The Marine Corps Marathon Team went full force this year promoting social media engagements. For the very first time, runners were able to have their split times automatically post to their personal Facebook and/or Twitter pages, allowing family and friends to track a runner’s progress. Our MetroStar Systems Team was proud to help the MCM Team enhance social media engagements at the MCM events by displaying live tweets on large screens at the expo, dinners, pep rallies, and of course, at the race. Leveraging myStanly, our customizable moderated Twitter display solution, we were able to capture tweets with the hashtag #36thMCM and approve it for broadcast.

On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we had myStanly Teams moderating and live tweeting from the Health & Fitness Expo. The displays sat at both t-shirt pick up stations and sandwiched the Brooks Running store. People had the chance to see their tweets on the display screens almost instantaneously, getting their few moments of myStanly fame! Exhibitors were able to broadcast their booth specials and giveaways, and we were able to help spread the word without the message getting lost.

On Friday, there were multiple events taking place so we gave people the chance to virtually be at all places at once through the Twittersphere.

The Runners Club mixer was an exclusive event for members of the MCM Runners Club. We were able to give those were were not available to attend an insider view of what was happening at the mixer by tweeting updates and pics, and those at the mixer, updates of what was going on elsewhere.

Later that evening, we attended the VIP Hall of Fame dinner at the Washington Post building, where special individuals were inducted into the MCM Hall of Fame. The United We Sing girls began the evening by singing the National Anthem and the honored inductees were recognized for the positive impact they have had on the Marine Corps Marathon. Messages of encouragement and support for runners were projected onto a large wall visible to all diners as they enjoyed a beautifully catered buffet dinner. Price is Right host, Drew Carey, was also in attendance as he prepped to run his first marathon.

Saturday, the day before the race, weather conditions were not looking good; temperatures were in the low 30s, heavy rain, high winds, and even some snow in October – not ideal running conditions! However, it didn’t stop all those who have been preparing for this race. Runners continued to flood #36thMCM with their tweets, sharing their pre-race jitters and excitement. We even had a small Twitter contest at the expo where three lucky runners tweeted to win a free myStanly t-shirt! Congratulations to our winners Anna, Ndegwa, and Joanne! Our MetroStar Systems Team headed home to prepare for the BIG event, Race Day!

Taking us to 3:45a.m., Sunday October 30th, sitting in the car, preparing to embrace the bitter cold…

As we prepared for race kickoff, bundled from head to toe, we departed the car and made our it down to the finish line where we first saw myStanly illuminating the dark sky with the Washington Monument standing proudly in the horizon.

The cold didn’t seem as bitter as the sun started to rise, droves of runners made their way to the start line, and friends, families, spectators filled the course. At race kickoff, 30 thousand runners charged DC, and tweets did not slow down. Even runners on the course continued to tweet! Our VIP badges allowed us direct access to the finish line and we were able to capture Reuben Mwei and Amanda Rice, the first finishers of the MCM10K for men and women, respectively, as they crossed the finish line and live tweet their victory pictures. A few hours later, marathon runner, Army Reserve 1st Lt. Charles Ware, rounded the corner towards the finish line becoming the 36th Marine Corps Marathon winner with the best MCM time since 1997 at 2 hours, 19 minutes, 16 seconds.

The Department of State’s Tech@State team will be hosting the 5^th edition of Tech@State events at the Jack Morton Auditorium in the Media and Public Affairs building of George Washington University on Friday May 27 and Saturday May 28. Over 200 attendees will “explore the mechanics of games, business and sustainability, design, education, international aspects, games for social change and much more.”

MetroStar Systems will be supporting the Tech@State team with our MyStanly twitter moderation/display application, and our CEO Ali Manouchehri is slated to speak on two separate panels on Day 1. He will first address the topic of “Games, Business and Sustainability” and then present with a panel about “Military and Government games”.  The event features an impressive collection of government, academic, non-profit, and industry experts/tech innovators who will be sharing their experiences and exploring many aspects of serious games. The agenda and complete schedule is now available at the Tech@State blog.

Here are some additional URL links that may be helpful if you are interested in attending or want more information:

• Tech@State website:  http://tech.state.gov/
• Tech@State: Serious Games event registration:  http://techatstate-srsgames.eventbrite.com/
• Event Agenda & Schedule:  http://tech.state.gov/profiles/blogs/serious-games-content-and
• Bios of speakers & panelists:  http://tech.state.gov/profiles/blogs/serious-games-speaker-bios

For those of you who cannot attend the event, you are in luck! This event will be live streamed on Tech@State’s UStream channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tech-state.  You can also follow the conversation on twitter by searching the hashtag #TechAtState and following our live tweets @metrostarsystem.

