I'm back!!

Dear blog,
I think I'm back!! i have so much to talk about finally!!  At this very moment I'm "modge podging" if that's a real word. I got some inspiration form an awesome blog called "Modge Podge Rocks" it's an awesome blog to check out very crafty and fun!! She posted a project from another blog that i also love and gave me the idea called " Not So Idle Hands ". Check both of them out for some awesome inspiration. back in halloween for a rockin gift for my mom, it's Halloween and Christmas themed, her ( and my) favorite holidays! I don't want to put up any pictures of my awesome gifts till they are done.

On another note, i;m making my room mates and friends recycled gifts!! (No that doesn't mean re-gifting)'m really pumped about this one. My family and I went to Findlay today to eat dinner with some friends at olive garden then to go see AVATAR afterwards. Wile I was walking to the bathroom at "O.G." I saw all of these wine bottles and had a genius plan ( well I think it's good at least)  I successfully got OG to give me 5 wine bottles and I'm making them into lights!! woot woot!! It's either going to be amazing... or a total disaster. I'm going to be going to other restaurants tomorrow to see what I can get from them, tis the season to be drinking wine... that's how the saying goes right?  I'll put my pictures of my masterpieces up in a wile. Is anyone else recycling things to give to their friends and family this year? let me know what you are up to!!  I've got to go because my cat is slowly destroying all of the tissue paper I'm using for my gifts.

This is John "Buzz" McClaine he's  celebrating christmas by making it snow tissue-paper in my room, what a good kitty;)

Cheers,

JoJo

So about that meteor shower...

As many people know there was a metior shower last night. It was supposedly amazing and the biggest one of our lifetimes... I didn't see it. I was outside at 3:30, I was looking at the sky, I had my glasses on, I got as far away from the city lights as I could... nothing, not even a fast moving plane. I was so upset about this when I finally went to bed.  Then I come to class today and one of my classmates says " Wasn't the meteor shower awesome last night"... I give up... I just give up.

Frackin frack frack... that's just how I feel right now

Cheers,

JoJo

I'm Following You

For class we were required to follow two organizations on twitter and report on how effectively they use twitter. I followed  Women's Wear Daily , a fashion magazine, and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids.  
Both used it in different ways. Women's Wear Daily Updated extremely often, probably once every hour. They always tweeted things fashion related  but mostly included links to articles on the magazines cite. I thought they updated too often for my liking, it cluttered up my twitter feed and I wasn't interested in a third of the tweets. Regardless I did look at their cit numerous times so I think they way they used twitter was effective because  people who don't have something like twitterriffic will still see tweets from them when they randomly check twitter. 
Broadway cares is a very wonderful organization but they still have some work to do with twitter. It all boils down to the fact that they don't update often enough or they clump all of their tweets within a couple hours of time . Though when they do update it is meaningful and not updating for the sake of updating. Unfortunately their tweets get lost in the shuffle.  Most recently they have been tweeting about the Bernadette Peters charity concert. One thing that they do that i think is WONDERFUL is that anytime someone twitters about them, they respond and say thank you for there support. A couple weeks ago I tweeted something about ONU raising money for the organization and they responded within 20 min of me tweeting it and it seemed like they actually had listened to my pod-cast about them. That made me feel really good about supporting them because they were thankful for my support and my efforts will not go un-noticed. 


Twitter is so cool... and it's an amazing way to get your organization noticed if you do it right.



Cheers, 


JoJo

Make a List and Check it Twice

"Cool something new from twitter, Lists!! This should be cool... um what is this... I don't have time for this and I don't understand how this is useful." This was my though process when twitter lists came out. So I decided I need to figure out what this list thing is and why on earth I, or anyone else should  use the lists. I turned to Mashable.com because they cover social media so well.
Why use lists?
It's basically a way to organize all of the people you are following. For instance say you want a laugh, you can make a list for all the funny Tweeps you follow and then you can look at all the funny Tweeps at once when you want to.

Another function is to recommend Tweeps for people to follow and vice versa. This opens up the twitter-sphere and will hopefully help people find better people to follow.

When you follow a list you are not following everyone on the list, this keeps your twitter feed less cluttered .

So how do you make a list?

