I was at the Wootini Gallery Holiday Show opening on Friday night and was doing a healthy combination of working and schmoozing. I was talking with one of the artists, David Lanham (@dlanham), an artist I had actually interviewed a couple weeks ago. As we got to talking he showed me his newest work… and I geeked out.

David is the designer and mastermind behind OLLIE the Twitterrific bird/mascot. He works for Iconfactory in Greensboro, NC and they have developed a vinyl figure of Ollie. Ollie hasn’t been released yet, but he will be soon. I’m going to try and get some and hook you guys up. Because Ollie is SAWEEET. He was even featured as a great holiday gift for techies on @Mashable!

Admittedly, getting so excited about meeting David and seeing Ollie in person was TOTALLY my geek moment of the week… and maybe the year. But I’m not ashamed. It is totally fine to have those little things you geek out over. Right?! Right.

I want to know: What do YOU geek out over? It can be totally silly or totally serious. I don’t judge.

Word.

Me with Ollie the bird.

David Lanham with both versions of Ollie!

There’s no secret about it. I love burritos. A lot. I would eat them every day if I could. But alas, I don’t. Thanks to @TedHobgood for passing along this amazing comic to me.

comic courtesy of buttersafe.

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I like to write. A lot. And sometimes 140-characters are just not enough characters for me to describe why these rockstars are so rockstary that you should follow them.

@ChuckHester – Chuck is the Communications Director for an e-mail marketing company, iContact. He is a ROCKSTAR on LinkedIn and facilitates an awesome meetup called LinkedIn Live! He provides great content, great commentary, and great insight.

@wellsonemedia - Steve Wells is a local sales and marketing specialist located in the Triangle region of North Carolina. He is awesome because he really engages in the community. He provides quality content, promotes the hell out of other people, and is hilarious. I really appreciate everything he says.

@thepitbbq - I have never even been to The Pit BBQ, but I am planning a trip out to Raleigh just so I can put a “face” to a “name.” I have been following them on Twitter and watching how they are totally owning the social space. They engage their customers, they engage their audience, and they do it right. @1918, Phil Buckley (no relation), wrote a great case study about how The Pit is using social media in a positive way. Businesses can learn a thing or two from The Pit BBQ.

@glowbird - Lisa is a speaker, writer, and awesome mom. I first met her at a #Triangle Ladies Who Tweetup. Since then I have been reading her blog and following her tweets and this woman is the bomb dot com. She really knows how to balance between sharing, generating, and commenting. She rules.

@Seiden – I just got an uber exclusive (well, I don’t know about uber exclusive, but I like to think it is) copy of Jason Seiden’s new book “How to Self-Destruct.” He is a speaker, author, coach, and awesome dude. I’m pretty pumped to learn how to self-destruct.

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Who are you #FollowFridaying this week?

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This is quite possibly THE most adorable thing, I have ever seen, in my entire life. Well, not my entire life, but it’s pretty adorable. Nope, not social media related. Nope, not comedy related. Just an adorable kitten. I had to share this with you.

Thanks, @woley for sharing with me. Enjoy.

Can’t see the video? Click here.

Meow.

Some of you know that I write for a local news parody, Weekend Update style, show called DSI Witness News. In addition to writing for our own live shows at the DSI Comedy Theater, we write for a daily segment on a local station, WCHL 1360AM (every morning at 8:20AM and again at 5:55PM).

Well, some of you have probably seen these crazy Facebook phishing scams and viruses going around. “Test your IQ,” ‘I found pics of you,” and the newest, “Your friend’s booty looks GRRRREAT in the video.” Well, the booty virus hit local politicians and we were lucky enough to have THE Mayor of Carrboro himself, Mark Chilton, join us for a HILARIOUS episode on Tuesday.

(Click here if you can’t see the video. And click here if you want just the audio.)

Hilarious, right? Ahhh gotta love elected officials on Facebook. Thanks, Mayor Chilton for being awesome.

