Social Media for a Social Cause: The Opp-Guide

Social Media is powerful in shaping brands, ideas, people and most interestingly, social causes. I ran across one such social cause from an article in Market Watch about Wendi Oppenheim, a 16 year-old founder of a community service, social cause revolution, The Opp-Guide. Oppenheim's non-profit was a recent finalist in the Best Buy @15 competition, inspiring teens to help their community.
The Opp-Guide is comparable to Zagat or Yelp, except here, teens submit reviews of their volunteer experiences with local nonprofits and charities. Their byline: "Community service ideas and organization reviews for teens, by teens."

I'm impressed with Oppenheim's eloquence as she understands where our country stands now and the importance of community, "Young people need to know the true satisfaction of giving their time to people in need." She attests that the reviews are honest and help fill the missing link between actually enjoying volunteering and only being there for the credit.

Market Watch believes, "The Opp-Guide has proven an innovative way to get teens involved in community service by helping them pinpoint opportunities that tap into their passion and skills."

So if you feel so inclined: Rock the Vote for The Opp-Guide at http://www.genv.net/bestbuy or text BBYV24 to 32075. You can also check out Oppenheim (President) and equally young, Ben (Business Manager and VP) talk in this cute video about their organization.

For more information about The Opp-Guide or to speak directly with Wendi, here is her e-mail: wendioppenheim[at]gmail[dot]com

So I'm curious...what other social causes do you know that leverage social media for their organization, cause or idea? Please share.

Attention Is Your Biggest Cost in Marketing

Our brain only attends to 5% of the information it receives from all available senses. That's right, 5%. Think about the challenging implications involved in leveraging a marketing campaign or increasing sales when everyone is vying for that small percentage and trying to make the cut.

mobileYouth recently wrote about the neurological concept of gating, a mechanism that enables our brains to function, when tied to youth marketing. Thus the statement, "attention is your biggest cost." Makes sense. Marketing is directly tied to gating, the "neurological tool for blocking out information such as pain, sensation etc. to avoid overload." Blocking 95% of products and brand messaging seems daunting to any marketer, however, it doesn't have to be.

Take a look at this attention awareness test and consider its implications for youth marketing:

Fascinating, isn't it? Who saw the 'moonwalking bear' the first time they watched it? I didn't. Then I watched it a second time and it was clear as day.

With that being said, I will echo mobileYouth's simple declaration: be relevant. "Less is more and relevance paramount," because youth gates the products that stand out to them.

Morale of the story: "Your youth brand may be a moonwalking bear but unless you’re the team in white, you may as well forget it."

Building A Cob House-Follow Up With the Mullenneaux's

In early November I wrote a post on "Building a Cob House" about the Mullenneaux family, and their personal cob building community story. The responses from readers were fantastic and inquisitive, so I felt a follow-up was necessary. I reached out to Hap and Lin Mullenneaux with questions readers had asked and how it felt to be living in their new cob house the past month. They happily obliged and also offered to serve as a contact for anyone else interested in cob houses. I hope you enjoy and learn from their responses as much as I did.

GB: With your cob home finished, how does it feel to be living in a home that you created solely with your own hands (and feet), especially with the help of Fairfield (Iowa's) supportive community?

HLM: We have been living in the house for one month. It feels more like a part of nature than a conventional house. As something natural, it is easy to accept it as it is. While there are some things that aren’t finished, we are beginning to realize that this house may never be finished because that is a static condition and this house is alive. We do look forward to running water inside and taking baths at home, coming as soon as the pond fills. Since summer ended we have missed our outdoor shower.

Loft Bedroom. The ceiling is bamboo matchstick blinds over reflectix. Photo Credit: Hap and Lin Mullenneaux

GB: What specific environmental benefits have you noticed in your new cob home?

HLM: In building this house we used much more “waste” than we created. Now our use of energy and water is a fraction of any house we have lived in before. We use rainwater from the roof. We heat with wood from the scrap pile at a nearby sawmill. Our total monthly housing costs are under $100, mostly phone and internet.

Cozy Kitchen-Photo Credit: Hap & Lin Mullenneaux

GB: In my previous post, I received a question regarding cob homes' flexibility and durability for various climates. Can you answer that comment, especially in light of Iowa's notoriously cold winters, wet springs and hot summers?

HLM: At this stage of our experiment the jury is still out. The season in question is winter. Cob walls give you excellent thermal mass. Heat them and they will radiate that heat back to you over time. But what happens when there is a sub-zero wind chill hitting the other side of the wall? Stay tuned!

GB: Are there any challenges you've noticed since moving in?

