Posted by Gabe on March 12, 2010 under Facebook, Kids are Heroes, Social Media, Twitter | 
I always get a kick out of remembering when my first day on Twitter was. If I forget I can go to the site that tells me when I did. For me it happened to be Christmas Eve, 2008. I almost feel guilty for being on the computer that day and cannot recollect my motivation, but at least I didn’t tweet too much on the day I should have been spending with my family. It wasn’t long until I was addicted to the concept of getting to know people through this platform. As I progressed I learned a lot which I have tried to share in this blog. Sometime mid-2009 I created a Facebook fan page for Kids Are Heroes and now I had two platforms to manage. So what is the point of all this social networking, anyway? Is it just to pass the time and comment on what we all had for breakfast? Absolutely not. It’s about connecting with people. Period. Funny thing is that I thought I was connecting with people all along. I would converse with them, ask about what they do, give them #followfriday mentions, help them in any way I could, the whole nine yards. But it wasn’t until fairly recently when I took these connections to the next level.
You may know that recently we have partnered with Levar Fisher, an ex-NFL star who travels around the country motivating youth and speaking about Kids Are Heroes. I was introduced to Levar by Mary Kurek, who works in Levar’s behalf by helping him to connect with people like me. I watched how she works and that is how I learned to really connect with people. Connecting means more to me now than just #followfriday mentions on Twitter. Thanks to Mary I learned that it’s about taking action. It’s about seeking out people who might complement you and you them. It’s about picking up the phone and really connecting. From those conversations both parties can then take action and actually do something to further each other’s causes. I have been on the phone for the first time with people I met on Twitter more times in the last three weeks than I have in the year I have been involved in social media. I believe that this works just as well with businesses as it does non-profits. I had a long phone conversation with Tom Tuohy of Dreams for Kids yesterday and the word that came up often was ‘collaboration’. I am so looking forward to seeing what unravels from that connection. This week I also connected with Blake Raab of Bears on Patrol. One would think that non-profits would keep their cards close to the vest and not share anything, because we are all competing for donations that are out there. That’s the old way of thinking. It just so happens that I love Blake’s mission and I really want him to be successful. That is why I am trying to come up with ways that our kids can support what he does. I have learned that a great leader is one who makes people who work with him (or her) successful. This is what I aspire to be and hopefully something that I am working toward every day.
So take action and leave a comment. I might just arrange a phone call. :)
Posted by Gabe on February 23, 2010 under Kids are Heroes, Social Media, Twitter |
I should really call this post “How to (and how not to) Get Me to Retweet You” but that would probably break all the URL shorteners out there. I write this post because I often get people asking me to retweet them. These folks might think I’m just rude for not doing it. So be it. Maybe you will think a bit differently once you see why I didn’t retweet you. On that note I will start with “How Not to Get Me to Retweet You.”:
Ask me directly. By direct message or otherwise.
This simply doesn’t work with me, unless we have a long standing relationship. I know what you tweet is important to you, and you think that if I retweet it everything will be solved, but that’s simply not the case. You must understand that I get A LOT of these requests and if I obliged everyone no one would understand what my own platform is.
Retweet me.
Some think that if they retweet me to their 150 followers I should be obliged to retweet them back. I don’t care if you have a million followers, I don’t work that way either. The retweet is not a bartering tool. If you retweet me please do it because you liked what I wrote and not for any other reason. I will do the same for you.
Say “Please RT”.
Now many social media gurus will tell you that this is the best way to get retweeted, to add ‘Please RT’ or something similar to your tweet. I must admit I do use it myself sometimes. And I also admit I will do it if I know the person and I also know that they are genuine. But if you do it all the time I for one will stop reading your tweets. I retweet things that touch me in one way or another. It could be funny, silly or really meaningful and powerful. There is no way to know how a tweet will affect people. I am constantly surprised at which of my tweets get retweeted. Sometimes I think, ” Ok let this one go and watch the fireworks!” and all I hear are cricket sounds. Then I see another tweet has been RTed several times.
Now for “How to Get Me to Retweet You”:
Write something meaningful that touches me in some way. That is the huge secret to getting retweeted by me or by anyone. This morning I happened to see a tweet sent out by of all people the Cookie Monster (who I am not even following). I had to retweet it: “Me got hungry while typing and ate me computer mouse. Taste like chicken.” Now that made me laugh. Sometimes I retweet responses to my tweets if it makes more sense to do so. I retweet @HeiferPortland a lot because he tweets about kids supporting his organization. I stopped retweeting Amber Alerts because I later discovered that some of them were fake.
