I want my MacBook Pro Back
So the other day, by beloved MacBook Pro crapped out on me. I went to turn the machine on and I heard the start up chime, but the screen stayed black. “Maybe I just need to let the battery charge,” I thought. Nope. “Maybe I just need to restart in safe mode.” Nope. “Maybe I need to connect it to an external monitor and play around with my install discs.” Nope.
I researched on various Mac forums for a solution and went down to the Apple store on 14th street. My logic board is hopeless and there’s a sibling error on my harddrive. Apparantly the crazy dent I have on the lower casing voids my warranty and 3 year apple care so I’m looking at a price tag of $1240 to have my baby fixed.
It was impossible to stop the tears from welling up in the store. I was having one of those dilirious episodes in my head too where I imagined that the guy really meant $12.40. I went to Tekserve for a second opinion and they gave me an option that still resulted in sending my laptop back to Apple.
I am frustrated beyond belief. I’m currently working on an Acer laptop running Vista and I pretty much want to shoot myself in the face. At this point, I don’t know whether I should just buy a new MacBook, invest in the MacBook Pro repair, or even buy a new MacBook.
My parents think it’s silly to invest in another Apple product, but I’m convinced that once you go Mac, you never go back.
Balancing the Personal and the Professional
Ever since I dove into this whole social media thing, I’ve heard the following messages on repeat:
- Your blog is your resume
- You must establish your personal brand
- You must use your site as a storefront, a store where you’re selling one product – yourself.
As a result, I feel pressure to write posts about “smart” things complete with”smart” commentary. I feel the need to write about topics related to the social media landscape, all from the perspective of my twentysomething viewpoint. I feel the need to cater this blog to an audience of people who I want to get to know me, people who might hire me, who might work with me, people who I respect and admire. Like the bullet points on any job description, I want my posts to showcase who I am and what I do.
At the same time, I still have to embrace who I am outside of the social media bubble. I am a person, a young female who has insecurities, doubts, and dreams. I can’t write like the A-list bloggers I read because I simply don’t have the experience or the authority to project that same voice. I want to blog about my friends and silly stupidnes that ensues when we get together. I want to blog about how much I enjoyed Iron Man and how much I cried when I went to watch Sex & the City at midnight on Thursday. I want to blog about my relationships, the move I’m about to make to Boston, the absurdity of politics in America, the ignorance of the average person, the awesomeness that is Wii, and also how desperately I want to get my nails done today.
Most of the time when I don’t post, it’s not because I don’t have a lot to say, it’s because I have too much to say. I get wrapped up in thinking about what I *should* write, that I skip over what I *feel* and *need* to write, to the point where I just don’t do it at all.
I realize I acknowledged this in previous posts I wrote, but it’s so much easier to dish out advice than execute it yourself. That said, I’m remotivating myself to be a better blogger by posting more. I think I can establish myself professionally without having to compromise myself personally. Hopefully both voices will be heard in the posts to follow.
I’ll leave off with an excerpt from one of my favorite movies, Across the Universe:
“What you do defines who you are.”
“No. Who you are defines what you do.”
“It doesn’t matter what you do. It’s how you do it.”
Is this Generation Epic Fail?
I ran out to Barnes & Noble today to pick up Mark Bauerlein’s book, The Dumbest Generation. I took an interest in the title after reading a couple of Amanda Chapel‘s notoriously snarky comments on Twitter:
The book is clearly stirring up controvery and it’s not just on my timeline. Last week, Boston.com published a list of 8 reasons why this is the dumbest generation and the link received 2015 Diggs. As referenced by Chapel in her tweet above, the Wall Street Journal also wrote about the book while CNET mentioned it in a blog post.
It’s doesn’t surprise me that there’s this much talk about the topic since Bauerlein is essentially targeting the most vocal demographic of Americans out there – loud, opinionated, and highly communicative Generation Y-ers who he might as well rename “Generation Epic Fail.”
According to Bauerlein’s thesis, no one under the age of 30 can be trusted. I am a member of this so-called “dumbest generation”, someone who is supposedly stupefied by excessive amounts of time in front of my computer, and engrossed in activities that deplete my intellectual curiosity and impede my ability to communicate like a real human being.
Under most circumstances, I’m open to constructive criticism, but I’m having a hard time reading this book with an open mind. I want to point out that based on what I’ve seen in the introduction alone, Bauerlein’s thesis is inherently flawed because of the framework he uses to discuss his argument. To paraphrase, Bauerlein says that his book is not about the cultural attitudes and social trends of today’s youth. Instead, it is only focused on asserting the fact that intellect amongst this generation is severely lacking.
