Membership Sideblog
- The Marcus Welby of law, by Lance Heisler | Lampe Law Group
July 31, 2010 | 7:45 pmGrowing up in North Dakota during the 50s and 60s, I was privileged to experience something that's all too rare now - the old-fashioned family doctor. "Doc" delivered babies, set broken bones, treated pneumonia, and helped Grandpa with his newfangled hearing aid. Doc knew the community, the families, and the individuals whose basic medical needs he treated from birth through the end of life. Some of you who grew up in that time, and perhaps in smaller communities, may remember a Doc of your own. . . . → Read More: The Marcus Welby of law, by Lance Heisler | Lampe Law Group
- Kitty Mania at the Prairie’s Edge Humane Society, by Sandy Vesledahl
July 28, 2010 | 10:51 pm
Let’s talk about cats, cats and more cats! Why?? Because Prairie’s Edge Humane Society is full of cats and we have many more arriving daily. As of today, there are 44 cats on the adoption floor with more awaiting their surgeries so they are ready for adoption. There are cats in every corner of the shelter who need homes! We are in desperate need of homes for these cats. We cannot emphasize this enough. So we are having a cat sale and we are calling it Kitty Mania ! Kitty Mania is this weekend, beginning Thursday, July . . . → Read More: Kitty Mania at the Prairie’s Edge Humane Society, by Sandy Vesledahl
- On Watermelons and Widgets, by Tom Swift
July 12, 2010 | 11:50 am
The free market does many things well, but we know it does not do everything. Even market fundamentalists concede that the public must build roads, put out fires, police streets, and provide national defense. Most people, at least those to the left of the Tea Party edge of political spectrum, accept that the government must also be involved in education, disaster relief, and health care. That is, certain services must be rendered — necessary services, universal services — whether or not those services are financially profitable. If your house is on fire, you do not have time to . . . → Read More: On Watermelons and Widgets, by Tom Swift
- Vintage Band Festival Contra Dance, by Dan Bergeson
July 12, 2010 | 10:56 am
Okay, so most of the news about the Vintage Band Festival so far has been about the bands. But there’s a number of other events during the weekend. Like the VBF Contra Dance, for instance. The Vintage Band Festival Contra Dance will feature music by The Dodworth Saxhorn Band of Ann Arbor, Michigan and will be led by dance instructor/caller Robin Nelson. Dancing will begin at 8:30 p.m. with a “Grand March” led by 60 costumed members of the 1st Wisconsin Infantry Brigade, followed by a variety of period dances including polkas, contra dances, schottisches, reels and waltzes. . . . → Read More: Vintage Band Festival Contra Dance, by Dan Bergeson
- The Animal-Cruelty Syndrome, by Tom Swift
June 27, 2010 | 8:00 am
Even before I read the first word of this article I had a visceral reaction to it. The accompanying photographs — my eyes tend to skip over photographs in magazines — affected me in a manner that is difficult to articulate. I knew, immediately I knew, I was not going to like what I was about to read. In fact, for that reason I put the piece aside. Not now, I thought. Maybe tomorrow, I said to myself. But, then, I couldn’t not read it, either. If you have not done so already, I hope you will read . . . → Read More: The Animal-Cruelty Syndrome, by Tom Swift
- Puppies! Puppies! Puppies! by Kathy Jasnoch
June 27, 2010 | 7:54 am
June may be Adopt A Cat month here at Prairie’s Edge Humane Society and we have lots of wonderful cats, but we also have PUPPIES! We have a male Newfoundland mix named Chong who is 6 months old, he was a stray so we don’t know a lot about him. He loves to play! We also have three Australian Cattle Dog mixes who are two months old. Marcia, Bobby and Cindy were born at the shelter and spent some time in one of our fabulous foster homes. They are now back at the shelter and ready to find . . . → Read More: Puppies! Puppies! Puppies! by Kathy Jasnoch
- Relay for Life of Rice County, August 6th, Rice County Fairgrounds. By Sandy Vesledahl
June 23, 2010 | 9:35 pm
The American Cancer Society Relay for Life is a life-changing event that gives everyone in communities across the globe a chance to celebrate the lives of people who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against the disease. At Relay for Life, teams of people camp out at local parks or fairgrounds and take turns walking or running around a track or path. Each team is asked to have a representative on the track at all times during the event. Because cancer never sleeps, Relays are overnight events. Relay for Life of Rice . . . → Read More: Relay for Life of Rice County, August 6th, Rice County Fairgrounds. By Sandy Vesledahl
- Critter Cam live from Prairie’s Edge Humane Society, by Sandy Vesledahl
