I woke up this morning, grabbed a cup of coffee and logged into Facebook. I was greeted by this prompt to set Facebook as my homepage.
All Facebook noted this trend back in May. What do you think about it? Have you set Facebook as your homepage?
Rob Ainbinder – Digital Dad
Chronicling my adventures in DIY, Home Improvement, Barbeque and Fatherhood
How to Write a Social Media Emergency Response Plan
(Fire-Lite BG-10 pull station, photographed at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, New Jersey on January 4, 2003. Source: Ben Schumin
If you have a social presence on any service (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube) you should think very seriously about a Social Media emergency response plan.
In a Social Media emergency the Social Media specialist, or other person in charge of your Social Media presence, should know who to contact. But, more importantly… the person being contacted by the Social Media specialist should know they are part of the plan!
An outline for a Social Media Emergency Response Plan is below and may include the following:
Purpose – “The purpose of this document is to outline the Social Media Response and Personnel Responsibilities at [Company Name]“
Social Media Presences – A listing of Social Media sites and the URLs. “[Company Name] maintains presences on several social media sites including:”
Personnel & Process - A listing of personnel roles and their responsibilities in a Social Media Emergency
What would/do you include in your Social Media Emergency Response Plan? Other suggestions? Please leave them in the comments below.
Jackson’s $4,000 15 Day Challenge #4K4Jackson
Final Update 11/8/10: “I just want to thank everyone who forwarded this link and everyone who donated! We have had four treatments so far, and i really think it is helping! Our final total for the 15 day challenge is a whopping $1410!!! I’m humbled by the support from family, friends and strangers. Please continue to keep up in your thoughts and prayers as we continue to try and help this amazing child achieve his full potential! ♥ Nicole”
Full disclosure: Jackson’s mother Nicole is my Cousin-In-Law.
Jackson is a wonderful 11-year-old boy who has suffered through more challenges in his young life than most adults have had to endure. At age 5, one month after he started kindergarten, he was diagnosed with cancer. The diagnosis was undifferentiated sarcoma, a soft tissue tumor in his leg. He underwent 13 chemo treatments and 6 weeks of radiation over the course of a year.
As a result of the chemotherapy, Jackson had low immunity levels and could not attend kindergarten. The school kindly provided a homeschool teacher for that year, and I was proud to see that the teachers and staff felt Jackson was bright enough enter 1st grade on schedule. In hindsight, however, Jackson may have needed that first year of class participation with his peers. This would have helped him to fully develop the interpersonal skills necessary for the school environment.
Jackson was dealt another crushing blow at the age of 7, when he was diagnosed with ADHD. This disorder, in his case, is very severe. While he is so sweet and charming, he still struggles to integrate with his classmates, suffering from frequent outbursts of all sorts. It is difficult for Jackson to remain in his seat, to not call out in class, and as a result, he is constantly getting into trouble. This singles him out further, widening the gap between him and his classmates, due to the disruptions.
Blogs are to Documentaries as Tweets are to 30 second commercials
I was Tweeting the other night and a thought occurred to me. Looking at Social Media a bit more broadly for a second, if we were to compare blogs and tweets to another (more familiar to some) media what would that be?
First, I considered the long form documentary. What in social media could equate to the depth of a topic and often raw nature of the human experience? For this, I thought the blog post (or blog post series) was equal. Plenty of space, room for video, photos.
If a blog post were considered long form Social Media what was on the opposite end of the spectrum? The thirty second commercial came to mind. Long used to appeal to mass audiences, succinctly and quickly the 30 second commercial fit the bill. And the Social Media counterpart to the 30 second commercial? Tweets, those 140 character snippets that can quickly be retweeted around the world.
ConvergeSouth 2010 from the Inside Out
I have some history with ConvergeSouth. In 2005, I decided that tiling my backsplash was a little more important (for domestic peace and tranquility). But, in 2006 I attended and found 8 Things from ConvergeSouth to write about.
But, this year was a very different experience. Much like I did back in 2006, I was early. Early enough to help put out the namebadges. If they weren’t in perfect order it’s because they were set up twice. Once without the tablecloths and the second time with tablecloths that our generous host NC A&T provided.
But, the experience was much more than that… an incredible crew performed magical feats of logistics, obtaining sponsors, creating/updating a web site, travel arrangements, tracking down speakers, creating fliers, podcasts and so much more. And, I was a part of all this… who would guess that the relatively minor contributions made ( in comparison to others) would be so appreciated. If helping out as a volunteer wasn’t enough, I had the opportunity to share a session with Tammy Colson in which we had to quite quickly substitute for a presenter that couldn’t make it at the last moment.
The keynote session was spectacular. What an opportunity to hear from a leading SEO. Brent covered the basics well and moved on up to some advanced topics that I really appreciated. You’d have to fly to a much larger conference and pay a lot more for the kind of information Brent shared with us.
So, in a small amount of time I went from volunteer and attendee to volunteer, attendee and presenter. This Converge was different (and better)… I didn’t spill any coffee.
