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Photo by Louise Docker on Flickr

After a long hiatus, BMPR is back in business.

Shutter up!

On Thursday, Dec. 8th at the Holiday Inn Airport, we’ll help you tame that fancy camera and video equipment just in time for the holidays.

We can’t fix your awkward family members, but we can help you capture the moments in a way that will bring a tear to Aunt Bertha’s eye and put you at the top of her inheritance list.

Carlos Pena: Local photographer and owner of DigiBooth will share tips on how to take the best still photos.

Brett Baker: KSAT senior sports producer will teach you: “How *Not* to Shoot a Video”

Nan Palmero and Joe Ruiz: Nan, chief inspiration officer at SalesBy5 and blogger for BlackBerry Cool, and Joe, engagement editor at NOWcastSA,will break down all the new mobile apps that will allow you take rich photographs and sharp videos From. Your. Phone.

Jessica Young: Marketing Coordinator at the RK Group will give you a List of Hip Technology Gifts for those hard-to-buy-for people in your family and at the office.

Donna Tuttle: Projects Editor at the San Antonio Business Journal will assume her role as BMPR Den Mother. So, no, you may not perform armpit-fart versions of Jingle Bells. Sean Wood, Nora Frost and Brenda Munoz, the rest of our BMPR team, will be on hand to cause trouble.

Event is free. But you must RSVP Here: http://twtvite.com/BMPRF-Stop

Sometimes you just have to let out your Social Media Rambo. To help nudge you along, Laser Quest is inviting BMPR warriors to strap on their laser guns and engage in a little live action hide-and-seek. For FREE. Fog, strobe lights, loud music and snacks all included. Please RSVP for an accurate number. 100 spots: Three groups of 30-33 will play. Many thanks to Brenda Munoz’ sister Stephanie Urias, community relations manager at Laser Quest. Questions? Call Stephanie at 499-4400. Details & RSVP @ http://twtvite.com/BMPRLaserQuest

Interested in celebrating the 40th Annual Texas Folklife Festival June 10-12? Organizers are looking for tweeters who will attend the event and let others know about their #folklife experiences in exchange for a 3-day admission wristband.

The festival brings together the very diverse, international cultures that have established and make Texas great. #Folklife is known for its celebration of culture through food, music, dance and crafts. You will also have access to the museum and its retrospective exhibit 40 Years of Texas Folklife Festival Memories.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please tweet using the #BMPR #folklife hashtags and the appropriate contacts will get back with you.

Our friends at Xobni have given us some pre-release love. If you are one of the first 30 people to hit Xobni’s special link and enter the code NANLOVESXOBNI you’ll be automatically into the special preview to use Xobni for Gmail.

Xobni for Gmail promises:

• Put a face and a name to every email
• Stop wasting time manually managing contacts
• Lightning-fast contact search
• See relationship history and mutual contacts
• Enriched contact info from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

Hurry up, this will be gone soon!

Now that summer is coming to San Antonio (and with it, the hot temperatures except for Sunday evening), we figured now is as good a time as any to get your, um, bleep together. What bleep, you ask? Update, 9:09 a.m., May 4: It appears I forgot to mention a tiny detail. This month’s BMPR is at noon, Thursday, Feb. 5.

• How to manage your physical assets online and digital tools to keep it all organized.
• Protecting your digital identity and what the law is about your digital self once you die (but hopefully not for years as BMPR loves you)
• How some people use digital tools and social networks to help treat addiction.

As I write this, only a few spots remain for the meetup, but you should definitely get yourself on the waiting list as people will drop out. Remember, attendance is free, but you will have to pay $15 to eat (Thanks, Holiday Inn for the space and the food service). Now, the people who have so graciously agreed to give us their time and knowledge.

Billy Johnson is the CEO of Dok-It Online, a national online inventory management company based in Bulverde. A few years ago his business was burglarized and all his office computers, printers, phones and backup drives were stolen.  The process of categorizing all the stolen items and showing proof of ownership to the insurance company proved frustrating and extremely time consuming.  Billy then decided to pursue the idea of a designing a simple online website that would take the frustration out of inventorying all of his valuables and making the act of logging, categorizing and transferring this data seamless.  Thus the creation of Dok-It was realized.

