I was planning on writing my year end blog tonight, but I'm now saving it for a few days so that I could write about this great documentary I saw yesterday.

Yesterday I was invited over to some friends' place to watch the documentary We Live In Public. It's dubbed the story of the greatest internet pioneer you've never heard of. The tag line does not lie.

We Live In Public is the story of an internet entrepreneur named Josh Harris. Josh Harris was a leader in the dot-com scene/ explosion in the end of the 90's. He started the first internet television network called Pseudo, but was obsessed with the idea of putting people's lives on the internet. He hit the hight of his obsession with two projects, or experiments as he called them, both with the title of We Live In Public.

The first "experirment" was actually called Quiet: We Live In Public. For this project Harris took 100 people and had them live in an underground bunker like building he specially built for a month. Inside the bunker he had set up pods for sleeping and hundreds of cameras and TVs that only showed what was on the cameras. The people were given free food, drink, board and even artillery (they had a shooting range in the bunker) in exchange for Harris being allowed to tape everything and probe for information from the inhabitants. The thing that was unclear to me was if this whole thing was streaming to the outside world on the internet, but I assumed it was given the nature of the man. It looks like it started off fun, but people eventually started to go a bit nuts with their whole lives being viewed publicly 24/7.

The second "experiment" Harris tried was just called We Live In Public. This was the first ever reality show almost. For this project Harris wired up his entire home with cameras and streamed the life of him and his then girlfriend to the world along with an interactive chat feature. Again, the pressure of being in the eye of the public 24/7 proved to be too much and his girlfriend left him and he eventually became frustrated with it and shut it down.

While these experiments on their own seemed really interesting, it was the commentary of the film and how ahead of his time Harris was that really struck me.

Today, social media is exactly like Harris' dream of what the internet would become. It's people talking about and sharing their lives with complete strangers via the interwebs. Through the use of blogs and Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and Flickr and other forms of web 2.0 we are all sharing our lives. Some more than others, but still enough of us that it's become almost the norm. Harris saw this happening over 10 years ago.

I don't want to ruin the whole film for you because I really think that everyone who lives and plays on the interwebs should see this film, but I need to give you one more quote from the movie. Harris makes a great play on Andy Warhols' famous "15 minutes of fame" idea by saying (and this may or may not be an exact quote as I'm working from memory), "people want their 15 minutes of fame... every day." I think that perfectly summarizes how some of us internet folk are everyday.

Yes, we do it for the social interaction and to share ideas in ways we couldn't 10 or 15 years ago, but we also do it for personal reasons. We all want to do something extraordinary and more than that, we want to be recognized for it. Even I'm guilty of this. In a world where we can be known around the world for something small, why wouldn't we constantly try to stand out?? Why wouldn't we try anything to be in the eye of as much public as we can if we have the means to??

The question will soon become though, like it did in the movie, how long can live our lives in public?? How long will social media be like it is?? How much of our lives can we share before we NEED to pull back??

Check out the trailer for We Live In Public here:

If you've seen the movie, leave a comment and let me know your thoughts about it. If you haven't seen the movie, see it, then let me know what you think. If you haven't seen the movie and don't want to see it, I'd still love to know your thoughts about living our lives in public through the internet, so leave me a comment and lets talk about it.

I'm by no means a big fan of politics. I pay attention enough to have some idea of what's going on here and there, but not much beyond that. But, like a large portion of the world I've become kind of enthralled by WikiLeaks. (I linked to a Google search because the web address for the site keeps changing)

While some of the things that have been released by the information leaking organization are chock full of interesting information about some of the most powerful countries in the world, I don't want to talk about that in this post. I don't want to talk about the continuing adventures of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. I don't even really want to talk about WikiLeaks specifically. What I do want to talk about is how from a social media slash PR perspective, the world was ready for something like WikiLeaks.

While some of the world has a certain perspective on PR people as "spin artists", those in the industry know different. One of the first things they told me in PR school was "don't lie." People want the truth. If you're going to give the public information about something, don't lie. There are certain ways to handle certain situations, but most seasoned PR professionals will tell you that lying usually comes back to bite you in the ass.

Then, In social media we talk a lot about transparency. Transparency is almost the exact same thing as "don't lie", but people in social media like to use it more. It also goes a bit beyond just don't lie and covers ideas like don't hide information, full disclosure and be accountable for your own actions. People now demand transparency from companies and celebrities and pretty much everyone in the world through social media.

If we demand these things from companies and people we look up to, why would we not demand the same from our governments?? The answer is we do, most people just wouldn't know how to act on that. Luckily though, some do.

While I don't believe some information should go out, such as releasing the names of spies or anything that really puts lives at risks, there are some things that people wanted to know their governments are up to. Sometimes governments do things that are morally wrong and more and more people are starting to stand up against this. There is no way to make them stop if we don't know about these things. The release of this information helps to hold people accountable for their actions. This is what the majority of people demand today.

Of course the people involved in the information released are upset, but that's what happens when dirty secrets get out. It's no different from when anyone's secrets get out. And when secrets get out we (usually) call people on them and want them to be accountable for their actions.

When companies do things that are immoral we call them out for it. To think that the same shouldn't be done with governments is just silly. People always want more information and when they find things that are wrong they want people to take responsibility for it. WikiLeaks has helped to bring some of that information to light for people to see.

That's why I think the world was ready for something like WikiLeaks.

I wanted to get this blog out a little while ago, but I lost the key component. I've found it now, but it's a little crumpled up, but at least I found it. So, without further ado, here it is and the blog post begins...

So you think your company needs to get more involved with social media, but they're not willing to? How do make them understand? The best answer I've seen from many other social media people is to show them what's going on online involving the company.

A few weeks ago I was speaking at something for the Ontario Government about social media and I met William Young, a senior issues analyst for the cabinet office. He showed me a little report that he makes up every week for his office he calls "Blog Watch."

Every week William puts together a report that highlights some things going on in the social media space that relates to his specific office. He splits it up into three sections:

• Featured Blog Topic of the Week: Here he writes about the most prevalent issue he found being talked about in the blogosphere or the one he thinks is most important. He gives a breakdown of what was being said and a couple quotes.
• Weekly Blog Report: In this section William takes other subjects being talked about in blogs and gives a brief description of each.
• Social Media Themes: In this last section he highlights issues from Twitter.

