Check This Out! Kidney Donation Story on The Early Show

My friend Anthony DeGuilio who gave his kidney to a stranger recently (see previous post) was featured on The Early Show yesterday!

Check out Anthony on The Early Show here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/06/earlyshow/main4324353.shtml

Anthony will be making an appearance on CNN tomorrow between 5 and 6 PM EST during Headline News.

Congrats Anthony! :~)

Scrabulous Game Removed from Facebook

Here's an interesting article from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/29/AR2008072901393_pf.html

A preview of the article...

It's game over for Scrabulous; the popular Scrabble knockoff game on Facebook is no longer available as of this morning.

Facebook users who logged on to play the word puzzle game this morning instead got a message that it has been "disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice."

The game was one of the most popular applications on the social networking site, but Hasbro filed a lawsuit last week accusing Scrabulous makers of having infringed on copyrights with the Facebook game.

Hasbro and Mattel, which share global ownership of the Scrabble trademark, had asked Facebook to remove the game in January. Hasbro has partnered with game publisher Electronic Arts to develop a new version of the game for Facebook.

According to the Scrabulous page on Facebook, the game developed by a pair of brothers in India had 509,505 daily active users. The application was launched last summer.

Washington PR consultant John Edgell said he logged onto Facebook at 7:30 a.m. to continue a match he was playing with a Facebook acquaintance, only to find that the application was down.

"I was getting creamed, so it's probably a good thing in that respect," he joked. "The country is probably 10 percent more productive today."

One of those users was Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who has said that he is a fan of the game and plays it with his grandparents.

Electronic Arts launched its Scrabble game, for Facebook and cell phones, earlier this month.

In a statement released today, Hasbro steered frustrated Scrabulous fans to the new application.

"In deference to the fans, we waited in pursuing legal action until Electronic Arts had a legitimate alternative available. We invite Scrabble fans in the U.S. and Canada to log onto Facebook and try out the authentic Scrabble application."

But the new Scrabble application was generating mostly hate mail today. Users complained on the application's Facebook page that the game was slow and buggy.

"Scrabulous was great PR for you and you had to ruin it for EVERYONE," wrote one Facebook user. "As the mother of 2, i will be boycotting all hasbro products until you do the right thing."

Job Posting: Business Manager

Below is my second job posting. If you are interested in this position, drop me an e-mail at: JobPostings (at) AngieDawn (dot) net.

Business Manager

Description
This job posting is for a Business Manager position at an Internet based publishing company.

General Summary
Do you know a driven Business Manager who'd like to lead a Email Marketing team of A-level professionals and work from ANYWHERE in the world?

Here's a description - please pass it along!

Email Business Manager

You will lead a TOP-NOTCH team of fun and smart professionals...
AND work from home ANYWHERE in the world

You possess the following skills:

Driver" Personality -- You must be willing to get your hands dirty, take accountability for this exciting area of our business, proactively communicate with the rest of us, be a self-starter and be able to work with the team
Process-Oriented -- You have experience quickly jumping into teams, getting to know your teammates and providing active assistance to optimize process work-flow. You'll learn our current email delivery processes, optimize this process, monitor quality assurance, balance other business needs and enable us to scale
"Bottom Line" emphasis-- You have an analytical understanding of return on investment (ROI) analysis and are comfortable allocating resources
Management & Leadership -- You have a proven track record of getting at least a few people to GET THINGS DONE!

If you know these, it's a plus!

Email marketing campaigns
Analyzing diverse data sets such as SQL and Excel
Effectively communicate the "health" of a business area to key business stakeholders
Managing ISP partner relations to insure quick, cost-effective and scalable resolution of problems
ESP companies: Dartmail, Responsys, Cheetahmail, etc.
ISP companies: MSN-Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, etc.

If you are interested in this position, drop me an e-mail at: JobPostings (at) AngieDawn (dot) net.

Job Posting: Sales Associate

Here's my first official job posting. If you are interested in this position, drop me an e-mail at: JobPostings (at) AngieDawn (dot) net.

Sales Associate

Description
This posting is for a Sales Associate Position at an Internet marketing agency.

General Summary
The Sales Associate will be responsible for generating qualified sales leads. The ideal candidate will be energetic and demonstrate professional phone skills. Your goal will be to perform phone-based qualification by identifying the prospect business drivers and pain and then map those to the contracted software companies based solution. You will articulate a value proposition in a manner that will generate interest. You will rely on your experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals. This position reports to the managing partner.

Duties and Responsibilities
The Sales Associate will serve as an integral part of the sales & marketing team. Responsibilities will include inbound and outbound lead generation, qualifying potential customers, increasing awareness of the company’s products and services through any means possible, maintaining information in a CRM (Customer Relations Management) database and handling incoming inquires.

The Sales Associate will also be expected to attend networking events such as Chamber of Commerce and the Sales & Marketing Society gatherings in an effort to gain contacts and raise awareness about the organization. Associate should be constantly looking for new opportunities or relationships that will help further the company’s objectives and maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the company’s sales efforts as a whole.

Additional duties such as organizing presentations for the executive staff to present the company’s services in venues such as seminars or “lunch & learn” events will be required as needed. Other marketing duties, such as finding and posting articles relevant to the company on the website and helping to write or improve marketing collateral and materials, will also be part of the overall job requirement. The Sales Associate will also be expected to perform other duties as assigned by management.

If you are interested in this position, drop me an e-mail at: JobPostings (at) AngieDawn (dot) net.

