Josh Shear

It started off innocently enough.

He of course meant the Italian hazelnut spread Nutella, but you get the picture. Thing is, Matt said that while drinking Nutella hot chocolate, a pretty mild combination.

Frank called him on it.

Well, we'll see.

So Frank offered to put up $10 for the Josh's Beard project (fighting childhood cancer) if Matt ate meatballs (plural) with Nutella on them.

Matt was thinking sure, we'll have spaghetti and meatballs and I'll put some Nutella on a couple. But then Todd upped the ante.

Tracy, Amanda and Dan also jumped on board for donations.

Here are Tracy's posts:

» The preview
» The proof

And here's the video:

There were over 20 people at the Syracuse tweetup Thursday at Recess Coffee. There is no science to setting up such an event, and getting people face to face is not brain surgery. Here's how this one came about.

Picking a date and time. Ask on Twitter. People seemed generally to think Thursday would be a good evening for them, and some mentioned specific dates. You're not going to please everyone, so you have to just pick a date. Most people get out of work between 4 and 6, so 5:30 seems like a good starting time, figuring that some people will arrive early and some people will arrive late, but nobody has to go home and urge themselves out the door after they've kicked off their shoes.

Picking a place. Again, you're never going to please everybody. But there are things everyone wants in a location: parking, something to eat and/or drink, and – something we learned from the last tweetup – someplace where they don't have to shout over loud music and loud dinner conversations. Since Recess Coffee is smallish, I called them three weeks ahead of the date and asked if they would mind if something on the order of 20 of us showed up (the worst thing we could do for them would be to scare away anyone who would normally be there, if we were going to show up once). They said sure, and most people bought coffee (or peanut butter hot chocolate), and we're good to go back, as long as we give them some notice.

Why? We're already connected on Twitter, why do a tweetup? Personalities and ideas tend to germinate in person, especially when people get to talk for several minutes and exchange business cards. And when great minds get together and create great things, everybody wins.

Who's in to plan the next one? I'll help!

If memory serves, the following people were at Thursday night's Syracuse tweetup. If I missed you (and I likely will miss someone), @ me and I'll get you on the list post-haste. If you're on MySpace, friend our hosts, Recess Coffee.

• @beaslee (Nicole)
• @billpfohl (Bill)
• @bradfordmorse (Bradford)
• @bradintheam (Brad)
• @burrito19 (Beth)
• @dagsly (Frank)
• @Gaelen2 (Pat)
• @itsahero (Rachel)
• @JayClewis (Jay)
• @Jill_HW (Jill, with Tom)
• @JoshShear (Josh)
• @kelvinringold (Kelvin)
• @kitschqueen (Susan, with Jason)
• @Mitch_M (Mitch)
• @paddyshaughn (Patrick)
• @philatsun (Phil)
• @samskelton (Sam)
• @tdog4494 (Tim)
• @toddengel (Todd)
• @tracytilly (Tracy)

I tend to check Google Trends in the morning. It's one of the things I do in terms of a morning coffee ritual when I get to work. For those not familiar, it's a list of the things people are searching for on Google; typically it's updated every hour or so, but sometimes it goes on for a few hours before it updates. Whatever.

Frequently, it's people wanting to watch one of last night's TV episodes. There's usually something that's been featured either on The Today Show or Good Morning America. Sometimes there's sports scores. And sometimes it's people in a large enough market searching for school closings.

And then sometimes it's dead celebrities. The Internet loves to kill people. Failing that, maybe the Internet is retiring athletes mid-season.

Tuesday morning, there were two. The top search was justin bieber dead; the second hottest search was casey johnson dead.

Being a pop-culture-ophobe (OK, not really, but I'm pretty dim when it comes to this stuff), I'd never heard of either of these people. Which means that I had to wade through the search results to figure out who they were, never mind if they were actually dead.

Bieber, it turns out, is a 15-year-old kid who is some sort of pop sensation or something. He appears to be living and breathing and making teenage girls cry with his sensitivity instead of in mourning. This, apparently was not the first time the Internet killed Justin Beiber (via WikiAnswers:

Casey Johnson is the great-great-granddaughter of one of the founders of the Johnson & Johnson Company (if you've ever read a label on anything in a bathroom, you've heard of them). She's also the daughter of Robert Wood "Woody" Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets.

Casey Johnson is, in fact, dead. She died this week at the age of 30, and at this writing, we're not sure why.