*** Updated 5/31/2011 ***

The event was a great success with excellent panels, great presentations, and great ideas shared. Here is a video of the “Military and Government Games” panel that Ali moderated at the end of Day 1:

Video streaming by Ustream

MetroStar Systems has wrapped up its sponsorship of the Marine Corps Marathon Event this year, and while I’m sad to say goodbye to prime race season in the Washington Metro area, I am not sad to say bye to freezing cold mornings waiting at the starting line.

Here are a few snapshots from the last race MetroStar Systems sponsored, the Marine Corps Marathon Turkey Trot.

Prabin, Monica, Sara, Daniel and I before the race as Daniel prepped the muffin and apple cider table and wished the MSS runners good luck!

Hopefully Mr. Turkey got pardoned!

So say hello to a season relegated to bundling up in warm fuzzy sweaters and sitting by the fireplace. See all you runners next year and be on the lookout for more events sponsored by MetroStar Systems next spring! If we’re lucky on February 2, when Punxsutawney Phil emerges he will leave his burrow, and welcome us to warmer weather sooner than expected.
Who knows, maybe you’ll see a few of us MetroStar runners in the Marine Corps Marathon next year…

Stay warm!

The event had a live web stream of another Sweat for a Vet spin-a-thon at another Sport & Health Club as well an intense spin class challenging the participants to climb over hills and sprint along flat straightaways.

In addition to supporting an excellent cause, it provided me a great chance to meet more of my co-workers and afterwards we hopped over to Silver Diner and enjoyed some brunch…my…pancakes and bacon.

All-in-all it was an excellent Saturday – supporting a great case, getting in a workout and hey, who doesn’t love bacon?

“A Single Drop of Water is an environmental awareness project that uses the arts, specifically photography, to document the journey of water. Our goal is to raise awareness about this importance resource, it’s scarcity in some communities, and water pollution. The project will provide photographers with a platform for sharing their images and stories. Winning entries shall be exhibited in New York City, and will be used in future Statement Arts education materials to teach students about water and inspire them to produce their own artistic work.”

The Photo Contest Sponsor, Statement Arts, chose the Votridea Contest Platform to run and effectively manage their online contest, including file uploads, voting, content moderation, analytics reports, and more. Contestants pay a small entry fee to submit their photo; the proceeds going towards the Statement Arts programs and the contest prizes.

Contestants who enter become eligible to win a $1500 Grand Prize and their photo exhibited in New York City as part of the World Water Day celebrations! Submissions are already underway, so the time to act is now!

To learn more about A Single Drop Of Water visit: http://www.asingledropofwater.org/

Nearly a year and a half (524 days to be precise) has passed since we released Supernova to the world, shedding light on the inner workings of MetroStar Systems. In that time we’ve experienced continuous expansion, enjoyed a wide spectrum of client projects, and made a positive impact in our local and global community.

But as things continue to heat up our blog has been getting denser and denser. Rather than let it collapse on itself, we took the initiative; choosing to put in the energy so Supernova could shine once again.

So what’s changed? Here are just a few of the major changes we’ve implemented:

1. A much, much simpler interface. In both the theme/layout and in the organization of the blog, we took every step to ensure that we ended up with a much cleaner, easier-to-navigate blog. We literally cut our categories down from 57 to 5! All of the widgets in the sidereel were re-organized into a better configuration. Search is now prominently featured at the top.

2. A whole bunch of behind-the-scenes: Not all of the work that was done is immediately visible on the front page. We went through a kind of “spring cleaning” phase: deleting old and unused media, evaluating and updating plugins, consolidating tags, that sort of thing.

3. A shift to WordPress 3 “Thelonious” of course! This is a powerful platform that gives us the flexibility we need to make a blog like Supernova. A huge thanks to the entire WordPress team for putting together this awesome package! We found the upgrade to be simple, and easy.

4. Visual Search functionality! Using Silverlight + Pivot we are now able to visually navigate Supernova posts and pages. If you haven’t seen it in action yet, check it out!

None of this would have been possible without a stellar team of marketers and designers to build it. Special thanks to Ali Manouchehri, Daniel Nguyen, Hector Portillo, AJ Shah, Monica Huie, and Patricia Joo!!

For your consideration: click here to see a screenshot of the old theme. We’d LOVE to hear your feedback on the new look and feel!

And finally, I’d like to thank Fritz Zwicky for coining the term “Supernova.”

