• GutChecker: Back November I took part in Startup Weekend Iowa City and our team took first prize. We were awarded two rounds of startup funding and we got the ball rolling on a few things, which was great. We scaled back our team to a set of three core people, which was definitely needed for communication’s sake. It was a great experience, but earlier this month I resigned from the project. I think GutChecker could go far and become a big deal, but I know that I couldn’t devote as much time as was needed from my role. I wish nothing but the best for the team and I really do hope it becomes successful.
• Other projects: I’ve started, ended, adjusted, and forgotten a ton of side projects. Sometimes it has been because of my own lack of drive/knowledge to get things moving. Sometimes it’s been because potential partners have backed off for the same lack of drive/knowledge I just described. Again, each one has been a learning experience.
• My “real world” job: I transitioned to a new role within RuffaloCODY back in May. Instead of working with the enrollment management division and writing content on behalf of colleges, I now work with the corporate marketing team. Writing business-to-nonprofit pieces and developing new marketing campaign concepts was a big adjustment at first, but it’s been an amazing learning experience. The team dynamic is completely different than what I experienced on the enrollment management side of things and I think the last seven or eight months have helped me really grow as a professional. It’s really interesting to see how different departments within the same company function.
• Writing: I need to freaking write more. I’m lazy. To be fair, I read and write all day long. When I get home, the last thing I want to do is look at more words. I’m trying though.
• Life: I’m really excited to see where my life is going to head this year. I won’t give away too many details, but I can’t remember a time within the last four years or so that I felt this kind of excitement when thinking about the future. I’m pretty pumped.

For those who don’t know, Startup Weekend is an organization that puts on 54-hour events where developers, designers, marketers, product managers, and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products and, hopefully, launch startups.

Iowa City hosted around 45 people of varying backgrounds and, after pitching an idea that apparently sort of already exists (though I’m convinced my idea is different enough to work) and getting voted down, I jumped into another group.

Our startup, GutChecker, essentially helps those on specific diets – low carb, low sugar, low fat, etc – find foods that fit into those diets at restaurants.

We were making good progress well into Saturday afternoon when the only person in our group who knew how to develop iOS apps abandoned us. We thought we were doomed, but luckily Paul Clark at Brainstorm Media pulled through and came up with a functioning web app we could use a work around. In fact, you can try it out by visiting GutChecker.net on your smart phone.

From there, we knew we had a good idea, but weren’t sure how it would hold up against the competition. In the end, Tracy Wazak of Middle Road Enterprises and I gave what turned out to be an amazing presentation (you can watch our Prezi slideshow here) and our startup, GutChecker, won!

I’m exhausted and have consumed way more caffeine than is anywhere near healthy this weekend, but I’m really excited about working on GutChecker more in the coming weeks. I’ve also gotten myself really excited to continue working in an entrepreneurial fashion. More on that to come later…
For now, please feel free to ‘Like’ GutChecker on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @gutchecker.

Internet creepin’ aside, today I broke through to the digital world for a second time. itsPrestonM.com can now be found on Facebook. (This is the part where I beg you to click this link and to “Like” the page.)

I’m hoping to keep the page (which you should “Like”) as a fairly social hub for people I’ve worked with, clients I’ve taken on, and those who want to ask questions about my services in a setting they’re already comfortable with — the social web.

So, when you have a free moment today, I implore you to head over to Facebook and find itsPrestonM.com (then click “Like”). Then, you should tell your friends to “Like” itsPrestonM.com.

Basically, everyone should “Like” the new page.

If you’re going to do nothing with your Twitter account other than link your Facebook posts to it, don’t bother getting a Twitter account. Twitter, and social media in general, is supposed to be social. Linking your Facebook posts to your Tweets isn’t creating a conversation. Instead, it’s shutting down the channels of communication.

You can also see in the image that a lot of these posts are too long to be posted to Twitter. Tweets are an art form. They’re poetry — 140 character sonnets of interactive information. People should Tweet better.

@BrosLife, a popular Twitter embodiment of Barney Stinson (How I Met Your Mother) with 144,354 followers, often poses questions to followers. This is, without a doubt, a great strategy to encourage audience engagement. Tonight, @BrosLife sent out a question that was missing a word, then deleted the Tweet and reposted the same, corrected question two minutes later.

Luckily, this word omission didn’t cause any significant damage to the Barney Stinson or HIMYM brand. I’d be willing to wager that very few people saw it — even fewer still took a screen shot to show their writer friends. However, some errors might not be looked upon so lightly.

How many times have you attempted to write “public” but accidentally written “pubic?” What about that time you said you had a “massage” for someone when you meant “message?” Imagine sending out a message with an error like that to one hundred (or in this case, 100,000) people. Lesser problems have caused uproar and prompted PR departments to panic.

I know I’ve been guilty of similar typographical errors myself. Luckily for me, I don’t have 100k+ people reading my online correspondences.

(For more funny typos, check out this post from another one of my favorite Tweeters, @GrammarGirl.)

