Last weekend I went to NYC with Patrick, my sister and her husband to celebrate my birthday. This was Dylan's Candy Bar, where you can get candy-flavored cocktails!

Summer is always a tough time for me when it comes to blogging. This year is even worse than usual, what with me still getting up to speed in my new job, freelancing on the side, and trying to grasp the fact that I"m now the mom of a high school senior/kid who can drive. It's all a bit much, to be honest, which means that I'm doing my best to distract myself with other things. The upside is that I'm reading a ton and it's summer movie season; the downside is that it's depressing to know you have a blog just sitting there, doing nothing and feeling pressured by something that's supposed to be a fun hobby.

Anyway, now that I've overshared, how about some summer fun suggestions?

Movies: Have I mentioned that I love Letterboxd? I plan to obsessively plow through the summer movies and review them in my Letterboxd diary, so if you're wondering whether the blockbuster you're thinking about seeing is worth the price, chances are I've already seen it. In short: The Purge sucked; The Internship rocked despite the critics mostly panning it.

Books: I'm loving my new Kindle Paperwhite (Patrick is the best birthday gifter ever). I'm reading The Painted Girls and A Week in Winter (on Audible during my commute to/from Bethesda). Also loved The Storyteller, even though it isn't exactly light summer reading and is depressing as hell. For all the books I read, you can check out my Goodreads profile.

Outings: Despite the longer commute, I'm loving working in Bethesda. A billion restaurants--so far, my favorites are ramen at Satsuma (although it could be cuter looking--my kids and I are obsessed with the ramen in the movie Ponyo and were hoping it looked just like that), grape Fanta Zero at California Tortilla (sorry but ever since they stopped offering the greek chicken burrito the food just doesn't do it for me), and pizza at the Corner Slice. And I love Reddz Trading--it's like an upscale Value Village within walking distance of my office. Score! For weekends, I'm obsessed with Hillwood and will definitely be checking out Living Artfully and the French Festival.

TV: I'm making Patrick's life a living hell by insisting we obsessively go through all eight seasons of Weeds at once. We're almost done; after that it will be on to Game of Thrones--I"m curious to see what all the hype is about. The iPad/Netflix/treadmill thing is still working for me as a carrot to regular exercise--I'm obsessed with House of Cards and can't wait for season two. Lately I've been watching Blue on YouTube, and think it's interesting that while network TV seems to be fixated on reality shows which are losing steam, IMO, YouTube and Netflix are the ones putting out really high quality scripted series. I will say the YouTube iPad experience leaves a lot to be desired when trying to watch a series of episodes--navigating to the next episode while on the treadmill is a chore and I hope they move to a more Netflix-like navigation at some point.

So that's all that's thrilling about me lately...what are your summer plans?

Helpful "tip" from one of my recent Foursquare check-ins....

It's been almost three years since I wrote about "Foursquare fatigue".....yet I confess I'm still using Foursquare just as much as ever. Why? I honestly have no idea. Habit, I suppose. Competition with my husband over which of us will be mayor of the places we frequent together. Vain hope that one of these years either AMC Theaters or Regal Theaters will recognize how frequently I go to the movies (answer: at least once a week, usually twice) and bestow on me a free lifetime pass. Because even after using Foursquare all this time, I can count on I think one finger the number of free or discount things I've gotten out of the deal: a free medium coffee at Dunkin' Donuts. Once. That's it. 

So why do I keep checking in? Who knows. Do I think that Foursquare will ever up the game and make it worth users' while to check in places? Maybe. And I'm not talking about stuff like attaching my Amex card to my Foursquare account--thanks but I've already had my identity stolen once this year and had to switch credit cards; I'm not interested in the promise of a statement credit of $2 30 days after a transaction. But a few things they've added in the past year or so give me hope:

• Connected apps like After Credits, which tells you if there's something cool in the credits after a movie ends, or Eat This, Not That, which tells you about healthy menu options at the place you've checked in. Also Lanyrd looks cool for events, but given that most conferences still don't even use Twitter, I doubt they'll be using Foursquare much anytime soon.
• The ability to check in to a specific movie at a theater as opposed to just the theater. Could be very cool, especially if something like Letterboxd became a connected app so Foursquare checkins and Letterboxd movie diary entries could be synced. 

