Our crew LOVES our music, as evidenced by the multitude of office singalongs (particularly those originating from David’s office speakers).
Here are the highlights of what’s been keeping us going throughout the month – tell us your faves in the comments and we might include your track in our January SchipulMix! Happy listening:
Playlist:
Vengeance Is Sleeping (Neko Case)
Xtatic Truth (Crystal Fighters)
Firework (Katy Perry)
Paid in Full (Eric B & Rakim)
Children’s Story (Slick Rick)
And It Stoned Me (Van Morrison)
Yoshimi Battle the Pink Robots Pt. 1 (Flaming Lips)
-adjective
1. exemplifies a unique quality; awesome; incredible
2. An expression from the mid 1950s, which fell from favor by early 1960s…until now.
Used in a sentence: Orange Juice is great, but Orange Juice and Biscuits is boss.
Jonathan Valdez - blogger of Orange Juice & Biscuits
What is the most important meal of the day? Some classic folk might say Cocoa Puffs, a few dieters will admit to cold pizza, but pop culture, fashion fanatics will declare in unison, Orange Juice & Biscuits is where it’s at.
No, this does not mean there is a new organic orange that will guarantee weight loss nor does it anticipate an advanced biscuit that will combat frizz. It means that if you love a humorous take on front row fashion, “Livin’ La Vida Lohan” and all things sexy in the NYC, then you must suppress your appetite with Decemeber’s Boss Blog of the Month, Orange Juice & Biscuits.
I believe any successful blog tells a story, and OJ&B does just that through the eyes of Jonathan Valdez – a hilarious, dapper young fellow who writes with such enthusiasm, he could make a 76 yr. old nun pumped about Gaga’s latest music video. In 2009, Jonathan was named Mashable’s Top 5 Best Bloggers to Follow and for good reason; it’s not just about writing for him, it’s about sharing an amazing experience with amazing people.
Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with creator of OJ&B, and close friend, Jonathan Valdez about the incredible growth of OJ&B and what sets it apart from all the other fashion and celebrity blogs.
“I believe OJ&B is funny without being snarky or mean. Yes, it’s fashion, yes, it’s celebrities but it’s also about supporting the great people I have met in New York. You never know who you are going to meet and where they are going…OJ&B has enabled me to show how much I value these relationships and I believe people respect that.”
Jonathan doesn’t just sit and watch from afar, he writes about Whitney Port’s new fashion line because he was there. He gives shout outs to Models of the Runway Winner, Kalyn Hemphill because they truly are friends. He provides live media coverage of events, like Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week because, well…they thought OJ&B was awesome too. People enjoy Jonathan as a person because he genuinely enjoys them, the difference is he writes about it. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t like to see their name in print? Guilty.
There is just not enough great things to say about OJ&B. I love this blog, I love the guy behind the blog and I love that we can agree on one thing…
“Everyone loves a good Lohan mention.” – Jonathan Valdez
The Metropolitan New York Library Council launched their fabulous new website! METRO is a non-profit organization that develops and maintains library services throughout New York City and Westchester County.
It’s a beautiful design with the homepage pulling in dynamic content from various parts of the site. It gives visitors a great overview of the content at-a-glance and makes navigating the site a breeze.
Check out the new METRO site and feel free to give METRO a virtual pat-on the back on twitter (@tweetmetro) or a nice big ‘like’ on Facebook !
Congratulations to our winners for best sweater and best caption!
Sweater Contest Winner: David Stagg “The Elf Playboy”
Caption Winners: Chilly- 1st Place | Nicole – Runner-Up
We here at Schipul don’t believe that Christmas sweaters are tacky. In fact, we’re of the opinion they’re just as trendy as Hammer pants, neon-on-neon, and JNCOs.
In honor of our attractiveness (and, really, our complete inability to be impartial in choosing the most attractive outfit), we’re putting it up for you all to vote on. Help us decide our winner! Peruse the candidates and vote at the bottom. Leave a comment with a caption of your fave Schipul sweater for a chance to win a $15 Starbucks gift card!
