It’s less amazing if you know the effort behind it.  This picture started with a simple idea, me and the three penguins playing poker.

Seems simple enough right? It was until the idea of the big penguin showing Aces came to me. The trick then was how to stage it.

First thought on putting up the cards was a paper clip. Would you believe after 20 minutes of looking around the house, not one paper clip was handy. (Of course now I know where some are.) Sharon came to my rescue with a bobby pin.

Bobby pins are about the right size and do a fair job of holding things, sadly not much beyond the cards. Visions of attaching the five cards to the penguin’s hand were out.

Figure out what I should have thought of at first; photography is as much what I plan for you to see as what’s really there. Cards in the picture above appear to be in the penguin’s hand. Actually they are resting on the right foot.

The bobby pin holds the cards together, while the hand is gently attached to the leg by clothespin. Outside penguins I copped out on and just leaned the cards against them. It worked out well from the angle of the photo.

Things I consider missing:

• the kitty
• chips at each player
• the dealer’s deck

Photoshop was not used nor any other photo magic. All I did with this post capture was to crop it and auto-adjust in iPhoto.

How does this post tie into social networking? It was created with the intent of sharing on my social networks. This is not a ‘photo album’ picture. It’s not for immediate family and friends, not for coworkers, it’s for you, my readers, my followers, my connections.

Why? Because you deserve a bit of effort and a laugh. You’re worth the effort.

Recommendations? Comments? Creative suggestions? Feedback on social networking?

Give it up in the comments!

Find Todd Jordan.

An eternity ago I preordered Seth Godin’s Linchpin and at the same time donated to the Acumen Fund. I received my advance copy of Linchpin as did several of you. Well, I patted myself on the back, am enjoying the book and put that event behind me.

I shouldn’t have.

Surprise, I received a surprise extra copy of Linchpin with a letter from Seth. It reads:

Generosity is a key piece of being an artist. It gives each of us a chance to connect, to make a difference, and to do indispensable work.

You were generous enough to make a donation to Acumen Fund, an organization that focuses on trade, not aid, building communities that work because each member contributes more than they get.

A few weeks ago I sent you a preview copy of Linchpin, as promised. Now, in recognition of your generosity, I’m giving you another. I hope you’ll share this one with someone you care about.

Thanks for the art you bring to your work every day.

Seth

Seth, you’re still a hero. You create; you think; you share.

Seth says share so I’m sharing.

The question for me wasn’t whether to share or not, but how to share it.  So I asked my Twitter buds.

They gave me the answer, MuseCrossing aka Christine Lacombe. Christine is one of my earliest connections on Twitter. Cheering me on, keeping an eye and ear out for me, sharing her joys, including me on her struggles, Christine is a friend.

Borders don’t exist online except in our minds. People like her, Glenda Watson, Liz Strauss, and more, they don’t see us versus them. They pour their energy out to those around them without regard to profit or cost.

Thank you Christine. You are a Linchpin!

——————-

Christine is MuseCrossing on Twitter. She has a personal blog. Be warned; you will feel something when you visit.

——————-

You can buy Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?.

Google Existence, because life is too short for social interaction.

How does it work?

Live happily ever after. People want to know what’s going on in your life. But all you really want is to play World of Warcraft. Xsistence is what you need!

Just add water. After you’ve initially seeded Xsistence with your social network logins and some information about yourself, it lives your life for you. Tweets about your daily commute, Facebook status updates and pictures from that great party you were at, and more!

Keep up with yourself. Xsistence sends you regular status updates about all the things you supposedly did so you know what questions to expect when you actually have to talk to people outside your guild.

Gee where can I sign up?

That leaves an inescapable conclusion. Nobody has a million followers on Twitter. And being on the suggested user list doesn’t add value to a Twitter account, regardless of whether you’re a regular guy like me, or one of the biggest brands in the world.

So says Anil Dash on his blog post, Nobody Has A Million Twitter Followers.

Anil tackles the topic of whether a million followers translates to a million people who actually follow what you say and act upon it. He challenges that only a small percent are likely engaged.

Go read the article. He’s giving away $25 Amazon gift certificates for a suggestion on using the wealth of data he’s collected and for someone to program that solution.

Cheers,

Todd aka tojosan

Remember when you got your license and your parents took an ad out in the paper?

Warning, Todd Jordan got his license today. Keep an eye out.

That’s fairly close to what my parents had listed in the local paper anyway. Well this is payback time.  My mother is going online!

Charter is running an Internet connection out to her house this week. I’ll be delivering her first computer within the week as well and making it ready for her burst into the Internet scene.

Consider this fair warning.  There’ll be another person out there who hasn’t heard of Twitter, won’t understand Facebook and who will be dodging spammers and Nigerian scams with nay a bit of experience.

You’ve been warned. Keep your eyes open and shore up your net bumpers. Together we might make it through the upcoming year.  At the end, hopefully I’ll be writing the blog post, “2010: The Year Mom Conquered The Internet.”

Find me on Twitter. Find me on Facebook.

This is one of the new messages you’ll see when you visit a friend’s restaurant. There are a variety of calls for help as well.

Here’s the leak.

So there you go, you’ve got a leak to fix. It’s a no brainer though as you simply click on any of the leak spouts in the restaurant.  A click activates a small timer over the top of the leak or other issue. Once the countdown is done, away it goes.

You’ll receive a message box like the one above.  Your friend rewards you with either 5 or 10 coins. This doesn’t replace clean up coins you earn for picking up pizza slices and discarded soda cans. It’s an additional way to get some coins.