Ok, those are the only things I can think of....but I suppose it's enough to keep me checking in for a while longer.

If you use Foursquare, what are the reasons you keep using it? Or did you use it in the past but give up on it?

Not to be all over-analytical about crap TV, but seriously--think about it. What are the most-watched shows now? Reality shows. Who are the most popular, talked-about reality TV stars? The mean ones. Simon Cowell.  The nasty housewives who fight and pull hair and insult each other constantly. Snooty chefs who tell amateur chefs that they're useless and dump their food in the trash. Why is bullying cool when every week it seems we read another heartbreaking story about the consequences of teen bullying? 

I know I'm not the first one to have this thought, but honestly--where does it stop? When do we stop making bullying the new black and do more than pay lip service to telling teens that bullying isn't ok? 

I know one thing....I definitely won't be watching Top Chef ever again.

One of the products on Pinterest's "Products We Love" board. Click the pin to see how rich pins appear on Pinterest.

To make it work, you'll either need to be techie enough to know either oEmbed or semantic markup, or be willing to pay a developer to code it for you. It's not entirely clear to me whether or not any business can add any product, recipe or movie pin to Pinterest and whether or not it's free. They list a bunch of companies for each category, including brands like Target and Anthropologie and Netflix, among many others, and invite business users to "prep your website with meta tags, test out your rich pins and apply to get them on Pinterest"(emphasis mine). This leads me to wonder whether this is a paid offering or what--I read a bunch of articles but don't see anything clarifying this.  

Coupled with Pinterest analytics, it could be a cool way to track and encourage product sales. The good thing about rich pins is that they are not static; so, say, the price changes over time, that new price will be reflected in all repins. Coupled with Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann's remarks during an interview at the Conversational Marketing Summit yesterday, it seems that rich pins may be one of Pinterest's first forrays becoming an ad platform. With almost 50 million global users who are notable for their buying power, Pinterest could definitely be worth the effort when it comes to driving sales of your organization's products.

Image by uhoman on Flickr

Wifi at conferences is becoming a huge issue: attendees can't do without it but event organizers struggle to find budget to pay the exorbitant fees venues charge for it. What's an organization to do to prevent lack of free wifi from becoming a deal breaker for attendees? Could it be possible that Facebook could be the solution to this problem in the near future?

I blog all the time about my love/hate relationship with Facebook, and had sworn I'd never check in on Facebook. But everyone has their breaking point, and apparently free wifi is mine, because when I read about Facebook's new wifi program that would allow businesses (like meeting venues) to offer guests free wifi after checking in on Facebook, I loved the idea. As both a frequent conference attendee/hotel guest and an association staffer who knows what a source of complaints lack of wifi is among event attendees, it is evident that at some point something in the equation will have to change. Venues get away with charging a fortune and conference planners are left grappling with finding sponsors to support what their own budgets can't or dealing with attendees voicing their disapproval about the lack of wifi onsite, via the conference's social media channels and in their post-event survey comments. If Facebook can jump in and provide a way around the whole mess, I personally could see sacrificing a bit of my privacy to the big data gods to solve the problem of no wifi.

Granted, not all attendees would feel the same way....but free wifi? People already offer up their email addresses and other personal information for free wifi in other public places; would a Facebook check-in be that different?

It remains to be seen if venues start using Facebook wifi and whether conference participants see it as a good thing or a privacy issue....but hopefully it's at least it's a step in the direction of the extinction of crazy fees for conference wifi.

1) New Twitter Chat tool. If you participate in Twitter chats, you may have noticed (and sobbed) that Tweetchat is no longer functional. Thought you'd have to say goodbye to Twitter chats? Fear not: enter oneQube, a new, free Twitter chat platform.

