UPDATE: Within 10 minutes of posting this blog entry, Twitter Lists came back. Ahhh, gotta love the ever-changing immediacy of technology.

I finally saw my familiar friend – the Twitter #FailWhale. Maybe my earlier blog post was like a mating call, or an S.O.S. and he knew he needed to pay me a visit. I missed his face.

BUT something else left. Twitter Lists. As you probably can tell, Twitter lists are temporarily disabled.

But no worries, guys. Twitter posted this on their status blog:

“Starting about 10 minutes ago, we began experiencing a very high rate of errors and we are working on the underlying problem. Update (1:30p): We are now recovering from this unexpected downtime. The Lists feature is temporarily unavailable as we diagnose the cause of the outage.”

So don’t worry, peeps. Twitter lists are NOT gone forever – they will be back soon. Just like my beloved #FailWhale came back, lists will come back soon, too.

Word.

UPDATE: Thank you to @RobLaughter for explaining the technical stuff to me. Apparently the #FailWhale shows up for HTTP 503 errors (over capacity). All other errors get the “something is technically wrong” robot. Well, I feel silly. But it’s okay, because I still haven’t seen the WHALE in a while and I kind of miss him. Is it weird that I want Twitter to be unreliable for ONCE so that I can see the whale again? Anywho. You can still enjoy my Twitter bits…

Where did my Twitter #Fail Whale go? I love the Twitter Fail Whale. It rhymes, it rolls off the tongue, and I got one painted on my face. Did Twitter get rid of the Fail Whale?

It seems they have replaced the Fail Whale with the “something is technically wrong robot.” That just doesn’t sound right to me – too many words and no rhyme-age. BUT, I do have to say that the little bugger is cute. I mean, look at him, with his awkwardly lanky arms, missing hand, and LeVar-Burton-from-Star-Trek glasses. Someone get this guy a hook!

You know what Twitter should do? Get rid of the “something is technically wrong robot” and instate the “Hey, LeVar Burton from Star Trek thinks something went wrong. Don’t worry. He’s channelling some space technicians from the Enterprise and everything will be back to normal momentarily… robot.” Sure, that’s a lot more words than “something is technically wrong robot,” but it’s a lot clearer and who wouldn’t want to see a debonaire LeVar Burton when Twitter fails?

Do you know what happened to the Fail Whale? Am I the only one not seeing it anymore? Or is this old news and my computer is just awesome and never fails so I just hadn’t seen it yet? Fill me in.

Word.

I have been asked this question a lot recently.

I've got an idea!

“What do you do when you run out of ideas? How do you keep generating new ideas or new content when you feel like you’ve exhausted everything?”

Maybe it’s because the holiday’s are afoot and people’s minds are stretched thin? I don’t know. Maybe we are, after a gazillion years, just starting to run out of ideas. Well, don’t fret, we are never going to run out of ideas. Now, let me say this, at this point, it is very hard to reinvent the wheel – no one is going to come up with a new invention of the wheel. BUT, we can come up with new ways to make the “wheel” better or whathaveyou. The “wheel” in this case, is a metaphor.

Okay, so you are a creative, or a writer, or a business owner, or a student, or a person and you have to generate “ideas” for things – but after awhile, you have trouble coming up with new ideas. Suddenly, idea generation is not your best friend. Being an improviser, I am trained to think on my feet and take one suggestion to inspire an entire show and an entire set of ideas. I then use ideas to inspire new ideas. So, here are a few things that I, personally, do to help when I am starting to run out of ideas.

1. Lists of TEN (or more)

If you’re writing something (i.e. a blog post, new marketing material, story, etc.) start with a category – then write down IN RAPID FIRE the first TEN (or more) things that come to mind that fall under that category – the first five will be easy, the last five will be harder.
If you find yourself at ten and you can keep going, then by all means, KEEP GOING. Stop when you stop.
For example – if I were writing a blog post about MUSIC I would come up with the first ten things that came to mind:

1. Michael Jackson
2. Songwriters –> singers
3. My favorite band
4. My favorite song
5. Why I wish I knew how to play guitar
6. My favorite song to sing
7. My karaoke song of choice
8. Why I hate karaoke
9. Why I love karaoke
1o. Why are people obsessed with karaoke?

