The biggest event in the social media and animal community is just around the corner. BarkWorld kicks off this Friday in Atlanta with a mix of speakers (including yours truly), networking events, parties, and the GMC Bark And Ride.

GMC will be sponsoring four teams made up of the pet community’s Twitteratti on their journeys to BarkWorld. I’ll be taking part in the GMC Bark And Ride on Team Two, and will be riding in style in a GMC Terrain to Atlanta this Friday morning, along with my two team members Erin Monigold and James Bond The Dog.

We’ll be Tweeting from our trip, sharing photos and videos along the way. Follow along by searching for #GMCBarkNRide or through any of our individual Twitter accounts. We’ll be Tweeting from @BFGCom, @JamesBondTheDog, @SloaneKelley and @SocialVisionMkt.

BFG has been hard at work with New Moon Of Savannah and Thinking Cap Inc. to get this year’s Geekend off the ground. We’re proud to announce an exciting lineup for the second year of the Geekend conference.

Social media guru Scott Stratten of UnMarketing will be kicking things off on Thursday, November 4th with the opening night keynote. Friday and Saturday, look for two full days of sessions covering topics from recruiting in the social age to html5 for the video game designer and which content management tool to use. We’ll be hearing from speakers from likes of Yahoo!, Blockbuster, Monster.com, Grooveshark, The Nielsen Company, and Lithium/Scout Labs just to name a few.

Saturday night, look for a closing night keynote that is sure to inspire geeks from all walks of life. Twitpic founder Noah Everett will be joining and helping us close things out with a bang.

For the full list of sessions and speakers, check out Geekend2010.com or stay tuned on Facebook and Twitter. We’ll be making announcements about afterparties and a few additions to the speaker lineup in the coming weeks.

Tickets are also now on sale through Eventbrite, with an early bird registration going until September 15.

We look forward to seeing you this November 4-6 at the second annual Geekend conference!

Geekend is the annual gathering of the geek tribe in Savannah. It’s a two and a half day interactive conference that brings together the brightest geeks, designers, developers, artists, and social media mavericks for a weekend filled with cutting edge speakers, fun-filled afterparties, and amazing networking opportunities.

Raise your hand if you wanted to be a pirate when you grew up? Some of you may still want to be pirates (I know I do, except I don’t think I would make it in Somalia). Maybe one of you loyal readers is actually a pirate already, in which case I am honored to produce reading material for a sea faring buccaneer. Regardless, pirates are awesome because they stick to the neccesary three elements of being cool; captaining a boat, having a beard, and owning a parrot, but that is getting away from the point.

Today brings good news to all who are still itching at a shot of finding buried treasure and those who believe that swashbuckling is an acceptable term for everyday conversation. A website called We Lost Our Gold has issued a public decree announcing the start of a scavenger hunt to find $10,000 in gold coins buried somewhere within the 5 boroughs of New York City.The site is backed by two Brooklyn artists who have chosen to remain anonymous. Sounds a bit sketchy, right? Well, I agree, but digging a little deeper it looks as if this may actually be legit.

These two anonymous artists claim to have buried a chest filled with $10,000 gold coins somewhere in NYC, which they have been collecting for quite a while. Now these aren’t exactly “gold” coins, but they are 10,000 US mint one-dollar coins. In the current recession, you can’t be too picky.Starting on August 1st, the crew issued an 8 minute Muppet video in which the pirate Muppets, who as the story line goes have lost their gold in New York, reveal some clues about the location of the treasure. Through September 19th, the site will periodically put up 7 more videos, each one giving away another clue to where you can find the loot. The first apparent clue that can be determined is that the treasure is not in Central Park. The site also discourages treasure hunters from digging random holes all over the city, as when you know where the treasure is, you will know.

