From the desk (and BlackBerry) of Keith Parnell

I’ll be teaching a how-to class on Twitter in a few weeks. The idea behind the session is to get non-profits and museums across Virginia onboard with the powerful networking aspects of Twitter.

I’ve come up with this course description and bullet conversation points. If this looks like something that would benefit your organization, feel free to contact me to setup a date. I’d be more than happy to talk with your action officers, decision makers and executives on the true power of social media and new media marketing.

Twitter for Your Organization - The Why and How

Building and maintaining your organization’s brand and reputation is a crucial aspect of the success you achieve. Twitter, one of the power players in this era of social networking, has proven to be an efficient tool to help with brand management.

But why tweet? Here are some of the topics we will cover in this session on tweeting to help you understand how Twitter can help your organization.

- What is Twitter and how does it work?
- Why should we tweet?
- The Twitter lingo.
- How to get started tweeting, creating an account, setting up a profile.
- What software programs can I use to tweet?
- How to post tweets.
- How to manage multiple Twitter accounts.
- How to @reply to others and retweet (RT) other tweets.
- The right way to interact with other twitterers.
- How to add Twitter to your blog.
- How to add Twitter to your Facebook page.
- Twitter marketing with your mobile phone.

Teacher: Keith Parnell, JASE Group Marketing & New Media

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On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Truth Serum by Dishwalla.

I would love to say that I created these oh-so-elegant words, but I can’t. These are the perfect thoughts of my friend, Cassandra Thomas, a member of our New Media Conventions planning team for the April 2010 event. You can find her on Twitter @MarketingFlair.

Now is the time to engage with new media.  NMC10 is going to be an innovating and engaging experience for all of Virginia’s Tidewater region and beyond.  New Media experts from afar will come to share their ideas that can take your social media experience to a new level.  Businesses will learn how to make their entire marketing message communicate across all new media.  From Social to Mobile to Global — New Media Conventions 2010.  Don’t miss it!  And be sure to also follow them on Twitter @NewMediaConv.

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To members of Keep Norfolk Beautiful:

We need your trash. Examples include plastic caps of all sizes (from bottles and jugs, down to lip balm and mini-juices), plastic berry baskets, buttons, gasket scraps, flexible plastic tubing, corks, textiles, etc.

These will be used in dozens of ways to help teachers educate our kids in the Virginia Standards of Learning, at the first training event, “We’re Popping Our Lids Off!” November 14th, in honor of America Recycles Day.

Bring materials to Green Alternatives (801 Boush St. in Norfolk) and the Ernie Morgan Center (3500-A Granby St. in front of the Virginia Zoo).

Contact Holly Carson @ (757) 441-1347 or holly.carson@norfolk.gov for more info.

Several new laws have gone into effect beginning today, July 1, 2009. Of them is making it illegal for drivers to text or email while behind the wheel. The fine for such an offense: $20. Yikes. Who is that going to deter?

List of new laws in Virginia*:

• Ban reading or sending text messages or e-mails while driving.
• Allow voters to wear political T-shirts, buttons or other apparel to the polls.
• Prohibit stores from selling novelty cigarette lighters to those under 18.
• Require localities that collect guns as part of buyback programs to attempt to sell them to licensed dealers before destroying them.
• Allow courts to suspend the driver’s licenses of teens who miss 10 consecutive days of school.
• Impose a 10 percent tax on pay-per-view movies in Virginia hotel rooms, with the money divided evenly between the general fund and a pool of money that provides incentives for filmmakers to shoot movies in Virginia.
• Bar public access to a statewide database of Virginians with permits to carry concealed handguns. The public still could get information on concealed carry permit holders at each circuit court.
• Bar payday lenders from offering different types of loans in an effort to get around tough new restrictions placed on the short-term, high-interest loans.

* Source: WVEC.com

Stay tuned for the excitement! New Media Conventions is coming to Virginia Beach this fall. Check the New Media Conventions website for more details. Make sure to sign up for the email list to get details as they are unveiled.

JASE Group is featured in the current Inside Business, The Hampton Roads [VA] Business Journal, March 30th print edition.

Recognized for being named marketing and advertising agency of record for a local Virginia Beach business, JASE is a full-service advertising, marketing and information technology agency specializing in social media, branding, advertising, marketing and next generation engineering.

Norfolk-based JASE Group, an advertising and marketing agency, has been name the agency of record for Ballyhoo Home Improvement in Virginia Beach. JASE will be responsible for all creative and strategic brand development, traditional and online advertising, collateral design, public relations and marketing initiatives with emphasis on inbound marketing, search engine optimization, web and blog development, and online social media presences for Ballyhoo.

See the full press release here.

Very exciting news for our team. Official press release from our company blog:

JASE Group (JASE), a full-service advertising and marketing agency specializing in social media, branding, marketing and advertising, announced today that it has been named the agency of record for Ballyhoo Home Improvement in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

NORFOLK, VA, MARCH 19, 2009:  JASE Group (JASE), a full-service advertising and marketing agency specializing in social media, branding, marketing and advertising, announced today that it has been named the agency of record for Ballyhoo Home Improvement in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

As part of the agreement, JASE will be responsible for all creative and strategic brand development, traditional & online advertising, collateral design, public relations, marketing initiatives with emphasis on inbound marketing, search engine optimization, web & blog development and online social media presences for Ballyhoo Home Improvement.