1. Log on to twitter.
2. Click the "New List" link below the search bar.
3. Name list, make it private or public, click create list.
4. start adding people to your list.

Happy list making everyone, check out the Mashable article about lists,

Cheers,

JoJo

Zombies vs. Humans

Just in case anyone was wondering, the humans survived the zombie apocalypse at ONU. It was really intense but they found a way to survive.
Over the last week a group of students at ONU played Humans Vs. Zombies (HvZ). The game is essentially a intense version of Nerf gun tag wear if you get tagged you are a zombie and humans fend off the zombies with Nerf guns. If there are any humans left by the end of the last day of the game then the humans win, if the zombies infect all the humans the zombies win.
I was curious about the game so I looked it up on google and found out that it gained popularity all over the world because of SOCIAL MEDIA!!! That's right folks when the first game  of HvZ was played in 2005 at Goucher College students posted pictures on flicker and put videos on YouTube and the popularity of the game exploded. Groucher College requires all of it's student to study abroad so the game spread globally because of that. 
it seems kind of silly, 20 year olds running around with Nerf guns pretending to be part of a zombie apocalypse...Okay, maybe very silly... but at the very least it keeps college students out of trouble and gives them something to do, especially on a small campus. 
For more information about the game check out the cite , if you want to play keep your eyes and ears open for the next game in the spring. 

Cheers, 


JoJo

Something viral is going around.

Here is my viral video for the ONU chapter of PRSSA.
Check it out!!
(links below)



ONU PRSSA 

TWITTER 

Cheers,

JoJo

This is Halloween!!

I love Halloween almost as much as Christmas. When I was young my mom would make my costumes for my brother and I. I was a bunny one year, bell form beauty and the beast and jasmine from Aladdin, those are the three I can think of off the top of my head right now.

My family is the real reason why I love Halloween. Every year we set up the great pumpkin.  My grandfather started this tradition and my father has carried the tradition on.  Essentially we build a scarecrow in our front yard with a pumpkin for a head. Then we put a baby monitor in it’s chest and a speaker as well. When the little kids walk up to our door my dad will say hi to them through the speaker in the great pumpkins chest and when they say something back to him he can hear through the baby monitor. It’s one of the best traditions ever. My favorite memory of the great pumpkin was a few years ago a little girl was dressed up as a witch, the great pumpkin said “ well aren’t you a cute little witch” and the girl continued toward our front door and got her candy, wile she was walking away we hared her say to he mother “ he called me a witch” she sounded offended, it was extremely cute.

Another reason why this Halloween was awesome; we ate four bags of candy yesterday...yumm...

Me and my friend way back when

This was a wonderful Halloween; I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did!

Cheers,

JoJo

My Relationship with Social Media and Men

Yesterday my roommate and I began to reminisce about our past relationships. More than once we both used this phrase “ it wasn’t FaceBook official or anything.” During this conversation it was eye opening to think about how much social media is involved in many of my relationships romantic and non romantic.

When I was interested in my now boyfriend we would talk in person a lot but we would also communicate through FaceBook and AIM. Social media was part of the courtship process in our relationship. Before we started dating I was in a joke relationship with one of my guy friends, we were “married” on face book. So when my boyfriend and I stated dating I didn’t change my status and he changed his to in a relationship. Then one day a friend of mine ran up to me and said “ why did you and your boyfriend break up?”  Utterly confused I asked her to explain why she thought we had broken up, Her response “ because his FaceBook status says single” Needless to say this ended in a small fight about how he couldn’t just broadcast to the world that he was single if we were dating. It’s really silly to think about but it did mean something to me and other people what his status was.

I have a relationship with one friend from when I lived in Canada that is completely dependent on Instant Messaging, FaceBook and e-mail. He was one of my bet friends growing up and we lost contact after I moved to Ohio. At least 11 years later we reconnected via face book and Instant Messaging. If it were not for these social media outlets the two of us would not be friends. We have been able to visit and keep a friendship afloat through this communication even though the two of us live in different countries.

I’m beating a dead horse but social media has changed the way we relate to each other and has changed how we define those relationships. After all if we are not friends on FaceBook…how good can our friendship really be?