Now according to Merriam-Webster, intellect is defined as, “the power of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel and to will : the capacity for knowledge.
Bauerlein argues that while this generation has a great expanse of knowledge readily available at all times, the majority fail to actually access or process it. Instead, individuals are immersed in a series of meaningless, impersonal exchanges, consisting of passed on, unprocessed bits of information. We can retrieve data whenever we want to, but our failure to recall it is a skill we sorely lack. In other words, we are plugged-in, but mentally tuned out.
I don’t think I’ll ever accept any argument that categorizes me as being dumb or destined to fail. That said, I’ll keep reading and look forward to the discussions that will ensue. If you’ve read this book or plan on it, I’d love to hear what you think.
Follow up posts will happen along the way…
FREE WIFI and Stephanie Agresta FTW
I can barely type because I’m sitting on this coach bus, half awake and about to hurl if we don’t get out of this traffic. I’m on my way back to New York after a fun night in Boston, a night full of Microsoft developers, social media rockstars, PR pros, and perhaps one too many drinks.
I took the bus up yesterday with one of my bosses, Ms. Stephanie Agresta, aka Internet Geek Girl. We rode up on the Bolt Bus, which is a new coach line servicing Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and DC. Like Fung Wah and Lucky Star, Bolt Bus sells trip tickets for $15, sometimes as low as $10 or $7 depending on how far in advance you purchase online. The biggest perk in my opinion is the fact that these buses come equipped with personal power outlets built into every seat AND free WIFI. That’s right. FREE WIFI!
The ride up was most definitely an experience. It involved one pit stop at a Burger King, circling Logan Airport three times before the driver found South Station, and entertaining Stephanie with my version of t33nl33tspeak, which translates into phrases like, “zomg this bus ride pwns for the win.”
I don’t have it in me to make a coherent string of thoughts right now so I’ll just list some of the things that I thought about last night and on this bus:
- Programmers play beer pong. Cool. I definitely did not know that prior to last night.
- Maria Thurrell likes to pimp me out. She most definitely parties like a rockstar.
- I think Stephanie Agresta knows everyone and their mom.
- Not only does he know how to put together an event, Jay Meattle is probably one of the nicest guys ever.
- I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jeff Glasson or Chris Penn without their respective cameras.
- Meeting online friends in real life is always great. /me waves to chelpixie
- I wonder if it’s possible to attach a gaming console to the monitors in coach buses. These rides would be complete if I could play guitar hero or Rock Band.
- Why is the ratio of men to women at tech events *still* 10 to 1?
- ^ why am I complaining?
- Are we almost there yet?
Okay, note to self: Do not blog on moving vehicles. Do not blog on 3 hours of sleep. This post needs to end right now before turning into major epic fail.
Your Offline Presence: What really matters when looking for a job in a web 2.0 world
I’m making a trip up to Boston again for the second time this month. Why? I’m looking for a job in the area, specifically a job working in social media.
I had a friend ask me, “Why do you have to go all the way up there just to talk to people about potential jobs? Aren’t these dudes like always online? Just send them an email with your resume.”
I wish it were that easy, but it’s not. Yeah “these dudes” aka social media folk are always online, but they’re not as accessible as you think. I’ve found that social media professionals today have networks and InBoxes that are saturated with surface-level connections and far too many friend requests, to the point where they can’t even manage them properly. If you want to get noticed, you need to make yourself recognizable beyond an avatar. In my case, this means sitting on a bus for 5 hours to attend the PopSignal party for the night.
Earlier this month, Bryan Person held one of his Social Media Breakfasts, which was appropriately centered around “hiring and getting hired in the Web 2.0 world.” A summary of what the panelists said that day:
- “Think of social media as a thin slice way to build a relationship and also to increase your brand and presence. Engage people in the beginning of a conversation (online via social network) and then take it offline to really deepen the relationship.” – Stever Robbins aka Get-It-Done Guy
- “No resumes. I don’t want to see any paper. I don’t want to see the school you went to…the last 5 jobs…I don’t want you to email me because I know that the people I want to hire live and breath social media (use twitter linkedin, facebook, etc).” – Aaron Strout, VP of New Media at Mzinga
- “If I don’t already know the person, I question why should I? The people we want to hire are the people we already know…” – Todd Defren, Principal at SHIFT Communications
- “Use these tools….but the tools don’t get the job, you get the job.” – Chris Brogan
There you go. Straight from the folks who know it best.