Facebook updated its privacy settings for users yet again.

Lifehacker has a great piece on how you can best manage your profile with the new timeline feature.

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Today, it took me and two other people about 30 minutes of Googling to figure out how to make the new “recent photos” section disappear from the new Facebook design. After I figured it out, three more friends asked me how I had made the change within minutes. So, here’s how to do it.

My friend had hidden all of her photos to everyone other than herself previously. But for some reason, there were still some photos showing up. Here’s what it looked like:

Here’s how to make it so that there are no pictures along the top of your profile.

Step 1: Hide all images and videos tagged of you to everyone but yourself.

Click Account >> Privacy Settings >> Customize Settings >> Photos and videos I’m tagged in >> Edit Settings.

Here, use the drop down arrow and select Only Me.

You might THINK you are done now… but you aren’t. At this point, photos tagged of you in most albums will not show up. What’s left is a group of pictures coming from one remaining album: Your profile image album.

To make these go away, go to the following link: http://www.facebook.com/privacy/?view=photos

Use the drop down menu to make your profile picture album viewable to “Only You.”

And NOW, my friends, your profile will look like mine below (minus the “this is what your profile looks like to Chase Eugene Moore” box). Enjoy!

Remember the “I like it on the…” status campaign? People posted where they like to put their purse to support breast cancer awareness. It led to people posting things like “I like it on the couch.” or “I like it on the table.”

How about the endless slew of statuses saying things like “I support cause XYZ. Millions of people are affected by it every day. If you support this cause too put this as your status. Most people won’t do it, will you?” Surely you’ve seen some of those. I see them nearly every single day.

Facebook and Twitter (and I suppose MySpace if you’ve discovered a wormhole and you’re reading this post from the past) make it easy to publicly announce your support of a cause. Facebook status updates and Tweets have more or less replaced putting a bumper sticker on your car as the most passive way of supporting a cause. Social media can be, and has been, used as a great supplement to any campaign. Information can easily be spread to thousands of people quickly and for free. But is posting a cartoon screenshot really the most effective way of combating child abuse? Even if it’s just to show respect to a cause?

Here’s a great alternative: Organizations like Prevent Child Abuse America should create a Facebook Causes page and allow users to make donations to their cause straight through Facebook. If each of the people who ‘Like’ this cartoon character profile image child abuse campaign donated just $1 to an organization like PCA America, then organizations would have more than $23,000 in the bank to use to actually help those affected by abuse. The app could then be used to post a special status update saying something like, “I just donated to PCA America to help those affected by child abuse.”

It would be just as fast as browsing Google Image Search for a picture of your favorite Rugrats character, saving the image, and then uploading it to Facebook. Plus, it would actually make an impact.

I’m not quite done with the story, and I’m sure there are more than a few rough edges in this first draft, but… I DID IT!

The massive amount of writing I’ve done doing this past month is definitely the excuse I’m going use for not blogging for more than month. But now that the largest and most difficult part of my NaNoWriMo adventure is over, I’m going to make another vow: I’m going to blog regularly again. (See what I did there? I just sounded like every tween who had a MySpace account in the early 2000′s.)

For those of you who care about my actual novel, please know that it will be a long time before you get a chance to read it yourself. I’m going to take a break (for at least a month) from it. At that point, I’m going to edit the hell out it. I didn’t do any editing during the writing process, aside from the words Microsoft Word told me were wrong via a scribbly red line. I’m sure there are TONS of incoherent thoughts in there somewhere. And by somewhere, I mean probably everywhere.

That all being said, it’s likely that nobody will be allowed to read a single word of my novel until May 2011. I want to take my time and make sure that what I’ve written is presented in a decent way and is actually… decent.

After getting more than 100 pages views in the last 48 hours, I’m excited to say that 7% of those viewers posted a name suggestions. (Apparently the other 93% of those viewers hate free things.)

Anyway, I threw the seven name suggestions into a hat and drew one out. Check out the video below to see the winning name. Be sure to check back soon for more contests.

UPDATE: I removed the video because for some reason it was messing with a formatting issue here on the blog. The name I picked was “Jaimes.”

So here’s my first social media novel contest. Help me name a character in my novel using the description below. After 48 hours, I’ll select my three favorite names and randomly draw one out of hat. I’ll post a video here on the blog of me drawing the name and the person who submitted that name will win a $5 gift certificate to The Java House in Iowa City. (For those of you outside of the Iowa City area, we’ll work something out… the solution will likely involve you picking your favorite coffee shop in your area that will let me purchase a gift card for you over the phone or internet.)

So here’s the description:

The character will be CJ’s best friend in Oklahoma. Think the strongest platonic relationship someone can form with a friend and that’s this guy. The character is male, 6′ 2″, thin build, half hispanic and half Native American. His personality is part stoner, part loner (limited family in the area), part independent wanderer, and all street smart.

So there you have it. Come up with a name that you think best matches the character described above and leave it in the comments below. You have until 9pm Sunday, October 24… so let the fun begin!