Bear with me for a minute as I’d like to quote one of my kid’s absolute favorites – Dr. Suess’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go:

“You’ll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You’ll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life’s
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.”

In my opinion we are living in an extremely complex (and stressful) period of American history – the recession, new leadership, downfall of “Corporate America” as we once knew it, financial turmoil, etc. Adding to these complexities, here we are communicating in so many different ways including the relatively new social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

It hit me last week as I was laying with my 3-year old in his bed reading him this Dr. Suess favorite…life truly is a great balancing act. In fact, today we are likely balancing our day-to-day tasks and challenges while riding the unicycle (in a proverbial sense).

As a business owner, serial philanthropist, husband and father I often come to the crossroads of this great balancing act each and every day around 4:45 p.m. In fact, I often here this song by The Clash playing in my head everyday at this time – Should I Stay or Should I Go .

I’m very proud to say that I figured out at a very early age in my career, marriage and since beginning fatherhood that we all must maintain a healthy work/life balance…despite everything that surrounds us today.

I’ll be leaving work today at 5:00 p.m. as I try and do everyday. To spend the final waking hours with my two young boys…perhaps reading them a little Dr. Suess as they doze off around 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. I’m good like that.

What do you do to help manage your work/life balance? I’d love to do a follow-up post listing out all of the great ideas and suggestions. Thanks!

Like most of you, I am hard at work trying to make a good living amidst all of the stress and negativity surrounding each of us every day. If it isn’t the recession, unemployment, financial distress, loss of home, or a slew of other negative things…it is something else. Earlier today, I was slapped with a quick dose of reality that I wanted to share with each of you.

As most of you have probably seen from my Twitter & Facebook profiles, a friend of mine that I went to college with at Drake University passed away yesterday afternoon. To put some context around this story, Shawndra was a 33 year-old mother who has been fighting colon cancer for the past 3 years. Her fight was miraculous as she became a role model for her young daughter, husband, family and the thousands of friends (like me) that have been honored to call her a friend over the years. 

So why in God’s name do I bless you with yet another dose of “bad news”…you might ask?!

It’s really quite simple. As much as we get wrapped up in our daily lives of work, blogging, social media, networking, etc. I wanted to take a minute to share Shawndra’s story with each of you in hopes that you might pass along just this one bit of advice…even though you may not know her…or me for that matter.

Folks, please remember that life has its many turns and bumps and we often get sidetracked by every such obstacle. Do me a HUGE favor and please take a minute tonight to reach out to someone (or many) that means a lot to you and your life. Tell them how much you love them and what they mean to you.

Sunday was Shawndra’s last opportunity to do this with her daughter, husband and family. They shared the love…and I felt it. Hopefully you and those you connect with tonight will feel that same love.

Thanks.

This past holiday season I conducted a pseudo study of all the holiday or Christmas cards I received. Much to my sjogren, I discovered that almost 75% of the cards received hadn’t one bit of personalization on them except for the handwritten address. And probably half of those that weren’t personalized at all didn’t even have a handwritten address…but a printed lable. 

Please don’t get me wrong, we had a nice family photo card made via Shutterfly this year, last and probably the year prior.  But my wife and I usually sit down and sign each card typically writing a little personalized note on each. Besides, for many, this may be our only interaction with them all year!

Unfortunately, I believe we’re in a new era of “Template Personalization.” The dichotomy of the phrase is on purpose as ”template” and “personalization” are as opposite as “night” and “day.” Yet we see examples of this being used across all mediums of communication today. Here are 3 additional examples of “Template Personalization”:

• Blast Emails – We see this one all too much within the business world and in particular within public relations as many PR firms and professionals see a need to blast a pitch and worse yet, a release to hundreds of journalists…hoping for something to stick.
• Evite – I’ve used Evite’s many times and will continue to do so as they’re a great way of managing a party or event. But when you have a small group of friends, family or even coworkers your inviting for an event…why not use print invitations and write a personal invite on each?
• Automatic Direct Messages on Twitter - When you start following someone on Twitter (kind of like your “friends” on Facebook for those of you not using Twitter) there are many services out there that allow for you to send a template response or direct message to those that started following you. I’ve recently started calling attention to these via my Twitter account (here is a link to these tweets).

