In my new role, I’ll be the Community Manager for USC’s Master’s of Arts in Teaching program, helping connect students and alumni in both online and offline channels. This new position has me working alongside a team of visionary leaders in the higher education field and immersed in a diverse community of more than 1,000 educators and students across the country.

As I start this new chapter, I’m forever grateful to the team at Porter Novelli for the lessons they imparted on me. Their unique approach to strategic thinking, unwavering commitment to their clients, and unbelievable attention to detail gave me newfound respect for PR professionals and brand marketers. If you ever get the chance to work alongside Stephanie Agresta (friend, mentor, and geek girl extraordinaire), John Havens (actor, all things augmented reality, mr. congeniality), Joel Johnson (strategic planning guru, swagger king, powerpoint wiz), Israel Mirsky (lover of emerging tech and small puppies), Karen Hartline (queen of karaoke and events, my left coast lover), Heather D’Amico (the skinniest fat girl with the best laugh you’ll ever meet), Greg Tedesco (my #strongisland counterpart), Nicole D’Alonzo (the sweetest gal on the web) and Christina Petroni (my separated sister at birth) – take it!  There are so many agencies out there, but I truly believe that PN’s integrated approach, their heart and rockstar talent sets it apart from many.

And so, here I am once again, joining another all-star marketing team led by Jeremy Johnson (too cool for school, but one of the smartest, kindest, and most driven individuals I know).  I’ll be going back to my higher ed roots (I used to work in Admissions at Barnard College), revisiting platform technologies (shout out to Mzinga!), and putting all of that Porter Novelli strategic thinking into practice.

In the word of my new Trojan friends, FIGHT ON!

For years, I’ve always felt that Facebook gave lazy marketers an ego boost by providing a metric that said marketers were doing their jobs better than they actually were.  As consumers, “becoming a fan” never really meant much beyond the word “like”.  There were no real relationships there, no real types of meaningful engagement.

Facebook’s decision to switch from “fan” to “like” feels logical, natural, and really very necessary.  The ecosystem today is one giant meatmarket of brands and products vying for our attention.  At the end of the day, we as consumers have no desire to commit to contrived relationships.  Luckily for us, Facebook just gave us an easy out.

Well world, I am officially here!  This week I’ll be joined by about fifty of my colleagues from Porter Novelli (disclosure: we’re SXSW’s Agency of Record), helping Stephanie Agresta and Brian Solis rock out the blogger lounge and TechSet, recording an episode of Capitalize for Dartboston, and connecting with some of my favorite people in the industry.

I’m slightly worried that VIP lists and secret dinners will create a separation between the “haves” and “have nots” or the “influencers” and the “wannabes”. I do not have VC funding or a hot startup to call my own. I am not an online personality nor do I have an upcoming book deal. I do not have a million Twitter followers or a personal fan page. But what I do have is a purpose.

This year at SXSW, I want to celebrate the following:

1. Friends – There are people who I’ll be meeting this week who I’ve known for years and some just a few days. There are people who I haven’t met in person yet, but have written emails and tweets to for months. I want to celebrate friendships that I’ve been fortunate enough to have thanks to this wonderful community. I’m a better person because of them.
2. My job – Do you know how awesome it feels to get to be here because of work?  I take a lot of pride in being able to say that I’ve hustled hard over the past four years to get to this point and to know that I’m making a living doing what I love means everything to me.
3. Serendipity – I ran into @heyamberrae on my flight earlier and we bonded at the airport and over lunch about our similarities, passions, and shared connections. Prior to this run-in, we were just twitter acquaintances who had met briefly at an event in NY. I can now say that Amber is officially on my “watch out world” list and someone who I’m looking forward learning from and collaborating with in the future. This is just one of many serendipitous moments that I hope to have in the days to come. It’s the unexpected, anything can happen, spontaneous nature of this space that keeps me coming back for more every time.

In this vast landscape of social media practitioners, ideators, innovators, entrepreneurs, and technology titans, to know that I somehow have a piece of the puzzle is something words can’t describe.  And even though I officially haven’t slept for two nights straight, I am so alive, alert, and ready to have SXSW kick off my best year yet.

My short interlude covered a concept that I call “reverse-mentorship.”  While I would love to take credit for the origin of the phrase, it’s something that I believe Barry coined while we were piloting out the idea.

