Here’s to a 2103 filled with more intriguing, challenging creative work! Photographer Renée Comet created this collage to represent some highlights of her work in 2012, using it to thank her clients and associates via a blog post and other social media, which I manage for her. I am very proud to work with this talented photographer and to be one of her longtime creative collaborators. 2013 is already starting off with some exciting new projects…

This collection of handsome pieces shows her great range: from cookbooks for independent chefs to editorial features for national periodicals; from packaging and advertising for local, small businesses, to large international corporations and associations. All of these pieces demonstrate Renée’s sophisticated, yet simple and clean aesthetic, as well as her high standards for quality and exacting technique. As always, her mastery of her craft and passion for her work really shine through.

Last year, President Obama chose to show support for Small Business Saturday by shopping at Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe with his daughters. It was an outstanding occasion for this longtime, independent Washington, DC bookstore-cafe. This gesture by the White House, covered by many primary news services, led to a major windfall in international mentions of Kramerbooks in the press and social media. It was a very intense, exciting event for this social media manager, which I detailed in my previous post. This year, on “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving, The White House shared the above graphic via their accounts on Facebook (1,522,000+ fans) and Twitter (3,319,000+ followers) to show support for small business again, reminding shoppers about the day after Black Friday: Small Business Saturday. The Facebook post was shared x 1,000+, and the tweet was retweeted x 200+, greatly expanding the reach.

Last year’s visit inspired this commemorative t-shirt…

Eat, Write, Retreat food blogger conference was exhilarating! Held May 4–6 in Washington, DC, this event gave me a chance to learn, network and connect with inspiring friends and colleagues. And, I was proud to be associated with several clients participating in the event. For the second year, I came with photographer Renée Comet (at right, above and below) and stylist Lisa Cherkasky (at left, below) who taught the event’s Food Styling & Photography class again.

We set up a studio/classroom in the hotel ballroom (above). Renée brought a simple lighting set-up, and replicating the arrangement in her own studio, the camera was tethered to her computer so we could view shots immediately in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Here, she used her laptop, which sat on a podium and was tethered to a projector, so all could see their work via Lightroom on the large screen at the other end of the stage.

In several small groups, participants collaborated to experience the process of creating a food photograph, while being given expert insights and critiques. Quickly assembling elements, they selected props brought from Renée’s studio, and from food and equipment products supplied by sponsors.

Above, participant Emily Nichols Grossi considered adding a green sprig to a glass of iced tea. Behind the camera, Renee gave feedback as the composition came together; while Lisa offered information on styling techniques. Many participants gathered around the set to shoot their groups’ projects with their own cameras, and Renée shot all groups’ compositions in several stages. Renée and Lisa discussed with the groups how various elements of the photo could be improved (by altering props, composition, lighting, camera angle, etc.) and made adjustments until a final composition was shot. In some instances, they followed one of Renée’s basic tenets: “If something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to scrap it and start over.” Several times, groups asked Renee and Lisa to just rearrange their elements, and shoot them from scratch—however they would approach the job themselves.

Above, Lisa demonstrated a tip: Delicately introducing a touch of dishwashing liquid with a needle-topped squeeze bottle makes a few tiny bubbles, giving fluids more visual interest and a fresh-poured look. The screen displayed a closeup of the bubbles so the whole room could see the technique that Lisa employed.

Here is Renee’s beautiful final shot. A number of her final shots are found in her event post on her blog, Cometphoto, which I edit.

It’s been great to see some of the comments on the class from the group in their event recap blog posts:

Kathy Blake, of The Experimental Gourmand said, “One of my favorite parts of the conference from last year was back…a hands-on food styling and food photography workshop with Lisa Cherkasky and Renée Comet…They let us get our own hands in the mix…to create tantalizing pictures…it was fascinating to me to see how the pros do it.”

Liza Hawkins, of aMusingFoodie said, “Renée Comet and Lisa Cherkasky were nothing short of amazing, and I would gladly watch and learn from them any day.”

