All in Education

I was a much younger man then. Fill with energy and rage for that day. Days would follow and we would fall further into blame. The flags went up and so did the fists. Status quo. Today, I take my little girl to school. I look into the eyes of the future, my future, possibly your future. All I see there is love, laughter, dreams and discovery. We must now teach undying fearlessness with dogged practicality.
Life really does come full circle sometimes. It’s interesting that I spent my formative years observing my parents as professional educators – and now I find myself in the same place. Some people have told me I was destined to be an educator. I don't know if that's true. But even though everything in my extremely busy life indicates I don’t have the luxury of surplus time right now, I felt the need to jump at an opportunity that recently came my way.
Just like your mom when you came home with that first tattoo – I was shocked when I saw the blog post from Cathryn Sloane entitled "Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25" Shock is the only possible reaction to this story, which advocates that social-media professionals over the age of 25 can’t possibly have a clear understanding of the medium.
If you asked Donald Trump to describe his business like a board game, he would probably compare it to Monopoly. Then he would buy your mother and tattoo “Trump” on her forehead in bold, gold letters. You and I are a bit more cerebral about our industry – which is why I compare media relations to chess. It takes strategy, finesse, a little luck and some art. Sadly, I’ll probably never meet your mom, because she won’t be caught dead in the bars where we hang out.
Something immediately pops into your mind when you hear the term “social media. But your definition might differ from that of your boss, or your neighbor, or Seth Godin. The fact is that social media is far more nuanced than most people realize. This topic is near and dear to my heart, and I’ve been preaching about it for the last year – "social business."
Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the University of Central Florida's COMM DAY, which is a personal-development event for students transitioning into the real world. I was a little concerned that they just wanted me for the “after” example in a before-and-after comparison, but it turned out the whole thing was legit. The students from UCF’s Nicholson School of Communication were a fantastic audience, and even a slightly older dog like me learned a few things.
So Dino, tell me what is "Triberr"? Triberr is a weapon that helps small bloggers effectively compete for attention against large media properties, like Mashable, Huffington Post, NYTimes, etc. It's interesting that you should describe it as a weapon seeing as that's how I've seen it since day one. Berrie Pelsner was kind enough to invite me into the beta fold and I've been a hardcore advocate ever since.
I get a lot of questions frequently that seem to pile up. In the "social" aspects of what I do professionally it seems that there are no concrete answers. Everyone answer is vague and tirelessly noncommittal. Instead of trying to chip away at each one, I took a big stab at aggregating as many as I could think of and putting a bow on em'. I know the deck seems needlessly massive but I think there's some great takeaways in there no matter what level you're at.
If you had a chance to read any business news during the holidays, you probably saw several stories about retail spending being up significantly during Q4. Of course this could be new info to those of you with small children, because you were consumed by the eternal search for more AA batteries in the house, and styling parties for Silly Hair Dolls.