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The twitter community of Toronto united at The Courthouse on Thursday February 11th 2010 to donate their money over drinks and conversation to the people of Haiti, who need it more than anyone else in the world.

It was a very entertaining evening, and I had a great time talking to everyone, especially the bloggers and business people who came out to mix and mingle and help make a difference.

Of course the music was too loud. And it really was impossible to hear anything in the main room, where everyone gathered, and I found myself seeking corridors and cavities away from the audio assault. The DJ played dance music, like any other night at The Courthouse, and it was a little sad.  My ears didn’t need it, and I would have drunk more and stayed longer if they’d played native Haitian music at comfortable levels.

The high points of my night included meeting David Black, the Coordinator of Emergency Response Planning at the University of Toronto, and Heather Lesson, a Communications Lead at Tucows that was instrumental in their team’s response to the calamity.

The Big Thinker was there, Jonathon Sinden, and beside him is Kat Scrivener who is a smart young woman with a Masters in Globalization & the Human Condition.

I also met Kurt Gooden the co-founder of Targetivity and if you are reading this Kurt please know I’d still like to talk to you more, and I consider it unfortunate that we were interrupted. But as I was standing at the name tag table and holding the only red sharpie in my hand the interruption was perhaps inevitable. Hanging out at the name tag table or even appointing myself as name-tag-maker is an old trick of mine.  Its a great way to survey the landscape and meet dozens of people in short order. If they are boring you can move along to the next customer quickly and efficiently, and as a self appointed name tag maker, you can walk away anytime.

Here’s Lisa Charleyboy, the most beautiful native girl I know, and her friend Jon Gauthier who has a remarkable business card that bears a star burst on the back with the words ‘connect yourself with the limitless’, and when I stare at it, I get a warm feeling and it makes me happy.

I met Carly-Anne Fairlie of the Fairlee Agency standing in the quiet room (the room with the prizes which was 17 decibles less intense than the courtroom), and ofcourse the girl at the very top of the post is Casie Stewart holding a limitless supply of raffle tickets. When I think back on the evening I regret not buying any of those…  Jason bought some, and he didnt regret it.  Jason if you are reading this please tell us the story behind this photo in the comments.

Lots to talk about, here in January 2010.

Three photo contests ended on Lenzr on January 1st, and are slowly being replaced. The matches were not as dramatic as previous finishes, as the winners established an early lead and maintained it over the entire course of the contest. You can read all the developments on the Lenzr blog including our endeavours to make a better scoring algorithm.  In the next session, the voting results should more accurately reflect each photographer’s skill, as decided by the people, and be less about his or her ability to promote the page to friends. We are rewarding comments now, and reducing earlier metrics that were set too high.  Congratulations to members seguini and ve3bnw

Macro Photos of Life winner (right) was submitted by a prolific member named ve3bnw which sounds like a license plate # and I wouldn’t be surprised if it is, considering he describes himself as a commercial truck driver that’s interested in photography. The image titled Time to BEEHAVE magnifies a shiny wasp.

This member will receive an Eastern Ontario wine and brewery tour set for early next month and there’s more information on Locaboire.  Smojoe will almost certainly accompany the winner on this journey and, of course, write lots of travel and wine related content afterward, for your reading pleasure.

New Photo Contests on Lenzr are slowly coming to life, and more challenges will launch next week.   Already there is an offering entitled Everday Tangled Web which asks members to upload images of the most beautiful tangles in their life, if possible.  Its a difficult assignment.

Sponsored by S.E. Telecom, a business phone systems provider in Toronto Ontario, the challenge hopes to showcase the messes we make, as individuals and as a society, when we run lines and make connections without properly organizing a system.  But even an ordered network can look confusing from certain angles. There’s lots of chaos in my home, but none of it is very beautiful.

The Prize is a Plantronics Voyager 510SL+ Bluetooth Headset System with Lifter, retail Value $429.00

Enjoy wireless freedom in the office or on the go with the Plantronics Voyager 510S Bluetooth Headset. Ensuring lightweight, all-day comfort, the Voyager 510S delivers superior sound quality and provides WindSmart technology for clear voice transmission. You can read more about the reasoning and reward in the Everyday Tangled Web photo contest on the Lenzr blog.

Ruth Wilgress Begins Blogging

Ruth Wilgress is starting a business that provides expressive arts therapy in Toronto and will be blogging and updating friends and collegues as she advances in this discipline.