A nice comment was also left on Renée’s blog post from Kristy Bernardo, of The Wicked Noodle. (Bernardo won a scholarship to the event from Feastie, based on her own photography.) Kristy said, “This was a great workshop and I have a notebook filled with tips and ideas – thank you!! So wonderful to meet you in person, too!”

The audiovisual setup for the event was facilitated by Marie Joabar. Her connections and expertise were integral in all presentations. An excellent photographer and instructor herself, Marie knows her equipment. She coordinated the audiovisual coverage at last year’s Eat, Write, Retreat, representing her then-employer, Penn Camera photographic equipment. She was Penn Camera’s Education Programs Manager and Corporate Trainer for over ten years. When Penn recently was bought by another company, Marie employed her experience to start her own business, Capital Photography Center (CPC).

She offers classes taught by experienced, professional photographers for “the new camera owner wanting to better understand its features, an amateur photographer aspiring to become professional, or an experienced photographer wanting to learn…Lightroom or Photoshop.” I am proud to be working with Marie on CPC’s social media. She was glad work with Eat, Write, Retreat again this year and hopes that some of the participants will consider classes offered through CPC to help take their blogs’ photography to the next level. She left company brochures and a large, wildly fragrant bundle of rosemary, picked that morning from her own home garden (and bundled into the large totebag gifted to all attendees by sponsor, Feastie). It was almost all gone by Sunday afternoon!

On opening night, Zoe’s Chocolate Company was the diva of the evening, featured at the Dessert Mixer. I am proud to work with Zoe’s on their social media also, administering their active Facebook page and Twitter account. Their customers are very engaged, and it’s impressive to see how much they appreciate the gorgeous, delicious chocolate made by this fantastic family of artisan chocolatiers! It was fun to feel the excitement in the same room with people as they discovered the rich, complexity of Zoe’s excellent chocolates. Store manager Alex represented the company—bearing beribboned party favors, sharing information about the business and serving three flavors of chocolates: Apple Pie, Sesame Crunch (AKA Tahini) and Black Raspberry with Crystallized Rose Petals. Judging from the rapturous post-event tweets I’ve seen mentioning @zoeschocolate, I know some attendees are practically addicted to Zoe’s Chocolates already. Fortunately, Zoe’s has two retail shops and they sell in various other locations (and, they are happy to ship almost anywhere)!

Months ago, when planning Eat, Write, Retreat, organizers Robyn Webb and Casey Benedict told me they wanted to offer the group an opportunity to give back to our DC community. A DC local like me, Robyn is very conscious of the need in our area for food-related services and donations; and, I have joined her for several service projects that she organized. So, I was honored that she asked me to select the recipient group for our project and to coordinate the details. I chose my personal favorite, DC Central Kitchen (DCCK), an organization to whom I donate regularly myself. A dozen pairs of hands made quick work of assembling 100+ individual servings of very healthy trail mix, which DCCK shared with their various partner agencies. When the donation was ready, I handed off the large, heavy carton to DCCK’s friendly driver, Saladine, who happily brought it back to their nearby facility (and photogenically posed for my iPhone pic).

I love DCCK because they “use food as a tool to strengthen our community”—from feeding the hungry in our schools and on our streets, to providing foodservice-industry job training, to raising awareness of nonprofit-organization political power. So, after days of considering food as art, fun and business, this project was a good way to remind us of food’s fundamental purpose—which was a solid way to wrap up the event for me.

Glad I got to meet so many talented, interesting people again this year. I look forward to getting even better acquainted with everyone via the many active conversations that will continue throughout the year on Twitter and Facebook—on behalf of myself and my great clients!

(Renée Comet is the talent behind the tempting principal photography for Zoe’s Chocolate Company marketing, so I thank her for recommending me to Zoe—and to Marie of Capital Photography Center! Thanks, Daphne Domingo  for your good event coverage, and for allowing us to use your images.)

Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe got an early holiday gift yesterday, two days after Thanksgiving. President Obama and his daughters, Sasha and Malia dropped in around noon to do a little book shopping…

The President declared to the crowd, which included his press pool, “This is Small Business Saturday. So we’re out here supporting small business.” Kramerbooks was a great choice of venue for this message, as they are a single-location, independent, unique business.