Question: Do YOU have a booty virus?

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December is here. We are less than 30 days away from the year 2010. Holy crap. Where did 2009 go? My thought is 2010 is going to go by even faster. What are we going to do with the time that flies?

So here’s my idea/tip of the week: Instead of making “New Years Resolutions” how about setting “Big Life Goals”? Let’s be honest, I’ve found that most New Years Resolutions aren’t really ever kept. Well, at least I’m bad at keeping mine.

So take the time to think about the things that you are looking to accomplish and set your goals high. Very high. My theory is the higher you set your goals and the more you work to achieve those big goals – the more rewards and achievements you will get along the way. Think of each little step you take to achieve that big goal, as a little goal in and of itself.

For example:

Do you like to write? Set a big goal of publishing a book. You might not publish your book in 2010, but you can take the necessary steps to get there.

Are you looking to get in shape? Set a goal of running a marathon. Sure, you might not be able to run the 26.2 miles, but I guarantee you’ll find yourself in better shape just by trying.

Do you want to buy a house? Maybe you aren’t necessarily in a financial state to buy a house yet, but by taking small steps to get rid of debt and putting a little bit in savings each month, you’ll get there sooner than you know it.

My point is, don’t sell yourself short. Don’t make a resolution that you’ll only keep for 10 days. Set a goal that will change your life. Dream big.

Let me ask: What goals are you going to set for yourself this year?

Word.

photo courtesy of ANU.

If you have logged into Facebook at all this evening (and by evening, I mean the evening of December 1st. I am writing this at 11:30PM), then you have most likely seen the message from Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. I won’t recount the whole thing here, but being that I love Facebook and I write about social media, I figured I would at least put in my two cents.

The big over-arching message is that Facebook has now reached 350 MILLION users. That is a lot of poking. And that with such a large growth of the network, the privacy concerns and needs of its users are going to change and evolve. Facebook prides itself on being a walled community that allows its users to completely customize privacy preferences and be able to CHOOSE who gets to see what information. So, with that being said, Facebook has decided to do away with regional networks and create a more basic “Friends” – “Friends of Friends” and “Everyone” network and preference system.  Here is an excerpt from Zuckerberg’s letter regarding this decision:

“The plan we’ve come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.

“We’re adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we’ll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings. If you want to read more about this, we began discussing this plan back in July.

“Since this update will remove regional networks and create some new settings, in the next couple of weeks we’ll ask you to review and update your privacy settings. You’ll see a message that will explain the changes and take you to a page where you can update your settings. When you’re finished, we’ll show you a confirmation page so you can make sure you chose the right settings for you. As always, once you’re done you’ll still be able to change your settings whenever you want.”

I remember when I signed up for my Facebook account when I was a sophomore in college – this was Fall 2004, RIGHT when Facebook came out. Everyone at my school was so excited about this “new thing.” I think back and Facebook was so basic. When I first joined you couldn’t even upload pictures, let alone tag them, definitely no video, and there was DEFINITELY no Farmville. At the time, Facebook was this “cool thing” ONLY for college kids. Then they let high schoolers join. College students felt like under-agers were showing up at the party and totally ruining it. And so on, and so on.

Obviously things have changed.

Zuckerberg himself probably could never have anticipated the rate at which Facebook would grow and the impact that it would have on the world. Yes, the world. Facebook has completely changed the world. [Big bold statement, but you know it's true].

I actually had notices a few weeks ago that I was no longer listed in the Raleigh/Durham network. After poking around, it turned out a lot of people had been “removed” from their respective networks.

I understand the intention behind Zuckerberg’s decision to remove regional networks, but I have to disagree. I like being able to search for people in my “network.” It gives me a sense of connection and I’m able to reach out to people “locally.” It makes it easier to share local events, I can send out messages only to my friends in my network, I can contact friends in another network, etc. etc. etc. Not everything that I post is going to be relevant to ALL my friends. By being able to break my connections down by network, I’m able to make my relationships more personal and more meaningful.

