When you first arrive to a location, you know something special is about to transpire when all of your senses are engaged on first impression. This is what happened to me on a recent tour of Patagonia’s headquarters. read more »
Do we understand enough about the present to predict the future? I get asked almost daily to reveal what I believe the future has in store for social media development. I find this topic strange because we barely understand what is happening now in social media. Undoubtedly those of us claiming any kind of expertise in social media are often seduced on keeping up appearances by giving our opinions and predictions at a frequency equal to a self-loading paintball gun. But it’s that very frequency where lack of understanding is proven; an overload of misleading information meant to serve singular purposes, companies and/or people is the problem not the solution. read more »
Over the course of my marketing and advertising career, I have provided marketing, branding and communications strategies for many. Since 2000, I have been working with companies and people helping them understand and grow social networks that suit their needs and wants. While news of our failing economy was breaking in the fall of 2008, I became to realize I am advocate for two themes: Transparency and Accountability. These themes along with a devotion to social networking naturally combined to put me in position to understand and teach people about social media and how to use it. Although my passions have remained consistent, I have found myself getting really disenchanted by articles and conversations about social media because the bulk of the information people are sharing is misleading. Actually, disenchanted might be understatement. At one holiday luncheon of career minded peers, I actually found myself so disgusted by a conversation about Twitter and Facebook I contemplated excusing myself to sit alone at the bar. (Never a good sign in the middle of a day on a work day) I stayed of course, because my colleague’s feelings were more important to me than my discomfort. Trying to settle my discomfort and draw from a positive I realized their conversation promoted a voice in my head that said, “Time to Get Naked!” Well not literally but just as Dr. Phil asks people to “Get Real,” I really wish the overload of misleading social media information will go away. Social media is here to stay. I would like to give everyone a fair shot to understand and use it in a way that best suits their individual needs. Hopefully the information below is helpful to you. I encourage any comments that will further demystify the space as I am sure I have left some things out. read more »
Life is full of possibilities and opportunities. With social media, we now live in global communities. We are not limited by size of local community or lack of information. The greatest challenge comes from determining who you are and what is important to you –finding the “thing” that inspires you to get up every day and do what you. The good news is once you do that, it makes it so much easier to process new information. Part of this process is to understand your strengths and weaknesses. You also need to know; who will you need to connect to in order to fulfill your goals. What experts will you need to enlist? What kind of mentor would be inspiring to you? How will you articulate your dreams and connect that to what other people understand? read more »
