Now that I have an HD camera essentially attached at my hip for work now, I’ve been interested in all things HD. While scouring the internerd for some inventive ideas of what to do with the thing, I came across this video – it’s amazing.

Nerds? Space? HD? Love it. Full story here.

Balloon flight, shot with an HD HERO camera from GoPro. from Francois Brahic on Vimeo.

Why you should THINK before you POST:

What It Is:
Mention Map is a visual tool so that you can see Twitter conversations as a network and click any user to explore.

Why You Should Use It:
To find relevant people to follow on Twitter.

What My Personal Mention Map Looks Like:

Click to view full size

What My Work Mention Map Looks Like:

Click to view full size

Follow my personal account on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AllEyesonJenny

Follow my work account on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AdvantageBOSTON

Enjoy!

When I went to the Director of Convention Center Marketing (my boss) and the Executive Director of the Boston Convention Marketing Center (my boss’s boss) and pitched them the idea of letting me design and implement the digital media portion of our company, I knew it would be a tough row to hoe. First of all I had to get them (and by “them”, I really meant the Executive Director. Yes, you Milt. My boss and I were already on the same page.) to get behind a complete overhaul and redesign of the website.

Our company website. Was designed. In 2004.

TWO THOUSAND FOUR.

And, other than a few text updates. And the addition of a couple of flash videos. HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED SINCE.

That’s like 4 billion years in Internet world.

Seriously.

Our website may as well be a Geocities page. (No, honestly? A few months ago I found some plugin that “Geocities-ified” your webpage. IT DID NOTHING TO MY COMPANY WEBSITE. THAT’S HOW BAD IT IS.)

It’s impossible to navigate (there are not one but TWO navigation bars …. with flyouts and drop downs and ….. ugh. I’m breaking out in hives just thinking about it.), it’s not built for monitors made in this decade, it is the most uninviting, useless piece of marketing collateral out there.

This isn’t news. To me or my boss. And in the end I got my wish: a total revamp of the website.

I’ve never designed a website for anything bigger than a small business or a personal site. I typically get hired for more a la carte pieces. So taking on the dinosaur that is AdvantageBOSTON.com was not in the cards for me.

(Seriously – click that link. I dare you. But don’t blame me for your inexplicable and sudden onset of vertigo.)

So after an insanely detailed and intricate RFP/review process (I had at least two 1-2 hour meetings with 6 different web marketing firms … over a two week period. In other words, this process TOOK OVER MY LIFE.), we’ve finally settled on a firm. Even though they’ve been notified, the contracts haven’t been officially signed, so I’m reluctant to talk about who they are – YET. I will pimp them out as soon as we sing here, initial there, agree to name my first born after the owner … you know how it goes.

Anyway, I am obviously excited for the site overhaul – but I am MOST excited for building out MY baby: the community section. This will include a number of things – most notably our blog. (YES. I GOT THEM TO AGREE TO A BLOG. This seems like it should be a GIVEN, right? Come to my office for a meeting. You’ll “get it” then.)

Anyway – I’m looking for topics. I know so many of you out there are Social Media nuts (like me) and in the meetings/conventions business (like me) and some of you are even Bostonians (like me).

What kind of questions do you have about meeting planning? Convention attending? Conventions/meetings in Boston? Tradeshows? Exhibits? What’s going on at the Hynes? What’s going on at the BCEC? What’s all this T5 talk?

Please feel free to comment here, email me at work (jfrazier@advantageboston.com), or @/DM us on Twitter. Over the next several months I’ll be working on developing as much useful content as I can. I’m answering your questions and getting some top industry people involved as well, so ask away!

And while you’re at it, get connected with us!

I’m pretty excited about my queue of projects right now. As in work. As in I am excited to do my job. That’s pretty freaking great if you ask me.

What am I working on right now?

Outside of work (aka the freelance ‘n’ stuff):
I have been hired by a small business to design and build their business website from the ground up (currently they have nothing). This includes content, photography, and web design. I’m also consulting and training them on the digital media portion that will be integrated into the site.

I’ve also been hired back as a consultant on a business website I built two years ago to develop and integrate a social media strategy into the current online presence and train the assigned staff.

At work (aka the “9-5″ stuff – but is it really ever 9-5?):
Currently I am revamping the entire online presence. Yes, entire. This includes but is not limited to: a complete site redesign, a complete content refresh (updating content to reflect changes in the city and convention center as well as optimizing and seo-ing the crap out of what we have and what we will have) to be integrated into an open source content management system (yet to be determined, suggestions welcome), a new online photo library creation and management, social media plan strategy and implementation within our own brand and working in harmony with our sister companies …..

