Last week, I chronicled my experience dealing with Sears Automotive over the course of the month of September. I decided to use this as an experiment in social media to see what kind of response I would get from Sears by writing the blog and then seeing what attention I could garner by promoting it online.
This past summer, the light on my dashboard came on letting me know that my brake pads needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, bringing the car in to Sears Automotive for repairs lead to far more problems than I ever expected to need to fix and cost me far more in money and time than I ever expected.
On Thursday, October 1, my friends Joey, Anna and Sara held the first Cupcakes4Charity event in New York City at the Roger Smith Hotel. Through the power of social media, goodwill and cupcakes, they were able to raise $1,100 for the American Cancer Society.
For the last decade, we have been repeating the styles that have come before. Music, movies, fashion and other elements of our popular culture have been co-opting what has been created in previous decades rather than moving forward with new and completely original ideas, leaving us in a place where we are reliving our history through selective lenses of the past.
I’ve previously blogged about how we are each our own brand, but what is the currency of that brand? Each of us have a value based on our actions and the type of attention we bring, creating our social currency.
Having decided to attend Brickfair, I had an idea for a Mindstorms robot that would take pictures at the event. From there, the concept of TouristBot was born.
There’s no such thing as a stupid idea, but it is possible to have a stupid implementation. Ideas themselves are never innately stupid, it’s a matter of what you do with them.
If you don’t like the way something is on the internet, stand up. Say it, do it, get others to believe in your cause and you can and will enact change. You just have to want it and be willing to follow the dream of change.
Your identity online is not dependent on your name. The name you choose to call yourself online is not as important as the value you give those people who choose to “follow” you and listen to what you have to say.
My friend Anna sent messages to Twitter after a bank robbery, leading to a big game of Telephone in the media.