I also have to be able to see it to retweet it. I follow quite a few people and obviously can’t keep up with everything. So does that mean you should @reply to people so they will see the tweet when you want it retweeted? No – absolutely not. As a matter of fact that may cause an unfollow from me. I am in the same boat here. I see celebrities who have hundreds of thousands of followers and think “Boy, if they tweeted my ID just imagine how many more people would find out about Kids Are Heroes!” They usually aren’t following me so how do I get them to notice me? I can @reply to them. However, if I do that, that is making me look worse than if I did nothing at all. So what do I do? How do I get people to retweet me?
Converse with me. I try and write meaningful tweets and interact with people. Just like anything else, the way you get people to notice your tweets is to converse with them in a genuine manner. You can’t focus on being retweeted or it just won’t happen. Focus on the connections you have and the retweets will come.
Posted by Gabe on February 15, 2010 under Kids are Heroes, Social Media |
During the moment the Kids Are Heroes concept was conceived, it was difficult to imagine where we would be today. Receiving promotion by Sir Richard Branson, partnering with a former NFL star and holding events sponsored by Disney was definitely not on my radar screen at the time. But somewhere along the way, we must have a vision for the future. Well we certainly do have that vision. Due to the acceptance, even embrace of this concept on a grand scale, I fully expect for Kids Are Heroes to be a globally recognized entity in ten years from now if not sooner. Kids Are Heroes back packs will be for sale in Walmart and other stores, kids will wear our T-shirts and millions of children all over the world will learn about philanthropy at an early age. During one of the many discussions I had with Levar Fisher, the aforementioned NFL star who is now out speaking about us, I could sense the excitement in his voice. He was so pumped up that his words were tripping over each other which is totally unlike him as a gifted public speaker. Then he stopped and said, “This can change the world!” At that point I let out a wry smile knowing that he sees exactly what I see.
We plan to have resources available for schools in every language that wants us, we plan to establish clubs in neighborhoods, to offer scholarships to kids that deserve it and much more. We plan to offer a mentoring program, help kids establish their own non-profits, provide web site and social media assistance, and even seed the ideas dreamed up by our heroes. Now all that sounds well and good but how are we going to get there? I mean it’s great to have a dream but we must be able to work toward that direction. And that is just what we are doing. If we had Sir Richard Branson’s pockets we could get there a lot faster. As it turns out we don’t. We need to somehow be able to fund these dreams. I fully admit that fund raising is not one of my best known skills. As a matter of fact, I’m downright terrible at it. But having flaws will never get in our way because our passion for this organization and what it can accomplish will always trump our imperfections. Once we discovered the potential of social media we have been working each and every day to tap into it. It has brought us our PitchTV win, our partnership with Levar, and many of the heroes we feature. I honestly look forward to Mondays as I am eager to see what each new week will bring.
But is social media the only answer? Will it bring us everything? I certainly cannot count on it. I realize that we are so fortunate to have started our organization when we did, because without the proliferation of social media we would be progressing much more like the tortoise as opposed to the hare. In the beginning we actually scoured community newpapers around the country to find heroes for our site. Now mentions of them are a regular occurrence in our Twitter stream. I realize that we will need financial backing and help from others to get to where we want to be. So we are starting to reach out to companies that are a good match for us. And of course we will never ignore our social media efforts. That’s why we continue to reach out — it’s because we know that there are many of you out there who support what we are doing and would love to see us reach our goals. Your acknowledgments are a partial source of food for our passion. So if any of you have any other ideas on how we can get to where we want to be, I’m all ears. And if you would just like to chip in, here’s where you can do it. Thanks always for your help!
Posted by Gabe on February 3, 2010 under Social Media, Twitter |
I was trying to think of a catchy title for this post, but when it really gets right down to it, I am simply laying out my follow strategies for everyone to see. People have asked me what they are, so I am coming clean. These are not necessarily the strategies everyone else should use, but they are mine and I will explain why I use them.
I have mentioned many times that my main goal in my use of social media is the promotion of the Kids Are Heroes concept and its web site. On a daily basis, the more people that discover it, the more people get behind it, the better chance we have of becoming a global organization one day. And I humbly believe this strategy is working, as I hope to be making a major announcement real soon.