June 16, 2010 | 9:04 amNow Showing! Live Kittens playing! You can now watch our adoptable animals at Prairie’s Edge Humane Society (PEHS) live 24/7 on the new Critter Cam installed in conjunction with KYMN Radio. Thanks to the fine folks at KYMN radio we now have a live feed of our adoptable animals showing on our website and KYMN’s website, Tim and Jeff are AWESOME! Currently the Critter Cam is featuring kittens available for adoption. Watch them play, sleep, eat, and everything else they do 24 hours a day 7 days a week! It’s better than anything you can see on TV! . . . → Read More: Critter Cam live from Prairie’s Edge Humane Society, by Sandy Vesledahl
- Save the Northfield Depot: fundraising help needed. By Lynn Vincent
June 11, 2010 | 11:34 am
A BIG Thanks to all of you who came to last Monday’s Volunteer Organization Meeting, and to those who contacted us saying you wanted to help but could not make the meeting. We have pretty full support for Communications and Design and Build sub-committees, and we got a web graphic designer to help with the site. Alice Thomas is facilitating the Communications group, and Steve Edwins is facilitating the Design and Build group. What we are missing and really need are Fund Raising people. We have two grant writiers, but we need folks who are committed to the . . . → Read More: Save the Northfield Depot: fundraising help needed. By Lynn Vincent
- Photo albums: 2010 Prairie’s Edge Humane Society Walk for the Animals, by Bridgette Hallcock Photography
June 11, 2010 | 8:09 am
Thank you to all of those who came to Alexander Park on a beautiful Saturday morning in May to help support Prairie’s Edge Humane Society! I have placed all of the fun photographs on my Bridgette Hallcock Photography Facebook page so that everyone can see how much fun we had! See the two 2010 Walk for the Animals albums here and here. If you would like a print, please contact me, as the proceeds will benefit the animals at PEHS.
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Demetrio Maguigad Tells Me to Twitter at Main Street 2.0
By Ross Currier, on March 2, 2009, 10:04 pm
 Okeh, Demetrio said he was going to Google “Main Street 2.0” and see who was blogging about it. However, these techie types always seem to find time to search for their name too and I’m betting Demetrio may find a double draw on this post.
Demetrio gave a presentation on using social media and on-line communication to promote your main street, or downtown district, at the Main Street 2.0 Conference. He works at Community Media Workshop, also found at “newstips.org“. I guess if I were to try to summarize their mission, it would be to help the voiceless find their voices through new media. (continued)
Early in his presentation he argued that communities are based on meaningful relationships. He quoted Rollo May as viewing community building as reaching understanding and mutual valuing. (It was not that different from Governor Quinn’s later remarks that to build community your should follow the saying “Early to bed, early to rise, work really hard, and organize”.) His efforts are to achieve shared meaning within communities through technology.
And Griff and Tracy, that’s where he got to the Twittering. He outlined the evolution of on-line communication from e-mail, through Facebook and blogging, to Twittering.
So, if I want to keep evolving, I better stop throwing bones at monoliths and start Twittering instead.
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Okeh, Demetrio said he was going to Google “Main Street 2.0” and see who was blogging about it. However, these techie types always seem to find time to search for their name too and I’m betting Demetrio may find a double draw on this post.
but I’d have a hard time during the sabbatical not paying attention to see if that was actually the case. I think the more places in Northfield...
Ross, I’m so glad you’re beginning to see the light. Too bad you had to go all the way to Chicago to get it.
I still don’t understand the value of twitter. could someone explain it?
Jerry, that’s actually a HUGE question. Twitter is simply an application (or a technology) for communication. How it’s being used varies widely. I started using in in earnest for business just two weeks ago, but I’ve put a lot of time and thought into the sort of connections I want to make and what results I’m looking for. I’ve already seen some results, so I’m encouraged to keep going.
Here’s an article about Twitter tips for bloggers that you might find helpful.
For a broader overview and some history, here’s a great 8-minute video presentation by Twitter founder Evan Williams.
Hope this helps!
I know what Twitter is, Tracy, but how is it different than facebook status updates which all your friends can follow, or even blog feeds which, again, all your friends can follow?
Is it just the lack of all the other data to download – the surrounding website / facebook page?