Kindness of Strangers

Back in January, I wrote about my friend Anthony DeGiulio who was planning on giving one of his kidney's to someone he doesn't know. Well, Anthony finally donated his kidney yesterday and has continued to document his progress on his blog, http://giveakidney.blogspot.com.

It still amazes me that Anthony went to so much trouble to give his kidney to a complete stranger. Apparently, it's pretty hard to do that... there's a lot involved if you're not giving your kidney to a family member or friend who you already know.

I haven't gotten to speak with Anthony yet, but I think he is doing well. I see that he has already posted a blog since his surgery, and today he felt well enough to IM me.

An article will be running in today's Wall Street Journal about him in the Taste column. Here's a preview:

Lots of well-intentioned individuals want to give something of themselves, but few take the project as far as my friend Anthony DeGiulio, a 36-year-old securities trader who yesterday donated a kidney. The really unusual thing is that he gave it to a perfect stranger.

Anthony's been a nice guy for as long as I've known him. We met in the spring of 2006 when he advertised some free mulch on Craigslist. I drove over, and before I knew it he was filling his own trailer, using his own front-end loader and then driving the whole mess over to my place with his own truck. Subsequently, after clearing some land, he gave away thousands of dollars of firewood to all comers. He's also a big supporter of a couple of charitable organizations.

But when he first told me about the kidney, I wondered about his sanity. Anthony has had this response from lots of people, including relatives; after all, only 533 others in this country have ever given a kidney away without a recipient in mind, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network created by Congress in 1984. In other words, Anthony didn't just choose a stranger; he gave a kidney to someone whose identity he didn't even know (although they were scheduled to meet sometime after the surgery).

For the rest of the article, check it out in your Wall Street Journal, or click here.

Job Postings

Alright, a quick note: Fairly often, friends send me emails asking one of two questions:

1. Do you know where I can find a job?
2. Do you know where I can find an employee?

Both of these questions often leave me scratching my head. Who would be interested in this job? Who would be the best fit? Who's looking?

To connect the dots between these two questions, I'm going to start posting job openings that I've been asked to provide recommendations for. Since my blog is fed into Facebook, most of my friends will have the opportunity to see the postings.

I will not put in any identifying information about the company or how to contact them. If you are interested to apply for a particular posting, please e-mail me at JobPostings (at) AngieDawn (dot) net and I will forward your information along if 1. I know you, and 2. you're a good fit.

It's a little odd, but I think it just might work. I've added a link to the right hand side of my blog named "Job Listings." To see all the listings together, click that link.

Happy Hunting!!

Muvico to Close in Peabody Place

Quick Note:

I've heard the news before, but today I've read it in two different places.

Supposedly, the Muvico located in Peabody Place is scheduled to close after this weekend.

The rumor is that Belz is going to reposition the Peabody Place Mall, and possibly to create lodging inside of it.

So, if you're like me and have a movie that you've been dying to see, you need to head over quick before it's gone!

The Midwesterner's Guide to Living in L.A. by Katie Martin

Wow, it's amazing how talented my friends are! :~) I'm feeling very fortunate these days.

Another friend has completed another book. My long-time friend Katie Martin has written a book called The Midwesterner's Guide to Living in L.A.

To give you a little background on this, I grew up with Katie in Oklahoma. We became friends in middle school and have kept in touch over the years. Just by chance, we both happened to be living in L.A. at the same time a few years ago; both struggling.

Living in L.A. can be like living on another planet at times, and Katie's book does a great job at preparing you if you're thinking of taking the plunge. I had the good fortunate of reading The Midwesterner's Guide to Living in L.A. before it was published... that's what makes me so sure you're like it. :~)

One example I always think about when thinking of the differences between L.A. and other cities is finding an apartment. Finding an apartment in L.A. can at times be about as hard as finding a job in other cities. When I moved there, I wanted to live in either Santa Monica or Malibu.

The process turned into a job interview. I was asked to send my resume, credit history, photos of me with my little brothers. I had to fly down to meet the renter to see if they liked me and would choose me. The fact that I could pay the rent had very little impact to whether I would get an apartment. Luckily, after scouring the city, I found a great place where I lived for two years. But never the less, Katie's book would have prepared me. It was definitely a lesson I learned the hard way!

To get a copy of Katie's new book, check out the Tate Publishing website and search for The Midwesterner's Guide to Living in L.A. by Katie Martin.

The Promise of New York, The Raul Productions

A good friend of mine from college, Raul, recently called from NYC to announce that after years of hard work, his feature length film, The Promise of New York, is complete! I have known Raul since 1997, when we were both studying at Rensselaer in upstate NY. We have stayed good friends over the years, and I'm so excited about his film!

The Promise of New York is about a 3 guys who compete against one another and rival incumbent Michael Bloomberg for the position of New York City mayor. As ordinary (and less wealthy) citizens, the movie looks into the meaning of democracy.

This is the perfect time for such a film!

The film can be viewed in June at the Hoboken International Film Festival and at the New Jersey International Film Festival.

Raul has also submitted his film to the Indie Memphis Film Festival that occurs every October in Memphis. I would love to see his film be shown at the Indie Memphis Film Festival. On top of seeing the film, it would be great to see Raul and to meet the rest of the folks he's been working with on it.

Please check out The Promise of New York web site here.

Feel free to link to this post about Raul's new movie, or pass along any information to Indie Memphis. :~)

Thanks for your help!

Angie