Cheers,

JoJo

Catch the virus

Wile I was reading  chapter 10 of Paul Gillin’s book “The New Influencers” Got me reminiscing. I remember being totally obsessed with Numa Numa.  My friends and I learned the song and would dance around at school, our houses  and in public. I can still sing most of the words to the song even though I don’t know what they mean. And then it hit me…we didn’t even have YouTube till 2005… I survived the majority of my high school career without YouTube. How did manage that? At this very minute I am watching "Cage The Elephant" songs on YouTube wile I am writing this post.  I probably got a lot more done back then but I’m still very happy to have it now.  

Cheers,

JoJo

PSP: Performing Shakespeare in Public

This week I did something that was more nerve racking than anything I have ever did before. I performed a sonnet and a monologue with the rest of my class in the lobby in front of the Macintosh cafeteria. That’s right on Friday 23, 2009 we shared the bards words with passers by. In the end it was extremely fun and there are going to be more public displays of theatre through out the rest of the year  as part of the new ONU Theatre Company ,and this  public performance was a good way to kick it off. I performed sonnet 10 and a Desdemona monologue from Othello.  Look for our story in the Northern Review and on Cable3.

The Players

Cheers,

JoJo

Social Media is Creepy!

Just in time for Halloween social media finds a way to freak me out. I will start with Facebook. A wile ago my friends and I began to notice that the ads on Facebook seemed applicable to our interests. Then we noticed the tie between our interests that we had listed on our profile pages and the ads popping up.

These are some screen shots of what I’m talking about.

My Interests

The ads I get because of my interests

Since I have certain things listed, like U2 being a band that I like I get ads on Facebook about U2, scrap booking, film making, the list goes on and on. And that’s ok with me. I volunteered that information and I’m sure that there is something in the terms of service that I agreed to that say they can do that. What really freaked me out was this.

It may not seem like much but it did me in. How does YouTube know that I know this person. I’ve deduced that we are both subscribed to a couple of the same YouTube channels of friends from school. Still it is very big brother of YouTube to know who I know… they already know what I watch often and that freaks me out a bit too. What do you think folks, have we given the social networks too much information about ourselves or not.

That’s so last year

This week when I was doing my reading for class I all of a sudden felt like a huge snob. I thought to my self “this book was published in 2007, it’s not accurate anymore, how am I suppose to read this and take it seriously when the information will be even more different next year and then the next year.” In true millennial form I also wondered why there wasn’t a newer version of the book out yet because I want it now! After I had my moment of millennial craziness I calmed down and then got freaked out all over again. How is anything I learn going to help me in life if it’s changing so much, I’ll be 24 and younger kids won’t think I’m cool because I don’t know how to most effectively use my Blackberry… or even worse that I’m so old I have a blackberry  which is so old fashioned to them… is there anyway to win when the world of technology is moving so quickly? Then I heard @alisaagozzino ‘s voice in my head “ it’s all about building the relationships.” We hear this a lot in our social media class.  Even though I won’t be able to keep up with the youngins and their newfangled technologies as long as I keep to the basics everything should be fine.

Cheers,

JoJo 

The State of Our Universe...Kinda

 "The State of the Blgosphere 2009" on Technorati is wort reading. Just like the blogosphere there is an abundance of information in this series. So I picked one article to write about today.
the article Day 1: Who Are The Bloggers? SOTB 2009 talks about.. you guessed it who is blogging. Something that surprised me was that half of bloggers have a graduate degree and the majority of bloggers earn  $75,000 per year as a household. 


Go check out some of the Articles, it's definitely worth your time.


And just if you were wondering Richard Jalichandra says "The state of the blogosphere is strong." 


Cheers


JoJo   

Podcasting!!

Podcasting is crazy!  It's a very cool idea and in theory it's easy. In practice though? If you don't know exactly what you are doing, stop, go find someone who does and then make a podcast.
This is the result of my first attempt. If you would like to download it to your computer click here . IF you want to find it on itunes... well I'm still working on that one.
Here is my podcast that I uploaded to YouTube so it's easy to watch.


Cheers,

JoJo

Podcast

This is a podcast about what Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS  is and how you can help support ONU Theater Company's campaign against AIDS.

