My own personal ethnosphere consists of a lot of diversity.  I think in my own little way that personal diversity is something that I take pride in.  I like to appeal to lots of different styles and personalities.  No better example of this is evident than in my personal taste in music.  For a while I only listened to a certain genre of music.  I think for a while I believed that if I was a fan of that “kind” of music, I couldn’t also enjoy other genres.  Finally I felt so restricted that I just tried out everything.  I can honestly say that I stand as an avid country music fan, rap music fan, rock music fan, as well as certain dance songs.  Music is such a big part of who I am now, that I couldn’t imagine again restricting myself to a single genre.

Another part of my personal diversity and ethnosphere is evident in my former place of work, which really says more about my preferances of food than anything.  I used to work at a Farmers Market back home that featured all sorts of different vendors, each specializing in their different type of food.  The stand I worked at specialized in BBQ foods such as ribs, wings, whole chickens, etc.  However, the beauty of the place was that you could buy something from our stand and then buy an authentic Mexican burrito just three steps to your left.  Many of places in our market had foods from other cultures that I had never had the opportunity to try before.  This turned me own to all sorts of things from sushi to mediterranean.  To this day I enjoy being able to go back there and come home with a variety pack of different foods.

Better Illusionist: Take Your Pick, David Blaine vs. Chris Hedges

So far I think that the book has been an absolute success.  I think the great thing about it is that each chapter is very engaging, and that opens the door to outstanding class discussions like the one we had in class on Monday.  Better yet, it can at times create differing viewpoints such as the discussion we had over whether literacy is actually dying.  I was especially intrigued by the discussion we were able to have about the chapter on pornography.  I think at times the subject matter can be a little unsettling, especially after going into as much detail as Hedges did in Chapter 2.  However, much to my surprise everyone was willing to actively discuss the topic, and for the most part speak openly and very much in agreement with some of the author’s main points.  This great start has me very curious to see how the conversation continues to evolve for Thursday’s class.

Let me just preface this one a little bit.  Many of you have probably already heard about Christian the Lion already.  If not, Christian is a lion that was purchased by two men in London in the 1960’s, when owning exotic pets became popular.  When the lion grew to be too large, and started to realize his lion potential, the men decided it was time to take him over to Africa where he would gain his basic instincts at a reservation and eventually be able to fend for himself in the wild.  However, after a year away, the men went back to Africa to attempt a reunion.  In a touching ending, they found Christian and both lion and man embraced.  I know this is supposed to be a billboard but all the images of this exchange just look like the lion is mauling one of these guys, which is absolutely not the case, so I’m posting the video (just pretend your favorite part is a still frame on an actual billboard). Enjoy!

Tame Your Wild Side…CARING… pass it on

For anybody that is really interested in my TED Talk, I found a video in my travels that sums up the point of the entire presentation perfectly.  I couldn’t put it on my Prezi because these talks were to be short, and I had some multimedia on there already so I didn’t want the presentation to run too long.  This video provides a great summary and breaks the evolution of marketing practices down in a very simple manner.  I strongly encourage anyone interested to take a look.

Join Chris DeBellis as he takes you through the dynamic and ever-changing field of marketing.  Chris will capture your attention by finally bringing the business and arts worlds together to form one cohesive unit.  Once seen as two separate entities, the two worlds have collided through the use of social media sites to promote some of the top items on the market.

So today officially marks the return to Philadelphia of one of the greatest 76ers of all-time.  Allen “the Answer” Iverson is without a doubt one of my favorite players on the court and I’m happy to see him return.  However, no matter how much basketball AI plays, he will be remembered most for one thing…. PRACTICE!  This video really needs no introduction.  See if you can count how many times he says practice.  I usually lose count because of how funny it is.

It recently occurred to me that I totally botched one thing on my blog to this point.  One suggestion that was made to me during the last go-around for the blogs was to personalize my banner image.  I did change the image a while ago, but other than a one-liner at the end of another post I failed to explain what was going on.  Additionally, the picture looks a lot like the old one if you aren’t paying much attention.  So here’s for a shot at redemption.

About two years ago now, myself and three of my best friends from high school decided to take a road trip to Canada for 4 nights.  The picture you see above was something that I took myself from the very top of the CN Tower.  The CN Tower lies in the heart of Toronto and is the tallest man-made structure in the world.  The picture is of the Toronto skyline.

