Just as I was racking my brain for a social media-related homework assignment that would help my students see the same light I saw about two years ago thanks to my teacher, Vidya Ananthanarayanan (@mapetite) … I get a DM from @MikeSchafer

I’m having my students (who are GREAT writers) write short case studies to illustrate how social media humanizes brands and makes them part of the same communication process and the conversations that everyday individuals, like you and I, engage in. They will write these posts in groups (I’m trying to get them to use Google Docs or some other site to collaborate on papers in real time )

Each group will pick a brand, company, music artist/band, television show, service, organization, etc. and find:

• The brand’s social media profiles
• Mobile applications associated with the brand
• Three blog posts that mention the brand
• Three tweets that mention the brand
• Three examples of multimedia content (audio, video, or images) featuring or mentioning the brand

Finally, each group will write a short discussion based on this evidence.

Here is where YOU come in!

I’d like to offer my students the opportunity to publish their work as guest posts (idea, courtesy of @MikeSchaffer). If you have a blog where you write about social media, will you let me know?

On April 4th I will post abstracts of my students’ posts on my blog. I’ll share them with the hope that you’ll be interested in publishing any one of those on your blog. The authors of every case study that gets selected for online publication will earn 2 extra credit points on their FINAL course grade. My students fates are in your hands! (Like how I just passed that on to you? Haha!) Please share this with your fellow social media bloggers

Thank you! See you here on April 4th!

Feel free to judge.

Write an Elevator Pitch for Your Blog [Day 1 -31DBBB]

A mutant offspring of the 20th and 21st century I have a multitasking sort of background in public relations, marketing, social media, writing, design and advertising. I have an undying passion for reading news, blogs and books and I force feed myself more mainstream media, brands and entertainment than anyone likes to admit most of the time.

This blog is about communication and the way it is evolving our society. Not unlike my mind, this blog is scattered, but it gets its focus back by extrapolating from current events, other posts, news articles, etc. to determine how – one way or another – they all integrate to essentially point out the same thing. Of course, that’s not always the case and that’s when things get interesting.

A friend once told me that writing is one of the most narcissistic professions, hobbies… things to do in the world and I agreed wholeheartedly. I still do. And today at work I mentioned to my co-worker that everyone and their moms have a blog now, maybe even two or three.

So, seeing as how I’m a part of the legions that blog, tweet and do everything in between…

I hereby pledge that I will do so to the best of my ability, that I will try to not be self indulgent and that I will write only to add to the dialogue, whatever it may be. *

Mission statements. They are pretty important and it makes sense to have one.

Oh! I also pledge to be only human. But anyone and everyone is welcome to keep me in check. My comments are unmoderated.

In his book “Here Comes Everybody” Clay Shirky says that we sometimes make the mistake of thinking that just because something is published online and is “out there” it was written for us and we can pass judgement if we feel it hasn’t been tailored properly or written well. He says we should think of some blogs, twitter feeds, etc. as the new journals – meant to be read only by friends of the author or the author alone.

But if someone happens to find me it’s probably because they searched Google for something specific or because a link led them here. If that’s the case, then I better be relevant and by God I better write well. What kind of narcissistic wench would I be if I didn’t think or care, at least to some extent, about what happens after I hit that “PUBLISH” button?

They say content is king but I think it should actually be the peasant that serves the audience, which is in fact its king.

I finally found a name for the blog that is something other than my name. I know, my name is still on there… I can explain.

My name was a good place to start off with for the blog in order to bring my Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook… you-name-it accounts back to the same place and have it all make some sense. But never, for a moment, did I think that it would be  the sole thing to let those who might read the blog  know what it was about. Assuming, of course, that anything I might have to say would ever interest anyone.

My problem in giving the blog a proper name was that I wasn’t sure what exactly I was writing about. Guilty. I’m a hit-the-ground-running sort of person (on a somewhat relevant note I also eat pizza the other way around and start with the crust) and failed to follow the step-by-step procedures for blogging that make it clear that you shouldn’t start writing before finding a purpose based on the audience you are reaching out to. I knew this much – I enjoy writing, I read a lot of what others write, I watch / listen to news and I’m really (shall I say ricidulously?) interested, curious and in touch with the ongoings of social media, the Web and the changing technological landscape that is reinventing the communications industry and our society.

I realize that this describes a lot of people out there so I knew it was important to find my own voice and reason for b[log]eing within such a broad scope.

It hit me the other day when I was watching TV with my friends. To make a long story short, I annoyed them (and I say that in a loving way) when I mentioned something about Twitter, that I had read on Mashable that sort of related to what we were watching.

“One track mind”? Nah. That wouldn’t have been a good name because I try to be well-rounded. It just happens that I’m the token geek in the group and the only one that knows Twitter isn’t a mixed drink.

I did realize that I like to take things in and any time I see/watch/hear/you-get-it something – anything – I find a way to tie it all back to communications, the Web, social media, technology, public relations, my life… those things I am most passionate and make an effort to learn more about.

I thought about “Taking it in” but decided against it two seconds later when I noticed how many inappropriate connotations it could lead to. Some people clicking on my blog from the results of a Google search may have been quite disappointed.

flickr user: etohaholic

I let the subject go for a moment and picked up The New York Times crossword puzzle. As usual I worked my way through it. I filled in the words I knew and guessed the words I didn’t know the clues for by using the letters of seemingly unrelated words to help me out. Eureka.

I once wrote that my favorite words were collaboration, sharing and drank. Well, throw integration in there.

I find it fascinating when I see how much integration happens at all levels and all aspects of life and how much it helps us make sense of our society’s “big picture.” I”m talking “Beatiful Mind” sort of stuff here… minus the conspiracy part.

This post hereby makes it official, “Down and Across” is the blog’s new name and it’s just the right amount of ambiguous so that I may still write about all the things that interest me from (hopefully) an original point of view (my point of view, which explains why I kept my name on there) and that will make it worth wrtiting and taking the time to groom and improve on it more and more.

The best part? Crosswords. Newspapers. I love that I found a name that references something I am hugely fond of and have great respect for.