Tag Archives: twitter

Primary Election Day: A Look at How Local Candidates Are and Are Not Using Twitter

Today, Tuesday, May 16, 2017 is Primary Election Day in the state of Pennsylvania. I am particularly interested to see how the turnout for this local election compares to previous primary elections that occur after a presidential election. Since November, there has been an incredible volume of posts on social media about getting involved in local issues. The turnout today will be an interesting metric of if posting about local politics translates into voting locally.

I have been following the election on Twitter all day and out of curiosity, I wanted to see what the candidates are tweeting about today. As I was building a Twitter list of candidates, I was a little surprised to find that many of the candidates on the ballot in the City of Pittsburgh are not on Twitter. I’ve put together a list of candidate that are on the ballot in Pittsburgh with their Twitter handles and # of followers today. Given that the current President of the United States uses Twitter on a daily basis, and that Twitter is used by many politicians in Washington to communicate with constituents, I expected that more of the local candidates would have Twitter accounts.

I have excluded the judicial candidates and magistrate races from this list. Of the 20 candidates listed only 11 have Twitter accounts, (handles are listed below) and not all of them are very active.

The only candidates that have posted at least one tweet today are @tkailsmith , @FifeMyers , @DanielGilman , @BillPeduto & @AshleighDeemer.

You can follow our Twitter list of Pittsburgh primary candidates here. Live stream of candidate tweets is included below.

Office Candidate Twitter # of Followers
1 Mayor of City of Pittsburgh Bill Peduto @BillPeduto 57,123
2 Darlene Harris @Darlene4Pgh 1291
3 John Welch @welch4mayor 124
4 Allegheny County Sheriff Bill Mullen
5 George Satler
6 Pittsburgh City Council District 2 Theresa Kail-Smith @TKailSmith 1583
7 Pittsburgh City Council District 4 Anthony Coghill @CoghillAnthony 28
8 Ashleigh Deemer @AshleighDeemer 1245
9 Pittsburgh City Council District 6 Daniel Lavelle @RDLavelle 3260
10 Pittsburgh City Council District 8 Daniel Gilman @RDLavelle 6001
11 Allegheny County Council Jim Ellenbogen
12 Robert J. Palmosina
12 Pittsburgh School Board District 1 Sylvia C. Wilson @SylviaCWilson 30
14 Pittsburgh School Board District 3 James Myers @FifeMyers 436
15 Sala Udin @SalaUdine 200
16 Pittsburgh School Board District 5 Terry Kennedy
17 Ghadah Makoshi @G_Makoshi_PGH 10
18 Pittsburgh School Board District 7 Cynthia A. Falls
19 Pittsburgh School Board District 9 Veronica Edwards
20 Carolyn Klug

Awesome Pittsburgh to Hold Office Hours on Sunday

Awesome-Pittsburgh-bannerIf you are interested in who in Pittsburgh is helping others to turn ideas into reality then one of the organizations that you need to know about is Awesome Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh needs more people coming up and trying out crazy ideas.  And I love Awesome Pittsburgh and the Awesome Foundation because they help people try out these ideas.  One of the major theories in the world of startups in the idea of Lean Entrepreneurship and MVP (minimum viable product).  How soon can you get your business to market to try the idea and get feedback.  I think that Awesome Pittsburgh grants bring a much needed support to help Pittsburghers get turn ideas in to actual projects.

For example, one of the amazing people I met last month on the Millennial Trains Project trip is Jennie Gottstein who has created an interesting project in San Francisco called Score.  I would love to see if we could bring Jennie and Score to Pittsburgh and I am certainly going to see if Awesome Pittsburgh can help make that idea a reality.  [By the way – Jennie is also the brains behind a zombie themed disaster preparedness game that would be great to bring to Pittsburgh too – be sure to follow her on Twitter @jettstein]

Learn More at the Awesome Pittsburgh Office Hours

So if you have an idea, or just the beginnings of an idea for something you would like to see in Pittsburgh – head over to Social at Bakery Square on Sunday to meet the Awesome Pittsburgh team and get some feedback on your idea and how to apply for an Awesome grant.

Awesome Pittsburgh Office Hours
Sunday, September 14th // 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Social, Bakery Square – 6425 Penn Ave, Larimer
No RSVP necessary

Some of the amazing projects that Awesome Pittsburgh has Already Supported

You can check out the whole list here – all are truely awesome.  But here are a few that you can check out to see what $1000 can do for the community

  • Smiles for Hilltop – helping local doctors test a program to provide dental care and prevention in the Hilltop neighborhoods.
  • ZipPitt – exploring a zipline for Pittsburgh
  • GLAD Bags for Foster Children – creating comfort bags for kids who are removed from a home to replace the trash bag which is what is currently used.

What is Awesome Pittsburgh?

The short answer – a group that gives out $1000 grants to great ideas

The long answer…

Awesome Pittsburgh is a chapter of the Awesome Foundation, a global network of people devoted to forwarding the interest of awesomeness in the universe.

