Join us for an evening of fine wines, hors d’oeuvres, chocolate and live jazz featuring Denise Thimes, an internationally known local artist. Help kick off United Way of Greater St. Louis’ campaign!

Tickets are $55/each for early birds through August 1st or $60/each leading up to the event. Only 400 tickets will be sold and must be purchased in advance. All proceeds benefit United Way of Greater St. Louis. We will be accepting canned food donations at the door.

PURCHASE TICKETS AT: http://www2.stl.unitedway.org/chocolatewineandallthatjazz

FOLLOW THE FUN ON FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=136156093078875&ref=ts

Wendy Lee with kids in Cameroon

My friend Wendy is stationed in Cameroon, West Africa, as a grassroots micro finance volunteer for the Peace Corps. After her first few months in a village without running water or paved roads, she realized that a lot of the kids in Cameroon can’t read and don’t have access to books.

When Wendy contacted an organization called Books for Africa about getting some books for the 4-room school win her village, the project quickly exploded  into a large-scale effort that aims to bring 22,000 books to 30 libraries across Cameroon.

Books For Africa gave Wendy an all-or-nothing proposal: either take a 40-foot container of 22,000 books, or nothing at all. The shipping costs $11,500.

Wendy has already raised more than $9,500 for Books for Cameroon, but she still needs to raise $2,000 by the end of October for the project to happen.

Please consider making a donation to Books for Cameroon. No amount is too small. If you can spare $1 or even $5, we will be that much closer to bringing books to these great kids!

All contributions to this Peace Corps project are 100% tax-deductible. And if you feel so inclined, please share this message with your network in hopes that we can raise the rest of the money to make the project happen!

• To make a tax-deductible contribution:  http://www.booksforcameroon.org
• Follow the project on Facebook:  http://facebook.com/booksforcameroon
• Read about Wendy’s life in Cameroon:  http://roundtwocameroon.blogspot.com

Nurses for Africa

At work, we’re helping out with a site for 16 nurses from St. Louis that are in Zambia, providing medical care and education and HIV/AIDS prevention. Zambia is in southern Africa. Each day, the team in Zambia sends us videos and emails about their adventures with the help of a satellite phone and Internet cafes.

We post them on http://nursesforafrica.net/. It’s so cool to get to work every day and learn about what adventures are transpiring half the world away. When researching for the project, I even connected with my old friend from middle school that was born in Zambia to find out about possible Internet service providers. Small world!

Books for Cameroon

While the nurses are in southern Africa, my friend Wendy is in Cameroon – on the western coast of the continent. She’s a Peace Corps volunteer. Yesterday I got a tweet from her, asking for some help spreading the word about her new project called Books for Cameroon.

Wendy lives in a small village where her house doesn’t have running water. But she does have the Internet! So, using her blog, Twitter and Facebook – she’s raising $11,500 to send 22,000 books from the US to Cameroon.

I worked with Wendy via instant message and email yesterday to write and edit press releases and pitch emails for her to send out to various local and national media outlets.

By the way, please donate to her cause if you feel so inclined!

I am continually amazed at the way technology makes the world a smaller (and better!) place. In a million years, I never imagined that I’d be IMing friends in AFRICA – working with the Peace Corps and volunteer nurses – to promote literacy and HIV/AIDS prevention. Even if my part is small, after all I’m not the ones in Africa doing the heavy lifting, I am so glad that I can contribute to their work in my own little way, from my own little home in St. Louis.

So I’m calling out some of the top 100 brands that SHOULD be on Twitter that aren’t… yet.

#4 Apple
I’ve seen the commercials. The Mac is supposed to be the cool guy. Since IBM is on Twitter @ibmevents, I’m going to have to say that Apple is a step behind on this one. I know I’d appreciate a little Twitter love when my iPod shows that sad iPod face…

#7 Microsoft
Those Zunes aren’t going to sell themselves.

#10 Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola spends millions on web site promotions like the CGI Happiness Factory, but they aren’t willing to sign up for a free Twitter account and assign a PR or marketing staff person with the task of monitoring the tweets related to their brand. I can’t imagine how many people are already talking about how they’re craving a Diet Coke right about now. Or maybe that’s just me!

#18 IKEA
There’s an entire (un-official) blog dedicated to do-it-yourself-ers that modify Ikea products for added efficiency. They could be talking about new product releases, decorating ideas or even helping people figure out how to turn a box full of parts into a new bookshelf!

#25 Skittles
The new Skittles web site is devoted to Web 2.0 with links to YouTube, Facebook and even Twitter. But the company doesn’t even have its own Twitter account? Lame. Well, lame and a completely incomplete launch.

#29 Lego
Anyone on Twitter that follows @GuyKawasaki (who doesn’t follow Guy?) will see all the crazy Lego creation links he posts. Wouldn’t it be phenomenal if Lego was also posting links to these creations?

#47 Subway
Wouldn’t you like to know what Jared is eating for lunch today? I sure would.

#75 Budweiser
Maybe because I’m from St. Louis and I’m still a little salty about the InBev takeover… but seriously! They could be posting about new commercials, where the clydesdales will be making appearances… I’m going to stop there. I guess I’ll have to settle for the alcohol-induced Texts from last night blog for now.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Facebook, wow.

You can now follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/colleenjaycox. Or check out the latest updates in the bottom right corner of the site, via the Twitter Updates RSS feed!

Who loves cookies?

If you’re like me and loooove cookies, then you’ll be excited to see that the Girl Scout Council has set up a web site to make it easier to find the Daisy, Brownie and Junior Girl Scouts slingin’ yummies in your hood.

Go to http://www.girlscoutcookies.org/ and type in your zip code to get access to the nearest Girl Scout troops in your area. Now there’s no more waiting for someone at work to come around with that order sheet!

And just in case you were wondering, you can be friends with Girl Scout Cookies on MySpace, add the Facebook application AND check out a cookie photo stream on Flickr, too.

On a sad note, Girl Scout cookie season hasn’t started in my neighborhood… yet. I’ll be checking back daily. Gotta have my yearly Thin Mint and Samoa fix!

Too bad when I tried to look for her online to find out more, she didn’t have a web site, online resume, Linked In, blog, Facebook page… nothing.

Given the fact that the Internet has taken over the world of marketing (and most of the world, in general) is it possible for a successful marketer to have a virtually non-existent web presence?

Doesn’t seem like a very effective personal marketing plan to me.

I don’t think there could be a more true depiction of the phenomenon known as Facebook.

What exactly did people do before Facebook? Much less Gmail (and GChat) oh, and AIM. These social networking/communication tools make my life *that* much easier to get in touch with people. So, piggy-backing off of this article from Joel Postman over at Talent Zoo, I’d like to share some advice on how exactly to use these communication channels effectively.

• Connect with people you already know, be weary of “friending” strangers.
• Be professional – even if it’s a personal networking site.
• When sending messages, ask yourself, is this message about something that will be meaningful to the recipient?
• When in doubt, don’t.
• Focus on making the most of your contacts, not making the most contacts.