I've been thinking about writing this for a while, but reading @babiejenks' old post, Social Super Sized and a great post on The 99%, Is Consumerism Killing Creativity? inspired me to finally get it out into the world. It's hard to unplug from everything and spend time alone and sometimes, it's difficult to explain why it's important. I mean, I don't really go for that hippy, back-to-nature shit and I truly believe that technology, social connectivity and the current pace of rapid innovation is making my life better. So why, if I am one of the industry's biggest champions, do I insist you unplug? Here's a couple of reasons:

5. You don't know how to be alone. The more you rely on social networking to fill up your alone time, the more you need to learn how to be by yourself. If you don't think you're interesting enough to hang out with, why should anyone else? Learn how to sit down with out distractions and see what happens. Can you hang out with yourself all day with nothing to do? Congratulations, so can every 5-year-old on the planet. It's called using your imagination. Trust me, it makes your life better.

4. You are too stressed. Keeping up with everything and everyone is hard work. Come on, we've all felt it, being popular is stressful. How do you juggle so much all the time? Forget trying to please everyone and go for a run. Or do yoga. Or read a book. Whatever gets you going. Escaping all of it not only gives you some room to breathe, it helps put everything into perspective. For me, there's nothing like hopping on the treadmill with some music cranked to realize that nothing is as bad as it seems. 

3. You are an idea black hole. How can you come up with new ideas when you are bombarded with the same thing all of the time? When you unplug and do something different, you can see how the rest of the world works. The things you take for granted might be completely confusing for others. When you put yourself in someone else's shoes, you come up with ideas of how to do things in a different way. 

2. You don't like it anymore. Does it feel like a job? It shouldn't. Well, parts of it should (like the parts where people pay you to be online and report back to them on how you are doing...). Leave your phone behind and go do the coolest thing you can think of. Wait for that moment where you cannot wait to tell your friends. Realize that you'll have to wait until you get back to your phone/computer to tell them. Build a story around what you've done that was so cool. Figure out the best way to share it. Get excited again. 

1. You are really fucking boring. You think I'm rude? Have you met you? You only talk about the Internet. Nobody can be that one dimensional and be interesting. Going to conferences and getting drunk with people who also spend all of their time online doesn't make you interesting either. It makes you kind of sad. Go hang out with people who don't understand what you do. Go hang out with people who do things you don't understand. Talk to everyone. Learn everything. I don't mean this in a self-help sort of way. I'm sure it'll make you grow as a person, but more importantly, it'll mean that your friends will enjoy your conversation again. Right now, they roll their eyes everytime you mention the latest social network (or worse, update different social networks while hanging out with them). 

This post is full of grown up words! Sometimes, you just need to drop an eff bomb or two. If you are offended by this, I worry about how you survive in the real world. Please come over, I'll make you some cookies and we can talk it out. 

I read a great post by +SchneiderMike today on The Next Generation of Customer Loyalty. It got me thinking about all of the times when I've been checking into places and feeling like the business I was checking into was missing a huge opportunity. Here are some of the campaigns I'd like to see in location based marketing that would make it worthwhile for me to keep letting the world know where I am at any given time:

5. The neighbour. If you check in somewhere, wouldn't it be great to find out what's close by? For example, check in at the shoe store, get a discount on summer dresses from the shop across the street. Check in at the butcher, find out what deals they have on at the liquor store (What? My mind went straight to grilled streaks and red wine!). Supporting local is easier when you know where to go and programs like this will help customers connect the dots.

4. The world traveler. There are places I go to no matter where in the world I am. For example, I love Top Shop, but there aren't any near me. I will never be the mayor of Top Shop, but I have been to Top Shops in crazy places. If I check in to chains in different cities, doesn't that make me a loyal customer? In this example, I'm always ready to drop some serious coin, because there isn't a store near me. How do brands take advantage of that? How do brands take advantage of the person who checks into Starbucks every weekday, even if it is in a different city each time?

3. The connector. Make your friends loyal customers. Are you the friend that always knows the best places to eat, drink and shop? I think you should be rewarded for introducing hotspots to your crew. I'd like to see a loyalty program that involves you checking in with a friend (tag them in your check in?). The next time your friend checks in to that location, you get some type of discount/prize/free something. Smart, right?

2. The zealot. Do you travel across town for your favorite espresso? How many coffee shops do you pass to get there? Going next door for cheap diner coffee is less loyal than passing 3 Starbucks and a handful of convenience stores. How can we reward customers for this type of behaviour without employing creepy big brother type tactics. I'm not sure, but I hope the coffee shop I go to across town figures this one out. 

1. The achiever. If I check in to the gym ten days in a row, I do not want to be rewarded with a free day at the gym. I want to be rewarded with a frozen yogurt, or a cookie or maybe even a personal training session. Don't reward me with something I will already be doing, reward me with something I might like, or something I might be willing to pay for in the future if I see value in it. Also, if I check in to the gym ten days in a row, I think that's an achievement, even if it's nowhere near the juice monkey mayor of the gym. That guy is annoying and nobody likes him. 

Phrase, Photo, Palette. You like?

I really appreciate people who are taking the time to post different content on different platforms. I don't want to read what you ate for lunch on Twitter, FB and Google+. Syncing is for chumps. Since I don't want to be a chump, I took a few minutes to sit down and figure out what I wanted to post on each. Here's what I came up with:

Facebook - Pictures for my family and friends to see! Keeping track of friends and letting them know what's going on in my life.

