Connor Lawrence

www.westchestermagazine.com — The "living" archive of local history is getting up there in age. The beautiful, 76-acre Sharon Gardens, a division of Kensico intended for Jewish burials For more than a century, Kensico Cemetery, located off of the Bronx River Parkway in Valhalla, has served as a memorial for the County's dearly departed. The cemetery, which turns 125 this year, has been a local landmark since 1889. And while the staff is sure to celebrate the institution's past, they're eyeing the future in an effort to preserve its glory for the next 125 years, an effort that includes demonstrated dedication to family and friends of the deceased.

elitedaily.com — Around two decades ago, David Beckham started his professional play with Manchester United and has since led an extremely successful career solidified by being named one of the top 50 players of the twentieth century. A few months ago, Beckham announced his retirement from the sport, and thus, his glorified 20-year playing career had apparently ended. Though some suggest that his final years with the Los Angeles Galaxy may have been a publicity stunt for the MLS, this may not have spelled out the end to Beckham's relationship with his beloved sport.

elitedaily.com — From acclaimed NCAA superstar to apparent NBA journeyman, it has been a long and strange journey for Michael Beasley, the former second overall pick of the 2008 NBA Draft. It has been five odd years for Beasley but yet despite repeated drug issues, bad hair days, and eerie estate sales in Minnesota, Beasley has finally returned to the team that drafted him not long ago: the Miami Heat. Regardless of how you view it, Beasley has somehow gone from being a member of one of the worst teams in the Association, the Phoenix Suns, to a dynasty in the making in South Beach.

www.westchestermagazine.com — Sandwich Day, National Philanthrophy Day, and Buy Nothing Day? November 3 -Sandwich Day Online sources don't shed much light on the origin of this awesome holiday-but who cares? Seize the excuse to grab a mouthwatering sammy from one of our all-time favorites, like Good-Life Gourmet in Irvington, Melt Sandwich Shop in White Plains, or Blackboard Pizza Shop in New Rochelle. November 7-National Philanthropy Day Given how fortunate many of us are here in the County, the 7 th of November is a great opportunity to think about giving back to the community.

elitedaily.com — Last week, Pope Francis made a daring, improvised speech regarding the doomed global economic system after hearing from an emotional unemployed worker in Cagliari, Italy. The unemployed man, a 45-year-old married father of three, shuddered as he described the horrors of unemployment and its sinister results. "[Unemployment] oppresses you and wears you out to the depths of your soul." In response to the moving plea, a passionate Pope Francis disregarded his set speech and spoke to the people of Cagliari in both an intimate and astute matter. "I find suffering here...It weakens you and robs you of hope," the Pope said.

www.social2b.com — Late last month a study, done by analytics platform Custora, discovered that customer acquisition via email has quadrupled over the last 4 years, while the customer lifetime value (CLV) of customers acquired through Twitter is 23% lower than the overall average. But what does this mean? To be specific, it means that e-mail marketing is presently more efficient than social media marketing. Through email, businesses are able to better drive traffic to their sites and convert sales when compared to social media. Upon hearing the news, hordes of people claimed that social media still wasn't worth the heavy investment marketers have been suggesting.

www.social2b.com — Instagram Video Has Arrived! The very nature of the social networking industry is rapidly shifting as tensions run high after Facebook-owned Instagram announced a new bite-sized video-sharing feature last week, which puts it in direct competition with Twitter's Vine. The announcement came weeks after speculation and, ironically, occurred around the same time a recent survey revealed that Vine was the most successful it had ever been in its brief history. Instagram looks to challenge Vine, offering the ability to shoot and share 15-second videos, equipped with one of 13 exclusive filters.

www.westchestermagazine.com — With its name standing for 'Most Valuable Person,' and not 'Player,' the White Plains camp looks to instill ethics instead of just jumpshots Two Fridays ago, the campers of MVP Basketball Camps were fortunate enough to have a living legend in Allan Houston, the former NBA All-Star and current Assistant GM of the Knicks, come and run basketball drills with them. While the exercises implored the fundamentals of the game (shooting, rebounding, dribbling, etc.) they all had a slight moral twist, to which Houston referred after the presentation. "For me, it's all about teaching life principles that the children can carry on with for the rest of their lives," said Houston.

www.westchestermagazine.com — Digital movie-making, video game development, and attentive instruction highlight what the company's free "digital camps" have to offer Among the suave, contemporary trenches of the Westchester Mall, the Microsoft store celebrates its second summer of business after opening up shop last September. Embedded with a genuine sense of community development, unexpected from stores of its kind, the Microsoft store offers an in-house summer camp giving children the ability to learn and adapt to new digital software. The summer camp program runs twice a season for four weeks at a time, catering exclusively to children aged eight to thirteen.

www.social2b.com — Last week here at Social2B, we discussed the functionality of social media marketing especially the idea of social referrals. We gave the example of a list of 10,000 consumers that could potentially be contacted through e-mail or social media with discounts to be offered. While direct e-mail was limited to the 10,000 consumers, and the potential for a few to forward the discount e-mail to their friends, the social media campaign was combined with a sharing element where if the consumer posted the product on their social media page or liked/followed the company's social media presence, they would be rewarded with the discount.

thenoisethatechoes.wordpress.com — With two days remaining until the 20th anniversary of his death, I took it upon myself to expedite the timeline of this blog and move twenty-four years into the future to cover the impact that Kurt Cobain's death had on the music industry, pop culture, and quite frankly the world. Rooted in the the decades of rock that came before it, the sound produced in the early 1990s was very different than anything seen before. What can only be described as a radical take on rock and blues, the lyrically heavy grunge was a style of music primarily founded within Seattle, Washington.

thenoisethatechoes.wordpress.com — Often hailed as a sort of God of the modern Hip-Hop world, Tupac Shakur's ability to write and rap was unprecedented combining powerful diction with a smooth flow and command. Quite honestly Tupac was so great as an artist that he almost made rapping seem easy. Yet expansion upon Tupac's style, more specifically his content, its understood that there were really two sides of Tupac. There was Tupac the activist, which included his endeavors into poetry, charity, and overall support of inner city areas and the type of at-risk youth such localities produced; but then there was Tupac the thug, a seemingly menace to society who did not care about the consequences to his actions, a man hell-bent on violence and vengeance.