This is just a quick check in from New York, as I am here with @rainonasunnyday. I didn’t get wifi for the first 3 days so I have been pretty MIA from the online scene. I’m doing a series of updates on my new facebook fam page so feel free to add me to subscribe to my latest updates! I don’t really think of all you readers as fans, more so as fam, so hence the name change.
No worries, as I will be still maintaining this page as well and of course, my twitter.
There could be a million things I could write about after all the hockey action that has happened within the last 48 hours (Vancouver Giants going to the conference finals, Vancouver Canucks taking game 1) but I’ve decided to leave that to the pros and talk about something else. Thanks to inflation and the ridiculous popularity of the Canucks in Vancouver, I couldn’t afford to attend the first playoff game for the Canucks tonight. However, thanks to the NHL sponsoring an official ‘tweet up’, I don’t feel like I missed a thing. Before I go any further, a ‘Tweetup’ is really just a meetup of people from Twitter.
Canucklehead Twittering away at the NHLTweetup
Now a couple hours later, I realize that I just saw two of most powerful community driving things work together: sports and social media. There is nothing quite like what a sports team does to a city. I walked down the street in downtown Vancouver at 11:00pm at night without any fear that I would be shot for the first time in a long time because I knew I was just surrounded by other Canuckleheads, just like me. People would honk at my friends and scream out “Go Canucks Go”. You could start a conversation with anybody on the street by throwing random player’s names around. The feeling of community is tremendous and it is just as the marketing suggests: we are all Canucks.
NHL Tweetup Pregame, Picture taken by Miss604
Social media is a different beast. There’s tons of blogs and marketing ‘gurus’ who have been preaching this web 2.0 stuff for years, but regardless, I thought that it might be a quiet night (other than the screams in joy and agony) in terms of conversation since I was just hanging out with a bunch of strangers. But when I walked into the room, I quickly realized that I actually knew these people. It wasn’t like walking into a mall; these were people that had the same hobbies and interests as me and the night went by like any other night with your regular friends would. Is it possible to become real friends with somebody without ever meeting them? Five years ago, it would have been a straightaway ‘no’ (unless you’re one of those pen-pal advocates). But now, I’m not so sure. We sure looked like we had fun here:
To wrap things up before I forget what I’m talking about, the impact these two seemingly forms of ‘entertainment’ on community building is amazing and anybody doing business, politics, or anything that requires people to be involved should pay close attention.
Special Shout Out to Richard, who did an awesome job organizing the first ever #NHLTweetup.
In the past two weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of joining in on Dot Com Pho – an event that takes place every Saturday where Vancouver’s internet gurus’ get together to talk smack on the latest iPhone apps and enjoy some wonderful Vietnamese dining. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts because of the poor economy, my two episode stint got mashed into one. To make matters even worse, Head substitute honcho Stephen Fung decided to take a break from regular Pho dining and have regular gwai lo breakfast instead.
So here we are:
On a serious note, it was great to put some faces onto people I interact with Twitter every day and I learned a whole bunch of stuff (like how to magnetize cutlery). When I tell people that I want to be a ‘professional’ blogger, I often get a lot of “are you serious?” looks. To many, blogging is associated with hobbies like Xanga and Facebook. At meetups like Dot Com Pho, people there treat blogging as both a lifestyle and a career. If that intrigues you, I definitely encourage you to try and make it to one. They welcome anybody and everybody! In fact, you don’t even need a blog.
PS – in case you’re wondering if @stephenfung and @iphoneincanada are faking their constant argument to create publicity- they are 10x worse in real life. Trust me.
Today, on Twitter I asked my fellow twitterati this question: “Have you told your family to join and follow you on twitter?” and the results were generally “no” or “they don’t care to”. I wasn’t surprised, because my own answer would have been a solid “hell no” as well. Social networks are our space to share stories with only our friends, and perhaps the odd relative, but stories about where you actually went last Saturday? Not really family dinner table conversation.
But here’s where it gets interesting. For net-saavy parents such as @johnchow, @themacmommy, and @multimom, they’re already on most social networks (and all of the ‘cool’ ones). They probably already know things like Facebook Partial Friends and the art of the unfollow. So when the kids start doing the online socializing thing, what’s going to happen? Will we start to here fights like: “Sally, unblock me now”? Or will ‘cool*’ parents like the fore-mentioned be wise enough to give their kids space?
Yes, generations past have long lived without things like computers and Facebook, but I’m curious to see what your thoughts are. For once, I’m glad that my dad still thinks he can break his computer by typing with Microsoft Word.
One of the most brutal consumer habits of the Christmas holidays is buying presents. Even if I don’t talk about lineups at the mall, it is still a major headache for most. Whoever said it was easier to give than receive probably never bought a Christmas present for Aunt Lily. Spend over 35, and you’ve wasted too much hard earned money; spend less than 30 and you’re officially the cheap nephew. Moreover, who do you buy presents for? Could you get away with just a card? Do you get a gift for Bill, even though the jerk hasn’t called in 6 months? What about Nancy? No wait, Nancy didn’t get you a birthday present. It’s not that you’re being insincere, just that it’s financially impossible to get everybody you remember a present. And personally as a student, holiday shopping time usually coincides with finals time and we have twenty-four hours a day just like everybody else. So I’m a big fan of Secret Santa.
With Secret Santa, you only need to get one gift per exchange and it creates the perfect alibi for not getting Drew that Ninja Turtles Backpack he’s been whining about since April – you didn’t draw him. What I’ve discovered this year (via google) is Elfster, an online Secret Santa management system. It’s great for running SS’s (wow!) if you have friends from abroad as it does the draw electronically and it even lets you ask anonymous questions to anybody on the list. One of my favourite features on there is that you can make sure that the Mister doesn’t get the Missus. You can preset so that Mr. Bing doesn’t get Mrs. Bing in the draw. It even syncs with Facebook, although the sync has a few bugs to work out. Elfster is also on Twitter so if any question arises, @elfster is the place to go.
If you’re not down with Secret Santa, you can always just donate the money you were going to spend on their present – I’ve never heard anybody complain about that either. And anybody who complains about donations shouldn’t receive a present anyways. Of course charity work because you were too lazy to go Christmas shopping isn’t the best of reasons, but hey – a donation’s a donation.
Speaking of gifts, congratulations to Jono, Aira, and Kabren who have successfully sold me their college major. I will be emailing or twittering you (if I haven’t already) to find out which case you want and where to ship it to.
Phew, and this was supposed to be a short post. Back to the books!
One of the most brutal consumer habits of the Christmas holidays is buying presents. Even if I don’t talk about lineups at the mall, it is still a major headache for most. Whoever said it was easier to give than receive probably never bought a Christmas present for Aunt Lily. Spend over 35, and you’ve wasted too much hard earned money; spend less than 30 and you’re officially the cheap nephew. Moreover, who do you buy presents for? Could you get away with just a 