The Awesome Foundation grants money – cold hard cash – to people or groups with brilliant ideas, with a new project getting funded each month by chapters around the world. Pittsburgh, already a hotbed of awesomeness, is brimming with smart, passionate, creative, crazy people. Awesome Pittsburgh is giving some of you $1000 to do something amazing. We want to hear the best ideas for making Pittsburgh stand out in the global economy, for connecting our communities, for celebrating art or technology, for making the city a better place to live, work, and play, or for simply surprising and delighting us and our fellow Pittsburghers.

Read more about the Awesome Foundations in other cities…

Still looking for a summer internship? We’re looking for an Events Editor!

We’re looking for a summer intern (can continue into the fall as well) to take control of our events calendar.  There are so many amazing, awesome, cool events happening around Pittsburgh and we can’t keep up.

We’re looking for a blogging, social media rock-star (or wanna be rock-star) to take the rains of the events section of IheartPGH.

Event Editor Responsibilities include…

  • review and approve submitted events
  • clean up the events calendar – help make this page look awesome – you don’t have to know how to code, but a willingness to learn more about WordPress and wordpress plugins will be helpful.
  • curate event categories – what are we missing? what can be improved?
  • Explore partnerships with other organizations that are looking to promote events around Pittsburgh
  • attend 1 event per week and write a blog post about it
  • share photos on Instagram, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest
  • help us build the ultimate guide to promoting your event in Pittsburgh
  • determine the best ad strategy for the events calendar
  • 1 meeting per week – you will work from home, your favorite coffee shop, and events around town

You should apply if…

  • you love Pittsburgh or you are new to town and want to learn more about Pittsburgh
  • you like meeting new people
  • you want to learn about social media, blogging, local media, event planning
  • you are ok being paid in coffee, free tickets and free sandwiches (past IheartPGH interns have used this opportunity to land jobs at some work places like here and here)

So you want to apply to be the first IheartPGH Events Editor?  Follow these instructions….

  1. Find an interesting event happening in Pittsburgh in June and submit it to the events calendar.  Take notes on the submission process.
  2. Like IheartPGH on Facebook and Follow @IheartPGH on Twitter
  3. Send an email to events@iheartpgh.com with your name, your favorite blog, 3 ways we can improve the events submission process, a link to your favorite Pittsburgh blog that is not IheartPGH.

Lyft Launches in Pittsburgh: Can a Pink Mustache Solve Our Cab Problem?

LYFT (Photo credit: Tribute/ Homenaje)

LYFT (Photo credit: Tribute/ Homenaje)

UPDATE March 2014: If you are interested in trying Lyft – click here to get $25 in ride credit.  If you are interested in becoming a driver for Lyft – click here to apply. 

I think that one of the things that keeps Pittsburgh from being competitive with other cities is transit.  Both transit to and from the city and transit within the city limits.

Can New Apps/Services Address the Cab Problem in Pittsburgh?

If you go to most major US cities – you can hail a cab.  It is no secret that, unless you are standing at a downtown hotel, it is near impossible to get a cab in this city.

The lack of access to cabs causes all kinds of problems and puts more cars on the streets, more cars mean we need more parking.  More parking means we need more parking garages.  The lack of access to cabs also leads to more drinking and driving.

There are three startup companies that have been working on the cab situation in other cities  – Uber, Lyft and Sidecar.  We’ve heard rumors that Uber has been looking at Pittsburgh for a while and we know they have just hired a Pittsburgh representative.  (There is also a local startup CabbyGo but I haven’t learned much about them).

Lyft is launching in Pittsburgh tomorrow (Friday, February 7) – and I think this is a big deal for this town.  Lyft is a community ride service and the Lyft cars are identified by pink mustaches.

Image representing Lyft as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

What is Lyft?  

From the Lyft website:

Lyft is like having a friend with a car whenever you need one. Simply download the app, request a Lyft and you’ll be on your way in minutes with a friendly, background-checked community driver. It’s more fun and costs less than a cab.

Lyft is more than just an alternative to a cab, they seem to be building an extensive community of riders and drivers.  Check out the intro to Lyft video here for more details on the service and the community aspect.

So, your excited about riding in cars with strangers?  Is that safe? 

I will be the first to admit that I was very skeptical of the idea of riding in a strangers car or driving other people in my car.  But I think the Lyft service is worth a look and from everything I’ve read – I think it is pretty safe.  All of the drivers have passed a background check and are interviewed by the Lyft staff.

I’ve heard great thing about Lyft and I wanted to learn more.  I downloaded the app and applied to be a driver.  Watching the driver education videos really changed my opinion of the service.  Even if you don’t want to become a driver, I would recommend that you download the app and start the application.  The first step of applying is to watch three videos about the service.  I’ve tried to find those videos online but apparently they are only available in the driver application.

Help Lyft Launch in Pittsburgh – Get Free Rides for Two Weeks

To help kick off Lyft’s service in Pittsburgh – you can become a Lyft Pioneer and your rides for the next two weeks are free.  You can get the details on becoming a Lyft Pioneer in Pittsburgh on this post I wrote for the c-leveled blog.

You can follow Lyft on Twitter @Lyft and use the #LyftOffPittsburgh to share your Lyft experiences.

Here are some more articles about Lyft, Uber and SideCar