The Associated Press swiftly distributed coverage of the event. Immediately, the story, a set of photos and the video were zapping around the world. While story text didn’t include the name of the store, photo captions did, so wherever the photos ran, the name of the business appeared. Coverage from AP and other services ranged from our immediate neighborhood’s excellent news website, Borderstan, to USA Today, to Obama Foodarama (the official White House food blog), to The Daily Mail in the UK, to Reuters India and (probably) thousands of other large and small, US and international news sites.

As I was wrapping up my everyday routine of coffee and social media postings for clients, my day suddenly careened into a 14-hour, mind-blowing voyage on Tweetdeck. Posting my regular, daily tweets for clients, I saw a tweet from a Dupont Circle neighbor mentioning streets by Kramer’s were blocked off, speculating that the President might be inside Kramerbooks. (In DC, we’re accustomed to streets being blocked for Presidential security.) I called the Cafe to confirm, and before I could ask her, Ann the manager said, “Um…You’re not going to believe what I am looking at right now!” I said, “Could it be the President?” And, there went the rest of the day and night… and today.

After getting that confirmation from Ann, I tweeted for Kramer’s: “Very exciting that President Obama has chosen to support local business & #indie bookstores by shopping w/us today! #SmallBizSat”

After I saw the first AP photo posted (by doing a Google search that yielded an AP photo posted via INM, an Irish news agency), I tweeted again: “Thx to Pres. Obama, & Sasha & Malia for shopping w/us today! #SmallBizSat Photo via “AP Photo” via Irish Independent bit.ly/rw9hQY”

Using the hashtag “#SmallBizSat” brought its own considerable audience. That effort, advertised for weeks by American Express, was extensively promoted on social media all day, to help boost small businesses (and AMEX usage), as opposed to the “Black Friday” retail effect of the previous day, which is traditionally dominated by the corporate, big box stores. Including #SmallBizSat in my tweets introduced Kramerbooks to many new eyes who followed that stream, and prompted many old friends of Kramer’s to discover them on Twitter as well.

It occured to me that I should look to see if the official White House Twitter account, @WhiteHouse, was mentioning this visit, so I looked at their feed. I was utterly stunned to see that there were two retweets of my tweets from @kramerbooks in their feed!

The screen grab above shows my (cluttered) desktop, with my Tweetdeck dashboard. In the righthand column is the @WhiteHouse timeline showing their icon, miniaturized and superimposed on the @kramerbooks ampersand logo icon. Apparently, the White House tweeter used the auto-retweet button, so I hadn’t realized my tweet was retweeted. So glad I thought to look at this timeline. The White House has 2,518,163 followers. The retweeted @kramerbooks 2x. I had hit PR/socmedia geek gold!

(FYI…Social media expert Sree Sreenivasan (AKA @sree), my professor at Columbia School of Journalism, always recommends manually retweeting—and including the Twitter handle—for this reason: If you say something nice for/about someone, it lets them know!)

I kind of stopped counting potential Twitter exposure for @kramerbooks after I got to the 5 million of the two @WhiteHouse mentions… And, just when I thought things couldn’t get any crazier/better, @WhiteHouse decided that one of the AP shots would be “Photo of the Day”!

Announcing this, they @-mentioned @kramerbooks in their own tweet—so my own unofficial counting method totally jumped the shark to almost 8 million. (I did notice that tweet via my @-mentions.) In my Tweetdeck screen grab, the top of that @WhiteHouse tweet is just visible on the bottom of the @kramerbooks “Mentions” column next to the @White House timeline column.

I thought I was hallucinating at that point. I may, or may not have done a cartoon double-take and rubbed my eyes… So, I made a screen grab of it. I guess that makes me an official social media geek/dork and bit of a braggart. (In my spare time—ha—I may actually Storify all this—thus elevating me to super-geek status.)