…and so on.

WHY DO THIS? I’m no brain scientist, but our brain associates different ideas with different categories. By spitting out whatever comes to mind, you will be able to cross off ideas that are no good and focus on the ones that are awesome. Most likely, at least eight of the ten ideas you come up with are going to be bogus or bad ideas. You then have two AWESOME ideas to choose from. Makes sense, right? I sometimes makes rapid fire lists a couple times a day. It never hurts to generate information right away in order to be able to weed it out later.

2. The Free-Association Game

Start with ONE word – any word that may fall into a category that you are interested in writing or talking about etc… (whatever project you are working on, large or small). Then free-associate from that word. Go out as far as you can away from that word, but then try to make the conscious effort to COME BACK to the word, having gone full circle. (This is a big-time improv exercise and warm-up. In fact, some improv groups open their entire improv SHOW with this exercise. It’s a huge idea generator.)

For example, I will do a free-association with the word(s) ICE CREAM -

Ice Cream –> Cold –> Snow –> Nicknames for Dandruff –> Head & Shoulders –> Body Parts –> Big Toe –> Tow Truck –> Large Fines –> Hefty Fee –> Hefty Trash bags –> Odorless –> What’s that smell? –> Mmm chocolate –> ICE CREAM!

See what I did there? I started at ice cream and then just wrote down the next thing that came to mind, and free associated off the previous word, and eventually, I made my way back to ice cream. Damn. Now I want ice cream.

WHY DO THIS? Sure, free-associating off the word ice cream may seem silly, but we were able to see what one word can lead to. No idea in this exercise is stupid. Start with one thing and you are able to give yourself A LOT of ideas. Ideas = gifts to yourself. Awesome.

3. Get Random

Sometimes you don’t want to write or work in your niche area. You want to STEP OUT and try something different. Try something new. Get to know a different side, a different angle, a different approach. Well, then get random. What do I mean? Well, the interwebs are FULL of  AWESOME random “thing” generators that can become your best friend.

1. Wikipedia RANDOM ARTICLE generator. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/special:Random / if the link doesn’t work). This will take you, quite literally, to a RANDOM article on Wikipedia. Find a random article, read about it, see what ideas come to you when you learn something you perhaps didn’t know before. Education can be the best idea generator.
2. Flickr INTERESTINGNESS. Flickr is an AMAZING network of photographs. Flickr created INTERESTINGNESS, which compiles new photos that have interesting tags, great comments, or a ton of views. But guaranteed, these photos are interesting. This links to the INTERESTING photos from the last 7 days. Check out the new photos – are there any that catch your eye? Any that seem to inspire you? Use the photos for inspiration and ingenious idea generation.
3. Google Wonder Wheel. I discovered the Google Wonder Wheel a while ago and I immediately fell in LOVE. When you do a Google search, click on the little “show options” button. Look about 3/4 of the way down on the left, and you will see the WONDER WHEEL link. The wonder wheel does a cloud of information and links that connect to whatever you are looking for. It is amazing. (I could talk about the Wonder Wheel all day… but I won’t do that here. Maybe I’ll write a whole blog post about the Wonder Wheel… ahh! Look! An IDEA!)
4. Love the words of Famous people. Find a random famous quote. Read it. What does it make you think of? Use it as a jumping off point to a new thought or new idea. Write YOUR OWN quote. Words are extremely powerful and have a huge effect on our imaginations.

WHY DO THIS? Stepping outside of our comfort zone and exploring something that is different, and literally, RANDOM, is fuel for idea generation. We tend to get stuck in a rut when we write or work on the same thing every day. Try something different. I guarantee you will surprise even yourself.

—————

I hope that my crazy brain and my crazy ideas have helped you a little bit.