Your can always switch around the categories in these types of reports to focus on areas most relevant to your company.

I like the idea of doing this in a report for a couple reasons. It's much more professional looking than just telling your boss. It separates social media areas to show just how many places the talk could be going on. Most importantly, it shows specific examples.

I think if you can put something like this together your boss may just see what you're talking about.

What do you think of this idea? Do you have a better idea for getting your higher-ups to believe you that you need to be more involved in social media?

A few weeks ago my friend Melissa asked me to help her out with some videos she was making for her work. She was interviewing "experts" about different subjects that they specialize in.

She tapped me as a social media expert. Who knew? Someone thinks I'm an expert at something.

Doing the interview was fun. It was very casual and I had a little bit of fun with it. It didn't hurt that I also knew everyone in the room at the time and we're a bunch that likes to joke and fool around. I think the lightness of it though makes the whole thing work.

Anyways, after a few weeks of patiently waiting, they uploaded the video. Bellow you can find me being an expert on something.

After you watch, please do me a favour and leave a comment letting me know what you think. This was my first time being an expert on anything and I'd really appreciate some feedback.

No, Weird Al isn't really dead. Your geeky mind can rest at ease.

I was having a conversation the other day about Weird Al with a couple friends about how we used love him. He was a huge part of so many of my friends' childhoods. But, where is he now?

He's still putting out records (he had one last year. I looked it up on Amazon to be sure), but how many people are listening to them? I was surprised to even see that he's still doing music (No offense Al). How many kids these days know the genius that is Weird Al? Probably not a lot. Why do you think this is? I'll tell you why: the internet.

Back when Weird Al was a big deal, things like music sharing and YouTube didn't exist. Weird Al got a record deal for being the best parody artist around. He was signed to a real record label and had world-wide major distribution of actual physical products (remember when music came like that?). This is how music got to the masses not too long ago.

The internet changed all that. Now any yahoo with some kind of device that records can create a parody song and upload it to the interweb for the whole world to see. You don't even need musical talent anymore. People are making funny songs and putting them on the internet at an alarming rate. It's hard for anyone to really stand out amongst the crowd of "parody artists" on the net. Something that's hilarious one day is old news and forgotten the next. Remember this one:

Probably not. But that's my point.

Songs don't even need to parody other songs anymore. They can parody real life situations caught on tape now also. Look how popular the "bed intruder" guy is! This song is iTunes for gods sake:

The point is old channels of distribution are dying. Everyone talks about paper is dying because of the internet, but it's not the only thing. Everything that used to get distributed physically is completely changed due to the internet. And if they haven't, they better or they could get left behind.

The days of the international parody artist may behind be us, but I am enjoying all the little stars that pop up every day.

Also, I still love you Weird Al!

"Weird: The Al Yankovic Story" from Aaron Paul

This weekend Mitch Joel posted a fantastic article entitled "The Real Time Web is a Big Problem for the Web". In it he talked about how when things spread in real-time, like say over Twitter, it's not always the easiest to keep up. He used the story of how a plane had crashed and someone in the vicinity tweeted about it right away. Mitch saw the tweet and immediately checked CNN's website, but there was nothing about it there.

In today's society where we're exposed to information at a constant and quick pace through things like social media, instant messaging and cell phones that we expect everything else to be keeping up with us. Is that really possible?

In Mitch's case, a big news outlet like CNN has to hear about a story, do some research on the topic (even if that's just checking if said story is even really happening), write something up, edit it, get approval, send it to their guy that puts stories up on the site and then publish it before any of us common folk get to see it.

Mitch isn't alone with this problem. Tons of people, myself included, think of something and then expect instant gratification. Unfortunately the world doesn't always work like that.

I remember when I was young and I had a question, I had to wait to got home and then hope I still remembered the question. Then I could try and look it up in an encyclopedia and even then it wouldn't always hold my answer. A few years later the internet came around and if I could remember a question by the time I got home I could then google it. Now, I carry around an iPhone and when I have a question I can pull my phone out of my pocket and look up an answer instantly. Everything should be like that, right?

I work and talk a lot about brands monitoring social media for people talking about them. I wholeheartedly believe that they should be doing this and respond to a comment or join a conversation when they can. The problem is when we're the one waiting and expecting for that company to answer, we expect it to come almost instantly.

If I'm having a problem with a piece of software and I tweet at their twitter account, I would want them to answer me right away. But what if I was having my problem at 3am in the morning? Would I still expect them to respond right away? Probably, but that isn't a very realistic expectation.

You have to remember that whoever is on the other end is just a person (sometimes more than one, but still people). We say that we want brands to show us the real people working for them, but then we sometimes expect those people to be super people.

At work I handle our companies Twitter account from Toronto, but we deal with people all around the world. If someone in Australia tweets at me at my 4am, I'm not going to be able to answer them until I'm awake and moving in the morning. I'm a person too and I need my time to sleep, eat and do other things that take me away from the computer for more than five minutes at a time. I will answer them, but it probably won't be at 4:05am.

The problem with coming to this realization is that it's not going to really change anything. You're still going to expect people and brands to answer you instantly when you have a problem, or else you're going to say that they're not doing a good job with social media. Even worse is that writing this isn't going to change my perception on how the world should work either. Despite me being on the side that is supposed to be "watching all the time" and knowing the limitations to that statement, I'm still probably going to want another brand to be on the ready at my beck and call.

I suppose that's just the way our society has evolved... for now.

I figure as long as we can try to remember some of this every now and again, it's better than nothing.

What do you think?

Now that I'm working in the world of social media monitoring I hear and read a lot of stuff about sentiment. Mainly the talk is about negative sentiment. "We don't want people to say bad things about us", "What should I do if people are saying bad things about us?", "Here's how to deal with negative people", etc.

Now that everyone can have a voice on the internet they can also say whatever they want about whatever they want. Companies seem to have two main problems with this; a) they don't want people to say bad things in places where the entire world can see, and b) they're not sure what to do when people say something negative about them.

