How the change began:

In March of 2009 I was ending a nearly four year run as a contractor for an insurance company as an IT Security associate. I loved the people I worked with and the job was sufficient for getting a paycheck while trying to finish up my degree. The job was ridged and there were rules and confinements and tons of bureaucracy. I’m a creative person by nature and the job left me feeling empty on a daily basis. When it was time for my contract to end I accepted it happily.

Over the summer I looked for jobs but nothing felt like it was for me, so I opted to enroll in school full time for the Fall of 09 and I just pulled out some serious loans. This time I was done playing around, no more taking classes at night while working full time. During the process of researching classes to take, I found that I could do an internship and luckily I caught a tweet from Granada Theater saying they were looking for interns. I direct messaged the theater asking them what the job entailed and it really sounded right up my alley, graphic work, Facebook, Twitter. A creative job at last!

The job was everything I’d been doing casually for the past 10 years. I sent a copy of my resume (via Twitter) and was instantly asked when I could come in for an interview. I thought oh my God, I have nothing to show that I know social media, or graphic work.

What could I do to stand out?

During my time at my job at the insurance company I had a lot of time to read and listen to podcasts on social media and the like. It was time to pull out all of that knowledge of how things worked and put it to use.

Within 24 hours I whipped up a plan and executed it.

The Plan

I wanted to see how many people I could get to follow Granada Theater on Twitter and have them tell Granada Theater why all these people where following them. I crafted a blog that included a link that pre-composed a message to place into Twitter. It was a simple two step process, follow @granadatheater, then tell them why and who told them to follow them.

The message;

“Tell your friends via a tweet that you followed @granadatheater because @got80s told you to.”

After the blog was posted I had to get the word out about my plan.

Facebook:

I created lists of my friends on Facebook using the “lists” feature. The lists where of people I knew had a Twitter account so I could make sure they received the notification of my plans.

I also posted status updates on Facebook to tell people about it just to make sure the message went out to everyone (even the non Twitter users).

Email:

I emailed everyone in my address book that I figured would be willing to help, even some I figured were a long shot. I just copied and pasted the blog posting and told people if they needed help in setting up an account and tweeting I would help them.

Phone:

I contacted people via text messages and actual calls to make sure they had gotten my email and if they needed me to I could help. I had a few people that couldn’t get to Twitter because they were at work so I sent them instructions on how to tweet from their phone and even gave them the message to copy and paste into a new message.

Twitter:

I got in touch with some people who had a lot of followers and asked if they could post about my plans in their streams. I also contacted Mike Orren of Pegasus News because I figured they had a relationship due to the ads I’d seen on their site. Interesting fact; Mike never actually tweeted my message but found out months later that he send the message I had sent to him, to my interviewer.

Timing:

The tweets had to go out the day of the interview. I wanted maximum impact, and it worked. See the impressions my tweet had (warning image is 1200×4000)

The interview:

I have done plenty of interviews, I’ll admit I felt incredibly overdressed. I forgot what it was like to work for non-corporate businesses. We went through the usual interview questions and while sitting in the interview, the interviewer was thumbing his iPhone scrolling through Twitter and said, “I like your little experiment” with a sly smile. I didn’t have a smart phone so I had no clue how far it had gone since I left for the interview. I used Twitter the way it was intended, no barrier to entry, just a simple phone with no web access. Just proving the fact that if you are scrappy and inventive enough, you can stand out no matter what tools you have at hand.

The tweets continued to occur over the following days and I was called in for a second interview with the owner. Proof of my music knowledge was put to the test. The most interesting interview question I’ve had yet. What kind of music do you listen to and what are your favorite bands?
After two interviews I was sent a direct message on Twitter to say I could start whenever. The internship turned into a job when I was sent yet another direct message saying I was hired over Thanksgiving break. Since that time my boss left Granada Theater and after a short time came back to me and we are now working together for another music venue, bringing our skills to yet another venue. At the time of this posting, I still work for Granada Theater and I’m a contractor through the company my boss and I created. On a daily basis I’m encouraged to tinker and figure out new ways to approach the marketing of music.

I couldn’t imagine my life any different. I’ve satisfied the kid in me as an adult by being allowed to take apart things and figure out how they work and I’m surrounded by creative people on a regular basis.
Hopefully this post gives someone out there an idea that lands them a job somewhere that they truly love. Just remember, stand out from the sea of faces, the resume is just a piece of paper. Actions will always speak louder than words.

QR code for Lawn With Gnomes

My obsession with QR Codes began a few months ago. Since my discovery of them I’ve spent countless hours reading blogs, use cases on wiki’s and creating unique ideas for social events.

Recently I convinced my boss to add QR Codes to the back of our paper fliers because I felt that was the best way we could test it out on the public with minimal cost to the company.