Tell me: Have you ever tried any of the things that I do? Do you have any techniques of your own? Leave a comment with some of the things YOU like to when writer’s blog hits and when you have simply run out of ideas.

Word.

photo courtesy of sam.i.am.

As many of you know, I am working two part-time retail jobs right now in addition to the work I have building my business. I worked my first official non-training shift at Anthropologie yesterday and I’m working 9 hours today. My feet hate me and I think I have the back of a 98-year-old. Ibuprofen is my best friend.

Well, working retail in the mall on Black Friday got me thinking and brainstorming about some things that we should all keep in mind over the holidays. These are generic and are in no particular rank or order:

1. Be nice to people who are working. If you have ever worked retail or in a restaurant, you know how stressful it can be. Those people who are working during the holidays are under a lot of stress. You don’t know the circumstances they could be under. Have a little patience and show respect – and I promise, 9 times out of 10, they’ll show you the same courtesy.

2. Don’t be gluttonous. Sure, it’s cliche to say “it’s better to give than receive” – but at this time of year and with the state of the economy that we are in, it’s truer than ever. Even if you can’t afford to buy gifts and donate them, go through your closet, get rid of that sweater you never wear, and donate it to someone who might need it.

3. Cherish the time you have with your family. We tend take our families for granted. This year, take a minute to thank them for supporting you through the tough times and the good times in your life. Now, when I say “family” I of course include blood relatives, but blood doesn’t make family. You know who your family is.

4. Take time to relax. I don’t know why the holidays seem to be such a stressful time for people. I always hear people talk about how stressed they are with traveling, shopping, time, etc… Just remember to step back, take a deep breath, and relax a little bit. It won’t kill you. I promise.

5. Cash for gold is a scam. No amount of money is worth mailing off grandma’s precious jewels. I’m just saying.

What do you think? Do you have any rules of thumb for the holidays? Any you’d like to add? You’re awesome.

Word.

One of the BIGGEST questions I get from people I meet, clients, and anyone I talk to about social media is:

“Well, what does social media do for ME? What is the return on my investment? (or ROI?)“

I’m SURE that if you are involved in social media at all, that is probably a common question for you, too. Especially from social media “skeptics” – or people who think this whole social media thing is just a “fad.”

Now, some of you have probably already seen this video… but if you haven’t, you should. (Link included in case you can’t see the video). And if you meet a skeptic who wants to know their ROI immediately, share this video with them, too. Of course it’s flashy and makes everything really pretty, but it definitely points out specifically a lot of the great things that social media is doing for businesses and for people.

What do YOU think of Socialnomics? Do you think their points are valid or do you think it’s all just a bunch of BS? I want to hear your thoughts.

Word.

GET WORDY, y’all. This is a new segment of my blog (hooray for new segments!). Since I was an English major in college and I taught high school English for two years, I love vocabulary. In school, I looked forward to making a gazillion vocab flashcards. Honestly, I LOVE words. So, I’ve decided to call this segment GET WORDY where I feature a word of the day/week/month/year that I am currently using, want to start using, or have made up. Yes, I like to make up words, too. I’m an improviser, making stuff up is what I do.

A good friend of mine and owner of the rockstar art gallery Wootini (where I work part-time), Mike, told me about today’s word for GET WORDY.

Quick backstory: So I walked in to work one day and we had just received a new shipment of KIDROBOT figures and there were a lot of open and empty boxes, in addition to some stuff left over from a previous gallery opening. Mike said to me, “Ahhh there’s so much CRUFT back here. But don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it tomorrow.” I said, “Cruft? What’s cruft?” Mike said, “Cruft, you know, it’s like a bunch of stuff, that’s just in the way, or lying around, or piled up. You know, cruft.”

You see, "Hoarders," they have a lot of CRUFT.

I had never heard the word before. So I looked it up. This word rules.

