New Website coming this week

This little blog has been our temporary home until we move into our new website. You should see our new site later this week and this blog will move to another location. We'll let you know how to find it for anyone who likes to still visit this humble repository of rambling jargon.

A lot will happen this week as part of our Grand Opening week. We'll be announcing an on-line forum for locals in Springfield, MO who will also have lots of chances for actual social gatherings. Both the site and the meeting place will be announced this Friday. The site will be called ZarkoBuzz and you'll find the on-line gathering at http://www.zarkobuzz.com/. Also we'll announce our new free video series called On-Line Marketing Tools, which will be short YouTube "How To" videos for people in business. These should help everyone stay successful in these challenging economic times.

So these are the reminders for the week:

This Friday at 5 PM, a gathering to network about Social Media, as part of International Social Media Day. Then at 6 PM, we'll kick off First Friday Art Walk with our exhibit Wit and Whimsy, featuring the art of Carla Stine and Juli Ryan. At 7 PM, the music will start from Bella Donna, which is hip jazz and blues in the tradition of Billy Holiday, featuring the haunting and lovely voice of Liz Carney.

About that same time, classically trained chef Mike Bleil will be serving up his Gulf influenced cuisine from Big Mike's Crab Shack and Pizza. For you Sangria lovers, you'll be thrilled to know that the best summer punch will be flowing all night.

Brannon Estis from R. Brannon Estis Photography will be on-hand taking professional Facebook headshots for FREE! from 6 to 8 and the atmosphere will be loaded with fun for the party of the month.

Here is the short video to kick off the new "how to" series on On-Line Marketing Tools:

Social Media Talk Next Friday

Please join us in Springfield, MO at 5 PM next Friday, August 6, as part of the International Social Media Day. We'll meet other Social Media insiders to open discussion locally about using social media for recreation and for business.

Immediately after, it will mark the Grand Opening of our Studio and Gallery, as part of August, First Friday Art Walk. We've got live music, the jazzy and blues sound of Bella Donna featuring the unreal beauty and haunting vocals of Liz Carney, who is the daughter of local opera impresario and singer, Jeff Carney.

Also we'll be featuring the delicious cuisine of Big Mike's Crab Shack and Pizza. Sounds like a crazy combination because it is. But let me tell you this guy can COOK! A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, with a personality that makes everyone want to like him. No pretense, no fluff, no puffed out chest. Just a guy who loves people to enjoy his food!

We've got the exhibit called Wit and Whimsy, featuring the fun and storybook art of Juli Ryan and the beautiful color series from local artist Carla Stine, along with a small group of her whimsical collages.

Free Sangria wine, free professionally taken Facebook headshots by Smart Group partner and photographer Brannon Estis, and lots of other fun. Don't miss it and please tell your friends!

Back to Work

Just got back from a week's vacation in sunny Florida (oil workers everywhere and nare a drop to drink!). Time to get back to work.

Here is a little ruminations from the blogger dogger.

Times are tough. There is no free lunch. No one is going to do it for you. There is no magic pill. Social media is a mixed bag. Take the good with the bad. Every now and then you get lucky. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Go with the flow. Who said this would be easy. Put your shoulder to the plow and don't look back.

Remember to put it on your calendar. August 6. Our Grand Opening. Should be a blast. Food again from Big Mike's Crab Shack and Pizza (expect to hear much more about Big Mike's in weeks to come!). Music from Bella Donna (great jazz in the style of Billy Holiday, featuring Liz Carney). The show Wit and Whimsy with some twists for August. All four of the Smart Group associates on hand to talk about what we do. Lots of places to just "groove and enjoy." Enjoy the opening and the show but also engage in great conversations with other art lovers and folks interested in social media.

At 5 PM we have a presentation by Smart Group associates about social media and our spin on marketing.

Be there or be square...or a circle...or a triangle...or some other as yet undiscovered shape of the universe.

Peace.

Xspond

I'm on vacation but thought this article is good food for thought. Do you have a comment?

We'd love to hear from you!

btw, please mark your calendar for August 6. That will be our Grand Opening and also our MeetUp event for people to come early at 5:00 PM before Art Walk, to learn about Social Media.

See you there! Don't forget to let us hear from you!!!

Xspond
http://www.xspond.com/2010/07/01/outsourced-social-media-oxymoron/

Smart Group Makes Marketing Fun!

A few examples of the Smart Group at work/play, helping clients with our Social Media Art!

We'd love to create some buzz for you or your brand too! Give us a call...

