Darren Rowse, aka ProBlogger, recently challenged bloggers to a seven link challenge post – linking to seven posts that fit into seven themes, which mostly relate to your blog. This seemed more like a fun exercise instead of a challenge, and I welcomed the opportunity to dive back through my almost three year’s worth of posts. So here goes…

1. Your first post. I originally used Blogger for my blog before I moved my posts over to WordPress earlier this year. I wrote my very first post on Aug. 19, 2007, and it was titled Who Knew? I basically say that I finally gave in to blogging and can’t believe how social media obsessed I’ve become in the short amount of time that I’d been out of college. My how my blog writing has matured! I went from rambling about everything and anything to focusing on six main themes.

2. A post you enjoyed writing the most. This one is a tie because I couldn’t decide between Collaborate With Metro Detroit’s Creatives at Tweetea and Five Important Lessons Learned at My First PR Job. The Tweetea post marks the beginning of me becoming heavily involved in my local interactive community. I remember how happy I was when I came home from my first Tweetea because I met some amazing people and knew this group would grow to be a staple in the community. The post about my first PR job was nostalgic for me because it was an opportunity to reflect on what I learned during my first three years at a PR agency. I distinctly remember enjoying the experience of writing both of these posts.

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Meet Mallory Underwood, a Colorado resident and native Michigander who I met during my college days at Central Michigan University. I’ve been receiving updates from Mallory during the past six months while she was training for a triathlon and raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), which is where she worked in Indiana prior to moving to Colorado. Her story is inspiring and motivational and deserves to be shared with the world. Continue reading to learn more about Mallory and what pushed her to train for a triathlon.

What and/or who inspired you to sign up for the Elkhart Lake Triathlon?

My older brother, Matt, is an ALL leukemia survivor and in early December 2009, he celebrated being 15 years cancer free! This is the exact month I signed up for this event. But, his journey to that anniversary was long, and, through working for LLS, I understand more and more what our family went through — what Matt went through. From the diagnosis when he was nine years old, to the chemotherapy, the hair loss, his remission, his relapse and then ultimately his bone marrow transplant followed by 11 weeks in the hospital and problem after problem, he has carried on with a smile and a playful personality. I was inspired by his struggle to do this event for him, for the struggles our family went through and for the hope that one day we will find a cure for these diseases!

Working in a creative industry is great because aiming high is encouraged and finding ways to successfully pull off wild ideas is invigorating. Approaching each new project with creative freedom is fantastic…except when you’re in a creative lull. You know what I’m talking about. It’s when your creative side forgets to show up to the party. Everything else is in place, but it’s like your creativity is stuck in a serious rut and needs help to get free. Sound familiar?

After the July 4th holiday this past weekend, some of my followers on Twitter who returned to work tweeted about having a hard time getting back into the office routine, or feeling like their brains were mush and it was difficult to get back in their groove. This seems to frequently happen after a vacation (which is ironic, because vacations are supposed to refresh us, right?). It’s hard to kick start our brains and get our creative and motivated sides pumping again when we just come off a relaxing few days of no work. Lack of creativity also happens when we get burnt out or become too accustomed to one way of doing things. Sometimes we get so stuck in our routine that it’s hard to look at something with a fresh set of eyes.

Those tweets got me wondering about the different approaches people take when they get into a slump and need to re-energize and refocus. I asked my networks on Facebook and Twitter and got some pretty interesting answers. I hope you can take a few of these suggestions and try them the next time your creative side is being stubborn.

Bettye LaVette is a survivor (cue Survivor by Destiny’s Child). I wouldn’t be surprised if your response was “Bettye La-who?” Although she’s finally reached the fame she’s been seeking all her life, I don’t know many people outside of MAL and myself who have heard Bettye’s music. Here’s a little background info…

Bettye is one of the greatest soul singers in American history who fought for 40 years to gain mainstream recognition. She was born in Muskegon, Mich. and grew up in Detroit. Although she was discovered at 16 in the heart of the Motown era, legendary artists like Aretha Franklin overshadowed her. What Bettye describes as “buzzard luck” continued for 40 some years. Bettye kept churning out songs, but only six of her forty-fives managed to make the R&B charts. None of them broke into the pop Top 100. To make a long story short, it took Bettye about four decades before her hard work finally paid off. She is now 64 years old. Check out her full biography for more details.

