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Thankful

by JimRaffel on November 24, 2010

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving (here in the States) so today I am writing about what I am thankful for in 2010. Tomorrow I’ll address how I am handling giving back at this point in my life.

image of thankfulI’m thankful for

Health – Everyone in my immediate and extended family is basically healthy right now. Because I’ve witnessed chronic illness in my own family and watched friends battle with it as well, I have come to appreciate how precious our health is.

This Blog – Somewhere in the last year of so of writing I found me. Not that my life was awful before but I’ve come to understand that for periods of time I was existing instead of living. Never again, each day is precious and my work while wonderful is not the be all and end all for me anymore.

Family – My wife, children, siblings, mother and all the rest of you. We are about as close as you get to having a perfect family and all darn lucky to have each other. (Others in this list may wish to exclude the author from inclusion and I’m OK with that.)

Social Media – Not the tools the relationships. In five years time Twitter and Facebook may be where MySpace is today. In the last year, however, the circle of people I feel closest to (with the exception of family) has changed dramatically. I met most (if not all of you) because of social media. So, the tools may change the way we connect but rest assured we will stay connected.

All of you – who read this blog, comment on this blog, interact and engage with me on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and wherever else we may meet online or offline. You are my network and without you….well, I wouldn’t have a network of amazing folks to call on when I need help and to offer up my assistance to when I can.

Nerds becoming the new cool – In my view, nerds (like me) don’t care which tools you give us. We will figure out how to make them work together to achieve a desired outcome. Knowing the difference between in Android phone, an iPhone, and a Blackberry is useful. Knowing how to apply each of those devices to solve a problem is nerdy. Long live the nerds.

I could go on and on but instead I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and ask that you add one item to the above list via the comments below. I would be eternally thankful (pun intended).

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Foursquare Flash Mob for Milwaukee SXSW

by JimRaffel on March 1, 2010

Yesterday my wife and I decided to be the ultimate social media nerds for an afternoon. We went to AJ Bombers to earn our Foursquare Swarm Badge. The rules for earning the badge are simple. A minimum of 50 of us nerds had to check-in on Foursquare at the same time in the same place.

Joe from AJ Bombers worked with the Milwaukee SXSW group to organize a fundraiser for their little party in Austin, TX during the social media be all and end all event of the year South by Southwest. When all was said and done something like 164 people checked in over the course of the day. I observed about 82 or so checked in simultaneously.

I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Foursquare. I’m pretty sure I only do it so my social media friends won’t think I’m a square. It was cool to be part of an event where many of our new friends met through social media showed up. Plus, it did result in a nice blog post complete with video.  Oh, and let’s not forget getting to eat our favorite burgers and such in Milwaukee. (I finally tried the Sprecher Root Beer Float – a MUST try at sometime if you even remotely like root beer floats.)

My friend Susan Kim asked me a question recently, “Is social media (specifically Twitter) real?” Yesterday was certainty real for Cheryl and I but let’s help Susan out with a whole bunch of comments here.

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