There's nothing you or anyone can do about the first one. People are going to speak bad about things all the time whether you're there or not, so you might as well be there. Get over that fear.

The second problem is going to have millions of answers for millions of different scenarios. The one thing that I will recommend you always do though is listen to what they're saying. Even if you're not going to respond, listen. The people who speak bad about you are your best critics in terms of constructive criticism.

Sometimes these people are just venting frustration about things, but sometimes these people are complaining because they think you're doing something wrong. Chances are if one person thinks it others do as well. If you listen to what these people are saying you're doing wrong, you have a basis to work off of on how to fix what you're doing.

When people tell you that you're doing something wrong it means that while they have something negative to say now, they're still paying attention to you. These people are part of your public, and social media in a corporate sense is about bringing together your public with your company. These people are paying attention to you but telling you they think you're doing something wrong. That means there's a good chance they want to pay attention to you and like what you're doing. By listening to these people you're getting insight into how to best reach your public in a positive way.

Some companies go for the quick fix. A quick response online apologizing and trying to make amends with a single person at a time. But, not everyone is always going to speak up. Like I said earlier, if one person has criticism of your company, chances are others are feeling the same way. Rather than respond to the ones that speak up one by one, listen to what they're saying and take it in to account when doing your next phase of planning. Don't buy people off, make them really like you by listening to what they say and take it into account.

Haters are always going to hate. People are always going to complain about something. You're not going to be able to change in response to every piece of criticism, but you are getting free input from the people that should matter to you.

Haters are gonna hate, but you should learn to embrace their hatred.

Apologies for not updating here in the past few weeks, but life has been a little crazy.

My best friend got married, I just moved into a new apartment, but most importantly I started a new job!!!

Yes, that's right folks, all my searching and hard work has paid off because I landed myself a new job that I'm super excited about!! I'm now the community manager for Sysomos, a company that makes social media monitoring software. This job is everything I was looking for. I get to do a perfect mix of PR and social media. I get to meet and talk to new people all day long about interesting things. What's not be excited about? Also, I really like the people at the company and the software, so this is going to be awesome!

Tomorrow morning on the Sysomos blog I'll be making my introduction to the community, so feel free to keep an eye out for that.

So, that's where I've been hiding, but now that I'm starting to settle in I'll be back posting here regularly again. Hopefully this new job wil give me even better inspiration for things to write about as well.

I wanted to have this post up last week, but a few discussions around the topic with some people made me want to go back and reformulate it a bit.

The idea for this post started because of my last post. I was feeling kind of proud about it. I thought it was one of the more intellectual posts that I've written here. But then, no one really said anything about it. More than that, no one was commenting on it. Not that I want you to think I'm begging for comments, but something about it made me think people would have something to say about it, agreeing or disagreeing.

I mentioned something about it, which sparked a little conversation between me and some people on twitter.

A friend of mine (@joncrowley) says that sometimes when people don't comment it's because you succeeded at getting your point across well. No one has anything to add or disagree with in the post. This could be very true, but even so, perhaps that is something they could have said.

This reminded me of a blog post by another Toronto social media blogger, Dave Fleet, who wrote that Commenting Makes You Sexy. In his post he says that he enjoys getting comments of any sort on his blog because it gives him a chance to interact with and get to know his readers. He gets to know if they like what he writes, if they have something to add or if they disagree with what he has to say.

This is what every blogger should want. Feedback from your audience. That way you get to know what your audience likes that you write about and what they don't. With this information you can then write better for your audience. Seeing your posts get so many clicks is one way bloggers can know if their material is being well received, but it's not the the feed back of the actual words.

On the topic of click numbers, a former teacher and current friend of mine, Karen Snider, said that comments aren't the only measurement for blogs, and she's absolutely right. There all sorts of different types of measurement.

This topic also came up in Danny Brown's blog last week, The Metrics of Social Media. In the post he listed some ways in which companies can start measuring the success of their social media campaigns. Some examples I first picked out were things like "likes on facebook" or "views on youtube", and how these numbers also related to sales. Down in the comments though, began a great discussion of what ROI in social media means and how different measurements mean different things for different campaigns. I brought up the topic of public sentiment and we discussed how both a mix of sentiment and other numbers can be put together to find success (or to find out what doesn't work).

Again this is true. Especially when we're dealing with companies who are ultimately trying to turn their social media efforts into actual sales. The more numbers they have to look at, the more they can find out what their public really responds to and constantly improve to reach them better. These are the number they can gather both through analyzing sentiment and other web analytics.

In the end I came to the conclusion that comments can mean different things to different people. But they seem to come around to the same thing; gathering sentiment. Both companies and bloggers like to know what their publics think of what they are doing. This way they can both better get to know and improve for their audiences.

While comments are not everything, they are helpful and always good to see.

Any comments?

I wanted to have this post up last week, but a few discussions around the topic with some people made me want to go back and reformulate it a bit.

The idea for this post started because of my last post. I was feeling kind of proud about. I thought it was one of the more intellectual posts I've written here. But then, no one really said anything about it. More than that, no one was commenting on it. Not that I want you to think I'm begging for comments, but something about it made me think people would have something to say about it, agreeing or disagreeing.

I mentioned something about it, which sparked a little conversation between me and some people on twitter.

A friend of mine (@joncrowley) says that sometimes when people don't comment it's because you succeeded at getting your point across well. No one has anything to add or disagree with. This could be very true, but even so, perhaps that is something they could have said.

This reminded me of a blog post by another Toronto social media blogger, Dave Fleet, who wrote that Commenting Makes You Sexy. In his post he says that he enjoys getting comments of any sort on his blog because it gives him a chance to interact with and get to know his readers. He gets to know if they like what he writes, if they have something to add or if they disagree with what he has to say.

This is what every blogger should want. Feedback from your audience. That way you get to know what your audience likes that you write about and what they don't. With this information you can then write better for your audience. Seeing your posts get so many clicks is one way bloggers can know if their material is being well received, but it's not the the feed back of the actual words.

On the topic of click numbers, a former teacher and current friend of mine, Karen Snider, said that comments are the only measurement for blogs, and she's absolutely right. There all sorts of different types of measurement.