In a nutshell I make the argument that reverse-mentorship, the pairing of digital natives with senior level executives, is the fastest way towards bridging the digital or generational divide.  Here’s a summary highlighting my main points:

Meet the Millennials. There is no shortage of words to describe who were are in the eyes of our elders.  Some say we’re spoiled, some say we’re naive.  We’re most definitely inexperienced and yes, we care about ourselves a lot.  To label us the “ME” generation is fairly accurate, however self preservation and pursuit of individual happiness has always been part of America’s cultural DNA.

Who’s in charge? A climate crisis, a broken health care system, a need for education reform, and a recession.  For all the negative labels surrounding Millennials today, at least we can say we didn’t create these problems.  Previous generations have demonstrated flawed leadership-styles that can no longer be counted on to produce the results we need.  It’s time for change.

Reverse-mentorship isn’t about sparking a youth revolution. It’s not about asserting that one generation is better over the other.  Rather, this is about expressing an opportunity for us to isolate our  flaws, and work together to compensate for them. What Millennials lack in experience, we make up for in our digital aptitude, eagerness to learn, and desire for speed.  We can help tenured professionals overcome their lack of technical finesse, in exchange for their knowledge and expertise.  Together, we can create partnerships that reinforce organizational systems that are faster, smarter, social, and change-oriented.

I’ve met and worked with enough executives and professionals by now to know that this partnership of generations can work.  How it actually plays out in practice…. that’s a completely separate post.

More on this topic to come.

UPDATE 8/14: Here’s the video of the talk!

I concluded that I was a hybrid blogger, someone who had yet to establish a clear sense of purpose in my writing.  What I’ll admit to is the challenge that I face every single day – the struggle to answer, “Who am I?” and “Who do I want to be?”

It’s so much easier for us to answer the latter question because we can all fantasize about the best version of ourselves.  However, what most of us lack is the self-actualization it takes to admit to who we really are.

In the world of personal branding, those that do it best are consistent, confident, and concise.  They manage to fine-tune the complexities of their character and simplify.  We are all multi-faceted creatures, yet self-marketing pros can usually get themselves down to 2-3 key words.  It’s all about keeping it simple.

The Online Dilemma of Gen-Y
What the world needs to realize is that for young professionals like myself, many of us are still grappling with self-identity issues.  I’ve had this talk with other peers and pals like Maria Thurrell, Amanda Gravel, and Sandy Kalik before and we constantly ask, “How the heck can we market ourselves when we barely even know who we are?”

Ask yourself what you were like when you just graduated college.  Did you have any clue as to what you wanted in life and what you were doing in your career that would lead to where you are today?

I envy a lot of adults who managed to make the transition from student to professional without having someone Google them.  I miss the days when I could log into my blogs and write randomly about my life and what I was feeling on a particular day.  The internet used to be a place of self exploration for me and now it’s evolved into a place of self-assertion.

Creating a Fluid Online Identity

We live in an unforgiving world of web histories and share this links.  The concept of context is virtualy shattered when we exist online and as a result, our personal brands must stay with us from one web property to the next.

It is my hope that the professional world understands that we are the first generation to have what I’d like to call a fluid identity.  We have a legacy of High School MySpace profiles, college Facebook accounts, and post-college LinkedIn resumes.  We can attempt to sell ourselves under the guise of a personal brand, but at the end of the day, that brand will shift and evolve with every new experience we have as people.

As the Graduating Class of 2009 descends upon the working world, I encourage them to embrace the uncertainty of their identities, revel in the technologies they grew up with, and dismiss this notion of conformity.

I challenge them to answer,”Who am I?” and “Who do I want to be?”, but more importantly, to repeat this process time and time again.

Photo credit: Obensen

• Simple is better – WP is an amazing platform that has many customization options built right in. I can get almost the same visual effect with my simple theme as I would have gotten with the more complex theme, with a lot fewer headaches.
• Your content is way more important that what your theme looks like. Your readers won’t keep coming back just because your blog looks cool. People won’t hire you because they love your blog theme (unless you’re a web designer).
• Don’t create drama where there is none. You can change your WP theme as often as you change your underwear, so don’t get stuck when trying to pick one.
• Don’t get buried by stuff that really isn’t that important.

As my last post indiciates, a lot of thought often goes into choosing a WordPress theme.  At first instinct, my gut told me to disagree with Michelle’s points because I actually do believe that themes can do a lot for bloggers.  After thinking about it more, I then concluded that both our theme philosophies are right, but they cater to different types of bloggers.

