It’s Friday and everybody is grumbling about work–how much of it they have to do, how much they hate doing it, or how much they really need some so they can pay the bills. Even if you love the gig you’ve got now, chances are you’ve had one (or five) that have sucked. Hard.

Naturally, if you’ve had a job like that, you have also fantasized about quitting that job in some kind of fantastic way. No wonder the story about Steven Slater, the put-upon JetBlue employee who quit by calling a passenger a naughty name, grabbing a beer, and escaping down the emergency slide, became such a working-class hero tale. And of course, when one meme goes viral, dozens of copycats are bound to follow, which led to this heartwarming story: a pretty young girl, after being harassed by her evil boss, quits by writing snarky comments on a dry erase board, photographing them, and emailing them to the entire company.

The interwebs FLOCKED to this unknown Jenny’s banner. She was a hero. Until we realized that the story was FAKE. A hoax, put together by the same comedy website that did that story about Donald Trump and the $10,000 tip. Her name isn’t even Jenny! It’s Elyse!

Rats. No cute girls quitting spectacularly. No stickin’ it to The Man. Just a meme. Disappointing, but no big deal, right? Right.

Unless you’re in social media marketing. In which case, you are now going to have to try to convince the suits above you that there is no formula for a viral video. At least with the Old Spice commercials, they probably noticed that the people responsible put a LOT of work into it. But with “Jenny,” all they had was a whiteboard and a pretty girl! That’s gotta be cheap and easy, right? So go make us a viral video! Community manager Evan Hamilton explains why this is going to be a major pain in the ass for social media workers everywhere: it’s going to re-convince executives that there is a viral “button.”

Good luck proving to your clients and executives that the only way to get real buzz about your brand is to put in the real effort.

Everybody knows this job market is one of the worst since the Great Depression. I’m not going to harp on about that…it’s freaking depressing. Everybody knows that the current generation of 20-somethings is full of existential angst, has a short attention span, and has no idea where it’s going. All the pundits are saying, “Kids today, blah blah blah, get off my lawn.” The kids themselves are freaking out over the fact that they’re having to live in their parents’ basements while they hunt for a job—any job—and try to pay off some of their student loans. Parents freak out over having to support their kids when they themselves are already stretching every dollar.

I know. I’m one of those kids. Moved home. Having to defer my student loans. Repeatedly. Biting my nails and arguing with my folks about money, jobs, and who does the dishes. And it sucks. It really sucks, not knowing what’s coming next. I’ve always hated uncertainty of any kind and it’s worse this time, because there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. No more “when I go back to school in the fall” or “when I graduate,” because I’m done with school. No more “when I save up some money” because that’s probably not going to happen. For a long time.

It’s really easy to get depressed about…well…everything. But I came across this article on an education blog the other day with a really thought-provoking title: “Dancing Towards Uncertainty.” The author, Josh Barkey, a teacher, describes a confused student:

“I think Brandon is confused because he is living in a confused world. Like most young people, Brandon is searching for a passion equal to the raging tornado of yearnings that perpetually spins inside him. Yet he knows that as a privileged member of a privileged class he is gifted with a lot of potential and wants some meaningful way to live it out, but what he sees with his razor-sharp mind is a collapsing house of cards…Brandon is left wondering why he has bothered to conquer the academic mountain in the first place. He wants his life to matter, and is told that the way to do that is only to keep on climbing.”

Barkey goes on to theorize that perhaps our current obsession with security, with success, with finding that perfect, meaningful, lucrative path as quickly as possible, is what is keeping us in the dark. Perhaps we are too focused on looking for one CERTAIN thing, and as a result, we are missing out on countless wonderful opportunities.

“I…am tired of the coldly constructed educational approach that demands a clear answer to every question. I believe that before growth can happen there has to be a period of doubt and uncertainty. Certainty kills innovation, and while I need a degree of certainty in the surgeon poking around in my brain or the pilot flying my airplane, I also hope that somewhere along the line they have learned how to be creative. When problems develop for which they have been provided no textbook answer, I need them to be able to step back, take a breath, and lose themselves in the dance of the moment.”

By insisting on certainty, we are killing innovation. If we could bring ourselves to calm down and explore the uncertainty for a while, perhaps we can discover something new. Penicillin was the result of moldy bread, and microwave ovens were the result of melted chocolate in a researcher’s pocket. After all, research has shown that the main distinguishing characteristic between lucky people and their less fortunate counterparts is being observant. Yep, just being able to spot an opportunity.

So maybe we should all just relax and enjoy the dance.