This topic also came up in Danny Brown's blog last week, The Metrics of Social Media. In the post he listed some ways in which companies can start measuring the success of their social media campaigns. Some examples I first picked out were things like "likes on facebook" or "views on youtube", and how these numbers also related to sales. Down in the comments though began a great discussion of what ROI in social media means and how different measurements mean different things for different campaigns. I brought up the topic of public sentiment and we discussed how both a mix of sentiment and other numbers can be mixed to find success (or to find out what doesn't work).

Again this is true. Especially when we're dealing with companies who are ultimately trying to turn their social media efforts into actual sales. The more numbers they have to look at, the more they can find out what their public really responds to and constantly improve to reach the better. These are the number they can gather both through analyzing sentiment and other web analytics.

In the end I came to the conclusion that comments can mean different things to different people. But they still same to come around to the same thing; gathering sentiment. Both companies and bloggers like to know what their publics think of what they are doing. This way they can both better get to know and improve for their audiences.

While comments are not everything, they are helpful and always good to see.

Any comments?

While I was in my Masters program down in Australia one of my big semester-long projects was to come up with a full communications plan for a fictitious company. Of course, I decided to make my plan focus around the use of social media.

I came up with a plan I called "The Three I's". I liked it, and I did fairly well on the project. I added the comm. plan to my portfolio to show perspective employers, and those who saw it seemed to like the idea. One even asked if I had come up with it "all by myself"? Although, it didn't get me that job.

Anyways, that got me thinking. My Three I's plan worked for that specific project, but in reality I now believe that it can, and should, be applied to all social media campaigns. Let me explain...

The three I's of my plan stand for: Inform, Interact and Integrate.

These three simple things should be the goal of every social media campaign. Here's why:

First, social media is a way to stay in constant contact with your publics. The first thing you'll want to do through your points of contact is to Inform your public. You want to inform them of your company/product, things you're doing, things you're working on, etc. Pretty much anything that you feel your publics should know you can pass along through social media. Always be informing your public. The more info they have, the more they get to know you/your company/your product.

The second "I" stands for Interact. Any half-decent so-called social media expert (myself included) should tell you that social media is not a soap box to yell from, but rather a place to converse and interact with your publics. Once you've disseminated some information you've (usually) created something where a conversation can start. People can talk about liking or not liking your information, or it could go deeper into conversations about how the info came to be, or suggestions on how to improve on said information. The key is to have this conversation go on between your public and your own brand.

Interact doesn't only have to be about the information from the first "I" either. Conversations about any and all facets of companies/products are taking place across social media all the time whether you're involved or not. It would be much better if you were involved. This could be from jumping in on others' conversations, to responding to blog posts written about your company/product, or simply just answering messages sent to you by your public.

The key here is to make sure you're interacting with your public, not just (figuratively) shouting things at them.

The last "I" is the most important one. It also incorporates the first two I's. This one is Integrate, and refers to bringing all parties together into one single community. It's not just enough to try and get stick your head in when people are talking about your company/product. People not only want to know that you are listening, but they want to know that you care and respect them. They want to feel like a part of your community. They want to feel welcomed by you. The more welcome they feel the more they will interact with you and the more they will like/respect you.

In my project I referred to creating this warm and welcoming enviroment by creating what is known as a "virtual third space". There are three key factors to creating this virtual third space, and here is how I laid them out in my project (the italics are what I'm adding in to generalize for every social media campaign, since my original project only focused on one specific campaign):

1) “Virtual third places should situate the interaction in clearly defined locations and/or cultural contexts.” (Soukup, 433)

• This will be where you will interact with your community. This could be one specific location, such as your website, or across multiple social platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Deli.cio.us, etc), or any combination of online spaces.
  

2) “A virtual third place must create an environment that attracts diverse community members to join in and participate with the discourse.” (Soukup, 434)

• This refers to both where you are putting yourself as well as what information you are putting in those places. You may have different segments of the population you want to bring into your community and they probably interact in different locations and in different ways. For instance, your younger targets may be on Facebook and interact there through quick messages and the "like" button, while your older target publics may prefer Twitter and they like to have full conversations with you through it. The point is to know the diversity of your public and know how to make them feel warm and welcome as part of your community.
  

3) “Presence, the third condition, is the means of constructing this warm and welcoming home away from home for the participating members.” (Soukup, 435)

• This third points touches on the first two along with my first two I's. If you're putting out the proper information to the proper people in the proper places, and then trying to create that interaction with those same people in those same places, your community should be feeling like part of a real community. And that's the whole point of actually being on social media. Creating this warm and welcoming community.
  

My actual school project went into a bit more detail, but I think (and hope) you get the point of what I was trying to say.

In my personal opinion, if you can accomplish these three I's in your social media campaign then you have a great success on your hands. Of course there are other factors to look at like hard numbers for your ROI purposes and what not, but achieving these three I's should be a goal for all social media campaigns as well.

So next time you're putting together a social media campaign try to remember to Inform, Interact and Integrate.

I'd love to know what you think of my "Three I's" idea, so please leave some comments and let me know.

Reference:
Soukup, Charles. (2006). Computer-Mediated Communication as a Virtual Third Place: Building Oldenburg’s Great Good Places on the World Wide Web. New Media and Society. Vol8(3):421–440

The last post I wrote here I spoke about the second #HAPPO day that was happening on April 30th (last Friday).

My big plan was to write up a new #HAPPO post on Thursday to have ready to go fresh for Friday.

Unfortunately, I'm sometimes a forgetful idiot and I forgot about something major happening on Thursday. I was having eye surgery!!! (Click that link if you want to know about my eye surgery)

Anyways, long story short, I was blind for all of Thursday and even most of Friday. I never got to write my #HAPPO post and I never got to take advantage of the new contacts I could have made.

I wasn't planning on that day turning right into a job, but I was hoping to make some good connections for a possible upcoming jobs just as I had during the first #HAPPO day.

So, for all of those that read my blog and were looking for that post on Friday, that's why it wasn't there, because I'm stupid sometimes.

I do plan on making it up though with a fantastic post this week (not this one, I promise).

I'd like to take you back to a time long ago... about two months ago to be exact.