This attention brought many tweets, retweets and comments from all over the world (mostly very nice), from: our excited, loyal Dupont Circle neighbors and customers; other indie bookstores, US and international; nostalgic longtime customers now living far away; and anyone with a social or political axe to grind (Obama supporters and haters). Even the US ambassador to Thailand, Kristie Kenney, and the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur retweeted the @WhiteHouse Photo of the Day tweet!

Meanwhile, on Facebook, the conversation was also buzzing. I posted links and shared them via my own biz page and personal profile accounts (It was the *President*! So, I was excited, OK?!). The posts garnered many positive comments from all over the world (US, Denmark, Ireland, France, etc.) and were shared by several other people and pages.

On Twitter, @kramerbooks gained 283 new followers within 24 hours. On Facebook their page gained 24 new fans in 24 hours (usual rate has been approximately 10 new FB fans per month). I created bit.ly links to track most of the urls I shared. They were off the charts, compared to the usual traffic. My first photo link has had 3,722 clicks from at least four countries: https://bitly.com/rw9hQY+

Especially exciting to this geek was the mention (w/a link to Kramer’s website) on Mashable Business in their own coverage of social media and Small Business Saturday! Of course, they also tweeted from @Mashable w/a link to their post (which was retweeted x 100+).

What did the Bookstore and Cafe staff members think about this exciting event? I think they are too swamped with the usual weekend brunch and book-shopping traffic (made heavier with the holiday weekend and the publicity)! But the video shows the excitement among the Cafe staff on the line (barely visible behind the pastry case facing into the bookstore) when the President greeted them. He reached over the glass case filled with cakes and pies to shake hands with the cheering workers, even commenting on how the food looked “pretty good back there”!

Responding to an email from Cafe manager Denis (with the subject line, “Obama was here” ), co-owner, Henry Posner, vacationing in Paris, commented, “Cool—did you offer him an Obamlet?”!

Denis replied, “I could not get past the secret service, and we don’t have the Obamlet on the menu today…It was very cool.”

(“The Barack Obamlet”, above, is a rotating brunch special omelet, made with the Obama Family Chili: Café ground beef shoulder; onion, pepper & red beans; cumin, oregano, turmeric, basil, chili powder; tomato; w/cheddar, red onion, scallion; sweet peppers & sour cream).

Henry replied, modestly, “Great news for the bookstore—and the cafe.” Indeed!

WAMU 88.5, DC’s NPR affiliate covered the event in their story on small business and quoted bookstore manager, C.K. Penchant. Summing up what seems to be the sentiment of the #SmallBizSat groundswell I observed, C.K. said that the book-buying visit from President Obama, and Sasha and Malia was “a welcome surprise at a time when many brick-and-mortar bookstores are struggling.”

A longtime client recently changed their name. They needed a new logo and other materials to reflect that name change. We wanted to retain the branding we established with the monogram-inspired logo I designed for them several years ago. So, incorporating their new initials, I adapted their logo symbol, using the same font and colors. Presentation of the organization’s name changed seamlessly to “Woodull Sexual Freedom Alliance” (WSFA, above) from “Woodhull Freedom Foundation” (WFF, below).

Simple, elegant honesty defines photographer Renee Comet’s style. She brings all of those elements to her recent work on Ritz-Carlton Classic Desserts Redefined, which just received several Gold ADDY Awards for photography. Here are some tempting pieces…

ADDYs are awards of excellence given annually by the American Advertising Federation.

Styled by Renee’s longtime collaborator Lisa Cherkasky, the project was art directed by Senior Art Director Claudia Barac-Roth of Marriner Communications.

So far, Ritz-Carlton Classic Desserts Redefined has won:

Gold awards in the Local ADDYs in these categories: Photography, Photography Campaign, Book Design and Sales Kit; and,

Gold awards in the District ADDYs in these categories: Photography Campaign and Sales Kit.

(“Local” ADDYs are for the Baltimore area. “District” ADDYs are for the Mid-Atlantic region, including these markets: Baltimore, DC and New York City.)

District-level Gold winners automatically go on to compete in the National ADDY Awards on June 4. Congratulations, Renee—and good luck!

(Photos above are from Ritz-Carlton Classic Desserts Redefined: Creme Brulee, Irish Coffee and Champagne Cocktail.)