Click here  to watch

The Great Lakes Theatre Festival

This weekend my Shakespeare acting class went to the Great Lakes Theatre Festival to see “Twelfth Night” and “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” .

After the production of  “Twelfth Night” we had the opportunity to talk with some of the actors and ask them advice about pursuing a career in theatre. They were more than willing to give us more than their two cents.  By the time we left that night I think we had roughly $10 worth of two cents, all of it helpful.

The biggest question I had for them was what advice they had for applying for grad school since that’s what I am interested in doing after I graduate. They gave me a lot of good advice about how to find what I wanted in a school and what to do when I auditioned. The two things that resonated with me were that when I go in for my audition I am auditioning the school as well, I can’t just go into the audition hoping they will love me and that’s it, I need to make sure that I like what they have to offer and how they work. The second thing was that the audition isn’t about being the best actor at the audition, more importantly it’s about who I am in the audition room before I even start acting. If I seem like a confident interesting person that interests them first and then when I show them that I can act it makes a much better impression on them. In the end what should happen will happen it’s just a matter of taking the cards I have been dealt and playing the heck out of them.

The actors who spoke to us were extremely kind and helpful. The shows were wonderful and I can’t wait to return. 

Cheers,

JoJo

Here Social Media Comes to Save the Day!

Small business is the place to be right now, I’m convinced. Even though the economy is bad,  small businesses have an incredible tool in social media, namely blogs and podcasts.  In  “The New Influencers” Paul Gillian makes a compelling argument in, chapter 6, for why “Small is Beautiful”.

Though the idea of “bigger is better” is still a popular concept, everything around us is becoming smaller and more efficient. Phones can now fit in your pocket, blogging it’s self has become micro in the form of Twitter, and to top it all of ,the smart car exists.  While life continues to get physically smaller, the opportunities to make new connections continue to get bigger.

Small business can now grow quickly at a relatively small cost basically for free by using tools like Podcasts,  Facebook, blogs and Twitter.

Two of my favorite examples from this chapter are EnglishCut.com and A Painting a Day .

EnglishCut.com is a blog started by Thomas Mahon, a tailor from London.  Mahon started the blog in an effort to make people understand the importance of a well-tailored suit. He started posting when he would be in different towns to sell suits and his business tripled in six months.  All Mahon did was have a good idea, stayed faithful to it and now his business is booming. Even a 30 min documentary about his business has been because of his success.

A Painting a Day  by Duane Keiser is almost self explanatory. Keiser paints a painting a day and posts them to his blog, making the art available for people to purchase them. He started selling his work for $100 a piece, but eventually started taking bids on e-bay to sell the paintings.  He began to receive $400 to $800 dollars for his work, and never gave a cent to an art gallery where he would have paid  a commission of 50%  to sell his art.

I have said it before, other people have too and we will all say it again, SOCIAL MEDIA IS HERE TO STAY! These are two wonderful reasons why it will never go away.

Cheers,

JoJo

Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS

Of all the things I’m involved in I am extremely excited and proud to be in the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Concert at ONU .

Never heard of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA)? Let me inform you.  In 1992 the separate fundraising organizations combined to create BC/EFA in an endeavor to more effectively support The Actors' Fund and twice a year award grants to AIDS service organizations nationwide.

What makes this organization different than most organizations like it?  Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS must raise every single dollar of their philanthropic budget, every year, in order to fulfill their mission.  In addition to that BC/EFA has two emphases when it comes to grant making. The first grant making project is for The Actor’s Fund of America, which provides direct assistance to performing artists and industry professionals with AIDS, HIV, HIV-related illness, and a variety of other problems.  The second grant making effort is for the National Grants Program , through this organization BC/EFA makes grants available to hundreds of community-based AIDS service organizations through out America.

This is such a wonderful organization that means a grate deal to myself and many other actors because of how the AIDS virus has affected our friends in entertainment industry.  Not only is it a cause i believe in but "BC/EFA is one of the nation’s largest HIV/AIDS-related foundations, granting approximately $6 million annually and over $92 million dollars since 1987."  I am proud to be involved and can’t wait to start raising money for a cause that is so important in our day and age. 