The day was February 19th and it was the first ever Help A PR Pro Out day, or #HAPPO for short.
The idea behind #HAPPO day was to bring together PR professionals and to help the ones who were currently not working to find new positions. Click here to read my pre-#HAPPO day explanation.

From what I saw, the day was a success. Not in that every person who wrote a pitch had a job by the end of the day, but new connections in the industry were formed all across North America. I know that I connected with people who I never would have known previously. This blog, where my pitch was posted, had the most traffic it had ever seen in a single day. I also received a lot of compliments from complete strangers on my pitch, which was very heart warming and almost as good as finding a job.

One thing I noticed was that a lot of the people who were pitching themselves to companies/agencies were people like me, current or very recently graduated PR students.

Apparently I wasn't the only one to notice that, as the organizers of #HAPPO, Arik Hanson (@arikhanson) and Valerie Simon (@valeriesimon), have brought around a second #HAPPO day specifically for current and recently finished students this Friday, April the 30th. For more info on this, check out the official #HAPPO website.

This means that I'm also going to have a second go at this. Since I already wrote a nice little pitch for myself two months ago (which you can read here) I'm going to try something a little different this time around, and I'd like to get a little bit of help from all of you.

If you know me, in any capacity at all, and have something good to say about me as a person, as a potential PR pro, as a social media "Jedi", as a friend, or any other way you think something nice about me, I would love to use it this Friday as part of my #HAPPO 2 post.

So here my plea to you: if you'd like to help me out and give me a recommendation than please contact me by email (42.fortydeuce@gmail.com) so we can set something up. I'm willing to take recommendations in any form you're comfortable with. It can be two sentences or a whole story. It can be written, a video, a song, even a drawing (that would be interesting). The only thing I ask is that you get it to me before Thursday April 29th, so I have some time to work with it.

So that's my favour I'd like to call in from all of you. My readers, my friends, my colleagues, my.... whatevers. Please help me help myself.

Hopefully this works better than I'm hoping it will, and if not I'll just do what I always do and get creative and do it myself, but I think this way could turn into something fun.

Looking forward to hearing from any and all of you, and thank you in advance.

This weekend I decided to update and tweak my Twitter bio a little bit. Nothing major. Just a few minor word changes here or there.

One of the changes I tried to make was finding a way to point out my expertise in the area of social media without actually calling myself an expert ('cause everyone is a social media expert these days). Because I'm a huge geek, I decided on the term "social media Jedi" because I figure most people will get the reference and associate the master of the Force with my new term for master of social media.

Then I got thinking...

In all the Star Wars movies they are always trying to bring a balance to the force. Anakin was supposed to do it, but we all know what happened there (well, us geeks do). Luke might have done it (I mean, he did defeat the entire Emipre, Emperor Palpatine and kind of, sort of Darth Vader). Anyways, Star Wars storyline aside, the point I was trying to make was that the Force always seemed to be unbalanced and there was always one person who was going to restore that balance.

This is the job of a person who does PR/Social Media work. They try to bring balance to the social media Force. They are the Jedi's fighting to make everything right in the world (or universe, as the case may be). Let's look at this:

First you have the public. The public is everyone in the world. In Star Wars the public was everyone who lived within the range of the empire. They were/are the everyday people who work their jobs, live their lives and basically just try to be.

Then, you have these big companies, always trying to influence the public. In Star Wars these were the people on the dark side of The Force (not that all companies are evil, but some people will say they are and it works for this analogy). They want to rule. Be it the universe or market share or whatever.

Finally we have the Jedi. In real life these are the PR/social media people. They are the people trying to bring balance to the Force. Balance does not mean good over evil, balance means making everything even. Not too much light Force, not too much dark Force, but a nice happy Force right in the middle.These social media Jedi try to find a way to make a balance that works between companies and their publics.

Social media gives everyone a voice. These voices could be saying good things or bad things. The Jedi want these people to be saying good things about the companies they represent, but while still trying to accomplish the goals of said company. If they lean too much on just pushing product and not caring about the customer, they're using too much of the dark Force. If they're worrying too much about pleasing the customers so that they lose sight of the company goals, they're using too much of the light Force.

They have to find a way to balance out the Force. Make the public feel loved, appreciated and listened to while still helping the company to gain attention and sell whatever it is they sell.

That's what I want to do. I want to be the one to help find that balance in the social media Force. I want to be that social media Jedi.

What'd you guys think?? Is this a fair analogy to use? Now that I've legitimized it, is it fair for me to use the term "social media Jedi"? Leave a comment and let me know.

Oh ya, and may the Force be with you.

It's been a bit of time since I gave a an update about my job search... still no job.

Seriously though, I'm trying to up my game a bit.

A little while ago my former teacher turned friend, Karen Snider, recommended that I start to do some volunteer work. It would help me both meet people and get some more experience on my resume.

I wasn't too keen on the idea at first because it made me feel like I would just be working for free, which I didn't really want to do. I sunk a lot of time, effort and money into getting my degree and I want to get that money back (so does the Ontario government).

Now, I didn't go looking for it, but recently I've had a few people approach me and ask me to assist them with some projects, pro-bono of course. Remembering Karen's advice, I figured I have nothing to lose and gladly accepted the projects.

I'm not doing anything too major for these people, but I am doing things that are relevant to my (not too far in the future) field. I think that these things will look great on my resume, plus you never know what kind of recommendation I may get towards a paying job from these people.

In the meantime though I think I may stick with this free work. I have a few things already on the go plus a couple of projects in the works that I've been talking with people about. Even though I'm not getting paid I've at least found a way to do what I want and what I love in my spare time away from my paying non-field-related job. That's what I think is really most important; doing what I love and want to do.

What do you think about working for free? I know most people don't like it, but do you think it can help in the future? Do you have a success story that came from volunteering your services? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

(and for those of you wondering, I may be willing to help you for free too. It never hurts to ask)

Last weekend the interweb was all a buzz about the new Lady Gaga and Beyonce video for "Telephone" (I didn't link to it here on purpose). Being the audiophile that I am, I decided that I needed to go ahead and check it out.

Of course, the first place I go to see this is good old reliable YouTube. Imagine my surprise when I look up the video, click on it to play and am not given the video right away. Instead I am greeted by a 10 second ad for some new movie with a mini banner at the bottom saying "Your video will start in..."

