Don’t know what I’m talking about? No worries. They’ve put together a manifesto depicting just what the untemplated lifestyle looks like. You can grab a copy of this free ebook here.

Honestly, before reading the Untemplater Manifesto I wasn’t exactly sure what the template lifestyle was. It turns out that the template life is what I’ve always dreaded but have been unwillingly hurling towards my entire adult life. It’s the traditional ‘American Dream’, the one that everyone seems to chase after whether they want to or not.

Those who live the template life work really hard in jobs that they generally hate, putting in long hours to work their way up the corporate ladder until they can retire in their mid-sixties. Does their hard work pay off? Sure; and taking the conservative path is perfectly fine for some people, but a lot of people would rather fulfill their dreams if they could.

The Untemplater Manifesto offers six case studies of its founders, and it covers all of the bases from untemplating your career to untemplating your mind. Being a twentysomething myself, I was really able to relate to some of their stories. Allow me to explain:

Jun Loayza was well on his way to leading a successful template life before realizing he was headed down a path he was unhappy with. He decided to become an entrepreneur, which turned out pretty well to say the least. I was really inspired by Jun’s story, and have since decided that I want to take the necessary steps to be my own boss as well. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but never thought I had what it takes to succeed in. I have since reevaluated this and I am very excited and full of ideas.

Monica O’brien graduated from college with a degree she didn’t want and got a great job doing what she hated. Since then she has received her MBA and even wrote a book, two things I have added to my to-do list after reading her story.

Cody McKibben gets to travel the world and works from his laptop. I would love to get to do that. ‘Nuff said.

So there you have it. This is just some of what you can expect to find in the Untemplater Manifesto. I strongly suggest you give it a read. It might change your life. As for me, I’ll be busy transforming my own life from here on, with a little help from the Untemplater team, of course.

The last few years we have been experiencing a social media revolution. As a result of this, more and more companies are incorporating social media into their business models. Why? Because Social Media = Positive ROI.

Generation Y is at the forefront of this movement. We use social networking sites for just about everything these days, and companies are jumping on the wagon. In fact, many companies (over 80%) already use social networking sites to help locate worthy individuals to work for them.

LinkedIn is a great career management site that has over 55 million registered professionals, but what if you are looking for something a little more personalized? Are you a member of Generation Next? If so, Brazen Careerist might be for you.

What is Brazen Careerist?

Simply put, Brazen Careerist is a career management tool for next-gen professionals. The company was founded by Penelope Trunk as a refreshing way to allow companies to brand themselves as employers to Gen Y bloggers. It offers its users a way to showcase themselves and build a network through their ideas and conversations.

From a social standpoint the site incorporates a lot of features you might be familiar with from sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. This is no accident, and if you truly are a Gen Y’er you should feel comfortable in this aspect. Let’s take a more in-depth look at some of the site’s features:

Create an Account or Sign In with Facebook

When you first arrive at Brazen Careerist you are faced with the choice of creating a new account or signing in using Facebook Connect. After getting signed up you are asked to fill in some information about yourself to help build your profile.

On the next screen you can choose to start building your professional network by becoming a ‘fan’ of some of Brazen Careerist’s most active networkers. If you choose not to follow anyone right away you can always come back to this later. When you are finished you can proceed to the next page.

You are then taken to a page where you can find/invite your existing contacts on various networks you belong to. These include Facebook, Twitter, G-Mail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, and any desktop email clients you might have. Once again, if you choose not to do this right away you can always do it later.

The final page you come across while creating your account offers you the opportunity to join any popular networks or groups you find interesting. Joining networks is a great way to find like-minded individuals with similar tastes and interests.