If you subscirbe to Michelle’s points, then host your blog at WordPress.com.  Don’t even bother with getting a self-hosted installation because it might lead you down that dark rabbit hole of choices, maintenance, and cost.  In fact, you don’t even have to use WordPress in this case.  Blogger is great, as well as the highly underrated LiveJournal.

If you subscribe to my philosophy (see previous post), then you need a self-hosted blog.  You want the flexibility to expand, grow, change, and customize.  Only a self-hosted blog will allow you the flexibility to do that.  However, keep in mind that with great choice, comes great responsibility.  You’ll wind up creating more work for yourself that otherwise wouldn’t exist on a non-self-hosted blog.

Regardless of the platform you choose, I’ll leave off with some food for thought…

What kind of blogger are you?

Stephanie Klein managed to land two book deals as a result of her uncensored musings on her blog, Geek Tragedy (stephanieklein.com).

• The Freudian – You spend the majority of your posts pontificating life’s big questions, writing about your parents, and maybe even divulge your many relationship escapades.  Some of my favorite bloggers who fall into this category: Stephanie Klein, every teenager who blogs on MySpace

• The Rant-a-holic – We all like to vent, but some of us do this better than others.  Rant-a-holics spend the majority of posts complaining or criticizing, but not simply for the sake of standing on a soapbox.  Rant-a-holics are passionate, uncensored, and have strong points of view.  I find that the demographic of bloggers who do this best – Mommies.  Some of my favorites: Queen of Spain, Dooce, etc.

• The Commentator / Analyst – Everyone aspires to fall into this category.  This upper echelon of bloggers create content that is fairly balanced, thought-provoking and well-sourced.  They deliver on a regular basis and tend to have loyal audiences.  Bloggers who fall into this category: Seth Godin, Jeremiah Owyang, etc.

• The Self-Promoter – Online marketers today are some of the best self-promoters around.  They’re constantly plugging a new project, event, and always seem to have some “big announcement” right around the corner.  It’s easy to hate on this group, but at the end of the day, they’re the ones making money doing this whole online thing.  Bloggers who fall into this category: A lot of social media “rockstars” or “experts”
  

  It didn't surprise me when Jim Storer and Rachel Happe, two of the best Community-ccentric professionals out there, announced their new endeavor, aptly titled, The Community Roundtable (@theCR on Twitter).

• The Community Evangelist - These bloggers specialize in creating community-based content, meaning they’re all about promoting others. They write about friends, colleagues, what’s going on in a particular industry or setting, and they are all about sharing the positivity.  Some of my favorite people who do this: Aaron Strout, Jim Storer, Rachel Happe, etc.

• The Executive – Business leaders are giving this blogging thing a try because it provides another channel to communicate.  The execs who do this best publish content that isn’t a rehashed press release, but rather a candid, honest dialogue about what’s going on with their company and industry. Some of the best: Jonathan Schwarts (Sun Microsystems), Tony Hseih (Zappos), etc.

• The Reporter – This category can easily be called “Citizen Journalists,” or people who often write thoughtfully and serve as helpful resources for information (both biased and unbiased).  I would also place the collective group of contributors to media platforms like Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Mashable, etc. here.  Some people who do this well: Steve Garfield, Chris Penn, ProBlogger, etc.
  

  The girls of NonSociety.com have made it their business to tell the world "TMI."

• The Exhibitionist – Your lifestreamers, video bloggers, and web celebs all fall into this category.  They have no problem taking what they ate for lunch and posting it on a flickrstream for public consumption.  They divulge minutiae that seem meaningless to most, yet have audiences still wanting more.  Masters of this: NonSociety girls, iJustine, etc.

• The Fan - These are some of the most fun bloggers because their passion is evident in every post.  They manage to take their choice subject and write about it over, and over, and over again.  Readers don’t mind because chances are, they’re fans too and revel in the shared experience.  Some blogs that do this incredibly well: Perez Hilton (celebrity gossip), Over the Monster (Red Sox fan blog), Green Blogs, Food Blogs, etc.

If you’re like me, you probably don’t fall into a clear category.  I feel like my breakdown on this blog is 50% Freudian, 10% Rant-a-holic, 15% Promoter, 15% Community Evangelist, and 10% Commentator.  I have other web properties that are 100% Fan and I’d say that the majority of my online activities fall under Exhibitionist.