“Our goal is to grow Ballyhoo’s business line to support several crews throughout Hampton Roads. The quality of our workmanship is excellent; we need to get the word out to the community,” said Michael Sedlacek, Owner of Ballyhoo Home Improvement.

“Working with Ballyhoo to expose their established brand to a greater audience will be an exciting venture for our team. The excitement of positive growth in the current economy has already spawned many creative ideas,” said Keith Parnell, CEO of JASE Group.

About JASE Group
Founded in 1997, JASE is a Norfolk, VA based full-service advertising, marketing and information technology agency, specializing in social media, branding, advertising, marketing and next generation engineering. JASE’s scalable web, network and marketing solutions are tailor-made to fully address each customer’s unique needs and business strategy. The Company’s  engineers and strategists have decades of experience in marketing solutions analysis, network design and maintenance, e-commerce, web development and web hosting, systems integration and regulations compliance. JASE provides marketing solutions analysis, custom IT consulting, Internet services and network solutions for small, mid-sized and enterprise businesses. A privately held company, JASE is headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia. For more information, visit www.jasegroup.com or www.jasemarketing.com or call (757) 715-4595.

About Ballyhoo Home Improvement
Ballyhoo Home Improvement is an Insured, Class B licensed, Building Contractor specializing in residential remodeling, including kitchen and bathroom remodeling, interior painting, ceramic tile work and home repair. A privately held company, Ballyhoo Home Improvement is headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia. For more information, call (757) 575-8828.

Grab your coffee and let’s talk about building your personal and professional brand through social communities. Online and offline!

Social community references in this video:

• JASEzone
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Plurk
• FriendFeed
• blog
• Hampton Roads Internet Marketing & Technology Group
• Entrepreneurs Forum of Hampton Roads
• Virginia Opera Guild
• Tabernacle Church of Norfolk

JASE Group is featured in the current Inside Business, The Hampton Roads [VA] Business Journal, February 9th print edition.

Recognized for being named marketing and advertising agency of record for a local Chesapeake business, JASE is a full-service advertising, marketing and information technology agency specializing in social media, branding, advertising, marketing and next generation engineering.

JASE Group, a Norfolk advertising and marketing agency, has been named the agency of record for Concrete Concepts in Chesapeake. As part of the agreement, JASE will handle all creative and strategic brand development, traditional & online advertising, collateral design, public relations, marketing initiatives, search engine optimization, web development and online social media presences for Concrete Concepts.

See the full press release here.

Virginia Business published a nice reference guide with tips, forms and resources on getting started doing business in Virginia.

» Getting Started
» Forming a nonprofit
» State agencies can help boost business
» Five top business resources
» Financing
» Taxation
» Franchising
» Networking
» Legal
» Risk management
» Work force
» Entrepreneurs’ most frequently asked questions
» Employee benefits
» Selling to the government
» Incentives
» References

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? I think I care more these days about how fast I could chuck the wood than how much wood I could chuck.

With the existence of Giga-speed switches and Giga-speed NICs even in our notebooks, moving data through today’s intra-networks has become luxurious to the average computer user. And figuring that most offices now have at a minimum T-1 speed, the hazards of downloading large documents have become an after thought.

But let’s think about transfering data for a moment. Maybe electronic transfer is not as efficient as we ‘assume’ it is just because it’s become convenient and easy for us. Referencing the chart^*** below to gauge the size of data I’m talking about, let’s think about moving a petabyte of data from a hosting facility, across the Internet, to a remote backup facility. Let’s make an assumption that we’re talking about T-1 connections which allow data transfer of about 1 MB per second (rounded estimates for my non-mathematical brain today). A petabyte of data equates to one billion megabytes. So quick thinking tells me that I need one billion seconds (assuming a great connection at both points and no outside interfering forces), or 16.67 million minutes, or 277.77 thousand hours, or 11.57 thousand days or 31.7 years. Wow!

Okay, okay. So who’s going to download a petabyte of data? Well believe it our not, this attempt is common. Or atleast the need to is commonplace in today’s IT world.

Let’s get back to my original question. Moving a petatbyte of data - can I drive to California (from Virginia) and back faster? Let’s map out the fastest route on Google Maps and see what Larry and Sergey and the boys say. From Norfolk, VA to San Jose, CA is 5,914 miles roundtrip equating to 88 hours of drive time or 3.67 days. Huh? Dare I say the rather absurd question that I asked may turn out to be my best option? Over our beloved technological abilities?

As a person that manages projects and budgets everyday, I’m now asking my network guy to hop in his car and drive for 3.67 days versus starting the data transfer from our servers that will take 31.7 years to complete. No brainer! Right? Or wrong?

^***
Quantities of bytes
kilobyte (kB) 10³ = 1000¹
megabyte (MB) 10⁶ = 1000²
gigabyte (GB) 10⁹ = 1000³
terabyte (TB) 10¹² = 1000⁴
petabyte (PB) 10¹⁵ = 1000⁵
exabyte (EB) 10¹⁸ = 1000⁶
zettabyte (ZB) 10²¹ = 1000⁷
yottabyte (YB) 10²⁴ = 1000⁸