It’s ironic that you have to be so economical with your words in Twitter, because, such current technology, we end up communicating like old telegraph messages (only in chatroom syntax).
I would probably just use Twitter to write really, really, really short plays.
Twitter started sort of like FB status updates, but those can be appallingly boring and TW has evolved into a lot more than that. People are finding really creative ways to use it, as the Evan Williams talk (link above) shows.
I’m positively intrigued with the idea of 140-character plays. AWESOME idea and would be practically guaranteed to get you a cult following on Twitter, AND drive traffic to your blog. I seriously think you should consider it. It’s like a geeky 21st-century digital form of haiku. Contact me offline and I’ll infect you with my enthusiasm.
Okay, it’s time to put the Kool-Aid down.
I actually went to this page to post a couple of updates to Ross’s original post.
First, here’s the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s blog post about the first day of the conference. They also posted a little background here.
There’s also a Twitter “hashtag” (sort of like a category) for people attending the conference or following it online. You can view all the tweets using this hashtag and even get it as an RSS feed if you’re so inclined. The “tweets” (Twitter posts) will probably look cryptic, but they make sense to those who are using them.
Enough for now. I’m looking forward to Ross’s complete review of the conference, its theme, and what he thinks can/should/will apply to Northfield and the NDDC.
Tracy –
I joineth. The plays are afoot. A very, very small foot.
http://twitter.com/tinyplays
Tracy, tell Brendon to do something else, that was fun
David H.,
Which was fun – my tiny plays or Tracy telling me to do something and me eagerly complying? I’m unclear. I generally do whatever Tracy tells me, except change my hideous Gravatar image… (winking smiley face, winking smiley face)
Both. Maybe you can do 140 words about Tracy’s power over you.
Done. http://twitter.com/tinyplays
i’m with you on the community building, but you lose me with twitter.
twitter, like I said before is overrated. It is a 1 way medium (I know you can do the @thing, and that is confusing to the average user also)
If you really want to build community, use a chat room. With mobile devices, people can pop in and say hi and chat about whatever.
Brendon, that was excellent I am working a 20 page critique and deconstruction of your Oditter* to Tracy. *You’ll need a name for the form.
Thanks, David, good luck with the deconstructing. It’s a teaser, that tiny play.
Hey Brendon -
The Very Short Play Festival has been reduced to 140 characters? Count me in.
Now I only have to figure out how to put the saga of last year’s Council Meetings in the context of Shakespeare’s kings in 140 characters.
Loving the “oditter”…
Jerry, what Evan Williams didn’t say in that TED video that Tracy linked to is that Twitter and its competitors are micro-blogging (aka micro-sharing) services. So when framed that way, it’s easier to see it as a generic tool like a blog, to be use for good, bad, or merely the trivial.
In large organizations, internal-only micro-blogging has become a knowledge management tool. Instead of asking yourself the usual Twitter question, “What am I doing right now?”, the questions to ask are “What am I working on right now?” and “What work-related problem am I struggling with right now?” etc. Best Buy has a huge micro-blogging project going on right now.
The techie part of micro-blogging that’s given it a boost is the ability for people to choose get the alerts (Tweets) of those they’re following via mobile devices. To be able to instantly tap the brains of dozens/hundreds or more of people who’ve chosen to follow you and your ‘thinking’ via micro-blogging can be a very powerful thing. It’s like having all those people standing in a room within earshot of you all the time. You can’t hear them but they can hear you.
Lastly, the limitations of 140 characters is freeing for people who’ve not taken to blogging in part because they think they have to create lengthy blog posts… and so they don’t do it because they don’t have the time. (Brendon has shown us the fallacy of that thinking with his Very Short Plays.)
I use my Twitter account for Northfield-related stuff primarily… and I nearly always send out a Tweet with the URL of my LG blog posts. So if you blog, you should consider micro-blogging.
Hope that helps.
I still don’t get it. why should I care? maybe that’s why I like single speed bikes. no gears, simplicity. I’ve got email, a website, a blog, a cell phone I rarely turn on. I think I can skip facebook, twitter, linkedin. where is the value to all of this? will it fill a need? sometimes a book, a bike and beer are all that is necessary.
Amen Jerry.
[...] It was just us co-hosts yesterday, primarily doing a post-mortem on Ross’ trip to Chicago for the National Mainstreets Conference with its 2009 technology-related theme, Becoming Main Street 2.0. (And what is Web 2.0? ) See the live-blogging organizers did during the conference. Ross has posted to his NDDC blog about the conference here, here, and here. and here on LG re: Twitter. [...]
