The “fam tour” or “familiarization tour” is standard practice by which tourism boards and Convention and Visitor’s Bureaus (CVBs) introduce their destinations to media people.

In the past, such tours have been filled with only print and broadcast media representatives. Not any more.

One example in progress right now is the “So Much More Hawaii” fam tour just for bloggers; it’s sponsored by the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA.)

I’m on the tour covering mostly family travel, and other blogging specialists include:

• Rick Calvert, founder, Blog World and New Media Expo – a huge annual blogging conference.  He’ll cover the islands as a business and convention destination.
• Leah Lamb, covering eco-tourism and green travel for Current TV. I know she must be intrigued by Hawaii’s recent efforts to invest in clean and renewable energy resources.
• Jim Turner, OneByOne Media and host of the Social Mediasphere show on Blog Talk Radio.
• Shira Lazar, blogging on solo travel for Jaunted.com, the pop culture travel guide.
• Aric S. Queen, producer, writer, podcaster and value travel blogger for the UpTake travel site.
• Mark Tafoya, our tour foodie blogger. He’s a professional chef and co-founder of the Culinary Media Network.
• L.P. “Neenz” Faleafine, a native Hawaiian, Chief Evangelist for Alltop.com and founder of Hawaii-basedPono Media.

As we all know, the economy is down around the world. The Hawaii tourism industry is in crisis right now andthe outlook is grim.

By some standards, this social media outreach could be considered a risky move by the HTA, but I think it’s simply smart.

I applaud this major tourism organization for seeking new, more effective ways to use social media to showcase the islands for potential visitors.

More from Every Dot Connects

• When women blog, it’s fashion?
• Social Media Marketing GPS: Twitter Tactics – American Marketing Association

Chris Brogan has another project. How does he do it? Dad-O-Matic goes live today.

I was honored to be asked to join a group of great bloggers and, more importantly, really great people who also happen to be dads or have something to share about dads. Please visit the new site and comment, especially on my post. You know how fragile the male ego is. We need a lot of reassurance.

You know, I feel kind of feel like a proud dad all over again, just by being part of the project. Thank you Chris.

~Mike Chapman

P.S. Don’t forget, the victims of Hurricane Ike need your help. Use the ‘Strike Back at Ike’ widget over on the right to help directly with your online contribution.

The first annual Blogtoberfest is coming to San Marcos, Texas. When? You guessed it…in October. How could we resist? October 5th, to be exact.

The Texas Hill Country has long been famous for its natural beauty and as a gathering place for friendly folks. With a large number of citizens with German ancestry, the area hosts a number of Oktoberfest events, including Wurstfest in New Braunfels. A group of us social media types thought it was time to tie in the tradition of the old with the advent of the new, and so the idea of Blogtoberfest was born. The actual name is Connie Reece’s creation, but the idea of having fun in San Marcos is nothing new.

The City of San Marcos, located almost an equal distance from Austin and San Antonio, is positioning itself as the “hub” of the creative corridor in Central Texas. It hosts a major, research University – Texas State – and is ideal for attracting clean and new technology-based companies and jobs. It is also a natural destination for the creative and technically savvy professionals who make up the new creative class.

So on Friday night, October 5th, from 6 pm until we’re done, there will be presentations by notable bloggers on what is new, what works, and what is fun in the blogosphere. This first will be done in conjunction with the first Barcamp San Marcos, to be held the following day. This will be a great chance to get to know San Marcos and to kick what will surely be a new Central Texas tradition.

Gordo’s on the Square is hosting Blogtoberfest. CenturyTel is already sponsoring and speakers will be announced soon. So please link to the Blogtoberfest website to register.

Announcing the Grand Prize winner of the MakeConnieLaugh in 140 Characters or Less Contest will be the last off-topic post; we’ll resume regular blogging tomorrow. On second thought, is it really off-topic when your blog is about social networking and making connections through conversation?

The winning entry for the Grand Prize not only made me laugh, it had a special significance for me — one the writer could not possibly have known about, and one that directly pertained to the reason I was feeling blue and needed cheering up in the first place. The synchronicity really does not surprise me, though, for Jon Swanson, author of Levite Chronicles, is a man who listens with his heart.

