Breaking News on NJ Social Media Hall of Fame

Voting begins today until Sun. April 25, 11:59pm EST to choose the NJ Social Media Hall of Fame Inductees! Vote only once, by leaving one comment on the Facebook Fan Page (must be a fan to leave a comment), naming your choice of Finalist (hopefully Lynette!!) & briefly explain why they should be inducted into the NJ Social Media Hall of Fame.

List of Finalists to choose from (in reverse alphabetical order by Twitter user name):

• @tweetamar Itamar Kestenbaum
• @podcaststeve Steven Lubetkin
• @njplaygrounds Sheila Sayah
• @njfamilymag Lucy Banta
• @lynetteradio Lynette Young
• @leoraw Leora Wenger
• @jessicalevin Jessica Levin
• @jerseybites Deborah Smith
• @hhrmediagroup Don Povia
• @AmyVernon Amy Vernon

We are happy to announce that Lynette will be speaking at TEDx on May 7, 2010 at the TEDxNJLibrary conference.  The theme is Culture & Community.  TEDx was created in the spirit of TED’s mission, “ideas worth spreading.” The program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level.

It’s been a long time coming, but I’m happy to announce that the Purple Stripe team is moving into larger offices!  We have been crammed in our current space – surrounded by piles of books, overflowing cabinets, and overcrowded power strips (but it’s safe, I swear!) long enough.  The lack of training space is what ultimately did us in, as our seminars have been very popular and hotel meeting space is astronomically priced.  Thanks to our new space, I hope to never again pay $70 for a tray of brownies at a conference center!

Friday we signed a lease for much larger space right off of Broad Street (Route 206) in Trenton New Jersey in the Chambersburg neighborhood.  We are now fortunate enough to have a dedicated conference and training room complete with 50 inch plasma TV and 16 foot conference table, WiFi, a kitchen, a 20′x40′ indoor putting green and a ping-pong table.  The XBOX may make an appearance as well!

November is only one day old and we are busy with clients, and hope to even have time to properly move in during the next week or two.  Timing being everything, I am on vacation for a few days mid-month and away even longer for speaking engagements in New York City.  Fingers crossed we can get in and settled before the holidays!

We have been known to keep random prizes around the Purple Stripe office (I’m a huge fan of Random Acts of SWAG), and now that we have an honest-to-goodness competitive sport located right in our space, there is no time like the present to start practicing your putt!

This past weekend my daughter and I attended PodCamp Philly in Philadelphia PA. For anyone that hasn’t heard of PodCamp, the premise is of an “un-conference’ – where it’s free (or really cheap) to attend and anyone can sign up to speak on a topic they are knowledgeable in. This was my third PodCamp in Philly (sixth overall) and first for my eight year old daughter.  There is something about getting together face to face with other social media and communications people that gets me motivated and inspired to break new ground and help new people.  What I really want is to extend that to YOU.

The spirit of community carried over to me this week, so I’ve decided to offer something special here at Purple Stripe.  Fully understanding how difficult it is to get a small business off the ground, I am offering a free ticket (doesn’t include travel, etc. – just admittance & food!) to Social Media Bootcamp : Small Business Edition in Hamilton New Jersey on October 21, 2009!  If you’re not the type of person to leave things to chance, use discount code “PSPdiscount” to sign up today guarantee your spot in the class!

How do you enter?  Leave a comment below telling us:

1. What your business is
2. Why you would like the ticket
3. Want extra credit? Hit the “ReTweet” button at the bottom of this post!

The winner will be chosen at random (via random.org). Your last chance to enter is Sunday October 18th at midnight EST.  Good luck and happy socializing!

EDIT: Comments are closed! I couldn’t help myself but to give both Kelly & Erik tickets to Bootcamp!

The private alpha launch of oneforty, a site dedicated to being your one stop resource for all things Twitter, is well on it’s way.  Twitter is considered one of the Big Three in external-facing social media communications platforms (the other two being Facebook and LinkedIn)  While the premise of Twitter is simple, you answer one question, “What are you doing?” by typing an answer in 140 characters or less, the platform’s use and meaning goes way deeper … Grand Canyon deep.

Using Twitter from it’s website actually limits you in what you can do (and gain) from the service, but luckily the founders have allowed access via APIs (hook in and out of the data) that let third party companies build tools and utilities.  This allows you to use Twitter exactly how you see fit.  So far, oneforty has cataloged over 1,200 applications for Twitter.  This shows not only the undeniable draw of Twitter for personal and professional communications, but that the community drives a need for using the platform in different ways.

I highly recommend visiting oneforty and putting your name and email on the list.  So now that oneforty has your back on finding the best tools for your needs – are you ready to get engaged with the community out there?  No?  We can help.