If you are reading this I hope you can help us out, just leave a comment to ask what you can do. Keep checking back for updates about the show and how much we are making to support this cause. 

Cheers,

JoJo

Happy Birthday Complements of Social Media

Many times people talk about how social media is a waste of time, won’t last, the list goes on and on. For instance I was working in the computer lab and over heard a video conference call to a client in florida. The gentleman on the call made the comment that Twitter wasn't going to last and not many people use it in his aria. So I decided to do some research. I went to Twitter search and looked up tweets made with in 100 miles of the Florida Keys and after 60 second there had been over 300 tweets. Needless to say Twitter is just a small part of social media but it communicates quickly to many people.

These are two examples of how cool social media is and how it's anything but a waste of time.

I personally love this commercial from AT&T below. The commercial is a prime example of how social media allows people to communicate quickly, and effectively to a large group of people.

This week my brother turned 18! My baby brother is officially an adult. My parents went to visit him in Cleveland wearer he goes to school. The plan was for me to go with them to celebrate his birthday but I was unable to because rehearsal for the christmas show, a.k.a Holiday.Needless to say I was bummed out about this. I could call him but I wanted to do something cool for him because I couldn’t be there. Before I went to Holiday practice for the night I have a stroke of genius.

YouTube was the answer to my dilemma. This is what I sent to him after practice that night. He loved what I sent him, he called the video "epic".

What's the coolest thing you have ever used social media for?


Cheers,
JoJo

It's Starting to Feel a lot Like Halloween and Christmas Everywhere I Go

On my way to my voice lesson I saw this.

Apparently one of my professors got mad at their neighbor and rushed through the hiding process;)

This is what I love about this time of the year, when Halloween is around the corner, Seeing fake arms and legs hanging out of a teachers car isn't strange it's normal!

And in honor of the beginning of October I will be singing Christmas songs all night! that's right ladies and gentleman it's christmas time, at least in the Freed Center. So wile the rest of you are dreaming about candy corn, I'll have sugar plum fairies dancing with scarecrows in my dreams.

At least they are my favorite holidays, might as well combine them!

Cheers,

JoJo

Games Games and More Games

Today was the final performance of Games at O.N.U. What does that mean? 24 houres of freedom!! tomorrow is the first meating for "Holiday Spectaulr" but in the mean time I am free from responsibility (besides writing this blog and cleaning the disaster that is my room.)


Before I was oficially free tonight I participated in strike after the dance show. I have never been involved in a strike at O.N.U. and I must admit that I was anxious about how it would work. I don't know anything about lighting, or sound in the theatre. On top of my lack of knowledge in this field i'm a cluts, what happens if I break an important/ expencive piece of equitment?  I must admit I was dreading the experiance all together.


Once strike began, I started looking around at al the commotion and i realized something. If the cast of the dance show was not helping there would only be about six people taking down and putting away over 60 lights, reweighting things, cleaning the dressing rooms taking apart the set and countless other jobs. As I looked around I thought about the one percenters. I had been trying to figure out how to incorperate the idea of the one percenters in my blog for a couppl days and then it just hit me.


Techies ar not the fellons in motercycle clubs, nor are they the one percent that contributes the most to social media but they are the perfect example of wht it means to be a one percenter.




According to Citizen Marketers " what they [the one percenters] do is well beyond the norm, but with innate talent and a lot of passion, citizen marketers are building conciderable audiances." ( page34 of citezen marketers) This quote applies  to thoes people dressed in black running around back stage during  a show. Without this small group of people, there would be no show. As performers, we need them. We may get the gory while they clean up but without them noting would work. To quote our director " thou shal not tick off the thechies or thou shal dance in the dark to the wrong music." 


Without the one percenters who supply us with the bulk of the internet, we too would be in the dark, social media wouldn't exist the way it does now,Wikipedia would say that George Washington was the first president and owned a t-rex breeding farm. 

We may take advantage of the hard work they put in, but we are grateful for it. 

The 1% badge ( FTW: For The Win?)