Some people are intimidated by big numbers. They won’t follow people once they have crossed a certain threshold. I can understand that sentiment to a point. Many celebrities do not follow back very many people. This isn’t a conversation, so I am not interested. I really love it when someone wants to put on airs that they are a celebrity by using this practice. But if you think that people will no longer connect once they surpass a certain number think again. Each week I meet new people. The occurrences of me speaking to them on the phone are becoming more frequent. Some are “newbies” and some I have been conversing with for a long time. I see and pay attention to every reply I get. I respond to almost all of them. The only replies I do not respond to are ones that do not warrant them or ones that have “worn out their welcome” in terms of the nature of the request.
Follow other people. Simply stated, this is the most effective way to get people to find out about us. Many are sent an email that notifies them of the new follow, and that’s when they check us out. If they like what they see, they follow back. So I bet you are saying, “Great! I’ll just use a follow program to automate this and sit back and watch my followers grow!” I have never used, nor will I ever use an auto-follow program. First off, some of them are nefarious to say the least. Secondly, some of them take over your twitter stream advertising themselves. Once I see this, I instantly unfollow that person as do other people. Even if you gain followers this way, they are empty, non-qualified followers that probably won’t listen to you and will do you more harm than good.
So, what makes me follow one person and not follow another? Here’s my list:
1) Fill out your profile. I can’t stress how important this is. If you do not do this it appears like you don’t care or are hiding something. The more information you put in your profile, the more people can use to break the ice with you. Use a good picture that can be enlarged so we can see the real you. I discourage the use of an animated gif file, or something else that is designed to attract my attention, like putting your picture upside down. I don’t follow people who do this. If you are promoting a business with your Twitter ID that’s okay, but at least use a full name as part of the profile so we know what to call you.
2) Engage with others. If I see an entire page where all you do is either send out a quote or repeat a news story, then I’m going to assume you don’t want to talk to people. I want to see those ‘@’ signs.
3) Don’t spam. This should go without saying, but unfortunately there are many spammers on Twitter. Most people block them. Some people however just don’t know any better. They do believe in their product and want to tell the world about it. Get to know us first, then we will ask you about what you do.
4) Be very careful about asking for retweets. I get asked to retweet stuff all the time. People think that just because my numbers are larger than theirs it will really further their cause if I tweet about it. They don’t understand how many requests I get and how my twitterstream would be nothing more than a compilation of other people’s tweets if I gave in. If in the tweet you say (Pls RT) that’s one thing, but sending me a direct message asking to tweet about something is totally different. Depending on if and how well we have connected it can cause an unfollow, even a block.
5) Be active. My typical rule of thumb is that if a person hasn’t tweeted in more than three days I will not follow them. That may sound drastic, but the more often people are on Twitter the better chance I have of connecting with them.
6) Connect with people any way you can. I often follow people after a retweet or an @reply. Why does this work? Because when people I am not familiar with do one or the other I look them up. They are usually following me. I see their profile and stream, etc. and they look like a good person to connect with. The fact is I simply missed them when they followed me.
7) Comment on my blog. This is similar to #6. Your twitter stream might have indicated to me that you do not connect with people, but you have just proven that you do.
8) Don’t protect your tweets. I used to think that people who protect their tweets had a tendency to be more genuine. I have not found that to be true, (or false for that matter). They have their reasons for doing so, which whatever they are I respect, but I typically won’t follow them because I can’t see what they tweet about and how they interact with people. I usually just move on. And if you think you can connect with others that are not following you by sending them an @reply, think again. I had this question posed to me as a comment on one of my blog posts. I showed how the person you send the tweet to will not see it if they are not following you.
9) Don’t use profanity. No matter how long I have followed you, or how we have connected, I will unfollow anyone who uses profanity. This has always been my stance. I believe it’s not professional and I am also trying to protect my 11-year-old nosy daughter who is always in my office.
10) Don’t be negative. Recently I had a customer service issue with a printing company. I think good customer service is one of the key ingredients to being a respected company and when it goes bad it for some reason sets me off. I couldn’t control myself, I had to tweet about it. However, the tweets were not in vain as the company saw them, sent them to the right person, and the situation was rectified and I will now continue to use them. But I still don’t recommend ranting on Twitter. It’s the same as being at a party. People don’t gravitate toward others who are always spouting negativity.