I was going to write a snarky post about this Onion article and how I’m totally sick of the tired old copy about how “it’s a new way to connect in meaningful ways! Content! Connect! Blah blah blah!” and how I would like one of these new social network upstarts that claim to be revolutionary and provide real-world results to do something that actually translates to the real world…

But then I saw this HILARIOUS book trailer for Meg Cabot’s new novel, Insatiable, and my snarky mood vanished! The trailer manages to describe the plot of the novel while making fun of itself and the genre of teen-hormone-fueled vampire fiction spawned by Stephenie Meyer and her (bloodcurdlingly awful) Twilight Saga. This trailer does two HUGELY AWESOME things for me:

1. It makes me want to read the book. And I haven’t read a Meg Cabot book in 10 years (sorry Meg, I burned out on Princess Diaries).

2. It makes me believe that publishing is not dead. People will want to read this book. They will buy it. Hardcover, paperback, Kindle, iPhone, iPad, Nook, and every other format you can think of. They will buy it. They will read it. And they will want sequels.

So what’s the problem? Why are you worried?

Because so few people are seeing them and even fewer books are using them. If publishers spent more time and energy creating deliciously exciting, funny, enticing things like this, and empowering their authors to do projects like Cabot’s crowd-sourced zombie-couture Fashionably Undead audiobook (co-written by the author and 50 of her Twitter followers, for BBC Audio), instead of having conference after conference bewailing the end of the industry as we know it, they’d be doing just fine. Readers would be excited and engaged, and above all, they’d KNOW about the fabulous books being written ALL THE TIME instead of drooling endlessly over Robert Pattinson fansites.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, some FANTASTIC transmedia projects, book trailers, and crowd-sourced book clubs:

It’s a Book! Trailer, explaining the difference between books in dead-tree vs. ebook form.

Neil Gaiman’s Instructions trailer, narrated by the author.

Meg Cabot’s magnificently insightful blog entry about her Insatiable trailer.

Meg Cabot’s celebratory online Dracula reading group, working up excitement for the new book, complete with prizes!

My personal favorite, the #1b1t discussion group, the first Twitter-wide book club, currently reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, started by Jeff Howe, the inventer of the term “crowdsourcing.”

Hear that, publishers? Quit sending your people to nonsense conferences and quit writing articles about how the industry is dying and DO SOMETHING TO SAVE IT.

Or get Zach Galifinakis to be in your book trailer.

I’m going to repost something I put on my personal Tumblr…I’ve been trying experiments with my personal (not affiliated with Nostrum) blogs to see which I liked better, Tumblr or Wordpress or what, and here’s what I’ve come up with so far, for my needs as an individual blogger. For Nostrum and our purposes as a multi-writer blog, I definitely like our current system of a WordPress blog with all of us writing and a Twitter feed for the little spur-of-the-moment things. For individuals, however, I’m thinking Tumblr will come to play an increasingly useful role, although for the moment the point is kind of moot since so few of my friends are on the site!

Repost starts now:

“Okay, I’ve tried it. I’ve decided to stop linking my Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr feeds. It’s waaaay too crowded. What feels like a totally normal amount of communication on Twitter seems excessive (embarrassingly excessive) on Tumblr, and just AWFUL on Facebook. Some people may be all about the integration and the one-stop-shop publishing, but it seems to me to be completely redundant. Why would a reader go to 3-10 different platforms to read the same information? A little cross promotion to alert followers form different venues that one platform has been updated is one thing…the same thing all over is just lazy.

I guess this makes sense considering what I use each service for. Wordpress is for really long, drawn-out, detailed posts. Tumblr is for medium-sized notes. Facebook is for communicating ONLY with people I know in real life. Twitter is for stream of consciousness posting of things I find interesting, fan-girl worship of authors and comedians, and Etsy/craft madness. It comes as no surprise to me that Twitter is still the one I like best. Call it a symptom of modern ADD or whatever you like, but I like being able to catalog the things that strike my fancy at a particular moment. Honestly, I sometimes find it the most useful to go back and read what the hell I was thinking about this morning at 10am.”

In essence, what I’ve discovered (I always knew it intellectually but actually remembering NOT TO DO IT is a totally different thing) is that publishing the same content across every single one of your platforms is a BAD IDEA. Cross promotion is good and useful, but the same content on every site makes it pointless for a user/follower/friend to go to more than one platform, and therefore you’re likely to cause your readers to miss something when you DO post something new on one site and not the others. In other words, keep it fresh. Don’t be redundant.