In my own words, the best advice for anyone who wants to work in the industry: show up and speak up. Find out what events are taking place and who’s going to be there. Go to the event and then make yourself known as a potential hire.
These days, you need to make the extra effort by establishing a presence both online and offline and engage in conversations beyond blog posts and direct messages. That was a lesson I learned at the first SMB I ever attended back in February, which focused on “how twitter changed my life.”
Alright, Boston. Here I come!
39: Back to Basics Blogging (B2BB)
I’m so tired of reading posts and listening in on panels that talk about what it takes to be a professional blogger or how to profit off of blogging. Yes, there are folks who can make a living doing it, yes there are CEO’s and entrepreneurs who can use it to expand their businesses, yes there are some blogs that give traditional media publications a run for their money in terms of credibility, originality, and coverage. In my opinion, it means nothing if the person writing the blog doesn’t like doing it.
When I was 8 years old, my father gave me a journal. This was the first volume of 5 that I kept over the course of my childhood. I wrote almost daily in these notebooks and when I was 11, I started my first AOL profile page, a site that I consider to be my first “blog.” Since then, I’ve moved onto sites like LiveJournal, Blurty, MovableType, TypePad, MySpace, Blogger, Tumblr, and of course WordPress (zomg, <3 WordPress). With the exception of a few, the majority of these blogs were all private.
These days, everyone seems to be so engrossed in the public nature of their blogs, traffic stats via Google Analytics, monetization using targeted ad words, SEO, reader subscriptions, comments, etc. I’m interested in Back To Basics Blogging, which for me is blogging for myself. It means blogging with purposeful passion and doing it because I love it.
I encourage people to blog because we’re humans with thinking capabilities and opinions worth sharing. I encourage people to blog because life is beautiful and worth documenting for posterity. I fantasize about my Grandkids Googling my posts and saying, “Wow, Grandma was pretty awesome when she was our age.”
I’ve recently revisited those journals I mentioned and I noticed that even as an 8 year old, I had the right idea. I wrote daily and I wrote honestly. I wrote about whatever I felt like. I wrote for one person – me.
To anyone interested in reviving a blog, give yourself a little blog CPR with B2BB. Challenge yourself to write one post every day for a period of forty consecutive days. Don’t feel limited to one particular topic either. Instead, write about what you’re feeling on that particular day, whether it’s an opinion, an emotion, or an inquiry. If you’re naturally passionate about something, a common thread will emerge.
Think it’s too much? Start a Tumblr account. Tumblr will force you to put *something* out there, whether it’s a link, a written post, a photograph, a video, whatever it is that inspires you. It’s fast, it’s easy, it’s not about ads, it’s not about comments. It’s about one thing – content.
40: Ack! I need my blog back!
I recently experienced a surge of traffic to my site as a result of an assignment I worked on with Chris Brogan, social media king and Mr. all around nice guy. Back in March he gave me the challenge of compiling a list of his best blog posts dating back to July 2007 (anyone familiar with the blog knows what I was working with – a lot of content and even more challenging, a lot of *quality* content). To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement because at the time, I couldn’t possibly fathom how I would determine which posts were worthy of a “Best of Brogan” page. There was just so much good stuff there.
That said, I spent a considerable amount of time reading and re-reading his archives and compiled a list using a very non-formulaic system. I asked myself if a post was useful to me as social media newbie, contained thoughtful comments from readers, was more than just a paragraph blurb or embedded video, and contained something unique to Chris as a blogger/thinker/writer. What I took away from the experience was invaluable.
Here’s my problem today: People are coming to my site and there’s no blog! I’m being publicly acknowledged as someone who knows arguably the #1 social media blog on the web front to back, yet I don’t do what I spent hours studying.
Truth be told, I blog a lot and manage about 10 online properties, but I’ve really neglected my personal stuff on here. I can’t possibly describe the level of anxiety I have right now because my blog is in this shape, but what can I do? I either put up a splash page with a tacky “Under Construction” or “Coming Soon” notice, or I just do what I should be doing – write, write, write.
(Note: My site wasn’t always this way, but thanks to a botched WordPress 2.5 upgrade and a backed up copy of my blog on a 500GB Seagate external harddrive that no longer mounts (umm, someone wanna tell Robert Scoble to be my new bff?), it is what it is.
I’m on a mission to give myself blog CPR and I’m going to do that by writing everyday for the next forty days straight. I did it last spring and I’ll do it again. It’s a challenge that any blogger should do if they want to really get themselves back on track.
After publishing this post, I’m one down, 39 to go…