So how do I find people to follow? I use wefollow.com to find categories (parenting, education, philanthropy, etc.) I am interested in which people have aligned themselves to. (NOTE: Use this service with caution. I just saw a tweet that warned me about a nasty practice that they are using that can be avoided.) I pick out followers I really connect with and see who they follow. If you respect them that means they have done due diligence and are concerned about who they follow, so it’s almost as if they have done the work for you. I use a great tool called TweepSearch to search the profiles of people for keywords. And as I mentioned I follow people who connect with me in some meaningful way.
Now keep in mind that this is hard work. It can sometimes be tedious going through profile after profile and sifting through the bad ones. But the more it pays off the more I do it.
So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Let us know what strategies you use.
Posted by Gabe on January 25, 2010 under Kids are Heroes, Social Media |
Back in September of 2009, I spotted the first “shout-out” to one of our heroes from Mrs. Poulin’s Kindergarten class. I thought, “Wow this is really cool!” Save for holidays and break periods, the kids from that class have been sending words of encouragement to our heroes on an almost daily basis. If for some reason something special causes them to run out of time, you know the kids give Mrs. Poulin an earful. “Hey! We didn’t do Kids Are Heroes today!” And she then assures them they will make up for it the next day.
I have admired Gail for her innovative use of our web site. Each morning, they choose a story that moves them and they respond to it. And the shout-outs are not just “Good job!” and “Love what you are doing!”. One can clearly tell that the sentences are derived from the conversation they had and that they clearly understand what each hero is doing. What a great way to teach young kids. And it’s not all about being in the audience, either. They have been inspired to participate as well. One of our heroes, young Hannah Turner, really made an impression on them — so much so that they decided to collect socks and distribute them to local shelters. (In the end they donated 124 brand new pairs of socks to 3 area shelters.) I really wish every school in the country was aware of what one woman from Massachussetts is doing. She even has a blog (read in her words how Kids Are Heroes is affecting her students) and the kids are on Twitter!! (Mrs. Poulin also has her own Twitter account.)
The other day, the class gave a shout-out to new hero Daniel Dietz. Daniel is a teenager who is quite skilled with a yo-yo. He performs in front of crowds and collects donations for the “Smile Train”. (This is an organization that provides the means for kids to get surgery to repair cleft palates.) Well Daniel was excited that he got a shout-out from these young students, especially because he just happens to live near them. His mom asked how he could “shout back”. When we designed the Shout-Outs section it was supposed to be a one-way avenue to help our heroes feel good about what they are doing. But as we discover in life many things that get designed one way get used in another. So I pointed Daniel to the Comments section. If he referenced the shout-out that would give the kids a way to interact with him. Daniel did leave a comment and I alerted Mrs. Poulin to look for it. (Encouraged by this, we have since implemented a more seamless way for heroes to interact with others. Conversations will be published in the Kids Are Heroes Café.)
When I told Gail that Daniel had indeed left a comment, this was her response:
In this particular hero instance, the kids said, “I hope he writes back.” This is an awesome experience all around. Not only for the social emotional aspects but also as:
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a literacy tool – reading and writing for meaning
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technology – using tech to communicate with the world and learn more outside of our own little zip codes
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the empowering experience of having kids serving as the heroes which can make our own goal setting a reality.
I couldn’t agree more. In addition to that, I am envisioning the confidence that will build in our heroes as they interact with kids from all over the country. Boy am I hoping that this is a trend that takes off.
Read the shout-outs from Mrs. Poulin’s class (and from others) here.
Posted by Gabe on January 22, 2010 under Social Media, Twitter |
Recently I wrote a post about the pros and cons of having your tweets protected in Twitter. I don’t have a personal bias as to what you should do regarding this, as it is not my place. However, if your tweets are protected, I think there’s something else you should be aware of.
I received a direct message from one of my Twitter colleagues asking me to point her to my blog post about hash tags. She was desperately trying to get involved in the recent tragedy in #Haiti. I sent her to the post. She read it and told me it was great, but her tweets were not showing up in the search column, even though she was using the hash tag properly. I asked her to call me so we could investigate. Sure enough I went to her profile and she was doing it correctly. She also noted to me that her friend was unable to retweet her posts. I again went to her profile and couldn’t find the retweet button either. “Maybe there is something wrong with your Twitter account” I told her. These were words she did not want to hear. Anyway, after a bit more investigating I noticed her tweets were protected. Aaaahhh! Now that makes sense. Why should your tweets show up in the public timeline if they are protected? Twitter is working as it should in both cases.
