Driving In Traffic

I’m having a bit of blogger’s guilt. I’ve been swamped lately and Driving In Traffic has fallen behind. Sorry…

What has been keeping me busy?

Well– last week we had the second meeting of the Atlanta Social Media Club hosted by Dan and Dave at Earthlink. There we had a great conversation on “What is a community?” and “What communities do you participate in and why?”

The next Social Media Club will be held at 6:30 on April 4th at the Earthlink headquarters. I will be moderating so stay tuned for the topics. Either way— come out and join us– snacks are on us!

Next– Podcamp Atlanta will be taking place next weekend. I’ll be attending because I’m hoping to begin to use Podcasting at work. But being the anal sort that I am– I’ve got to learn everything before venturing forth…

Lastly– on March 18th… there will be a blogger get together at 5 Seasons Brewing. See Toby’s post for more information. It will be a causal affair where all things bloggy and social media-y will be discussed. All are invited to have a post-St. Patricks brew with us.

I may not be posting… but my addiction continues. Who say’s blogging is for the socially inadept. As the numbers of events indicate… we socialize just fine!

Come join us… there is always room for one more!

Tags: Social Media Club Podcamp Atlanta Blogger Meet-up Atlanta events social media

One of the physicians (aka:  Blogging Doc) I work with will be interviewed on a local radio station (Radio Sandy Springs) on Feb 5th at noon.  You can listen to this online.

Read more at his blog:  Click Here

The first edition of The Giving Carnival is up at Tactical Philanthropy. 

Spurred on by the recent LA Times article on the Gates Foundation, drop by and see what a bunch of experts in philanthropy (who kindly allowed my alter blog ego and philanthropy neophyte to participate) have to say about the investment practices of large foundations.     

There is an event to be held On October 6, 2006 here in Atlanta called “Laugh and a Glass”. It will benefit the Reaching Out Foundation who provide assistance to individuals and families with cystic fibrosis.

The event will feature improv by Dad’s Garage, dessert, drinks and live music. Click here to learn more or purchase tickets.

Also check out my post that includes the whole story about how I learned of this great event and organization.

The two Truths for today are:

• The smallest action to help others can make a big difference.
• Viral Marketing works!

Thanks to a colleague at Our Pal’s Place, I’ve learned about a new way to raise some funds for us by using Goodsearch.com to conduct my internet searches.

As Russ said, “This is such a no-brainer. We all do this anyway. We just need to use them.” And that is the beauty of it. I do a lot of internet searches for work, for blogging, and for personal use. So how cool is it that I can get a penny or so donated for every search I do?!?!?!

GoodSearch uses Yahoo! Search technology and this means that the searches are good quality. I’ve used this several times over the last week and have been satisfied with the results I was given. So — in short– don’t worry about the quality!

I love the fact that GoodSearch allows you to see how much has been raised for the organization. This is immediate feedback that what you are doing is making a difference. One thing I wish they had was a way to browse the registered nonprofit through categories or location. This would be helpful for people just want to turn their searches for good and don’t really have a specific nonprofit in mind.

So drop by GoodSearch.com and if you don’t have a charity in mind– pick Our Pal’s Place.

Tags: GoodSearch.com, nonprofit giving, Our Pal’s Place, philanthropy, search engine, internet, viral marketing

I’ve previously posted that I will be a moderator at the first ever Healthcare Blogging Conference in December.  Part of the conference will focus on the culture and opinions of healthcare bloggers.  To accomplish this, Dmitryi Kruglyak, the publisher of The Medical Blog Network, and Fard Johnmar at Envision Solutions, LLC have developed a survey to better understand how medical and healthcare bloggers think and what they think about the emerging role of blogs in the healthcare industry.

The results of the survey will be presented at the conference in December.  Furthermore, Dmitryi and Fard will be conducting this same survey again in the future to monitor change. 

If you are a medical or healthcare blogger please drop by to take the survey.  Click here to go to the landing page which tells you more about the survey.  Then scroll to the bottom to find the link that takes you directly to the survey.

