St. Louis is home to some interesting people, not the least of which also blog. Each week I’ll highlight a few of our metro area bloggers. You’ll find the serious, the fancy, and the fun, and hopefully you’ll find a connection with them.
Next up is a fairly new blog, Hello My Avocado. The blog description says this:
This is the blog of a 28 year old vegan while she lives, cooks, eats, and tries to lose 30 pounds in Saint Louis. Welcome.
Carol shows her smarts though. This isn’t a whiner’s blog. It’s a real person sharing her life. I’m interested to track her success via the blog as well as get to know her better. So why not drop by at the link above and cheer her on.
Third and final for this week is brought to us by Terry Blastenbrei, The Bosque. The Bosque is home to Terry’s manifestos as he calls them. A professional courier, Terry comes across a world of interesting. A recent adventure found him at an autopsy room. Cool stuff.
If you’ve got more cool, unique, or even regular joe blogs you’d like to see here, drop me a comment, send me a tweet, or shoot me an email, tojosan//gmail.com.
Beyond further cementing Danyelle’s The Cubicle Chick brand this event gave St. Louis chance to network at a local small business. Jilly’s was a great way to follow through on Danyelle’s promise to support locally owned businesses.
This social networking event succeeded as a tweetup, a foodie gathering, and more. I’ll be frank and say this is my first networking event with so many of our Black St. Louisans and Twitter peeps.
So often at events I’ve attended the mix is very Caucasian heavy. Oh there are a few people of different races mixed in but not near representative of the melting pot that St. Louis is. The metro area is not only home to a good mix of whites and blacks, but has a large mix of Asians, middle-easterners, and more.
St. Louis has one of the largest Bosnian enclaves in the US. The Korean community here has founded many churches and businesses. The list is endless of contributions by all races in our area.
It’s a blessing to see more diversity in local St. Louis events. I grew up here when forced segregation was still going on. I think this is a sign that things are finally moving along in our culture.
Danyelle is building her brand; if she’s willing, she can be an ambassador of change as well. I’m throwing down the gauntlet for my fellow St. Louisans to step up, bring it big, and get all of our citizens in the game.
St. Louis is home to some interesting people, not the least of which also blog. Each week I’ll highlight a few of our metro area bloggers. You’ll find the serious, the fancy, and the fun, and hopefully you’ll find a connection with them.
Zoe Feast, @stlwebdesign, founded the company Indigo Image in 2000, to ‘provide “Grade A” design solutions at affordable prices complemented with excellent customer service.’ Their blog, Indigo Thoughts, shares how Indigo Image brings positive impact to their customers. A recent post, A ROI Website Success Story, talks about a before and after story of Ruth Hasser, a St Louis wedding Officiant. Great story that takes place in St. Louis by St. Louisans.
Steve Patterson, @urbanreviewstl, blogs at Urban Review STL. The site takes a close look at the City of St. Louis and the entire St. Louis region. Recent weather sparked this informative recent article, Lingering snow creates accessibility issues. Steve and other contributors to Urban Review STL don’t shy away from the issues.
These blogs were all spotlighted by recommendation of their fellow St. Louisans. Here’s a round up of those links again:
Dueling pianos, open bar, and tasty appetizers – now that’s a party. In this case it was a fundraiser for The Gifted Wedding at the Jive and Wail.
The Gifted Wedding is an organization dedicated to giving couples with a terminal illness, disability, or a unique financial situation the wedding or vow renewal of their dreams.
The Gifted Wedding team provided the first dream wedding to Anna and Manuel Jimenez. Anna is struggling with ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. The Jive and Wail event was both fundraiser and a celebration of the recent wedding.
Jive and Wail provided the right size venue. Their staff was eager and engaged. The bartenders were friendly and kept the drinks flowing. Topping it off was the dueling piano team.
Dueling Pianos at Jive and Wail by Tojosan, on Flickr
Sharon and I enjoyed our time there, meeting both old and new friends. Elisabeth Cutshall gets the real credit for that though. She publicized this event on Twitter, Facebook, and in person.
St. Louis is home to some interesting people, not the least of which also blog. Each week I’ll highlight a few of our metro area bloggers. You’ll find the serious, the fancy, and the fun, and hopefully you’ll find a connection with them.
Stef, aka @cupcakeproject, runs the sweetest blog in St. Louis, The Cupcake Project. Started as a blog chronicling her adventures as a wedding cupcake baker for friends. Her latest post, Mango Rum Cupcakes – Four Baking Lessons and One Life Lesson, touches on the sweet tooth as well as the craziness that is baking.
It’s going to be a party. It’s going to be a Tweetup. It’s all about you and us and some food and some networking. It’s the first ever Castle Tojosan Tweetup.