Cheers

JoJo

Social Media Plus Mom and Dad

Wile doing homework in the living room with my roommate last night, she all of a sudden exclaims “ that’s so weird”. Curious, I asked her what was up. Her father had just sent her a Facebook message… bum bum bum!  If you haven’t experienced this, the first time a parent sends  a Facebook message, writes on your wall or comments on a picture it’s a little bit like being contacted by aliens, or like if you came home and your cat was talking on the phone and making you dinner, it’s just a little strange.

The fact that he father contacted her on Facebook was funny in its own right but the content of his message got us talking. The message he sent was about some papers he needed for something official. She made the comment that the content wasn’t really Facebook appropriate. 

After a little discussion this is what we decided:

*Facebook is for chit chat and the less important messages in our lives.

*E-mail is for more official information like meeting dates, or getting official paperwork from your daughter.

For instance I’m not going to e-mail my friend and tell her that I saw her across the tundra today and her coat was super cute. That doesn’t deserve an e-mail. But I will e-mail her to tell her and other people that our meeting will be Friday at 8:00 and to let me know if they can’t come for some reason. That is e-mail worthy.

We also realized that we don’t communicate between social medias much. For instance if a friend sends me a tweet about this cool new band, I will not e-mail that friend back and say “ wow they rock, thanks for sharing the song with me.”

But our parents don’t really understand or subscribe to the norm of how we generally communicate via social networking. In the mean time we might as well roll with the punches and send an e-mail about their tweet about the Facebook message they send us.

Cheers,

JoJo

Trust Me

If you are a person who has problems with trust then you probably have a problem reading and trusting blogs. Especially since the accredited New York Times claims that this guy  was the first blogger.  It's very easy to ignore and discredit a blog.
So how do I make you trust me when so many people are blogging, not everyone can know what they are talking about, right?
" You can trust me" are famous last words but I'm going to tell you why and when you an trust me.
When can you trust me?
When I'm talking about social media you can trust me.
Why?
I'm taking a social media class! That should make me an expert right?  Not really but what I'm writing is being monitored and graded by a person who is an expert, so if I should ever lead you astray it will get corrected.  Also I try to include as many links as possible to back up and enhance the information I write about.

On top of all of this, you can trust me because this blog is my opinion. I don't claim to be an expert on anything except for my own thoughts. Blogging is like a healthy debate I have my opinion and you have your opinion

About that being organized thing...

So in my first post for this class I talked about my closet, how beautiful and organized it was and how it was a good step in the right direction... well the direction I was stepping in led me into a brick wall when it comes to how clean my room is right now... It's a Disaster! I would say " I don't know how this happened, I was off to such a good start!" but I know exactly why this happened... my major.

As you may or may not know I am a musical theatre major AND a public relations major.  I know that as a "PR  person" I should have this OCD side to my self that loves having things in nice little lines and color coordinated, and that side exist... but  every time my organized side invokes marshal law over my surroundings my messy, creative, musical theatre side stages yet another coup d'etat.

Right now my room has been over thrown and the organized side of my self is badly wounded but plotting to re-take it's rightful place as ruler... hopefully by this sunday when my supper organized mom comes to visit, because she is the leader of the revolution of my organization.

The Berenstain Bears and the Story of my life

Cheers,

JoJo

Playing GAMES with Donald McKayle

Over the last two weeks I have been so busy with the dance show that is October 3 at 8:00 and the 4^th at 2:00 at the Freed Center for the Performing Arts.  I am in a piece called “Games” by Donald McKayle  that was composed in 1951. "Games" is about the games that children play and how they treat each other. It is a extremely unique and moving piece.  In the same evenings there will be pieces by student choreographers that were created during the spring dance composition II class.

Having the opportunity to work with Donald McKayle has been wonderful!  Before auditions I had very little clue about who he was, but after researching him and working with him on “Games” I am so grateful for everything I have learned from him and his wonderful assistant Stephanie Powell. Not to be a braggart but he's kind of a big deal ;) He has worked with  so many people including Michale Jackson, Dianna Ross, Sammy Davis Jr., Martha Graham , Alvin Ailey ( founder of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre ), and the list goes on and on. He even won a Tony!

My Acting Three class had the opportunity to have a sit down talk with him over lunch at N.O.M and he shares so many stories and some really good advice with us during this time, these are some of the things that he talked to us about during that time.