Twitter - Daily observations, quick shares and in-the-moment discussions. If I'm going to drop an eff-bomb, or tell you how much I love something, it'll probably be on here. Also, Unicorns.

Google+ - Interesting articles or funny stuff about the Internet. I'd love to use Google+ to make me smarter. 

LinkedIn - Is it work related? Will someone see it and think more of me (and hiring me) because I posted it? If not, it has no place on LinkedIn. 

I've set this as a rough guideline for myself. I imagine I'll link to blog posts I write on multiple platforms and possibly share music in different places: Is it my favorite band? Facebook. Is it the coolest video? Google+. Is it what I'm listening to right now? Twitter.

Have you thought about how you share? Would love to read what you think. 

No, I haven't seen It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I guess maybe I'll have to check it out now, so I can make funny, inside jokes about it whenever I tell people "I'm in Philadelphia." and that's how they respond. Then we can laugh amongst ourselves and give pitying looks to those that don't understand what I'm talking about. I haven't been doing weekly posts lately as it took quite a while for our furniture to get here. When you're in a new city, in a new apartment, sitting on the floor to do all of your work, not work, eat and...sleep, blogging seems to take a back burner. Also, I imagine the resulting posts would have been fairly depressing. Knowing what not to post on the Internet is what makes for a good blogger, I hear. 

What's up with Philadelphia, you ask? Here's what I've noticed so far:

5. The Liberty Bell is three blocks away from me. I can go see it anytime. I have no idea why this excites me so much. 

4. There is a serious organ here. I imagine most cities have an organ, but this one is in the middle of a department store. It's played every day (except Sundays) at noon and 7pm. The family that built it, the Wanamakers, owned a department store and loved music. That's really how stuff like that happens. Amazing. 

3. I have no idea where, when and how to buy booze here. I know there's quite a few restaurants that are BYOB and that some shops sell beer. The "Beer Store" seems to only sell beer in 24s (yeah, you read that right) and you cannot buy wine and spirits at the beer store. Nothing is sold on Sundays and everything is very confusing. 

2. Every city has a uniform. This has been previously discussed. In Philly, it seems to be Phillies shirts/hats for guys and too tight/short dresses for girls. When walking down the street, all I see are red baseball hats and girls yanking at the sides of their dresses while doing a small dance/waddle, trying to make sure their dresses don't ride up too high. 

1. This city has history. Old blends in with new. I've been to a number of cities where old is either destroyed, worked around, or preserved in a Do Not Touch kind of way. This is not the case in Philly. Old stands right beside new, old is used just as much as new and there are no work arounds, stuff still gets used. I love seeing horse troughs with flowers planted in them. Philly isn't a city that neglects its past, but it doesn't really embrace it either. The history of Philadelphia just hangs out all the time, being a part of every day life here. It's pretty cool. 

Last week, I spent three days in Dearborn, Michigan alongside almost 200 other bloggers, journalists and social media advocates for Forward with Ford. I was pleasantly surprised at how much value I got out of a Ford branded conference (what me? I don’t write about cars!). At times, it seemed as though the biggest story was the conference itself. I’m not the only to think this, Josh Cable, of Industry Week, shares this feeling in his article, “Have you blogged about Ford recently?” I'll be posting about some of what I learned in various places, but here's the not-so-tech stuff I learned:

5. I need more high-tech tools for my morning routine. When watching how Ford uses a variety of programs to design cars, it struck me that I need some of those tools for getting ready each day. Can you imagine how much better my makeup would be if I could see how different reflections and lighting conditions would affect it? I’m also betting it would make wardrobe decisions a snap. Look at an outfit from all angles and then decide whether or not those pants make yer butt look big.

4. There is a lab for everything thing you can think of at Ford. While I normally don’t spend any time thinking of how much effort goes into designing and building a car, I know I could not have guessed how much thought actually does go into it. There’s a guy that spends his entire day thinking about seats. I met three lovely women who test every material in your car under every climate condition you can think of for smells. The goal of the odor labs at Ford? “We try not to be offensive.” I aim for that myself.

3. The only people who love free food more than journalists are bloggers. You think I’m kidding? That’s pretty much why I agreed to go to Dearborn, Michigan. I heard the same thing over and over again, “I came for the free food, but I am enjoying the entire thing.” I assumed incorrectly that most of the content wouldn’t be interesting, but Ford did a great job of combining smart, relevant content with their here’s-why-we-think-Ford-is-awesome message.

2. You meet the coolest people in the most unexpected places. Part one of my personal mantra is “let’s just see where this goes,” so you know I’ve never been one to turn down an invite. Leading up to the conference, the buzz on the Internets had a distinctly pet-blogger feel to it. This did not inspire very much hope in me. However, the conference was attended by some fascinating people. Everyone one from tech bloggers (like myself and yes, we’re all fascinating) to travel writers to storytellers and videographers. Stay tuned, as some of them will show up on I know smart people in the very near future.

1. Ford is doing some awesome stuff. Yes, my trip was entirely funded by Ford. I’m not just saying they are awesome because of that though, they really do have amazing things on the horizon. I approve of the way they are integrating technology (more of that to come on TechVibes.com) and how they are planning for the future. Did you know that you have to look 3 – 4 years out when designing a car? I guess that’s why white, black and silver are still the most popular car colours…