Tags: healthcare, medical blogging, blogging survey, healthcare blogging, healthcare blogging conference, online survey

Last night at the Wine Tasting for Our Pal’s Place at the Marietta Wine Market we had a great turn out. Thanks to the new friends and old who dropped by to support both the wine market and Our Pal’s Place. The Bistro Dog wines were quite tasty and very affordable. My favorite was the Shiraz. In fact we came home with a couple of bottles.

Anyway… more to the point of this post… at the tasting we were able to meet the authors of Winery Dogs of Napa Valley, Andrea and Allen. Andrea is a speech therapist by day and a very talented photographer by night. Allen works in the textile industry as a day job but he has a real talent with writing about the dogs that Andrea captures in her pictures. This book would be a wonderful gift idea for your wino friends who love dogs (so I’ll be buying a lot more come Christmas– I bet).

You can drop by their website to purchase and preview the book. It really is a must have. Their new book on Sonoma Winery Dogs will be coming out soon.

Tags: wine, Napa Valley, books, winery, dogs, dog lovers, gifts, photography, shout out

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Not every person has Warren Buffett’s 37 Billion Dollars to donate to a good cause that warms the heart. However most of us have a buck to donate (which is considerably less than that fancy coffee you get every morning) to make a difference. Experience has taught me that big things are possible by joining together and organizing small individual efforts. I wholeheartedly believe that a bunch of little things can come together to make a huge difference.

Thus…..I am happy to announce that I have started a new blog called Dollar Philanthropy. It is an effort to harness the power of the blogosphere to create a network individuals who will donate a single dollar each week to a reputable nonprofit organization. Combined, each of our individual dollars can make a huge difference to a local nonprofit that is seeking to serve a need and improve the community around them.

I am challenging “Dollar Philanthropy” readers to commit to giving $52 a year ($1 per week) for this project. If you want to give more that $1, please feel free. With this in mind, please set us up on your favorite RSS aggregator so you don’t miss a post.

My plan is to research and highlight one nonprofit per week. I will give you all the contact information, important links and information about what they do. Admittedly, here at the beginning a number of the nonprofits will be based in Georgia (where I live) because I already know about them. I promise to expand to other states as I begin to get a feel for what this entails.

While I know it will be slow starting out, I hope that by January 2007, Dollar Philanthropy will be generating $1500 to $2000 for each nonprofit highlighted.
As Toby Bloomberg has often told me and written:

Bloggers are the Nicest People

With that in mind, I would hope that the folks that have me on their feeds or who are just dropping by would take a moment and spread the word. Oh…. yea…. send your buck too.

Disclosure: Dollar Philanthropy is a personal endeavor to draw attention to good causes and nonprofits that are making a difference. I do not receive any money for this. I reserve the right to publish content ads on the site to help offset the costs associated with this blog. After the costs have been covered, any excess from the ad revenue will be donated to the nonprofit of my choice.

In an effort to keep Dollar Philanthropy as a credible and reliable resource for finding a worthy nonprofit to which to donate, I will not allow organizations to pay or otherwise compensate me for being highlighted on this blog.

Technorati tags: philanthropy, new blogs, fundraising, Nonprofits, nonprofit

You know… bloggers spend a lot of time crafting thoughtful posts.  Sometimes, one wonders if items are being read.  Weeks go by without comments and some posts never get any traffic. 

Well, Dmitriy Kruglyac gave me a wonderful shout out during his Pre-Rounds Interview by Dr. Nicholas Genes over at Medscape (you will likely need to have registered to Medscape to read it– sorry…).

Thanks, D!  That was really thoughtful of you!

Technorati tags: Medscape, Shout-Outs,

Over the holiday weekend, I spent time relaxing and cruising around Technorati. I came across a great new blog by Stella, a sassy boston terrier in Manhattan. Stella is one opinionated lady who has no patience with cockapoos and she has a real ax to grind with Lassie. Check her out here: Stelleto Blog.

Since Stella is a dog, she doesn’t speak like a human. However, she has managed to craft a few really good haikus in her most recent post.

Technorati tags: dogs, Pets, Fun Stuff