GenPink

The following guest post was written by Lauren Lankford, blogger, photographer, artist, decorator, designer, writer, fashion enthusiast, & tea drinker. Lauren is a daily mission to make my life beautiful & speak the truth in love.

Hey guys! Lauren here, the Team Leader for Love Bomb!

Elysa is digging the Love Bomb project and I wanted to get you all on board! What is Love Bomb? The concept is simple. Once a week, as a worldwide community, we concentrate our love and drop a “love bomb” on a blogger who is going through hell. We change the lives of those desperately needing hope, love, care & encouragement – together, once a week, for five minutes.

We are all busy, I know this. But the next time someone asks you what you’re doing with your life, I bet your answer isn’t “cleaning up,” “going grocery shopping” or “sitting at a desk.” I know that all of you want something More.

A homeless man asked me a couple days ago what my life objective was, and without hesitation I replied, “to love people.” It’s taken me a long time to get here. To the place where that is my default answer, where it comes naturally. Yes I want to get married, yes I want to live where I want to live, there are activities and careers that I dream about. But what do I want to do with my life? Love people.

And it’s a genuine fight to fit what you’re doing with your life into your daily routine.

This is why I’m pouring a good chunk of every day into Love Bomb, and why I am the new Team Leader for the project. I want to help you fit what you truly care about into your daily or weekly routine. So please, put your name and email into the little box below, and every week when you get the email linking you to someone who desperately needs to be reminded that that love is real, take 5 minutes to do something about it. I want to see all of you grow into the place where you are content to simply respond, “I want to love people” when you are asked what you’re doing with your life.

Come on guys, you are bloggers. This is what we do. We comment to show our love.

website | @dropalovebomb

Follow us on Tumblr, on Twitter and subscribe below to the once-a-week mission emails.

And welcome to the Love Bomb Team.

- lauren xoxo
@laurenlankford

Long story short: 200 nominees and 15 judges later, Constructive Grumpiness has announced the Mentors crowned with the very first 30 Under 30 Tweeters and guess who is one of them!

Surprisingly enough, I only recognize two other people DShan of 20sb and Julia Roy. I look forward to connecting with the other mentors. Being given the title of mentor makes me feel like I should offer up some sort of twitter advice — all I’ve got for you is be who you are in real life (IRL). If you read fun articles and like to share them … do that. If you love ridiculous youtube videos … share those. If you respond to people when they talk to you … I might recommend that as well .

I actually spoke for the DFW Social Media group back in May about Utilizing Twitter for Small Business (be warned the presentation was 1 hour long and this video is unedited). If you are involved in marketing, PR, do freelance work or just want to know more about networking, or perhaps growing your blog, through twitter feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email. I’m always happy to help!

If you’re on twitter and want to follow me, I’m @elysa. To follow along with the discussion watch the hashtag #30u30t. New to twitter and want to know about hashtags?

Thank you to the judges of 30 under 30!

On my flight today back home from the New Marketing Summit in the Boston area I was browsing through American Way Magazine. An interesting headline caught my attention “Red, White, Blue and Pink.” I knew this must have something to do with breast cancer since it’s October.

The first paragraph of the article:
“I’m guessing that one of the things that leaps to mind when thinking of American Airlines is the distinctive look of our airplanes: the gleaming metal combined with our signature red, white, and blue stripes. We’re proud of our colors, but we’re also proud that a select group of American Airlines and American Eagle aircraft, we added a flash of pink to the mix. Specifically, eight airlines now sport fuselage-length versions of the iconic pink ribbon of Susan G. Komsn for the cure.”

I love it when big companies stand behind causes. And as the daughter of a cancer survivor and the neice of a recently diagnosed breast cancer woman I am an advocate for as much cancer research as we can get.

Things I did not already know that I learned in this article:
- AA has pledge to raise $1 million a year for 8 years for Koman as the first Lifetime Promise Partner.
- The eight planes are notable that 1 out of every 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during her lifetime.
- The 5 year survival rate for women with breast cancer (that’s caught before it spreads) is 98%, up from 74% in 1982.
- During the last quarter century (our lifetime), the amount of money spent by US government on breast cancer research has increased THIRTYfold!

Miles for the Cure donations can be made at http://www.aa.com/komen and AAdvantage members earn 5 miles for every dollar donated ($25 minimum). Again so very cool!

disclaimer: I apologize for the lack of formating and lack of links in this post. This was written on the iPhone on my flight from Boston to DFW.

Reader input REQUESTED! I have two questions related to podcasts. So first of all, in case you don’t know what a podcast is (I’m learning that not everyone is as much of an internet nerd as I am):

podcast n. a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar programme, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player. via What is a Podcast

Essentially it’s like little mini audio (or video) blogs you can set to download and listen to whenever you like. I have an iPhone so I like to listen to them while I’m working or sometimes on the road.

So my first question is, do you listen to any podcasts? I’m looking for some new ones to add to my mix – links requested. After some researching and hopefully a great deal of reader input I will update you on which ones I decide to start listening to. I currently have quite a few designery/business ones.

Question #2 is – should I start a podcast? I thought this might be something fun and from what I can find there are very very very few twentysomething ones.

PS: Jersey Girl, it would be cool to know you in real life too! And many people on your list

Time Magazine has put together 50 Top 10 Lists of 2007 so I thought I’d pick a few of my favorites from their top 10 lists. But I came to find out my opinion of their top lists kept me from picking favorites.

• Of the movies on the top 10 lists I have either a) not seen them or b) would not consider it to be top 10 for the year. Good thing they didn’t ask me.
• #1 Song – Rehab by Amy Winehouse — really?
• Top 10 New TV Series – no thanks to all of them
• From top websites I would agree with Goodreads.com & Wink.com
• 
  #4 from Top 10 T-shirt Worthy Slogans – made me laugh
• Sorry TIME I still can not be convinced to sport the big chunky bangs. I look 12 with bangs.

I must now run crying from the sight of Mischa in very very high waisted pants (#3 Fashion Must-Haves).