Carol’s Save a Life Birthday Party

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Carol’s Save a Life Birthday Party

View more presentations from Carol Doane.

Carol Doane top finalist in Pacific Northwest Social Media Awards

Every two minutes someone in Western Washington needs a blood transfusion. Sean Debutts, Social Media Coordinator at Puget Sound Blood Center, sent a direct message to Twitter follower Carol Doane to secure Doane as a champion to spearhead a blood drive. Carol Doane, the Advertising Sales Manager and Social Media Strategist at The Columbian Newspaper in Vancouver, Washington, quickly agreed.

Doane's social media campaign and resulting blood donation event placed her as a top finalist for the Pacific Northwest Social Media Awards in The Scrappy & Engaged Award category. Winners will be announced after the Portland, Oregon InnoTech Conference. InnoTech is a business and technology innovation conference and expo sponsored by top brands IBM, Microsoft, Integra Telecom, Advanced Systems Group, Smarsh, MSI and others. Besides Portland, InnoTech conferences are also taking place in Austin, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The Scrappy & Engaged category salutes best brand awareness/user engagement for under $500. Doane dubbed her campaign, "Carol's Save A Life Birthday Party," and estimated the cost at $14.99, the cost of a birthday cake. As part of her submission she created a SlideShare to describe the event, http://www.slideshare.net/TheClassicCarol/carols-save-a-life-birthday-party. "A crew of social media enthusiasts in Texas and beyond were the SoMe Awards judges," reports Sean Lowery, Executive Director of the InnoTech Conference which is spotlighting the awards.

"Social media is very personal and this campaign struck a chord for me," says Carol Doane. "I have an innate curiosity to see if I can drive people out from behind their computers to share a cup of coffee and many will, but this project asked them to extend past surface conversation and participate in a needle-in-the-arm way."

Sean Debutts, the initiator of the direct message that launched Doane's participation notes, "Carol deserves the honor after all the hard work she put into her drive and all the visibility she gave the concept."

The Puget Sound Blood Center maintains eleven donation centers in Washington and continues to benefit from Doane's efforts. "For an hour the SlideShare I created to describe the campaign was Hot on Twitter and featured on SlideShare's Health and Medicine category," notes Carol Doane. "It's all these little wins that makes diving into social media fun."

What's next on the agenda for the Social Media Strategist? "The hardest part now," she muses, "Is explaining what a social media award is to my parents." 

Social media is an all encompassing term for the mixing of technology and social interaction to add value to the community. The SoMe Awards honor the best social media projects, programs and campaigns in the Pacific Northwest. The SoMe event takes place at the prestigious Multnomah Athletic Club, 1849 SW Salmon Street, Portland, Oregon 97205, Thursday, May 7, 2010 from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM. Registration is $20 and includes two drinks and dessert. Event registrations are accepted online: http://ow.ly/1FZ1s

Information about the awards can be found on the SoMe website: http://www.someawards.com/

Award categories include:

• Best Brand Awareness/User Engagement (over $25k) – The Sugar Daddy Award 
• Best Brand Awareness/User Engagement (under $25k) – The People Like Me Award
• Best Brand Awareness/User Engagement (under $500) – The Scrappy & Engaged Award
• Best ROI (over $25k) – The Rich Get Richer Award
• Best ROI (under $25k) – The Keep Your Job Award
• Best ROI (under $500) – The Soon-to-Be Wealthy Award
• Best Social Media App – The Next Big Thing Award
• Best Agency – The House Party Award
• People’s Choice Award
• Best in Show

Congratulations, Carol!

Carol Doane blogs about life and writing on pearlofcarol.com and as @TheFirstCarol on Twitter. She also blogs on business themes at 360Convos.blogspot.com and as @TheClassicCarol on Twitter.

Events Calendar

Angst Gallery honored for 360 Biz of the Month

Angst Gallery earned the designation 360 Biz of the Month ~ April 2010 by the website 360 Convos.

Full disclosure, it was one of our other clients who awarded the designation, but we think friends should celebrate friends and we're congratulating Angst Gallery and it's über achiever owner, Leah Jackson, all through April and beyon.

Angst Gallery was chosen for environmentalism, creativity, and on-street bike parking, major intiatives championed by Leah Jackson the creative genius behind the gallery. The award was made by the website  owner Carol Doane.

We do have one question: "Carol, what does the leopard face on your blog mean?"

Until we pin down what leopards have to do with conversations, we're sure you'll enjoy Carol Doane's blog and her acidic outlook on business and managaing a sales staff.

Congratulations, Angst Gallery!

Writers Mixer packed

Ron Gompertz, author of No Roads Lead to Rome spoke at the April Vancouver Writers Mixer. He's an entertaining guy who pokes a bit of dry humor into his presentation to make a point on the pitfalls of self-publishing. “It's hard to talk about money when we're artists, but money is not a bad way to analyze things,” he said, and walked us through slides of math and graphics to demonstrate how many books a self-published author needs to sell to break even with print-on-demand options.

Gompertz coordinated the March 5th First Friday Author Event in Camas, Washington. We got a kick out of looking up the news article and noting that the paper gave a shout-out to Carolyn J. Rose and Mike Nettleton, two of Active Qu3st's favorite authors.

