I’ve been working with Union Rescue Mission (URM) recently. It’s the countries oldest and largest homeless shelter in the country serving over 20,000 meals to the poor and homeless of Skid Row weekly. The homeless community in LA County is at epidemic proportions with numbers ranging from 70-90,000 and URM and the other missions on Skid Row are leading the charge to equip individuals with skills and services to break the cycle. What I’ve been learning over the last few months is that homelessness is a complex issue. The reasons for a man, woman or family on the street are as diverse as the people themselves. One of the staggering statistics is that the average age of someone who is homeless on the streets of America is 9! I’ve had a chance to be at URM a lot more recently and what always strikes me when I come into their facility is that people are fighting for life and death on the streets all around them. It feels like the country gas station on the side of the road after a long journey and you’re almost out of gas. Having just recently traveled through the desert and almost breaking down, I can really appreciate that.

Over the past 6 months Chronicle Project has been working with URM capturing some of the stories of what’s happening at their facility and a glimpse into the lives of their residents. A few weeks back we launched a video podcast of these stories and the iTunes staff selected it as “New and Notable” and since then it’s been in the top 100 of Non-Profit Podcasts on the iTunes Network.

So here’s my encouragement - subscribe to this podcast, especially if the issue of homelessness is important to you. In the coming weeks we’ll be adding a video FAQ hosted by URM’s CEO Andy Bales as well as some seriously great stories about Skid Row’s finest.

Check out Stories from Skid Row and don’t be afraid to share it

About a month ago we made a significant switch on THE DROP website. The adjustment came as a way to incorporate the multitude of ways that users would interact with the website. We had been using a social plug-in and it really started out working amazing. Last month I was introduced to ShareThis and I found that the plug-in was easy to use and that it actually gave the user more options to pass around the info and would be crucial in the interaction of social media to the site. The user would then be able to add or share the posts via their Myspace or Facebook but could also email them to friends if they so chose. A little while back The Drop was featured on the ShareThis site. We got sandwiched between infertility and obscure movies - I don’t think it’s a bad start.

I also had a chance to join their Publishers Group on Facebook. What I loved about this was that I then could put faces with the code writers and other bloggers/new media types who were employing the same pieces and any additional strategy that they may have. ShareThis has just been named one of the Top 20 plugins to have on Wordpress and I highly recommend it.

After 3 days in the Las Vegas desert with blazing sun and heat (which is an understatement), The New Media Expo kicked off in fine style at the Las Vegas Convention Center. While there we got to network with a great crew of fine New Media Professionals. Chance meetings with Steve Frey about how podpress is the glove to the Wordpress hand was great and exactly what I think a conference of new Media types should be about. The free exchange of ideas and good will towards other techies.

While I was there I got to learn about TubeMogul and there presentation at their booth was really nice. In recent months and working with client video, the need for adequate coverage of any social media campaign to several sites (Vimeo, Myspace, facebook, et al.) is really time consuming but totally necessary. Facebook fans want to see a video on the native platform. And don’t mess with the crew at Vimeo - their users want their content in beautiful streaming HD and I can’t blame them. Call me a snob if you will or a social media purest but when I’m surfing a site and I see a low quality YouTube video embedded on the page I get a little sad. There are so many more options on YouTube now and specifically with video on the web. From Viddler to Meta Cafe they are all fighting for a piece of the pie and as a result we win.

The most amazing part of the conference was the way that we could track each other. Due to the recent popularity of Twitter and with the geo positioning through apps like Twinkle on the iPhone I knew what the expo was talking about even before I hit the floor and it was easy to meet up with others for personal interaction on a common topic, meet ups, or where the party was at.

Other chance meetings included Felicia Day from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (Also starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion) and a Scoble sighting. I forgot my camera on both counts. It was also great to meet Tim Borquin face to face. We’ve exchanged emails over the past few years and it was nice to finally get a sense of who he is. I hope he’s on vacation right now because I’m sure he had some sleepless nights coordinating it all.

To Sum up - The New Media Expo was a good time and 3 days in Vegas is long enough for me, especially when it’s August.

New York Times Best selling author and every Human Resource managers ace up the sleeve, Tim Sanders launches the Dirty Dozen Rules to Email Etiquette. As Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo, Tim dealt with a lot of email and in this offering Sanders walks through the best steps for managing your companies “mood factor”. For this project The Portnoy Media Group had a chance to work with Rapture Studio in Pasadena, CA to integrate a database driven blog to support all the content on the best practices of email over the next couple of years. Integrating powerful tools like having blog posts actually get emailed as soon as they post is a fun feature to connect HR Managers and other business leaders with reminders about email best practices. Check out Email AtoZ.com and don’t forget to subscribe to the blog.

Also a key factor was making it easy for updates. Flash based sites require hours of adjusting to stay current and then there’s the hefty bill. Marc has a hectic schedule because he’s shooting everything from feature length films to music videos for Indie Rock stars (Modest Mouse, Cold War Kids, Sia, Barenaked Ladies, to name just a few) so easy updates were crucial. For this project we wanted to work ourselves out of a job. Provide a solution that is near turn key and with minimal training Marc was up and running loading videos and additional content on the site. Marc’s site is as easy to update as writing a basic document (Word or Googledoc).

Film Music Weekly Magazine editor Peter Alexander released an article on the recent talk given by Dan Portnoy to the Virginia Production Alliance in Richmond, VA. Check out his take on new media, processing through the info and including a lot of links to see New Media in action.

See the article here.