G apparently thought they were actually for her.

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A really, really cute new video series from my buddies, the Bielankos just launched over at Babble.

I love it so far. I think y’all will too.

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This popularly held opinion of my phone (un)availability was hammered home to me this morning when my pal JCO and I were chatting about something or another via telephone…

Read the whole story over at my Babble Home/Work blog….

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Social Media Smackdown – 2012!

Social Media Club of Knoxville's Smackdown 2012 #SMCKdown

The event is being sponsored by Social Media Club of Knoxville, and our host for the evening will be my boss and pal, Howard Cosell  Chad Parizman. 

In this ridiculous rumble of a geekfest, I will be representing Facebook, while in the other three corners, we will have….

Shane Rhyne for Google+

Nicole Van Scoten Denton on behalf of Pinterest 

and last but not least….

Rick Laney standing up for Twitter

If you can’t attend the Social Media Smackdown in person tonight, but would like to receive realtime updates regarding the beatdown I will be delivering to my three unfortunate foes, you can just follow the hashtag #SMCKdown on Twitter throughout the evening.

The nice folks at Calhouns  over by the UT campus are hosting us for the evening, and we’ve promised them that we won’t break too many chairs or leave too much blood on the ceiling when it’s all over.

Things get underway around 6pm tonight, and we should be at Calhouns for a couple of hours after that, so come by and say hi to me if you get a chance.

I’ll be the one channeling Mark Zuckerberg….if Mark Zuckerberg were a mommyblogger with five children and a SOLID GOLD MINIVAN!!!

(Dream ON Zuckerberg…maybe if that IPO thing works out for you…)

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PS: Oh, and by the way, this event is really the first local social media-related public event I’ve attempted to participate in since Henry died. Before Henry’s death, I was very active in putting together and being part of various local events like this related to what I do for a living. But since losing my son, I just haven’t felt like I was ready to participate in anything like I did before – even something fun and lighthearted like this. I was afraid that if I stood up to speak, I would end up bursting into tears and running out of the room. So while tonight is no big deal to everyone else participating, it’s actually kind of a big step for me in terms of reemerging into my “new normal.”

I so love and appreciate all my friends in the local social media, PR and marketing community who have been so kind to me, and so supportive for the past 19 months, and it means a great deal to me that I’ve been asked to be part of our fun event tonight.

 Thanks, y’all. 

xoxo – Katie

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Students ran with it this morning.

Makes me proud to be a University of Tennessee alumna today.

(And for those who don’t know, the regular painting of this giant boulder  - located in the middle of Fraternity Row – is a longstanding UT tradition. It’s not against campus rules, and it’s not considered graffiti. Students can head over there late at night – any night – and change the look of what’s known as “The Rock.”)

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But she did…

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I am very, very sad tonight to hear that the beautiful and brilliant Susan Niebur died today, after a hard fought battle against inflammatory breast cancer.

Susan was the mother of two very little boys, a loving wife, and an acclaimed planetary scientist – an actual astrophysicist. In fact, Susan won a prestigious award from NASA only a few months ago.

I never got to meet Susan in person, but I’ve considered her an online friend for a number of years. She’s always inspired me with her seemingly endless energy to learn more, do more and help more women.

Lots of other online friends thought a great deal of Susan as well.

Even as she grew very ill, she never stopped being part of the world around her.

Susan was a pioneer in using social media for good, and her legacy will be one in which her two little boys will be able to take pride for the rest of their lives.

It’s my understanding that Susan was able to be at home with family when her moment of transition came.

I’m so glad for that.

Her husband Curt says in a message today:

In lieu of flowers, please consider furthering Susan’s legacy through a contribution to the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Or please choose to make a difference somewhere, anywhere, to anyone.

I love that: “…choose to make a difference somewhere, anywhere, to anyone.”

I know that Susan didn’t want to die yet, to leave her two young children and her husband to finish their own journeys here on planet earth without her.

But because she was not only a mother, but also a scientist full of insatiable curiosity for learning new things and making new discoveries, I hope that Susan’s journey today has given her answers to everything she ever wondered, and more.

And while I don’t claim to know how this all works yet, I also hope that maybe Susan Niebur
is with my sweet Henry today, and the two of them will look out at the radiant cosmos together with the peaceful knowledge that all of us will someday be together as one in the same Very Good Place.

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