Here’s his winning entry, and remember that it appears here in reverse chronological order.

When I dreamed up this contest, I had just been through a rough week. Then on Saturday morning, I found this post in my RSS reader. The last time I’d had a chance to sit down for a chat with John Moore, we talked about his mom’s battle with ALS. In addition to reading his blog, I’d been following John’s marvelous video scrapbook, narrated by his mom, Glenna, until she lost the ability to speak. Just take a look at this sample, where John’s dad, Al, tells about his love for Glenna.

I knew all too well what the Moore family was going through, having lost my father to a neurodegenerative disease in December 2000. He managed to maintain his sense of humor until the end, but the suffering took a huge toll on our family. As time passes, you forget the suffering and remember all the laughter. But for a few moments on Saturday morning, it all came back when I found out about Glenna Moore.

Thanks to my Twitter pals, the painful memories soon faded as person after person endeavored to make me laugh. And here’s why Jon’s Burma-Shave for the Information Highway tweets bowled me over.

My father loved to load the family in the car and take us places. Back in those days (remember, I’m older than the average Internet maven), the occasional series of weathered Burma-Shave signs still dotted the back roads of the Hill Country. Dad would slow down so my sister and I could read them out loud.

That would distract us momentarily, but like every small child on a road trip, we would soon be asking how much longer it would be before we reached our destination. “Daddy, are we there yet?”

Daddy would always reply, “Not much farther. It’s just over that next hill.”

Those words came back to me on that final, unbearably long night when we kept a bedside vigil at Hospice Austin’s Christopher House. Dad’s breathing became so labored that each breath would raise him chest-first off the bed. The nurses increased the dose of morphine to ease his pain.

At one point, when this lifelong Daddy’s Girl didn’t think she could take it any longer, I kissed his cheek and whispered, “Not much farther, Daddy. It’s just over that next hill.”

Mercifully, a couple of hours later my father slipped from this life to the next. I like to think that if there are two-lane roads in heaven, Daddy has “the pedal to the metal” on a battleship-sized Cadillac Fleetwood or Chrysler Imperial (his cars of choice), slowing down only long enough to read the angelic equivalent of Burma-Shave signs.

With more love and laughter and appreciation than you can imagine, Jon, I’m sending an autographed hardcover copy of The Age of Conversation your way.

I never imagined that the MakeConnieLaugh in 140 Characters or Less contest would turn out to be such a dangerous event. While I can’t award a Purple Heart, I can award a First Place prize to Tim Siedell, an advertising guru and jerky afficianado [inside joke] who was so determined to make me smile that he wound up injuring himself.

You’ll have to dig deep on the Web to find a real photo of Tim; on his Bad Banana blog and Twitter he prefers to use the iconic image of one of his heroes, legendary adman David Ogilvy. A well-thumbed copy of Ogilvy on Advertising has a place of honor on one of my many bookshelves as well.

Here is the series of entries from Tim that cracked me up. Remember, these are posted in reverse chronological order, so it helps to start reading at the bottom.

Here’s a shout-out to Brenda and Ryan for adding to the fun.

A final note to Tim: I am still awarding you First Place, even though I later found out from your Web site that you also won the World’s Toughest Briefs competition. Somehow it sounds like you weren’t exactly playing fair here; nevertheless, you can still expect an autographed copy of The Age of Conversation.

The MakeConnieLaugh in 140 Characters or Less Contest was about more than passing along one-liners or jokes, although those did have me chuckling. The impromptu competwittion (so-called because it occurred mostly on Twitter) was about connecting with a community, about the give and take of conversation, the daily sharing of our ups and downs.

Quite often there is humor involved in our back-and-forth exchanges, so when my pal WickedStepmom twittered the lines below, it triggered a light-bulb-over-the-head moment.

Thinking I should @conniereece on every tweet in case I am accidentally funny. 03:31 PM

@conniereece Which is similar to being “accidentally cool” like the hippity-hoppity Mumble in Happy Feet. 03:33 PM

I started putting gold stars by all the tweets that made me laugh–and there were many. I will post some of them on the blog in the coming days, along with some link love for their authors.