To infinity and beyond!

-D

And MetroStar Systems will see you there!

Janis Hall, Ricardo Palhano, and Mostafa Elzhogbi will all be flying up to the Big Apple this year to talk SharePoint and, as speakers, cover a SharePoint-specific topic. Mostafa, a Microsoft C# MVP since 2006, will be giving a tech-oriented talk on SharePoint Sandbox solutions and demoing its applications and limitations. Janis Hall and Ricardo Palhano, on the other hand, will be holding a higher level session on SharePoint Governance.

“I’m very excited to meet up with the other speakers, many of us only see each other at these types of events. I’m also looking forward to dialogue and interactions with others attending the event. Being in the presence of other enthusiasts is exhilarating and I always leave these events with new inspiration and ideas. I must say that I’m also really looking forward to a visit we’re planning to the nearby cupcake shop. From the online pictures, it looks like chocolate for days…” said Janis Hall, Lead SharePoint Instructor.

You can also attend the event virtually via Twitter using the hashtag: #SPSNY or simply by following Janis and Mostafa. Janis Hall and Ricardo Palhano will also be giving their SharePoint Governance presentation in DC on August 12th with the SharePoint User Group of Washington, DC.

This is shaping up to be an amazing event and we hope you’ll join us! Break a leg, Janis, Ricardo, and Mostafa!

Click to find out more about this event

]]> http://blog.metrostarsystems.com/2010/07/22/sharepoint-saturday-ny/feed/ 2 http://blog.metrostarsystems.com/2010/05/27/why-i-ride/ http://blog.metrostarsystems.com/2010/05/27/why-i-ride/#comments Thu, 27 May 2010 18:15:23 +0000 Clay Calvert http://blog.metrostarsystems.com/?p=2877 ... ]]>

Clay and Bruce

This was my 4th year participating in the MS Bike Ride from Richmond to Williamsburg.

I ride to support a former colleague’s husband, Bruce, as a part of Team BRUCE (Bikers Ride Until a Cure Exists). In addition, my sister-in-law, Susan, was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in 2006.  I ride to support her as well.  My friend, Sonia, has had MS for years as well, but her spirit is still strong.  She joked about painting flames on her walker.  I ride to support her too.

Multiple sclerosis (or MS) is a chronic, often disabling disease that attacks the central nervous system (CNS), which is made up of the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves. Symptoms may be mild, such as numbness in the limbs, or severe, such as paralysis or loss of vision. The progress, severity, and specific symptoms of MS are unpredictable and vary from one person to another. Today, new treatments and advances in research are giving new hope to people affected by the disease.  I ride…in hopes that there will be a cure.

This year, I decided to go all out! I went for two days and biked more than 150 miles.  You think that sounds bad? Well it is, but it is nothing compared to what someone with MS endures on a regular basis.  Bruce, after whom the team is named, can no longer pedal a bicycle so for the past few years we have taken turns helping him towards his goal of starting and finishing every race.  He has a ‘chariot’ and others of us have the honor of helping move his chariot toward his goal.  We may not finish the fastest, but it is still a great joy just to cross the finish line each year.  In the video below, you will see Bruce and I together starting at 3:05:

http://blog.metrostarsystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/MS_Society.jpg

Not only was the physical ride completed successfully, but our support helped the National MS Society raise over $320,000!

Visit the National MS Society website to learn more about Multiple Sclerosis.

-Clay Calvert

This year’s RubyNation conference will take place on Friday April 9th and Saturday April 10th at the Sheraton Reston Hotel in Reston, Virginia.  In its 3rd year, RubyNation is a two-day conference presented by the Washington, DC area Ruby community that “features debate and discussions of the latest trends, techniques, and tools in Ruby development, design, deployment, business and marketing.”  This year’s speakers include Dave Thomas (Co-Author of Agile Manifesto and Author of The Pragmatic Programmer, Agile Web Development with Rails and Programming Ruby), Jeff Barr (Amazon Web Services), and MetroStar Systems‘ very own Dave McVicar and David Keener (shameless plug). Click on the list of speakers and agenda for complete details and info.

MetroStar Sytems is proud to be a diamond sponsor for this event and happy to support the Washington DC area Ruby Community.  Members of our team will be attending, volunteering, filming, and presenting at RubyNation, so please leave us a comment below if you plan to come.  We will also be hosting the “Ruby-B-Q” at our headquarters on Friday evening (after RubyNation Day 1) featuring food and drinks.  Registration for the conference is still open, but get your tickets soon before the event sells out: http://rubynation.org/registration