“The Telephone Hour” scene from Bye Bye Birdie is social media in action, 1960s teen-angst-style.

TMI…Too…Much…Information!

TMI…Qualitative Output: the continuum from sharing to oversharing

What is considered TMI now? In sharing, what is fair game to some, is off-limits to others—from breakfast choices to bathroom habits, from sexual exploits to financial dealings. 61% of online adults use social networking services according to the Pew internet Research Report Generations 2010. Many commonly share intimate information—even their most intimate moments—almost immediately via Facebook (FB) and Twitter. Not for nothing, was “overshare” declared Webster’s 2008 Word of the Year! Social media expert Sree Sreenivasan pleads, “Please stop oversharing!” in his useful and funny column on the NYC hyperlocal website, DNAinfo. He suggests, “…people aren’t paying enough attention to what they are doing. I think oversharing is contagious. As folks see their friends and contacts talking about their lives in ridiculous detail, they might be more inclined to do so as well.”

On the continuum from private to public, deciding where a given moment falls on the “appropriateness” scale is a highly personal choice and a learning process. While FB CEO Mark Zuckerberg expects us to opt-in to often-confusing privacy settings and famously doesn’t believe in privacy, a vocal contingent of users are appalled by this, including danah boyd, an ethnologist, a Social Media Researcher at Microsoft, and a Fellow at Harvard. Boyd declares, “No matter how many times a privileged straight white male technology executive pronounces the death of privacy, Privacy Is Not Dead.” In her address to the 2010 SXSW media conference, boyd stated, “People of all ages care deeply about privacy. And they care just as much about privacy online as they do offline….Fundamentally, privacy is about having control over how information flows…”

Whether single, within a partner relationship or a family, how do people make public/social-media life coexist comfortably with private/domestic life? Do a search on FB itself for “Facebook ruined my relationship,” and the results scroll on for pages. Divorces now feature social media evidence. There are even pop-psychology tips on defending marriage against the threats of social media.

To maintain personal/domestic integrity, how do people exercise discretion in controlling how their own information flows? I asked one very active social-media maven how she makes it work at home. Nakeva Corothers is a photographer and events promoter who lives with her partner and children near Washington, DC. Describing her social media habits, she says,” Sharing is almost like breathing.”

Nakeva has websites for her businesses, a personal FB profile and several FB business pages and Twitter accounts. She taught her partner how to use Twitter, and says, “when we realized we shared the same love of technology and social media, it added something else we have in common.” They set boundaries, she says, “The only rules about sharing on FB or Twitter is to say ‘nothing personal’ (we know what that means), and ‘no talking about each other’s health’ (unless responding to the other that started the conversation).”

As for social media content causing disagreements, she says, “A few times I was annoyed with certain things being tweeted, but we talked about it. If it reaches a new sensitivity level, it is discussed.”

Nakeva and her partner seem to be navigating the social media waters in a loveboat, so far. She says, “There have been occasions that we tweet each other saying funny or loving things, and found out it made other people happy or [helped them to] get closer to their own partner. Also, knowing how each of us feels about how much ‘mushy stuff’ is shared and respected keeps us going strong.”

Specifying a “relationship status” on social media is an entire topic in itself. Nakeva and her partner were proud to be able to take advantage of the new FB relationship category: “in a domestic partnership.”

“It’s complicated” is the alternative FB status chosen my friend New York City sex educator Lolita Wolf and her lover. They have an open relationship and are avid social media users: both have several blogs, use FB & Twitter.  She is totally out as a sex blogger and about teaching sex education to adults; and he teaches art to college students. Due to the differing social norms (and legal considerations) of their respective careers, they have differing boundaries regarding what they can disclose publicly. So, they have mutually agreed upon rules for what they share, and he has a private Twitter account for close, personal friends, as distinguished from his professional-interest account.

They even met via social media, on Live Journal (LJ) in 2006. Subscribed to mutual LJ friends’ journals, they were intrigued by each other’s comments on those friends’ posts; and they began an online flirtation. When Lolita blogs or tweets about him, she uses the identifying label of “lover,” and the pet pseudonyms “Don Quixote” and “My Jellybean.”

