This is a guest post by Brenna Wiebe, OSU Strategic Communications Senior and summer intern at Crossroads Communications. Brenna is working on a major in Public Relations and a minor in Marketing and will be writing on the blog from time to time this summer. I’m excited to have her as part of our team for the next few months and hope many of you will have the chance to meet Brenna or connect with her on Twitter or here on the blog. — Mandy

Gymnastics of the mental kind wear you out, too.

Despite the late nights of last minute studying and the early mornings of my classes, I always managed to find time to catch up on rest in school. Well, then the real world hit me last week as I began my internship at Crossroads Communications. Never have I been more exhausted in my life. Finals week tired doesn’t even compare to your first few days in the real world tired. I don’t remember the last time I was passed out in bed by 9 o’clock multiple nights in a week; yet, last week it happened at least three times. It wasn’t until I had a chat with my boss, Mandy, on the way home from a meeting in Catoosa about why work was so tiring that I understood. As soon as I heard her explain the toll our jobs take on us, it was like the heavens parted and I heard the choirs of angels. As a public relations intern, I have the opportunity to work with clients in varying industries. This means that on any given day, I can go from a meeting with people who own a recycling plant to an owner of a pizzeria.

Still working on updating pages here on the site that the WordPress pharma hack infected. I apologize if you see in a title or search something that obviously I am not selling… I think between Carlos Moreno, Doug Stewart and some very helpful Twitter friends (@bradleyhunt, @rmalove), the worst is over.
If you were, indeed, searching for some concoction (I don’t want to use any of the keywords that would just pull more unrelated traffic!), I apologize. This blog is written by me, Mandy Vavrinak, about integrated marketing, public relations, marketing places, and digital relevance.
As soon as I’m confident all the pages (there are a lot of infected posts) are updated, I’ll get back to writing new content for the blog. Thanks, everyone, for your support One thing I’ve learned from this, other than those security measures they recommend taking with your database are worth it, is that we all get along with a little help from our friends, online or off.

Three big reasons: Truly heavy workload (yay!); husband now has a night job (hours and pay aren’t great, but the benefits and tax-paying help are both necessary and welcome); wrestling with some deep thoughts on the direction of the blog, of my business, and of the channels used for connecting.

In short, I haven’t had the time… and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back to a regular blogging schedule. For me, that usually meant one or perhaps two posts a week on this blog and a post a week on the PR blog over at the Journal Record web site. I’m working on how to use my more limited time (husband’s job has cut out about two hours a day of my “normal” worktime) as efficiently as possible so I can give clients the quality of work they’ve come to expect from me, meet all deadlines, and continue to connect meaningfully here with this community and with my networks on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. And Foursquare and Whrrl… *sigh* And take care of my family… who sometimes must come first, regardless of what else is happening in the work world.

I rarely “just write something” here because I think you visit to read something more… whatever… than that. Most of you who’ve commented here over the past year are people I’ve connected with in some other medium, too, and I know you to be a smart, savvy bunch. You deserve more from me than just a post. So it isn’t really a matter of having the time to write… it’s having the time to think first, then write. Having enough mental space available to let the bigger thoughts germinate, grow and flower. And that has been in desperately short supply recently.

• Here are the things I’m trying to let grow so I can write about them for you:
• Revamping your business or your city’s logo & identity (hint… don’t start with the logo!)
• Evolution of a Nascent Blogger (why maybe I was wrong about Blogging Being Dead)
• What to say and do on your business Facebook page to make it work for you (caveat… I’m much better with clients’ pages than the Crossroads Communications page. My effort is definitely going to clients like Smith Farm Marketplace and Andolini’s.)
• Working your online presence for offline results (business aspects)
• Integrated Marketing in 2011 (what does it look like, feel like, accomplish?)