What are some good (or bad in this situation) examples of “Template Personalization” that you’ve seen? I look forward to adding to this list as I definitely plan on tweeting & posting on this subject often…consider it a pet peeve of mine:)

Today I have to share a personal story with you & I ask each of you stop after reading this post and ask yourself, “how can I make a difference…today.”

Like almost half of American families, my parents were divorced and my loving mother took on the burden of raising her two boys by herself ever since I was 3 and my brother 5. She worked two jobs for as long as I could ever remember & her parents (my grandparents) chipped in as much as possible to make sure we were raised with good morals and ethics while she supported us financially. Ultimately, my brother & I had everything any two boys could ever want throughout our childhood – more love than most kids could ever ask for, a stocked fridge, new clothes on our backs and a role model for the ages. My mother didn’t just support our family financially and emotionally, she was also a “serial philanthropist” and was always donating her time and effort to a new cause in the community, for area churches and families in need.

My life suddenly changed my freshman year in college as she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had a tumor removed the size of a volleyball. Doctor’s said she would be fortunate to live another 3 months given the magnitude of the cancer & tumor. Two years later she had another tumor removed the size of a medicine ball (I believe this is in the medical record books…or so we were told by the doctors). Through it all, she was planning the first festival of its kind in my hometown…which ultimately raised several thousand dollars for local charities. The summer after my graduation & almost 3 years after the doctors told her she had 3 months to live, the fight ended at the tender age of 53.

The reason I share this story with you isn’t for sympathy or sadness but to remind you that we are all put on this earth for a mission and purpose. Although we all have our specific passions in life, I believe that EVERY person has a desire to give back & help others in some way, shape or form. My mother faced adversity in the face – being a single parent, working multiple jobs to keep her family together, and constantly giving back to the community all while fighting the illness that ultimately took her life. 

In the spirit of my mother & belief in the power of social media, today I am making it a personal goal to recruit at least 250 people to join a cause that I know will make a huge impact on a number of people’s lives called 12for12K. The goal is quite simple:

• 12 months
• 12 charities
• 1,200 caring people
• $10 per person each month
• $12,000 per charity

We are all looking adversity in the face today with these challenging economic conditions. However, I would ask that each of you dig a little deeper to ask yourself if you could do without just one of the following each month to change someone’s life forever?:

• 2 Starbucks coffees;
• 8 gallons of gas;
• 2 Subway sandwiches;
• 2 Happy Meals from McDonalds;
• 1 ticket to the movies;
• 1 DVD;
• 1 CD;
• Etc……

Please take a minute to think about how you could support 12for12K…and pass on the legacy someone your life who has inspired you to do good for others. Thank you in advance for paying this message forward to others!

I was recently reminded of the challenging and difficult decisions that we must make in the business world…especially those that cause many sleepless nights and constant second guessing. As a business owner I’m often faced with such decisions yet I rarely find myself losing sleep or second guessing myself. I’ve been raised to follow your heart and do what I know is right…even if it hurts.

Without naming names or getting into too much detail, several months ago I was faced with such a rare situation – in the first year of my business. Even though the end result was one of the most important decisions I’ve made in my young career as the owner of my company, it didn’t make the situation any easier to deal with at the time.

Several months back we had just started working with a new client who had an amazing new technology. After several months of sharing ideas and swapping business philosophies, we were eager to get started on this new client. Surprisingly, our first task was to support a decision they had made to litigate against a competitor infringing on their technology patent instead of leading with the various positive story angles around their innovative technology. We agreed to support such an announcement but advised that we shouldn’t be proactive with our outreach as with any litigation, they couldn’t get into details about the lawsuit at the end of the day. A story came out in a popular technology blog that the client viewed as unfavorable and ironically, this blog also happened to have a partnership with the competitor they had just named in a lawsuit. Here is the kicker…the very next day this blog was added to the lawsuit despite the hundreds of other partners this competitor had…the blog was the only partner added. That’s when my ethical radar kicked in.

