Featurism

Featurism is no more.

2009-08-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks,It's time for a change. I have reached a point where keeping Featurism updated has become more of a chore than a pleasure. Since blogging should be fun, I am moving to Tumblr. You can now find all of my news, ideas, rants, thoughts, updates and more on http://aaronmsb.tumblr.comThis site will be alive for one month more, and then I will delete it. Please find me on Tumblr and say

American Airlines, you get a D in communication.

2009-06-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

On June 11th, I took a flight from Tucson, AZ to Dallas/Ft. Worth on my way back to Austin. We took off normally. As we ascended, the air conditioning started blowing warm air and everyone's ear starting popping repeatedly.*ding* "This is your Captain speaking, we seem to be experiencing some cabin pressurization issues. We're going to return to the gate in Tucson. This should be a normal

John Haydon is at it again.

2009-06-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

The Social Media Guru known as John Haydon has created a brand new website to share his insights. He was gracious enough to include me in his launch with a guest post that I wrote about a presentation that I give called Swingin' Social Media. Enjoy.

Lights. Camera. Help.

2009-05-01T16:17:00.000-07:00

As of today we have opened up the submissions process for the Lights. Camera. Help Film Festival. What that means is that you can now submit your films simply by filling out the form found on this page. So if you have a feature length film, short films, and public service announcements (including dramatic, documentary, experimental, and animation) we want to see them.So what are you waiting for?

All Access Live

2009-03-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to get hooked up with a company for SXSW called All Access Live. They bought me a badge for interactive and gave me a camera guy for a few evenings and interviews. Some of my video content is up at their site, and some if it didn't make the cut.What was really interesting is watch all this come together. There was a short time frame and a little venture capital, but it was

Shiner Beer's Got Spunk

2009-03-02T12:37:00.000-08:00

Shiner Bock has been my go-to beer these days. Not merely because I prefer darker beer, but because the taste represents a history and a tradition. It's a local flavor that goes back to 1909. Images of Bavarian settlers, the great depression and prohibition. Hope, despair, persecution and freedom. And now...SPUNK.The Brewery's hype masters, McGrrah Jessee, duped Heineken out of their

The Skinny on Twestival

2009-01-31T06:05:00.000-08:00

The Twestival is on Tweeples Twounges.twDAMN! I hate it when I can't stop making up words that only make sense to 0.2% of the world population.I was particularly interested in the Austin Twestival because it's billing itself as an event where "100% of ticket sales go straight to charity:water and if we sell out, we build two wells in Africa!"According to Sarah Bramley (@sbramley), the Africa

Swingin' Social Media

2009-01-21T11:39:00.001-08:00

I gave this presentation to a group of small non-profit organizations at Ridgewood Associates' office in Tucson, Arizona. If you would like more information about learning how the jazz basics can teach you sound social media practice, please contact me. P.S. The advanced version of this is coming soon. Swingin' Social MediaView more presentations or upload your own. (tags: social media)

I want to party with Terp by Lawrence J. Grivels

2009-01-15T23:19:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Lawrence J. GrivelsBefore venturing further, you should be aware of an under-appreciated genre of music called Nerdcore hip hop. For those who may find following the link a little too exerting for their sedentary lifestyle, here's what I'll say. Nerdcore is probably the third nerdiest thing on this planet. It's on the tails of NASA but nowhere near as nerdy as the person who

Social Media Case Study 1 - Deploy Peace cont'd

2008-12-31T07:54:00.000-08:00

Welcome. Or if you've managed to find your way back here, welcome back. I last left you with the first part of a social media case study where the Ridgewood Web Development team set out to solve some significant problems for an organization called Deploy Peace. The result was a new Website, a new blog, a MySpace redesign, and the creation of a Facebook Page. Let me know if there's anything

Social Media Case Study 1 - Deploy Peace

2008-12-15T10:48:00.001-08:00

This is the first part of the first of three case studies I plan to publish. Please let me know what you find helpful and useless alike. Thanks for reading at Featurism.Deploy Peace is group of women with a mission to give retired military aircraft “one last mission,” to reunite wounded military heroes with their families in their time of need. They do this through dog tag peace necklaces with

My interview with David J. Neff

2008-12-09T14:24:00.000-08:00

David and I sat down to talk about the Austin Museum of Digital Art. We talked about what it's like to be an entirely volunteer-run organization, funding, being a non-profit in Austin, strategic planning, goals and exciting new things coming up. NOTE: The AMODA Social Series event will be on JANUARY, 16th at The Moose Family Center of Austin.