I will be very interested to see how it works once it is all laid out and the new “network” (or whatever you want to call it) system is officially in place. It could end up being great. Who knows?

What do you think? Do you think Zuckerberg’s decision to remove regional networks is a mistake or a good thing? Do you like that it will be a “simpler” breakdown of “Friends” “Friends of Friends” or “Everyone”? Or do you think it’s no big deal? I want to know what you think…

[Just my two cents.]

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Most of you know by now that in addition to being extremely passionate about writing and social media, I am a comedian. I have always loved comedy. I can remember as a kid staying awake way past my bedtime, just so I could watch Saturday Night Live. I would watch old clips of Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin and think to myself, “Wow, I want to do that.”

I'll admit it. I'm a ham.

Comedy has influenced my entire life.

One of my earliest memories that I have is: I was two years old, sitting at my kitchen table eating dry cheerios and I stopped to look around. My mom said to me, “Honey what’s wrong?” I said, “Mom, where are the cameras?” This was a completely honest and heartfelt question. I honestly believed that my life was like an episode of The Truman Show (Even though that movie hadn’t even been made yet, that’s what I thought my life was. I thought I was on T.V. and on stage all the time).

I began acting in elementary school, and always played the comic relief. I started writing sketches and bits and putting on little plays for my parents or my friends. When I was in drama in middle and high school, I would always write a sort of “sketch revue” and try to have one of my sketches featured at an assembly or something like that. I performed all the time.

Then it came time to choose a college. I had been offered golf scholarships to a couple of large division-1 schools. [CONFESSION: Yes, I have played golf my entire life. Yes, I was the only girl on the golf team for a long time. No, I am not a loser. No, I am not better than Michelle Wie.] Well, I knew that golf wasn’t my true passion… comedy was (is). I went to visit Christopher Newport University and I heard they had a sketch comedy troupe. I went to see a show and fell in love. I was not going to go to another school. I WAS going to go to CNU and join CNU TONiGHT and be a writer and performer and be awesome. And I did.

Then in college, I took my first class in improvisation at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater in New York City, NY. I got bit by the improv bug. The feeling of ultimate positivity, being totally in the moment, and completely without a script was the most freeing thing I have ever done – and I have never looked back. I even moved to North Carolina to take classes at the DSI Comedy Theater. Improv is addictive.

I share this with you because of all these experiences (and the ones I have yet to experience) have helped to shape who I am and shape my perspective. Maybe it will help you understand me more. Maybe it’s just a good story. Maybe this is a waste of your time. Who knows?

But as I have come to love comedy and love writing and LOVE improvisation, I have come to totally and utterly admire these two women: Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch. They are incredible writers, incredible performers, and incredible women. They have truly influenced the entire industry to prove that YES, women ARE funny.

[I also totally love and admire Amy Poehler, but she isn't in this video. But it's okay. SIDE NOTE: I met Amy Poehler the summer after I graduated from college when I was taking comedy classes in NYC (PICTURE PROOF HERE). I think I was able to say a total of ten words to her. I totally froze. I suck.]

I haven’t seen this video in a long time! This is an awesome clip from an ABC news interview with Tina and Rachel from A LONG time ago. In the interview, they talk about their hilarious two-woman sketch show “Dratch & Fey.” Thanks @callmeKP for the link. They also talk about the stigma that comes with being a woman in comedy and how they have worked to combat that stigma. If you can’t see the video, click here. We can learn a lot from these women, no matter what field of “expertise” we are in.

QUESTION: Do you think that the battle that many women have had to face in comedy is similar to a battle women have had to face in business? Do you think the “male-dominated comedy business” and “male-dominated business-business” are changing? What progress have we made? Women in the United States STILL only make 78 cents to every man’s dollar for the same position and same work. I want to hear your thoughts.

Word.