You and you and you are invited. Oh wait, you’re not late though. The date is Friday, February 19th. The time? 6PM Central and beyond.
Warning – it’s mostly BYOB though I have a couple of bottles of wine in the house. I will take your keys if you’re toast.
This is intended to be a family and friend deals. Bring your kids, bring your wanna be tweeps, bring the garbage man if you like him.
I’ve got wifi, sodas, and video games and movies for the kids. As for food, the plan is to order some pizza, put out some chips, and make some finger sammies. Whatever else turns up, I won’t mind.
We mostly stock Pepsi products but if ask ahead I can grab a few other sodas. We’ll also have iced tea on hand.
Oh wait, you want to know where right? St. Peters, Mo. Um. Need more?
Recap: Tweetup at Castle Jordan – it’s on Foursqure!
Bring yourself and your kids if you’d like. BYOB. Wireless. Big TV w/DVD player, Wii, XBox 360. Jigsaw puzzles. Cards. Yahtzee. Origami. Bring your camera/camcorder.
Food as it works out. If you have special food rules please contact me ahead of time.
Please RSVP here, vai Twitter, email, etc, and remember to tweet it up- http://wp.me/pfLxC-uv
Note: we have a very friendly dog. He’s about 23 lbs. We don’t give him people food.
Chris aka @RizzoTees on Twitter by Tojosan, on Flickr
Chris Reimer introduces us to his new blog, The Basement Entrepreneur, with this statement:
My name is Chris Reimer, and in a mad fit of personal branding hubris, I dubbed myself “The Basement Entrepreneur.”
So what is a basement entrepreneur? In Chris’ words:
We’re the guys and gals starting Internet-based businesses in our basements.
We saved and borrowed almost enough money to actually start the business of our dreams.
We run our businesses off Macbook Pros in coffee shops. (or a PC if you’re a big baby about Apples.)
As David Siteman Garland once told me, we “MacGyver” everything in our businesses just to get by.
We “get” Social Media, and how it’s disrupting everything you think you knew about finding new customers and taking care of the ones you have.
We band together to help each other, instead of building insular walls around our businesses.
We work our f**king face off, as @garyvee would say, because we love what we do, not because someone tells us to.
Chris isn’t some guy you’ve read about in Millionaire or on the cover of Cigar Aficionado, there’s no GQ cover yet either. Chris is a real guy, a husband, father, working class guy and he works his tail off.
Rizzo Tees is a his personal business and has become synonymous with Chris himself. It’s a bit edgy and yet a hit with real people. I’ve purchased a few tees there already. Let me say he’s quick and friendly on customer service, getting the goods out, and engaging with those that show some interest.
Engagement. Big word but Chris isn’t that type of guy. He’s the type that swaps stories with you, asks about your kids, and buzzes your news out to the world. Along the way he might recruit you to model one of his tee designs. Heck, he’s followed the Threadless model and begun outsourcing his new tee ideas to the world. A bold move for a small businesses man.
Social networking doesn’t scare Chris. He’s not afraid to make conversation on and off the net, attending and participating in social media and networking events around St. Louis. He’s a strong contributor to the St. Louis Social Media Club. His take on things, coming not from a marketing and PR background, brings fresh insight to social networking and business.
I tip my hat to Chris aka RizzoTees. Bring it on bud!
If it looks like a party, it was. Fun folks, great conversation and cold beer made this a wonderful Tweetup. Jeffrey Strauss hosted this Twitter get together at the International Tap House in Chesterfield valley. It’s sort of the West County area of St. Louis Metro.
Yeah, that guy with the big grin is me. It was that much fun.
Jeffrey tossed the idea out just days before and it came to pass like clockwork. It was a good turn out with @VersaDave, @SandyShores, @MrShores, @StLConceirgeGuy, @SgtHotPants, @Rebecca_Rene, @donhead, @Nanna_J, and @Dizzy727. Folks came ready to chat, kick back and share.
The great thing about this tweetup is that Jeffrey isn’t some ’social media expert’, in fact he’s more a Belgium beer expert; you should ask him. People still have the misguided idea that only the heavy hitters in social networking can put events together, or if not that, then a group has to sponsor. That’s rubbish.
There were get togethers long before there were formal groups or formal leaders. Leaders emerge because they do things like plan events. Anyone can step up and lead.
St. Louis has a burgeoning social networking and media scene. There are lots of great folks doing fun, interesting, and educational events. Big or small, well attended or barely noticed, they still count as events.
Tired of waiting for one of these events to come to your neighborhood? Your peeps aren’t attending those for some reason?
Plan your own. Today. Now.
You’ll be surprised that when you step out, people will come alongside.
(This post inspired by Jeff and those that came before.)
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