Here’s a comment left on my Facebook page after I let people know that we would be having Jesse Connolly, the campaign manager of No On 1 Maine on The Q Morning Show. Pretty much says it all I think.
ASKING YOUR PERMISSION TO MARRY
My parents divorced when I was 10 years old; combined, our immediate families have experienced eight divorces. Yet, somehow, without strong marital role models, I was blessed to meet the man with which I will spend the rest of my life. This coming July, Paul & I will be celebrating 20 years of our loving, monogamous life together.
A life that includes volunteering for the community, neighborhood activism, serving on boards and committees, and advocating for those in need. We are godparents to nieces and nephews, and have a loving and supportive circle of family, friends, and neighbors. We aren’t rich; we are struggling middle class like most Mainers, but we have what many others do not…a loving partner in life. The only thing we don’t have is a marriage license.
Why does this matter? It matters because I’m not able to be on his insurance; I’m not able to receive his Social Security benefits; even though we have legal documents granting power of attorney, I may not be recognized as his “family” for important decisions such as being able to carry out his wishes for his final resting place. In the eyes of the law, even after 20 years, I am nothing.
I didn’t ask to be gay; it’s the way GOD made me. But I am so very grateful that HE blessed me with true love. I wish I didn’t have to ask my fellow Mainers for permission to marry and receive the protections and benefits that many other loving couples receive; but, because of this Question One Peoples’ Veto funded mostly by out-of-staters, I do.
So, please, on Nov. 3rd, open your heart, welcome love, and Vote NO on 1! GOD bless you and thank you.
When Rich Brooks from Flyte New Media asked be to be a part of the Social Media FTW conference as a speaker I was surprised. I’m a humble radio DJ who has eaten cat food on my show. Not exactly who you’d expect to be lumped into a group of speakers with a vast knowledge of social media.
I accepted though and was glad I did. How much useful information I gave at the Social Media and Traditional Media panel with the Portland Press Herald’s Justin Ellis is debatable, but the experience was fantastic.
If you couldn’t make the Social Media FTW conference or were in one of the other great concurrent sessions, let me fill you in on what I shared about how Q97.9 radio uses social media.
One of the first social media tools we began to use was podcasting. People use DVR’s to time shift when they watch their favorite TV shows, so why not the same with radio. We post the Q Morning Show in its entirety minus the music and commercials, and publish it on wjbq.com where people can download or listen to in their browser, and on iTunes where they can subscribe to automatically receive new episodes that they can sync to their iPods or iPhone to listen on the go. This gave us another avenue for sponsorship within the podcast and on the podcast page on the website.
We began to use You Tube as a great way for our listeners to get a behind the scenes look at what we do on the radio that up until video on the web, was only heard. We created our own channel on You Tube and embedded our videos on wjbq.com. We also use it to in conjunction with our clients for value added to their advertising campaigns like this video in conjunction with Funtown/Splashtown USA.
Using a free website called UStream we started running a live web cam from our studio during The Q Morning Show. UStream lets anyone with a webcam and an Internet connection easily send live video to the web. This let our listeners get an even greater behind the scenes look during our show. In addition to live streaming, UStream also lets you save video that can be embedded on other websites. When Senator Susan Collins was on our show shortly after John Edwards announced he had an affair and questions arose about his paternity to a child, Senator Collins addressed it by saying “Don’t you think he is the father of the child?” We struck gold. Our video made it to all three local television stations, The Portland Press Herald, ABCnews.com and even was featured on Fox News. Our brand went nationwide all because we thought to turn on a camera. If you want a viral video, always have a camera and shoot everything you think has the potential to be interesting. You never know.
