This is a short but necessary rant: I think it’s funny/cringe at the incessant use of web 2.0-ish words in presentations, meetings, classes and conferences. Far too often, in the absence of actual strategy and ideas worth inspiring engagement, community, viral buzz or UGC submissions, these words are thrown around as meaningless space fillers.

“Our objective for this campaign for [insert generic brand here] is to…create…viral buzz. This… viral buzz will… increase…UGC submissions to our YouTube page and ultimately increase…engagement… build community…and have a direct effect on sales!”

Um… this needs to stop.

-Amanda Mooney

Over dinner at Sonsie last weekend, Sarah made us all laugh with her throwback Y2K story. Basically, if Sarah ever again faces “the electronic equivalent of the El Niño,” we know she’ll be prepared with powdered milk, marmalade and special edition Evian water and will turn off all of the electronics in her house besides the TV of course, which she will use to monitor NBC and wait to hear word about how Japan and Australia fare in the potential disaster.

What’s your Y2K story?

-Amanda Mooney

I have a running joke with @amyyen and the ASL crew about how I think in tabbed browsing. At any given time, I have at least 10 tabs open on my computer (in addition to several programs… my computer is hating me for this). This habit of opening so many programs and sites at once on my computer and bouncing back and forth between tabs has affected how I think offline. This is a *normal* conversation with Amy:

Amy: Amanda, did you check out that Stars game last night?

Amanda: No, I was watching The Office and [NEW TAB] did you see that post on TC? I can’t believe that [NEW TAB] lol Amy you know I don’t watch sports. Anyway, I think that we should check out OM this weekend. Does that work for [NEW TAB] Although I guess I did do a bracket with @meaganfish last year.

This habit translates to my crazy work and school habits as a college student (I have quite a few jobs running at once in addition to my studies and work in student groups on campus). Of course it’s become hard to sit in a lecture class, movie, meeting or presentation that’s not interactive and engaging. My classmates and I have grown up with a cell in one hand, an iPod in another, a computer in front of us with a bunch of tabs open and programs running; we’re texting, friending, tweeting, calling, IMing… it’s a little frantic and crazy, but it’s become habit and anything more static and linear feels very strange.

-Amanda Mooney

David Brain posted this video from the BBC on his Sixty Second View blog yesterday. It’s a real life spoof on Facebook and it’s amazing:

Will also posted a really funny review of the “People You May Want to Know” feature showing up on FB. He says, “It’s no coincidence that the people showing up in this window are people I’m not friends with for a reason. Take a hint, Zuckerberg!” Another commenter said it’s like “Putting all the people you don’t say hi to in one room.”

Enjoy:)

-Amanda Mooney

With college graduation looming, the timing of yesterday’s Social Media Breakfast could not have been better, as the topic of discussion was getting hired in the 2.0 world.

Speakers included Stever Robbins, host of the Get-It-Done Guy Podcast, Aaron Strout, VP of New Media at Mzinga; Todd Defren, Principal at SHIFT Communications (and sponsor of the event) and Chris Brogan, VP of Strategy and Technology at CrossTech Media.

Each speaker briefly discussed how tools such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and personal blogs speak more about a candidate than a fluffed-up resume could. (Tell that to my campus career center!).

The idea that really stood out to me was the importance of managing a personal brand. In his presentation Todd said, “More and more, in the age of personal branding, if I don’t already know a person, I question, why should I [interview them]?”

With social media tools making it easier than ever to participate in the conversation and create a personal brand, what tips do you have for managing the brand of YOU?

Some video of Todd from coBRANDit

Image pulled from here.

-Laura Nelson

There has been a lot of buzz recently about the brands that are on Twitter. Today, BusinessWeek’s Heather Green ignited conversation about this topic on her and @SteveBaker’s Blogspotting blog. I thought it would be a good time to share video of a conversation the American Shelf Life crew had with Adrant’s Steve Hall about this topic. We talk @noreservations (Will and Sarah’s favorite), @zappos and @hrblock specifically.

-Amanda Mooney

I’m a few weeks away from graduating college. As you can imagine (or are experiencing yourself right now), my entire life is in flux. It’s as exciting as it is completely scary.

Tonight when I got home from class, I logged into Facebook and noticed that Jeff Pulver posted a new note about “Discovering Your Life Major.” Jeff is one of those guys (and I’m sure most of you reading this post are already tuned into this fact) who has an uncanny knack of galvanizing you to build a life guided completely by your passions. His words in this note had the same effect. I loved it so much and wanted to share it here with you. Thanks for writing a note that was particularly nice to read today Jeff! (I wish you were our commencement speaker!)

