November 10, 2012 – The Tweet House once again graced Napa, CA at Silo’s Jazz Club located in gorgeous Downtown Napa on the Riverfront as one of the Napa Valley Film Festival events.

Thank you SO much to conference and event planner Maryam Scoble, for inviting me, once again, to attend The Tweet House! I just adore her! It was wonderful to be so warmly greeted by her as we walked in the door!

What is the Tweet House? This time it was a place to hear brilliant minds discussing new and innovative ideas in tech and media as well as looking forward to and speculating on future changes that may come. …And then there was the wine.

The topics of the night were:

Social Campaigns that Work: Lessons from the Wine Industry featuring speaker Jim Sullivan, Vice President of Public Relations at Castello di Amorosa Winery. Honestly, thanks to an uncommon amount of traffic on Jameson Canyon Road and walking up and down Main Street trying to find Silo’s, I came in in the middle of this one, but I really enjoyed what I heard. Steve Broback, moderator and Tweet House organizer, stated he felt that the winery business as a whole has been slow to adopt social media strategies. It was agreed that many wineries feel that there is little or no need to further promote their wineries as they get a lot of traffic just by virtue of being part of the Napa Valley. As discussion ensued the general feeling was that through social media innovation, business could and would increase. Many found the sites Topsy and VinTank useful in monitoring winery brands.

Jim Sullivan shared that Castello di Amarosa Winery is using social media innovation in a delightful way by offering special tours to Instagram users! Instagram is a popular photo sharing app, and visitors to the winery can share their photos of the gorgeous castle winery on the Instagram site as well as on Twitter and Facebook, multiplying the amount of people who may view the photos.

Next up was Is Silicon Valley Grabbing the Torch from Hollywood? featuring speaker Barry Schuler(with his very trendy shoes), whose credits include VC at DFJ Growth Fund, Former AOL CEO, Vintner-Meteor Vineyard, Foodie, Film & TV Producer. With Steve Broback once again moderating Barry discussed how Silicon Valley with innovative online shows as well as new ways of viewing TV integrated with Social Media sites will continue to evolve. Included in the discussion were the possibility that in the future innovation may see things like HBO Go moving to a singular subscription, similar to Netflix‘s online streaming package, instead of bundled in with Comcast.

Lastly, The Age of Context: How the Convergence of Social, Mobile, and Big Data are Defining the Future featuring Robert Scoble, top Tech Blogger and Rackspace employee, author and keynote speaker. Early promotion for the event also listed Shel Israel co-speaking. Sadly, Shel was unable to make it, which is a shame as I would have loved to see him again. But, right after the session started, BONUS! Brian Solis showed up and was able to fill in for Shel! Brian is the founder of Bub.blicio.us, principal analyst at Altimeter Group, award-winning author, prominent blogger, and keynote speaker.

Long time friends Robert and Brian discussed the changes in media with a conversation that ebbed and flowed. Brian felt it’s time to move away from the words Social Media as we have evolved beyond that to an age of context, where content is queen, but context is king. Robert discussed a disagreement he was having with Star Trek star, George Takei, over Facebook’s EdgeRank. George wants every one of his fans to see 100% of his posts, but Robert enjoys the way EdgeRank works to help reduce the noise of uninteresting posts cluttering his Facebook Home page.

Branding was discussed, specifically how Red Bull had made their awful tasting energy drink seems so cool and very popular through their successful commercials featuring extreme sports personalities. Robert later polled the audience asking how many had iPhones or used an Apple product. Nearly everyone, including me, raised their hands. He felt right now Apple has branded itself in a way that owning it’s products makes you feel like one of the cool kids. Many feel that Android may be innovating and gaining ground in a way that may take over that space unless Apple ups it’s game.

For the first time, to one of these tech events I frequently attend, I brought along my daughter, Alexandra Iriarte(Hair and Makeup Artist) and her boyfriend Adrian Posadas(Graphic Designer). I initially brought her along in the hopes that being at the Napa Valley Film Festival event, that possibly she might make some helpful industry contacts. That didn’t really pan out, but they both thoroughly enjoyed the event and the sessions, with the last being their favorite. My daughter and I talked on the way home about how we thought one of the Toutsuite Social Club cameramen looked like a younger version of Mr. Big, played by Chris Noth, from Sex And The City!

I enjoyed ALL of the talks, but yes, I must admit listening to two brilliant men, as well as great friends and colleagues Robert and Brian banter was the highlight of the night for me as well.

It was lovely to run into friends from San Francisco in Napa! So fun to see Chris Heuer, co-founder of Social Media Club, who arrived fresh from a business trip speaking in Mexico City. He shared that he was actually in Washington D.C. for the election and was standing right outside the White House when the results of the election were announced. What an exciting life!

Also, it was wonderful to see Chris Saad and Ben Metcalfe (it’s been forever!) whom my daughter enjoyed discussing Dr. Who with! Fellow San Francisco Giants fan Danica Sattui also came by! And, I had the pleasure to meet IRL Twitter friends Heather Meeker as well as Shana Ray!