So, what did we learn from this? That Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes was correct: Newspapers (and other traditional news outlets) are going to turn into truth filters.

While we'll get most of our news from places like Twitter or Facebook (not necessarily those places, but places like them), where we select who we get the news from so the news will be relevant to us, we'll still need places like The New York Times to tell us whether the news we got is actually true.

The lesson: If you're not sure, check with someone you trust. Don't freak out over something you heard from someone who heard from somewhere that something may or may not have happened, which means it absolutely did.

Just like in many aspects of your life, you need to actually use your brain to use the Internet effectively.

I rang in 2010 with a great crowd of people: Mike, Frank, Nicole, Mel, Joe, Geoff and Rochelle.

Every one of those names up there is linked to a Twitter account. I met all of those people thanks to Twitter (either connecting on Twitter or having them connected to someone I had connected to on Twitter), and all of them in 2009. I know there are still nay-sayers – people who think that Twitter is just a bunch of nerds chatting online who couldn't hold a conversation in real life so they're hiding behind a utility – but as I mentioned last month, Twitter leads to more in-person interaction, not less.

I'm not the only one who made this observation about our new year's eve gathering.

I know the other question on your mind is: Were we talking or tweeting all night? I just went through all of our Twitter streams. Frank tweeted 3 times while we were out; one of those was a photo from our night out. Rochelle tweeted once; it was a photo of our night out. I posted once; it was a scheduled happy new year tweet I had created two days prior.

So, we were either talking to each other, or we were standing around in awkward silence. And there was no awkward silence.

I mentioned last week that I use Twitter more than other social media platforms. There's a reason.

Throughout this year, I've met a whole bunch of locals I never would have met. At our first Twitter social, I met this guy and this guy, and this woman, who does this, this woman, who does this, and this guy, who does this.

I then met this guy, this guy, this woman and this guy, and I met this woman, who does this, really well. She led me to this woman, who is awesome at this – and I finally managed to meet her yesterday.

And then I left dinner and met this woman and this woman.

I've also met this guy, who asked me to speak to a bunch of journalists (alongside this woman and this woman), and I met this guy and this guy while doing that.

Twitter has also introduced me to this guy, who had me speak to these folks, where I met this guy, this woman, this woman and this guy.

On Thursday, the local Twitter community will meet again, this time here (at 5:30 p.m., if you'd like to join us) – I'm hoping to, at the very least meet this woman and this guy, and possibly this woman. I'm also expecting I'll meet this guy at some point in the not-too-distant future. Oh, and this guy, too.

For those of you who are worried that spending too much time on a network like Twitter is going to cut down on your face-to-face time with people, you need to re-think that. Would I have met these folks if not for Twitter? Possibly. But it's a pretty simple tool that costs exactly nothing to expand both your social and professional networks. Seriously.

Catch me on Twitter or LinkedIn and let's chat if you want help getting started.

I'd say I'm not a big fan of motivational, go chase your dream, up and at 'em, how to win at business and life books, but really I don't read them, so I don't know for sure that I'm not a fan.

And then I found Gary Vaynerchuk on Twitter.

The dude has passion, and he has a dream. The passion: Wine. The dream: Buy the Jets.

He has personality, he has energy, he has a foul mouth, he has hustle, and he's all about getting himself out there. He's got a site about himself, a wine shop and wine review site, a discount wine reseller and a gourmet food shop.

He's fun to watch, and, even if it is the freaking Jets on his spit bucket, what's not to like about a guy who knows which wine to pair with Lucky Charms.

I won't say his book Crush It changed my life or is going to change my life. But it certainly is an invigorating read (and a quick one – one person I passed it along to read it over two lunch breaks), and you definitely hear his voice come through (which makes sense, as he dictated the book – he readily admits that the written word is not his strongest medium).

But if you have passions and goals, Crush It will cue you in to some social media platforms you might not be using, and you'll learn how he built a veritable empire from a small liquor store.

And because I wouldn't be following his advice if I didn't do this, here goes:

• Follow me on Twitter
• Join me on LinkedIn
• Become a fan of my amazing cancer-fighting beard

Now, have a great Friday, read the book this weekend, and get moving.

Or, why I didn't follow you back or accept your friend request.

Something social media networks can learn from libraries: browsing. When you're In the same way you might accidentally stumble across a good book while you were looking for another one entirely, you can stumble across interesting people serendipitously.