(Click image to go to pin)

2) How to Contact Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Other Social Networks. I have to say I'm a bit skeptical about this one because my experience has been that unless you're with an agency or a company spending big bucks on advertising, you're pretty much SOL when it comes to getting any kind of service from a public social networking platform...but this post does include a lot of contact information so would at least be a good place to start.

(Click image to go to pin)

3) World's Shortest Marketing Plan. Since I'm about to start my new job as Marketing Manager for AABB (squee!) I thought this might come in handy.

(Click image to go to pin)

4) Twitter Cheat Sheet. I used to hate infographics but I have to say that sometimes they are great at summing up some good information in a quick, easy-to-bookmark way. This is a good one with some quick, useful factoids about Twitter.

5) Grapefruit Thyme Gin Soda. It's almost summer and not only did this photo just look refreshing, but I'm a sucker for foofy drinks with herbs or stuff like lavendar syrup.

(Click image to go to pin)

So did I miss anything great on Pinterest while I've been gone? Do you know of any great pins/boards I should be following?

As you know if you read this blog or know me in person, I've been on a crusade to find a job these past few months, and am currently freelancing while looking for full-time work. Granted, I'd prefer a steady paycheck and to be part of a team, but I admit that freelancing has its perks--the best for me being the flexibility to work from anywhere. That photo above? Yep, even worked from there a few weeks ago while on a trip to Grand Cayman for the wedding of some friends. It didn't suck.

Anyway, I thought I'd share five apps that I've been using lately which I think are great for anyone running a small business or just trying to maximize the use of mobile devices so they're not tied to a desk or office.

1. FreshBooks. HUGE hat tip to Maddie Grant for recommending FreshBooks-I can't imagine running a business without it. I use it to run my whole business--client database, timekeeping, invoicing. It's free for 30 days, then if you have fewer than three clients, it's free to use forever; for more, it's absolutely worth the small price of being able to run your business from your iPhone.
2. JotNot Scanner. A big part of both applying for jobs and freelancing involves scanning or faxing forms or agreements. If you're like me and don't have a scanner or fax (ok, admission--I have both in my printer but it's not connected to a phone line and moving the billion-pound desk thing it's in to connect it is never going to happen) and only have a home office, you need to either pay or beg to use someone else's scanner/fax machine or get creative. I tried the JotNot Scanner Pro app a few years ago and am still using it today. It's a little challenging to get used to--you take a photo of the document you want to scan/email then it turns it into a PDF--but it gets the job done. All for 99 cents.
3. Google Drive. I only recently started using Google Drive once I realized that all my eggs are in the basket of a laptop with a battery and a power cord that regularly threaten to stop working, and no money with which to buy a new computer right now--I figured it wasn't wise to have all my documents locked on my laptop and for whatever reason, I'm just not a huge Dropbox user. Google Drive lets me share selected files to the cloud (I only shudder a tiny bit about the privacy implications but for the most part I remain ignorant, so please share in the comments if you have Google Drive horror stories, or Dropbox ones, for that matter) and access them from any computer or device. Handy to be able to meet with a client and pull up their files right from my iPhone or iPad.
4. Squarespace. I can't believe it's been almost a year since Daniel Agee created my awesome new website on Squarespace, but apparently it has. I won't say it hasn't been a bit of a challenge adapting to blogging on Squarespace, but I've finally gotten the hang of it and love it for its simplicity and ease of use. Not to mention their support is amazing. And the iPad app is also awesome for blogging on the go.
5. Letterboxd. Ok, technically this isn't a productivity app--or even an app--but that's one of the perks of being a mobile worker with no boss: you can choose to go to the movies in the middle of a weekday. Letterboxd--again hat tip to Maddie Grant for pointing me to it from my annual movie recap post--is a movie tracking website, but it's very mobile friendly, so I simply saved it to the homescreen of my iPhone and now I have an app for logging movies as I see them. No more frantic quest to remember all the movies I saw over the past year, no more trying to remember to log them in Evernote, which is what I used to use to keep track of movies I saw. Now I have a movie diary that lets me track movies right from my phone, including the dates I saw them, so this year's movie recap post will be a snap. Or if you don't want to wait until the end of the year for my movie list, you can follow me on Letterboxd!

