanc (and her boss) for such a successful gathering. It is great to have a venue for a family friendly tweetup and the radio station knows how to make any night fun!   

Long Live the Cabal...

There is no Cabal...

The Edmonton Empire Avenue Boardroom on October 21 was well attended with more than 40 Empire Avenue Influencers and some local twitterites who were EAv curious. Highlights of the evening included mingling with out of towners (e)ADRIEL and (e)DUPS, gathering together the most amount of Cabal members to ever (yet) be in one room and checking out the new Empire Avenue iPhone App that is currently being beta tested (coming soon). As always I was pleased to meet people IRL and put faces to twitter names and tickers.  

A big thank you shout out goes to Trevor at Original Joe's Varsity who always treats us right! Highly recommend!

Beyond 2010 Hackathon

I've stayed up all night with a great group of talented people at the Beyond 2010 Hackathon (in Edmonton, Alberta) and an equally talented group of people in Birmingham UK. We've all been hard  work developing a mobile app tool to help people in the event of a disaster. It's been a fun and productive process and I really love the truly collaborative nature of the project - we've all been using typewith.me to produce the written documents and skype for conference calling with the UK Hackathon team. I'm really happy to have had an opportunity to be involved in this (thanks to Brittney LeBlanc for coordinating!) and I can't wait to use and see the final product! And hopefully we will all have created something that saves lives and eases suffering. 

Look at me, I'm in a Cave!

I was the featured Empire Avenue member today on the Dragon's Cave.

You can read the whole article HERE.

Empire Avenue Photo Contest!

The Empire Building Network has just announced the first Empire Avenue photo contest.

Post an original photograph between October 16th 9am (eastern) and October 19th at 9pm (eastern) to the Empire Building Network Facebook page. The picture that garners the most number of likes and comments during that time will be determined the winner (each like will count as one vote, each comment will count as two votes and only one vote per person, per entry will be counted). You will be permitted to like and vote for your own entry and there is no limit to the amount of other entries you can vote on. You can also vote on all entries without submitting something yourself - but it would be more fun to see your pictures in the contest as well!  

Check out the Empire Building Network Facebook Page to see all the rules. And good luck!

Let's go see the stars!

Today I received an interesting offer via twitter from Shannon Hunter, who works with Cloud Ad Agents in Toronto. Here is what her email said:

My name is Shannon and I work for Cloud AdAgents, a digital advertising agency representing Cineplex Entertainment. We’ve been asked by Cineplex to invite Edmonton’s most influential social media users to experience an ultra cool advancement in movie theatre technology, UltraAVX!

Why is UltraAVX worth Tweeting about? Because it delivers one of the most immersive entertainment experiences possible. UltraAVX features wall-to-wall screens that are significantly larger on average than traditional screens. A superb digital surround sound system utilizes the latest in Dolby digital sound technology. Special projectors provide stunning, crystal clear images.  And to top the experience off, reserved seating options and extra wide high back, luxurious  rocker seats.

We’re talking to the best, the brightest, the most dialled-in people we can find... and giving them tickets to try out UltraAVX on us!

Starting Friday, October 8, UltraAVX opens in Cineplex Odeon North Edmonton and Cineplex Odeon South Edmonton Cinemas. We’d like you and a friend PLUS four of your followers on Twitter or four of your blog readers to come check out a movie in UltraAVX and experience what we believe is the next generation of theatre. 

So, if you need something to do on Saturday (movie T.B.A.) and would like to check out a movie on the new UltraAVX screen with me (and Duncan), let me know (via @ message on twitter). I need four friends from the Edmonton area who would be willing to tweet about the experience.

Updating my links...

If you were wondering where @AllieW went ...  I am now @Allie!

How Do You Say "Fun" in Irish?

According to their twitter bio, Ceilis "is an Irish Gaelic term meaning a gathering of friends for song, drink & dance." Every time we have visited Ceili's we have found this to be true; the friendly staff, good service and plenty of specials (plus sometimes a little twitter play thrown in to round out the evening) makes it a great place to hang out.

This past summer we were at Ceili's for a tweetup and they had a promotion for Alexander Keith's Pale Ale which allowed you one contest entry for every beer purchased. Needless to say Duncan was a huge fan of this prospect and managed to garner more than enough entries over the course of the evening. He really was enjoying himself, perhaps a little too much, but any guilt he may have harboured dissipated when the winning contest entry was drawn and it was his name they were announcing (well, half his name anyway, as they really couldn't pronounce the last name). He had won a BBQ. Not just the BBQ itself, but also hamburgers and beer for ten friends, delivered, cooked and served.


Yesterday, Kaley and Justin from Ceili's Edmonton arrived at our home with the BBQ and fixings to prepare for us an amazing feast. They attended to our complete happiness; making sure we always had beer, they cooked burgers until no one could eat any more and in the end they cleaned the BBQ and took the dishes away with them! I think I can safely say that a delightful time was had by all and that the hospitality shown to us by Ceili's will be long remembered.


I want to extend a sincere thank you to Kaley, Justin and the staff and management of Ceili's here in Edmonton for the evening. I will also wholeheartedly recommend Ceili's to everyone in Edmonton (or Calgary and Vancouver) who is looking for a relaxed but fun authentic Irish pub with good food and a decent selection of beer. Ceili's is an Irish pub done right!

Oh, and the Irish word for fun is craic, but I could have sworn it was Ceili's.

Come Along For The Ride!

In the latest Empire Building Network blog post titled "Breaking News: Empire Avenue Adds Influencer Scores," William Pitcher writes about the new social networking scoring introduced today by the Empire Avenue development team. He calculates an "iRanking" based on the unweighted averages (as they are listed today) of the twenty five influencers on the Leaderboard.

Today my scores are EAv (62), twitter (46), facebook (48) and flickr (37). William's calculations of the top 25 leaders on Empire Avenue makes my iRank at number 1.

"Clearly, there are differences between share price and influence scores with someone like ALLIE scoring well on all four measure plus being number one in weekly earnings while only ranking 12th in share price. Expect to see her move up."

When I read this I was pleased - but also a tiny bit perplexed. I think the only way I can move up in share price at this exact moment is to buy the upgrades to offer more shares for people to buy. While this seems to be a no brainer the upgrades are pricey and will come at a considerable cost to my portfolio.

However there can be no gain without some risk and forward movement is the name of the game - I owe it to my shareholders to continue to build on the investments they have made in me. There will be upgrades forthcoming to offer more shares of ALLIE to anyone who wants them - watch out for your chance to own some of the best producing stocks on Empire Avenue. I can't predict exactly where this new adventure will go but I am confident it will be worth coming along for the ride!

See you on the Avenue!

Look Who's Influencing Now...

Today I am the featured Influencer on the website Empire Building Network. Head on over and check it out!

Big thanks to Joanne Costello for a great article.

Rock Down to Empire Avenue...

Empire Avenue is a new Social Networking site developed by a team of people based out of Edmonton, Alberta. Empire Avenue is "a revolutionary online influence stock exchange" that measures influence and allows users to convert that influence into revenue.

Empire Avenue is still in the beta testing stages and will go public on July 20th 2010. If you would like an invite to get into the site before then, please contact me to ask for one.

My stock can be viewed and purchased here. Duncan is here, Wesley here and Raven can be found here.