Race Day
May 24, 2009 New
My baby just turned four. My first baby that is.
Somehow he went from this:
O - Day 1
To this car obsessed, scooter-driving, ABC reciting, candle blowing kid:
birthday boy
In September he starts school. And, it seems like I will close my eyes and he will be going off to college. He will move away from home, and if he is anything like my husband he will never call his parents. I digress…
Yesterday, we held his fourth birthday celebration. Every year we host a party for him at our house. It is becoming more difficult to do at home as the kids need more direction, more entertainment, and more friends attending. But, we decided one last time until we are forced to spend a small fortune renting swimming pools, indoor playgrounds or space at a local farm equipped with pony rides. When we asked Bear what he would like to do for his birthday he said he wanted his friends to come over to play, to eat cake and to get presents (of course). Reasonable requests. Not once did he ask to play video games at Chucky Cheese or go go-carting or ice skating with a birthday hat on.
Still, his list of friends was long (and we couldn’t invite 8 of 10 boys in his class – we had to invite them all, which is why we limited the invites to boys and only invited one girl from next door) and these boys need games and entertainment or they become unruly and chaotic. So, we couldn’t just have a party at the house and throw the kids and some toys into the backyard. Last year the birthday theme was Construction as at the time Bear was into Bob the Builder. We had a few games planned but the kids were more interested in the cardboard boxes we had put out as giant building blocks. What works at age 3, doesn’t work for age 4.
This year we hosted a Race Day.
Here is what we did:
- Every kid arrived and received a lanyard with their Pit Pass.
- We took their picture as a racecar driver using our Mac and video camera and then e-mailed the photo to their parents. Here is our son in this picture:
- All the kids received a little wooden race car to decorate with stickers, crayons and markers.
- While some kids finished decorating their cars, other kids played with the die-cast cars and ride-ons we had out in the yard.
- Games: Red Light, Green Light and a Parachute with a plastic ball
- When all the kids were finished their race cars we held a race using a ramp (seen above) that my husband built- complete with launcher.
- Food: Typical BBQ – hotdogs, hamburgers, potato salad, fruit salad popcorn and potato chips
- Decorations: Race flags, black and white balloons, red and white checkered table cloths, orange pylons.
We think it was a hit.
Before I know it…it will be time to plan his 13th birthday.
Popularity: 88% [?]
Community Manager: or the reason I have been MIA
May 9, 2009 New
I have been away from this blog for a little while now (as you may have noticed). Apparently, I don’t adjust well to change!
Two months ago I started a new job as a Community Manager, ending my maternity leave early by nearly five months. I started initially part-time, but went to full-time this week. In reality, Community Management is NOT a part-time gig, but the opportunity for this position was a perfect fit and going back to work early was not in the plans, this was the compromise!
So, what is a “Community Manager”? It is a tough job to give you an elevator definition. But I will give it a whirl:
My job as Community Manager is to engage, build and listen to the community. It is kind of like being a hostess for a party I have to make sure everyone is getting what they want, that they aren’t ruining the party for anyone else, and that if there is a question about where the coats should go – there is someone to answer it.
Of course that is a bit silly. But, the essentials are there.
Engage the Community
Motivate members of the community to get involved, connect with other members and actively participate in activities whether that is a discussion on a Forum, an offline event, comments on a blog, or a twitter chat.
Build the Community
Extend the community beyond the existing members, market and maximize communication to community, potential members at large and internal employees.
Listen to the Community
Monitor conversations within community and other online conversations to make sure needs are being met, identify trends and new ways to activitate two-way conversations.
Tactically, I do the following:
- Write blog posts
- Listen and post on our community forum
- Monitor the web for brand and community mentions
- Find new ways to promote, engage and build the community (adding features to the community, spreading WOM, finding ways to increase SEO or link build)
- Evangelize social media
- Work with internal teams to promote community, get support or resources as well as providing trends and metrics from community to other groups who can use that information.
Connie Benson has a fantastic post on the Roles and Responsibilities of a Community Manager which I highly recommend reading.
You can visit my community here (make sure you check out the community blog as well since this is where I have been doing the blogging for the past two months!)
Popularity: 93% [?]