HLM: Balancing the heat was a challenge because we put the woodstove by the stairs. We are closing it in so that the heat spends more time downstairs. Condensation was an issue at first. We made the house very tight and there was still cob and plaster drying when we moved in. Add the vapor that we contribute from cooking, etc and you have high humidity. This is becoming less of an issue as winter progresses, but the interior plaster absorbs moisture easily and down the road we may cover it with something less permeable.

GB: So, if someone were interested in building their own cob home what insights, resources and advice would you give them and why?

HLM: In a climate with real winter you need to use every bit of the building season to finish a cob house before freezing begins. Keep the design small. Have the foundation and stem wall ready in the spring. Do the roof first on either permanent or temporary posts. We had to work hard to protect our walls before we got the roof on. Enjoy the process and encourage everyone to enjoy it with you. Cob is not meant to be done alone. To give cob a fighting chance in cold weather, do everything you can to help it. We made the house tight with good windows that are strategically located. We insulated the roof properly. We probably should have done more to insulate our stone stem wall. Keep the cob walls thick. In places where we sculpted seats or niches into the wall the thin wall tends to be cold and damp. Finally, don’t let heating be an after thought in a cold climate. Make sure you will have heat where you need it with proper placement of the woodstove or other heat source. Some folks who built a cob house in south central Iowa said that their home was a bit chilly when the woodstove was located on the north wall. The next winter they moved it closer to the middle of the house and were much more comfortable.

Be sure to get some hands on experience before you start your own project The workshop that we took at Cob Cottage was a blast. http://www.cobcottage.com/

Here are more great teachers we have met:
http://www.housealive.org/
http://www.emeraldearth.org/
http://www.cobincornwall.com/

We are happy to answer questions and share our experience via email: haplin[at]gmail[dot]com

Thanks for doing this, Grace.
Hap & Lin Mullenneaux

Guest Blog Post - Promoting 1% For The Planet

As a proud alma mater of Champlain College (I've become a bit of a public relations poster child for them) I wanted to include a guest blog post from my friend, Kat Maund, a Senior at Champlain pursuing a degree in Business Management with a focus in Marketing/Sales.

I will note that with my passion and work in social media, I continually find university's that don't talk about or offer information on any social media tools in their educational mix. I know senior level students in public relations at other large and well-known university's that don't even know what Twitter is or the value it offers in their field. With the help of some incredible professors, Champlain offers classes such as online visibility, internet marketing, media communications, and contemporary media issues (the class Kat is currently taking). In these classes, (yes, I took them) students stay on top of new media technology and are encouraged to blog, use Twitter and work on real-life projects for companies to leverage their business. This real life project is where Kat comes in, so without further ado, I'll let her take the reins and explain.

Kat Maund

My Contemporary Media Issues class is competing (guys vs. gals) to see which team can get the most views on a Youtube video promoting 1% for the Planet. 1% FTP officially took off in 2002 with its launch at a Patagonia store in San Francisco, CA. Twenty-one businesses signed up on the first day and began giving 1% of their annual profits back to the environment. Some call it an "earth tax." Consumers want to know that they're investing in companies doing good deeds and that in turn grows member companies' profits and reputations. Talk about good PR!

"It’s about businesses recognizing that industry and ecology are inherently connected. It’s about realizing the positive effects of connecting businesses, consumers and nonprofits through philanthropy. And it’s about understanding that the true cost of doing business can be mitigated by a simple pledge to the planet."

Utilizing our social networking skills is crucial to winning the contest, so what better ways to encourage hits than to blog about it, tweet about it, and Facebook it? Not only do we win some pretty excellent swag from 1% FTP's member companies, but we are able to spread the word about the importance of giving back to our earth, a planet that has provided us with so much. Check out the video; the images are sublime and the song, "Sunshine" by Matt Costa, is a definite feel-good tune. Below is the video. After you watch it and if you feel inspired, ask your employer if they're giving back to the planet. If they aren't, challenge them to!

Black Friday-Hot or Not?

Traditionally each day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, has generated billions of dollars for retail stores and brings throngs of crowds to shopping malls and stores across America. Unfortunately, I've participated in the madness (however, I've never been one of those shoving, pushing, waiting in line at 3:00 AM Black Friday extremists).

Photo Credit: NY Times shoppers in line at Macy's

Yesterday, Friday November 28th I was on the East Coast visiting my Italian family in Clarksburg, West Virginia and decided to brave the storm and head to the mall. Part of me was curious with the current economic downfall, I wanted to see from a statistics point-of-view, if as many people would still show and how much money was being generated. From my perspective, the mall was pretty packed and it was more than I expected to see. People were running around with their arms filled with bags and I even heard of a fight in the line at Target over who got checked out first. It seemed people were still feeling pretty hot about Black Friday.