A guest post is a long time coming on this blog, and I am honored that my first is from a friend, colleague and all-around awesome dude – Hubert Sawyers. I met Hubert more than a year ago at Startup Weekend 2009. When I first attended Tweetea last year, I immediately knew it would become a staple in our community. Tweetea has grown tremendously in the past year-and-a-half, from one prime location at Goldfish Tea in Royal Oak to additional locations in Detroit, Grosse Pointe and occasionally Pontiac.

We have more ideas up our sleeves to keep this group growing and to attract people from various cities. The official Tweetea website will launch soon, but you can sign up for the future newsletter today. And now, the stage belongs to Hubert…

Aside from Team Detroit winning the Chevy SXSW road trip challenge, our interactive community has struggled to find ways to make a splash outside of the state about the great things going on here. We all can name several reasons why Michigan deserves more credit, but getting those with no ties to Michigan to believe that is the tough part.

But, something awesome happened last week. That something awesome is Jeff Pulver’s 140 Character Conference, which will be held for the first time in Detroit on October 20 (location TBD).

Don’t let the 140 characters reference fool you – 140conf is NOT a Twitter or social media conference. You will not learn about social media tools or social media best practices. The 140conf is all about providing insights and stories about the effects the real time Web has on society, businesses and us as human beings. This is a fast-paced conference that I imagine will leave our heads spinning…in a good way. Most presentations are 10 minutes, with “featured talks” and panel sessions at 15 or 20 minutes. Other cities that have hosted 140 conferences include New York City, Los Angeles, London and Tel Aviv. Washington D.C. plays host to the event this Thursday.

I’ve been living vicariously through my many early-to-wed friends for the past three years. They were lucky to find real love in their early twenties (some started dating their now husbands/wives in high school) and decided there was no point in waiting to tie the knot. I’ve attended 10 weddings in the past few years, growing increasingly anxious for when it would be my turn. I’m one of those who grew up believing I would be married with kids by 25 (ambitious thinking, right?). Well, that didn’t happen, and frankly I’m A-OK with it.

I was lucky enough to have met the incredible MAL three years ago, and we’ve been together ever since. Our love story entered a new chapter last weekend when MAL proposed to me in Glen Arbor on the shore of Lake Michigan after hiking Sleeping Bear Dunes.

Sidenote: I HIGHLY recommend staying at the Sylvan Inn if you visit Glen Arbor. It’s a five out of five stars bed and breakfast.

I’d like to extend my deepest gratitude to the wildly-successful Pure Michigan marketing campaign for making me want to travel in-state, which resulted in the perfect opportunity for MAL to propose. Of course the proposal would have still been memorable if we were hiking in Denver or lounging on a beach at some tropical resort. But now we’re only four hours away from revisiting a city that will forever be “our special place”.

On to the wedding planning! We don’t have a date set yet, but we’ve already agreed on one thing: Our resounding love for Detroit means we want to have a Detroit-themed wedding with the reception (hopefully!) in the city. Luckily I have an amazing friend/event planner/bridesmaid/wedding planner to help me along the way.

Feel free to share any wedding tips/tricks or your engagement story in the comments!

It was Friday after work. I didn’t get enough sleep the night before, so I was exhausted. Even though couch time sounded enticing, I had been looking forward to playing in a tennis mixer all week and had multiple practices canceled in previous weeks due to the weather. Once again, the weather decided to not cooperate and it was raining off and on the whole day. I stopped at the store to buy my contribution snack fully knowing the match would be canceled once I showed up.  You know those times when you’re crabby just because you feel like being crabby? That was me. So, I was not in the best mood when I walked in the store.

I chose to stop at Trader Joe’s because it was conveniently located on my route home. I quickly located what I wanted and got in line. If you’ve ever been to Trader Joe’s, you know customer service is a top priority. I’ve always been pleasantly surprised by how cheery and just plain nice the cashiers are at that store. Some people like to go about their business and not make small talk when shopping, but I appreciate when someone goes out of their way to talk to me. My sour mood quickly changed once I started chatting with the cashier. He made sure I didn’t need anything else and then got me talking about my weekend plans. Maybe he’s one of those perma-peppy dudes, or maybe he was just having a great day, but his happy mood quickly lifted my spirits. Our talk lasted no longer than a minute, but I left feeling silly for ever being crabby in the first place. I also made a mental note to remember why I need to visit Trader Joe’s more often (good customer service = customer retention, for all you marketing folks out there!).