Where did that come from????

I've seen ads on YouTube before, but that was either because I looked them up to watch them (see this post for examples) or they were placed in areas on the page, but never inside the video I wanted to watch before. The whole thing seemed weird to me.

One of the reason I think that YouTube is so popular is because you, the user, got to choose what you watched. Nothing was forced on you. If you wanted to watch an ad on it it was because you wanted to. While there were ads on pages they were never really in your face and forced upon you. There really was a "you" to YouTube.

Of course, the first thing I did when I saw this new practice was tweet about my surprise. A few people responded saying that they've seen this happen before, but not often. I also have not seen it again since on any other of the hundreds of videos I've watched over this past week, which makes me wonder if it's something the company is just trying out as a new source of revenue.

Granted, I have no idea about YouTube's revenue stream and how or even if Google is making any money off the site, but I think this way isn't going to work.

Like I said before, people came to YouTube because they got to choose exactly what it was they wanted to see. Things were suggested for them to watch, but nothing was ever forced on them. I think if this is a new thing that's going to start happening on the site a lot, the company is going to see a big backlash from its users. I know I'm already upset about it.

Seriously though, the thing about the internet is that if people aren't getting what they want, the way they want it, they simply move on to a next site that does give them what they want how they want it. If I wanted these ads before things I watch I could just turn my TV on.

I'm curious to see how this whole thing plays out in the near future. Will it disappear or will it start showing up more often??

I'm also curious to know what everyone else thinks about this whole subject. Have you seen one of these ads before? Please leave a comment and tell me your thoughts about the subject. I'd love to start a conversation about this.

Finally, if you're dying to see the video click here (although I just noticed the ad I'm talking about isn't in front of the video anymore, but I hope you still got my point).

If you don't know the band OK GO then you obviously have not really spent any time on the internet in the past three(ish) years.

OK GO is a band that managed to go from relatively unknown obscurity (not total, they had been around for a while doing a few good things) to huge popularity almost overnight thanks to this YouTube video:


The video is a music video that the band shot themselves with nothing more than a camera, a couple borrowed treadmills and the choreography of a band members sister. The band posted the video onto YouTube and shared it with their friends and fans, who loved it. How could you not love that video??

From there, the magic of the interweb took over. This video started getting passed around by EVERYONE. This video went seriously viral. Seriously, even my dad has seen this video. The video that was posted officially by OK GO has a play count of over 50 million. Plus, there are other copies of the video on YouTube that also have well over a million plays.

One of the things that made this sharing of the video even more possible was the embed code that anyone could take off of YouTube to post the video on any other website. The band loved that and actually encouraged it.

This video propelled them into the public spotlight and even helped them to gain a spot performing at the MTV Video Music Awards and have the song featured on one of the Rock Band video games' many incarnations.

Fast forward to the fall of 2009. The band released a new album and put together a new low budget, but fun and awesome music video for a song called "This Too Shall Pass". Their record label, EMI, put the video up onto YouTube, but like all their other artists official music videos, turned off the embedding feature. That meant people could watch it only on the YouTube site. For this reason you'll have to click here to see the video.

The band was not happy about this. This lead to a huge fight with their record label over the issue. The band eventually went on to develop a second music video for the song outside of their record label with funding from State Farm Insurance. This one however could have the embed feature included with it. In my opinion this video is better than the first one:


This video was posted about a week ago and the official version already has almost 8 million plays! Also this week, the band left EMI to start their own label and handle all their own business. The band left their MAJOR RECORD LABEL because of how strongly they felt about being able to share things on the internet.

This is a band that understands the power of the general public and the internet. They became famous because of a viral video and they wanted to continue down that route, because they know it has so much more potential.

Other businesses. especially the music industry, need to see the power of the internet and the social networks of people around the world and think really hard about a way to make it work for them as well.

I originally started this blog to explore where the worlds of PR and social media meet. I also thought that it would be a great platform to talk about my journey into the professional world of both these things.

Lately I've been focusing it solely on my job search and not so much on the other stuff, so I'm going to try to mix the two together a bit more, starting now.

I started this blog off with a video that showed how the internet was changing our world, so it's only appropriate that I continue showing these videos as they keep getting made. I find the info in these videos to be both amazing and sometimes shocking.

This one is called The State of the Internet and was released a few weeks ago. If you haven't seen it already, here's your chance:

I've been meaning to write this post for two weeks now but have found myself too busy to actually get it out. I'm sorry if you missed me. I'll try to not let this much time pass between us ever again.

So any ways, think back, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back to my last post. That was on #HAPPO (Help A PR Pro Out) day. This day was set up to help PR people (like myself) who currently are seeking work (like myself) connect with new people and new jobs.

Well in my opinion, the day was a huge success for making those connections. While I did not get a job offer or find anything really new, I did make a ton of new connections to people in the industry throughout North America, which is just as good.

This is what this social media stuff is all about. Making connections with people in ways that were previously impossible. I love that. Here's what I mean:

On #HAPPO day I put up my post that spoke a bit about myself and what kind of work I was trying to get into. I put it out to my network of people through as many online channels as I could. My network then also helped to pass my post along through retweeting my link and other means. That way new people that weren't in my immediate network were now reading my blog. From there I can only assume that some of these people knew about the #HAPPO movement (either that or they liked my post) because people I didn't know were also starting to pass along my post to their networks. I was also getting compliments on my writing from people across North America. One lady even said she thought I sounded like someone she could love (kinda flattering, kinda weird).

All in all, in 24 hours I had over 700 people read my blog post!! I don't know if that many people have read all my posts combined.

I'm sure that I'm not the only person who had this happen, and that's why social media is amazing for things like this. People were willing to help out strangers and making connections with people they never would have before. The movement was started to help people out, and on that day that's what we saw. An entire community of strangers came together and worked together in ways that weren't possible maybe even 10 years ago.

That's why I love this stuff.

A wise man by the name of Tyler Durden once said, "It's only after you've lost everything, that you're free to do anything."* So I listened. I left my job and decided to start again from scratch and that's how we got to here.