Today’s Word: CRUFT

Cruft in THIS sense of the word is NOT computing jargon for “code, data, or software of poor quality”. The term may also refer to debris that accumulates on computer equipment. It has been generalized to mean any accumulation of obsolete, redundant, irrelevant, or unnecessary information, especially code. (From Wikipedia)

The CRUFT I am referring to is THIS: (this definition provided by UrbanDictionary.com and my brain)

Main Entry: cr-uf-t
Pronunciation: \kerr-rough-t\
Function: adjective
Date: Probably three weeks ago.
A : (crap+stuff+sh*t)/3 = cruft

That’s right. The word is simply a combination of the words Crap + Stuff + Sh*t = cruft. How awesome is that?

Let’s use it in a sentence: “That C++ geometry test goes in the “cruft” folder,” or how about, “Hey ma! Get your cruft out of my room. I’m trying to watch reruns of Good Times.”

Have you ever seen that show “Hoarders” on A&E? All that stuff they have? Now THAT is a lot of “cruft.”

What do you think of the word? Do you have a better word for all that crap n’ stuff that just piles up? Give me your best sentence using the word CRUFT.

I love fun words like this. Bring ‘em on.

PS: Happy Black Friday. I’m working in the mall today. Wish me luck.

Word.

…literally.

Some of you may remember the awesome “Awkward-Social-Networking-Pickup-Line-Pun-Contest” I held last week in a Thuper Therious Thursday post. If you don’t remember, then you can check it out here: THIS IS A LINK TO READ THE POST.

I have to say, I got some HILARIOUS entries. Hilarious. A couple pickup lines almost made me cry… from laughing so hard.

Congratulations to Jim Williams (@digitaldrivel) for his HILARIOUSLY awkward-social-networking-pickup-line-pun-contest-entry.

Jim has won a grab bag of comedy and social awesomeness from the Dirty South. Thanks for your hilarious line, Jim. Couldn’t have done it without you.

BUT, due to the fact that some of the pickup lines were borderline inappropriate, I didn’t want to necessarily post them HERE on my “professional” blog… so I actually posted some of them and wrote about the contest in a guest post for the MISTER DIPLOMAT blog (a comedy blog from the Dirty South). You can read the hilarity and see the winning line here.

Now, aren’t you sad you missed out? Don’t fret. More fun contests to come. I promise.

Word.

As you are reading this (barring that you are reading this ON Thanksgiving Day), I am doing one of three things:

1. Snacking on the snacking pie.
2. Stuffing my face.
2. Sleeping.

After doing those things, I will need to work off those calories. I mean, I AM training for a half-marathon. I can’t set myself back 6 days.

Well, I love to dance. Why not dance to the beat of the holiday? I will be doing the turkey legg. I hope you enjoy this video – and don’t forget to do the TURKEY legg (via@iagreewithjoe). If you can’t see the video, click here.

Word.

Maybe because it’s the day before Thanksgiving. Maybe because I’m in grateful mode. Maybe it’s because I just ran 2.5 miles. Maybe it’s because I’m craving a Chipotle burrito. I don’t know. But I’m feeling Thankful today.

Therefore, this week’s Social Media Tip of the Week is: Give Thanks.

Now, what exactly do I mean by that, other than the obvious literal meaning of “give thanks”? We all know, well hopefully most of us know, social media is all about community. It’s all about making personal connections, networking, sharing, supporting, engaging, and giving. However, I feel like sometimes well (yes, all of us) tend to forget what the big point of social media is all about. Of course this is not on purpose – we just get jaded by the things life throws at us and subsequently we lose sight of what is in front of us.

Sure, social media has many purposes – to connect with old friends, make new friends, market a business or product, whathaveyou. But to me, what makes social media so awesome, is how we’re taking away that traditional approach of “I-could-care-less-about-you-I-just-want-to-market-my-product” and we’re replacing it with “I-do-care-about-you-and-I-want-to-get-to-know-you-and-then-maybe-you’ll-buy-my-stuff.” Social media is different. It’s awesome. And it’s honest. It’s hard to be a good BS’er through social media – because very quickly you’ll be exposed… and not in a good way.