It’s a fun little exercise to ask yourself where you fit in, and something that I think will affect your blogging strategy down the road as well as impact how you style the presentation of your blog.

If you care to share, leave your blogging breakdown below.

As someone who often makes theme recommendations and installs a few WordPress sites myself, here’s the process I take people through (think of me as your personal shopping partner or concierge)…

What is the occasion?

Whether you’re going on a first date, going to prom, or interviewing for a new job, I’m a firm believer that presentation can mean everything.  A blog’s theme, just like an outfit must come with a purpose.  Decide whether your blog is going to be for personal use or professional use first.  In the world of social media consultants and personal branding, this can often mean a hybrid of the two.  However, it’s important to determine first whether you want to emphasize one over the other.

Here are some examples of extreme ends of the spectrum…

Non-Blog/Business Showcase: Ford Motors (autoshows.ford.com)

Personal Blog: Justine Ezarek (iJustine.com)

Professional Services: Stephanie Agresta Consulting (stephanieagresta.com)

Magazine/Media Platform: Mashable.com

Artists/Portfolio: Josh Baptista (joshbaptista.com)

What are your best and worst assets?

Some people have great legs, while others have great smiles.  Some look to hide their bellies, while others look to flaunt them.  When thinking about a WordPress-based website, you really need to do some heavy introspection.  By that, I mean that you need to think about your best and worst assets and what you want to really emphasize.  I know that my buddy Chris Brogan is one of the biggest pimps when it comes to the Thesis theme, but guess what?  He’s a great writer and a prolific blogger.  His strength is in his writing and therefore he has a theme that showcases that. For photographers and video bloggers, a text-ccentric theme like Thesis isn’t the route I’d take.  Instead, something that has a gallery and is heavy on the visuals will help emphasize what you do best.

Blog where focus is on the text: Chris Brogan (chrisbrogan.com)

Blog where emphasis is on video: Sukhjit (sukhjit.me)

How’s it made?

WordPress is by far my favorite CMS (content management system), more so than Drupal and Joomla.  I find the user interface easy to teach newbies and I love the developer community which is constantly creating new themes and plugins.  That said, I’ve found that the themes themselves have varying standards when it comes to their backend.  A lot of people think that the way a theme looks in a demo is the way it’s going to appear once it’s installed on a blog.  WRONG.  I have purchased and tried too many themes to name that have left me customizing CSS and PSD files for hours.  When evaluating a theme, check for the following:

• Does it require plugins?
• Does it come with .PSD files to make the images easily customizable?
• Does it have a support forum?
• Have people left a bunch of comments on the blog or forums complaining about features working?
• Does it make mention of custom fields? (I consider custom fields to be something that most beginners don’t understand on hosted WP blogs)

By evaluating those questions before hand, you’ll have a pretty good sense of how much work is going to go into the styling of the theme you choose and the degree of difficulty when using it.

How much does it cost?

If you want to be a serious blogger or have a site that offers you the flexibility of customization and features, then it is not a free endeavor.  There’s a built in cost to most basic blogs and that’s a host and domain.  Hosting packages can cost anywhere from $7.99 – $10 a month while domains usually are purchased for around $8-$10/year.  There are tons of great free themes out there to use, but some of the best cost a premium.  Unlike shoes and dresses at the mall, you can’t try these themes on, and all sales are final.

What a lot of beginners underestimate is that even with a premium theme, your blog is still going to require a bit of setting up.  Most premium themes don’t just look good out of the box.  Ask yourself if you are familiar with the following: working with an FTP client, a text editor, photopshop, and CSS and PHP files.  If any combination of those phrases scare you, DON’T WORDPRESS ALONE!

Here’s where the real cost comes in.  Most people who want to get a blog set up will actually need to pay someone like me to get it going.  At a bare minimum, you’ll have to invest at least $100 into this (domain/hosting).  Then there’s the issue of time.  I’m convinced anyone can teach themselves how to WordPress like a pro, but it’s a process that you’ll spend hours on.  If you want a WordPress blog set up with some basic customization and training, it can cost anywhere from $150-$200.  If you’re serious about having a full-scale WordPress powered site for a business, anticipate spending anywhere from $500 – $4000.  I personally am not the right person to ask when it comes to creating custom themes, doing full WordPress integrations into static sites, etc., but I know developers who do.  Their rates can cost anywhere from $75 – $100 / hour, which is why when added up, some people wind up spending close to $4k on their WordPress sites.