Being single also brings up privacy concerns related to relationships of all kinds; and everyone has their own comfort zone regarding self-disclosure about partners and activities on social media.

Viviane is a New York City researcher who has a blog on sexually-related cultural issues, and uses FB and Twitter. “I’m not currently in a relationship….I generally don’t tweet about whether I’m with intimate…partners, even if it’s just going out to dinner.” She says she has grown more private with time, “…as the number of people following me has increased, the more constrained I feel about tweeting, and it’s confined to more informational tweets.”

A single woman with an active dating life who handles inherently delicate issues with tact, taste and straightforward confidence is Stef of CityGirlBlogs, in Washington, DC. In her writing on her website, blog, FB and Twitter, she frankly recounts her own dating and sexual experiences. She discusses her boundaries on her website.

One rule is that she doesn’t blog in “real time.” Her reasoning is, “DC is small. Lilliputian small. If guys knew that whatever happened that night would appear in a post the following day, I doubt that many guys would want to date me.”

In addition to sex and relationships, now Stef also addresses another topic which many people would find highly personal and private, her recent experiences with breast cancer. Like Jeff Jarvis, the journalist who is very open on his blog and in the media with his prostate cancer experience, Stef has decided to share this highly personal experience with the goal of helping others.

Strengthened by these challenges, she even decided it would be best for her to “own” her identity as a sex blogger, even within her family, to embrace her own authenticity, despite the risks of judgement and rejection. Having blogged anonymously due to professional concerns in her legal career, she recently came out. She is using her first name and now shows the world her face and her current self: bold, bald and beautiful.

Writing about herself in a storybook style in third person, she says, “…She also realized that there’s much more for her to do as an advocate and that it’s time to come out from behind her laptop. If she can help one more person through her blog, her photographs or her interviews, it’s worth it. She accepts that she may never work again in the legal policy arena…Once upon a time, there was a City Girl with long, red hair named Stef. She’s bald now, but she still feels feminine and sexy. Although she’s not exactly sure what will happen next, she trusts that she will live happily ever after.”

So, how much “I” is TMI? This group of sharp, social- media-savvy women make thoughtful choices for themselves, being discreet in their own fashion, even about some matters that many would consider inherently indiscreet. As danah boyd said, “…what privacy means may not be what you think.”

“Technology Loop” is a sketch from the Independent Film Channel television comedy series, “Portlandia,” featuring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein.

TMI…Too…Much…Information!

TMI…Quantitative Input: digital & social media overload

Digital input and output are accelerating as we integrate the use of social media into our lives.

Two recently published books pose questions about digital overload: Hamlet’s BlackBerry by William Powers, and Alone Together by Sherrie Turkle. Both warn of technology-induced alienation and isolation.

Turkle, a professor at M.I.T., has taken a sound lashing from the media, being decried as a techno-Cassandra for her dire predictions. Far from being a Luddite, she has written several works on implications of the digital age since the mid-1980s.

Clarifying her concerns, Turkle addresses her critics in The Guardian: “…for many, online life and smartphone connections have got in the way….We are so busy communicating that we don’t have time to think….We use digital technology to try to be efficient in our intimacies and it leaves us diminished.” (But…then she goes and speculates that we will be so alienated from other humans that we will inevitably develop intimacies with robots.)

Hamlet’s BlackBerry contends that “digital connectedness serves us best when it’s balanced by its opposite, disconnectedness,” recommending we take “digital sabbaticals” to clear our heads for greater focus on deeper thought.

Aaand…I’d love to read those books on some digital sabbatical—as soon as I can drag myself away from my Facebook (FB) pages, Tweetdeck dashboards, RSS blog feeds, iPhone podcasts…and, my dreamy robot gigolo.

How I (try to) power-down: Five days a week, I work out at the gym. After my hour on the elliptical machine, I check my Twitter feeds, email and voicemail on my iPhone before I finish my workout and return to the office to reconnect on the big Mac mothership. I make time to socialize with family and friends. While I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the amount of new technology in my field and how fast it changes, I don’t feel disconnected from other people.

