If one of your friends asked you to send them your latest credit card statement for the purposes of posting it online for all of your friends and family to see, would you do it?

If you’re on twitter and you’ve seen a tweet like this: (@Walgreens) http://4sq.com/87bMtr, you know what it is. It’s someone checking in at their current location through foursquare. It’s becoming more common and doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon as users and businesses are taking full advantage of this new media.

In the coming months there are a few interesting social media events/meet ups in the area that we thought you should be aware of. Take a look and let me know if we missed any in the comment section.

Google just released it’s new social media product called Google Buzz this Tuesday for most Gmail users. We just started looking into our Stream Profile with google Buzz today and just like everyone else have questions on what are it’s capabilities and how to get started. Here’s a list of some interesting articles that seem to give a good overview for both what it is and how to use it. Please leave a comment if you have any other good resources about it and if you think you are going to give it a try, we’d love to follow you.

Having proper backups of our data is an important part of our workflow.  In additon to the redundant file backup in our studio, we carry external hard drives home with us each night to a) protect our data against fire, theft, etc. and b) allows access to our files at home (vpn doesn’t really work all that great for us because of file size). Each night I run Super Duper! to make a cloned backup of my work files.

One of the things that draws us to social media is the concept of transparency. We feel that social media has held companies more accountable and makes them more customer-focused. A few years ago, a company could run a marketing campaign, claiming to be the best at this or that. They could also claim to be solely focused on their customers needs – even if they weren’t – and it was difficult for customers to prove them wrong (at least at a global level).

Here at Stream Creative we pride ourselves in being at the forefront of adapting new technologies.  I love testing the latest software, downloading new iPhone apps, etc.  Upgrading to Snow Leopard seemed like a no brainer.  My understanding was Snow Leopard was supposed to just improve performance and stability over OS 10.5 Leopard.  Well, having used it for 2 weeks now on one Mac in our studio I have to say I am not happy with the results. In general, the OS seems snappier and some of the new features are nice, but I instantly noticed my web browsers and Mail seem slower.

Ever wish you could add a few hours to your already busy day?  Or maybe clone yourself to get more done.  Since both of these are pretty unlikely to happen, there’s an easier way to accomplish more in less amount of time.  The key is being more productive.  Whether its simply staying focused on the task at hand or streamlining your process, there are tools available to help you work smarter.  Here are a few of our favorites:

Here are a couple good examples of both business and non profits using social media here in Milwaukee.

I think most companies these days know they need to get involved with social media. But what typically prevents them from taking the leap is “their lack of understanding” – (their words, not ours). Our belief is that every human being was born to use social media.