Have you checked out the MVP List lately? Have you noticed that some of the members made the list more than once?  We certainly did! That is why we give you --the Community--the opportunity to tell some of these members that you appreciate them.  We created an idea exchange (Community All-Stars 2011)just for this purpose.  Your All-Star picks are

What is Week 52?  And should I be worried? Will I turn into a pumpkin? No, nothing like that. (Or, at least not that I am aware of from a Verizon Community Management standpoint).  If you are making arrangements for attending a ball this summer and using mice in a horse drawn carriage… you are on your own =)

Some might ask what in the world is a Lithy? Well, let me tell you. The “Lithys” are also known as the Social Customer Excellence Awards presented every year by our vendor Lithium (the powerhouse behind our forums). Every year, your community management team attends the annual LiNC conference where we get to meet other community practitioners who also use the Lithium platform. We also get to meet the people at Lithium, such as our customer success manager, and that helps us with ideas for how we can

My daughter enjoyed her last day of school activities today.  Both the ice cream social and extended recess with her friends was well deserved.  The class worked so hard memorizing their verses, forming sentences with the weekly spelling word lists, and using her addition and subtraction facts to solve simple everyday problems (Intro to Algebra???...wow first grade isn’t what it used to be!).   I also enjoyed my nephew’s kindergarden program which focused on “Community Heroes.”  Each child got to wear a costume of what they want to be when they grow up.  I have to say in about twenty years there will not be a shortage of veterinarians!

Memorial day for a lot of people is the start of summer, a day of barbeques, and mattress sales. Traditionally, Memorial Day is a day we take the time to pay tribute to the men and women of the armed forces that have died in our nation’s service.

Here’s what I think about on Memorial Day.

We are excited to continue with our Meet The Expert sessions here in the Verizon Community.  We know that our community members are the self-starters and problem solvers of our Verizon Customers.  That is why we thought you would be interested in learning more about Verizon's existing and emerging self-service tools.

Water coolers. Break rooms. Lounges. They’re all gathering places, where people chit-chat and get to know each other. You can relax a little bit, sit in a comfy chair and maybe grab your favorite beverage. We all need a place to wind down at one time or another. So we’ve decided to set up an off topic board here in the Community. For you.

We know that our Verizon Community members ask the best questions.  We also know that our Verizon Community members are extremely helpful and give the best answers.  If you have Verizon FiOS TV and/or FiOS Internet or Verizon High Speed Internet and are opted in to receive emails from Verizon,  you may have been noticed that forums posts have been featured in the Verizon “Spotlight” email.  In today’s blog post, you will see some of our community member posts that have been featured in “Spotlight”.

Each year, April 22nd, or "Earth Day" marks what many consider the birth of the modern environmental movement, on this day in 1970. The nation was coming out of the turbulent 60s, and as a whole starting to become more and more aware of our impact on the environment, and how to be "green," or more environmentally conscious.

You asked. We heard.  As previously mentioned on the Verizon At Home Blog, "...our Meet the Expert series of Verizon Community chat events gives you an opportunity to interact real-time with some of Verizon’s strategic thinkers, thought-leaders, and innovation rock stars.  Each time we will focus on different topics..." Our next Meet the Expert event will give you the opportunity to tune-in to the latest happenings for FiOS TV.

With the innovative, new ideas you have been giving us on the Verizon Idea Exchange,the interesting comments on our blogs,and of course the lively discussions amongst peers on our Verizon Community Forums, here at Verizon we are recognizing every day how much we appreciate our community members.  We can see that you want a place to talk with Verizon and other Verizon customers about your Verizon products and services that tie so closely into your everyday life.  That is why this month we are bringing you

We wanted to let you know that ComBlu, A leading social engagement firm, has named Verizon's website the top community website among telecommunications companies, and 6th overall among all companies. The rankings are contained in ComBlu's second annual "State of Online Brand Communities" report.

We recently posted a link to our Idea Exchange on Facebook. We loved the response and feedback, and wanted to let you know what we’re doing about it.

We’ve gone through the comments, and identified some running themes. A lot of suggestions are along the lines of what we’ve been seeing on the Idea Exchange. Some ideas like, “make FiOS available in my area” and various set top box improvements are similar to ideas that have already been suggested in our community.

There are certainly a number of good ideas from Facebook we want to consider. We’re posting new ideas from Facebook onto the Idea Exchange, with the first names of posters, and “from Facebook.” So be sure to take a look, discuss, and vote on these new ideas from Facebook.

Thank you for all the great posting and participation in 2010.  I can hardly believe January is nearly over.  I am excited to see that we are off to a great start for 2011.  Just like last year, you can expect your Community Beat Blog to continue to be the same place you hear from your community managers on whatever “community topics” that meet our fancy.

So…I was looking through some release note and I realized that our friends over at Lithium Engineering department snuck in more macros for us. 

I thought I would share a quick tip on where to find them and how to use them =) 

Once I got my Droid, one of the first things I did was to add my two Yahoo accounts. With the Yahoo Mail app, I could check both with the touch of an icon, and get a notification when I get new mail on either account. I definitely had to cut down on a lot of the email newsletters I get, as I follow a lot of social media, writing, and entertainment news.

I diverted some of these newsletters to my Gmail so I would still get them, and disabled the notifications to Gmail so my phone wasn't beeping all the time. I also found a fantastic app called Pulse, which allows you to add numerous news feeds under one interface. Now, with the touch of an icon, I get all my news in one place, but still get the email newsletters over in Gmail.

