You know how it is. We get into our little social (media) circles and find ourselves in a familiar, like minded bubble. There’s nothing wrong with it mind you, it’s just that sometimes you need to read/listen to/talk about something different for a change. Or I do anyway!

Enter Brazen Careerist, the brain child of personal fav Penelope Trunk and co-founders Ryan Healy and Ryan Paugh. It’s supposed to be a career site for “Gen Y thought leaders, forward-thinking organizations and everyone else who realizes that the way we define ourselves in both work and in life needs to change.”

It’s not really a career site for me though. For me, Brazen Careerist is a well-written, intriguing, multi-topic blog syndication resource. Since I joined and subscribed to Brazen Careerist, I’m now feasting my eyes on something other than social media articles, public relations blogs, Google Alerts, news feeds, productivity advice and Twitter tips.

When I troll through the Brazen Careerist site, I read everything from techish Obama commentary to what we can all learn from gamers about failure and how to react when you’ve just witnessed two folks having an affair.

These are posts by folks who aren’t necessarily social media freaks or Twitter obsessed geeks (like me) – and that’s a good thing!

If you are GenY blogger, join Brazen Careerist. You’ll get a great bio page, you’ll read and comment on the thoughts of a lot of smart, passionate and multi-talented folks; you may even find your next gig there.

If your content is relevant, BC will syndicate your blog on their site. Google will love that, FYI!

If you are already Brazen Careerist member. I’d love to hear your take-away. What does BC do for you?

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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It seems like all the cool kids use Feedburner to track their blog subscribers and site traffic, so I thought I’d give it a shot. At first, I was in love! Four days later I’m livid.

The hubby had previously set me up with Google Analytics, which I adore but it doesn’t track feeds. Since Google just purchased Feedburner, I figured it would be intuitive and user friendly. Oh, honey. It was neither for me.

Last week I set up my free account, followed all the instructions and tried to complete it on my own, but had to have the hubby set up my FlackRabbit blog with the Feedburner widget thing.

It was working for a couple of days. It was so fun to track hits in real time and see how many subscribers were clicking on links in my feed. The “site visits” tracker never worked, but I was okay with that as long as my feeds were tracking.

And then today Feedburner wiped all my info from the chart. Gone.

I was already a little miffed at the time (2 to 4 hours) Feedburner takes to send my blog posts to Google Reader. Now they’ve erased my subcribers all together! Quality.

Of course, the fastest way to make me love you is to kill me with great customer service so maybe I’ll just … oh wait. That’s right. They don’t service anyone. No phone numbers, no email, no online form – just forums. Forums that NO ONE from Feedburner responds to. Classy.

So, FlackRabbit subscribers (Last time I checked there were about a dozen of you) could one of you you shoot me a note or comment if you have received this in a feed reader of any type? I can’t tell if my “zero” from Feedburner means you all left or if Feedburner just likes to make me cry.

Thanks! In the meantime, I’ll keep my feed running through Feedburner just to see if it will fix itself – and I’ll re-pledge my allegiance to Google Analytics.

A few months ago, my hubby shared with me via Google Reader a feed about PitchEngine, the free social media release (SMR) builder-program-thing created by a very smart flack out of Wyoming.

A social media release? Yes! Think of it as your traditional press release to non-traditional folks like Twitter-ers, Facebookers, Google and folks/bots who like to search Google.

Just like your traditional press release, the SMR includes a headline, description text and a boilerplate including company logo, description and contact information. Unlike that traditional release, your SMR includes photos, logos and links to online videos and relevant social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook, etc.

The finished product is a one-stop online shop for the interested reader and reporter. Read More…