Then I did a little research. An article from The Guardian notes that the US shopping season got a lukewarm start. Britt Beemer of America's Research Group said on Friday that he saw shoppers carrying 25 to 40 percent fewer bags this year. "If the item was there, they bought it. If it wasn't there, they left," said Beemer, calling this year's customer a "hit-and-run shopper." I definitely would call myself a hit-and-run shopper, my patience is low and if I wasn't brand loyal, then I was out if the item wasn't there. On the other side, Forbes said shoppers came out, and although timid, the traffic was better than expected.

Nonetheless, U.S. holiday sales had been projected to climb only 2.2%, according to the National Retail Federation, which is the weakest gain in six years.

Did you participate in Black Friday? What about the horrible tragedies at Wal-Mart and Toys R' Us, that give us as Americans bad names for our greedy consumerism habits? Share your thoughts...was it hot or not?

How To Ease Your Holiday Traveling Woes

Since the last five years I haven't been within driving range of my home, I've always flown for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday. Coming from the East Coast I almost always connected in O'Hare which means I almost always had a horrible experience, whether it be lost bags, snowy weather or canceled flights. I keep track of the New York Times' Practical Traveler for tips on new advances in eliminating the holiday traveling woes. Their recent article, "Be Ready, and Avoid Holiday Delays," has some great new sites for help and insight. Here are just a few of them:

Photo courtesy ABC News

-On November 20th, the Transportation Security Administration implemented "family lanes" at security checkpoints across 48 airports. I like the idea of this because it helps families and travelers with special needs to get through security on their own time (I hate seeing families with screaming babies already stressed out, having to be rushed through the line). This also means other travelers (i.e. me) will experience a speedier and more streamlined security line.

-Another service I use are the flight status alerts. A great one is Flightstats.com, which let travelers know if a gate or flight time has changed via e-mail or text message. Also, the iPhone has a Flight Status app for $4.99 from Apple’s iTunes App Store for the status of thousands of flights, as well as the arrival gates and baggage carousels.

-Another personal favorite is waittime.tsa.dhs.gov. This helps to avoid long lines at the airport because it lists average waiting times for security checkpoints at all airports.

Newsday.com says that Nationwide, 4.54 million travelers are expected to fly this weekend, compared with 4.89 million last year, a 7.2 percent decrease. So although travel on the busiest travel weekend of the year is expected to be lighter, delays and crowded airports will still be prevalent. I hope these tools and sites make your traveling a little easier and if you have other ideas or tips, please share.

I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving!

Why Geeks, Nerds (and Dorks) are worth it...

Listen up ladies. I'm not writing a Sex and the City column or anything, but I've had my share of dating mishaps (yes, one guy actually brought me to meet his entire family on the first date!?). With that being said, I came across a humorous article on the Best of Craigslist from the SF Bay area titled, "Why Geeks and Nerds are Worth It..."
It caught my attention because I work in the tech world and happen to praise intelligence, a little geekism, and MacGyver types over any "dude-guy," (speaking from personal experience). The post is well-written and funny, so make sure to read the whole thing but here are a few of my favorites that got a chuckle out of me:

3.) They’re more romantic than they’re given credit for. Ok true, their idea of romance might be to make up a spiffy web-page with all the reasons why they love you, with links to pics of you and sonnets and such... but hey. It lasts longer than flowers, plus you can show your friends.

6.) Most are quite good at remembering dates. Like birthdates and such, especially if they know it’ll make you happy. Due again to their neglected status, they’re more attentive than guys who “have more options”. Plus, with all that down time without a steady girlfriend, they’ll likely have mental lists of all the things they’d love to do once they GOT a girlfriend.

11.) His friends aren’t jerks. I can’t stress this enough. You’ll more likely get “Omg! A GIRL!! Can I see?!” than “Hey hot stuff back that ass up here and let me get some grub on...” They’re awkward geeks too and will, 9 times out of 10, treat you with the utmost respect and, more than likely, a note of awe. A cute girl picked one of their clan to date? It could happen to them! Hope! Drag some of your single girlfriends over, open up a pack of Mt. Dew, crack open the DnD set and get working. Nothing impresses geek guys more than a girl who can hack-n-slash (well ok maybe if she can code... a geek can dream).

13.) They’re usually very well educated. Physics majors and the like. You won’t have to listen to him blathering on about his car (ok maybe a little), he’ll have loads of other interesting things to talk about. Politics, world events, how much the chicken burgers down at the local place rock, so long as you douse them in hot sauce...

14.) You’ll almost never have to hear, “Yaw dawg whazzap!!” plop out of their mouths. Unless it’s in jest. They spell properly, use correct punctuation, and are able to tell the difference between the toilet and the floor. They almost never get “wasted”, so you won’t have to worry about coming home to find him and his friends passed out on the floor amidst a pile of beer bottles. Mt. Dew cans, perhaps...