Bart Huffman is an intellectual property attorney and head of Cox Smith’s Privacy and Data Security practice. With a systems engineering background and a proven track record in IP, e-commerce, and federal litigation matters, he offers a unique, broad perspective for the critical privacy, data security, and intellectual property issues faced by companies today. Licensed to practice law in Texas, California and New York, and before various federal courts, Bart is also a USPTO Registered Patent Attorney and an IAPP Certified Information Privacy Professional. He was the San Antonio Business Journal’s 2010 Outstanding Lawyer Award recipient in the IP category, and is recognized by Chambers USA as a leader in his field (IP).

Lisa Hernandez, a/k/a @bemadthen, will have her bio posted as soon as she returns from a trip up north.

You know him, you love him and we love him for being a part of the BMPR leadership. Nan Palmero is Chief Inspiration Officer at SalesBy5. He is professionally trained with data-backed processes to teach companies how to better market themselves and attends several top-tier business conferences each year. You can find him on Twitter @nanpalmero or read his BlackBerry Power User blog and his blog on mysa.com. He also proceeds to rock socks off of pretty much anybody who comes across his path. He’s kind of a big deal and we’re glad he’s a part of BMPR.

Cara Nichols

Cara Nichols serves as Community Affairs Director for Rackspace Hosting and President of the Rackspace Foundation. She oversees Rackspace’s charitable giving and corps of volunteers, as well as manages the company’s non-profit and city relationships. Cara was previously Editor-in-Chief of C San Antonio magazine, a local high-end lifestyle and culture publication. She also spent several years teaching in both North East ISD and Floresville ISD. Cara has a Bachelor of Science from The University of Texas at Austin.

Jen Martinez

Jen is the first Strategic Initiatives Manager at Bexar County Economic Development where she creates innovative and collaborative economic development strategies to improve overall quality of life. Jen has over ten years of international trade and development experience in manufacturing, trade associations, and non-governmental organizations. Her work includes strategy development, international trade, systems thinking, place branding, and economic research and analysis. Jen holds a B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Texas and is a MBA in Sustainable Business candidate at Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Seattle, WA.

UPDATE: Please read instructions carefully: You must arrive at SeaWorld  by 9-9:15 AM (at the latest). Please bring money for parking - $15 PER CAR. If you haven’t RSVPd on the official SeaWorld invite, do it here: http://www.punchbowl.com/parties/1822892-sesame-street-bay-of-play-date

This time frame is hard and fast. Gate and security personnel will not be aware of this event or the attendees — we’ll have the only list. So once we enter the park, the gate shuts and locks behind us.

When are we entering the park?

It must be before 9:30 a.m. Hence the arrival time of 9:00 a.m.

First group will go in at 9:20 a.m. and last group in at 9:29. ll be free to have as much fun as you like with your family in the park for the rest of the day.

Where are we meeting?

lf you are standing facing the big front gate and arches, turn to your right. Look for guest services on the right and then look to the right of that for Brian, Katie and me. We will enter the park via the gate over there.

What are we doing once we go in? Let’s just say rampant fun! We’ve got a special surprise upfront for you and the kids, then we’ve got a treat with the 4D Theatre private showing of the new film Lights, Camera, Imagination! and then, around lunch-time(ish) you’ll be free to have as much fun as you like with your family in the park for the rest of the day. IF YOU OR THE KIDS WANT TO TAKE A SWIMSUIT, GO FOR IT.

RSVP here for the March 19th SeaWorld San Antonio Tweetup: http://twtvite.com/BMPRBigBird

Tap into your inner Cookie Monster. Our friends at  SeaWorld of Texas are getting ready to launch the Sesame Street Bay of Play area. They’ve invited BMPR peeps to check it out and get the buzz out. Each BMPR person is allowed to take up to 4 other people (including children) in his or her family.

