Lately I’ve really enjoyed scooping up links shared by PR bloggers I follow. So, I thought I’d be a copy cat and spread a little link luv of my own:

Reads

DaveFleet’s Getting Started with Twitter So you’ll know how Twitter works, how to use it and why it’s not useless.

PRSquared’s Ideas for a Rainy Day When it’s cold and rainy you should be reading about social media, duh.

Read, Write, Web’s Five Ways To Keep Momentum After Your Big Announcement Big Mo Do’s and Don’ts

Chris Brogan loves LinkedIn’s new applications and wants you to love them, too. Right now.

Laughs

Cursebird.com Finally! A Twitter spin-off site that lets you track your favorite curse words in real-time.

Tunes

KCRW Radio It’s online, it’s eclectic, it’s Southern California’s leading National Public Radio affiliate and it rocks Team Newman’s world.

A photo of me. Obviously.

So, I learned a few things today about the origin of my name, Margie Newman, courtesy of www.isthisyour.name:

1. Although not well-endowed, I am apparently well-enVoweled since 42% of my name is comprised of such. So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

2. My “personal power animal” is the Komodo Dragon, the largest living species of lizard. This will totally make sense if you ever meet me in person. What?

3. There are most likely about 90 folks in the USA with whom I share the name Margie Newman. Hope none of my name doppelgangers ever keep me from being able to board aircraft.

4. My numerology number is six, with this caveat: “If it wasn’t bulls**t, it would mean that you are responsible, careful, and compassionate. A giver, you are there to support and care for the most vulnerable.”

Just thought I’d share. Go check out your name and don’t forget to vote in the Most Unfortunate Name Poll;  Adam Hoare got my vote.

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The Her Nashville November Issue is on news stands now! In it you’ll find all kinds of great features written by and featuring some truly fabulous Nashville ladies.

You’ll also find my latest rant on the importance of maintaining a purposeful and relevant (as opposed to creepy) online reputation:

Call me obsessive, but I cannot resist the weekly urge to check the pulse of my online self. I want to know what you see when you Google any combination of Margie, Maddux and/or Newman. It’s not that I think everyone is out there Googling me, but what if they do? What if “they” is my future boss or a high school friend? I want the search results for my online self to be a good representation of my real self, and it should be the same for you. Read More…

I might name my first born Zemanta. Here’s why:

Every blogger likes to think she’s got something to say that a reader will find interesting and relevant.

Maybe he’ll comment on it, email it to a friend or twitter about it. Maybe others will follow suit. It’s the whole point, really. Nearly all of us are striving for relevance on the web. Same goes for life, actually, but that’s a for another blog post.

It’s this relevance realm is where Zemanta really shines. Zemanta is a free FireFox browser extension that sets up shop right in your blog editor thing. As you type your blog post, Zemanta pulls related links, photos and other web content that match up with your draft. It does all the research for you – making your posts well-rounded and saving you time.

See! That FireFox link came from Zemanta, I didn’t have to go to the site and pull the link. Same goes for that stock image of the Zemanta logo up there. And the Zemanta link in the first graph.

Don’t worry – you don’t have to use any of Zemanta’s findings if you don’t want to. It’s all just there for the taking if you need it. It event pulls in suggested tags for you.

But here is the best part: if you are using Zemanta it adds your content to the list of on-topic articles it offers up to other Zemanta users; see below.

I’m thrilled because I’m starting to see visitor traffic coming here to FlackRabbit from blogs that are linking to my content because Zemanta is telling them I’m relevant to what they’re saying. It’s like magic!

Do you Zemanta your blog posts? If not, I’d highly recommend you give this tremendously user-friendly blogging tool a try.

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A recent US Army intelligence report adds Twitter to its list of potential terrorist tools. Twitter even has it’s own chapter called, “Potential for Terrorist Use of Twitter.” Here’s a quick overview via Breitbart:

…Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences.

I guess the vegans aren’t as organized?

…Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives.

Seriously! Altoids and Jello are made of animal bones!

…Extremist and terrorist use of Twitter could evolve over time to reflect tactics that are already evolving in use by hacktivists and activists for surveillance.

We saw you eat that piece of bacon.

Dang. We are screwed now. When the people who don’t eat fried chicken AND the political wonks are using Twitter it can only go downhill from here.

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Dear Thoughtful People,

You rock. You pull us out of a funk, offer up much needed perspective and are downright good for the soul.

You, thoughtful folk, inherently behave in a way that makes us wonder how the heck you knew we needed that bit of encouragement right this very second.  Best of all, it’s always very sincere and usually unprovoked.

So, I just want to say thank you – kind, thoughtful, genuine, encouraging folk (you know who you are) - on behalf of all of us who’ve been funky, frustrated or freaked-out recently.

You don’t suck. And we’re all very grateful.

Serioulsy.

Apparently, I’m supposed to cringe at the word “flack” as used to describe PR professionals like me. But, um, instead I kinda named my website after the term. Sorry!

From the PR News blog:

Technically, most dictionaries will refer to flack as a press agent/spokesperson. But we all know it’s not the preferred name for a spokesperson, for a communicator, for a PR executive. Yet it’s used all the time.  Whether behind your back or to your face…

…it’s a sad story — or a sad state of affairs — any time bona fide PR professionals (and I am assuming the PR dept at AIG is legit) are referred to as “flacks.”

Okay, true. It’s not my preferred name, but the use of the term flack is not the least bit offensive to me. Furthermore, I’ve had many a journalist and PR pro ask me what the word means, as they have never before heard it used to describe a communicator or spokesperson.

Now, I do agree with the blogger on several points. The NY Post was being less than professional and showing complete bias by recently referring to a spokesperson as a “flak.” I would roll my eyes if I was quoted that way, especially if it was spelled incorrectly like that.

But the bottom line is this:

The NY Post’s printed flack attack only speaks to the complete lack of trust the reporter has in that spokesperson. This is not something that can be prevented by one good response to a question. A solid media/flack relationship develops over time and boils down to how much respect you’ve earned (and keep) as a PR professional.

It’s that deteriorated media relationship, not word choice, that is so troublesome.

It’s no fun calling to tell four local TV stations your client’s event finished early so “don’t bother coming out after Noon” only to hear three of those stations had “already assigned a reporter and camera crew to come out at 1 p.m.”

(sigh)

On the bright side, they did thank me for calling and not “just letting us show up to an empty room.”

I’m still sad though.

So me and the hubbster are going to Bar Camp Nashville tomorrow. I’m looking forward to attending Wordpress 101, PR 2.0, New Media for Change and, of course, Make Google Your Bitch.

Bar Camp is free. There will be a plethora of Nashville Geeks, beer and Apple products. I’m excited to meet in person folks that I’ve only Twittered with up until now. This is also why I’m excited about our trip to Austin’s South by Southwest Interactive in March.

Are you attending Bar Camp? If you need more info, here’s the boilerplate:

BarCamp Nashville is an open-source gathering of technology enthusiasts who come together for one weekend to share what they know and learn what they don???t. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees. Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join.