Stephanie Liu

Brickfish Gas Card Design

This has to be my favorite Brickfish campaign simply because it’s easy to enter and the prizes are fantastic! Who doesn’t want a $500 gas card?

Check out the prizes listed below but don’t forget to read the complete rules, regulations, and legal notice:

  • Grand Prize: One winner, selected from the top 100 highest scoring entries by Brickfish, will win a $500 gas card.
  • Most Viral: One winner, selected by Brickfish from the top 10 Most Viral entries, will win a $250 gas card. Learn about Most Viral.
  • Weekly Voter/Reviewer Sweepstakes: Each week, one winner who participates in the campaign by voting or reviewing will win a $100 gas card.
The campaign just started yesterday and people are already submitting their designs. You can check out all of the entries here.
So to get you started, I made a quick tutorial on how to submit an entry using the Entry Editor.

(Photo Credit: Brickfish)

Stephanie Liu

This Week’s Highlights

I have 32 subscriptions to blogs and 1000+ items in my Google Reader that’s waiting to be read. While I filter through these unread items and take steps to simplify and organize my RSS feeds, here are a couple of standout posts, websites, and tools that I found worthy to be highlighted this week.

Posts

Websites

Tools

Stephanie Liu

Firefox 3 Download Day 2008

June 17, 2008 was dubbed Firefox 3 Download Day. The goal, to set a Guinness World Record for Most Software Downloaded in 24 Hours. When I heard of the event, I signed up for a reminder on FF’s download page so I wouldn’t forget. And just as I had predicted, June 17th was a very hectic day. I came down with the stomach flu and was ‘unplugged’ from everyone and anything Internet related. So this morning, when I checked my email, there was my FF reminder and I made it within the allotted 24 hours.

I checked in this afternoon to see the results and it looks like Firefox 3 was downloaded more than 8 million times. The results still need to be verified by the good people at Guinness. In the meantime, feel free to download your very own personalized Firefox 3 Download Day certificate.

Stephanie Liu

Work Smarter with Web 2.0 Tools

I was excited when I saw the question above on LinkedIn because I’m always interested to find out what other people are using to make their life easier at work. I’m glad I checked in on this otherwise I wouldn’t have found out about JingProject.com.

Jing allows you to capture any image on your desktop (includes adding text and arrows) and gives you the option of creating videos. Jing then gives you a link that you can share with your co-workers so they can see exactly what you see.

Now you can avoid lengthy and drawn out text tutorials with Jing. This is absolutely what I needed in the office.

Here’s a video about Jing:


So what about you? What Web 2.0 tools do you find most useful for businesses?

(Photo Credit: JasterArts)

Stephanie Liu

Plurk in Action

I signed up for Plurk on Friday and am loving it! It’s so fun and super addicting – join me here.

For an awesome breakdown on the features of Plurk, check out ReadWriteWeb’s “Plurk: Unique or Just Another Twitter Clone?”

Don’t feel like reading? Check out Bwana’s video below:

[blip.tv ?posts_id=969743&dest=-1]

(Video Credit: Bwana)

Stephanie Liu

Mind Mapping Made Easier

“A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.” – Wikipedia

Mind maps are great when I need to get my ideas out on a page. In fact, I use mind maps exclusively to map out campaign concepts, types of medium, and prize categories before walking into and during a brainstorm meeting. I also use them for blogging concepts, story ideas, and other creative endeavors. So naturally, my notebook is filled with diagrams. Unfortunately, there are times when I map out ideas too quickly that when I go back and look at them, I don’t understand what I wrote… I had to find a way to do it better.

Just recently, I discovered mind42.com and nearly flipped out. Now I can create mind maps in my browser for free and collaborate with co-workers. I can assign icons and colors to specific nodes and best of all, I can add images too.

Here’s a quick overview of the features at mind42.com:

Now get mapping!

(Video Credit: Mind42)

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Stephanie Liu

Crash Course in Social Media

What exactly is social media and how does it affect you and your company?

One place I’ve found to be helpful on the topic was SlideShare.net. They have over 30,000 results on social media.

Here are three presentations that helped me understand what social media is and how to benefit from it.

All presentations can be found at Slideshare.net.

Also, if you come across another presentation that can help explain the social media landscape, please post a link here.

Crucial Conversations In Social Media

Introduction to Social Media

Social Media Strategy