David Stagg – The Elf Playboy
David Stagg pranced in here with quite the vest this season, sporting multiple active Santas in a variety of sleepwear. Under the vest is quite the cozy cream sweater embossed with iron-on presents trimmed in fabric paint, and a large forest green Christmas tree made of ribbons, rubies and red bows. And to top off what is soon to be every girl’s fantasy, a hat with cut-out felt elf ears, a single jingle bell and lovely hand-stitched embroidery that reads, ‘Jingle This.†– assume what you must.
Aaron Long – Bad Santa
Aaron Long has taken a more traditional approach this December with the ever so popular cherry red coat and Santa hat. As you may have guessed, the suit is carefully lined with soft, white fabric leaving many to believe his presence is that of an angel. Bringing a more modern feel to the garment, he has added a silver zipper from the chest to the neckline which only solidifies the fact that everyone loves a good zipper. While he has foregone the beard this season, we believe that his golden salt and pepper locks have made up for his lack of facial hair.
Courtney Pemberton – Grandma Coco
Courtney Pemberton has channeled her inner grandma this Christmas and opted for the classic red cardigan with two sequined, embroidered snow globes. Each snow globe has been carefully sewn to tell a story about a jolly man named Santa embracing his best friend Rudolph…who of course, can stand upright due to his sweet dancing skills. Adding a bit more pizazz to the garment are 20 fabric-glued snowflakes accompanied with individual brooches that include a dog holding a bone, an assumingly drunk Santa Claus, 2 bears playing footsy and a cat tangled in Christmas lights. To bring the outfit together, a Grinch T-shirt resides under the cardigan and of course, the beloved Trapper hat has been placed upon the head for final effect.
Ben Gillin – Creepy Christmas Neighbor
Ben Gillin in channeling his inner redneck this year wearing a somewhat smoked, cherry red, house robe. You can’t miss this flamboyantly styled A-line hem with Santa Claus, candy canes and gum drops galore lining the inner fabric. The hood reflects an Avant-garde mood and is a perfect addition for fetching the newspaper in the rain. If conservative is more your style, this outfit offers flexibility with a built-in belt to keep everyone guessing at all times.
Derek Key – Wise Ol’ Candy Cane
Derek Key is relating to young and old alike this season with his hand woven sweater vest accompanied with an abnormally small pocket detail. The sweater comes just above the belt line proving that this garment can be purchased at 10 and worn till you’re at least 35. Iconic images of sailboats, stockings and Christmas cheer add just enough spunk and that abnormally small pocket – well, it’s perfect for holding pennies.
After you vote – leave a comment with a funny caption of the Schipul sweater of your choice. The Schipulites will pick their favorite on Tuesday, December 28th and send off a $15 Starbucks gift card!
Thanks for your patience to all who had sites affected by our technical difficulties yesterday. All sites are back up and running today, we apologize for the inconvenience.
Some of our Tendenci sites may be offline this morning as our IT team works on some hardware issues.
We will update you as soon as possible and want you to know that we are working diligently.
Need some help? Contact our Support Team by emailing support AT schipul DOT com or by phone at (281) 497.6567, ext. 411.
Thank you, as always, for your patience and your business!
It seems there may be a storm a brewing… or maybe (hopefully) a change in the nonprofit donation policy from Apple.
With Beth Kanter’srecentblogposts shining a light on Apple’ s policy barring solicitations of donations by nonprofits groups’ many nonprofit focused individuals as well as plain ol’ big heart-ed folks are getting behind a campaign asking Steve Jobs and Apple to change their ways. In fact, donation lovers to the tune of 6000+ (at time of post) have already signed a care2 petition asking Apple to ‘Support Our Great Nonprofits.â€
A Little Background
Jake Shapiro kicked the hornet’s nest a few months back with what Beth calls a ‘must-read editorial†outlining his position that Apple’s reasons for not allowing nonprofit donations aren’t reasons at all, but rather just excuses. Next, Beth threw down the gauntlet announcing when her contract is up she is switching to the more nonprofit friendly Android, where none of the in-App donation challenges apply (I, for one, am certainly in love with mine.) Finally, with the help of Sue Ann Reed from Care2, a petition was created and Beth is rallying the troops… ‘Send Steve Jobs A Message: Let Us Give Donations on the iPhone.â€
Well, if you are like most of the folks out there whose smartphone is becoming more and more a part of their lives and you would like yours to help you connect to the causes you care about… go sign the petition here >>
Then… we wait and observe. It will be interesting to see if a group of users can use the social media tools of today to make a company change their product and the way they do business. We keep saying in our social media trainings that marketing has changed to a two-way street… the power is now truly in the hands of the people. I am curious to see just how this one turns out?
