YES! Amber at Altitude branding in Chicago has ranted about said EXACTLY what I was thinking but didn’t write down when I first heard of Qwitter, the service that shows you at what point/Tweet someone stops following you:

Twitter is about building a personalized, authentic online community that ultimately leads to building better relationships with people – either personally or professionally. It???s not about numbers, and it???s a different experience for everyone. As unique as your individual social circle.

There???s a big fallacy being perpetuated by Qwitter: that the tweet they send you is the *cause* of said person ceasing to follow your tweets, and that their unfollow is in direct relation to the quality of your Twitter stream. Each day, I see dozens of people fretting over the last person to drop them, and speculating about why. Some fret about it nearly obsessively.

Sure, Qwitter is a cool concept but why does anyone really care? I stop following folks all the time if they Tweet too much or don’t offer up anything I find interesting. It’s nothing personal, it’s just me tending to my little social media garden, ya know? I’m not offended or mad, I’m just doing my thang.

The point being, don’t fret folks. This is social media, not Hotel California.

Be sure to read Amber’s entire post here.

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Over the holidays I read The Fall of Advertising & The Rise of PR, by Al and Laura Ries. I don’t recommend you buy it and read it; it’s a much better library check out and scan type book.

For one thing, it was published in 2002, which makes reading it’s tales of Segway, Pets.com and The Red Tent pretty boring and stale.

Also, it’s clear the authors are terribly sad to see the age of advertising slip away and do not see a value in PR. I’m not even sure why PR is in the title, honestly. Here’s a gem from Chapter 9, page 85. Emphasis mine:

Perception is the name of the game, and advertising is perceived as the only way to create a better perception. Not true, but that the perception.

And that better alternative is publicity or, as its practitioners like to call it, PR, or public relations.

Whatever you all the function (publicity, PR, or public relations), the objective is the same. Tell your story indirectly through third-party outlets, primarily the media.

There are many disadvantages to PR. You can’t control the content, you can’t control the timing, and you can’t control the visual appearance of your message. You can’t even be sure that any of your messages will be delivered.

But the one advantage of PR makes up for all of its disadvantages. PR has credibility, advertising does not.

Gosh, too bad PR only has ONE advantage. How the heck would ANYONE hope to build up sincere media relationships that will one day help get your message out? If only there was a person one could turn to for media strategy and message control! (sigh).

Clearly, I’m still processing the tone and take-away message of this book. It has been on my read list for a while, which is why I’m sort of bitter about how disappointing the read was.

What about you? Have you read it? What lessons did you learn?

More importantly: Do you agree that PR offers no message control and only boasts ONE advantage, credibility?

So, you are new to Twitter and wonder where to begin. No worries, as it is with all new and uncharted communications tools there are plenty of blogs ready and willing to tell you exactly what to do. Enter TwiTip, the blog focused solely on helping you making the most of Twitter.

Here’s a sample of two great how-to posts:

10 first steps for beginners – this will walk you through setting up your profile, how not to be an idiot (read: spammer) and how to join in the conversation (this is social media, after all).

10 people beginners should follow – if you want to make the most of Twitter, you’ve got to follow folks; the more you follow, the more followers you get. The more you follow and follow you, the more conversations you have, etc. You can’t expect to get anything out of this communication tool if you don’t communicate …

Now, if you are in PR or Marketing, I suggest you peruse the 50 tweeples to follow list, complied by Sarah Evans. It’s a pretty decent list and should get you started with folks who talk about things you care about AND have a good mastery of Twitter usage.

And don’t forget to follow my favorite Twitter user, Shaq. You can find me here; the hubby here. And the list of all Nashville Twitter users here.

___________________

CAUTION! No matter what you do or how much you use Twitter, please keep in mind that your Twitter account and updates are PUBLIC unless you mark your account as private. Also, if you use your full name on your Twitter accout it will turn up in Google searches of your name.

I take for granted that folks know the power of their digital footprint; clearly they don’t. It’s all on the record folks – so use it wisely.

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There was so much talk in 2008 about how far women have come in politics.  You know, shattering the glass ceiling and whatnot. Although I want to believe that 2008 was the year of the woman, I’m not convinced.

As a huge Hillary Clinton fan, I was singing that W.O.M.A.N. song for a long while. Then I watched her campaign fall apart with a communications strategy that made me want to cry (sigh).

Suddenly my I-am-woman-hear-me-roar chant was silenced; in it’s place, a defiant don’t-choose-her-just-because-she’s-a-woman rant each time I heard or read the words “hockey mom” and/or “Joe.”

Here’s my issue: I know both of my mantras are sincere, but I’m a little confused as to how I can feel so strongly about two absolutely conflicting ideas of women in leadership.

I never could peg the true source of my passion/disdain until I read Danielle Sacks’ FastCompany.com post today:

Last week Amanda Fortini articulated what many women felt by the end of the election: “both Clinton and Palin came to represent???and, at times, reinforce???two of the most pernicious stereotypes that are applied to women: the bitch and the ditz.”

Holy crap. THAT IS IT. And what this says about me is that I’m much more comfortable with the “bitch” than the “ditz.”

I’m totally fine with you “wearing the pants” and losing some of your southern belle qualities; however, the moment you sashay into a room, wink at a dude and act dumb I’m livid.

