Gwen Bell has proposed a challenge… a stretch I would say… to blog everyday of December… to take the year out in in style. So, I say Thank You! Gwen Bell for you phenomenal idea and for making it so dang easy! And… we’re off:

2009 was about slowly down, finding and focusing again on what is most important to me right now in my life… my family. In 2008, while running my own company with my business partner, I realized that in 10 years my oldest son would be leaving home for college… that was it… that was what I had… 10 years! So, I bowed out of the business and began working for my dear friend, at a company I love, with people I adore… and stopped working at night and on the weekends and early in the morning and… you get the picture. So, my best trip this year may seem quaint… but it was a huge statement to what I claimed for myself and my family in 2009. We participated for the first time this year in the Camp Allen Family Labor Day Camp… and it was a BLAST! We went with our best friends and there 2 girls and met many more friends while we were there. The camp had LOTS of activities for the kiddos and we the adults got to lounge around drinking diet coke and life could not have been better… oh, and all the meals were prepared and someone else did the dishes… I know right! Its like a mom’s dream come true… big sigh…

There is nothing I can add to this… it is the definition of elegance.

Credit goes to:

• eschipul
• AAF
• Pastorini Bosby talent agency in Houston
• and the brilliant actor David George who is AWESOME. WORD.

The article on the Houston Chronicle Website about Non-Profits using Social Media that quote Monica Dana and Ed Schipul. It’s nice to be able to call these brilliant, passionate people my friends.

July 4, 2008, 8:33PM
BUSINESS OF GIVING

Nonprofits should make use of social networking

By SHANNON BUGGS

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

“This is the time for nonprofits to get into social media while there
is not a lot of traffic there,” said Monica Danna, a Houston-based
blogger and marketing professional. “Early adopters get the most
benefit.”

Danna, writer of the CosmoPolitician blog, is co-founder of Vinyl
Creative, a public relation events and design firm that frequently uses
social media to promote her clients’ activities.

Often clients ask her to set up and maintain whatever they need in
terms of social media, the umbrella term for all the ways people
interact socially through technology.

That includes Internet forums, blogs, instant messaging, telephone
texting, social network sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter
and the photo and video sharing sites, Flickr, Qik and YouTube.

But outsourcing social media work eliminates the benefits.

The point is the personal touch

Well I ran down a rabbit hole called Technorati this morning and stumbled upon this video of Ed and Natalie J (2 of my favorite people in one video!) I clicked on it intending to check it out quickly and honestly write it off as an experiment in how YouTube works… then Ed does what Ed does and actually shared some useful info… which is just one the reason’s I like him so much. So, If you every wondered what the heck is NetSquared, RSS or Podcasting and then wondered why should care… watch the video below. The goods are towards the end… you just got to hang in there a bit.