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.

First up is the American Red Cross St. Louis Chapter. This blog is not only a multi-author blog, but allows anyone to submit an article. A recent article covers the Red Cross Earthquake Preparedness and Response guidelines. The blog is updated frequently and is content heavy. Check them out.

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.

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Danyelle of The Cubicle Chick hosted another great social networking event. Jilly’s Cupcake Bar & Cafe provided the perfect place for A Sweet Affair.

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.

The Cubicle Chick’s A Sweet Affair

Jilly’s Cupcake Bar & Cafe

Glamazini #159: The Cubicle Chick’s St. Louis Tweet Up!

Don’t compromise yourself. You’re all you’ve got.

from Janis Joplin.

Rebecca Rene is another Twitter friend local to St. Louis metro.  She says about herself:

Communicator. Food Enthusiast. Fitness Hack. Grad Student. Coffee Drinker. Discerning Observer. Word Nerd. Smart Ass. Amused by shiny things and the word DUTY.

Meeting her in person is a must. Energetic, smart and loves to get involved.  Had the pleasure a few times already and twice recently. I recommend Rebecca_Rene as a great follow.

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!

Visit The Basement Entrepreneur today and see what an up and coming success looks like.

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Tango - man and woman with art behind

“I think people ARE an art form – like art we love them, not because we understand them, but because of how we feel in their presence.”

by Dixie Dynamite.

Dixie Gillaspie is a local St. Louis tweep. She’s all about helping you succeed. Beyond Twitter, she can be found at Energy Synergy Harmony.

Dixie is always encouraging online as well as off. Making connections, she attends and plans local St. Louis events as well as online events.

She’s got my recommendation as a must follow.

The event that’s kickstarted companies across the US comes to St. Louis. St. Louis Startup Weekend begins March 26th, 2010, 5:30 PM.

So what is a Startup Weekend? Ripping right from the About page:

Startup Weekend recruits a highly motivated group of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more to a 54 hour event that builds communities, companies and projects.

Founded in 2007 by Andrew Hyde, the weekend is a concept of a conference focusing on learning by creating. It is known for its quick decisions, ‘out of the box’ thinking (oh no, the buzzwords are attacking!), unique facilitation technique and letting the founders show what they can do. The program has already met with success in Boulder, Toronto, New York, Hamburg, Houston, West Lafayette, Boston, DC and more.

The participants that attend a Startup Weekend decide what they want to tackle over the weekend and come out at the end with several developed companies or projects. Attendees are responsible for bringing the same desire and passion to the project and walk out of the room with the task at hand, in a short 54 hours. Sound intense? It is.

Each weekend event is like a melting pot, bringing together all sorts of talent and resources. Several companies have received venture capital funding at startup weekends.

So what role will you play at the weekend? A variety exists, and you can fill one or many. A full list of those, along with a lot of first timer questions are answered.

There’s a ton of information on the St. Louis Startup Weekend site. I recommend getting registered and your ticket picked. Of course they recommend  bringing some things, but the biggest is enthusiasm.

Note: One of the local organizers is Joshua Jeffryes. Joshua’s blog.

One of my favorite Twitter buds, and local to St. Louis, @KBestOliver, is now the Novice Foodie for the Riverfront Times. In her new role, she’ll be blogging about her food experiences. As the title implies, she’s bringing a fresh face and open mind, not to say mouth, to food reporting.

Her latest article, The Novice Foodie Experiences the St. Louis Food & Wine Experience, should have been titled, Novice Foodie versus St. Louis Food & Wine Experience. Kelli shares her honest surprise that the wine side of the event was more focused on than the food.  Not to say she didn’t eat anything. Far from it, but to note she doesn’t mention one special or unique dish served.

The funniest part for me was her mentioning about spitting. If you’re in the know about wine tasting, spitting is what keeps you mostly sober. Gary Vaynerchuk made spitting and wine spittoons something ordinary folks talk about. Apparently Kelli missed the etiquette lessons. This made for discomfort on her part and laughter on ours.