Another highlight of the night was the wine. I missed the first tasting. I enjoyed the second tasting of Sav Blanc and a red blend, but sadly I can’t remember the name of the winery! Hopefully someone can help me out in the comments!? I thoroughly enjoyed the last tasting. Bubbles are my favorite! Ca’Momi Winery shared their Ca’Rosa and Ca’Secco Sparkling! I had to go back for seconds for the Ca’Rosa! That *may* be gracing my Thanksgiving table!

It was a rather surreal night for me. I truly felt like my worlds were colliding: family, tech, and wine. I was with my daughter(family), and saw many friends from the San Francisco tech social scene, as well as a few Napa wine friends. It was a grand night!

A few pictures from the night can be found on Flickr here. (Honestly, I usually take a lot more, but I was enjoying sharing the night with my daughter!)

The event was live-streamed by Toutsuite. I did find the middle session with Barry Schuler online here. I’m hoping that possibly videos will be posted for later viewing. I will update the blog if I find a link!

Some of my fellow bloggers may realize what a pain this one was to link up!

Please do let me know if any links or credits are incorrect and I will be happy to edit.

I would love it if you would please share your thoughts and comments below, or your personal highlights if you were there!

June 12, 2012 – JETLAG in association with Trendy Lime Productions is celebrating it’s second anniversary with an event on Thursday, June 14th!

JETLAG and Trendy Lime throw upscale parties for the glamorous trendy international crowd. You WANT to be there!

I was graciously invited by Liana Burtsava to the pre-party for supporters and media last week which was a first class ticket all the way! Pictures from the event at Art People are here.

Liana Bursava and Heidi Groshelle

The JETLAG Festival event will feature a stunning fashion show by Russian designer, Vasily Vein, and his beautiful entourage of international models.

Mingle with other glamorous professionals and global trendsetters in the historic and stunning Redwood Room of the Clift Hotel.

Come photo ready with your closest friends and strike some sexy (or silly) poses for SnapFiesta’s vibrant, open-set photobooth.

Early Bird Tickets are $20 – part of proceeds will be donated to CARE.org benefiting their “Help Her Learn” Campaign.

The “Help Her Learn” Campaign benefits underprivileged girls. “101 million children around the world are out of school.* The majority of these young people are girls. A lack of education not only limits their ability to control their own lives, but also make positive contributions to the lives of others.”

Tickets are available through Eventbrite here.

To join the Trendy Lime crowd and be invited to future events, sign up on their website: http://trendylime.com/. Also, “Like” their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/trendylime.

Photo credit: Shein aka tshein

November 25, 2011 – It’s Black Friday, and I’ve failed miserably at it.

It all started a few days ago…when my daughter, Alexandra, looked through an ad and found an XBox 360 4gb on sale for $100. She thought this would make a perfect Christmas present for her boyfriend. The catch was…you had to be there when the doors opened at 4:00am.

She asked me to go pick it up for her. Now, mind you, I have never participated in this Black Friday madness. Well…I have shopped on Black Friday, but not extreme shopping, not the getting up in the middle of the night when you should be sleeping shopping. But this time I agreed because there are legitimate reasons why she couldn’t go herself, and I know she’s on a budget, and well I love her and all that.

My plan was: get up at 3:30am, be at the store by 4:00am, buy the XBox, be back in bed by 4:30am.

I got up at 3:30am, and arrived at the store by 4:00am(Yes I am purposely not mentioning the store name). When I got there I walked right in, but then hesitated as I realized there was an insanelyyy long organized line of people waiting to go in(I asked later and was told they let them in to line up starting at midnight). I did the right thing and went to the end of the line, which was already moving in.

After I got in to the store I walked back to the electronics section and asked someone where the XBox was, I was first pointed to one area, where the surrounding customers told me that the ones that were left were a higher gigabyte model and were $299. That they only had 20 of the $99 models and they had been grabbed first thing. I didn’t take their word for it though and went and asked an employee, who pointed me to a different area, but they again said, “they were stacked over here, but that’s the first thing everyone grabbed”.

The moral of this story is – plan ahead. If you’re going to do the Black Friday thing, do it right. Or maybe…don’t hesitate and barge right in…

Reconnaissance: Go the day before and scout out what you want. Ask the employees where the item will be placed and how many of them they have.

Arrival: Get there many hours before the store opens and stand in line. Plan to dress warm and bring yourself snacks and entertainment. Make sure your phone is charged!

Action: Once those doors open go straight for your target bargain! Don’t be distracted by all the other pretty displays!

I don’t know if I’ll actually do the Black Friday thing again…I’m more of a Cyber Monday girl…but if I do…I’ll take my own advice. Live and learn…

And did I get back to bed at 4:30am at least? No, I stayed up until 6:00am to finish one blog post and write this one!

Have you ever done Black Friday? Any tips or tricks to share? Please comment below!