I’m not going to be bitter about the fact that I’m not going to SXSW this year. Or that I haven’t been before. Ever. (sob)

But just in case I ever DO get to go, and for the benefit of all the lucky SOBs who ARE going, I want to find out what the best SXSW-targeted apps are.

So far there are the obvious ones like Foursquare (they’ve even got special badges ready), location-based stuff on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Then there are these:

PlanCast

Hot Potato

Anybody know any other ones? Tell me which ones you like (or hate) and why.

Also, keep in mind the How Not to Be a Douchebag at SXSW panel if you’re unsure of what to do. And here are some parties and events on the don’t miss list. Please go to them and blog about them so I can live vicariously through you! Put links in the comment section (with explanations please) or tweet them!

Following up on Mike’s previous post about Google Buzz, I totally get the furor about it. The service definitely needs work, and Google has definitely made a whole lot of big mistakes.

But hey, it’s new. That’s the downside of a service being released by such a huge, publicly visible company. Twitter and Facebook were NOT famous when they were released. They weren’t globally famous for years after they were founded. They had plenty of time to make changes, fixes, and tweaks based on quiet user feedback. Google Buzz had the disadvantage of going very public, very quickly. It wasn’t finished. And it got slammed. Now I wonder whether Google will have enough time to fix it and realize its potential before it gets laughed out of existence.

I think it would be nice if Buzz went back to beta. Google definitely needs more time to tweak it, and they need a setting to get real constructive criticism instead of media snarking. I still think the service has a lot of potential. I like Pete Cashmore’s take on it. If you insist on using an analogy to define Buzz, try this one. Think of Facebook as the local bar, where you go to hang out with your friends, play some games, and just shoot the breeze. Think of Twitter as the village square where you get all the news and have public conversations. It’s a public forum. Then you have Buzz, which SHOULD eventually become a place to focus detailed conversations on IDEAS. Not news, not people, not “what are you doing” or those awesome photos you took on your trip to Cabo this spring, man. It’s a platform to talk about content and have major brainstorming sessions about concepts and projects.

If Facebook is the local bar and Twitter is the town square, Google Buzz (I hope) will be the local college campus.

I’ve said before that I like Google Wave as a productivity tool–an easy way to keep work projects neat, tidy, and collaborative at the office. I don’t find much utility for connecting with friends about random things. It’s a business thing, and I like it that way. I think Buzz will end up being sort of similar in market, although I hope more concept-oriented and less business-y.

If it lasts that long.

To be completely honest, this should probably be Part 1.5. This isn’t actually a blog (it’s a shopping site, I think) and I don’t actually know what they’re saying because it’s all in Dutch. I don’t speak Dutch. However, I think the animation on this site is absolutely gorgeous. Click on the site and just wait and watch. The animation will start in a second. Really fantastic, I promise. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

http://producten.hema.nl/

Oh my God, did you click? Did you watch? It’s amazing, RIGHT? I have no idea exactly what the little pop-up at the end is advertising, but I just LOVE this concept. It’s like an online Rube Goldberg project. It’s fun, engaging, and visually beautiful. It doesn’t hurt that it shows off the technical expertise of the site builders, as well as the fun aesthetic of the people who own it. I think business would be a LOT more fun if everybody incorporated this kind of sense of humor and attention to detail.

On an only-vaguely-related note, anybody who speaks Dutch want to tell me what the site is ABOUT?

I don’t go gaga over websites too often, but this one just made my jaw drop. From the cutting edge design, to the complete integration from every digital touch point, to the overall inspiration based concept - this digital creation - hands down - wins in my book.

Lego Click: According to adverblog, LegoClick “is a a virtual canvas of ideas, inspired moments, quirky stories, solutions and tips, working as a collaborative plateform to inspire people.” In my opinion it could quite possibly be the best designed site, I’ve ever seen. In addition, the collaboration and brand integrated ethos behind the execution is what is truly genius. A must see for any designer and/or marketer!

Below is the short film that Lego did to unveil their brilliance. Go forth and explore Click! more….

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT want to get involved in a political debate and I am making NO statement about any of these candidates. I just want to know what people think of this ad by Carly Fiorina for Senate. Is this the most bizarre campaign ad you’ve ever seen or did I eat some bad shellfish?

Zombie Wolf in Sheep\’s Clothing

I think I’m going to do a series on blogs I like. Some of them might not seem like they have much to do with media or advertising at first glance, but stick with me. I promise they’ll be relevant.

For Part I in this series of Blogs I Like, I’m going to start with Put This On. Their tagline, “How to dress like a grownup,” pretty well says it all. This is a style blog aimed at men, and probably most resonant with guys in the business world who want to look professional, polished, and modern, without looking like a) their dads, b) Steve Urkel, or c) douchebags. It’s a fine line.