The great thing about social media is we all get to use it differently. Sure, various social networks have various target uses, and not every network is for everybody. And, as Buckminster Fuller alluded to, we can't be all things to everyone, and when we try, we end up being very little to pretty much nobody.

For those who are thinking of jumping into a new network – or for those who have jumped and aren't real comfortable – here is how I use various social networks. The way I use these networks may not be right for you, but at least I can put some ideas in your head.

Twitter. I use Twitter the most of any social network. While I don't tweet every time I get up for another cup of coffee, I definitely mix the personal and mundane with the professional and awesome. I've made good connections with great people, spoken to a couple of groups, made new (real-life) friends, found a massage therapist and more on Twitter.

It can be overwhelming, but so can a river. And I wouldn't avoid looking at a river just because it's big and fast moving. If I miss something on Twitter, I miss it. But by and large, I've been happy with Twitter. Here's how I set it up.

I use TweetDeck, which allows me to divide my Twitter stream into columns. On the left, I have the column that shows people responding to me – that way I catch them early, and can talk back. I have other columns for my inner circle of people I want to make sure I catch everything from (or as close as I can get), people who are local to me, people who tweet about social media, and people who tweet about journalism – and then one column with everybody.

As I find another group to break down into, I will create another column (at this rate, it looks like it will be cancer-related topics, since I'm starting to follow people who people might be good to know for the fundraising project I'm working on.

Facebook. I've become particular about who I friend on Facebook. If we're friends in real life (not associates, not co-workers), I will certainly accept a friend request. If it's possible that we could have a friendship or at least a friendly working relationship, I'll probably friend you, and if that doesn't develop, you'll probably fall off during some purge or other.

Facebook has been great for connecting with people from high school. Thanks anyway. If we weren't actually friends in high school, and your name kinda sounds vaguely familiar, why would I want to be your cyber-friend now? For some people, Facebook is about how many "friends" they can amass – I tend to keep it to people I don't mind sharing with, and who I'm interested in hearing from and about.

So don't be offended if you cold call me and I ignore your Facebook request. Get to know me in real life first.

LinkedIn. I use LinkedIn purely for professional connections. If we are currently colleagues, I absolutely will not connect with you on LinkedIn – you don't need to know what I'm doing on the job front, and I don't need to know what you're doing.

On the other hand, if we're in the same industry, I'll accept your LinkedIn connection in hopes that we may be able to someday have a mutually beneficial professional relationship. It's not a place for me to be social; it's truly a professional networking space for me.

Flickr. I barely use Flickr. I've turned to Twitpic, which integrates with Twitter.

What do you do if someone doesn't respond to you, doesn't accept your connection request, or doesn't follow you?

Nothing. I'm confident in what I'm putting out there. If someone has no interest in what I do, that's OK. Other people do.

The one rule I do have, though, is if you Direct Message me on Twitter (which you can only do if the party you're sending the message to is following you), you better be following me back, otherwise, I'm going to unfollow you. Don't try to reach me through a channel I'm not able to reach you through.

The summer is a difficult time for the American Red Cross. Not only is there an elevated need for blood – there are more accidents and people are out of the house more – but there's a short supply: the blood drives that take place at high schools and colleges don't occur in the summer, and even regular donors go on vacation, so maybe they give every 12 weeks instead of every eight.

I had a really busy spring, and didn't make it for my eight-week donation, so they started calling me. Daily. Sometimes twice a day, six days a week.

Eventually, I complained via Twitter, just throwing it out there. A couple of people said they had the same problem. And while the Red Cross didn't respond via one of their Twitter accounts, the phone calls stopped.

Then, today, in the mail, I got a letter from Barbara Wheeler, the Manager of Operations for the Regional Telerecruitment Department for the New York-Penn Region. It started like this:

Please accept our sincerest apologies regarding the excessive number of recruitment calls you have received for blood drives in your area. We deeply regret the inconvenience these calls have caused.

The letter goes on to say they've taken me off their recruitment call list, and that they're looking at their system for calling people.

What this means is, not only did they listen to me, they heard me on a medium I wasn't sure they were using and took the time to look me up in their system. After they found me, they drafted a letter, but waited to be sure they had an actual solution in place to send it.

That's some really good customer service. I'm impressed.

I put this together for work; but you're all welcome to it. If your work environment is more strictly professional, e-mail me and I'll send you the file so you can edit some of the, umm, looser language out.