Disqus - Latest Comments for Amie Gillingham

Re: Whale of a fail, pure silly fun

Amie Gillingham — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 08:11:36 -0000

This is totally FTW!

(might I add that Plurk was also having issues yday?)

Re: The Web 2.0 Election | A View from Judi Sohn

Amie Gillingham — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:01:24 -0000

Well, I don't think we'll see Twitter per se, but I wouldn't be surprised to see an official presidential blog coupled with a select few White House "insider" blogs that may or may not be comment-enabled. But I do agree, all of this current access is definitely glorified baby-kissing.

Re: Facebook Problems Also the Result of DDoS Attack

Amie Gillingham — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:50:13 -0000

I saw speculation over at FriendFeed earlier that they were being hit as well, and I saw some spotty bugs similar to what I experienced at Facebook earlier which certainly speaks to that being a possiblity. Of course, in their case it could just be a scale issue since I am sure a ton of folks (myself included) hit them at once looking for news on what the heck was up with all of our other social media haunts.

Re: Great Presentations

Amie Gillingham — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:40:37 -0000

Great compilation of links! Definitely looking forward to how you present your presentation on presentation this weekend. See you in the 'Burgh!

Re: Small Boxes 33- The Words We Use

Amie Gillingham — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 09:00:45 -0000

That was just brilliant; makes me wish I could have stuck around longer yesterday (and I'm home sick today)

Carry on, Podcampers! Y'all are doing brilliant stuff and making the 'Burgh proud!

Re: Twitter as Directors Commentary

Amie Gillingham — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 21:15:08 -0000

Sofia Coppola, Nora Ephron, & Barbra Streisand.

Re: Twitter as Directors Commentary

Amie Gillingham — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 23:35:20 -0000

You asked me to think quick, so I did. And yup, knowing who many of the gutsy gals were that broke ground before me is a huge part of my voice. I wouldn't have been me had I not answered the way I did. (Well, maybe I would have cited Penny Marshall instead of Barbra Streisand, but I was in a Yentl kind of mood. ) Speaking up for the people who aren't necessarily getting the recognition that they should, who are doing amazing things and aren't being talked about nearly enough because they're not in the old boy's club-- that's who I am. And that's what I do. And that's also a huge part of what informs my business (with our mission to support living artists).

Re: Brand Stories

Amie Gillingham — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:22:08 -0000

When I got back from vacation on Saturday, I finally got a chance to look at my Google alerts & technorati stuff from the past week, and I did see how one non-EBSQ member characterized our site: ugly site with great content. And you know what? I'll take it. It's easy to make a site pretty. (and hopefully our site will be a lot prettier/intuitive when we wrap up our recode in the next few months). But great content and great community--those are things that don't come easy, and we feel darn blessed to have them.

Hard to define my personal brand because as a co-founder and entrepreneur my identity is totally wrapped up in what I do. I take criticism of my company personally. But I would say folks would say I am a geek girl standing at the fringes and wanting to play ball with the big kids.

My brand wish? I want EBSQ to be *the* place folks come to buy art direct from the artist and the cool place for artists to hang out. I want what I'm doing to make a difference. And maybe once all that's been accomplished, I want a little recognition for having made it through the dip.

Re: Meeting People at Events

Amie Gillingham — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:41:22 -0000

Letting your macbook get smacked around by the presenter is always a great ice breaker!

::ducks::

And as a woman, I have to say I really appreciate your sensitivity in including the bit about being "non-creepy." Thank you.

Re: Meeting People at Events

Amie Gillingham — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 13:14:54 -0000

@Michael Bailey: I think it's so much easier to be "brave" online than off. The most recent networking event I went to was PodCampPGH2 and I found myself pretty much only talking to people I knew from online or presenters if I connected with what they had to say and had a follow-up question. I think a lot of us may be having a hard time translating our "extroverted" online persona into real-life situations and making in-person connections because it takes a completely different (although not unrelated) skill set.