Interpretations of a recent study argue against techno-isolation theories. The Pew Internet & American Life Project report on “Social Isolation and New Technology” says, “Americans are not as isolated as has been previously reported…internet use in general and use of social networking services such as FB in particular are associated with more diverse social networks.”

Despite this statistical reassurance, at least one down-to-earth social-media evangelist has practical concerns. Social media expert Sree Sreenivasan says in his article for DNAinfo, “Ten Things I Learned from Two Months on Foursquare, “Even though I make a living, in part, by doing all this social media stuff…a guy has only got so much time he can use for virtual relationships before he jeopardizes his real-life relationships.”

An educator and a sought-after media expert, Sree has a heavy schedule of classes, meetings, outside presentations and appearances. In his “real life,” he has two young children and a wife (also a busy, accomplished professional and social media user) who must be accustomed to his frequent status updating across varied social media services and apps, even while on family vacations.

Sreenivasan cautions that, “If you aren’t careful, [Foursquare] can distract you from your real life. The service may just be the straw that break’s a spouse’s patience about social media. While FB and Twitter are irritating enough, going out to dinner and having someone checking-in to Foursquare instead of paying attention to his or her companions might be considered rude….”

Knowing your social context is everything. Social media can be a echoing bubble. For heavy users, here’s a reality check: Yet another Pew Internet Research study finds that while 74% of American adults are Internet users, only 8% of that group use Twitter, and only 2% do so on a typical daily basis.

Now, if some of that 2% cohort is at a given restaurant table, tweeting madly and checking in might not be considered rude. It might be the social norm. Monitoring the online conversation about my client Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe on the night of Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity, I noticed a major bump in Foursquare checkins and Twitter conversations. That event was the historic high for Foursquare use, for Kramerbooks’ Cafe sales, and for check-ins there. Tracing Foursquare check-ins, tweet timestamps and content of the conversations I found that mentioned Kramerbooks, I could tell that there was one large, ebullient party at a specific table, simultaneously tweeting, conversing with others at that table, elsewhere in DC and around the country.

Sreenivasan’s tip for avoiding the social- media-induced spousal glare: “…it’s best to learn the art of the quick—and discreet—check-in.” Being discreet while working your social media angle is even harder when you pull out a serious camera to photograph your food in that restaurant. And, these days, legions of  avid food bloggers shoot their freshly delivered plates for blogs, Twitter, FB or Foodspotting. People who disparage Twitter use with this cliche, “Why would I want to tell people what I ate for breakfast?”, have no idea how many people do use Twitter to tell people what they ate for breakfast.

When shooting pix of those dining-out experiences, how can you avoid disturbing others (in your party, patrons at other tables and the proprietor)? While it has become quite commonplace in many situations, it has caused altercations and lawsuits. Bon Appetit editor Andrew Knowlton tastefully recommends “Three Rules for Camera-Happy Diners”: “Take your photos quickly, never use a flash (or tripod), and remember why you (and your guests) went to the restaurant in the first place…to eat.”

“OK, everybody grab your phones, snap away!” That was the cue for everyone at our table-of-five to take photos on a recent Friday night at a birthday celebration in Art & Soul, an upscale-casual DC restaurant. When the waiter placed the glowing mini-cupcakes in front of my friend Lolita, she took this pic of them. And I took the pic of her basking in the glow.

Far from being disruptive in any way, the flurry of photos flowed from the joy around our table. Lolita tweeted her pic almost immediately, but, discreetly. As Andrew Knowlton recommended, we “remembered why we were in the restaurant in the first place.” To share. In real life. Which, for many people, now includes the social norm of snapping and tweeting cupcakes.

How do we integrate social media into our relationships? Please watch for my next post: OMG, TMI: Part Two…

Happy Holidays and a healthy, prosperous 2011 to all my friends, clients and collaborators!

Many thanks to my friend Diana Evans from my Columbia J-School class, who shared w/me this cool video by the talented digital artists at excentric.