Clearly, choosing between two stereotypes like this is no way to pick the leader of the free world. Sacks sums it up well here:

It’s astonishing that as one of the most developed and supposedly progressive countries in the world we still can’t seem to get the female leadership thing right. (However, I would argue Palin was far more the symbolic setback, than Hillary). Even decades ago, England had Margaret Thatcher, Israel had Golda Meir, and India had Indira Gandhi; Bosnia has Borjana Kristo, the Ukraine has Yulia Tymoshenko, Finland has Tarja Halonen and Ireland has Mary McAleese. Meanwhile here in the U.S. we seem paralyzed by these polarizing versions of what a female leader should be.

We are still picking woman leaders based on which kind of woman we are most comfortable with and that is ridiculous.

This is why 2008 simply isn’t the year of the woman. I’ll celebrate that year when I support (and we elect) a national candidate who happens to be woman instead doing so just based on what kind of woman I like best.

My most  recent Her Nashville column is an ode to my obsession with the handwritten note. For all you folks out there losing sleep over what to get me for Christmas, I’ll take some cute stationary.  And yes, mom really did ask me to stop writing to her; the moratorium was lifted after a few months.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Read More…

This is about the most depressing “failing economy” local news I’ve heard lately: Plumgood is closing it’s doors after four years of customer oriented, quality service.

Dave just received word in an email, where the founders said this about their situation:

Today???s economy has taken its toll on our business the same way it has on many other businesses our size. The primary driver for our customer was always convenience. This consumer value proposition becomes far less compelling in an environment where the perceived value of one???s time declines as significantly and rapidly as it has over the past few months. We???ve seen our weekly deliveries decline from more than 800 to less than 700. We simply do not have the scale and purchasing power required to compete on price with the country???s largest grocers and outlast the current economic crisis.

This sucks.

We’ve been loyal Plumgood customers and advocates for two years now. We even ordered all of our Thanksgiving food from them. I’m sad. It was more expensive than a big box store, yes. But we loved the convenience and the fact that we weren’t spending money on other random stuff we used to buy a the grocery -  like candles, magazines, nail polish and what not.

Best of luck to the owners on their next business venture. Plumgood’s dedication to serving the customer will be sorely missed and I’m grateful I was able to experience it!

Reads

• Axiom PR tweets words of warning. Could our twust be in for a rude awakening?
• Lifehacker says happy folks watch less boob tube. Except for documentaries, right?
• Adrants read my Saved by Zero hating mind. This is not filed under laughs because it’s not funny it’s TRUE.
• Chris Brogan says more smart stuff about meaningful things, like the future of print media.
• CNN shares a heartbreaking tale of the Save Haven law gone terribly wrong. Thankfully, they’ve since fixed this.
• Tennessean reported it; Scene analyzed it: TSU puts the squeeze on Juicy Campus.  Buckle up, folks. We’ll be reading about this for a while.
  

Laughs

• Graph Jam draws us into the reality/horror/obsession that is Tetris.
• … and also map out what REALLY happens when gay folks marry.

Tunes

• I heart Sara B. If you don’t share my healthy obsession with Sara Bareilles, you are missing out. BIG TIME. And I’m sad for you. Thanks again, Mere, for taking me to see her live at the Ryman!

Have you seen/downloaded/squealed-out-loud about the brand-spanking-new Productive Magazine?

The pub’s name alone was enough to catch my eye. Then I saw the bright shiny object that is David Allen and I was sold. If you are into tips and to-do lists, go grab you a copy. It’s free; and if you don’t print it off you’ll be saving some trees.

If you’d rather be shot than read something like this, then at least check out the 17 Things You Should Stop Doing. It’s a quick, helpful read.

I’ll be soaking in the 33 pages of geekish goodness over the holidays, but had to share my pre-read excitement. It’s like they peered into my itty bitty self, had an editorial meeting and then produced a magazine just for Team Newman.

Oh, and if electronic reading isn’t your cup of tea, no worries; you can order a color or black/white copy on LuLu.

Hope it’s actually good!

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Wow. No denying I’m from the South after listening to this PR News 15 to Watch interview podcast where I profess my love of their term “digital PR,” To-Do lists and Getting Things Done. Could be worse though; I didn’t say anything patently offensive. So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

Can’t wait to dive into the other 15 to Watch interviews this evening!

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Geek bloggers often ask what productivity tools readers can’t live without. Here are mine:

1.iPhone – I don’t really have to explain this one, do I? The iPhone is the wind beneath my itty bitty wings.

2. GooToDo.com – Next to my iPhone, this electronic ToDo list is the tech love of my life. Add and check off a task from any where; forward it an email and it will create a task for you; set reoccurring ToDo’s like “write column” or “pay mortgage” or “blog.” I seriously would lose my mind without it AND it saves paper.

3. PageOnce.com – PageOnce bills itself as your Personal Productivity Assistant. It ain’t lie’n. PageOnce is a secure, one stop shop for all of your online financial, travel, utility and social accounts. You can even put the PageOnce app on your iPhone (and Blackberry, if you must) for instant, password protected access to all of your accounts.

4. Google Reader – I’ve got everything from client Google Alerts to local news to Perez Hilton in my Google Reader. I can get all of my news, blogs, Facebook updates, etc all in one place. Can’t beat it.

5. Social Networking Sites - Believe it or not, I get a great deal of research done via LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. And since my Twitter account updates my Facebook status, I look a lot more engaged in that social networking tool than I actually am.  Call them time wasters if you like. I can honestly say these communication tools make me better at my job.

What are your top five?

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