The nicest thing about this feature? It’s redeemable in all of your friends’ restaurants.  I was able to claim over 100 coins today in this feature alone. Not a windfall but it pays for those cups of water.

My personal favorite is the penguins.

Yeah, cute little guy. Apparently he’s equally annoying to leaks, a sleeping bear, giant mushrooms, and skunks. Honestly PlayFish, picking on penguins.

This is a fun feature addition to a pleasing casual game.  PlayFish continues to add nice little features.  Upcoming are new themes as well.

You can find Restaurant City on Facebook.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Top 10 Games You Can Play on Facebook (mashable.com)

Seesmic sent the insiders and email today announcing the addition of Twitter Lists to the Seesmic client. The image above is an example of how the lists would be selected.  There are a few other screen shots and some explanations on the Seesmic Help Desk.

Seesmic is the first to add Lists to their client. Loic and his team continue to shine both in making a solid Twitter client but in keeping it cutting edge.

This might have me pitting Tweetdeck against Seesmic once again.

What’s your client? Are you using Lists? Will this be a game changer?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Seesmic Desktop Adds Support for Twitter Lists (mashable.com)

Twitter gives us a new toy today, the List Widget. Shown above is the first widget I’ve put together. If you scroll down on the blog you’ll see it in action.

List widgets let you select the user first, then you can select from the user’s public lists. Customize the list widget appearance by choosing colors, size and even title and caption. The widget size can be auto-adjusting or a set size. Color choices allow you to select the hex code or eyeball it using your mouse.

A National Novel Writing Month widget is my example. I built a list, still growing of course, of Twitter users doing nanowrimo. The list is by no means near 500 yet, but it’s enough that there should be a fair amount of tweets coming in. I chose to have it poll, and display only 30 tweets. Those settings are adjustable as well.

Twitter included the option to copy and paste the HTML as well as a Blogger specific option.  No Facebook or MySpace option was available; you can however use the HTML for MySpace.

I agree with TechCrunch, these will be your chance to curate your lists.

What will you do with the Lists Widget?

Seth Godin rocks the blog again with Opt in and opt out. He’s talking of course about how opt in or out should trend in favor of the consumer, be it their safety, well being or finances.  Seth is focused of course on examples like your 401 K, opt in. Why right? Or business choices that are often opt out, but would be better as opt ins.

Let’s look at an Internet example along Twitter lists is going to be a fun feature, but right now it’s not opt anything. If you’re added to a list, or add someone to a list, that’s just the way it is. This will be a problem.

Lists exploded onto the scene and people are frantically working to make their own. I’m already on 53 lists and it’s growing fast. There is no management screen. Listees not only can’t remove themselves, they can’t see at a glance which lists they are on.

No opt-in, no opt-out and no way to easily manage; Lists are going to experience back lash if these options don’t show soon.

Where do you stand? Should lists be opt-in, opt-out, and perhaps even opt-in/out at the list level?

Please take time to click through and read Seth Godin’s inspiring post.

My friend Liz wrote a great post on Twitter Lists 101 Etiquette.

Realtors use Twitter. Shocked? You shouldn’t be.  Real Estate Agents are voracious consumers of new communications technology. Proving that out, several agents turned out for Twitter training given by Karen Goodman (Arch City Homes blogger and premier realtor), and me. The class was offered by Keller Williams Realty.

Agents were aware of Twitter and it being a social network.  A few of the real estate agents were already members, as well as being Facebook members. Universally though, they were using only the basic web sites and none was using Twitter on a regular basis.

Training took Twitter from the ‘what is it’ level up to installing Tweetdeck on personal computers.  The questions focused primarily on privacy and distribution. People were worried about being spammed and spamming others.

Here’s a few of the questions and how Karen and I chose to answer them.

• If someone starts following me do I start seeing their posts?
  • No.  It does mean they’ll begin seeing of your Twitter messages
• Do my Twitter messages also post on Facebook and LinkedIn?
  • Not automatically. There are add-ons and tools that allow cross-posting; those are all optional and can be controlled.
• Someone I’m following starts spamming, talking about porn, etc. What can I do?
  • Unfollow them. Visit their Twitter profile page and unfollow them.
  • They don’t stop copying you? Visit their Twitter profile page and block them.
• How do I find people I know?
  • Using Find People on the Twitter home page.
  • Email or call that person. Most reliable choice. Avoid’s picking someone else with the same name.
  • Check that person’s web site for Twitter and other social network information.
• How do avoid being sucked into too much Twitter use?
  • Time control – only open Twitter at regularly scheduled times. Much like you’d handle email inbox review.
  • Browsing control – unless you have plenty of time, only check your replies and direct messages.

These may seem like basics to many of you, but these are questions anyone in business should be asking.  Approaching Twitter and other social networks with a plan, even if it’s a ‘don’t do this’ plan is better than winging it as a business user.

We also discussed what’s appropriate in terms of content.  Realtors online seem to line up on two sides; those that broadcast listings, and those that never talk shop.  Karen explained how becoming a local area expert is more valuable than spewing out listings.  Expertise shared equates to trust building and from there to clients.

Attendees were quite involved, asking good questions, and wanting to understand how Twitter connects, and how it could be used. A great follow up class would be on mixing up social networking to find what works best for each individual.

If you’d like to have a Twitter class at your work, please contact me – todd at toddrjordan.com, @tojosan on Twitter, or by phone (636) 486-4723.

Realtor shout out to attendees from Keller Williams Realty:

@patislay

@jbbutler03

@karenprinster

@Nancygkw