Mel, do tell...

It’s Tea Time Once Again

melissafeeney — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 04:54:07 +0000

In less than a week I will be co-hosting an event that is near and dear to me, The Gratitude Tea. Now in it’s third year, the event is an afternoon tea in celebration of the inspiring people in your life.

Attendees are encouraged to bring the person who has had a positive affect on their life to the afternoon tea service and share a short story of their influential guest.

All funds raised will go to Dress for Success Toronto, a non-profit organization that provides career development to low-income women.

The event includes: afternoon tea, silent auction, live music, specialty vendors and other surprises!

Drink tea, give thanks and be merry at the 2011 Gratitude Tea.

http://gratitudetea.com/

#GratTEA11

Save the date for the 2011 Edition of The Gratitude Tea

melissafeeney — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 18:34:49 +0000

I am excited to be yet again working on another Gratitude Tea, our annual fundraising tea for a local charity. Our charity of choice will be announced soon.

Come share a little gratitude in a high tea ceremony at Rosewater Toronto on December 11 with us. You won’t regret it

I’m going to Disney World!

melissafeeney — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 03:57:36 +0000

Digital media and Walt Disney World. My two favourite things have actually collided to produce the perfect conference. In a few short weeks I will be off to sunny Florida to attend Mashable Connect to exchange information with leading social media experts from around the world!

If you are wondering why an iconic tourist draw like Disney World was chosen for an important social media conference, it is most likely because it has completely embraced social media as part of how it does business. Most recently Disney partnered with Gowalla to customize a stamp or pin for every park-sanctioned hotel, attraction, restaurant and ride to help visitors explore the parks and attractions – the largest Gowalla partnership with a brand to date. I am sure Josh Williams, the CEO of Gowalla who is a Mashable Connect speaker will speak to this when he presents on Day One of the conference. I am hopeful the organizers will have an activity planned that will allow us to experience this partnership first-hand via our mobile devices and Gowalla app.

The weekend is packed with an incredible line up of speakers. To name just a few….

Rohit Bhargava, SVP, Global Strategy & Marketing, Ogilvy
Sabrina Caluori, Director of Social Media & Marketing, HBO
Cameron Death, Senior Vice President and General Manager, NBCUniversal Digital Studio
Scott Heiferman, Co-Founder & CEO, Meetup
David Karp, Founder, Tumblr
Steve Rubel, SVP/Director of Insights, Edelman Digital
Raymie Stata, SVP, Chief Technology Officer, Yahoo
Josh Williams, CEO, Gowalla

I will be blogging while at the conference so look out for a few videos, posts, photos and tweets!

Watching Something Go Viral In Real Time

melissafeeney — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:00:27 +0000

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever truly witnessed something go viral? Here is a good example. Take Cookie Monster, a beloved Sesame Street muppet and a classic live television program, put the two together and you have the ability to make the combined idea something for people to talk about.

Simply broken down: Sesame Street + Saturday Night Live = internet trending topic!

The clever marketers behind the Sesame Street franchise realized an opportunity to take two cultural icons, Cookie Monster and SNL and put them together, to do something that had never been done before.

The Facebook fan campaign for Betty White to become a host on SNL was a hit and like Betty White who had never hosted SNL before, neither has Cookie Monster.

When I saw the first tweet….

RT @sesamestreet: Cookie Monster needs your help – he wants to host SNL! Watch the video and hit LIKE here: http://bit.ly/CookieSNL

….I knew this idea was going to catch on. In a matter of minutes, the number of people who ‘liked’ this idea on Facebook jumped from about 300 to 600 people. That’s when I knew I better start documenting how fast the trend was going to spread.

12:38 pm…

12:39 pm…

12:40 pm…

12:45 pm…

12:47 pm…

12:58 pm…

3:06 pm…

3:10 pm…

3:27 pm…

…and so on…and so on… If you would like to ‘LIKE’ Cookie Monster on Saturday Night Live to, go to: http://bit.ly/CookieSNL

You’re late, you’re late…for a very important date!

melissafeeney — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 01:39:43 +0000

It’s almost December, so that means it’s almost time for another Gratitude Tea! This charity event is all about raising spirits, receiving praise and spreading goodwill. Well actually it is a formal way to say ‘thank you’ to that unsung hero in your life We are giving you the grandest of opportunities to speak out about that special person in a way that they will always remember. Bringing a guest is just as special too. Just by bringing them as your guest speaks volumes to how they have impacted your life.

Oh and there is tea too! Lots of yummy sweets and treats, clotted cream and tiny sandwiches that only Marie Antoinette would approve of.