Fast forward to today. A friend of mine told me about some on-the-side work he’s doing for The Friendship Circle. He mentioned how his contacts there want to connect with more people in the community. He introduced us, and I checked out the place today.

The mission of the The Friendship Circle is to provide assistance and support to the families of children with special needs. I had heard of the organization, but the little I knew about it revolved around the $100,000 grant it won earlier this year through the Chase Challenge Facebook contest.

I took a tour of The Friendship Circle and its Weinberg Village, an interactive and mock real world town that lets children with special needs have fun while learning important life skills at the same time. They get real spending money from the bank, which they can use to go to the movies or buy something at the drug store. There’s a pet store, a library, a salon for haircuts and manicures and even a dentist and doctor’s office. The village provides a safe environment for children with special needs while making them feel like an important part of society and teaching them how to do daily tasks that someone without special needs most likely completes without thinking twice.

Weinberg Village was super cool, but I was also impressed with the main area – the Ferber Kaufman LifeTown. Everywhere I looked I saw something that was meant to bring happiness to children. The LifeTown area had a variety of themed rooms, like an arts and craft room and an interactive room with games. There was a huge tub of colored balls where kids could jump in and play, monkey bars, a sand pit and plush foam squares with a trampoline below it. So fun, right? There’s even a special quiet room where parents can chill out and relax while their kids participate in activities.

I learned today that The Friendship Circle is not only a happy place for children with special needs, but also for parents, volunteers and everyone else who works non-stop to make the organization successful. I couldn’t believe that a place like this that is so unique and important to our community has existed for 15 years, but I just learned about it today. There will be more to come on The Friendship Circle in the next few weeks!

Those are my two recent happy tales to get your week started off right. Please share any recent happy experiences if you have them!

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I’ve been hanging out at Startup Weekend Detroit at Wayne State University all weekend. The energy and creativity have been high all weekend long, and the teams are getting prepped to make their final presentations.

There have been a few speakers/presentations throughout the course of the weekend, and I really enjoyed what Rob Stam from The Big Red Group shared with the team. I’m not an entrepreneur, and I have no intention of starting a business any time soon, but Rob’s advice resonated with me from a business and human standpoint.

One of the main things Rob stressed was that in order to find success in our current economy, we must start thinking about “value” versus “values.” There’s a difference between value (what matters to all of us) and values (what matters to each of us). We need to make decisions that benefit our collective society, not just our own lives.

When you’re making decisions in life, whether or not they deal with business, don’t let the “what’s in it for me?” thoughts consume you. Think about how that decision affects others, and how you can find success by helping others.

If you weren’t able to make it to Startup Weekend Detroit, check out my blog posts and videos from the weekend on the website, coverage on The Detroit Hub and the #SWD2010 hashtag stream.

The very anticipated Startup Weekend Detroit will take place May 14 – 16 on the campus of Wayne State University. For those of you not familiar with Startup Weekend, it brings together a hodgepodge of creative and ambitious developers, Web and tech geeks, startup enthusiasts, marketing pros, business developers and jack-of-all-trades. Attendees are charged with building out a business idea in one weekend (essentially 54 hours). The concept of Startup Weekend centers on learning by creating. Quick decisions and non run-of-the-mill thinking are key to Startup Weekend. The goal at the end of the weekend is to be as close to possible as launching a business.

Sounds intense, right? It is, but there will be PLENTY of fun, humor and friendship at Startup Weekend Detroit. I attended last year, and it was definitely worth giving away an entire weekend. My group’s business idea never came to fruition, but I met some awesome people who have since become close compadres.

I decided to do things a bit differently this year. As a PR and social media pro, storytelling and content creating come second nature to me. Rather than participating in the business development, I will serve as Startup Weekend Detroit’s “official” content creator on behalf of my agency, Identity, which is a gold sponsor of the event. I plan to chronicle the happenings during the three days through blog posts, tweets, photos and video.

Here’s what I want to know: What type of content do YOU want? Whether you’re attending or planning to follow along at home, I want your feedback. Do you want blog posts throughout the day that detail the groups and where they’re at with their business plans? Do you want quick two or three minute interviews with attendees? Do you want tweets throughout the day that keep you updated on the groups’ progress? Do you want to know what’s working and what’s not working as the groups hash out their business ideas? Do you want photos of Henry Balanon roundhouse kicking a drink in someone’s face (true story, that HAS happened!)? Leave your suggestions in the comments.

And if you haven’t registered yet, click here to get a move on it.

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