One of the overriding themes of Lean In is that women need to be confident. Speak up in meetings. Ask for raises, for promotions, for flexible schedules. In short: be like a man and act more confident than you feel, sell yourself for positions for which you may not actually be qualified because that's what men do, demand that your voice be heard whether or not you actually believe what it is you're saying because that makes you look credible and like a leader. 

All this advice is well and good coming from someone like Sandberg: an obvious Type A who's had every advantage in life in terms of being confident in herself and her abilities. Education. Powerful mentors and sponsors (almost all of whom were men, which I found a bit disheartening for some reason) starting from back when she was a child told she could grow up and do anything, through high school when she interned on Capitol Hill and was personally introduced to House Speaker Tip O'Neill, throughout her whole career which basically read as some powerful man helping her, time and time again, as she moved up the career ladder, it's clear that this is not a woman with self-esteem issues. She knew from an early age that she was smart and that she wanted to be a boss, and she made it happen...and now wants to tell the rest of us non Type-A, non-Harvard educated women around the world that all we have to do to become leaders is act confident until we actually feel confident.

Which is all well and good, except the reality is that suggesting women just be confident or even act confident is something that simply won't work. Just look at two recent campaigns aimed at women and it's glaringly apparent that low self-esteem is so rampant among women that feeling ugly and, therefore, unworthy is basically a universal truth so strong that just addressing the subject in an advertising campaign is recognized as a sure-fire way to strike an emotional cord with--and therefore sell to--women.

Take Dove's Real Beauty Sketches campaign, the tagline of which is "Imagine a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety." You watch the video and, if you're a woman, at least, are struck by the powerful message that we are actually more beautiful than we perceive ourselves to be, which, in turn, takes on a much larger meaning than just beauty. We may not feel beautiful or powerful or smart, but we need to realize that we are our own worst critics and it's likely that others see us in a much rosier light, and we should start seeing ourselves in that light too.

Then add to that Avon's recent "Red Lipstick" campaign. "My customer tells me she's never worn red lipstick....because she never thought she was pretty enough for red." Again with the beautiful woman who feels she's ugly, and needs to be told by her friendly Avon sales rep that she's actually beautiful enough to wear red lipstick. 

There's a reason why companies like Dove and Avon spend millions on advertising campaigns geared around the universal truth that women think they're ugly and unworthy: because it's a message that resonates with so many women. So while Sheryl Sandberg feels that it's as easy for women as just showcasing their killer smarts and grabbing that promotion by the balls all the way up to the glass ceiling and beyond, clearly that's not a tactic that's going to work for most women if the reality is that most of us don't even feel we're worthy of wearing red lipstick. What I'd like to know is how do you change THAT, that fundamental feeling that we're ugly and not worthy and not smart and not good enough? Because until women learn to do that, I don't see that Leaning In is going to be feasible for the vast majority of women.

So what does Facebook have to do with this story? Well, I figured that the time was as good as any to see how effective Facebook's $7 promoted personal post feature was, so I created the "hire me" tab on my website, wrote a post about my situation on Facebook, and ponied up $7 to promote it. Unlike promoted posts for Facebook pages, for which they have multiple price points and options, promoted posts from personal profiles only come with one option: pay $7 to "promote this post to move it higher in friends' news feeds and help them notice it." 

The result? I have to say I was impressed...and if you read this blog regularly, you know it pains me to admit that. Within minutes, personal messages were flooding in with questions and offers to help. Even today, five weeks later, I received two more emails that resulted from that post. I've also scored a new client, gotten a bunch of good leads, and (fingers crossed), one of these days may even get a job offer as a result of that post.

Would the post have had as much impact if I hadn't paid the $7? Anecdotally, no--I've never received that many responses to anything I've posted on Facebook....granted, I'm not usually announcing that I'm unemployed. But according to Facebook, the post had 2.9 times as many views because I paid to promote it, with 35% of views being organic and 65% being as a result of the $7.

This is the analytic Facebook gives you for promoted personal posts.

