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350 Vermont | Promote Your Page Too
350Vermont is now on Facebook! View statewide events, connect with fellow supporters and stay up-to-date on news and information about the movement...
The above videos describe the movement, highlight a few Vermont pledges, and explain that 350 is one of the most important numbers in our lives. Get involved locally with 350Vermont by making a pledge to participate in the movement or by joining one of Vermont's many statewide events with friends and family on October 24, 2009.
Show your support by taking video of your pledge and at your event on October 24, 2009 then upload to 350Vermont's Youtube Channel...
You can also take and share photos of your event and endangered places in Vermont that need to be saved for future generations by visiting us on our 350Vermont Flickr Photostream...
Friends of "Ethan Allen Park"
Promote Your Page Too
Friends of Ethan Allen Park group is not on Facebook. Connect, learn and share content with the group that is responsible for overseeing the Ethan Allen Park and Tower. This group consists of neighbors around the park that volunteer to keep the park and tower available, clean and safe for Burlington residents.
Check us out!
For immediate release:
July 30, 2009
NEWS ADVISORY
WHO: Northeast Disabled Athletic Association (NDAA) and the Malletts Bay Boat Club (MBBC)
WHAT: NDAA is proud to announce the 7th annual 2009 Lake Champlain Martin 16 Invitational Regatta at the Malletts Bay Boat Club – MBCC – in beautiful Malletts Bay, Colchester, VT on the weekend of August 1st and 2nd.
WHEN: August 1-2, 2009
WHERE: The Malletts Bay Boat Club, 662 W Lakeshore Dr, Colchester, VT 05446.
WHY: The two-day event will witness sailors with disabilities vie for the coveted Berg Cup in one-design sailing aboard the innovative Martin 16 sloop. With great volunteers from MBBC, sailors from all over the northeast and Canada will converge on the Malletts Bay Boat Club for the spirited competition.
Regatta fee is $35.00 (Canadian at par) and includes registration, boat charter, breakfast, lunch and Saturday night dinner. Scholarships are available.
Volunteers are needed to assist during the regatta. Some duties include unloading and launching boats, assisting sailors, serving food and sailing as a companion. Contact us if you’d like to volunteer.
For more information, contact Patrick Standen by calling 802-862-6322 or via email at patrick.standen@myfairpoint.net.
So I was shopping in the North End Hannaford in Burlington VT for my Sunday dinner and when I passed the Seafood department I saw a crowd of people looking at this 9lb lobster that was for sale.
Can you say yum!
There looked to be two large lobsters about the same size.
Can you imagine the amount of butter you would need :)
e of a nonprofit organization here in Vermont called CarShare Vermont. Over the past few months CarShare VT has begun providing a car sharing program with vehicles parked around Burlington. They also have a website where members can sign up to use a car. It seems like a really a great program for both car owners and non-car owners alike.Join fellow Vermont Twitter'ers for the Tweetup event at Breakwaters on Burlington's beautiful waterfront tonight June 16, 2009 from 5pm to 7pm...
http://shar.es/rx2m
Posted using ShareThis
The Newfronts 2009 from The Thrid Act by Digitas.... Live discussion!
http://www.tinker.com/event/2009_digital_content_newfront
The below two posts titled, “What I Learned from CC Chapman at the BVT SMB” and “What I Learned from Todd Defren at the BVT SMB” are my notes of the key talking points that were presented to the group of communicators at Burlington’s first Social Media Breakfast.
There was a ton of great information about how social media can be used to help businesses communicate, build a brand community and provide a tool for two way communication.
Social media has become a hot topic in Vermont over the past few months. Click here for a PDF presentation about the changing landscape of online public relations that was developed by myself and Pat Heffernan and was presented on May 15, 2009 at the Women Business Owners Network annual conference (WBON). This presentation gives a good explanation about what is going on in the world of public relations and how online news distribution is changing. It goes nicely with the notes provided in earlier posts from the Burlington VT Social Media Breakfast.
Amongst all the discussions of how and why to use social media there are two important topics that are not being mentioned in conjunction with social media.
The first is ethical behavior that should be followed when engaging in social media and the second, my personal favorite, is the innovation that social media has the potential to create.
1.) Social Media Ethics:
When we get right to the point of what social media offers, it is quite simple – word of mouth marketing (communication). Over the last few years, companies like Kmart and Wal-Mart have been paying for bloggers and other social media players to sing their praise within the social media lexicon.
This may indicate that social media experts, agencies and practitioners are not following ethical guidelines. It may also indicate that clear guideline are not developed. Addisiojntlly, it also tells us that everyone is confused about the ethical standards that should be followed when engaging in social media.
Since social media is a tool to help facilitate word of mouth marketing (communication) it is clear that practitioners should be following a code of ethics. One such Code of Ethics has been set fourth by WOMMA.
Finally, anyone engaging in social media communication should be transparent and genuine in what they are say online. If they are being paid, there should be a disclaimer on each post. As stated by Todd Defren at the Burlington Social Media Breakfast, “authenticity and reputation is everything” in the world of social media communication.
Paid posts should be treated the same way an advertorial is treated. END OF STORY!
2.) Innovation:
Another aspect that I am not hearing much about is the fact that social media creates a community of "brand lovers" and "brand haters." Both are good and neither should be ignored. For the first time in the history of communication we have the ability to literally record every conversation about our product of service. As CC Chapman says, “people love to talk online.”
The online technology and tools behind social media allow for every conversation to be monitored, wharehoused and analyzed.
For a moment, let’s step out of our mind set of the corporate communications officer. Yes social media creates innovative ways to communicate, but beyond that it creates digital focus groups that are filled with product and service INNOVATION.
