Lowther Rinse Repeat

Off to Blogworld September 15, 2008

This Friday, I’m heading down to the Blogworld Expo in Las Vegas.  I’m super excited to be going and I have one of Invoke’s social media marketing clients tagga to thank for sending me down there.  I’ve been heading tagga’s Social Media Marketing campaign since they launched this summer and we’ve been running several cool campaigns for them.  The most interesting and fun by far though, are the campaigns that are revolving around Blogworld.

Over the three days at blogworld, tagga is going to be throwing 8 taggamobs. Once you get there, we’re going to give you something fun to do and the winners will walk away with cool swag and prizes. The first two taggamobs are going to be held at the TechSet party at Bare where tagga has a cabana, so make sure you are there!

If you’re heading to Blogworld, make sure you follow tagga on twitter and text ‘tagga’ to 82442. Also, if you want to get mobile updates on the taggamob’s, make sure you subscribe to mobile on the tagga blog - this way you’ll know before everyone else when and where the next taggamob will be held!

We have tons of cool prizes lined up to give out - I get to feel like Santa at Christmas all weekend - ending with a grand prize of a $500 Apple GC.  I’ll give you a huge hint now, in order to win the grand prize, you’re going to have to answer a riddle.  I’ll be dropping hints throughout the weekend on the tagga mobile RSS (make sure you subscribe to mobile on the tagga blog) and through the tagga twitter account.

Let the Countdown Begin July 25, 2008

In exactly 7 hours from now I will begin participating in the first annual Vancouver blogathon for charity.  For 24, starting at 10 pm tonight and ending 10 pm tomorrow night, I will be writing and posting a blog post every 30 minutes.  That works out to 49 posts in total.  I’m participating in the blogathon through work and will be posting on the Invoke blog.

I’ve already written a bunch of the posts and have had colleagues at work chip in by writing some for me as well.  There are some great posts that will be posted and a few that are funny.  They are definitely worth heading over and checking out.

I am doing all of this to help raise money for a small village in West Mali.  Through the Lochmaddy Foundation, all donations will be directed to N’Gouraba. Families in N’Gouraba are working hard to improve their lives and the lives of their children through a special agricultural project. Your donation will empower and enable them to realize increased crops, more family income with new opportunities and a brighter future.

So far, we have raised $1,346.  There is still time to get donations in and any little bit you can help with will go along way in a village like N’Gouraba.  Visit Invoke’s page on Plan Canada to make your donation.

Bootcamp, BBQ Off and a Blogathon July 17, 2008

This week has been a particularly busy one.  It is my last week at bootcamp - tomorrow we are redoing our measurements and fitness test and  I’ll post the results and the overall inches lost.  I’ve already noticed a huge difference in my stamina and overall muscle tone.  So much so, that I’ve already signed up for another month.  It starts on Monday - so no break for me, but well worth it.

At work, we like to do off’s.  We started with a soup off, then progressed to a slow cooker off - which we aptly named Rock Out with Your Crock Out.  That one was so good, that we did it twice - the mix of slow cookers and guitar hero is amazingly fun.  To celebrate the final arrival of summer in our fair little city, we’ve decided to do a BBQ off.  As I type, I am parboiling some ribs and am about to make a BBQ sauce to marinate them in over night.

Yesterday, I signed Invoke up for the 2008 24 hour blogathon for charity. Basically, we will be posting a blog post every 30 minutes for 24 hours. This year, the blogathon was arranged by Vancouver’s very own Miss604 and the last time I checked, there were 12 bloggers signed up.  I know Vancouver can do a lot better than this and I encourage any bloggers out there to participate.  I will be writing in Invoke’s blog for the event if you would like to check it out during the event.  The Invoke team with begin posting at 10 pm July 26, and we will upload our last post at 10 pm July 27.

We’ve chosen a charity that helps villages in Mali.  I will have more information on the charity and an actual page where you can donate tomorrow.  It’s going to a great cause, so any bit that you can help with would be much appreciated.

**Update:

Invoke has set a fund raising goal of $1000 for the blogathon.  If you would like to support our efforts - which we would greatly appreciate - you can make a donation to the cause here (the page will be going live later today).  Invoke has chosen a charity that is very close to Invoke’s heart - The Lochmaddy Foundation.  Invoke is connected to this charity through Dario Meli and David Tedman who sit on the board. Through the Lochmaddy Foundation, all donations will be directed to a community in Mali, West Africa. Families in N’Gouraba are working hard to improve their lives and the lives of their children through a special agricultural project. Your donation will empower and enable them to realize increased crops, more family income with new opportunities and a brighter future.

We are collecting donations through Plan Canada who are our partner on the ground there.  I would like to thank them and specifically Heather for all of their hard work in helping Invoke bring this all together.

Day 1 in Banff - nextMEDIA Conference June 6, 2008

Yesterday I spent the day driving up to Banff for the nextMEDIA conference with Dario - and when I say all day I really do mean all day, we spent at least 10 hours in the car driving up here.  But it was worth it, BC is beautiful, actually that word does not describe it, breathtaking is a far better adjective.  The only downside of the drive, was the constant rain.  And!!! I finally got to see the Rockies from below 10,000 feet.  They are simply awesome - although I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t a sign saying that we’d entered the mountain range.  I guess that the big swath of mountains should have been enough of a hint though.

I noticed something on the drive up here.  People in BC are really bad at naming things.  Sometimes they were just boring, used or kinda stupid and other times I’m not quite sure how they missed the innuendo that went along with their name.  We had The Golden Rim, Skunk Cabbage Trail - OK I seem to have forgotten most of them after a nice full nights sleep - but, I’ll catch and write them down on the way down so that I can update this.  Although, my favorite was a billboard for a medieval theme park - the sign read “2 Adventures, 1 Stop”.  Dario and I spent a good 5 min giggling over that one (if you don’t know what I’m referring to, I will not submit you to it, but it involves a couple of girls and a cup).

I’ll update this post tonight once the days festivitites have ceased.   I now must find some coffee.

nextMEDIA Conference in Banff Alberta June 4, 2008

So I’m currently putting off packing for my trip to Banff tomorrow. I’m super excited about going, it should be really good. I’m going to the nextMEDIA Future of Digital Content conference for work. Tomorrow Dario and I get to drive up there - not really looking forward to the drive though it’s at least 9 hours.

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I do have to call nextMEDIA out on something though. When I was getting some info to put in this post, I wanted to include an image of their logo or pics from past events. So logically, I go to their press section and see that they have a section dedicated to Press Materials. I go to the page however and there is nothing. Well nothing isn’t quite accurate. They have a description of the downloadable banners that should be available to me. Really in my opinion, it is worse to have it not working than not to have it at all. So you can blame them for not having any pretty pics in this post.

OK so mini rant over. I am still super excited about going and am expecting that I’ll have a great time.  I’ve not been to Banff since I was a kid on a road trip with my Dad.  I’m looking forward to seeing the awesome Canadian wilderness.  Banff is beautiful and it’ll be a nice change from the city - even if it is a working trip.

I know that I’ll be seeing some great friends up there and meeting a whole bunch of cool new people. Along with learning a ton of new things in new media. I’ll update the blog when I get back and upload some pics from the trip for those of you who don’t get to go:)