“New text message from: Mom”

I am a fan of texting. My friends and I text each other very often. More often than we talk on the phone, actually. It’s quick, simple, and to the point – exactly my style.

Now my mom has started texting, and for some reason I find this really strange. I’m perfectly okay with texting my friends or co-workers, but when I receive or send a text from/to my mom, it just feels weird! Maybe part of that is because she sends text in email form, and that she uses abbreviations that I don’t even use:

Lex-
Am excited 2 c u this wknd!
Love, Mom

…yeah. And then when I text her, I feel like I have to do the same in return (to “speak her language”), which feels unnatural for me. However, it is convenient for me to text my mom during the day because she often can’t answer her phone while at work. And sometimes I just need a quick answer to a simple question. So it does work, just feels odd.

My dad has yet to catch on to texting. He avoided getting a cell phone as long as possible, and refers to his wife’s Blackberry as her “fruit”.

Anyone with me? Do you text your parents? How do you feel about it?

A very brief rundown of BlogOrlando

It might seem a little odd that my first (personal) blog post would be after going to BlogOrlando, but I’m trying to get back into the groove. I had a blog several years go, but I finally realized no one was reading it! Hopefully this one will last a bit longer.

The opening and closing keynotes (by Jake McKee and Erik Hersman) were amazing, but here’s a quick recap of some interesting things I learned at BlogOrlando:

Shiny New Objects:
Frank Gruber started off our morning with a great session on some new social media sites and apps that have caught his attention. Audience members chimed in with additional reviews and other apps. Here are my faves from the presentation:

• RememberTheMilk – todo list organizer
• MyDropCard – virtual business card through text
• Addict-o-matic – custom news feed aggregator, by topic
• Shazam (iPhone) – recognizes and gives info about songs played into the phone
• UrbanSpoon (iPhone) – easy access to local restaurants with reviews

Professionalism 2.0:
Amber Rhea led a great discussion about what makes a blog professional. Themes included the look and feel of the blog, strength of writing and topic knowledge, establishing credibility and a following, political sensitivity, and whether or not advertising adds or takes away from professionalism.

Monetization:
Ted Murphy discussed various ways to monetize your blog. From Ad Programs to Sponsorships, he covered the best and most lucrative ways to “make the moolah”! Ted is also the Founder and CEO of Izea, which has two blog sponsorship programs, PayPerPost and SocialSpark (either of which I would personally recommend).

Monitoring:
Radian6‘s David Alston led this discussion about how and when to monitor your personal or corporate social media presence. Using Twitter Search can be a great way to see what consumers are saying about your product or service, and responding to their needs via the same avenue is always appreciated (and often unexpected).

New, New Media:
Sarah Perez, a writer for ReadWriteWeb, covered various RSS feed readers. My favorite is Feedly. It incorporates with GoogleReader and has a much more aesthetic flow. Another that seems interesting is Snackr, which is a ticker-type feed scrolling on your desktop. I would use it, but I know it would be a huge distraction for me!

Movements, Activism and Social Media:
This may have been my favorite session of the day! Geno Church walked us through the differences between a campaign and a movement, and how Fiskars turned around the public’s view of their brand, giving them some excitement about scissors! It is a great story, which I couldn’t do justice by trying to even summarize, but doing a Google search for ‘Fiskateers‘ may give you some idea of the impact of this movement.

The Orlando Scene:
Finishing off the day was this session about what’s going on in the Orlando area for marketers, PR peeps and social media geeks. Some of the high points were Doterati, upcoming BarCamp Tampa, and Orlando’s new CoLab. A full list of details and upcoming events can be found at the Florida Creatives site.

If you also went to BlogOrlando, drop me a comment and let me know what some of your favorite take-aways were!