Resources:

If you want to get started on WordPress, spend some time getting familiar with what’s out there.  Here’s a list of sites I frequently browse that showcase various themes (these lists feature themes that are compliant with the most recent 2.7 release of WordPress)…

List of Free Themes

• http://www.bestwpthemes.com/
• http://wphacks.com/50-best-free-wordpress-themes-gallery/
• http://www.wpzoom.com/wordpress-themes-sets/best-free-wordpress-themes-in-2008/

List of Premium Themes

• Studio Press
• DIY Themes
• Theme Forest
• Gorilla Themes
• Woo Themes
  
• WP Remix
• iThemes
• Elegant Themes

Developers

• Directory of WordPress Consultants
• Content Robot*
• High Rock Media*

(I’ve worked with these two firms before and they’re great)

Conclusion:

There’s really no perfect formula to WordPress because it works differently for everyone.  Spend time thinking about your goals, your technical aptitude, personal style, and budget.  When you’ve done that, do some research and then get started.  I’ve been using WordPress since 2006 and I’ve been having fun with it ever since.  If you’re reading this and think you might need some extra WordPress guidance/help, shoot me an email: alexa.scordato@gmail.com.  Happy blogging!

*     *     *     *     *     *

Here’s an email that means more to me than any wall post, tweet, digg, or LinkedIn connection ever could or would (click to see it larger).

Exactly one year ago from today, I met Maria Thurrell on the 66 bus going to Innman Square. I emailed her the night before on a whim, because something in me said I should find a new friend (not a Facebook friend, not a meet you once and never keep in touch friend, but a real friend, someone with an open heart, an active mind, and a compassionate ear).

Lucky for me, Maria is a compulsive email checker, and at 12:53 AM, the night before my first ever Social Media Breakfast, she agreed to meet me.

In a year, Maria has become one of my best friends.  She’s a wonderful roommate, a loyal confidante, a fantastic shopping partner, an honest adviser, and a great source of support when I need it.

Looking back at the photos, check out the speakers I met for the first time that day: Laura Fitton, Doug Haslam, Jim Storer, and Scott Monty.  Even better, check out who the sponsor was.

I’m sharing this anecdote not only because it happened a year ago from today, but because it actually demonstrates the real ROI of being social (yes, just social, no media).

On February 13, 2008, I met Maria, Laura, Doug, Jim, Scott, Aaron Strout, Bryan Person, Steve Garfield, Sandy Kalik, Shannon DiGregorio, Dave Fisher, Colin Browning, Susan Piver, Matt Searles, Andrea Mercado, and a whole slew of others that I don’t see in these photos.  While they might not remember meeting me that day, I certainly remember meeting them all.

It should be noted that combined, @mathurrell (1,185) @pistachio (18,624), @dough (8,995), @jstorerj (2,323), @scottmonty (11,396), @aaronstrout (4,661), @bryanperson (4,812), @stevegarfield (8,927), @skalik (843), @sdigregorio (110), @tibbon (1,265), @crbrowning (1,620), @spiver (1,023), @mattsearles (854), and @andreamercado (1,057) have a combined Twitter following of 67,695. This means that I have the opportunity to reach out to each of these folks and ask them to retweet something I say or share.  If all 15 retweet what I say, I just reached 67,695 people.

• Thought #1:  Do we need to start measuring the value of our offline friendships if we consider them professional colleagues in the online space?

• Thought #2:  Will businesses ever start taking into account the power of their employees’ networks?

• Thought #3:  If we went into every social setting, looking to measure the online value of people we’re interacting with, wouldn’t we all just be assholes? (I’ve seen people do this at events and conferences was they approach “rock stars” in the industry.  It’s actually nauseating.  Lack of authenticity is always opaque in my eyes.)

As one lasting thought, as much as we can praise new technologies for their pretty UI’s and ability to scale our relationships, there are still some things like personal emails at 12 AM that do more for individuals than anyone could ever imagine. These things will never be measurable and they will never have a place in business.  However, it doesn’t mean that they don’t matter. It’s these quiet moments, the ones that no one ever sees that I’ve concluded, are the real building blocks to creating community.

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.

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…