So… thanks for sticking around. As I navigate these new waters of waaay busy, 4 kids and being a single-parent much of the time (when hubby is working), I’ll find the right course. One that allows time for the ideas to grow and time for the writing to happen. And, if you know of elves who will drop by for laundry duty overnight, I would be so very appreciative if you’d share their contact info.

Yes, you read that right. Blogging is dead. Over. Done. Time to move on…

What's next?

(take that deep breath, now… and then read on)

My almost-16-year-old son enjoys teasing me whenever something happens in my life with the phrase, “Oh, are you going to blog about it? Better blog about it!” Today, I thought about what his general disdain meant, aside from the normal teen angst part. It’s not that he doesn’t “get” blogging or that no one around him (other than me, natch) has a blog. It’s that he doesn’t think that way about connections. Blogging is not real time, and that’s how he connects to his life and his friends.

Think about this with me… in 10 years, he and millions of other kids who were born at the dawning of the Internet age (1995… we got our first home computer and signed up with AOL), will be the backbone of the work force. And they aren’t going to wake up in 5 or 10 years and decide they’d better blog about it. Teens don’t connect the same way adults do today for the same reasons that have been true for, well, ever. The connections of your average teen are primarily to those people who are part of said teen’s daily life. Friends from school, work, church, family and extended family, neighborhood friends. These are the people a teen is able to see on a regular basis without assistance. They’re people he or she knows personally for some reason.

Today, the primary way teens connect seems to be mobile text. They don’t email, and they don’t IM unless its through an app on their phones. They don’t like being tied to their computer for connectivity and the phone is (perceived at least) to be more private. So, what happens when their world expands in a few years, and connections to people they may not know well (or at all) personally become important? And they will, of course… digital connection is highly likely to remain a staple of business and personal networks. I asked my son what he thought. After all, it was his comment that started this train of thought. He said he enjoyed talking with his friends through his Playstation 3. When I asked why, he responded… because we’re all talking on a shared line, and we’re playing the same game at the same time. In other words, I said, it’s a shared real-time experience.

That is the “next big thing” I think. Let’s fast forward for a minute. My son wants to be a cave biologist when he grows up. Let’s follow his older, employed (please, Lord!) self on a trip to South America. Somewhere in a remote cave, he discovers a new species of cave beetle. Excited, he pings his network of subscribers that he’s on with a live feed. Everyone, everywhere who subscribes to him (because they find him relevant to their work, life, love, or interest) has the option of joining in to see his find, talk to him and to each other, and drop off the feed whenever they choose. A shared, real-time experience with a self-selected community. The community might include colleagues, friends and family, co-workers, supporters, interested persons, or, if he’s allowed it for this feed, complete strangers.

Think of your Google Reader, except the feeds are now opting-in to notifications of shared experiences happening real time, or the option to review and comment or share later on, or one-to-one. You opt in to someone’s life, in other words. Whatever portions of it they choose to share, and you choose to see or experience with them.

That all said… my son’s school is now incorporating blogging into the regular curriculum. When public education embraces a cultural movement and begins to teach it, it’s the death knell for the cool factor. So yeah, blogs like this one, and like yours… our days are numbered. But don’t stop blogging, because it’s going to take a good long while for the millenials to figure out how exactly they want to communicate with their expanding worlds, and even longer for the rest of the world to figure out how to harness the idea for business and for Google juice. Not blogging now would be like going back to 1985 and deciding that because cable TV was gaining ground, no one should advertise on broadcast TV ever again. Blogging is one of the best ways, today, for people, businesses and brands to build community, share expertise, listen, learn and connect. But tomorrow is coming, and we should already be thinking about what’s next, AB (after blogs).

What do you think… what is next? How do you see tomorrow’s connectivity happening, and how long is the horizon before we get there?

Yes, I’m making changes on the blog/site. And yeah, it’s dark and the colors aren’t “me.” I’m working on it… you did arrive at the right place, it just doesn’t look like home yet. I loved the clean, simple lines and colors of my old site/theme, but the limited functionality was hindering its usability. So it may be a little messy ’round here for a bit, but I think you’ll like it once the changes are implemented. And if you don’t, or if you have ideas on what you’d like to see, tell me!

