I haven’t broken my resolutions. I’ve just refined them.

Last week I wrote about my New Year’s resolutions.   How am I doing so far?

Blog more: I wrote that I wanted to blog once a week, and last week I did two posts.
Grade:  A
Refined resolution: blog twice a week.

Set goals: I sketched out some broad goals for the year, but until my preparation for this post, I hadn’t outlined specific goals.
Grade:  F
Refined resolution: set and hit specific, quantifiable goals for the year, each month, week, and day.

Work every weekday: Without this resolution, none of the others are possible.  I got up at a reasonable hour and was “at work” by 10:00 a.m. every free weekday, but I still wasted hours of time.
Grade:  B-
Refined resolution: seven hours of job-hunting, submitting for acting notices, or other administrative tasks each day.

Exercise: I had resolved to exercise three times a week, thirty minutes per session.  And I exercised for exactly 15 minutes last week.  By the end of the week, I had as much tension as a coiled spring.
Grade:  D-
Refined resolution: register at local rec center, exercise ninety minutes a week.

Cut the crap: This resolution isn’t quantifiable, so it’s hard for me to grade myself.  But I think I’ve been using fewer excuses in my daily speech.
Grade:  B
Refined resolution: stop making excuses.

My 2011 GPA is a 2.08.   My goal is to have that up to a 4.0 by the end of the month.

How are you doing with your New Year’s resolutions?   What are your strategies?

5 Ways You Can Use Twitter. Yes, you.

“Oh, I don’t tweet.” I’ve heard it more times than I can count. Whether they are skeptics, Facebook-loyalists, or just plain late adopters, people who aren’t on twitter don’t know what they’re missing. Twitter is changing the internet. Will you be left behind?

People who have never used twitter commonly think of it as another version of Facebook. “The last thing I need is another social network where people post every mundane detail of their day.” While there are some twitter users who tweet whenever they pick up coffee (please don’t), twitter is not just a collection of status updates from friends. Facebook and twitter are very different and can be used for distinct purposes.

Twitter is all about who you follow. Unlike Facebook, twitter relationships aren’t mutual, meaning that you can “follow” someone even if they aren’t following you. Fan of Lady Gaga? John McCain? BBC News? 30 Rock? Condé Nast Careers? Follow them on twitter. Your twitter feed will become a real-time news source that is tailored to your specific interests.

That’s when the fun starts. Stay on top of your personalized feed, and you’ll learn about events and giveaways that might not be posted anywhere else. I’m a huge fan of the New York Yankees, so I follow the players, fellow fans and all the sports writers who cover the team. On a day when I had tickets to a game, the beat writers wrote that three of the Yankees pitchers would be greeting fans who arrived at 4:00 p.m. Thank you twitter, for my picture with Yankees pitcher Phil Hughes.

“Oh, that’s nice,” says the skeptic.

“But wait, there’s more!”

You can build your own community by tweeting interesting links, articles and comments on others’ posts. John built a following by regularly posting his beautiful photos of New York City. Soon enough, his fans were clamoring to buy prints of his pictures. Voila, a business was born.

Twitter grants the average person access to people they otherwise may not be able to communicate with. You can send a message to someone, even if they aren’t following you. Just include the @ symbol in front of their user name. Your favorite actor/reporter/athlete just may see your tweet and write back to you, or start following you back.

When my friend’s stepdaughter went missing, I sent messages to several high-profile tweeters, hoping they would re-post it. New York City anchor Pat Kiernan replied that he would check in the news room for updates. To my surprise, actress Alyssa Milano wrote back immediately and asked for more concrete information that she could repost to her one million followers.

By adding a hashtag to my Yankees-related tweets (“Let’s go #Yankees!”), I found other passionate fans from around the country. Their tweets added another dimension to games. In real time, I could see their cheers and learn stats I might otherwise have missed. Two of the Yankees beat writers started following me back, and invited me to drop by the press box before a game. How else would I have gotten to do that?

Here are some recommendations to get you started.

For news headlines: @NYTimes, @CNN, @nprnews, @WSJ.

For a laugh: @capricecrane, @gordonshumway, @shitmydadsays, @thesulk.

Celebrity tweeters: @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher), @mrskutcher (Demi Moore), @rainnwilson, @sethmeyers21, @donniewahlberg, @mindykaling.

For interesting links from around the world: @ebertchicago, @patkiernan, @legalnomads @HAWTaction.

As for me, I’m @Julie_Stone.

If you’re already a twitter user, how do you use the site? Who are your favorite people to follow? What benefits have you had from using twitter?

Yes, Rafa. It must be love. Love for your incredibly chiseled arms. Oh, what, I was supposed to be talking about how effective this ad was. Sorry, I got a little distracted.

A few days ago I stepped off the subway and like any good New Yorker, I made a beeline for the exit. Then I saw this ad for the U.S. Open and stopped in my tracks. Suddenly I remembered that I had not yet bought my tickets, a must-do even though my budget is severely limited these days.

Advertising has two main goals: either to increase awareness of the brand, or to directly increase sales. For an ad to work, people have to notice it, and they have to remember it. (There is an advertising adage that people have to see something six times before they’ll remember it, hence why you can be bombarded by ads for the same product.) If the goal is to increase sales, people have to be impacted by the ad enough to then complete the purchase.

Rafael Nadal’s ad for the U.S. Open worked on all levels. I noticed it so much that I actually stopped in my tracks and turned around to go back and stare at it. I loved it so much that I took a picture of it. It’s only a matter of time before I click the check-out button on the tournament’s website. Rafa, it’s all your fault.