Ruth is working hard to perfect new programs and new methods of helping people through the practice of creating art. Here’s The Rat Race which is one of her best pieces. I absolutely love her colour choices she used.  Who would have believed that lime green and pink compliment each other?  I also like how the picture is punctuated by computer chips.

Lisa Charleyboy, veteran blogger takes up article marketing

Lisa Charleyboy is Toronto’s most fascinating native girl blogger.  Graduating York University this year, she’s already a veteran author that has outgrown a blogspot and has advanced into article marketing as a hired gun for some big name fashion portals. Lisa has a very bright career as a freelance writer ahead of her.  It was over a year ago that I profiled Lisa Charleyboy on CanadaBlogFriends.ca

Want to read her latest stuff? Her last year’s Top Five posts. Each of these articles probably got more readership than my Smojoe blog did all year, but I’m not jealous. Its a different audience.
1) Holy Cowichan
2) Native Model in Bazaar Spread
3) Urban Warrior: Anthony Collins (aka Thosh)
4) Could Canada’s Next Top Model be Native?
5) Urban Warrior: Tatanka Means

Abel DaSilva shares a hole lot of secrets with Dumpdiggers

Just after the holidays, I wrote and published two stories about a Sunday Jan 3rd afternoon spent with Abel DaSilva, who is Toronto’s foremost excavation site bottle merchant and also a knowledgeable antiques aficionado on eBay, and power seller and prolific discussion forum participant.

Shopping for Antiques at the Sunday Market in Toronto with Abel DaSilva is an informative article that details the St Lawrence Hall, Sunday Market setting and chronicles the purchases of a wise man leveraging his knowledge of history.  Abel understands tricky niche markets for collectibles and how to buy local and sell global using eBay and related Yahoo antiques collecting groups.

Sightseeing with Abel DaSilva in Downtown Toronto sifts through half a dozen stories about four different lots in the downtown core in which historically significant antiques glass bottles were unearthed.  There were truckloads of antiques buried under just about every condominium building on the shoreline. What’s even more fascinating, is how Abel befriends the excavation company employees, site supervisors and heavy machinery operators by sharing his knowledge of the specimens they unearth in their digging projects. Abel was very generous sharing tips, but redacted some of the juiciest stuff after reading my first draft. My favourite anecdote is the King City car chase where Abel was followed by other diggers from one landfill site to another.

In closing, let me say the most satisfying metric that any freelance business professional could ever hope to measure is the amount of opportunity that he or she receives per week.

It’s always a big day when you speak in front of a lot of people, but today was easy. I was backing up Christa Jean the Petite Fashionista, and Raymi the Minx, two of Toronto’s most famous bloggers.

The Smojoe social marketing event How To Be Famous On The Internet was a big success and I got lots of cards, handshakes and smiles.  Thank you Deb Lewis of TorontoCityEvents.ca , it was a smart decision to relocate to ICON home design, and although I fumbled the ball a few times getting the address right, and the chairs didn’t show up until two minutes before the presentation, we carried it home.

Our amazing guest speakers, Christa and Raymi rocked the house - it was awesome to behold how two totally different approaches could both yield such success. Christa talked about how she grew her influence by doing charity work for Save The Whales and related details of how she auctioned off dresses worn by Hayden from Heroes. Then Raymi showed us her approach, and what I like most about Raymi is how she gets specific about her stats. Much to my amazement Raymi put up her numbers on screen and left no doubt in anyone’s mind about just how many people she entertains daily (about 3500).

The more I get to know Raymi The Minx the more I like her. She says exactly what’s on her mind and I think being so amazingly candid on her blog has made her so refreshingly bold in real life.  She swore a few times during her talk, and although I cringed, I saw other folks smiling and so I think it might have actually added to her presentation - she’s real.

Toronto Local Bloggers

Its not everyday that I get to picture nine Toronto Local Bloggers together.

From left to right,  Raymi The Minx, Ted Healy from Dead Robot, Casie Stewart, Sean Ward, Sass Zucket, Meredith from OhMistletoe.com, Stefania from Torontotextstyles, Lisa Charleyboy from UrbanNativeGirlStuff, Andrew Louis from Hyfen.net

Standing behind me, Glen Rostie an internet marketing guru at Your Virtual Butler was there, and Julian Brass of Notable.tv

We all met and talked and maybe gave birth to a very potent local blog squad.