I’ve chosen Gene’s Cowboy Hat for the first subject of my unofficial Spotlight On… series. The Gene in question is, of course, Gene Powell at Spoke. These features can usually be found on our TOLeeps blog, but I felt that this was more personal and that it was appropriate to share this story of heartbreak and betrayal here instead. As many of you know, Gene Powell is a social media catalyst in the Toledo community. Most of Gene’s friends, colleagues, clients, and acquaintances would agree that he’s a personable, energetic, dynamic individual. He improves the lives of everyone he touches. Everyone… except one. And that’s where our story begins. Read the rest of this entry »

This is classic. I almost completely forgot about this. Sometimes I’m glad I’m such an email pack rat. With over half a million followers, Justine Ezarik (iJustine) has a following to followers ratio of 1:209. That means that she follows less than one half of 1% of the people who follow her. How did I get so lucky? No idea.

Interesting side-note: I stopped following her when every other tweet was about cupcakes. I figured that’s when she jumped the shark. But after sampling the many yummy varieties of Cake in a Cup with Ken, Becki, and Katy, I’m starting to understand what she was talking about. Now I feel as though I may have judged her prematurely. Cupcakes are F’in amazing! I might have to start following her again. Sorry, Justine. We’ll always have cupcakes.

This morning, I finally got to attend a Social Media Breakfast Toledo (#SMBTOL). I got so see some familiar faces and finally had the opportunity to move beyond the Twitter avatars with others. This isn’t intended to be a comprehensive  list of attendees. Rather, these are the TOLeeps that I’ve connected with on a personal level, all of whom share valuable content on Twitter. Read the rest of this entry »