Share Your Information

Aside from the introductory information that you already filled out about yourself, Brazen Careerist enables you to share your info with others. Here’s what you can add to your profile:

-          Links to your social profiles (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)

-          Link to your personal website

-          Add your blog’s feed and share your posts

-          Upload your resume

-          List education and work history

-          List personal interests, goals, specialties, and favorite quotes

-          Add a summary

Follow and Be Followed

Remember Twitter? Well, Brazen Careerist offers a similar feature in that you can become a fan of anyone on the network and anyone can become a fan of yours (neat, huh?), thus building your following. The more followers you have the more people you are connected with. Being an active user will show others (and companies) who you are and invite them onto your page, not to mention make you well known throughout the community.

The Power of Networks

Joining networks is the fastest way to connect with others who have interests similar to yours, and Brazen Careerist has no shortage of networks for you to join. You can sort them by the most popular, location, professional, interests, and other (miscellaneous). Join as many networks as you want. You can even create your own!

Flaunt Your Blog

One of the features that set Brazen Careerist apart is the ability to share your blog. Submitting your feed to the site allows your posts to be seen and enables you to connect with new readers. If you become popular enough your posts could even be featured on the Community Sidebar.

Manage Your Career

Brazen Careerist, in a nutshell, is where social networking meets career management. It seems to have everything you need to share your thoughts and ideas for the professional world to see. It was definitely built with Generation Y in mind. And, oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it is still just in beta.

Will you be using Brazen Careerist to manage your career? Leave your comments, thoughts, and ideas below!

With todays release of the newTerminator Salvation movie on Blu-ray/DVD I got to thinking about the whole Google versus Skynet complex. Now I know I’m not the first to explore this phenomenon and I certainly won’t be the last, but how did this comparison come about? Here’s what I think…

Have you seen what Google is doing these days? You could say they have been very efficient with their time. In case you’ve missed recent announcements, here’s what has caught my eye:

Google Wave – a real-time communication platform that one day (hopefully soon) will literally be everywhere on the web. It is going to change the way we communicate online. Check out Mashable’s post Google Wave: A Complete Guide for more details, and check out this YouTube video:

Google Chrome OS – an open source operating system that is browser-based and built for speed. Google’s operating system is an attempt to get everyone’s focus away from traditional hard drives, applications, and files and onto the web. If successful, it will change the standards of computing forever. Here are some more good Mashable articles on the subject, along with another video:

Google Chrome OS: 5 Ways It’s Completely Different

With Crome OS, Google Intends to Destroy the Desktop and Microsoft

SPDY – an experimental protocol for a faster web. SPDY is Google’s replacement for the HTTP protocol that has been in use since the invention of the Internet. It’s supposed to be faster…much faster. Mashable – Google’s Plan to Make the Web Twice as Fast

GO – a new programming language. Google is working on its own programming language in an attempt to “update” software to match the dramatic changes we’ve seen in the technology we use. Mashable – GO: Google Launches Its Own Programming Language

…and, oh yeah…

Android – a mobile operating system running on the Linux kernel. How could I forget about Android? Google’s new Droid phones have been very popular in recent weeks. Google basically just decided to make software for cell phones one day and now their first release rivals the iPhone as the best in the market. Amazing.

So how is Google like Skynet?

Google is slowly taking over the world. Some day their software will be running on every computer and mobile device, as well as running the Internet itself. They have some of the smartest people in the world working for them and they have a seemingly limitless budget.

Think about it. If Google were an evil organization it would already have all it needs to run the world. It already has access to exabytes of information regarding your personality from everything you search for, look at, and like to do on the Internet. With Google maps (great application), Google is able to see every location on Earth. That, coupled with the revolution of the mobile device (Droids), would allow anyone to be tracked anywhere on the planet.

Having said all that, I like Google. Invention and innovation are good things, and I’m glad that Skynet is a fictional company. I don’t think we’ll be seeing Terminators roam the Earth by the year 2018, but with Google’s fascination with speed who knows? (joking) I cannot wait to see what technology will look like in the coming years.

Have anything to add? Please leave a comment!

For more information on this fascinating comparison:

Fast Company – Is Google Terminator’s SkyNet?