We use Flickr, a free photo sharing website, that gives us the ability to upload pictures and video taken with cell phones. This allows us to instantly drive traffic to our website if we have anything interesting that our listeners might like to see, be it in the studio or on location
We have several Facebook fan pages to help us connect with our listeners. One for The Q Morning Show where we can announce things that people may have missed on the air, such as a discount on Kelly Clarkson tickets for one day only. It also lets us post pictures, video and our podcast that will show up on the Facebook pages of our fans. Facebook also provides a feature called insights which allows you to get a snapshot of who your fans are.
We just recently launched a station Twitter page, which is just another way to reach our listeners. Those same special deals an announcements can be tweeted, and for some show up instantly on their cell phones. Public conversations can take place with listeners and we can get instant feedback on what we’re doing.
Radio has always been interactive, but with social networking it takes that interactivity one step further. The same applies for any business. Using these free tools to connect and interact with your customers is just another piece of that marketing puzzle. Millions of people use social networking and they’re just waiting for you to reach out to them.
If you’d like to learn more about Twitter, check out my Word On The Tweet Podcast that I produce with Fred Abaroa. Each week we gather people together who use Twitter to talk about what’s new and what’s interesting about it. And we have a lot of fun too. Our most recent show features Rich Brooks and Jacia Kinsman from Social Media FTW.
A big thanks to Rich, Jacia, Chrystie for inviting me to be a part of Social Media FTW. It was a blast!
In his continuing 434 part series “Better Know A District”, Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report interviewed Maine’s 1st District Representative Chellie Pingree. By now, any representative that agrees to be interviewed in this series knows that Colbert is going to go right up one side of them and down the other.
Pingree handled this well, but it was very clear Colbert was the one driving the bus. I wouldn’t have it any other way though! I just wish I had a fraction of the comedic skills Stephen Colbert has.
The gem of this interview is when Colbert brings up the first district’s 0.1% black population.
I can’t wait until he comes back to tackle Mike Michaud.
And is it just me, or is there some lighting trick going on here to make Pingree more attractive than she really is?
Gotta make these while the polls are still open everywhere. Here’s how I think the elections that matter in the United States and Maine will go:
President of the United States of America – Barack Obama
This is going to be a lot closer than a lot of people think though.
Maine United States Senate – Susan Collins
She’s a juggernaut. Unseating her is like trying to beat American Idol in the ratings. Not happening. After he loses though, my money is on Tom Allen running for Governor and winning.
Question 1 – Beverage Tax repeal – PASS (YES)
Mainers hate paying taxes and I’ll be very surprised if any chance to repeal a tax fails.
Question 2 – Allow a Casino In Oxford – DEFEATED (NO)
It’s been tried over and over again, and one of these times it will pass. I’d like to think it would this time because we need the jobs and revenue , and economic development badly, but there are still plenty of people who don’t understand that just because you have a casino it does not mean that your crime rate goes through the roof. Can the crime rate in Oxford Hills really get any worse anyway? Let’s make something else the biggest money maker in the area besides drug dealing.
Question 3 – Bond Issue – PASS (YES)
What’s the bond issue? Doesn’t matter. They always pass. Strange that everyone who complains about taxes still approves these things.
We’ll see tomorrow how I did. Unless of course we have another election like 2000, then we’ll find out next month.
David Letterman sure has matured since his days of throwing things off a five story tower. He’s still brilliant, but I’ve always liked "Late Night" better than "The Late Show." However, when he puts the screws to John McCain like he did this week, I can’t decide which is more entertaining. Dropping a six pack of regular beer and light beer off a five story tower to see which lands first, or pointing out to John McCain the hypocrisy of calling Barack Obama on his "association" with William Ayers. Here’s both clips, and you can decide for yourself.
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Here’s a comment left on my Facebook page after I let people know that we would be having Jesse Connolly, the campaign manager of No On 1 Maine on The Q Morning Show. Pretty much says it all I think.
When Rich Brooks from Flyte New Media asked be to be a part of the Social Media FTW conference as a speaker I was surprised. I’m a humble radio DJ who 
In his continuing 434 part series “Better Know A District”, Stephen Colbert of 
