Last week, I was walking around Buffalo and had an idea for a direct-action in support of the gay community. Being a straight man, I couldn’t very well organize it myself. So I brought my idea to my friends on twitter and we decided to have a mojit-ing (meeting + mojitos… get it?). So on Wednesday evening, my co-conspirators and I gathered to plot out this hilarious escapade. Stay tuned for what I hope to be the first of many guerrilla operations in the fight for equality.

My Co-Conspirators:

@veganjesus – Norm is one of the funniest #tweeps that I follow, always good for a laugh and a genuinely nice guy. He’s a member of the Buffalo Gay Men’s Chorus and a talented graphic designer. His interests also include Vegan cooking, something that I don’t have the will power to do myself; so kudos to Norm on his self-control.

@cmohrblu – Cory is politically active, he is currently working on a campaign for a democratic candidate in Buffalo, NY. For the past two years, he has worked in consumer advocacy and protection. He is co-founder of the gayest blog in Buffalo. Cory keeps the blog politically charged and a force for change. Check out the blog’s twitter account @pinkbflo to stay up to date on local and nation LGBTA issues.

@michaelempricu – Michael is another Buffalo organizer, he was one of the driving forces in organizing the Powder Keg Festival this winter. He has worked in PR, Fundraising, Branding, and Marketing. He is co-founder of http://www.pinkbflo.com. Michael adds entertainment and flair to their content around LGBTA issues.

@susanlynncope – My Fiancée is always willing to help me out with my crazy ideas; in fact she specializes in crazy ideas of her own! She just received the license to throw a TEDx event in Buffalo and is obsessively organizing the event. You can get involved with through the website and you can stay up to date on the planning by following: @TEDxBuffalo.

@arampino – Amber is a talented graphic designer and an active member in the Buffalo Advertising community. She is currently Vice President of the Advertising Club of Buffalo and works for a local agency as their Interactive Art Director. She specializes in User Experience/Information Architecture and is helping me redesign my site with those principles in mind. To top it all off, she’s an excellent cook and brought delicious cupcakes to our mojit-ing!.

@clarkdever – If you stumbled across this list and are not already following me on twitter, I would love to meet you! Follow me and drop me a line, I love making new friends who are interested in Buffalo, NY, Photography, and Technology!

@AaronIngrao is an Action Sports and Lifestyle photographer from Buffalo, NY. Susan and I have known him for over a year now, we met him at Bidwell park during a Buffalo concert series. He had set up his camera to be remotely operated and left it in the field, when people would come over to look at it he would trigger it and the flash; simultaneously blinding them and taking their picture. After many LOLz, I spotted the man with the Pocket Wizard and introduced myself.

@PhilCormier and I met in college. I was an engineer for a semester, Phil is working on his third engineering degree (I can’t wait to call him Dr. Phil). He’s one of the more well rounded engineers I know. He drinks beer, skateboards, bikes, and has a hot fiancee.

@GrantDever is my younger brother. He’s a faster runner than I am and a much better student. He pushes me to do cool things, I need to be better than him at something.

P.S. I can still beat him in a wrestling match (for the record).

@MarkZorn is the reason I passed several classes in college. An expert programmer who shares my deep seeded love for blast-beats, breakdowns, and growling. He introduced me to the metal-claw and I taught him how to talk to women. He also built a neat twitter app called: TweetFlix.

@DanaSaylor is a talented jewelry designer in Buffalo, NY, I met her and her husband Jon at my gallery opening for “When The Financial Levees Broke”. They are both super active in the Buffalo arts community and just tremendously positive people to be around. I highly recommend you check out her jewelry and follow her tweets to stay up on happenings in the art community.

@MichaelMurphy is my go-to guy for all things xhtml/css. He is a talented Web Developer in Rochester, NY. Definitely one of my best friends and a great twitter user.

P.S. If you’re not following me… you should be: @ClarkDever

I’ve been on a HUSVAR set all week (50+ Hours so far… on Friday Morning).  We’ve had a great team energy and despite numerous set-backs, we’re getting these shots “in the can”.  Which brings me to my take away from Seth Godin’s talk last night at Canisius– SHIP! — The most important thing is getting the product out the door, it does you no good in development.

