Retrospective: All Elephant Journal Guest Appearances in 2009
Hey, Elephant Journal! It has been such a full year. Thank you for honoring this site on your list of the best web sites of 2009. And thank you for your friendship. You mean a lot to me, Waylon and team. Congratulations on hitting 90k uniques a month!
Team Gwen Bell + Elephant Journal 2009 at a Glance
3.29.2009 Earth Hour is a Joke
4.30.2009 Gwen Bell: Yoga = Social Media? "Laptop Yoga, anyone?"
5.4.2009 A Day in the Boulder Life
5.7.2009 Walk the Talk Show with Waylon Lewis (with video) Perhaps the persistent question of the show was (and maybe this is Waylon’s personal persistent question) – what is the purpose of all of this? Why are we bothering? Why yoga, why tech, why SUVs, why fashion, why green, why mindful, why eco?
5.18.2009 Walk the Talk Show pt 2 "Top Chef Hosea Rosenberg, Brad Feld, Gwen Bell, Micah Baldwin and Jeffrey Kalmikoff—our featured Titans of Tech—and yoga star John Friend—but the editing (and music!) is so magnetizing, the videos don’t miss a beat."
5.26.2009 Social Media: Top Boulder Twitter Tweeters You Should Follow "@gwenbell ~ a colleague, friend, ally, comrade-in-arms (are for hugging)."
6.14.2009 Elephant, Gaiam & LOHAS host tweetup
9.3.2009 Photographic Proof the Naturally Boulder Awards Dinner was Organic
9.8.2009 Naturally Boulder 2009 "I walked into a crowded room, and there on this big screen was my @elephantjournal twitter profile, with everyone in the room looking at it as Gwen Bell talked and gestured. Gwen, the evergenerous Mistress of Social Media herself, was the expert charged with inspiring we green revolutionaries with learning the wild, much-hyped ways of twitter, facebook, etc."
9.17.2009 Photos: The Elephants Unite tonight party at Laughing Goat
9.28.2009 The Bar Method: It's not about drinking but you'll wish it was
10.7.2009 Levitation sans Photoshop
12.14.2009 The Best Web Sites of 2009 "Gwen Bell. Good friend, social media guruji, Gwen is a stylish, raw, crazy, arch and deeply felt connector. Love her."
Thank you, Waylon and team, for your enduring friendship. For your willingness to ask tough questions aloud and make us think about business in a new way.
And, as ever, for walking the path.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Reader Comments (10)
Hey Gwen,
I saw your question on twitter about making the blog prompts better and I'd say that one change would be to have more blog prompts that don't involve money. There seems to be a focus on a lot of things to acquire rather than the people/ideals behind them: ie, workshop, album, tea, restaurant, best packaging, shop, stationery, and advertisement...these all require money either at your or your company's expense. I think it sorta limits the type of person who would find this blogidea fun to complete at the end of the year. I can imagine that more people would feel invested if it wasn't all about spending money to create memories.
Cheers,
callie
Callie Thanks for the feedback, Callie! For sure hear what you're saying. In contrast to your comment, some of the most creative answers have been those that didn't take money into consideration at all. Let's see, Julie Daley of Unabashedly Female came up with the photo of her pregnant daughter as "nature's best packaging." Gorgeous interpretation of the prompt. And nearly all the things I've seen focused on for shops has been the people behind the shops - not the money they spent in the shops this year. For sure this project has not been about "spending money to create memories." What it has been about is crafty, thrifty, innovative folks sharing their most precious memories of the year - whether money was involved or not. If you doubt, read some and let me know if you think the focus has been on money.
The idea of the prompts was and will continue to be your interpretation of the prompt. I encourage you to make your entire project on how to answer the prompt questions with answers that have nothing to do with money. That'd be wicked. Good luck!
I'm going to comment on the comment stream here, rather than the post itself. Having participated in the #best09 challenge, I must contradict Callie's impression of the challenge and appreciate your response, Gwen.
