Tagged: 5 things you didn't know about me...

There is a blog meme going around that I have been tagged to participate. I don't really use this blog to talk about myself so much, but I will give in to the greater powers of the MEME and share after Nathan Gilliatt tagged me.

1. I live in China, but I am from Alabama. This usually raises a few eyebrows and questions such as "How did someone from Alabama get to China?" or "I have never really been to Alabama, but drove through it once on my way to Florida" (a surprising number of Chinese tell me this). I don't have a noticeable southern accent, but I do love BBQ and appreciate a good "meat and 3."
   
2. I have been in two bands: one in Japan and one in China. In Japan, the band was "My Niece's Foot." We did mostly grunge influenced originals. I loved singing, but not everyone loved my singing. We "broke up" in 1994 when we all left (except for Brad, who stayed awhile to internationalize Ultraman and become a Zen master). In China, I was in Das Bund, and we played mostly Bowie, Radiohead and Suede covers. We practiced for 3 months, played 3 times over a 3 day weekend, and then called it quits after the bar owner asked us to quit playing with the drummer because the audience couldn't hold hear themselves talk.
   
3. I love Alabama football. Mike Shula should have been given more time to finish what he started. The program is really at a nadir (consider I grew up under the Bear) and it is painful for me to listen to the games (and I do sometimes get up at 3AM to listen via Yahoo radio). However, I still sometimes shed a tear when I describe van Tiffin's "the Kick" that beat Auburn in 1985 (yes, I was there) and will always bleed crimson.
   
4. I first came to China in 1996. I know there are many who have been here longer, but being here 10 years has given me an incredible experience watching the country, and the city of Shanghai, change at a most incredible pace. I lived through the first dot-com boom here in 1999, working at Chinapay.com (I registered the name in 1998) and Shanghai Huateng.
5. I have an amazing son named Leo. Ok, you probably know that from previous posts, but he is someone I love talking about. I am happy to share pics with anyone who asks!

Next up for tagging (you're it):

Silicon Hutong
Hardcore Zen
ImageThief
Wangjianshuo
ChinaLawBlog

Blog maintenance---funky characters ahead

I am in the process of exporting this blog to another platform and this may cause the blog to have some funky characters or just overall look screwed up. Only temporary, and it is the first step of a new beginning.

More later...

Overview of International Social Media Monitoring

Nathan Gilliatt over at Net-Savvy Executive blog has been writing a series of very interesting posts about social media monitoring firms and approaches available outside of the US. An overview of the topic can be found here. His post inspired a page on New PR wiki which includes a nice overview of the topic as well as a comprehensive list of non-American companies that was originally started by Jeremiah Owyang's post here.

Companies Nathan has covered (so far) are:

• Attentio
  
• Onalytics
• CIC data
• Market Sentinel

Good stuff...check Nathan's blog out.

Moderating comments

I will be moderating comments for the time being until I can figure out how to minimize the spam comments that have been increasing at an alarming rate recently. I promise pretty quick turnaround.