Re: Take Responsibility and Fire THEY

Amie Gillingham — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:42:14 -0000

For the most part, I've fired "they" and I think the biggest thing holding me back is ME. At the risk of sounding like a bigger geek than most folks already assume, I'm like Luke Skywalker in "Empire Stikes Back." I've empowered myself to do little things, but not the big things because they seem too big, not realizing it's all part of the same process. And to appropriate Yoda, "That is why [I] fail." I've been consciously been working to get past my "safe" vision of the future and push through to do the riskier, bigger thing that is probably going to be better in the long run than thinking small and playing it safe.

Re: Help Send a Woman to College

Amie Gillingham — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:28:22 -0000

done!

Re: What's On Your Mind?

Amie Gillingham — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 08:51:36 -0000

Last week we had to deal with a depressed older member who was cavalierly talking about her plan to off herself on our forums. And while we took steps and feel confident she isn't an immeadiate danger to herself, we're left trying to formulate some kind of policy regarding how to handle this kind of talk either in our forums or chat rooms. This was not something for which we (or our wonderful volunteer moderators) were prepared. Since our legal brain is out of town, we've been left to debate about liability vs compassion on our own.

I bring this up because this is an issue that may face others in the social media sphere as well. Our current ad-hoc policy is to deal with this on a case-by-case basis, but that's not going to work forever, nor will it work for a larger community than ours. Thoughts?

Re: Five Years From Now

Amie Gillingham — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 12:54:33 -0000

I do think the future is going to be about people untethering with their media consumption, the same way we've moved away from rotary phones with the ubiqitous curly chords.

Re: Five Years From Now

Amie Gillingham — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 11:03:13 -0000

Dave LaMorte said:

"5 years from now I would like to have a job."

So say we all!

Re: Sim is Seth Godin

Amie Gillingham — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:31:37 -0000

You're a bad bad man, Mr. Brogan. And while I am most definitely NOT an idiot and I'd love to be in Vegas with the rest of y'all, my sister finally getting married to her guy 12 years (and a 4-year-old) later pwns all. A girl's gotta have priorities!

Have fun and BE GOOD!

Re: Holiday Projects with Social Media

Amie Gillingham — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 08:21:50 -0000

Another great use for those holiday photos is to combine them with family and do a book using a service like blurb or lulu.

Re: Checking In on the Social Media 100

Amie Gillingham — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:15:08 -0000

I've been enjoying it, although you've been reiterating a lot of stuff that I generally know.

I know what would be useful for me personally is a discussion on how to build social networking tools that are equally useful for people with no clue about social networking (but want/NEED to learn if they want to get their art/message out there) and people who are already clueful and want something that's useful to them without being overly dumbed down, without over-taxing an engineering team (ok, in our case, engineering person) with writing custom tools for each user subset.

Re: Comments and Why RSS Is Not Enough

Amie Gillingham — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:23:57 -0000

While I don't know the answer, I totally agree. Email notification of new comments is waaaay too much bacn on a hot topic, and rss feeds for comments just kind of lose something in translation. When a good kerfuffle gets brewing on Tech Crunch, for example, pretty much the only way to stay in that state of flow is to keep refreshing the post page. And who has time for that?

Re: Customer Service Needs New Channels- Or Does It

Amie Gillingham — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:37:36 -0000

While I'd like nothing more than to do a purely web-based customer service presence (and our company answers all of our emails personally, chats with our customers directly via our site forums, our blog, our twitter presence, and as individuals keeping an eyeball on the blogosphere) I find there are customers who actually want the phone experience regardless of every other option given to them to communicate with us. In fact, I just got off the phone with a new member who wanted a clarification of something that was sent to her via email. As in, she needed to hear a live person restate (in exactly the same words, no less) what was written on the page to *get it.* So while we're actively listening and involved online (which makes sense; we're a totally virtual web company) our customer base is very often older, not terribly tech savvy, and wants a friendly phone voice to hand-hold, something we're not really set up for but will do if we have to. So really, the approach greatly depends on your customers.