Not Good

Good

Obviously it’s a good idea to dress well if you are attempting to make a business deal or get a job or impress people in any way. But it is also a good idea to keep things simple and classy, which is where Put This On comes in. In addition to giving sound style advice (and trust me, gentlemen, I am a GIRL and, as such, I am fully qualified to expound on what looks good on guys), the blog promotes smaller clothiers, vintage shops, and other style blogs. They are also working on videos about specific style subjects, though to date they have only completed one (with excellent production values–Denim).  The thing I really like about this blog is that they practice what they preach–they keep the aesthetics of their site clean, polished, and classy, while providing exceptional content.

And NOW we get to my point about this site. Quality content, sound advice, beautiful aesthetics, and generous cross-promotion. This is the model all websites should adopt. Take heed, media folk. Take heed, and Put This On.

In case you missed it the Grammys were on CBS last night. I say in case because not many people missed them, the ratings were up 33%… I was part of that 33%.

My wife and I weren’t going to watch the Grammys, neither of us ever have. In general we are not huge fans of award shows and our dial rarely ever goes below Channel 4.  However last night something happened. As we were on twitter and Facebook we took notice of all the post’s talking about how crazy this Gaga person looked. Other posts were highlighting how amazing the Black Eyed Peas did, and still others that poked fun at every opportunity.  It was at that moment we realized we had a choice watch the Grammys or find ourselves irrelevant.

Last night CBS added eyes via Social media are you?

Alright, I’ve had my winter vacation, I’ve seen the movie, and I’ve finished the game. I liked the movie a whole bunch. A WHOLE BUNCH. Lots of fun, witty banter, and all the things one would hope for in a collaboration between Robert Downey Jr. and, well, anybody. Mark Strong was also enjoyably lugubrious and Rachel McAdams was cute.

The ending of the game? Not so much. The answer to the last code was guessable from the trailers and the reward was a video response from Inspector Lestrade hinting that Scotland Yard would be calling on Holmes and Watson in the future for help with the mysterious Prof. Moriarty. Rumor has it that Brad Pitt might be taking on the chalk-dusted jacket, but I would rather see Colin Farrell.

So, to sum up: fun game, great movie, slightly lame ending. All with impeccable production values.

And not one deerstalker in sight (thankfully).

We’ve all heard the case studies (mostly done in-house) touting @comcastcares as the future of customer service. How it would change the negative image of cable companies…how Comcast customers wouldn’t be so cranky.

It hasn’t worked so far. A few individuals got good service, but were still annoyed. Not ever having been a Comcast customer, I can’t judge too much.

But other cable companies have jumped on the bandwagon as well. And that’s what I do have experience with–I recently canceled my account with Charter Cable. And they didn’t like it, not one little bit.

Here’s the back story–I was moving out of my apartment and didn’t want to transfer my account to my new place. I called May 17th and arranged to have my account stopped on June 10th. All good. I moved out of my apartment at the very end of June, all paid up and good to go. I returned my equipment. Good. I thought I was all done with Charter. Peachy.

So imagine my surprise when I got a call in November. From a collection agency. Saying I owed Charter $130. BIG SURPRISE. So I called Charter customer service and got no help. They were very polite and looked up my account. And they saw that I had paid out and closed the account (I had actually overpaid) but they couldn’t do anything. I was going to have to drive forty miles to the local office and beg them to call off the credit agency and fix my credit score. I was NOT HAPPY.

Naturally, in order to relieve my feelings, I took to the web and made some very angry Tweets and went off to bed. After which, cue Surprise Number Two: when I woke up, I found an @reply from @Umatter2ChrtrG asking if he could help. I explained my situation to him in both tweet and email form, and he connected me with @Umatter2Chtr2. A couple hours later, I got a phone call from @Umatter2Chtr2 (aka Josh). He listened, asked me to wait while he called the billing department, and called me back shortly with the news that the bill had been reversed, the money I overpaid was on its way, and the problem hadn’t even been put on my credit record.

Score. The problem got fixed. After a lot of freaking out on my part.
So, many thanks to Josh at Charter for his help. But that doesn’t negate the months of screw-ups while I was a Charter customer. If all the customer service I received had been that good, I’d still be one.

Conclusion: having a social media VIP line won’t keep your customers from hating you if all the rest of your customer service is terrible. Customer service and product quality should be the priorities, not afterthoughts and Band-Aids.