Just a few years ago, sites like Newspaper Death Watch, began tracking daily newspapers as they steadily went out of print. Since then, publications have adapted to the changing media landscape by creating online versions of their publications. But the delivery is different, and sometimes not as visually appealing as the copy you get to hold in your hand.
Online publishing tools offer just that. And not only are they useful for magazines, but they’re great for brochures and promotional pieces. Issuu and FlippingBook are two examples of online tools used by two Schipul clients to showcase their content.
Issuu lets users upload in any format and choose the best way to display their content (magazine, presentation or paper). One of the great things about Issuu is that it’s SEO-friendly. According to the site, every word inside publications on Issuu are available from any search engine. More than that, users can try it for free or just browse it’s catalog of online publications.
FlippingBook turns PDF files into flash on a specific site, rather than a searchable community. It allows users to share and view the content online. Also, the program lets users tailor the look of publications, has a download feature for multiple ways of sharing and a built-in text search that helps users find specific information within the text. The drawback of the program is that its free versions are watermarked and only available for Windows 7, Vista and XP.
The sleek presentation of publishing sites like Issuu can be intimidating. If you’re seeking something simple, Scribd. is worth a peek.
It’s an open reading platform, meaning you don’t need a flash player or web reader to view documents. It’s HTML based. The types of documents span the gamut –school work, how-to guides/manuals, books, presentations, spreadsheets – it’s all there. To get a better idea of the community Scribd caters to, I recommend watching their introductory slideshow.
Depending on your needs, FlippingBook, Issuu and Scribd are all suitable online publication tools with great features. FlippingBook is a good tool for content that will change consistently, yet it offers the functionality of a visually appealing, hand-held publication. Issuu is definitely the way to go for a more substantial publication, that won’t “expire.” And Scribd offers a bit of both worlds, where your document can live and breath in a widely accessible format.
Facebook recently announced a new set of pretty cool updates.
Well, it’s very cool for Facebook, because it’s like what Matt Mullenweg said, “You can never fully anticipate how an audience is going to react to something you’ve created until it’s out there.”
For everyone else, it can be obnoxious because it’ s not always clear what these updates mean to you. So let’s explore the updates and what they mean to you.
New Profile
Friend Lists
Mobile Controls
Friendship Pages
New Profile Page
Facebook made a few changes that clean up the look of profile pages and engages the user in a different way.
I took a tour of the new profile page and basically it does three profile-specific things:
Puts your basic info at the top of the page below your name
Displays your most recent photos right below your basic info
Displays the FB navigation (Wall, Info, Photos) below your profile picture on the left
Here’s what it means to you: the photos are first. Photos are the most used feature on Facebook, and now they’re easier to view. Everyone doesn’t have the new profile right now, but everyone will by early next year.
Friend Lists
The Friend lists are a bit tricky to navigate, but somewhat easy to create. If you hover near the number of friends you have, a pen icon appears. Click it and you’re directed to a page that lets you manage relationships. Visit this page to change your own relationship status, add family members, view your featured friends and create new lists.
The Mobile Controls
The new mobile controls let you see what you’ve shared with applications and websites in one place. And it lets you manage the settings. The feature is available through the mobile site, so you’ll have to select “Go To Mobile Site” from your phone to use it.