It was tough making a final decision in this category. I read and reread the entries, and I kept coming back to this one, which caused me to burst out laughing just before the contest deadline:

WickedStepmom Nobody move!! I’ve dropped me brain! 11:04 PM

I’m happy to report that the missing brain was, indeed, recovered the next morning by a fellow Twitpal on a visit to the doctor’s office.

BlondeByDesign @conniereece – I believe we found Wicked Stepmom’s brain. Honorary blonde day for WSM, Making arrangements for fedex return shipping. lol

So, without further ado (or with Much Ado About Nothing), let me introduce you to the winner of the Accidental Entry Award: Cathy.

In addition to being a prolific tweeter and member of the Twitter Knitters group on Crafty Nation, Cathy writes The Wicked Stepmom, a blog where she shares “a real life fairytale celebrating the trials and tribulations, joys and jubilations of life as a custodial Stepmom, Mom and Second Wife. This is my once upon a time…”

To maintain privacy, Cathy has given pseudonyms to the people who populate her real-life stories of being the wicked stepmom in her personal fairy tale.

Cast of Characters

Wicked Stepmom: I am a daughter and stepdaughter. I have a Mom, Dad, Stepmom, ex-Stepmom and had a Stepfather. I am a Sister and Stepsister. I have one brother and four Stepbrothers. I am a Second Wife, Mom and custodial Stepmom.

Prince Charming: Husband. Married 2001.

Cinderella: Stepdaughter. Born 1996.

Hansel: Son. Born 2002.

Gretel: Daughter. Born 2005.

Maleficent: Cinderella’s BioMom.

Cathy, thanks for Making Connie Laugh, and for sharing your life and your humor with a community of tweeters. A softcover copy of The Age of Conversation will be coming your way.

At every beauty pageant a contestant is chosen as Miss Congeniality, the young woman who best exemplifies the spirit of the competition. Last month my cousin Jordan Chanley won the Miss Congeniality award in the Miss New Mexico competition. I’m not proud or anything.

While the MakeConnieLaugh in 140 Characters or Less Contest was not a pageant, it did motivate some very beautiful people to encourage someone in their community–me–who was feeling down.

And nobody, I mean nobody, got in the spirit of things more than Marti Lawrence (Twitter name: Marti_L), who is hereby crowned Miss Congeniality.

Marti had a bit of advantage, since she is a humor columnist and author of Queen Klutz, a collection of essays about her misadventures.

On her blog, Enter the Laughter, Marti says, “I write humorously about bad luck, being a klutz, cars that hate me, life, love and family. I’ve broken both ankles twice, amputated my right index finger and had it reattached. I’ve had the transmission fall out of a Dodge van while driving down the interstate. My teenage son wrecked my car, resulting in an E-Bay auction for the $2,000 French Fry, which caused the wreck. If I couldn’t write about this stuff being funny, I’d be in a rubber room.”

I have not even counted up the many one-liner entries Marti tweeted during the two-day contest, which included her birthday celebration. Here’s a sampling:

5 out of 4 people have trouble with statistics.

If you smoke after sex you’re doing it too fast.

Why is “bra” singular and “panties” plural?

“Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes.”

Dyslexia: it can warn without striking!

I’m always late. My ancestors arrived on the June Flower.

Corny? Yeah. But Marti plunged into the contest as if she were bungee jumping off the Tallahatchee Bridge. I simply could not let such exuberance go unrewarded.

So, Marti. A softcover copy of The Age of Conversation is headed your way. Many, many thanks for Making Connie Laugh!

Oh, and I’m sorry @EvilBambiOhio assaulted your husband’s car today. But I figure you’ll just turn it into another chapter in another book.

How can I possibly thank the 32 people who sent 103 short, funny messages to brighten my weekend by entering the MakeConnieLaugh in 140 Characters or Less Competwittion?

What started out as a blue Saturday morning soon turned into one of the sunniest weekends I’ve had in a while–not because of the weather, because we are still having our daily downpours. Instead my “mourning was turned to joy” by a community of friends who hang out here and on Twitter.

I wish I could award you all a prize. (But it ain’t gonna happen, so don’t get your hopes up.)