Jerry, consider using Twitter for your business. Imagine if a hundred of your customers were following your bookstore Twitter. Early yesterday, you noticed on the MPR website that God Delusion author Richard Dawkins was on MPR’s MidMorning and appearing at the U of M later in the evening. You sent out a Tweet alerting them about it, and that you had 5 copies of his book in stock.
Another scenario: that a customer who follows your Twitter account hears about Dawkins and sends YOU a Tweet about it, wondering if you have the book in stock. You then re-Tweet to your followers.
Customers would love that kind of service.
Hey, David H.! You trying to steal my tiny dramatic thunder? Actually, I like this. Maybe we could have a Very Tweet Play Festival. A night full of about 100 of these plays? Who’s there? I could run it this summer, maybe, when I have more time.
David H: “emommee”… good one, by the way. Forgot to put that in my previous comment.
why would a hundred customers follow my twitter if only a fraction of that follow my blog? I’ve been blogging for 2.5 years now. still waiting to sell that first book. Is all of this technology a wise use of my resources? serious question there, because I’m not sure.
I guess I see everything as a sliding block puzzle. if I spend time blogging, twittering, using facebook, that is time not spent adding books to the various websites I use to sell books. selling books this way increased 34% last year, selling books via the blog 0. I’m not opposed to trying twitter or facebook, but they are still unproven methods for retail. So let’s say I twitter the Dawkins talk and you receive my twitter Griff. do you stop by and purchase one of my two copies for $8 or do you buy the kindle version for $9.28?
Jerry, ape in charge, who is trying to decide if these microwave ovens are a good idea because I have yet to buy one.
Hey Jerry -
I “saw the light” of the potential for Twitter in advocacy work. It’ll take another “ah ha” before I can see the leverage for promotion.
After the show, Tracy told me about the dramatic impact it has had on her business. However, it seems to be having a dramatic input on ONE SEGMENT of her market and recognizing the potential in that segment was the key.
Griff hustles intellectual property, Tracy, like you, sells physical goods. Maybe swing by her office when you’re visiting your warehouse.
Brendon, Sorry about my theft. I think many people with stage fright will truly enjoy acting in these plays!
Thanks, David H.! I’m all about getting people writing and acting and just exploring their artistic sides; so I’ll see if I can put something together. I might make it part of an event I’m thinking about producing this summer… possibly downtown, if the stars align…
will do Ross, right now I need to find my pedal wrench. would twitter help me there? it’s about 10 in. long, has a blue handle and looks like a funny shaped wrench.
A:But, I’m the lead
B:Yes
A:He has more characters
B:You’re the hero
A:The hero doesn’t get at least 70 characters?
B:Look at the big picture
A:Ok
It’s Brendon’s fault for being encouraging.
Jerry, it might be of interest to you to see how CommonGoodBooks is using Twitter:
CommonGoodBooks
I tried it. it’s like a foreign language. text message style. I’m being tweeted by two businesses. I logged in today to find a list of tweets. way to much to keep up with. I look at it this way, is this something my customers would value? maybe a few. Am I being remiss in not offering it? doubtful at this point. I watched two videos on the topic. the first by the twitter guy made me realize, he’s a sharp person who failed public speaking. The other was two fellows who also failed public speaking, but seem very important because they have invented a new language only they can understand. it’s just too techie for this non-techie.
twitter cartoon:
http://www.unshelved.com/archive.aspx?strip=20090309
Okeh, which is “more mainstream”,
The Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123638550095558381.html
or The Star Tribune:
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/40986347.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsZ
Stewart on Twitter:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=219519&title=twitter-frenzy
and another twitter cartoon:
http://www.unshelved.com/archive.aspx?strip=20090310
Jerry,
Yeah, yeah.
Oh… and someone named “BicycleTutor” tweeted about Monkey See, Monkey Read last night.
crud, it’s like a club I can’t join because I don’t speak the language. how did you get that tweet Tracy?
I use geek tools that scan Twitter to find the occurrence of the word “Northfield”. A great percentage refer to the Northfields in IL, VT, MA, NJ… but some are here. That’s how I saw the one about you.
Perhaps of interest, a brief history of the Twitter company in today’s WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124000817787330413.html
Brendon, Twitter Opera: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/apr/21/classicalmusicandopera-twitter