Some of the Great Things in the Twin Cities

I have lived in the Twin Cities for nearly half my life. I moved here in mid-90's to attend the University of Minnesota and never left. I met a girl, got a job and have worked to settle in ever since. While the Twin Cities are substantially different from my hometown of Milwaukee, it's where I call home. 

It's easy to find things to love here in the Twin Cities. Nature, cultural influences and creative energy abound. Metro Magazine put out their list of some of the top 100 things we love about the Twin Cities, and a few we don't. I thought it was a pretty good list, heck I even learned a few things, but I thought they missed a few. Here is my Metro post on nine good things, and one evil, that was selected for their publication.

Luck Favors The Prepared Mind

I've never been a big believer in luck, probably because I have rarely ever been the recipient of any true luck. As a result I believe more in the theory that luck favors the prepared mind (a derivation on Louis Pasteur's 'chance favors only the prepared mind'). In my experience, putting in the work to meet a goal is the only way to ensure any success, luck just becomes the icing on the cake.

That understanding is the basis for my latest submission to Six Word Stories Every Day, an online project for creatives to express themselves in very simple ways through images and words. My submission, titled Your Own Luck was featured in October. Check out other submittals and creatives at Six Word Stories Every Day.

Tweet Northeast

On June 21, 2011, Mayor R.T. Rybak declared #NEMPLS day in Minneapolis thanks to the work of local journalist, Dan Haugen and community booster, Greg Isola. To commemorate the event, we designed Tweet Northeast t-shirts. We have been distributing them around Northeast Minneapolis and we even got one on the mayor. To learn more about what is happening in Northeast Minneapolis, you can follow me, Dan and Greg on Twitter, or simply follow the hashtag #nempls to join the conversation. 

Twitter-Free Tuesday

I love social media, I really do. I go pretty deep into a number of social media services. I've been lucky to build real relationships, get work and participate in cool projects because of social media. But with so many social media outlets, it's easy to spend far too much time on 'social' pursuits that can turn out to be, well, kind of antisocial after a while. 

I've decided to make each Tuesday Twitter free. I'm doing this to not only free up more time during the work week and concentrate more, but also to pull back and gain a little more perspective on what social media outlets really provide value versus the ones that only fill space with more noise. 

I'm curious to know if anyone else has done any social media "fasting." Did it work? What did you learn? I would love to hear your story. Shoot me an email. You can also hit me up on Twitter @martinize, any day but Tuesday, of course.

Update on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 02:15PM by Jeffrey Martin

Here are some of my notes after my first Twitter-free Tuesday.

• This is hard. No kidding, right? But as a community member, both digitally and physically, I did have to make a few Facebook posts and reply to a few tweets. So technically, yesterday wasn't Twitter-free. No updates were personal, all were business or community oriented.
• Twitter was certainly the hardest social media outlet to ignore. YouTube, Reddit, Foursquare, Spotify, Google+ and Facebook were much easier. Some specialized services didn't even register.
• Some people I only interact with through a social media service. 
• Some individiuals I can only reach through a social media service.
• The steady ping of the smartphone and the push to email alerted me to various social media happenings, even without having to fully participate.

It can be pretty hard to completely disconnect from social media. It was tougher to ignore the email and notifications from various services than dealing with any "withdrawl symptoms." Hopefully next week will be a little easier with a little more preparation.

30-Second Sketches from 30 Days of Creativity

I am offering a limited number of prints for a short time at my 30-second sketch store for $15. Proceeds from each sale will go to Art Buddies, a program of Creatives for Causes in Minneapolis.