He shared with us about how he began dancing. He started taking classes at the New Dance Group when a class cost 50 cents. When asked him how his mother felt about him dancing he answered “ dismayed” she tried to sway him from becoming a dancer by saying that he was too smart to be a dancer, when that didn’t work she tried to convince him that dancing was a short career and he would have nothing to do for the rest of his life. When she realized that he wasn’t going to change his mind she accepted it.. When he choreographed “Games” in 1951 his mother was at the front door selling tickets for him.

He really went for it tooth and nail when it came to dance. When he went to university he would take university classes all day then continue taking dance classes outside of school for the rest of the day, go to bed wake up the next morning and do it all again.

We asked him what he looked for in a performer when casting he said presence. He explained that presence is being real, not showy, and it’s about knowing yourself and making what you are doing yours. He emphasized that we need to be resilient, if you don’t get the part or someone doesn’t like you or what you do, deal with it and move on.  He really emphasized that never giving up is what will make you successful. He talked about keeping a journal about our lives and about things we see in life, because you can’t remember everything so you should write it down. These journals will become “ fodder for our imaginations” as he put it.

He had a plethora of stories that he told us and one of my favorites was his story about Debbie Allen (who is now a guest judge on So you Think You Can Dance). She was the understudy in “Rasin” and one day the main actress was sick so she performed for her that night. She did a wonderful job and after the show called all of her friends and told them to call the box office and ask when she would be on again because she was so wonderful.  The box office was flooded with calls and they put her in the show permanently. I thought it was such a wonderful example of  how important it is to be prepared for anything.

On my notes from our talk I have these bullet points written down from him …

Train yourself fully keep taking new class’s and getting new experiences,

everybody knows stuff  so learn from them.

Keep as much as you can

Stay true to yourself

You don’t need to run with the pack

Don’t doubt yourself, you can do it

Stay resilient, you won’t be in that funk forever

I learned so much from this man and enjoyed every minuet with him. Not only did he have excellent advice for  performers, his advice is helpful for anyone who wants to be successful.

The ONU cast of Games With Donald McKayle and Stephanie Powell

Cheers,

JoJo

Mashed Twitter

Today wile I was checking out the official Twitter blog , I looked at the right side of the computer screen and saw a list of links under the heading “ TWITTER IS DEL.ICIO.US” an article from Mashable’s website called "TWEET IDEAS:13 Things to Do on Twitter Besides Tweet.”  It sounded interesting enough and guess what…IT WAS! The article by Barb Dybwad   is worth checking out in it’s entirety but I thought I would share a couple that I found particularly Interesting and  a few I found myself.

File Social

File social is a mashup that allows you to  share files smaller than 50 MB with all of your followers or you can use FileTwt to send a file to one follower. I know this will come in handy the night's i'm asking @erob1 to help me edit a paper or my resume.( Thanks Evan)

twtBizCard

In PR many professionals are on twitter, now you can send them your card in an eco friendly way that is much harder to loose than a little piece of paper with twtBizCard .  Not to mention that it's unique so it will make a tech savvy impression.

Songza

I personaly like to share the music I like with people and Songza allows me to share some of that music with my followers on twitter and update my facebook with a link as well. Just type in a song and  listen to it and tweet it. It's basically an on line juke box.

Tweetmyjobs

This may be the most useful of all the mashups I have encountered. Tweetmyjobs allows you to find out what's going on in the job market and make connections through twitter.

Now for the two I found...

TwitterBar

I got very excited about this mash up. TwitterBar an add on to firefox that allows you to use your search bar to update twitter. It seems so convenient and won't pop up every 10 seconds and distract you from what ever you are doing.

BubbleTweet

              

Bubbletweet is an interesting idea. When someone visits your twitter page a bubble pops up and  plays a recording of you welcoming people to your page. It could make your twitter stand out and enhance your personal brand. This is a good example of the right way to use this mash up.

Let me know if you use any of these mashups and how you like them.

Cheers,

JoJo

To Coach, or not to Coach that is the Question

This is a little late to be talking about now because of how fast things move in the blogosphere but I think it’s interesting none the less.