So what I want you to do this week is take a second to step back and think about your networks. Are you doing a lot of talking and not a lot of listening? Are you doing a lot of talking and not a lot of engaging? Are you recognizing those people in the space, “your space” for their great content, approachable personality, engaging persona, or overall awesomeness?

If you answered “yes” or “no” to any of those aforementioned questions – then you need to give thanks to the people who are awesome in your life, in your networking, at your job, anyone. Who or what are you grateful for? Thank them. Today. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Do it today.

Make someone feel awesome. They deserve it.

And while I’m thinking about it, I want to thank YOU. Yeah, you reading this. Right now.  Without you, I’d be talking to myself. And that would be awkward.

I also want to go ahead and preemptively thank my sister, Bridgid for the awesome Thanksgiving dinner that I know she is going to make tomorrow (with of course, my B-I-L and family helping). She’s a rockstar baker, cook, friend, and sister.

Tell me, who do YOU want to give thanks to?

Word.

Today, I simply want to pose a debate. There has been some major discussion in social networking platforms about the use (or non-use) of social media and it’s effect on the law, jobs, benefits, etc. There are two major recent cases that I want to use as fodder for this debate – and I really want to hear your opinions and get some good discussion going!

HEADLINE: “Canadian woman loses benefits over Facebook photos.”

STORY: Basically, this woman was on long-term sick leave for diagnosed manic depression and was receiving benefits for her disorder. Manulife, her insurance company, saw pictures on her on a recent trip to the beach, at a birthday party, and on a night out with friends where she was smiling and looked “happy.” Her insurance agent used these photos as evidence that she was no longer depressed and the woman’s health benefits were immediately dropped.

DEBATE: There are a couple issues here and I have posed the following questions:

1. It was reported that the woman’s photos were set to “private” on her Facebook page. With that being said, SHOULD these photos be allowed to be used as evidence if they were not intended for public viewing? Or is ALL content posted on a social networking site no longer “private”?
2. Even if the photos were public, just because someone looks “happy,” does that mean they are healthy? Or should further investigation been taken?

HEADLINE: “Police arrest man for NOT using Twitter.”

STORY: 13-year-old singing sensation Justin Bieber was set to visit fans and sign autographs at Roosevelt Mall in New York last week. Well, Bieber stayed away from the mall because the crowd inside the mall had become too unruly. Bieber had tweeted for everyone to go home and that someone from his camp had already been arrested. Mall security was cracking DOWN! The police had asked James Roppo, an executive of Bieber’s label to send out a message via Twitter to get fans to leave and go home. Well, Roppo is not on Twitter – thus it was determined that he was “obstructing justice” and was arrested for not complying with police demands.

DEBATE:

1. Is the use of Social Media tools a viable source for “crowd control?” Do you think ONE Twitter message from a label exec would have controlled hundreds of screaming teenagers? BTW: Bieber did send out a message himself. Should that have been enough?
2. Were the police doing the right thing by canceling the event?
3. Should the police have been more understanding about the man NOT using Twitter and should they have offered another solution?
4. Is Social Media a viable resource/non-resource to warrant someone’s arrest? Remember the case of the woman who was arrested for POKING someone on Facebook?

OVERARCHING QUESTION(S):

• Are these social media outlets/tools/resources/whathaveyou being taken too seriously?
• Should legislation be passed to regulate them?
• Should it be up to the networks themselves?
• Who OWNS these things and who has a right to the evidence they provide?

“They” say that once that information is out there it is no longer ours to keep. However, what about the printed word before social media? Newspapers, magazines, books, diaries, leaflets? Did we or do we no longer own that information either? Is it that once something is written down, it is out there to be used against us?

Why can’t people just be positive?!

What do you think? I really want to hear your thoughts on this… because you rock. Yeah, you. Reading this right now. You. You rock.

Word.

photo credit: stephanie bond law.