I encourage you to show your support for Kelli’s food blogging adventures by reading her latest article and leaving a comment.

What is it? – A group of people (the “competitors”) will cook Ribs (pork), Pork Butt (pulled pork), and Brisket (beef) through the night and early morning hours of the event. The competitors can cook any or all of those items. Given that the competitors will be individuals and not competition teams it’s unlikely many will attempt to do all due to space restrictions. So if you’re only good at one of those things then by all means sign up. They will necessarily consume large amounts of alcohol in the process and have been given advance reprieves for any untoward behavior they may exhibit. Another group of people (the ‘consumers’..get it) will then arrive without having done any work whatsoever and partake in all of the goodness that is BBQ. We’ll follow KCBS rules for the most part.

Sounds yummy! But when is it?

We are currently looking at the “spring break” period (generally in mid March). As weather is always a factor in the St. Louis region at that time of the year (short sleeves, Down jacket, or rain slicker?) we’ll firm this date up as it approaches and ideally have a backup date.

Well how can I keep up with the plans or volunteer?

First Annual BBQ Competition Tweetup #STL

They are still looking for venues, possible sponsors, fundraising ideas, brains, and hands to help.  Please follow the link above and let them know how you’ll pitch in.

Feraro’s Pizza is looking for topping ideas with clever names. Feraro’s already has such favorites as The Boss, The Garden State, and Old Blue Eyes.

Feraro’s Pizza is New Jersey style pizza brought to St. Louis. Soulard is home to the original and they’ve recently opened a second store in South County.

So onto the contest.  Straight from @FerarosPizza on Twitter:

I want toppings and clever names that fit with my scheme. I am deciding it so pretty cut and dry.

Entering couldn’t be easier. Just add @FerarosPizza as a contact on Twitter; tell him you want to enter the contest; he’ll follow you back and you DM your idea.

He’s quick to follow back. So what do you win? The winner gets $100 gift certificate. A great deal if you’re local to St. Louis.

Joe is good people and he has made a great impression with diners. He’s hosted Tweetups, come out to play at events, and been a friendly Twitter citizen.

Follow @FerarosPizza today.

Addicted to check your blog stats? I am. Stats on Wordpress don’t just tell you how many hits you’ve gotten but where they come from. Recently there have been some hits from a source I didn’t recognize, Outside.in.

Tracking back to the Outside.in site, it was plain that The Broad Brush blog was being aggregated there, along with others from St. Louis. Checking the FAQ revealed that bloggers opt in. I’d never opted in The Broad Brush blog.

The site did provide an easy to locate link for contacting them. I requested to have the blog removed. Outside.in representative, Esther, has already gotten back to me. Let’s see what she says.

Hi Todd,

We automatically scan RSS feeds of great local bloggers and show only the headline and first 200 words of the story – with the intent of driving traffic to the blogger. We’ve sent you 27
visits since the beginning of November from the Outside.in core site and our Neighborhood News page on STLToday:

http://www.stltoday.com/neighborhoodnews

We’re working on removing your feed from our system now, and once it’s removed, we and STLToday will no longer be sending you traffic. I’ll let you know when your stories and links are down.

If you change your mind and decide you’d like to continue receiving traffic from us and STLToday, please let me know.

All the best,
Esther

The tone, to me, is very off-putting. It sounds like they were doing the blog a favor by including it in the automatic aggregation. There is something more irksome to me though, the part about STLToday.

STLToday is the St. Louis Post Dispatch online version. In recent years the Post has tried several channels to aggregate St. Louis blogs into the STLToday site as content.  This is an effort to steal the search engine juice from the blog posts and avoid spending time and money creating content. Several St. Louis bloggers argued against this practice, including me. It seems they’ve found another way to do it.

Interestingly, Outside.in, makes no mention on their site about affiliation with STLToday.

Rant off for now. Cheers and heads up out there.