If you know me online, you probably know me as 40deuce. If you knew me in school you knew me as that guy who looks like he's doing nothing in the back but somehow is getting better marks than me. If you know me in real life you know me as Sheldon. If you don't know me, my name is Sheldon Levine. Nice to meet you.

Two years ago I left my job as the head of the US concert department for a small music promotions company and went back to school to learn the craft of PR. I excelled through Seneca College's Corporate Communications program. I then went on to get my Masters in Professional Communication from the University of Western Sydney in Australia. Both programs were fantastic experiences and gave me solid skills to work in the communications field.

While in school I also became, what some might call, a social media addict. I loved connecting with people in this new borderless world. I loved learning about this exciting new medium. I loved trying new things. I loved that I was part of helping to shape this new way of communication. I can see it's potential for the future and I want to be part of it. It's completely a platonic relationship though, I swear.

The head of Seneca's program noticed my little love affair and actually asked me to help with some ideas for putting together a social media in PR course. It was very flattering, so I of course did it. How's that for a recommendation?

What else can I tell you about me?

Some past work experience includes owning my own company that did club promotions around the Toronto area. We averaged over 150 people per event through online and flyer promotions. I was the viral marketing manager of a North American tour for The Inner City Surfers. This taught me the power of key influencers through my contact with big local bands and music bloggers along the tour route. I was the head of Supernova Entertainment's US concert department. In this role I produced up to five events a month and increased the company's artist roster and fan base through social networking. Currently, I operate multiple blogs that vary in subjects from online PR to sharing cool finds to writing about whatever is on my mind at the time.

Personally, I'm a music addict. I'm a people person. Sometimes I'm too nice. Sometimes I'm too mean. I have a strange obsession with watching curling and darts on tv. I tend to be sarcastic (but always in a good way). I can now surf on both water and snow (you might call it snowboarding). I love reading anything and I probably tweet too much.

So, this brings us to now. I just graduated in November and I'm now looking for a job where I can combine my past experience, my PR skill set and my passion of social media.

With all that said, let's get down to the nitty-gritty here.

I'm looking for a job in the PR and social media field. I'm willing to explore both agency and in-house positions. I've mainly been looking within the Toronto area, but I'm very open to interesting relocation ideas worldwide. I think I'll be great in this field and I hope that you do too now.

Here's to #HAPPO! PLEASE HIRE ME!

If you'd like to know more about me, want my resume, or even just want to chat, feel free to contact me by leaving a comment here, or though any of these networks you should see listed on the right, or email me at 42.fortydeuceATgmailDOTcom.


* Quote from Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club

The selfish side of me said, "Shhhhhh, don't tell others about this. Keep it all for yourself and reap all the benefits." But, we all know that I'm a better person than that.

Apparently, I'm not the only person hungry to find a PR position these days. I don't have any hard numbers to back that up, but I'm willing to bet it's true based on the creation of #HAPPO. That lovely hashtag stands for Help A PR Pro Out and was created by Arik Hanson (@arikhanson) and Valerie Simon (@valeriesimon) because they knew good PR professionals who have been out of work for too long and wanted to help them out.

The goal of their #HAPPO project is to bring together companies and agencies that are in need of people with the people who need/ want those jobs. This will be helped along by some key people in certain North American markets, but I'm pretty sure anyone who knows about it can take part. In my neck of the woods, Toronto, we have two great representatives; Danny Brown and as I learned this morning from my RSS feed, Dave Fleet.

I really like this idea because as a job seeker (like myself), you start to learn that you can send out as many resumes as you want, but one of the best ways to find a job and get a foot in the door is through a personal recommendation. The best recommendations would come from people who are already respected in the field, so why not try to get one from them?

The other thing I like about this is the networking possibilities it opens up. While you may not actually get a job on #HAPPO day it should open new people up to each other that previously didn't know the other existed. It could be any mix of PR pro's with jobs, PR pro's without jobs, up-and-coming PR pro's (like myself), agencies and companies. The networking possibilities are almost endless.

While there's a bit of a buzz already going on around the idea the actual event is scheduled to take place on February 19th (this coming Friday) between 11am and 3pm EST. If you're looking for a job like myself you're encouraged to write a blog post for #HAPPO about yourself and what you're looking to do that people can be sent to see. Then, job seekers, job posters and those interested in helping should keep an eye out for anything tagged with #HAPPO for the day.

I have a great deal of respect for seeing a community come together, especially over something like helping each other. I hope that #HAPPO is a great success for everyone involved (and of course myself) and I hope that I can participate again next year but from the other side.

So while my selfish sides says to keep this for myself, the rest of me is telling you to tell everyone you know about #HAPPO that might be interested.

You can watch out for my #HAPPO blog post about myself later this week.

For more info check out the official #HAPPO website.

You may have a very strong presence online, but do people know you outside of their computer screens? Do they need to?

The simple answers to those (in order) would be probably not and sometimes.

In my case, looking for a job, I would say that I want people to know me in real life as well as online, and you may too if you're in my situation.

Not to toot my own horn, but I think that I have a pretty strong presence in the online world. On a daily basis I'm communicating with people all over the world. While it may not be possible to ever meet all of these people in real life it probably would be a good idea to try to connect with some key ones in your own area. Especially if that's the area you're looking for a job in.

Since I'm looking for a job in the PR and social media areas, I've been presented with the perfect opportunity. This week is Toronto Social Media Week, which is a bunch of mini-informational-and-fun events that focus around the world of social media. What better place to meet people in the field I want to get into??

These events will give me a chance to meet people whom I may only know from online dealings, some that I may never have known before from anywhere, and of course, touch base with those who I know (both online and off) but don't see often.

The key to having this event help me is that I have to be the same person I am online offline. For me that's not such a problem. I love to talk as much through my mouth as I do through my fingers (that sounds a little weird now that I think about it, but it's still true). The main thing that I'll have to remember is to get my point out the same as I do online. Online I can just post that "I'm looking for work" while in real life I may have to be a bit more subtle. I can't just be walking up to random people, shake their hands and say "Hi, I'm Sheldon and I need a job."

The point that I'm trying to make though is that I think having the chance to meet people you deal with online in real life can be beneficial because then people know you a bit better, can put a face to a screen name, and possibly may be more inclined to help me/you once they feel a bit more personable with you. As well, this gives me the opportunity to possibly make contact with others who aren't currently in my network and bring them in to help.