Ever since I started a discussion about a “Life Majors” in late November, 2007, I have enjoyed reading the conversations that this topic has generated.

I remain amazed how at a young age, just about everyone who attends university in the United States has to pick a major and make it their core focus for the time they spend at university. How does anyone at 18 or 20 know what it is that they really want to do for the rest of their lives? In fact, there are quite a number of people I know who are 35-40 years old who don’t know what they want to be doing for the rest of their lives. And I wonder how many of us who went to university and got a degree for one speciality actually decided to stay in the business sector of our chosen profession 10 or 15 years after university? As far as I can tell, not many.

Yes going to university offers us the chance to mature, take on responsibility, to be social and if we are lucky to learn a thing a two. And in my book there is a big difference between “learning” and “studying.” From my own personal experience, things that I learned in school, I still know today. And things that I just studied I never really knew. I just didn’t realize it at the time when I was going to school.

While I was in high school, I started a DJ entertainment company and I started my first computer consulting company. And both generated a source of revenue while in High School and while I was going to college. And while I graduated with an accounting degree, in less than two years after college, I discovered my first life major and it wasn’t in accounting. I made the decision to start a software company and ended up spending the next seven years focusing on the world of spreadsheets (Lotus 1-2-3), real-time market data and fixed-income securities. While I never studied Calculus in college (or high school) I ended up teaching myself the math I needed in order to feel comfortable developing @ functions that did a lot of complex math which was needed when working with fixed-income securities.

And whether you discover your life major in high school, university or some time afterwards, it is up to you to find your passion and turn that passion into your profession. And the act of discovering your life major isn’t an easy one. But only you know what you are passionate about and only you can make the decision to follow your heart and follow your head and empower yourself to turn your passion into your chosen profession.

In the end, it all comes down to you. You can’t outsource your future. You are responsible to yourself. One of the most liberating feelings you can experience is to discover your Life Major and do something about it.

And one day you make wake up and ask yourself…how did I get here? :)

-Amanda Mooney

Over dinner at Sonsie last weekend, ASL friend Steve Hall told us about how he started Adrants, his favorite and least favorite sites on the Web and his response to Amy’s question, “What’s the most surprising thing that’s happened in advertising.”

Please excuse the quality of the video. It wasn’t a result of my beloved Flip; Sonsie’s uber trendy pitch-black mood lighting made it tough to capture good video:)

-Amanda Mooney

New site the ASL crew loves- PROpenMic. When Robert French tweeted me a few weeks (or month?? time flies when you’re in finals so I’m not sure) back and asked for name suggestions for a new site he was starting up, I didn’t imagine to scope of what he was building.

The network he has launched is a site for students, professors and professionals in PR to connect, exchange ideas and feedback, resources, job openings, etc. Built on a Ning platform, Robert has created a community (572 people from 30 countries already signed up) that, still really early in its launch, is incredibly engaging and valuable.

Today Amy and I presented it to our colleagues at Schneider Associates in our presentation of “The Social Media Site of the Week” we give at our weekly staff meeting.

One group on the site I think is really cool is Ask Phil where Phil Gomes, vice president of Edelman Digital (my employer after graduation), answers students’ questions about the field. He’s tackled tough questions like “What should you write when employers ask you to list your salary requirements on your application?” “What components are critical in making a social network engaging to keep members coming back?” and posted this video in response to my question:

Phil, in your “Keeping People Interested” video, you quoted Gary Dauphin saying the most successful social networks “have a flexibility of purpose…At a certain point, you have to let the community decide what to do with what you’ve built.” It seems the same could be said of companies and brands. Do you (and how do you) advise your clients to have this kind of flexibility and open themselves up for co-creation with customers and other stakeholders?

Thanks from all of the ASL crew to Robert for creating such an awesome site and to the students, teachers and practitioners like Phil that make it so engaging and valuable.

-Amanda Mooney

Maybe John and his friends are really on to something. According to a Times Online article that @AmandaMooney came across, Club Penguin is hitting the world by storm after its recent launch in the U.K. An estimated 750,000 British children are already engaging on Club Penguin. I give John props for joining the site long before it was bought by Disney for $115 million last August, in what is now worth an estimated $700 million.

I think Club Penguin has been a huge success because it is one of the only online communities that caters directly to and only for kids. Club Penguin provides a social interaction that other sites cannot by allowing the penguins to partake in virtual activities like parties, shopping, and making friends, that kids are doing offline. John and his friends also like to find fun cheats and secret information found on blogs like Club Penguin Monster.

-Sarah Hutton