For me, the questions (other than the one specifically about shopping/mad money) have had nothing to do with money. Rather, they've been about relationships, personal journey, emotional experience. That's what I've seen in others' posts as well. Perhaps I've interpreted the questions as being about something other than money because that's been in short supply for me this year. If I was feeling flush, I might have answered some of the questions differently. Who knows. But, for me, the beauty of this challenge is how open to interpretation it is, and how out of the box many people's answers have been.
I have to agree with Gwen and Emma. Aside from the "mad money" topic I don't think I've even considered "money" while writing my posts. And, while I've been too busy to follow many of the other blogs, I can ay that the few I have read didn't have any focus on money.
I have enjoyed bending the topics to fit my needs and have also been blown away by the interpretations of the few I have read. Gwen has attracted a wide variety of thoughtful, caring and creative writers and I consider myself priveledged to be a part of this challenge.
Having said all that, I do understand where Callie is coming from. And, perhaps next year the topics can be a little less "material" driven. But, for this first challenge, I think the response has been outstanding and brought out the truly creative and human side in most of us participating. My hat is off to Gwen for starting and managing such a massive endeavor, particularly reading so many posts each day and commenting, etc.
Thank you, Gwen!!
I could try to write something eloquent... Or I could just say "ditto" to Les's comment!
Wow, Callie, right on. I follow Gwen because she has interesting things to say about social media and because she shares her interesting life. I believe she genuinely wants to connect with and support her readers. But most of the #best09 prompts relate to experiences you do or could pay for. Callie opened up for me an alternate perspective - that #best09 is also a way for Gwen to learn about how her target audience connects with the brands around them. So it's not about money, per se, but brand experience and trends. Or to put it another way, market research. Maybe I'm off-base, but Callie's comment was thought-provoking.
Peter If my intention has been interpreted as anything other than to do something good for folks at the end of what for many has been a challenging year, and to help others make a good mark in the world (while making a good mark myself), then I'm afraid it will have to be. The response I've gotten has been overwhelmingly positive. The people that have connected up, shared their memories of the year - and even those who have kept a journal privately - have told me what a difference this has made. My mind is on that. My heart? It's in every post I write, it goes out to every person I read.
You are more than welcome to join in the challenge if you'd like. In fact, I'd invite you to do so!
If not, I hope you know I take your comment for what it's worth.
Gwen, thanks for the thoughtful response. I don't doubt your intentions, always beautifully and honestly expressed, and I certainly don't believe you're deceiving your readers. I only meant to describe how I want myself and others to challenge ourselves to think critically about how we relate to people way outside our Dunbar's number who ask us to interact with them online, and to be cognizant of everything going on in that social transaction.
I guess that's my anthropology degree coming out, eh? Maybe your comments are not the best place for my theorizing. Have a great white Christmas.
You know, I never even thought about money when I wrote my posts.
Now, if a blog prompt didn't relate to me...such as "best night out" or "best shop" (income's kinda small) I would just wait til the next topic to answer. Tweaking the prompt to fit my experience might have been a better idea on those days.
The main thing that this challenge has done for me is get me working on my blog, meeting new people, and learning new things, being exposed to others' experiences. A lot of people talk about Twitter being silly or useless, but Barbara Sher and Gwen Bell have found unconventional ways to use the medium, and bring people together.
I would certainly have to agree with Carrie regarding her comment about Twitter. Previously to joining into this challenge, I spent 5, maybe 10 minutes a week on Twitter, as i felt that it was a silly application that the younger generation used to share absolutely useless information. I am proud to say that now, with only 2 days left in the #best09 challenge, I hold an entirely different view on the world of twitter.
It is inspiring (to say the least) to see an application such as this, to be used to bring people together, and encourage "blog love" to hundreds of people over the United States, Canada, and (possibly?) the world. I have even found myself commenting on other's blogs rather than just "creeping" because I feel compelled to say hello to others completing the challenge as well.
Thanks again Gwen, for being an inspiring and influential woman.