Last night I stayed up late rereading the entries and making my decisions. Because I want to spread out the fun, I will announce the winners over the next few days. I’ll also create a page where I can share some “link love” with everyone who played along.

Here are the final award categories:

Miss Congeniality Award

Accidental Entry Award

First Place Prize

Grand Prize

My next post will announce the first award, so stay tuned!

What do you do when you’re feeling kinda blue on a Saturday morning? Start a silly contest on Twitter — I suppose that would be a competwittion? — and extend it to your blog.

But MakeConnieLaugh is a real contest with real prizes! Here are the rules:

1. Use @conniereece to tweet your entry.

2. If you’re not on Twitter, enter by leaving a comment below. However, your entry must conform to the 140-character limit.

3. Entries must be received by 11:59 p.m. Central Time on Sunday, July 29, 2007. (I turn into a pumpkin at midnight.)

4. Twitter entries will be favorited with a gold star so I can review them later. Judging is entirely subjective; after all, the goal of the contest is to make me laugh.

5. Winning entries will be announced on Monday, July 30, 2007 via Twitter and this blog.

Now, what will you receive if you actually Make Connie Laugh?

Grand Prize: Hardcover copy of The Age of Conversation, retail value $29.99, autographed by yours truly.

First Place: Softcover copy of The Age of Conversation, retail value $16.99, ditto on the autograph.

The Age of Conversation is a collaborative book by 103 authors, including some of the top voices in marketing and social media today. Click the book graphic for all the details about this innovative project. I’m privileged to be found in the pages of this remarkable book with a chapter called “The Two-Step of Conversational Writing.”

All MakeConnieLaugh entries will get some link love here on Every Dot Connects, as well as my appreciation for participating. My heart is already lighter after just a few entries.

So go ahead … make me laugh.

Update: This contest is turning out to be so much fun that I’ll be adding a few more copies of The Age of Conversation softcover as prizes. So get those entries in by midnight tonight, Sunday, for a chance to win.

Fellow Age of Conversation co-author Greg Verdino, Chief Strategy Officer at crayon, tagged me for the current meme: Eight Random Things About Me. I’m not sure I can hold your attention for that long, but here goes . . .

1. Although I’m an SOB, I’m a lot shorter than Liz Strauss. A lot.

2. My 83-year-old mother is on Facebook. I haven’t introduced her to Twitter yet, but she does use google as a verb.

3. One of my part-time jobs in college was playing piano for a dinner theater — 8 shows a week for a typical six-week run of each production. Did Fiddler on the Roof twice and never want to hear “If I Were a Rich Man” again. Ever.

4. I have a B.A. in French and used to be fluent. Sometimes I read Loic Le Meur just to see how much I can still understand. I get the gist but can no longer do complete translation. Quel dommage.

5. When I worked in publishing, I once sent all my trash home with our housekeeper, who lived in a neighboring town, so the tabloids could not rummage through my garbage cans for snippets of the hush-hush book I was working on. I should explain that we initiated the long-distance trash hauling after I received an empty FedEx package; an edited copy of the manuscript was missing. (You’re not paranoid if they’re really following you.)

6. I am domestically challenged. Can’t grate cheese without losing a fingernail, and I iron wrinkles into a shirt.

7. I fear I’m way too old to be a fan of I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? … but I iz addikted to teh kittehs.

8. This final one is especially for Mike Chapman, who loves to hear me say that I am my own first cousin … and it’s true.

Now, here’s the best part: According to the official rules (official? surely they’re written down somewhere?), I get to tag 8 others to play the Eight Random Things About Me meme. So, rev your blogging engines — Chris Cree, Jim Long, Robert Hruzek, Jordan Behan, Luc Debaisieux, Carolyn Manning, Susan Reynolds and Kris Hoet.

It’s not like you’ll have 8 years of bad luck if you don’t play along with the 8 Things meme … but we’d love to learn more about you.

Update: This meme is spreading so fast that some of us are tagging each other simultaneously. Thanks to Ted Demopoulos, author of What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging & Podcasting, for also tagging me. Check out his 8 Random Things post and browse the site; Ted is a great resource for the blogging and podcasting community.