The Droid integrates well with Google and Gmail, so I began to better utilize my Gmail calendar and tasks with my personal and business calendars and to dos. I still wanted a better way to track to dos, and use an app called Astrid. Astrid synchs with Gmail tasks, so you can add tasks in Gmail or in Astrid. They can be organized into lists, assigned dates, prioritized, have notes added, and even tags.

I am working towards a new focus for 2011, trying to use the technology on-hand to be more efficient and stay more connected. I was struck by social media guru Chris Brogan's recent blog Make Kitchen Table Companies with Cloud Plus Mobile followed soon after by a Brad McCarty blog on how smartphones have become "notification devices."

I had a PDA for while, but I kept letting the batteries run out and I'd lose all my data.

My first cell phone was a hand me down from my Mom, in the $5 a minute cell phone days, and looked like the phone you'd see John Wayne using as he was calling in an air strike in some World War II movie.

I had a Captain Kirk Flip Phone for too many missions; I got a Razr long after Razrs had stopped being cutting edge. After I got my Blitz I found out it was marketed specifically for teenage girls to text their girlfriends with.

Thank you for our community, and thank you TO our community members.

Our forums have so many of you helping each other on a daily basis. Our blogs bring you up to date news on Verizon happenings, and include you in the dialog. In our community you can suggest new things to Verizon, learn a little bit, talk, and even vent.

Thanksgiving is of course a time for giving thanks for what we have, but I think it’s also a time of traditions, and of coming together in family and friendship.

It’s been 4 months since the launch of Verizon Idea Exchange in the Community Forums, and we thought it would be a great time for an update!

Verizon Idea Exchange is the place where you can share ideas and suggestions with other customers as well as with Verizon. It has been very well received by our customer community with 467 total Ideas posted and 783 total comments to date. You have also been actively voting and have cast 1831 total votes across a variety of ideas.

We’re excited to announce the launch of an awesome new part of the Verizon Community, Room to Learn!

Room to Learn is where you can pull up a chair, sit back and take advantage of workshops and tutorials related to those home networking and home entertainment topics that touch us in our every day life.  You can also hop over to some special new boards like Home Networking and Home Entertainment dedicated to discussions about the courses you’re taking or related topics. 

Customers now have a new tool called the “Verizon Troubleshooter” where they can diagnose, fix, and report issues with Verizon Phone, FiOS TV, or Internet service. With a few clicks of the mouse customers can solve most problems quickly and easily. All without picking up a phone.

We’re always working to enhance the Community, and at the same time take your suggestions. We appreciate your feedback and suggestions on new features and future enhancements.

Let’s take a look at some important new Community features!

So…its time to fill up the wheelbarrow with rocks again!   When this city girl moved to “out to the sticks” I never imagined that I would make friends with my neighbors over the spreading of gravel over holes in the road.  Little did we know when we bought this house what was really meant by “you own up to the middle of the road or passway meant”…it means that if you and your neighbors don’t maintain the road

We've all had it happen. You labor over a post or a reply only to see it vanish into the ether because of a power outage. Poof! Gone!

We can help you hang on to your drafts by saving them for you every few seconds. The new Autosave Drafts feature saves a draft of your messages, replies, blog posts, ideas, or comments at a set (configurable) interval.  Here's how to use it.

Recently, on National Lasagna Day , my wife, who is a fabulous cook, tried a new recipe. A lasagna with mushrooms and spicy Italian sausage that was delish. This all of course reminded me of one of our most active and helpful community members, Lasagna. I'm not sure Lasagna is a lasagna fan. Lasagna is not even Italian, but used to be a big Garfield fan, probably back when Garfield was still funny. Garfield is a lasagna fan, and thus...Lasagna, one of our Top Kudoed Authors. We can tell the community likes Lasagna too.

In 2008, we started an experiment to see how much customers wanted to interact with each other and help solve each other’s problems. The first month brought 326 questions (new threads) to the Verizon Forums even more notable was the 850 posts of advice (or replies).

Great ideas can come from anywhere. It’s happened to all of us: you could be driving to work, out with your friends, or even sitting at home watching TV, when all of a sudden the light bulb in your head pops on and a new idea is just waiting to get out and be shared. That’s especially true of the members here on the Verizon Community- anyone who’s spent time reading the forums knows how many ideas about our products and services pop out of discussions about problems, solutions or just friendly chatter.

Within the next few days, you will be seeing a few changes around the Verizon Community. More specifically, Verizon Wireless will be creating its own dedicated community. This will allow both the Verizon and the Verizon Wireless communities to better utilize space to offer you more content and functionality

Across Verizon Territory avid sports enthusiasts experienced the final Soccer World Cup matches in stunning FiOS TV picture quality. The most important game of course (especially for one) was the game that led to the naming of the MVP (Most Valuable Player). After googling all things MVP and all things World Cup

For me, the greatest July 4th was in 1976, the U.S. Bicentennial. I was 6 years old, living in a hot New York summer. Everything and everyone seemed patriotic in honor of our country’s independence. I remember the whole family getting together at a big lake and watching what seemed at the time to be the greatest firework display of all time. I still think of that night every 4th of July, and every time I see fireworks. It was one of the last times we all got together, everyone moved on soon after that.