The idea:
Add a QR Code to the back of our fliers for each genre of concerts in the hopes we could drive traffic via mobile phones to our site.

Problems:
1. QR codes need to be bigger if they contain more information, we needed them to be small. The web address we were pointing to was http://www.granadatheater.com/ which comes up as pretty dense QR code.

2. Tracking, how were we going to track the traffic sent from the codes? For QR Codes at the moment there is no unified way to track them.

3. Education for the uninitiated. Realizing the general public has no clue what these things are and trying to teach them.

Solutions:
Making a QR code that was less dense was achieved by creating a shortened URL with http://j.mp . By making the URL contained within the QR code smaller via the j.mp URL we were able to solve problems 1 & 2 easily. Now we have easy to read codes and we can track their progress. Yes, you read it right, metrics on print media.

Now, onto education.
It’s hard to find good materials that already exist online to teach non-geeks about QR Codes. I did my little attempt below using a demonstration of me scanning one with my Nexus One. I then posted that video to Youtube (below), later to Granada Theater’s Facebook fanpage.

I am still researching and creating documentation that is a quick easy read to teach people about the codes. But at this point in time it remains up in the air if we will continue using them due to being somewhat ahead of the curve.

I will say recent mainstream attempts including the one below for Iron Man 2 beginning to crop up so it’s a possibility that it could be continued.

This time, it’s an open scenario for what I want to be sent to me. No length limit, no questions to be answered, no context.

I don’t care if you use your iPhone, or your laptop cam or a digital camera or a full on video camera.

I just want video of moments in time. Your time.

You can email them directly to me, got80s@gmail.com or you can upload to the site of your choice (Yfrog, Youtube, Vimeo, Twitvid, Facebook Drop.io) and comment or send me the link via twitter.

The only thing I ask is that it be submitted to me by Saturday evening at the latest. (multiple submissions are welcome)

Example;

My teacher gave us an assignment, go out, interview 3 people, ask them a few questions and then we’ll edit them together in class. I checked out a camera from the school lab. I took the camera to work, thinking, I’ll get a few coworkers to interview….

Before I even sit down to record the first interview I realize the camera takes tape, which of course I don’t have lying around. I end up getting too busy to even think about leaving work to get the tape, much less interviewing anyone at this point. So…

That got me thinking..

Why do I have to go out and pick people to ask the questions? Why not just get some people w/a webcam and a Youtube account to answer those interview questions? And I’ll just download and edit together the videos!

Action

That’s where you guys come in, you know, the ones I asked on Twitter yesterday if you had a webcam and a Youtube account? I got a lot of responses, with most saying that they did have a webcam and a Youtube account.

So fire up those webcams and record your responses to these questions:

(yes, I know they are random, there is a method to the madness)

Question #1
What do you think about James Cameron, the director? Did you like his movies? Why? (ex Avatar, Titanic.)

Question #2
What do you think of the blogger Perez Hilton and his rise to fame, is it a deserved fame?

Question #3
What is your most hated movie and why?

Visual How-To

Just in case you aren’t sure how to upload a video to Youtube, I’ve included screen caps below on where the buttons are in the interface. They make it really easy to just record right in the browser!

When You’re Done Recording

Please leave the links to the videos you record in the comments, or DM me on Twitter the link.

I also wanted to say a big Thank You! in advance to those who participate.

United Nations Development Programme on Flickr

I gave to Haiti, did you? While I did give, it just felt like it wasn’t as much as I would like to or can afford at the moment. I thought maybe I’ll take time to work in a local charity? Reality of course set in, the reality that I’m a full-time student and hold a part-time job.

Why not use what I know, social media, I mean, I did get my internship, now job because of it. So why not try to leverage social media again?

So what’s the idea/hack?

It’s simple;

Make sure to append the #hackinghaiti hashtag to the message if you make up your own. I would like to track this.

Haiti still needs your help, make sure to donate! http://j.mp/7tc6Or #hackinghaiti

This is what it it should look like.

A month from now you will post a reminder to people about the tragedy in Haiti and that donations are still needed. Maybe a person that sees the message wasn’t able to give when it was in the public eye? Maybe they have cash to spare when your message gets posted? So maybe, just maybe they will give when they see the message you just posted, a month later? Now, multiply that person times a thousand and you have some serious donations!

Also, it doesn’t have to just be a month from now, you can post up to 3 months later. Or even better yet, you could repost the same message multiple times for 3 months!

Helpful notes:
Curious if your message has been scheduled? Just add a column, select the service you scheduled it on and pick “Pending Update” then select the account on that service and click “Create Column”, now a new column will show up with your pending message for that service.
Hint: If your message doesn’t show up right away hit the refresh button.

Kinda confused about how to schedule a posting in Hootsuite? The embedded video below should start right when the guy is explaining how to schedule a tweet aka post.

Tell me what you think of this idea and tell me if you are going to take part in the comments below.