Since that’s what this team specializes in, let me highlight some amazing Buffalonian’s for you.

Sean Husvar

@HUSVAR – Serial Entrepreneur and Fine Artist,  Sean is a good friend and mentor of mine.  I am currently helping him with his web strategy campaign and as the Second Assistant Director during the current series of images he’s producing.

Luke Copping

@Luke_Copping – Luke is a fashion and fine art photographer working in Buffalo, NY.  He was also nominated for “Best of Buffalo” in the photography category. He is the Assistant Director on this shoot and Associate Editor of Auxiliary Magazine.

Nate Perraciny

@NPeracciny – Nate is a great Buffalo Videographer!  He’s running first camera on the set and developing a multimedia version of Sean’s images.  Another super-friendly and helpful individual, he was a runner-up in the nominations for “Best of Buffalo” for Photography.

Steve Medison Rittner

@DJMedison – Steve is a talented Buffalo DJ who spins electro/dubstep and and an amazing dude to have on set.  He went to school for production.  This week he’s working the second camera on the video crew but always takes the time to help me rig sets or manage a cables.

Susan Cope

@SusanLynnCope – My manager and the love of my life.  She keeps the wheels on the bus and me pointed in the right direction.  She’s also an elite Event Planner working out of Buffalo, NY who specializes at integrating Social Media technologies in to her clients projects. Did I mention that she’s organizing TEDxBuffalo?!  If you live in Buffalo and Love TED Talks, be sure to get in contact with her today.

Clark Dever

@ClarkDever – If you’re reading this but not following me on twitter, I recommend you check my feed out. I publish a mix of web strategy, photography, and conversational tweets. I was recently nominated for “Best of Buffalo” in the Photographer category. I shoot events, environmental portraits, and stories that need to be told.

Images Courtesy: HUSVAR Studios Photobooth (of death).

I love Follow Friday, it’s a great way to add value to your network by suggesting quality feeds to your readers. Traditionally, you would just create a list of twitter user names of people that you found interesting, maybe a few words for context, and the hashtag #FF.

Here is an example of a properly formed #FF post:

@buffalogeek: Here’s a #Buffalo FF @susanlynncope @nickelcity @clarkdever @charlieriley @peteherr @buffawhat @mattbova @herobeth @nowbuffalo

The benefits of the traditional form of Follow Friday are these:

• Concise
• Easy to follow people directly from the tweet
• You tend to get retweeted as a Thank You from the people you list

The drawbacks that I see are the following:

• You don’t get to give much information about why you are listing them
• It’s a very ephemeral media to make a recommendation through
• It spams up the twitterstream all day and makes it more challenging to find good posts
• It doesn’t allow you to give them any link-love;  In-bound links are the currency of the internet.  If you really want to promote a friend or follower, a link to their website helps their google rank and their follower count.

With these issues in mind, I present to you my first; second-generation #FF post.

• @adriandayton – Had a great lunch with this man today, he tops the Twitter charts for Buffalo with over 50k followers.  He makes his living consulting and speaking on Social Media for Lawyers.
• @buffalogeek – Broke the Carl Paladino E-mail Scandal this week, spends equal time muckraking and nerding it up.  He is an anchor point in the Buffalo tech community and his political blog is a great read.
• @susanlynncope – My fiancee surprised me this week with her initiative to create TEDxBuffalo;  She strives to be a thought leader on how to integrate Social Media in to Event Planning.
• @kevinpurdy – Editor of one of my favorite blogs and a fellow Buffalonian.  His personal blog might not be as geeky as LifeHacker, but it’s still well worth the read.
• @karakane – Kara is in charge of Communications at Medaille College, she recently hired me for an event.  I was pleasantly surprised by her media savvy and her communications blog.
• @himay – Jamie is a biochemistry graduate student at the University of Buffalo, if you thought his hacking ended with GMOs; you’d be wrong.  This guy and his bacteria blog scare the crap out of me; I’m recommending you read him not only out of fear for humanity(someone needs to keep an on eye on this guy) but also for his great conversational skills and futurist interests.

So there you #FF 2.0 (#FF2).  I hope you enjoyed it and if you like the idea, feel free to steal it.  I’d love to see more in depth descriptions of peoples relationships with twitter and their community.