Would I pay to promote just any post? Definitely not. But for specific cases where you're trying to get the word out to as many people as possible and/or have a specific call to action, I think $7 is a pretty decent deal in terms of the return on that investment. So if you're participating in a fundraiser, looking for a job, selling your house or the book you just wrote, I'd definitely recommend trying it.

As I've written before, there is a dangerous disconnect between teens actively using social media and their parents not getting social media and, therefore, not being able to guide them in terms of what's ok and what's not ok. This is new territory for parents--I get that--and the platforms teens use change constantly. I get that it's easy for me to give this advice as a person who gets paid to stay on top of trends and technologies, and to therefore be in a position to (hopefully) provide at least rudimentary guidance to my kids and to encourage them to spread the word to their friends about why it's not a good idea to tweet photos of pot or alcohol or nudity (yes, I've seen all of these tweeted by local teens--publicly).

But here is the case of a 17 year-old girl--an honors student and varsity athlete, no less-- who was apparently romantically involved with a married 31 year-old man. In a Washington Post article about this case, I noticed that they included a few tweets about the tragedy--one of which linked to Michelle Miller's Twitter account. Out of curiosity, I looked at her tweets and it struck me that, while hindsight is 20/20, she was sure tweeting a lot of stuff that should have raised red flags to her parents. Tweets like, on Sunday, the day she was killed apparently intervening on a suicide attempt by Adam Arndt, the 31 year-old Army recruiter with whom she apparently had a romantic relationship, "It's really upsetting that you don't know how much I love you." Tragic, in hindsight. And other tweets: "He fucks like infantry" and "I miss my christian gray" and "I met a bunch of older men who bought me cool things" and "Am I driving drunk this morning?" --those wouldn't raise any alarm bells for you, the parent of a teenage girl--an honor student, a varsity athlete and someone who planned on enlisting in the Army in a few months? This would look ok to colleges or potential employers or the military? 

THIS IS WHY YOU NEED TO PAY ATTENTION TO SOCIAL MEDIA IF YOU HAVE A TEEN-AGED CHILD. The stuff teens say and do on Twitter and Instagram and Tumblr and the next new platforms that come after these...that stuff is out there, in public, and part of your kid's permanent record. My kids talk about it all the time--how kids are bullying other kids on Twitter, getting suspended for things they said about a teacher on Twitter, tweeting or instagramming drug or alcohol photos...all on public platforms. Yes, teens are going to be teens and do stuff we say not to do and be sneaky--but we, as parents, at least need to educate them about the potential pitfalls and dangers of something they apparently think nothing of because if we don't, who will? School? They aren't. Other teens? They're doing it too. I see parents obsessing over every other aspect of their kids' lives and resumes: pouring time and money into sports programs, tutors, therapists, you name it--nothing is too much when it comes to optimizing kids' future opportunities like college. Yet we're ok letting those same honor students and athletes swear like sailors and talk drugs and alcohol on Twitter? How is it that parents are not getting that colleges and the military and future employers--they're all going to be looking at your kids' online activities just the same way they'll be looking at transcripts and honors and admission essays? Not to mention in the cases of horrible tragedies like this one--or in the case of rape or other crimes against young women--the reality is that in our society, the victims almost always get blamed for violent crimes perpetrated against them. Posting suggestive photos or tweets are just another way that police and lawyers and judges will say that innocent victims "asked for it" or somehow invited harm on themselves. 

I know we can't predict our kids' every action or protect them from evil in the world...but we can do our best to educate them about the way they present themselves online and, the same way we rifle through their drawers or scroll through their texts to make sure that they're not doing stupid things that may get them into trouble, we can pay attention to what they post online and intervene if we see things that alarm or disturb us. Yes, social media is a time-suck and it's hard to keep up with all the platforms and changing technologies. But parenting is hard and takes hard work--the reality is that social media is now part of that work, and we don't have the option of remaining ignorant about our kids online activities--we owe it to them to have their backs there the same way we try to have their backs "in real life."