What it means to you: You can make changes to privacy settings without having to be near a computer. Just realized your Starbucks check-ins are showing up on your profile? Now you can change that before you even get your latte.
Friendship Pages
Friendship Pages were launched several weeks ago, and I’m kind of in love with them. Like everything else, the more you put into them, the more you get out of them. Meaning, if you tag your friends in photos of you together and interact through Facebook often, your friend page will be rich with content.
What this means to you: just by clicking the “Friendship” link, you’ll be able to see a history of your relationship with one of your friends. You can also see the relationship between mutual friends.
Want to learn more about the latest Facebook updates? Check out these articles:
UPDATE:We have a winner!! Congrats to Rebuilding Together San Francisco! We are beyond moved to learn about so many amazing nonprofits, thanks to all who participated – stay tuned for more upcoming NPO online marketing training!
In keeping with the feel good’ giving spirit of the season’ we want to help a non-profit with their web marketing efforts. We want to help an organization focused on doing good to do even more good by giving away 5 copies of ‘The Networked Non-Profit†as well as a half day ‘Social Media Book Camp†Training.
The Networked Nonprofit
Beth Kanter’s blog describes Networked Nonprofits as:
‘… simple and transparent organizations. They are easy for outsiders to get in and insiders to get out. They engage people to shape and share their work in order to raise awareness of social issues, organize communities to provide services or advocate for legislation. In the long run, they are helping to make the world a safer, fairer, healthier place to live.â€
Networked Nonprofits don’t work harder or longer than other organizations, they work differently… read the full post here >>
My Top 3 Take-Aways from the book are:
LOVE the very clear, direct way the book is written. Not full of fluff… it gets straight to the point and let’s nonprofits know what they need to be doing to be successful.
The examples make what can seem like an intangible topic very do-able.
My favorite thing about the book is it does not focus on the tools of today that may be gone tomorrow… it focuses on the fundamentals for how to use the social space to bring about change.
Wanna be a Networked Nonprofit… we wanna help!
How to Win
Enter to win by leaving a comment below and let us know:
What ‘Do Good†your Non-Profit is focused on.
What is one way you are using Social Media for your organization right now… not using Social Media right now? No problem. Let us know one way you see you could incorporate it in the coming year.
We will use a random integer generator to pick a winner on December 30th.
Training is available either here in the Schipul Office or in a webinar format.
Looking forward to reading what all kinds of Do-Good Stuff you guys are up to… so comment away and win!
We’ve seen it before. What looks like heckling in the comments section of a blog and snarky exchanges on Twitter can actually be signs of a deeper, more obnoxious reality – bullying and harassment.
Spawn by a series of teen suicides, cyberbullying has pushed its way into the national spotlight and conversation. The focus is generally on its effects on the youth, however this month’s Social Media Breakfast focused on examples of adults attacked online and asked us to take a look at what we can do to start a movement of “Online Civility.”
Guest speaker, Andrea Weckerle, founder and president of CiviliNation shared with the group how she found herself the target of online attacks and how those attacks effected her.
Gina Carroll, guest speaker and featured teen parenting blogger for Chron.com and Examiner.com, spoke on a common form of attacks seen online, mainly in the comments section of blogs and articles. She highlighted how anonymity is empowering for bullies and often the chosen persona for launching attacks.
Social Media Breakfast organizer Kami Huysen (@kamichat) also shared her own stories of being the target of online harassment, before grouping bullying into four categories:
Stakeholder Dissatisfaction – customer/client takes to the web against a company
Mob Mentality/ group-think – razzing someone because everyone else did it
Determined Detractor – trolling the web picking fights
Disturbing Stalker – …in real life and online…creepy and potentially harmful
With the categories in mind, she asked the group to offer suggestions for dealing with bullies on the web as a starting point for establishing general guidelines for civil behavior online.
She said, “We can’t legislate this, so we have to have a movement.”
Some of the suggestions include posting and enforcing blog policies, taking online threats seriously, and eliminating anonymity on blog comments through verification systems. To see more suggestions, visit the FB page for the event, and also add your suggestions.
Friendship Pages