On the whole, I have absolutely nothing bad to say about Canada or the city of Toronto.  The trip was undoubtedly one of the best experiences of my life.  We explored the night life with the local college students, ate at Wayne Gretzky’s restaurant, visited the Hockey Hall of Fame, the CN Tower, and then spent our final night at a casino in Niagara Falls.  I would absolutely recommend going to Canada to anyone who is looking to go on vacation.

Take a look at some of my other pictures from the trip.  Enjoy!!

The Front of our Casino/Hotel

All of us standing with the Stanley Cup

Top of the CN Tower, standing on a pane of glass

CN Tower/Rogers Centre (where the Blue Jays play) from the outside

Niagara Falls from the Canada side

The 4 of us after riding the Maid of the Mist ferry under the falls

Fireworks show over the Falls from our hotel window

Ok, so in one of the more bizarre current events, it appears that Tiger Woods is caught cheating on his wife.  After being in a single car accident over the weekend, after an alleged dispute with his wife, this voicemail is released essentially catching Tiger in the act.  Tiger Woods was seen as one of the marquee “good guys” in all of sports, and one of the most marketable faces out there.  This whole situation is no doubt going to put a dent in his image.  I would be curious to hear what someone else has to say about this whole thing.  Would it be better for Tiger to come out and tell the truth about what really happen in hopes for forgiveness like Alex Rodriguez did after being caught using steroids?  Or should Tiger take some time away from golf, hope the whole blows over in a few months, and take things from there.  What would you do?  Here’s the soundbite to help you make your decision.

Ted Nugent... he may have missed out on the whole social media thing

So it’s that time of the year again and finals are beginning to line up at the end of the semester.  It seems like things really fly after Thanksgiving, and I expect it to be no different this semester.  However, in our communications class we are faced with a different challenge for our final examination.  We are to give our very own TED Talk, which stands for T-echnology, E-ntertainment, and D-esign.  The task is to tell a story regarding one of those topics in a 5 minute presentation.

At first finding a topic wasn’t easy but this is what I have decided on at this point.  Before deciding on my TED topic, I had to decide how I could best fit my personality into one of the TED themes.  I had to look no further than my blog to figure that out.  The Entertainment theme clearly is the theme that best reflects me as a person.  That was the best way to ensure that I could give a good, quality TED talk because I know for sure I wouldn’t have to force anything.  After all, I want the talk to be entertaining, so I may as well do it on entertainment.  And that’s when an idea popped into my head.

What I would like to talk about in presentation is how social media sites are changing the entertainment industry as a whole through a marketing perspective.  In doing so, I can successfully combine both areas that I am studying here at St. Joe’s.  I would like to demonstrate how artists, tv personalities, movie stars, and radio shows can market themselves in ways that were never possible before recent social media technologies were created.  Now like never before those who are new to the entertainment industry can promote themselves to others in hopes of gaining publicity, and already established stars can enhance their image and boast upcoming events to keep their niche within the industry fresh.  I plan to demonstrate how those in the industry are doing so through various examples on the latest social media sites. Should be very interesting!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! See you all later this week.

When I presented my project in class today I mentioned that I had used Twitter’s font throughout my presentation to add yet another dimension to the project.  I was really really bummed when it didn’t show up on my project today.  I didn’t think it through far enough to realize that the font wouldn’t show up on other computers without it being downloaded there too.  So… what I am going to list below is a link to download the font where I got it from, as well as post a how-to link on installing the font for anyone who has never done so before.  If nothing else you’ll learn how to add different fonts to your computer for other projects.  I think if you do this you will be able to see my project with Twitter’s font.  Just didn’t want this feature of my project to go to waste since I was really proud of it, but like I said only if you get bored or curious.

TWITTER’S FONT (Pico-Black, and Pico-White) – http://www2.wind.ne.jp/maniackers/pico.html… bear with me on this one, the site is a little weird but it works, just go to the bottom where it says “WIN True Type” to start the download.  You get both fonts in the package.

HOW TO INSTALL FONTS (by About.com) – http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/fixfonts/ht/install_fonts_w.htm

Have Fun!

PS… seriously check out that other video if you have time.  It is not embeddable by ESPN’s request but they did a great job covering the ins and outs of Twitter in the sports world.  I’ll leave that link here as well.