In a session about monetizing digital publishing, execs from several huge associations detailed how they were generating revenue with pubs and events. One of the attendees asked the Senior VP of E-Media & Publishing from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), if the association had figured out how to monetize social media, or something to that effect. Surprisingly, the answer the SVP gave was "no, we're using social media but we haven't figured out how to monetize it yet"....as part of a longer, generally not-so-glowing commentary about social media. Surprised, I quickly looked up an article I'd read about SHRM's annual meeting Hive--a "conference experience" at SHRM's huge annual convention. I could swear the event had at least one sponsor....yep, there it was in the article: "Sponsored by Dice, The Hive will feature a smart bar area “that will allow attendees to get individual consultation from experts in the area of social media as it relates to HR." Last time I checked, "sponsored by" meant "paid for." Then I remembered reading about at least one sponsored Tweet-up at a previous year's SHRM conference. Yup--there it was "The Tweet-Up was co-sponsored by Monster.com." Oh, and wait--there's another sponsored Tweet-up "The Official SHRM & Glassdoor Tweetup & AfterParty....Glassdoor is the exclusive sponsor of the most anticipated party of #SHRM12." So during the Q&A I raised my hand and asked "um, you said that you haven't figured out how to monetize social media, yet you've had a number of sponsored social media activities and platforms...isn't that 'monetizing' social media?" To which, shockingly, he answered, in a roundabout way, no. Huh?

Add to that experience, another exec's enthusiastic comment during a session that "the value of a Facebook fan is a big goose egg: ZERO" and various other smirks and generally dismissive comments about the value of social media and I have to say, I was not impressed. I mean, there's Susan Etlinger giving a brilliant keynote on understanding social data. At one point she says "there's no single ROI on social media, unless you're looking at a social media marketing campaign." Which is, of course, true--you don't calculate ROI on a whole discipline, like marketing, you calculate it based on each individual spend under a discipline. True to the overriding sentiment at the conference, one attendee tweeted "there is no ROI for social media." Luckily, Susan corrected her.

@rjbrowncpa No single ROI. Many ROIs :-)

— Susan Etlinger (@setlinger) April 5, 2013

But this tweet basically sums up the vibe that, astoundingly, association execs still seem to have about social media. They don't get it, don't want to get it, and even when their orgs are using it effectively, they remain removed from the whole dirty business and just don't want to know. I'll write a separate post about my session, which was about EXACTLY this: that execs don't have the luxury of not knowing or caring about social media. They don't have to use it personally--unless, of course, they never plan on looking for work again--but they do need to understand how it fits into all facets of association business, because it is inextricably linked to HR, publications, communications, marketing, events and meetings, professional development, PR, and more.

So I'll digress and not get into how disturbing I find it that a vendor putting on an event showcasing innovation and digital bleeding edge-ness announces at the event that the iPad app for this event will be available....in three months....or that the "community" they link to from the event page is a pdf attendee list. But suffice it to say that it saddens me that association execs still seem to be reluctant to embrace the reality that social media is no longer a fad or a thing that can be ignored; it's a reality of their businesses now and they're not doing anyone--their members, their staffs, themselves from a professional standpoint--any favors by harboring such negative and bewildered sentiments about social media. I get it: it takes time and it's new and it changes constantly. But that's life, isn't it?

It's been a busy week for me and for the world of social media, so let's get right down to it....in pins, of course. 

1) Pinterest adds analytics. Up until now, if you wanted to track repins, click-thrus or any other metrics for the stuff you pin, you had to use a third-party service like Pinreach or Curalate. But no more...this week, Pinterest introduced analytics for business accounts. Sadly, they also seem to have screwed up embed codes for pins, so forgive the links instead of the usual embedded pins. The linked article gives instructions on how to convert your existing account to a business account and how to view analytics.

2) Bye Google Reader. Yesterday, Google dropped the bomb that Google Reader will no longer be available after July 1, 2013. People are scrambling to figure out what they're going to do without the platform upon which many people have relied for keeping up with the tons of content that's out there. Here are some good Google Reader alternatives, and here are some more.