Where: Rosewater

When: Sunday December 5, 2010

Time: 1:00 to 3:30 pm.

www.gratitudetea.com

Attend This Event

The Most Gorgeous Wedding I’ve Ever Seen

melissafeeney — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 00:26:39 +0000

The beautiful Coco Rocha wed long-time friend James Conran and boy was it a wedding with a capital W! I’ve never seen such an extravagant video for a wedding but it was so elegant and beautiful. The video plays out like a Chanel perfume commercial or a movie trailer for a beautiful fairy tale where a princess gets married in a French Chateau. The video speaks for itself, so have a watch.

http://vimeo.com/13987793

FABulous $10 iPad Giveaway from FabFind

melissafeeney — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 22:17:06 +0000

Kudos to the fine people at FabFind. You created mass hysteria on the web when you announced the daily deal today would be a $10 iPad. Hard to believe? Absolutely! In fact, when learning of the deal this morning I had to turn to my Twitter tweeps to double check the deal was legit. When I signed into Twitter, I found out I was late to the party. The discussion was in full gear and as I found out, half of Toronto already knew about it before I did.

Word spread like wildfire, which caused their website to go down. At around 1:00 p.m. the CEO of the company sent out an e-mail to all subscribers with the subject, “Re: $10 iPads…whoa, people!”

FabFind CEO Response

http://www.youtube.com/v/8ZVMXtgBghE?fs=1&hl=en_US

The deal was most definitely legit and if you don’t believe me, just watch proof of the delivery of an iPad to a reluctant believer in this video.

Since the possibility of getting your hands on an iPad were like winning the lottery, FabFind decided to give away the last iPad to the winner of a Facebook contest. The rules are: you submit a reason for why you need/want an iPad in 140 characters, submit and vote on the best answer. The answer with the most responses, wins! Before you can submit your answer, or even view others’ responses you have to “like” their fan page on Facebook first…very smart marketing! Not only are people going to “like” this service, they are going to spread the message far and wide so people will vote for their answer.

I submitted an answer but not before realizing there was only one iPad to be given away, not the first 100 as my friend informed me.

As of right now their website is still down and I’m sure the owners are basking in a 1000% increase in traffic to their FabFind.com.

Jimmy Fallon’s Hashtag Segment

melissafeeney — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 15:05:16 +0000

The other day my sister and I were watching Late Night with Jimmy Fallon when his hashtag segment came on.

On Twitter Jimmy asked his viewing audience to use the hashtag #worstjobieverhad so he could compile the best tweets to read on his show. I can honestly say, I haven’t laughed out loud that much in a long time.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon – Hashtags (9/29/10) – Video – NBC.com.

Run for the Cure’s Social Media Connection

melissafeeney — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:40:23 +0000

CIBC’s Run for the Cure is one of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation’s biggest fundraising initiatives. To compliment their advertising and marketing efforts, the organization has also created a site called areyourunning.ca which focuses on the ways you can get involved online and off.

Included on the website:

Facebook app called Wig Out, that allows you to upload your own photos from Facebook and plant a digital pink wig on your head, so you can share with your online friends
Twitter backgrounds, that show you are supporting the cause
10% off digital music downloads
WigTube, with links to CBCF’s YouTube videos
The World’s Largest Handholding Chain, where you can search for family and friends to hold onto or join as an individual

If you are running, I will see you there on October 3, 2o1o!

It’s Been a Year…Time for a Little Reflection

melissafeeney — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:19:33 +0000

It’s time to get a little personal, which is something I don’t do very often on this blog. If you have ever lost someone very close to you, maybe you can relate.

It has been one year (Aug 3) since my mom died. It has been a wild one but a challenging one as well. Not just the challenge of learning how to grieve, or move forward but learning how to grow from this situation and try to turn some of the negatives into positives.

Looking back at this past year, it’s remarkable I was even able to do anything at all, considering in the first three weeks since the event took place, I didn’t even want to feed myself.

I was able to get back into a normal routine and I think being able to focus on work again really helped me put things into perspective. I can’t say I was too productive at work though, because my mind was thinking about a million things…what to do with my mom’s house, where will my sister and I live? Can I afford a mortgage or a downpayment?

Despite all the worry in my head, I tried not to get caught up in all the grown up stuff I had to take care of and made it a priority to have fun, see friends, treat myself to getting my nails done and the general stuff that would make me happy and distract me from all the negative emotions I had.

If I also did not have the support of my boyfriend I may have probably had a much tougher time coping.

I feel I accomplished a lot this year. I was still able to host another WordCamp Toronto, change jobs – which is somewhat of a scary prospect in challenging times and I was able to put on a charity fundraising event in honour of my mom, now an annual event called The Gratitude Tea.

The best thing I’ve learned from this year is that friends are really important. They will cheer you up when you’re feeling down, take you out for dinner to distract you and remind you that everything will be okay. More importantly, life will go on.

I am my mom’s legacy and I know she would be proud knowing my sister and I picked ourselves up after tragedy and continued to look forward. She was a self-made woman and I try to live by her example everyday.

Here’s a video treat I put together for people who knew my mom. It was taken at my sister’s graduation in the spring of 2009. You can hear in the video that my sister is telling me to put the camera away but I’m glad I didn’t listen. It’s the only video I have of her in recent history.

http://vimeo.com/14292860