However, I was able to retweet her posts in Tweetdeck with no problems. And people using the Twitter interface, although they can’t use the native retweet function, they can certainly do it the old fashioned way by copying and pasting. So again this proves that your tweets are not truly protected no matter what.
So be warned that if you do protect your tweets you will not have the opportunities everyone else has of getting retweeted and joining a conversation based on hash tags.
Posted by Gabe on January 20, 2010 under Social Media, Wordpress |
I have been hearing a lot of talk about “landing pages” lately. You can make one for Twitter, for Facebook and even your blog. These are pages that provide a first impression when a user “lands” on your site. Well today I set out to find out how to have one on my blog. I’ve always felt that the directory of posts I provide would be a great landing page, instead of the most recent post I have written. I write about a lot of different things and this directory will help the reader find something that is of most interest to him or her.
So I searched the web for “landing page in Wordpress”. The links that came up most told me I had to change my theme. That didn’t cut it for me. After a bit of digging, I found the solution buried in Wordpress help, and was excited that it is rather simple to accomplish. Here are the steps to create a landing page for Wordpress:
1) Create the landing page itself as you would a normal page.
2) Create another blank page and call it “Blog”.
3) On your Wordpress dashboard, go to Settings…Reading. Right there you see you have a choice of ‘Your latest posts’ or ‘A static page’. Select ’static page’ and choose the landing page you just created. Just underneath that, under ‘Posts page’ choose the blank page you just created, ‘Blog’.
Your theme should automatically add that page to your header. Now when you go to your main blog site, you should see the landing page you created. When you click on the ‘Blog’ page you will see all your posts as you used to. For an example, see how it is implemented here: http://www.justgabe.com Good luck!
Posted by Gabe on January 17, 2010 under Social Media, Twitter |
Yesterday I discovered the value of the Facebook Share button. I have known for quite some time about Tweetmeme’s Retweet button (as seen on this blog) as a Wordpress plugin but hadn’t thought of using it on my regular web site. That is until yesterday.
The Tweetmeme retweet button allows users to easily share the current URL with their Twitter followers by composing a tweet and bringing up the Twitter interface. You can still edit the tweet before you send it out. The button code for your web site can be found here. What’s nice about it is that you have several easy options to modify the button. (I chose to have a compact button.) You can even change the identity of the retweeter which defaults to @tweetmeme. This is nice because that allows you to have other users promote your own Twitter ID as well as the URL. That’s what I call a “twofer”. If you click on the number that prefaces the button, it will take show you who tweeted your link. It would be nice if you could set the background color or have that be transparent, but that doesn’t appear to be an option just yet. Update: According to their own support dep’t., it’s supposed to be transparent but not all browsers support that. I verified this to be true. Works fine in Firefox, no go in IE8. (If you need the plugin directory for Tweetmeme, it’s here.)
So now I have an easy way to share the Kids Are Heroes web site with both Facebook and Twitter. And yes, that’s a hint. :)
Posted by Gabe on January 12, 2010 under Social Media, Twitter |
I spotted a tweet in my Twitter stream that caught my attention today:
@so-and-so Love some feedback on my blog:) http://unshortenedspammylink/wordpress:) Leave Comments!!!!
I know that Twitter is a service we can all use as we wish, but this tweet violated so many of my own private rules I had to look further. Looking at this person’s profile there was sadly (and predictably) a long list of the same requests to other “so and so’s”. The proximity of the smiley face to the link broke the link itself, so I never got to see what was so great that everyone should want to go and leave comments on this person’s blog. The person has been tweeting since June of 2009 and despite this long list of tweets the other interactions he/she has had seem to be genuine and quality interactions, at least as far as I looked back.
Rather that dissect what is wrong (if anything) with what this person is doing I would like to pose a question. Assuming you truly believe that “this person just doesn’t know any better”, is it appropriate to leave a gentle DM telling her that what he/she is doing might be a bit spammy? I’m not going to try to taint anyone’s opinion one way or the other by giving mine, but on other occasions I have been tempted to do just that, even if I didn’t know the person.
So what do you think? Is it appropriate to nicely tell someone about something like this, as a friendly gesture, if you have never had interactions with them? Or do you simply unfollow and move on?