3) Infographic tools. The hottest trend in digital is visual...much to the chagrin of infographic haters everywhere (I used to be one; I'm warming up to them). Here is a good post on 10 tools for creating infographics and visualizations. 

4) White Cosmo. Are you a spiller like I am? If so and you accordingly avoid cosmos because you don't want to stain your clothes with cranberry juice, avoid no more: behold the white cosmo. 

5) Hire me? If you make those white cosmos, I'd be super grateful if you drink a toast to my unemployment and wish me well finding a new gig. Turned out after my big declaration about how I was quitting community management, I missed it like crazy and decided to try to course-correct while my experience is still current. So that new Hire Me tab on my site's menu outlines my freelance capabilities and links to my resume and Linkedin profile if you know of any gigs you think I might be a good match for. I'll be sure to report back here if Pinterest ends up being instrumental in terms of new opportunities. 

What are your thoughts on infographic resumes, while we're on both subjects? I think this one looks pretty cool and am considering trying one out.

My cat, Lil' Delicious, grudgingly posing with Social Change Any Time Everywhere

Allyson Kapin is a friend and crazy smart, so when she said she was writing a book with Amy Sample Ward, I knew it would be good. I was wrong; the book, Social Change any Time Everywhere, is not just good--it's great. If you're part of a nonprofit that's unsure how to navigate the changing landscape of fundraising and online communication, this book is absolutely a must-read. Full of case studies, examples, discussion questions, tips and more, it's great for both organizations that are struggling to ramp up their online fundraising efforts or those that are already well on their way but are looking for next steps to success.

As I've blogged and spoken about many times before, there's a vast difference between what brands are investing in terms of online communications and social media staffing and what nonprofits are investing, and I was happy to see Allyson and Amy address this in the book. A few snippets from the book with regard to social media staffing:

• Nonprofits who invest in social media staff raise more money via social media
• 30% of successful social media fundraisers dedicate at least two staff to social media management
• Organizations who raise money on social media spend money--on Facebook ads, content creation, design, etc.

To me, the most important theme in the book is that nonprofits often see themselves as unable to invest in technology and people who know how to use it, so remain frozen in what used to work territory and doom themselves to becoming less and less effective. Allyson and Amy's message to those orgs? 

Invest in people or fade away.

There is simply no getting around it--if your org wants to survive and thrive in today's increasingly digital landscape, it must invest in the resources necessary to staff and run effective multichannel communication and fundraising efforts. The book does a great job at addressing how to start moving your org toward being able to operate effectively in an anytime, everwhere world, including workplace culture, staffing, tearing down silos and more. 

So here's your chance to win a copy of the book! I've never used Rafflecopter before, so apologies if there is some kind of mess up--if there is, I'll come back and fix it. Login to the widget below for instructions on how to enter. I'll post  the winner here once the giveaway ends at 11:59 pm ET on March 18, 2013.

(Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher, but am providing the winner's copy myself. I did not receive any compensation for this post and none of the links in the post affiliate links)

I think getting rid of anonymous comments is a great idea; Facebook sign-in, as Pexton recommended; not so much--I'd hold out for Google sign-in. People are a lot less likely to be outright nasty when their names are tied to their comments; I personally think the nastiness and aggression of DC-area anonymous online commenters is a function of the fact that people around here are so uptight and have high-power jobs, so they look to anonymous online comments as an outlet for pent-up frustration. There's no reason the Washington Post--or any online forum, for that matter--should provide that outlet for them.

A book along these same lines that I'd recommend is Civility in the Digital Age: How Companies and People Can Triumph over Haters, Trolls, Bullies and Other Jerks by Andrea Weckerle. I bought the Kindle version and have yet to read it, but know Andrea from--where else?--online and she is incredibly smart and the founder of CiviliNation, is a nonprofit organization whose mission is "to foster an online culture where every person can freely participate in a democratic, open, rational and truth-based exchange of ideas and information, without fear or threat of being the target of unwarranted abuse, harassment or lies."

If there's one thing worse than a hater, it's an anonymous hater; taking away the anonymity would go a long ways towards curbing it, IMO.

