Blog-cation

I was going to try to be crafty and set up a bunch of posts to auto-post while I'm on vacation for a week...then I realized I need to get over myself because blogging is my HOBBY not my JOB and I don't need to stress about it that much. So instead, I'm just going to say I'm taking a blog-cation and I'll see you when I get back.

In case you're thinking of robbing my house while I'm gone (Patrick's mortal fear about me blogging that we're out of town), the neighbors are cat-sitting so you might want to think twice before breaking in. They have three tiny girls, all of whom talk A LOT and at the same time, and you will undoubtedly wish you had stayed home if you choose to try to break in and find yourself faced with these girls. I'm not just saying that, either. Seriously. (Actually, these girls are adorable but I swear they do talk a LOT. They are training for getting their own cat so our litter boxes will be cleaner than they ever have been when we get back.)

If you just miss me so much you can't take it, feel free to go hang out on my other blog...the one I write about stuff other than social media in. But not if the "F" word offends you. Just kidding. Ok, actually, not kidding.

If that's not how you roll and you're all about associations and/or social media, you would do well to check out these blogs:

• Reid All About It


• Conor McNulty's still-to-be named blog. While you're there vote on the name! I like Named This Blog #Fail.


• Maddie Grant's Socialfishing She has an amazing post up now about aligning social media strategy with your association focus.

Ok, I could come up with tons of others but need to get packing so I'll leave it at those--please feel free to chime in in the comment section with other suggestions.

Can you tell I'm not good at vacations?

Buzz2009 Social Media For Associations--Why I Wish I Was Going

Right now I should be battling traffic on my way to BlogPotomac but, because I don't want to go down in the bad mom hall of fame as being the mom who chose a blogger conference over her son's grade-school graduation, I'm not going. I did slog through traffic hell to go to the happy hour last night, but since I didn't know anyone there, I totally forgot the names and faces of the people I'd vowed to go say hi to and beat a pretty hasty retreat. Such is life. I did meet a few nice people, though, so all wasn't lost.

The heartbreak of my summer, though, will be if I don't get to attend Buzz2009 Social Media for Associations. I've already blogged about the reasons I'm so obsessed with going: a) it's being put on, in part, by my friends Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer and b) Guy Kawasaki--who recently shared a Navy ship with my ultimate blog crush The Bloggess--will be there. Unfortunately, though, like every other association out there, my association's professional development budget is on hold so unless I start scouring my house for stuff to sell on eBay, I won't be able to go.

But aside from socializing, the reason the conference will be so awesome is that the focus will be on association social media. How many other conferences can you say that about? I believe that would be none. What's the difference, you say, between regular social media and association social media? Either way you slice it it's just a bunch of nerds talking about Facebook and Twitter, right? Hey--wrong!

Even though there's always tons of talk about social media in an association context--ASAE conferences, blogs, listservs, etc--the bulk of those conversations revolve around the theme of convincing fellow association people that they should be using social media. Case studies about what associations are doing, lots of slides and stats and reports--all of it essentially a sales pitch for why your association should be using social media. Here's the thing: I'm in. I don't need convincing or 101 sessions on what is Twitter and how should you be using it, etc. I need help.

That's right--help. Because the fact of the matter is, association social media is tricky. It's like the classic wedding/marriage analogy. You make the big announcement 'We're getting married!" or, in this case "My association has agreed that we need to start using social media!" The wedding day comes and goes, as do the drafting of social media guidelines and strategies, of unveling your association's page on Facebook or Twitter account. And there you are. Now what? How do you keep the momentum going? How do you navigate the silos? How do you measure success? Or failure, for that matter?

These are the kinds of things I want to hear about and talk about, in the company of people who are dealing with the same challenges.

Bloggers Who Heart Jurassic Park

I admit it--I'm obsessed with the movie Jurrassic Park. I'm loving that I'm not the only one who has managed to weave it into a blog post recently:

• My post about Groundswell and Jurrassic Park


• Maddie Grant's post, Cluetrain-Plus-Ten: On Social Media Policies


• Scott Brinker's post about marketing automation and Jurassic Park

Hey--does this qualify as some kind of organic meme about the intersection of Jurrassic Park and social media? Who's up next?

Bootleg* Volunteerism

(*bootleg in the urban dictionary sense; e.g. lame or lazy)

Maddie Grant tagged me to answer the question posed by Peggy Hoffman's volunteerism meme: "How can we create volunteer jobs that don’t require being on a committee, a long-term commitment or gobs of time? So, share five short-term, ad-hoc volunteer jobs you’d love to have."

The word that stands out to me in this question is "commitment." I am notoriously bad about commitment...strictly in the volunteer sense, that is! ;) I am horrible at PTA and feel pinned down by the mere thought of having my name on a committee roster. However, like Ben Affleck in He's Just Not That Into You, it's the idea of commitment that freaks me out, not the actual reality if it. **Warning: SPOILER!!** As soon as Jennifer Anniston tells him she's ok with never getting married, he proposes.

Ok, sorry for the sidebar...my point is I love to help and be involved, but I need to know it's ok that sometimes I won't be able to participate and I won't be disappointing anyone if I have to disappear for a while.

Therefore "short-term" and "ad-hoc" are the perfect kind of volunteer jobs for me. Five examples?

1. Question-answerer. I can tear through vast amounts of information like nobody's business, and love to learn new things. Do I want to organize an entire event or track RSVPs? No. Would I be willing to spend hours gathering information for the organizers? Yes.