Chris Brown and his blue bowtie. Have you heard about Chris Brown’s bowtie? (Twitter certainly has.) Do you know why people are talking about his bowtie? I was curious about what all the fuss was so I checked it out. Basically Chris Brown went on the Larry king show to apologies about abusing Rihanna.  The two biggest things that people were talking about after the interview were his clothing and how poorly he presented himself. He mentioned saying that he didn’t remember hitting Rihanna and a hailstorm of paradise and criticisms ensued.

That disaster aside I was thinking about the team of people he has working for him to help rehabilitate his image. Is this team really worth the money and time that he is putting into them?  My question is this, is it better for a celebrity to come out and say things that are not genuine but are politically correct or is better for them to have a heartfelt apology that hasn’t been coached by some crisis management professional?  As PR professionals where do we draw the line when trying to help someone in this situation, do we let them potentially say something stupid but heart felt or is a not genuine but tecnically appropriate  apology the better way to earn back the respect of the people?

I watched a interview on 60 min with Michal Vick and at the end of it the interviewer asked Michal if what he was saying was actually him of if it was “team Vick” speaking through him.

I think it is hard to tell these days but personally I would rather hear anything heartfelt as opposed to something coached. 

Welcome Back

I am so excited to be back at school, living in my new off campus apartment and to be living with my wonderful new room mates. The four girls I live with are so wonderful!

As part of “The Millennial Generation”  we are ALL very busy with work, meetings, homework, friends, you name it and it’s on our schedule. So far we have all been in the same place at the same time (awake) 3 times in the last week.  But when we are all together look out! The jokes and sarcasm are plenteous and the decibel level in the apartment can reach dangerous levels.  Rachel Zoe would “come undone” and “die” at how we are “shutting down” impressions of her…Tay? ( if that didn’t make sense than you are not a Rachel Zoe fan… and that’s ok.)

One of the highlights of my week is that my slightly OCD room mate ORGANIZED MY CLOSET!!  It was and I quote “fun” for her to do. Now my closet is GORGEOUS!!! It has been a really good start to what I know will be an amazing year! ( now if I could only get the rest of my room organized.)

This is a picture of my closet after the organization occurred, isn’t it beautiful?

This is very exciting for me because I'm not a very organized person so my closet never looks like this. It's very helpful and I'm going to keep it up all year. 

For those of you who want to start the year in an organized fashion you can use her system, hang each of these things together so you can locate them easily.

Tank tops

No Sleeve Shirts

T-Shirts that are worn often

Quarter length sleeve shirts

Long sleeve shirts

Cardigan type sweaters

Sweatshirts.

Hang your jeans together and put the t-shirts you don’t ware often in a drawer along with your P.J’s and exercise gear.

I hope everyone’s first week of ONU has been as wonderful as mine!!

Cheers,

JoJo

Twitter Me Trendy

I know people think Twitter is overrated, but Twitter and I are in love. Honestly I could live with out it, but I get such tasty little bits of information that make me happy inside and out that I choose not to.


For instance I am following Cyanatrendland, a twitter account linked with one of the best fashion/trend blogs I have ever experienced, Trend Land. I always check out what they are tweeting because most of the time I love what I see. Today my fashion heart skipped a beat when I saw these dresses. They are exactly the kind of thing I wish I could wear on a day to day basis. They are so beautifully and creatively constructed. They come out of an editorial called "Acid Reign" by Patrick Demarchelier.







This orange organza dress is by Christopher Kane, Painted crystal necklace, Tom Binns, shoes, John Galliano. This ensemble is so perfect for an editorial and it's still something that I would love to wear because A: orange looks awesome on me and B: it is so darn cute!! The flowyness of the dress paired with the circular details are an absolute dream!















This next dress is so fierce it's out of control. The color combination is spot on. The crystal/white detail gives it a classy rock star edge and the way it is gathered is absolutely incredible. Normally I'm not a big fan of the one random shoulder strap but I think it works half way for this dress.
Dress by Balmain, patent leather and crystal sandals by Christian Louboutin for Giles Silver and diamond bangles by all Hot Diamonds.


Go follow Cyanatrendland on twitter, check out Patrick Demarchelier's beautiful photography, and go grab a British VOGUE if you can, if not check out VOGUE.com UK.










Cheers,


JoJo