Thanks for coming:)

Reflections? No time for that!

It’s almost my blog-o-versary… I started this blog on July 23, 2009. I have seen many-a-reflection post from other bloggers about their first year, or their fifth, for the ones who’ve been around a while. And this isn’t one of those posts. Mainly because I’m not one to do a lot of looking back… when you (or I) screw up, we need to absorb those lessons where we are and then move forward. Take the time you need to feel the pain and then, Just. Move. On.

So, in the spirit of moving on…

I’ll continue to write about relevance, digital convergence and future trends that connect people to other people, places, spaces and ideas, because that seemed to resonate with many of you who took the time to comment on a post or retweet it.

I’ll ramp up my posting frequency. Yes, yes I will. Even if it’s a short post… if it’s relevant to this blog, I’ll get it up here more quickly.

I’ll use Twitter more strategically to gather ideas, feedback and take the temperature of the audiences out there. Little less arrogance, little more serving the readership.

I’ll continue to tweak the blog and the site to better serve the readers… sharing integrated marketing insights, strategies, tips and foibles, seasoned with my Tulsa perspective. I’ll include public relations content more frequently and I’ll be inviting guest bloggers to post this year. I use this blog as my front door… people hire me because they want help thinking about, strategizing and implementing integrated marketing solutions. They want -need- to know how I think… and I want to attract potential partners, clients and build relationships with others who get, or at least are intrigued by, how I think and who see the value in relationships and connectivity. I want to connect with people out there who will challenge what I think, who will share what they think, who will help me grow and bring all of their goodness to bear on this blog and community we’re building.

So as I said… Reflection doesn’t suit me, but red does… and we’re going full-on, redlined into the future here, and I hope you’ll not only come along for the ride, but help build the engine.

Photo Credit: flickr user becksshaw

Takes courage to share your voice, but the reward is worth it.

I’ve talked to many groups, clients, friends, family members and even some random strangers (it’s my husband’s fault, he’s just like that) about blogging and content generation over the past year. Many of those hearing my words look at me like I’m a special kind of crazy. For all those out there who are struggling with the question, “Why do I (or does my business) need a blog?” or “Why do I need to update the content on my website more often than once every year or two?” here are some things to ponder:

Search engines are hungry, ok, voracious, creatures. They are always seeking new content to digest. And like any animal, the people they like best are the ones who regularly provide food. Feed the beast, and it will be your friend. Continuing with the analogy, make sure it’s good stuff you feed the beast… no one likes to receive rubber chicken when they were promised chicken cordon bleu.

If it takes three impressions at a minimum for someone to internalize a message and seven touches before they’ll take action (conventional marketing wisdom), why do you only want people to stop by your website once every 18 months? If they know fresh content is a mainstay on your digital hub (whether that’s your Facebook Fan/Like page, your website & blog, your Twitter stream, or ideally all of the above) they’ll return more frequently to check out what you’ve got.

Most of my clients tell me they want to be known as the expert in their niche or market. A blog is a great way to build that rep. Talk about what you know… about what you wish people knew about your field, about products, services, ideas or challenges in your field. Help educate your marketplace. If the challenge is no one knows they are making bad decisions, then HELP THEM know better.

Recognize that you’re in it for the long haul, and it costs way less to work with someone to help you develop a blog editorial calender, maybe edit or polish your posts and help you generate content ideas than your average yearly yellow pages ad buy.

Lots of resources are out there on blogging well. Here are a couple to get you started:

Mack Collier’s The Viral Garden

Copyblogger‘s site

Liz Strauss’s blog

And, if you’re on Twitter, follow and participate in #blogchat every Sunday night, 8PM central to 9PM central, to share, learn and connect with bloggers of all stripes, topics and backgrounds.