While this may not be my most eloquently written blog piece, the point I'm trying to make is that I'm not just relying on the online world to help me get a job, I want to be doing the same thing in real life. It's just like I learned in school; the message has to be the same across the board in every medium you present it to properly get it out to your publics.

One of my favorite things about social media is that it opens the world up like never before. It makes it easy to find and communicate with people anywhere in the world. It also opens you up to meeting and engaging with people you would have never had the chance to before it's invention. It makes the previously impossible possible.

Because the possibilities are endless through this new medium, I decided to try and make the best of that situation. You may be asking yourself what exactly I mean by that? Well let me explain a bit.

Last week I decided to update my Twitter bio. I didn't change it all that much, I just added the simple line "seeking work" after where I stated I'm a Master in Professional Communication. Doesn't seem like a life changing event, I know, but perhaps it could be.

I know the first thing I do when I get a friend request on twitter is I go look at the persons bio. I'm sure most other self respecting twitter users do the same. I also get added by a lot of social media and PR types, which just happen to be the fields I'm interested in working in. So, I figured if these people are going to look at my bio, why not let them know that I'm currently seeking a position? What's the worst that can happen, someone may know of something for me??

As well, while it may seem like some sort of strange self-promotion (and I suppose in a way it kind of is) I also try to mention in some way or another everyday on twitter that I'm on the hunt for a job. I don't ask people to throw things at me, but just because of the relationships I've managed to build with some people they do, and greatly appreciate it.

The way I see it, we've all used social media to connect with people we never would have had access to before, be it celebs, the upper-executives in companies, other people in our industries from all corners of the world, and we did it for many reasons. One of the main ones I did it for was because I love to network. I love to meet and talk to new people (both on and offline). If one of those people wants to help me out, I say let them. I'm always willing to lend a hand and help others out as well if I can.

I'm not going around begging for people to help me, but just by letting some people know what I'm doing they're willing to help me out out of their own good nature, and I love that. So I figure, why not let everyone know what I'm up to?? Some people will act on it and some won't, but it never hurts to try.

I also encourage others to do the same. I can't even remember how many times I've seen a random tweet about someone looking for something or having an interest in something and I've had links to point them towards. Half the time it's people I've barely even interacted with.

Social media is here to be social with, so why shouldn't we?

Has social media helped you accomplish things you may not have been able to before?? Please, share some stories in the comments section or just leave a message if you have something to say about my thought process here.

Last week I had an interesting experience on my hunt for a career. I had my first ever encounter with head-hunters (the business kind).

For those who don't know, head-hunters are kind of like an outsourced HR department. Companies have positions to fill and rather than do it themselves they find a head-hunting firm and ask them to find suitable candidates for them. It is also my understanding that job-seekers can also use head-hunters to help place them into the jobs they're looking for, but I don't know if that happens as often. Anyways, my experience deals with the former.

I'm not going to mention any names here, although I'm sure they wouldn't mind, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.

Here's my experience:

A friend who knows that I'm looking for work heard (really saw) someone tweet about a position he thought I may like and passed it along to me. I messaged the original tweeter and found out that he works for a head-hunting company (they call themselves "executive search and recruitment" but it's the same difference). I sent my resume out to this person and the next day he called and asked me if I could swing by their office later that afternoon. I said yes, despite being unprepared (or dressed) for an interview that day.

When I got there the atmosphere was a lot more relaxed than most interviews I had been to in the past. They said that this was more of a "get-to-know-me" type thing than an interview. They just wanted to get a feel for me to see if I was the right fit for this position they were trying to fill.

So, we chatted for a while. Both about job and non-job related things. I felt very comfortable during the whole thing, which is strange for me because interviews usually make me really nervous for no real reason.

Eventually I got to also meet the account holder for the position they were talking to me about, who was also nice. They gave me some tips on how to change my resume to more suit what their client was looking for, which I thought was amazing and very different than anything I was used to. I assume they did that because they liked me and wanted to pass me along to their client (but lets not get my hopes up).

I changed my resume to their specifications over the weekend and they told me it was much better (I liked my other one better, but they're the experts). So now I must play the waiting game.

Overall, my first experience with being head-hunted was really good. Whether I get the job is another story though.

I would now even consider possibly trying to find myself a head-hunter that will help me find the perfect job for me rather than waiting to be head-hunted for a job.

What are your thoughts on head-hunters?? Have you ever used one to hire someone or find yourself a job? Have you ever been head-hunted? Do you think it would be a good course of action if I tried to find one to help me find myself the perfect job?
Let me know in the comments section.

The title of this post may be a little deceiving. There should actually be a question mark at the end of that title because this is not a "how-to" post, but more of another one of my many questions.

As you may know from reading my blog or following me on Twitter or even just knowing me, I'm heavy into the social media uprising. I'm not one of those people who claims to be a "social media expert" or "guru", but I do think that I have a pretty good handle on the medium and genuine interest in it.

I would like to be able to incorporate my love of this new "buzz" medium into anything I do in the PR/communications field. In fact, that's probably good because a lot of companies are seeing its potential and looking for people who understand how to best use social media to their advantage.

I'd like to be one of those people.

Here's my dilemma though: how do I add social media experience into my resume when I really have no "experience" in the traditional business sense??

I have been heavily involved in the social media scene, especially here in Toronto, for well over a year and half and think that people would agree that I pretty much know what I'm talking about. As well, while in PR school I tried to incorporate social media strategies and tactics into my projects as much as possible. Most of these projects seemed to go over fairly well.

Now how can I incorporate that into my resume??

My resume currently highlights different skills I learned in school, such as different forms of PR and communication writing, but I didn't actually learn any social media or writing for the web while in school. Some of my larger communications plans would incorporate social media, but how can I say that when I already have just communications plans down?

I enjoy a good creative writing challenge, so I'm looking forward to trying to find a way to squeeze my social media "experience" onto my resume. However, I'm always willing to take some advice from experts on the fields of PR, social media or even resumes.

As always, comments thoughts and opinions on the matter are both welcomed and encouraged below.