Buy local from Etsy (Buffalo) Via @lifehacker: make your own slime Via @FamFunBlog: Make 10 things out of cereal boxes Treehouse toy store on Elmwood. My new favorite store for gifts. Martha Stewart marshmallow recipe

Via @MarkRaganCEO: Five most useful social media tools for PR and marketing BufferApp, AppMakr, Youtube.com/create, Wanderfly.com, Mynewsdesk.com. Another from @MarkRaganCEO: How Coca-Cola cultivated the biggest Facebook brand page Via @mashable: automatically edit your writing with the AP Stylebook. Idea from @mallorywood: “have the admissions office post just one of the questions they got from a [...]

Bulldog Reporter shared a list of words to eliminate from one’s writing, specifically for public relations. To this list, I add my own. State of being verbs: is, are, has been – the entire conjugated set of verbs from “to be.” The utility of using these words does not make up for their utter lack [...]

I’ve managed to meet and to surpass my goal of reading 24 books in 2011, and kept them organized through Goodreads.com. That’s 9,140 pages. With nearly 100 books on my “to-read” shelf, and more added each month, I’m going to bump my goal up to 30 books for 2012. I expect most will be the [...]

Working in higher education, I’ve been lucky enough most years to have an extended break between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. This time of year, the campus is quiet and most projects grind to a halt, freeing up a few hours here and there to bring some closure to the year. These are simple [...]

I adore the Mighty Taco crossover commercials with Valu Home Centers. Adore might be too strong a word, but it’s gotten to the point where as I sit down for dinner, I’m listening for the commercial. It’s certainly not the first quirky video that the Mighty has produced (see its Ad Vault), but what timing! [...]

I see my emailbox as an extension of my brain for storing all manner of ephemera, so when it comes to managing what messages I receive, I try to be as discriminating as possible. Here are my top recommendations for electronic publications related to the work I do; if there are others that I should [...]

A piece I wrote for the latest, greatest online publication for public relations and communication professionals has been accepted and is scheduled to appear later in December on The Agency Post. I’ll be in great company, with some well-known contributors, including one from down the road in Rochester (Mike McDougall of McDougall Travers Collins). I [...]

I completed my reading challenge at Goodreads for 2011 a few weeks early. 24 means two per month – a good rate to try and match in 2012. Looking at the totality of my list, it leans incredibly towards non-fiction. I even have a “shelf” for microhistories, like the detailed historical takes by Bill Bryson. [...]

I completely forgot about this presentation that I made a few years ago – only remembered when I rediscovered Slideshare as a really, really good information sharing tool. While it would need updating for more modern audiences, I’m proud of this content. Social Media for Fundraisers View more presentations from karakane