2. WOM information disseminator. I have a big mouth--both online and in real life. Need to spread information about something--plug an event, spread the word about a cause, etc? I will tweet it, blog about it, email my friends about it and ask them to spread the word about it, tell my kids to tell their friends to tell their parents about it, etc. Ask me to pass something on or get the word out about something and I'll glady do it.


3. Brainstormer. Need to think of a tagline or a a theme? I love to be asked my opinion and offer suggestions.


4. Blogger. I love to write and am always flattered when someone wants me to guest blog. I'm really excited to have been picked to blog from/about Great Ideas.


5. Matchmaker. I am a firm believer in it's all about who you know and doing things the easy way. If I can help someone via an inside track of some sort--whether it be hooking a job-hunter up with a potential employer or just helping someone circumvent a ton of red tape to get to a person they need to reach for whatever reason, I'm happy to do it. If I don't personally know someone who can help you, I can at least try to find someone who can facilitate that relationship. An example of this might be volunteering to hook students up with mentors, or steering someone to the right person to find out about an internship, job or scholarship.

Ok, so now I have to tag 5 more bloggers (apologies in advance if you've already been tagged):

1. Lynn Morton of SNAP fame.


2. Chris Condayan (he doesn't have a blog, but Twitter is a micro-blog, right? Maybe this will inspire him to start a blog ;)


3. Kemetia Foley Fellow Mary Washington College student from back in the day, I recently "re-met" her on Facebook and just now discovered her blog.


4. Penelope Trunk Granted, she is not an association person and also doesn't do memes, but I love her and bet she'd have some great ideas about this. She's already written many posts about volunteering so maybe she'll be inspired to write another.


5. Cassie Soofi Again, not an association staffer, but she is an ASHA member--and also my sister. Not to mention her blog is called Cute and Evil--best blog name possibly ever.

5 Fun Facts

Susan Murphy aka SuzeMuse, an awesome Canadian blogger, somehow found me worthy of being memed. The concept of being memed--or tagged--is you tell 5 things about yourself, then tag (e.g. link) to 5 other people asking them to do the same. You get to shock the world with your shameful secrets and spread some link love. Even if you couldn't care less about my 5 fun facts, scroll down and check out the people I tag because you might discover some cool new blogs.

Ok--let me see if I can scrape together 5 fun things about myself.


1) I bought my wedding dress for $9.99 on eBay. We were eloping in Vegas, so nobody was going to see it anyway, but I wanted to at least look "bridey" in the pictures. I combed eBay and found some girl selling her prom dress, took a chance and ordered it and it was perfect. We got married at the Wynn (in our suite--how cool is that?) and when we walked around the hotel for the photos a million people all told me how gorgeous the dress was. (Yes, that is a photo of us.)

In fact, the whole outfit--dress, veil, tiara (I was determined to wear a tiara even though I was almost 40), shoes--cost under $50. Ok, well I already had the shoes, but still.

2) I once wore the same pair of socks for an entire semester without washing them.I got to college and promptly took up with the hippies--something nobody who knew me would have ever called. Don't ask me why, but I just decided to see how long I could wear the same pair of ragg wool socks (worn, of course, with Birkenstocks) without washing them. It was also, coincidentally, the semester I had a 1.54 GPA and almost got kicked out.

3) I had a radio show in college. You'd never know it now, but once upon a time I was a cool DJ. I even had Dave Wakeling, by that point of General Public fame, as a guest. He dubbed me "Ranking Maggie" and gave me a tambourine signed by him and Ranking Roger.

4) I was one of the original PayPal users. This fact is probably not fun to anyone but me, but I remember when PayPal started they offered $5 to open an account and $5 for each person you got to sign up. Talk about a brilliant exercise in social media--guess it panned out for PayPal pretty well. That was also back when I used to sell stuff on eBay all the time and friends told me I should start a business selling other people's stuff on eBay. If I had taken that advice I'd probably be a millionaire by now.

5) I was a guest on the Oprah Show. This is my fun fact trump card. I was one of the "real life desperate housewives" on the episode featuring the cast of the then-new show, Desperate Housewives. An Oprah producer and a camera crew came to my house, followed me around and filmed me for 9 hours, all to make the 2 minute clip they featured on the show. They totally scripted me too--told me what to do, how to look, what to say, etc. I figured, whatever, I just want to meet Oprah and who's going to see it anyway--everyone's at work at 4 pm on a weekday, right?

Wrong. Every single person I've ever known happened to be watching Oprah that day. Friends from high school, friends from college, neighbors, friend's moms, teachers at my kids' school, coworkers...everyone. Oh well, the adventure was well worth the stigma of forever being known as "Maggie from Oprah" and being shunned by most of the moms in my community.

Ok--now it's someone elses' turn:

1) My sister, Cassie of Cute and Evil fame.

2) Lindy Dreyer, association social media blogger/starlet and her counterpart

3) Maddie Grant. They just launched a new company, SocialFish, to help associations dive into social media. Sorry ladies--I'm sure you've been memed before but you're the first two people who came to mind!

4) Penelope Trunk. I'm going to pull a Tim Ferriss and go out on a limb here. Penelope Trunk is a superstar and doesn't know me from Adam, but hey, she's big on sharing fun facts about herself.

Ok, poor Patrick is going to kill me if I don't sign off now, so I'm going to have to sleep on who to pick for #5.