Re: What Were Your First Steps

Amie Gillingham — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:24:34 -0000

Technically, my first forays into social media would be the newsgroups at Carnegie Mellon University in the early '90's and later the user groups at AOL the year they started up. I started blogging at Live Journal in 2002 (still there) and started with Flickr in 2005 although I didn't get involved in the social aspects of Flickr until 2007. And I've been running my own online artist community first as a free bboard, and later as a business in which forums still play a large part, since 2001.

As to my foray into the tech blogosphere, it was all thanks to a book by Amy Jo Kim that I read around 2005. Through her I found Kathy Sierra, and through Kathy Sierra I found Tara Hunt, and through Tara Hunt I found the rest of my online world.

Re: Amazing Animated Street Art

Amie Gillingham — Sun, 18 May 2008 12:41:43 -0000

Our art community was actually just having a conversation in our forums about Steet Art when this video came up. Good stuff!

Re: Amazing Animated Street Art

Amie Gillingham — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:55:42 -0000

This seems to be the month for Street Art. Apparently the gent in the video above is going to be part of a big street art exhibit opening at the Tate Modern this weekend. Also, I just received an early preview copy of "Bomb It" which is a documentary on the global street art and graffiti movement, which is going to be released on the 27th. According to the press release, they have a myspace page for the film: http://www.myspace.com/bombitthemovie.com Haven't had a chance to view it yet, but it includes interviews with roughly 200 artists and should be pretty cool!

Re: Do What Works for You

Amie Gillingham — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:01:26 -0000

Snort. I am one of those people who re-tried to sell you on plurk since I was one of those who hated it first, but it seriously grew on me once my network was in place and we found our rhythm. I doubt I would have stuck with it had Twitter been up and running at any point in June (or July). But yup, I hear you. Do what works for you.

Re: When Google Owns You

Amie Gillingham — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:06:55 -0000

The next time my husband nags me that we should move our company email handling over to Gmail instead of using Outlook, I will point him to this post.

Oy, what a gaffe. Please keep us posted on what happens to Nick!

Re: Dear Bank of America

Amie Gillingham — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 23:28:22 -0000

I had considered BOA a few times in the past because our primary billing agent for our business is PayPal, which I hate like nobody's business, but they've been until this point, a necessary evil. BOA is supposed to have fantastic e-commerce/subscription solutions, ideal for our company. So their website's invasive "do you want to chat? someone is standing by" dohickey put me in touch with someone who talked to me for an hour, knew they had my serious interest, promised me a ton of answers to my questions, and never ever got back to me. I wrote to the contact address they gave me. I checked the spam filter for weeks before I gave up on it. Yeah. They *really* want my business. I came them on a day when I was the most disgusted with PayPal and I was ready to make the leap. They blew it.

Between that experience, your post, and ~50 comments above mine? No thank you.

Re: Creators Take Note

Amie Gillingham — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:56:54 -0000

First--so glad you finally found Mad Men! It's such a fantastic show on dozens and dozens of levels.

Secondly, YouTube is fantastic for media producers. You can share bits and pieces that inspire you with people who trust your authority. It's viral marketing at its best. I know from personal experience that even when I find something I like online and watch it for free on my computer, when it's something I care about, I also buy the real deal. I do this with music, with tv shows, with movies. I know I'm not the only one. Granted the generation that came after us might not feel the same way and seems to have this sense of entitlement that things ought to be free, period. But ultimately, this sharing of things we've seen and like is nothing but good for the creator when credit is given to the source.

Re: How To Win In a Recession Like a Ninja

Amie Gillingham — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:24:19 -0000

This post is totally made of win. What a fantastic anaology. Thanks, Other Chris!

Re: Put a Face to Your Brand

Amie Gillingham — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:21:14 -0000

I have to say, this video actually makes me feel guilty for no longer drinking Bigelow Tea (I get loose-leaf stuff from Adagio.com). That said, if I did have a need to grab a brand of bagged tea, I would be more likely to grab theirs. It's good to know it's still a family company, and she's someone I'd personally like to see stay in business for the long haul.