This is just a short post to say:

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!! You can now report spammers on Twitter with just a click–in the actions tab on any profile you can report the profile as spam! YAAAAAY!!

The details are available on the official Twitter blog. On the one hand, ABOUT FREAKING TIME! On the other hand,

YAAAAAAAAAAY!!

Now Graham Spam Spam Spam Chapman can finally have his breakfast without spam.

This Mashable compilation of hilarious Twitter spoofs brought me back all the way to my very first blog post with Nostrum, way back in March.

The Jon Stewart one is still my favorite…and I still like Twitter.

Major League sports have failed again.

The NBA has followed in the footsteps of the NFL and the SEC and banned athletes from using social media during events. From 45 minutes before the event until they’ve finished their team responsibilities, team-related personnel are not allowed to use ANY KIND OF SOCIAL MEDIA.

I’ve been harping on what a bad idea this is for AGES, so I won’t rant about it again today…all I have to say is:

SHAQ AIN’T GONNA LIKE THIS.

Great slide share by author, blogger and social media educator Tara Hunt.
Check out her presentation (below) and next time you’re at a bookstore (yes the world still has those) buy her book The Whuffie Factor.

Finished it about a month ago…Good Read and nice understanding of social mindsets as opposed to social strategies.

I came across this post on Slashdot and it just really pissed me off. Reverb Communications’ idea of good social media practice is to hire a team of interns to spam the iTunes store with fake positive reviews of its clients’ apps. Be prepared, because I’m going to rant a little…

THIS is EXACTLY why people get suspicious of marketers using social media! Consumers are afraid of companies co-opting what was meant to be an authentic, altruistic community for mercenary ends. By contrast, they don’t mind if companies (like Threadless and Zappos) use social space to have real conversations and provide real, useful content…so why is it so hard for companies to understand that, to make the best of the social space, you need to participate in good faith?

/rant.

Seriously, when you (the reader) find out a company employs tactics like that, does it make you reluctant to purchase from them, or is it just me?

I freely admit I don’t golf. I don’t watch golf. I don’t even play miniature, putt-putt golf (unless it’s somebody’s birthday).

I know NOTHING about golf, except that old guys like to dress up in what would ordinarily be considered embarrassing clothes and spend hours chasing a teeny-tiny ball around with a metal stick. And most of that I learned from Robin Williams (warning–NSFW language).

But I do know social media. And the PGA Tour gets it.

For the pga.com coverage of the PGA Championships, they’re using the Justin.tv/UStream model of streaming coverage combined with live chat. You can sign in using your Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace credentials and chat with other viewers. You can chat with everyone watching, or just your friends on whatever social network you signed in with. I realize it’s not a new or complicated idea, but it’s just nice to see it popping up in such an Old Boys’ Club as golf. This is the group that most people see as LEAST involved with social media and the new communications forms popping up on the web, and yet they understand that being able to watch the matches and talk about it with other fans is the ultimate goal here.  For that, the PGA gets serious brownie points. Pompom hats aside.

So the question for other sports (and any other traditional media-based business), if a bunch of old guys in plaid pants and fuzzy hats get it, why don’t you?

It’s no secret that sex sells just ask Ad Age. I’m not naïve enough to refute that—it’s just the way of the world. But fast food chains are taking it WAY too far, and in the process, they’re alienating half the fast-food-buying, money-spending population.

We’re all used to seeing steamy Calvin Klein ads on LA billboards and Paris Metro stops, and sexy liquor ads in glossy magazines. But when brands start using sex to sell SANDWICHES, you know things are starting to skew in a weird direction. I enjoy a nice, juicy burger as much as the next girl, but I never got aroused by one. Not to burst your bubbles, guys, but girls don’t get spontaneously turned on eating a hamburger or a “seven-incher” sandwich (paging Dr. Freud) any more than we have pillow fights in our undies or go from “cat-fights” to make out sessions (or ride roller coasters in lacy lingerie, much to the dismay of UK theme park-goers).

Unfortunately, Burger King and Carls Jr. disagree.

Now this is getting out of hand. When a toaster asks a Quizno’s “sandwich artist” to “put it in me” completely without irony you know the audience’s IQ has deteriorated to an embarrassingly low point. This kind of campaign might work on the “South Park” watching, Juggz-subscribing, Axe-wearing crowd, but it doesn’t work on anybody else.

And a word to the wise, guys—buying any of those products, including the “seven-incher” sandwich, will NOT make girls spontaneously swoon and start licking barbecue sauce off your fingers. So, as Ken Wheaton of Ad Age pointed out, “A sandwich is just a sandwich, so quit trying so hard to make it a penis.”