What, did he say INNOVATION? Yes that is correct. Can you say product development, quality control and engineering?
For many companies that engage in social media, the information that is gathered is mainly used to help shape their communication, marketing and public relations strategy. However, there is loads of data about specific products or services that those social communicators (a.k.a customers and clients) are talking about. If you are savvy, you are also simultaneously paying attention and gathering data (conversations) about what is being said about your competitors.
This information is extremely valuable to product designers, engineers, quality control officers and service providers. Part of every social media campaign should have a section that explains what to do with all the data once collected. It should include what other departments need access to that data and who is responsible for analyzing that data.
After the conference, I briefly chatted with Todd Defren about how product or service innovation is incorporated into their client’s social media strategy. Todd mentioned that they mainly focus on how to innovate the way a client communicates, but he left me with the following example of how one client used the data to create product innovation:
Todd spoke of a client that he had worked with in the past to build a social media campaign. This client was a manufacturer of receipt scanners. Aside from using the data to improve their communication efforts, they took it upon themselves to analyze the data that they collected about their receipt scanner and used it to enhance their current product through incremental product innovation.
Can you say brilliant!
The above example highlights how smart companies can create product or service innovation by using the data collected when engaging in social media.
- Dont focus on the tools first!
- Have a solid, down to earth good business.
- It's all about who you know. Social medie is all about the people.
- People love to talk online.
- Bad conversation is ok. It gives you a chance to step in.
- Online you repretation is everything!
- You buy where you know.
New Book = "Trust Agent"
- Social Media is not a push technology.
- Give reasons to gather.
- Social media takes a lot of hard work & planning.
- Have real conversations.
- Think long term.
- Good consultants work with clients and teach them how to use the technology.
-Google "The third act" to check out Wednesday event
Flickr.com/commons
Facebook ads is a great demographic research tool.
Question = CC mentioned that businesses should bypass legal and pr. How do highly regulated corporations engage in social media when they have to go through legal and pr to meet FTC regulations?
Posted with LifeCast
Social media = worlds biggest potluck
Don't be a wallflower
Don't be a Blowhard? He thinks he knows what hes doing wout ever listening
-Content marketing = what you bring to the party.
- Newspapers are dying
- Death of television is happening.
- Public relations death = death of media relations.
- The social media marketers job is to make sure a client is found.
- "Findability" is cheap
- Tactics = dont wait for the traditional news release.
- Content audit!
- Content marketing = repurposing content
PROCESS
- Know thy customers and what competitors are doing.
- Engage before the creation of content.
- Follow the rules of Active engagement.
Posted with LifeCast
Mediabistro features the Clean Green Vermont Alliance's April Fools prank in their April Fools round-up. Cheers to all involved!
http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/stunts/april_fools_pr_foolishness_businesswire_wont_play_113114.asp
Burlington, VT — Drawing a parallel between a Pontiac LeMans and Vermont’s only nuclear power plant may seem like a bit of a stretch to some, but not to David Blittersdorf, the leader of a new organization called Clean Green Vermont Alliance. The Pontiac LeMans parked on Burlington’s Church Street Marketplace this afternoon and Vermont Yankee were both originally unveiled in 1972.
Billed as “The Car of the Future,” the glow yellow-green LeMans features much of its original equipment – including the engine, seating, dashboard, and “optional” lap belts—in addition to new accessories such as a 1972-appropriate music track, flashing lights, detailing, and a smoke machine. David Blittersdorf and “Rad Man” were on hand to conduct a mock-press conference, demo of the car, and a “trip down 1972 memory lane” as a means of showing that technologies, engineering, and even culture have come a very long way since then.
“There are many products we use today that date back to 1972 – calculators were invented that year, for example. But most of those products have evolved, become much more efficient, safer. I use calculators all the time – there’s one on my cell phone – but it didn’t cost me $795.00, like it would have in 1972. My Toyota Prius is a hybrid, and its seat belts are not “optional” safety features, as they once were in the LeMans. So it begs the question, do we really want something designed and constructed in 1972 to run until 2032?”
The reference to the year 2032 is no accident, as Vermont Yankee was first placed on line in 1972, and its owners have requested permission to operate the plant until 2032, twenty years beyond its intended life span. “Look, this 72 LeMans still runs, and it passed the State’s inspection – but it only gets 12 miles to the gallon, on a good day. As a long-time resident of Vermont, I prefer our roads carry vehicles that can run on a minimum of 20 miles a gallon, and have drivers benefit from all of the advances in safety engineering of the last 37 years. It’s just common sense. When it comes to a nuclear power plant, I feel very passionately that 40 years is long enough and extending the life-span for another 20 years is a risk we Vermonters can’t afford to take.”
The 1972 retrospective and spoof of nuclear power occurred during the busy Burlington lunch hour, with Rad Man offering satiric comments on being “green” and providing members of the crowd with green glow sticks (spent “nuclear fuel rods”). Blittersdorf briefly addressed the assembly and pointedly remarked that he believed recent nuclear energy advertisements billing nuclear power as “green” had to be a “joke.”
Clean Green Vermont Alliance is an organization dedicated to increasing Vermonters’ awareness of the environmental, health and safety hazards posed by fossil and nuclear-fueled energy sources, at a time when the environmental, health and safety advantages of renewable energy power sources are now widely accepted.
The organization’s April Fools campaign features video segments from the event and encourages visitors to post pictures of other 1972 products since replaced by better alternatives at: www.72GoodAsNew.com. Towns and not-for-profit supporters will also be able to sign up online to request use of the “72 Car of the Future” for community events.
Event photos and video available after 3pm at: www.72GoodAsNew.com/news
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