Re: Say What You Want

Amie Gillingham — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 20:11:12 -0000

And yet, it's their not caring about what I think/want that has led me to boycott them for the past 32 years (mind you, I'm not yet 38). As a child, I asked for a plain cheeseburger and they refused to give me one, claiming they don't make them that way. Even when I cried. Even when I pointed out that they *were* plain until they put all the fixings on. Even when my mom got a manager. I'll never eat there again, nor will my children if I can help it. This is how Burger King got their foot in the door back in the late 70's/ early 80's. One size fits all is a myth.

Re: Say What You Want

Amie Gillingham — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:32:15 -0000

@tomob: that's an excellent point. BK & McD fill two very different niches within their market. And I agree that one can go too far in the direction of anything for anyone, particularly in a business where a need for speed is part of the equation. People like me who want custom typically slow down an otherwise streamlined system.

Re: What An Executive Blog Editor Needs to Know

Amie Gillingham — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:27:37 -0000

This was a great lens through which to view our business blog. We have four regular contributors, myself included, and although we have a few regular features, I have to admit there's not much more to our plan other than blogging our fancy that day provided it's topical or timely. Looking critically, we really could be doing better. This gives us a great roadmap to make sure we're making the best use of our time and going with what works rather than occassional good content and a whole lot of filler.

Cheers!
-Amie
http://blog.ebsqart.com

Re: Email ain’t going away

Amie Gillingham — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:45:43 -0000

Hook 'em up with a Google alert for Milan Scoble!

Sigh. Us geeks really do seem to speak a different language, don't we? Although I am glad to say my mom finally knows to automatically check flickr if she wants to see new pictures of her grandbabies.

Re: Baby’s on the way…

Amie Gillingham — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:15:05 -0000

You know the internet has changed your life irrevocably when you follow a complete stranger's pregnancy for 7 months, and have been on pins and needles all day waiting for the new arrival. Here's hoping Milan makes his debut today, both for poor Maryam's sake, and because he'd get to share his birthday with my dear husband, who is the coolest guy I know.

Best wishes!

Re: Anti-depression thinking: what do we do?

Amie Gillingham — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:56:09 -0000

Our community is having a similar conversation here:

http://blog.ebsqart.com/2008/09/29/open-thread-...

One recurrent theme I'm seeing in comments is that people are looking to expand their knowledge and looking for better practices rather than cutting back on quality to keep costs down. I do very much think we'll see a lot of ingenuity and success stories from people who push harder rather than scaling back right now.

Re: Bakery Love – what is your favorite bakery?

Amie Gillingham — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:10:36 -0000

Prantl's is easily THE best bakery in Pittsburgh proper. Love my current job, but I miss working in Shadyside and getting my brekkie there daily.

Although I also heartily second the French Bakery in Millvale. My SIL always gets her children's birthday cakes from there and they are heavenly!

Re: Radio Round Up – July 24, 2009

Amie Gillingham — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:26:59 -0000

Just a quick correction in regards to the Whuffaoke event: it's Saturday the 25th, not the 26th.

Hope to see you there!

Re: Repurposed: From the Landfill to the Gallery

Amie Gillingham — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 14:21:33 -0000

@ Mike

This show is only open to members of our community, and yes, there is a fee associated with membership. If you're interested in learning more about EBSQ membership, feel free to drop me a line!

Regarding the fee for this show (and our shows don't typically have fees associated with them) half the proceeds go directly to Environmental Defense, and half go directly to the artist of the winning entry.

We're pretty excited about this exhibit; it gets artists thinking about materials in a way they might not have before, it should hopefully have an impact on the environment by repurposing items in a rather unique way, it will hopefully raise a lot of money for a great cause, and we hope to see art patrons become part of the solution by making green choices when purchasing work for their home, office, or commercial space.

Re: EBSQ Announces Recycled Art Show Winners

Amie Gillingham — Tue, 01 May 2007 13:23:59 -0000

Thanks to Treehugger and Jeff in particular for doing this seminal green-materials juried exhibit with us. It was a challenging show for a lot of our artists who were in many cases using materials and ideas that were entirely new to them. And of course, it's wonderful that there was so much interest in this exhibit, we also now have a gallery on our site dedicated to "green" art that was a spillover from the exhibit.