At that time I was web content writer and spent a ton of time reading and learning about web content development, since I went into the job not even knowing what html was and ended up having to learn how to create websites from a text editor. I spent hours every day reading and learning about web stuff, which somehow turned into spending hours a day reading and learning about social media stuff. I figured I may as well meld my obsessive tendencies and my love of writing and created Mizz Information, thinking maybe I'd get some freelance writing gigs out of it. Little did I know that Mizz Information would not only pan out in terms of the freelance writing, but that it would pave the way to a new career, bunches of speaking gigs (something I NEVER would have dreamed I'd do, and to this day still don't love doing), lots of new friendships and even an award. As I wrote and wrote, I became first less self-conscious then, as my writing got me into hot water more than a few times (sadly I've switched comment platforms twice and the posts that had a bunch of dramatic comments are all, now, minus the comments...just as well), more self-conscious until more often than not, I would start to write something, wonder how it would be perceived or affect my current or future jobs, and hit "delete" before posting. 

When you blog about one topic for over five years, being fluid is, I think, a big struggle. People read this blog because they want to learn about social media, I'd think, so if I get bored or disillusioned with social media, I guess I better just start a new blog about something else. I write because I enjoy the process of thinking and writing....but seriously, how many times can you write about the same topic before you become stale and even you aren't interested in reading what you've written? And of course, once social media became more than just an abstract concept I read and wrote about but also my day (and night, and weekend) job, the time and enthusiasm I had for blogging would wax and wane and the last thing I felt like doing in my free time was more blogging and thinking about social media stuff. I hit the blogger burnout wall more than a few times, and wondered what the hell I was still doing writing about this stuff, week in and week out, when really, who cared about my musings anyway? Was I writing for me or was I writing for some ambiguous "them"? 

The answer? Who knows. I still haven't figured it out, and thinking about it just stresses me out so I'm actively trying to stop analyzing and just write whatever I feel like writing about. As the blogosphere becomes more and more crowded, especially with the current content marketing craze, my advice is to not worry too much about sticking to a theme or a topic in fear that your readers will desert you if you veer off-topic. Passion is what keeps people reading, so following your passions--even if they change over time--and writing about them instead of a pre-determined topic, I would think, will keep current readers interested and attract new ones. Or at least will keep your blog fresh and keep it fun to write, instead of a burden and a chore.

Which gets to the being wrong part. One thing about blogging is that it's a permanent record of how you're feeling at a certain point in time. If you read this blog, you know I'm not shy about making my feelings about certain things known in no uncertain terms. I'm a lot more forceful in writing than I am in person--for better or for worse--and my strong opinions about various things have earned both praise: "I love how you tell it how it is!" and, um, not praise: "we would hire you but frankly, you're kind of a loose cannon and we worry about that." I have a good friend now who I met as a result of me voicing strong feelings on this blog--to this day we joke about how I, in so many words, called her a pimp for telling bloggers how to make their blogs more PR-friendly. Back then, I was ferociously protective of my writing and couldn't imagine "selling out" in the form of sponsored posts or reviews. These days, as I have gravitated towards reading more fashion and lifestyle blogs, I sometimes want to kick myself for having taken such a hard stance on selling out because these days, sometimes the idea of getting free stuff to blog about or even having someone provide content or products for review doesn't seem half bad. And who knows how I'll feel next week, or next year. You too? Or the reverse--maybe you started out doing all review and sponsored posts but are feeling boxed in, or the time you're putting in is exceeding the amount of money you're making and you're thinking it's time to re-evaluate? Go for it. Change course, take a break--even if it goes against what your blogging philosophy used to be.

So, long story short, after reading Danny's post I wondered how many blog posts I've written here on Mizz Information--surely not 1,000? I went and did an inexact tally (I confess: finger counting was part of my method) and I've written more than 400 posts. That's a lot of writing. I've gone through a lot of changes during the course of those 400 posts; it's only natural that my writing would have changed and will continue to change. So here's to the next 400 posts--and to seeing what kinds of things I'm writing about when I get there.