This does seem like a crazy idea, and not revealing any indication of who is backing the process adds to the skepticism. However, the quality of the site and depth of the videos on there thus far shows that someone has put a good deal of effort and time into this. Plus, the traffic drawn to the site will be pinging left and right. Worse case scenario and this isn’t for real, you still get to watch 8 Muppet videos, and everyone loves Muppets. They are hilarious, especially these pirate Muppets. I especially love Tom the ninja pirate who only speaks in mumbles. What a guy.

I can tell you one thing, if I was in New York, I would be actively participating in the treasure hunt. Not necessarily for the money, although 10 grand couldn’t hurt, but for the ability to unleash my inner child and set sail on the high seas of the Big Apple in hopes of discovering adventure, wearing a bandanna, and saying scurrrrrrrvvvvvvvy.

Hats off to you, fellow pirates, in your conquest for lavish riches. If any of you ends up finding the treasure in September, I would be happy to share the pot. If anyone else gets arrested for digging holes throughout NYC, well, that would make for an awesome story for the kids.

Is social media going to the dogs? Well, it will be August 20-22 as BarkWorld takes place in Atlanta. BarkWorld is the first social media event of its kind, having been created by pet owners with a focus on social media and pets.

Yours truly will be taking part, delivering a keynote talk around fictional Twitter (or Twiction) accounts for pets. It’s a topic I’ve been passionate about since creating a Twiction character based on my dog, James Bond. The weekend will also bring out folks from The Humane Society of the United States, PETCO, PawPawty.com, and many others.

JamesBondTheDog will be accompanying me to BarkWorld and riding along with me in style as we Bark and Ride with GMC. Follow updates from our GMC Terrain as we make our way to Atlanta next month or come on out and Tweet up with us.

If you’re looking to score a ticket to BarkWorld, look no further. @JamesBondTheDog is looking for a date to the conference and is offering up a BarkWorld pass to one lucky person. Just Tweet him why you’d be a great date and do it before next Monday, July 26th at noon. He’ll be making a selection then. There are details here.

Happy Tweeting and hope to see you in Atlanta next month.

The world is a huge place filled with tons of people. 6.7 billion, but you already knew that.  Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you could get a snapshot of the day in the life of many of these people from around the world? Google did, and thus has recently announced their upcoming “Life in a Day” project.

The premise is simple yet extraordinary; on July 24^th (appropriately 24/7) anyone and everyone is invited to use a camera and film something from their life in that 24 hour span.  Your choice of what to film is up to you whether it be your day at work, playing with your kids at home, or watching a beautiful sunset from your back porch.

After the day concludes, users will be able to upload their videos to the “Life in a Day” channel until July 31th.  All videos will be available to view online, but several enthusiasts will be lucky enough to have their clip as part of the ‘”Life in a Day” documentary that will debut at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.  Not only that, if your cinematic masterpiece makes it into the final film, you will be credited as co-director and have a chance to be selected to attend the premier.

This innovative project is being directed by Oscar-winning Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, One Day in September), while Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Black Hawk Down) will take the reigns as executive producer.

As always, Google isn’t losing a step in breaking new ground in the media world.  Come July 24^th, make sure you grab a camera, charge the batteries, and prepare for what may be a defining feat in the realm of documentaries.  I know I’m excited.

Sometimes all it takes is a blank canvas, and not necessarily a traditional one. Blank buildings or walls are proving the perfect backdrop for digital graffiti art.

This weekend, that’s exactly what will take over the Gulf coast town of Alys Beach, Florida. A Digital Arts Festival that’s being called the world’s first projection art festival will take place on Saturday night.

Participating artists will take advantage of the town’s blank, white buildings and use them as a canvas for digital art. Thirty-six artists are expected to take part in what will be an evening full of interactive art and music.

Event organizer Mike Ragsdale told CNN.com about the genesis of the idea:

“My company once wrote video game reviews for Time Warner, and we often tested the games by projecting them onto a huge white wall in our office,” said Ragsdale.