Welcome to Featurism

2008-12-08T11:41:00.000-08:00

Featurism is a blog created by me, Aaron Bramley. I'm a communicator and a collaborator, who is eager and excited for social media and societal movement. I make progress through my jobs as the Director of Digital Media at Ridgewood Associates Public Relations, Inc, the Director of Communications at the Austin Museum of Digital Art, and an Enthusiastic Human Being on Planet Earth.Let's Connect!

Social Media Boot Camp

2008-11-26T12:54:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday I conducted a 6.5-hour social media workshop for the Tucson, Arizona-based non-profit, Vets4Vets. In the training they learned everything they need to know about social media and their social media portal to build community, raise money, and help fulfill their mission.You can find the full agenda for the boot camp below, but you may want to check out the learning objectives first right

Social Media Portal Done Right

2008-11-17T14:57:00.000-08:00

Vets4Vets, a national, free peer support network for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been working with me and the rest of the Web Development Team at Ridgewood Associates to develop the social media tools and techniques that have helped make their new site a success. In addition to a slick new look, the site serves as a social media portal, incorporating Vets4Vets-branded

1st AMODA Screening Series Event

2008-11-10T14:24:00.000-08:00

The Austin Museum of Digital Art just held its pilot screening even for the organization's ongoing screening series. In my volunteer role as Director of Communications, I was particularly proud to have a sold out show with some fantastic animation. My particular favorite piece was an stop-motion animation piece by an artist named Blu. It's embedded below.MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU

The Economics of Art

2008-11-02T04:23:00.000-08:00

Rarely do academics capture my attention (or imagination) when it comes to art. Broadly stereotyping, there aren't enough people looking forward when thinking about theory. However, I ran across a post on Austin Art Start that had an interview by Marcy Hoen with David Galenson.In it, he explains how economic theories apply to art. I think he's rather convincing, but he goes on to tell us that

Mansion of Terror

2008-10-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

So far, I've only found two good reasons to make the trek from Austin to Round Rock. IKEA, and the Mansion of Terror. Now, this isn't to say that there aren't other, equally compelling reasons to make the journey, but it's hard work dodging the the flaming loofas and shower caddy catapults from the turf battle between Linens 'n' Things and Bed, Bath and Beyond along I-35.When I arrived at the

12 Most Powerful and Influential Topic Clouds

2008-10-23T15:53:00.000-07:00

Remember the list of the 50 Most Powerful and Influential Men in Social Media? I've used Wordle to create topic clouds of the concepts that the top 12 of these men are writing about lately. Why 12? Because it's about how old I'm feeling right now. It's my hope that these clouds are accurate depictions of these social media influencers. How do you think they fair?1. Michael Arrington2. Pete

Freebase Parallax

2008-10-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

A while back I posted a couple of entries about tag clouds and priming. (second entry)It appears that someone has actually created a database search engine that works along similar principles as the the ones that I laid out. Take a look at this video about Freebase Parallax. Freebase Parallax: A new way to browse and explore data from David Huynh on Vimeo.The upside: This is extremely

Collaborative Projects

2008-10-09T12:17:00.000-07:00

Another cup of coffee. Another opportunity for collaboration. I met with Dave Rauchwerk, an entrepreneur (though I'd imagine he loathes the term) who is currently focused on combining art, music, programing, engineering, social media (a term I'm beginning to loathe) and video into a venture called Artébone. The idea is beginning to take shape, even if that shape is half amoeba and half

Remembering Names

2008-09-26T13:25:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have been away from the blog for a long time. No excuses from me though...no way. Just straight into the post. I have always been good at remembering names. Give me one conversation with someone and I'll remember his/her name for years. I often hear, "I want to learn how to remember names like you," from my friends, and, "how'd you remember my name, I have no clue who you are" from

Worst and Best Social Media Practices

2008-07-24T15:40:00.000-07:00

A Plurkshop, or text-based workshop, today brought about a concern for me as an up and coming social media professional. That was that A-listers, celebrities, and large corporations are ruining social media by using it in an irresponsible manner. That is to say, they are using social media as no more than a promotional tool to bombard their followers with one-way communication, disregarding the