Posted by Gabe on December 31, 2009 under Social Media, Twitter |
I just recently had my one-year anniversary on Twitter. At the risk of copying my friend @DannyBrown who has a series of “Ten in 2010″ posts, one of which I made the list (thanks to my extensive lobbying and a rather substantial sum of money) I felt the urge to come up with a list of ten people I would like to meet at a “tweet-up” in 2010. Most of these people have supported us from the beginning and others I would just like to get to know. Without further ado, here is my list in no particular order of relevance.
1) @OKE_News Menachem works tirelessly for the benefit of underprivileged children. If you haven’t met him check out his profile and his web site. He’s the only guy I know who tweets harder than I do.
2) @ThirstAidLive Denise and her whole family are always planning fund raisers. Big fund raisers — for other people. This year she was hit by that huge flood in Atlanta and lost her house. Sometimes life can be very unfair. She is now organizing a flood relief concert for her community that was so devastated. I hope we can pick up again where we left off real soon as we had plans to work together.
3) @JohnHaydon @JoeWaters – This is a “two-fer” since where you find one the other one is standing right beside him. John is a model of how to be in social media, always helping and supporting other people and has been a great champion for Kids Are Heroes. Joe is his sidekick and quite frankly I don’t remember what he does. But I heard he is fun to have around at parties. ;)
4) @DannyBrown started the #12for12k effort. If you are not familiar with it check out his web site and learn about it. This movement is a great demonstration of the power of social media if you know how to interact with it properly. In addition to that it is helping people all over the world.
5) @PoulinGail is a kindergarten teacher from Southampton Massachusetts who reads a different story from the Kids Are Heroes web site to her class each and every day. How I know this is because they post shout-outs to one of the heroes after they have read the story. Each time I see this I am extremely encouraged as this is exactly what the web site is designed for. She even got the class together and collected socks for the homeless emulating one of our heroes. I just wish we had a thousand other teachers just like her.
6) @RichardBranson doesn’t really tweet to me but if you know anything about how Kids Are Heroes got started you’d know that he was a major influence. Coincidentally in March of 2009 we entered a contest sponsored by Sir Richard and thanks to the Kids Are Heroes fans we won! In the month of June our video pitch was played on Virgin Atlantic planes for the entire month. I am one who is never star-struck, but this is one “celebrity” I would surely like to meet.
7) @AARprotectkids is run by Zephora Haddon. She has been watching us from the start and has generously included us in her fund raising activities. Her Amber Alert registry business is growing impressively which only helps us because as more people sign on and select Kids Are Heroes as a charity the more support we get.
8) @hiannie is my friend from Singapore. Among other things she teaches Mandarin Chinese online. She is also just a really good person who I could learn so much from besides a different language.
9) @TheElders I have never met any of these people but would humbled to meet just one. This was the group started by Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel (who by the way is not on Twitter otherwise I would add him to this list). This group of “elders” with the likes of Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter and Nelson Mandela go out to troubled areas on our planet and try to help resolve difficult issues in a peaceful manner thus saving thousands of lives. I would just love to be a fly on the wall during one of their strategy meetings.
10) Kids Are Heroes List - I know I am cheating but I would really love to meet all the kids on the Kids Are Heroes web site (now approaching 100) and their parents as well. (I guess I need a bigger hall to rent for this tweet-up.) Our lives have been so enriched since we started this venture and it is all because of these children. My sister came down for the second annual Kids Are Heroes Day in October and when the “after-party” was over she told me specifically, “I met some very special people today.” This sums it up very nicely and I couldn’t agree more.
I know I said “top ten” but they are my rules and sometimes I like to break them.
11) @SueScheff is the author of the “Google Bomb!” book which is an eye-opener when it comes to what can happen to one’s reputation if someone smears it online. She is also a champion of teens and helps parents deal with sensitive subject matters regarding teens. She is also a great Kids Are Heroes supporter and has been for a long time.
12) My Colorado Peeps: @DaveWebb @EricRodwell and @MiloGirly I lived in Boulder Colorado for three months a little over ten years ago. I had just gotten a job and three days later I was told I was shipping out. Certainly there are worse places to be so I lucked out in that department. I have traveled all over the US and Canada and if I had to live anywhere other than Frederick, MD it would be in Colorado. I loved the climate, the scenery and mostly the people. Dave, Eric and Kyra are all great examples of those people.
So this is my ultimate tweet-up. For those of you who feel left out, you can come too. I’m sure I missed some real gems, so you can let me have it in the comments section and I will somehow try and make amends.