Read the entire article here.
Read more about Ron Gompertz from Karen Gilb's article on Examiner.com

Writers mix it up every First Saturday

This post originally appeared February 10, 2010 on Pearl of Carol. It is edited slightly for here.

The Vancouver Writers’ Mixer was intended as a one time event hosted by Clark College Community Education teacher, Carolyn J. Rose. She sought to encourage students from her novel writing boot camps to connect with each other and form critique groups. The first mixer was a hit and Rose believed her job was done.

Apparently, she was mistaken.

Badgered by students who couldn’t break the tie to their favorite prof, she kowtowed to the pressure and planned more gatherings. She recruited Mel Sanders, owner of Cover to Cover Books, who agreed to keep her bookshop open 5-6:30 PM every first Saturday to support the blatant scheme to encourage local authors.

It should be disclosed that at each event a contingent of ringers fill the seats who merely desire to revere authors for the 30-40 minutes they speak, lob questions at them for 10-15 minutes, stampede to purchase their books, and publicly beg for autographs.

Presenters are expected to play along.

Both Rose and Sanders are task masters who have kept the guest slate booked with well spoken presenters. They are also experienced in the art of delegation and have passed the baton to a committee who seeks to continue the high caliber of education and entertainment the mixers have provided. These rabid volunteers insure events are entertaining, fast paced—beginning with a fantastic and very entertaining emcee (our very own Carol Doane)—and of course, the event offers snacks.

People in the Pacific Northwest will go anywhere if someone waves a cookie under their nose.

The monthly events consistently draw 20-30 locals who desire to improve their craft, gain insight into the publishing industry, and garner tips on securing publishing contracts. The tickets to the event are FREE and available NOW. Grab one here: http://vancouverwritersmixer.eventbrite.com/

And if you are published or work in the publishing industry and would like to speak at a future event, contact the Vancouver Writers Mixer's by emailing Will Glessner for more info. Please put 'Writers Mixer' in the subject line.

Get your ART on!

April's First Friday Artwalk
April 2, 2010 from 5:00pm - 8:00pm
Student Juried Show: Hot vs. Cold
Student jurors chose the art to be featured during the month of April in Angst Gallery. Meet the students and the artists this Friday during Vancouver's monthly Artwalk. The process of choosing the art was part of the intern program featured in The Columbian on March 14, 2010 (our post). The nicer the weather the bigger the turnout, but the galleries are so close together, rain should not be a deterrent for you getting your art on.

May's First Friday Artwalk
May 7, 2010 from 5:00pm - 8:00pm
Pepe Moscoco: Photography
Meet Pepe Moscoco, a talented photographer who also writes for the Hispanic newspaper in Portland, Oregon. We'll post more info and pictures as soon as available.

June's First Friday Artwalk
June 4, 2010 from 5:00pm - 8:00pm

Bike Love
June is Bike Month at Angst Gallery. The gallery is looking for people who create bicycle related art. Participants are featured during the First Friday Artwalk event this year on Friday, June 4, 2010 from 5:00pm - 8:00 pm. APPLY TODAY, contact Leah.AngstGallery (@) gmail (dot) com and get your BIKE on!

Get this widget at roytanck.com

Pictured above: photos from the June 2009 event at Angst Gallery taken by PortlandBike.org FLICKR

SOLD! Jason Wade Phelps art finds new homes

March was a great show for Jason Wade Phelps at Angst Gallery.

Melanie Sherman noted in the comments section of our previous post First Friday a HIT! that one of her favorite piecies was Mending. We're happy to report this whimsical piece sold. (Pictured right).

Congratulations to the astute buyer.

Local art enthusiasts believe this will be the last time Phelps work will be available at these prices. His ability to connect with his audience and technique will only expand and we wish him the best as his career develops.

Also sold through the show was the Phelps piece pictured at left, Metamorphose.

Find and enjoy more of Phelps work on his blog: Jason Wade Phelps Fine Art.







Coming Next:
First Friday Artwalk, April 2, 2010
5:00pm - 8:00pm
Student Juried Art Show
Downtown Vancouver, Washington

See you in The Couve!

Bookstores read future

"To Mel Sanders, a successful author’s event or open-mike poetry night at her downtown Vancouver bookstore is like the binding of a good book. It holds the pages of her business together."
Great story by Cami Joner in The Columbian on the local bookseller scene.

Article quotes, our friend Mel Sanders from Cover to Cover Books, 1817 Main St, Vancouver (with THREE pictures!); also quotes Kol Shaver, Zephyr Used and Rare Books, P.O. Box 55, Vancouver WA 98666; Steve Tommerup, owner of Literary Leftovers in Battle Ground at 830 W Main; and Becky Milner, founder of Vintage Books, 6613 E Mill Plain Blvd, Vancouver, Washington

With the onset of the electronic book era everything is adjusting in the bookseller's world.

When the dust settles, will the reader still want to hold a real book in their hands?

What do you think?

Read the full story here: Bookstores try to read future.

Behind the scenes at Angst Gallery

Let us be the first to tell you that the dust is flying at Angst Gallery. Exciting disclosures await, but we'd thought we'd give you a little preview.

And what's behind the wall, you ask. We'll let you know very, very soon.