Google is Skynet – googleisskynet.blogspot.com

CollegeHumor – If Google Released Skynet

[Breaking]: Google Releases the T-1,000,000:

Googleisskynet.com

Marketing has changed drastically over the last handful of years. There are just so many new technologies that simply weren’t around before. This brings to mind the questions: Where is marketing headed? …And, are we already there?

The Wall Street Journal had a brilliant article last year entitled The Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World. The article was about the shift from traditional to collaborative marketing through the use of social networking tools and Web 2.0 platforms. They interviewed managers and executives at various companies to gain a better understanding of what they are now looking for as an ideal candidate to run their marketing/brand management campaigns.

The WSJ came up with the term ‘marketing technopologist’, which is “a person who brings together strengths in marketing, technology and social interaction.” Basically, a marketing technopologist is someone who is tech savvy, familiar with social networking tools, and can utilize their knowledge and skills to connect with consumers and market their company’s products/services effectively. Internet Marketers fall into this category.

Collaborate and Listen

Collaboration allows you to speak with your audience rather than to them. It’s a two-sided street nowadays, which is good for the marketing process. It used to be that you would put out a message, wait for feedback then put out another message. Now, you can put out a message or ask a question and get immediate feedback, allowing you to hold a virtual conversation with your audience about your message instantly. Not only does this save you time (and therefore money), but it’s a much simpler, more natural way of doing it. Efficiency at its best!

What’s Next in Marketing?

Looking at how marketing has changed today, there is no doubt that companies have begun to utilize tools like Facebook, Twitter, blog platforms, and other forms of social interaction to get their message across and connect with their target audience. It has never been easier than it is right now to get your message out to the masses. Viral marketing is the way to go.

But social media is much more than that. Each network you’re a part of is different in its own way. Facebook is better at keeping track of people/relationships and Twitter is better at keeping track of the latest trends/news.

So, wouldn’t you like to be able to leverage each of these websites’ strengths in order to achieve a more positive persona on the web?

In this article, I’m going to show you a few things you can do to connect your networks and build your web. Let’s get started.

Blogging

My first suggestion would be to start a blog, but not just a blog, a social hub where your contacts can go and see links to all of your social networks/profiles. A blog is also a place where you can go to express your opinions and share just who you are in more than 140 characters (typically). By placing links to your blog on all of your social websites you can direct all of your friends and contacts to the same page. Not only will this increase traffic to your blog substantially, but it will also make it easier for you to keep track of all of your contacts and followers.

If you are going to start a blog or website I, along with most bloggers, recommend WordPress. WordPress has a wide array of plug-ins and widgets that will help you integrate your social profiles into your blog.

FriendFeed

If you don’t want to take the time to make a full blog, a great site to direct people to is FriendFeed. FriendFeed is a social aggregator that was recently purchased by Facebook. I really like this site because it’s like a cross between Twitter and Facebook. It allows you to consolidate information from social media outlets, social bookmarking sites, blogs, micro-blogs, and RSS feeds. You can take all of this information, including your own original content, and create a customized feed to share on the Web.

FriendFeed also has the ability to stream their updates to other social networking sites like Twitter. In my opinion, when it’s all said and done, Facebook will have turned FriendFeed into such a powerful tool that it will overtake Twitter as the most popular micro-blogging/link aggregating platform on the web. But that’s for another discussion.

Ping.fm

Let’s say you don’t necessarily want to create a lot of your own content, but you just want to share what you find interesting with others. Ping.fm is great for that.

Ping.fm is a tool that allows you to update all of your social networks at once, from one location, anywhere on the web. This is great because it saves you the time of logging in and out of each website individually and it allows you to update all of your networks simultaneously. If you have a really important story that you want to share (like your latest blog post), Ping.fm is an easy way to share that message with all of your contacts at the same time. There’s nothing that a web surfer likes more than receiving access to fresh content on the spot!

There are so many great tools available for building your social community.  I will be discussing more and more of these tools as the weeks roll by, but hopefully this is a good place for you to start!