It's been years since I've been "tagged" in a meme, and that's a bummer because I do love a meme. It's like Mad Libs for Bloggers. Prefab content you customize. Loves it.

So, thank you Brian Branca, for tagging me! This meme requires you to post seven things about yourself that others might not know. Here I go:

1. I was a Research Assistant in the British House of Commons. I worked for Tory MP Piers Merchant. During one of the IRA bomb scares there at that time, I was sheltered in 1 Parliment St., provided a phone to call my parents overseas to let them know about the situation and shown what to do in the event of an explosion. I was 20 ys old.
   
2. I was on MTV's "Choose or Lose" in the 90's. Al Gore was the candidate/guest. During a commercial break, I was able to get Gore's attention. He came over to me and asked me if I wanted to be a politician. I said no and he told me I should consider it because I had a knack getting myself noticed. He also autographed my copy of his book.
3. I was afraid of men with beards and booming voices when I was a child.
   
4. I was removed from a car by the jaws of life after a bad accident in high School.
   
5. For most of my childhood, I wanted to be an archeologist when I grew up. My favorite book as a child was a book my parents bought for me in the museum shop at University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology after we saw the mummy exhibit. I was 6 or 7, too young to be able to read or understand all of the adult text, but I pored over the book for years.
   
6. Michael Jackson invited me to meet him/take my photo with him when I was 11 (it was "Victory Tour"). In a private event prior to his show at the VET, my family was baffled when I refused the offer to meet him with no explanation why, because I couldn't find words to explain that he freaked me out. I've since learned to trust my instincts.
   
7. When I was a child, I swallowed a purple litebright peg. I'd hoped that once inside of me, it would light up my tummy like it lit up the screen. I'm still disappointed that it didn't work.

And now I have to tag 5 other bloggers that I'd like to respond to this meme. I choose:

Valeria Maltoni
Scott McNulty
Dave Parmet
Beth Harte
Leah Jones

(Sorry if any of you have done this meme before.)

No time for blogging. This should explain everything:

Charlie Brown Ad Agency

This is a VERY IMPORTANT blog post.

Please watch the embedded digital short created/produced by colleagues at Red Tettemer. It's not often in the world of consumer marketing/advertising that we have an opportunity to work on campaign that is so important, so meaningful, to so many people.

It is my honor and my privilege to be a part of this educational, technologically-groundbreaking campaign.



PS - If you liked this and want to see more, go to RedTettemer.com and click the "droppy" on the home page. Then click thru the icons at the bottom of the next page to see all the interactive fun.

Maybe this is Goodbye

Here's something that may surprise you: I've been thinking about shutting down my twitter account. I've been looking at it a number of different ways. I could go on hiatus from my account, delete the account, or start a new anonymous account following new people.

It's no secret that I am anti-hashtag and that has always been something that aggravates me about twitter. It's also not a secret that I was repelled by AMC's agency's use of Twitter to fanjack and promote the TV show "Mad Men." What's been eating at me lately in twitter is the echochamber. The same social media voices tweeting the same social media cliches. People interested in building "personal brands" rather than just being people. Evangelists who petulantly bang their fists that clients should stop demanding metrics for social media because conversation can't be measured. Really? Conversation can't be measured? Then make it measurable. Attach an action or metric. Setting goals and defining success are part of our jobs, regardless of those who think social media is about winning a Facebook or Twitter popularity contest or gathering the shiniest collection of widgets and gadgets.

Maybe this is part of a Phillies malaise, but it is something that's been on my mind for some time now. I just want a community where people communicate like real people to other people and not as "experts" or "authorities" or as "knowledge centers" doing their personal note-taking using a # sign and an abbrevation. I just want twitter to be what it used to be when I joined in February 2007: a place where I meet people near and far, learn what they are doing/thinking, find or lend support, and sometimes, just a place to escape - like that rabbit hole into Wonderland.

The Wall Street Journal covers Twitter today, covering the same old businesses that always get covered - zappos and comcast. Yes, they both do a great job, so do the tons of other businesses on twitter. Don't know who they are? Check this twitter Brand Index.

And of course, a plug for the Phillies! Go Phils! Check out these shots on Deadspin. That's Broad street, you can see my office building in the shot, at 1am this morning.

1. More. Game.

I'm updating my blog because some people have been harassing me about it.

Honestly, I'm just not that into blogs anymore. They seem some old fashioned and long form now, in comparison to some other formats/platforms online.

That said, I should use this space to thank Josh Hallett for creating and hosting BlogOrlando a few weeks ago.

BlogOrlando is my favorite social media event of the year because it always draws an eclectic group of people working with social media in different ways for different industries or causes. Each year it's a varied group of speakers that consist mostly of the people working with social media and not the academics who study it or write about it. It can be a bit like listening to the engineers who design a car, versus automotive analysts, which is great because the engineers can share some of what happened behind the curtain and the key learnings that followed.

One thing that I observed at BlogOrlando is that a disproportionate number of people interested in social media haven't read The Cluetrain. Because the Cluetrain is 10 years old this year, I guess I assume that we've all read it.

We haven't all read it.

So go to amazon and order the book or go here, NOW and start by reading the 95 Theses. Then go here and read it online, if you're a cheap bastard who doesn't believe in paying authors for their work. I don't care where you read it, just do it!

Go on then. Come back when you're done. I'll be waiting here.

Just saw this post by twitter pal JJ Toothman and had to share. I've been dormant here for a while because to be honest, blogging has become somewhat tedious for me anymore. Now that I am so deeply connected to the microblogging community in twitter, anything beyond 140 characters seems superfluous. Additionally, social media and marketing blogs have become tiresome for me. They seem to be all saying the same thing.

And that's part of what led to my conversation with JJ about the tech/social media conference gamut seeming to become the new Dead Show. If you've never been to a Dead Show, understand that seeing the Dead was started by the music but later housed by the community. Going to see the Dead was about seeing your friends at the next show. Oh yeah, and seeing the band. And a great tailgate. And that's kinda what all of these gnomeblogsocialmediapodbarcampinteractive's have become. A place to gather and see your friends, have a great tailgate and listen to the same songs (or in this case topics/sessions) you know so well by heart that you often karaoke them locally. And when you karaoke them, for the record, all your friends think you sound JUST like them!

Don't get me wrong - I think there's value to gain from conferencing, however, I think there may be even more value to gain by taking what you know and applying it outside the echochamber.

So while I'd love to go back "on tour" and hang with my friends on the SM party circuit (I'm imagining myself screaming "Twitter" instead of "Eyes" here, and I am scared), I'm being very selective of my SM conference attendance moving forward. For the most part, I'll stick to trading (tweets, not tapes) online.