Bragging on Oklahoma: Heartline

I love to brag on Oklahoma. I wasn't born here, didn't go to high school here*, but have somehow managed to get this place under my skin and love to go around bragging about what's happening on this red dirt.

There's just something about the folks in Oklahoma that puts helping others in their blood and that blood I find flowing through so many parts of my life - from my church family, to Cub Scouts, to the world of social media.

So, more often than not, when you are calling someone and asking for help, you'll get a good Okie on the other side who cares and shares.

That brings me to Heartline. I was asked to blog about them last week and set aside today to do that. I was all ready to put up something rah-rah, but here's where the story gets interesting.**

One of Heartline's services is the 211 number to share information for people who are looking for counseling. This morning, I actually called the number to get real info for a real member of the family. No PSA here, folks. This is actual life being lived.

It was great info and the voice on the other end of the phone walked me through in a real way. It hard to even articulate what that meant. She dug through to get the best information and wished me a sincere good luck. After spending hours in other places waiting for terrible information, it was quite an experience.

Good job, Oklahoma. Good job, Heartline.

More info here.

FOOTNOTES

* - Berry Tramel's standard for citizenship.

** - Long story indeed.

Twitter is in love with search

Here is a blog I wrote for the Journal Record.
In a nutshell, Twitter has found its current (and future) groove and will embrace the superpower* of real-time search.
I expect this is how and why Google is going to swallow them up, which isn't necessarily a bad thing**.
Enjoy the blog here.

FOOTNOTES
* - It is doubtful that this superpower could get you into the Legion of Super-Heroes, but it's better than Arm Fall Off Boy.
** - New name: Twoogle? Or Gwitter?

Content is King, Shankman close second

Here is a blog I wrote for The Journal Record's web site after speaking at OkieSMart in Tulsa.*
Meeting Peter Shankman was the latest in this thrilling summer. I feel blessed with who I have been able to connect with both on and offline.
The bottom line when talking about the continuing ripples of social media on reputation and brand management is that content leads to influence and reputation and there's no way of reversing that formula.
I have a bunch of video of Peter**, which I will soon post to STF's YouTube channel.
Otherwise, enjoy the blog.

FOOTNOTES
* A great, well-attended show which gives a sneak peek at just how well we're doing it here in the state. A true, statewide conference would be incredible. You heard it here first.
** First name basis. We're buds.

Wrangling Social Media Tidbits

There’s so much to blog about, including some leftovers from my trip to New York City to talk about Twitter. Here are some social media tidbits in rapid-fire fashion:

• In case you were wondering about the 140 Characters Conference and my speech about the Oklahoma Twitter community’s use of hashtags and mashups during our ice storms, tornadoes and wildfires, you can watch the whole she-bang right here. I start at about the 1:50 mark.

• Stephanie Smirnov, president of DeVries Public Relations, was in the audience and wrote a nice and flattering blog post about her impressions. High praise for someone like me who is just starting out, in the PR world.

• Updates are happening fast and furiously in the world of Twitter applications. I was able to meet the guys who run Hootsuite, one of my favorite sites for managing multiple accounts. Their new version, which I was lucky enough to get a beta invite to, is even better and is a really good emulation of TweetDeck, but inside the browser. If you don’t use Hootsuite, you should check it out just for the fact that it allows you to time-release Tweets for later posting. A great time saver. Check out Hootsuite here.

• If anyone needs an icebreaker to talk about the power of social media, now is the time. While the Time Magazine cover story gave Twitter buzz, I think what’s happening in Iran gave it bones. The use of social media during these tumultuous past two weeks has shown it is now an indispensable part of anyone’s communication with the world at large. This works for businesses as well as people. Andrew Sullivan’s blog, which is a daily read for me, has done the best job of not only emphasizing this point, but for providing some of the best dispatches via tweet that are coming out of Teheran.

• One of the best moves a company can make before they dive into the deep end of social media is to figure out a policy for how they want their employees to engage with customers online and what, if any, restrictions they want to put on the content of those interactions. Strangely, some of the biggest bumblers in this area have been media companies. The Associated Press is the latest, with their employees’ union crying foul over the fact that the AP wants employees to monitor what their connections are saying on Facebook and delete any comments that might reflect poorly on AP.

Yes, that’s right. If your crazy uncle Earl sends you a message about his awesome weekend of debauchery in Vegas, you could get bounced by the bosses.

To me, that crosses the line. Companies do need policies in place to serve as guidelines and that could prevent crisis, but they only have so much leverage.

Mashable, as always, has great coverage of the story here.

• And if you’re still in the mood to drive up some Oklahoma-based hashtags on Twitter, here’s the latest - #OKHeat.

Changing the game

Speaking and attending the 140 Characters Conference in NYC really opened my eyes and changed the way I looked at things.*
It also happened at a time when things were changing in the world of social media. The expectations are now that social media, and Twitter specifically, will be a part of every big event.
Here's what I wrote in a guest blog for The Journal Record.

FOOTNOTES
* Like Times Square. Did you know they have a really big Walgreen's there? Who knew?

Welcome to mkokc.com

Thursday was some kind of day in the world in which we live.
Congressmen were bounced on one hand and praised on the other for tweeting during Obama's non-SOTU. The Oklahoman was basking in the warm glow of its greatest APSE haul in history.
And then there was the Rocky Mountain News.
Why choose today to launch a bigger, better blog. A day when one of the better metro newspaper bites the dust, leaving so many good people as well as some friends in its wake?
Maybe its because I got a lonely email today asking if Prayingforpapers.com had died. Maybe it's because I want to have a more of a say in the world of Web 2.0, since I am down in the mud every day trying to mash the square peg of newspaper journalism into the round hole of the web. There are so many "social media" experts on Twitter and Facebook who 30 days ago were "no-money-down real estate" experts.
There have been so many positives that I've experienced from actual social networking in the few months since I've changed jobs.
So this is another mashup for me - the blog equivalent of tweeting, live streaming and live chatting during the #ice storm of the media landscape.
They say that someone starts a blog every five minutes somewhere in the world.
Here's to social media, multimedia and ubermedia.
Here's to my five minutes.