We’ll get a tour of the Bay of Play, and families are free to stay and enjoy the rest of the park after the event. Only one rule: No Grouches allowed.

RSVP Here for the March 31 Tweetup at Rackspace: http://twtvite.com/BMPRRackspace

Happy Birthday to us! Two years of social media mashups with this city’s hip, smart, generous, tweeple. We can’t think of a better place to celebrate than at Rackspace, San Antonio’s iconic tech firm that leads the way in social media, technology, customer service, corporate culture and making an impact on the community. Our March Tweetup will take place at The Castle, the former Windsor Park Mall, which has been transformed into a tech campus. We’ll get a tour of the corporate headquarters, partake in a light lunch and visit in the Racker Rally Room for talk about how companies like Rackspace make a difference in the community and how energetic groups like BMPR can give everyone a voice with social media.

Please be sure to genuinely RSVP so that Rackspace can have an accurate count. Important note: Please bring a photo ID — license, passport, etc. to gain entrance to the building.

The countdown to college basketball’s big dance has begun. That means buzzer beaters, wild upsets and of course filling out brackets for some friendly competition… And some philanthropic action for BMPR!

BMPR is joining Citizen Effect’s Brackets with Benefits (BwB) this year, to justify the amount of trash talk that usually goes on during NCAA with the fact that we’ll all be doing some good for a community in need.

Here is how it works

• Go to CitizenEffect.org/tourney to sign up
• Click “PLAY” and donate $10 to enter the brackets
• You’ll get an email with instructions for how to fill out your brackets the day before they go live
• On Sunday, March 13, you can make your picks, submit, and join the BMPR group

The good stuff

• BwB Champion: 64GB iPad, HD Flip video camera, and a TOMS shoes gift pack
• Top Four Brackets: HD Flip video camera, and a TOMS shoes gift pack
• Top Sixteen Brackets: TOMS shoes gift pack

The instrisic good stuff

• This year, the tournament champion will get the honor of choosing the community project that Citizen Effect will fund through BwB.
• Bragging rights.

Good luck with the tournament!

Begin the trash talk!

(AKA Hashtags: #BMPR #BwB)

This month’s BMPR on Thursday, Feb. 17, focuses on getting around this wonderful city of ours and how different industries are telling their story. Plus, one of our speakers will be giving away a free car… for a week. Click here to RSVP.

Without further ado, our wonderful speakers:

Vianna Davila

Vianna Davila (@viannadavila on Twitter) is a transportation reporter and metro videographer at the San Antonio Express-News. Born and raised in San Antonio, she started working for the paper’s Neighbors section in 2002, after graduating from Rice University. She joined the Metro desk in 2005 as a night scanner crime reporter, where she learned how to drive very fast while reading a map book at the same time (pre-iPhone days, you see).

She remained on the crime team until 2007 when she left the Express-News to get her Masters in journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, where her focus was documentary film. To her surprise, the Express-News wanted her to come back after she graduated, so she returned to the paper in 2009. Shortly after coming home, her graduate thesis film, “In His Blood,” about San Antonio’s overnight news photographers, won the award for best documentary short at the San Antonio Film Festival. At the paper, she’s covered an assortment of topics, from the Spanish missions, to blind drag queens, to refugees. She is VERY new to the transportation beat, but so far she’s loved every minute of it. She pens (do they still do that on computers?) the Move It! blog on MySanAntonio.com.

Cameron Davies

Cameron Davies currently owns and runs 210 Customs, a firm that finds and tricks out cars for NFL players, and its subsidiary, Cruising Kitchens, a company that specializes in the fabrication of high-end mobile food trucks. Both firms operate out of 8,000 square feet of leased space on Bulverde Road.

Davies is also the brainchild and owner of the Boardwalk on Bulverde, the new food truck park in the same area. Davies will talk about how 210 Customs uses social media and the Internet to find cars, parts, customers and more. If you’re so inclined, you can follow @210Customs on Twitter or see more of 210Customs’ work on their Facebook page.

Mark Harland

April Ancira has her bio coming soon.