Tired yet? Not me. I’ve got an entire external hard drive, a file cabinet, a bookcase (and most of my desk real estate for that matter) dedicated to this project and I couldn’t be more excited. At the end of it, you’re going to be able to log on to our website and I’m going to be able to say “I did that*”.

For a design & digital media specialist, it really doesn’t get better than that. “What’s do you do?” That. That is what I do.

* Yes we do have an RFP out right now to 6 competing firms to work on this project with us. I know I’m not doing it on my own (thankfully) (it takes a village to …. build a website?), but as someone who’s in charge of mapping the project, creating the majority of the new content, have a heavy hand in the design, and involved in the decision making and sign-off process, it’s still a major project that I’m incredibly lucky to be a part of and be able to put in my portfolio.

Here’s to an absurdly busy summer. Weeeeee.

Sometimes I become obsessed with things. (No, really Jenny?) These things usually include, but are not limited to: typefaces, color schemes, print design, web design – really design of all kinds. I’ll obsess about what’s new, what draws me in, what I hate, what I have & compare that to what others are doing.

Now that I’ve finally tackled the web design portion of my brand, it’s time to expand it into the print collateral – business cards, stationary & sell sheets. My current obsession? Business cards.

I’m obsessed with not only designs but stocks, lamination options, die cuts, embossing – if it’s something other than your typical 3.5×2″ Strathmore cover stock, I’m interested.

I had a meeting today with the folks over at JackRabbit Design to discuss the horror that is my company’s current website. (Yeah check that out. DOUBLE NAVIGATION! OUTDATED INFORMATION! SHITTY STRUCTURE! IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND INFORMATION!)

The JackRabbit team came into my conference room, waiting to grill us & for my marketing team to grill them on what needs to happen in our section of the Internerds, & handed us their business cards.

Their metal business cards. Their metal, embossed, rounded corners, double sided business cards.

!!!!!!

I fell in love. (I also wish I had anything other than my iPhone camera or Photobooth to show how great these are. It probably would be nice to at least look like I brush my hair ever either. Oh well. Deal.)

I know a metal business card wouldn’t work in every industry – but it is a perfect fit for this design company. And while I don’t know if they’ll win the bid for the website, they sure as hell win for best business cards.

So here’s a new design. I’ve had it over at JennyFrazier.com for …well a while now & just never took the time to configure all the settings over here. There’s still plenty to be worked out … like the navigation bar for example. That should be fixed soon. (Although that’s what I said about this launch. HA)

Do we like? Not like? Improvement? Tragic mess? Let me know!

I admit it. I’m an app addict. I can’t get enough. Free apps, cheap apps, stupidly overpriced apps that just look really really really fun? FINE I’LL TAKE ‘EM. ALL.

For the most part, and this will not come as a surprise if you are a regular visitor and/or follow me on Flickr, but photography apps are by far my favorites.

I started with Camera Bag (decent), moved on to Mill Colour (…eh), fell in LOVE with Tilt Shift Generator, and am now obsessed with Hipstamatic.

Seriously … how fun are these?

It’s currently $1.99 in the App Store. If you love playing with photos – go get it!

Now your turn — what other apps can I not live without. The more the better :)

So I went on an AMAZING vacation. With my Urban Family. I have a lot of stories (to be edited for posting here. HA.) and 8 times as many photos (seriously I think I took somewhere around 1,500 photos and videos over the course of the week) (WTF) (LOL).

But before I can do any of that, I have to get myself all set up on this:

Yup. My new MacBook Pro.

After several months of *ahem* back and forth with Apple, I received the following email:

Jenny,

Thank you for your email. Based on your previous repair for your Portable’s Display, your continued downtime and repeated trips to your Apple Store, I have processed an exception for this unit to be replaced …

I was out with my boyfriend when that email came in. I think I gave him and everyone around a heart attack from my SCREAMS.

I shipped out the “Bad Apple” the day before I left for Vieques, and my new baby was delivered last night. I opened her, linked her to my network and Time Machined the heck out of her so she was up and ready to go for work this morning.

Ahhhhhhh. Today is going to be a cold, wet, but PRODUCTIVE DAY. No freezing! No weird display warping!

(Original photo by Jill Greenberg. From the “End Times” Exhibit. I’ve obviously added Apple Tears. WAH.)