To make a long story shorter, I made the decision to let that client go. Not because I didn’t agree that fighting for your patented technology was the right thing to do, but because they were leveraging litigation to get back at an unfavorable blog post. Not to mention my name & my firm’s name was on the release.

The reason I’m sharing this story with each of you is not to discuss if it was right or wrong to make this decision (I am at peace of mind today about my decision), but to remind each one of you to follow your heart and above all else…make the right decision, no matter how wrong it might feel at the time.

Have you ever looked back on a decision you made in business (or life) and no matter how hard it was to stomach at the time, felt refreshed that you truly did the right thing?

I’ll leave you with the words of the wise and crafty Mark Twain…”Always do right – - this will gratify some and astonish the rest.”

Before networking events, business luncheons, after-hours socials and our beloved social media platforms…there were three-martini lunches. I remember a story my grandfather told me soon after I first entered the business world. He talked about when he was an executive at WGN and would take a prospective client out to lunch. By the time they wrapped things up…several cocktails and stories later…they would undoubtedly have a new client (not to mention a killer buzz).

This story recently popped up in my memory this week as I was trying to pinpoint my feelings about why the “doubters” (specifically business folks) should join the social media party. I’d like to make a claim that social media can be a lot like three-martini lunches for the following 3 reasons:

• Let’s Just Talk: (Three-martini lunch) Grab a drink, relax, kick back and let’s get to know each other. We can talk about anything from sports & family to passions & interests. Ultimately, we hope to find a common ground. (Social media) We share many great conversations on Twitter, become friends on Facebook & find out that we have many things in common.
• Loosen Up A Little: (Three-martini lunch) After a drink or two we’ve loosened our tie, let down our business facet & seemed to forgetten that we were even here to talk business…and that’s okay. (Social Media) Although we all have information about our respective professions on our Twitter bios, blogs and LinkedIn pages, we find ourselves connecting with others because of who they are…not where they work.
• I’m Glad We Got To Know Each Other: (Three-martini lunch) When “lunch” is through, we’ve shared stories & laughes, advice & perspective, and stumble out of the restaurant with a new level of comfort and understanding for each other. (Social Media) We’ve shared pictures & links, posts & comments and at the end of the day we shut down our computers having made new connections…and friends.

So the next time you have someone poo-poo social media as a “new fangled technology” or any of the other “10 Most Common Social Media Myths,” just invite them to pull up a stool and allow you to pour them a drink:).

Do you have a good analogy that you use when educating the “doubters” or “skeptics” about this social media experience I like to call the world’s largest cocktail party? Cheers!

Ever since I’ve been participating in the Twitter arena, I’ve seen numerous questions (tweets) from corporate marketing teams, agencies, and business owners about how to leverage Twitter for your business.

So I’m reading through my news headlines today and I see 20+ stories about Dell (@DellOutlet) offering exclusive deals to their Twitter followers. Here is a story on CNET today entitled, “Dell cozies up to its Twitter followers.”

I think this is a great example showing how B2C companies can really benefit and leverage Twitter for actual sales and customer interaction. My only slam on Dell is they aren’t following customers back which means they are stuck in a one-way dialog…which isn’t ideal for the customer. Nonetheless, they see value in this channel if for no other reason but to offer great deals to consumers.

Other great examples of companies using Twitter for the good include:

Zappos – @Zappos - This is actually Zappos CEO…great move!

Comcast – @ComcastCares - Frank responds to upset customers faster than their customer service line…

Whole Foods – @WholeFoods – Very active and following almost 42K on Twitter…

I would love to hear other great examples of companies effectively using Twitter & to get your feedback and thoughts on this subject.  Thanks!