“Because the buildings in Alys Beach are white, it occurred to me that our town is like one giant blank canvas. So the notion of fusing together art, architecture and technology eventually evolved into the Digital Graffiti event.”

I guess you really never know where an idea might come from. This could be one to hit the road for.

It’s time to put Geekend back on your radar. The three-day interactive conference that shook things up in the Southeast last fall is back. The Geekend crew (BFG included) has been hard at work making the conference part of an official non-profit. That’s right, a 501c3 called Thinking Cap Inc. Its goal will be to support creatives and creativity through a philanthropic arm and of course the annual Geekend conference.

Geekend is the annual gathering of the geek tribe in Savannah. It brings together the brightest geeks, designers, social media mavericks and forward thinking entrepreneurs who are blazing trails and inventing the future today.

Dates for the 2010 conference have been set, so mark your calendars now. Geekend 2010 will take place November 4-6 in downtown Savannah at the Coastal Georgia Center.

We’re currently looking for speakers to fill up our roster. If you have an idea for a Geekend talk or panel, go ahead and submit it at geekend2010.com.

If you’re wondering what last year’s Geekend was like, visit our Facebook page or check out the 2009 conference guide.

See you in November!

The next installment of the Creative Seed will take place at 7pm on Monday, May 3rd, at SCAD’s Arnold Hall. This time out we will hear from Drew Dougherty, Branding Design Director at BXC, an active-lifestyle design firm based in southern California.

Drew has over 20 years of experience as a designer and art director, having developed logos, rebranding systems and ad campaigns for a variety of action-sports and lifestyle companies, including Kelly Slater’s Komunity, Nixon Watches, CamelBak, Giro, O’Neill and more.

Drew will also make a presentation Backstage in our Hilton Head office on Friday, April 30th. This intimate chat will provide an opportunity for exclusive Q & A between Drew and the BFG crew; a chance to compare notes and draw mutual inspiration.

The Creative Seed Initiative is a distinctive speaker series that brings together Savannah’s vibrant creative community with some of the most highly regarded and inspiring artists working in the creative industries today. Past speakers have included Dan Ibarra and Mike Byzewski from Aesthetic Apparatus, graphic designer Charles Wilkin from Automatic IAM, and Pentagram Design partner DJ Stout.

The Creative Seed Initiative is a joint venture between BFG Communications and the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Johnny Cupcakes doesn’t have very many customers; he has legions of fans. They line the block for hours waiting to get a chance to meet the nationally renown designer of limited edition t-shirts. And at each stop on his current Suitcase Tour, Johnny takes them time to meet and great each and every fan in attendance… even if that means staying up until 4am.

On a recent tour stop in Savannah, Georgia I had the chance to sit down with the iconic Johnny Cupcakes to talk about the Suitcase Tour and what he does to ensure that his brand stays unique and deeply personal for his all of his fans. (Apologies for the poor sound quality. Just turn it up!)

We’re stoked to be a part of Savannah’s first ever Ignite event, which is coming up this Monday evening.

We’ve been digging the Ignite format for quite some time. If you’re not familiar with Ignite, it got started a few years ago by some smart Seattle geeks who were looking for a fun way to network and share ideas. Since then, Ignite has turned into a global phenomenon with chapters in cities across the globe.

Speakers at Ignite events get five minutes and 20 slides to share an idea, a format that keeps presentations moving along and fun. No death by powerpoint!

That will be the format for Savannah’s Ignite event, which is also part of Global Ignite Week. Events like Savannah’s will be going on all over the world next week.

The Savannah event will feature nine speakers on a range of topics from how rap and country music intersect to Foursquare ethics and the future of food.

We hope you Low Country creatives will join us. Here are the event details:
What: Ignite presented by Social Media Club of Savannah and SEED Eco Lounge, with support by BFG Communications
When: Monday, March 1st, 6-8 pm
Where: SEED Eco Lounge, 39 Montgomery Street, downtown Savannah
Cost: FREE
Click here for more details.