Social Media Day Announced

As part of the international movement to promote Social Media, Smart Group and Gallery will host a Social Media Day discussion, prior to our Grand Opening on August 6, 2010.

Follow the Link

We will introduce the Smart Group, have some light snacks and give a 25 minute presentation of the significance of Social Media and your business. We will leave time for networking and discussion and then head right in to our Opening!

Smart Group and Gallery Opens!

In time for the July 2, First Friday Art Walk, Smart Group and Gallery opened to raved reviews!

Art, Life and a billion users

OK. Yours truly has been up since 3 am. Our opening of the Gallery is tonight, in Springield, MO, as part of First Friday Art Walk. If you're in or near Springfield, you'll want to come catch the party! Here's the stats:

Mike Bleil, from the soon to be open Big Mike's Crab Shack and Pizza in Nixa, Mo will be on hand personally dishing out the grub. Mike is no shoemaker when it comes to food. He is a graduate of the famed Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY (my alma mater--that's right folks, the boy can cook). Mike has been around the block and works like a demon but the man knows his food. Come check out the kitchen we've set up to serve outrageous hors doeurvres! Pizza off of bricks in a make shift oven, with all fresh ingredients, hand made dough, sauce and GOOD cheese. Seafood quiches (hand made of course) in light and flaky pastry cups, stuffed shrimp from the Gulf (Mike will be talking about his environmental vision for the Gulf and how he is learning to be green on a daily basis in the restaurant). Oh and don't forget the classically made chocolate truffles, European style and hand rolled, then dusted with cocoa. Yum.

Sangria (made by your host) will be served by the pitcher full, perfect for a lovely summer evening.

How did we get here and whose art will be seen? Glad you asked! Last night at about 5 pm I was still fussing with a hot water heater that is blowing a circuit. We've rerouted the electrical with conduit, knocked holes in the walls (yes we were making holes in the walls and running power yesterday!!!!) and the stupid thing has water everywhere and I'm still confident that you'll have hot water to wash your hands with by 6 PM today!

Our windows were decorated by an amazing artist--THANK YOU KRISTI!!!. Believe it or not the concept for those windows came together by about 10 PM last night. I bought the funky furniture from a flea market yesterday, which I had spotted last week. Kristi is doing this while still working a regular work schedule, all within less than 24 hours. The window displays themselves will be a feature of the show. What a gas. You'll have to come see them.

Featured show art Juli Cady Ryan and her beautiful acrylic paintings will no doubt steal the show. I finished hanging her 22 pieces last evening by around 9 pm. Here are a few of her works on exhibit:

Also as part of the show, which is appropriately called Wit and Whimsy, local Springfieldian artist Carla Stine's works, including her stunning color series, seen here:

will be on exhibit.

Work of our own associates, Kevin Richardson and photographer Brannon Estis will also be displayed, as well as a few other works from local artists.

I'll be around to show off what I've been raving about, this new genre which I'm convinced will storm the art world, called Social Media Artist Revolution. I'll be bragging about some of my expermental blogs, including my beloved Children of Zol and other various flavors of my insanity.

Now to talk about Social Media issues a little and to get your impression.

In this morning's Social Media Today ezine, there was an article about Facebook getting to a billion users. That is a big number. We hear about thousands of gallons of oil leaking into the gulf, about hundreds of millions of dollars disappearing from the economy, about scazillions of poor people living on a dollar a day, etc, but Facebook getting to a billion users is no easy feat! But the writer of the article thinks it will happen and also thinks we should each get paid to finish our profile--like Five bucks or so.

Naturally, all of this will help Facebook make tens of billions of dollars, but shoot man, why not? We're connected in ways we couldn't dream of. I met Juli, our featured artist on Facebook! and she lives like a thousand miles away! My friend Fawaad lives in Pakistan and we talk weekly on Skype because he is an associate and now works for my company. We met on Facebook! And the guy is becoming a brother, even though we are separated from dozens of obstacles, not the least of which Pakistan is in enormous upheaval, most people in America think they're all terrorists and times are tough everywhere. But you think we have it rough, you ought to try making a go of having a successful business in a region which has bombs and gunfire going off non-stop!


Anyway, here is the full article about Facebook getting to a billion--

Read the article here.

Don't forget to let us hear from you. This is after all called the ART OF THE CONVERSATION. Read yes, but talk back and let me reply.

Come to the show tonight if you can and if you're reading this after you've been to the show, provide your feedback. We'll pay you....

Well maybe not like in real money. But we'll think of something!