Fulcrum Blog

I’m sitting in my car, outside of the FPRA Annual Conference at the Gaylord Palms while I participate in a conference call with both a client and a vendor. The vendor is someone I’ve never worked with before, so they took some time to get familiar with my company via my Web site. Respectable and appreciated, of course. But then the guy makes a comment about how he was intrigued by a “recent” blog post, and my heart sinks. I chuckled and made some conversation about the topic, all the while feeling the sensation of heat rising from my neck to my cheeks and then my ears. In the back of my mind, I’m thinking, “oh Lord, someone is actually reading that thing? I haven’t posted in months!”

Let’s just say, girl got called OUT. Which led me to reflect on how things have changed since I last posted, some inspiration that’s been ever so gently tapping me on the shoulder, and a bittersweet feeling that I need to recommit.

Let’s start with the evolution part:

My firm is changing, I’m changing, everything around me is changing. No surprises here, as change is the way of the world. But I guess I’ve gotten a bit tangled up in it, thinking busy-ness was an excuse to ignore important things, like my blog. Here’s a snapshot…

• Fulcrum celebrated a year in business. Happy Birthday to us! In spite of the economy, this little engine keeps chugging.
• Over the last year, Fulcrum has focused on providing small businesses a cost-effective marketing communications solution through project-based services. But over time, client needs and business challenges have evolved us into a more long-term, comprehensive management solution for mid-sized organizations that aren’t large enough to have full time in-house marketing and communications staff. As such, that’s where our focus has shifted. When you hire Fulcrum, you get an outsourced marketing communications and public relations manager that considers themselves an internal resource. It’s a very personal approach and I like it.
• I’ve added APR to my name, as I talked about here and here. This has fit well with the previous bullet, but was a time commitment.
• I’ve had some personal “additions” - I rescued a chocolate lab/doberman puppy, which (not necessarily by choice) made us a home with more canines than humans; I watched my brother get married in the beautiful mountains of Big Sky, MT; and, I acquired my first niece, Madison. (Not that any of this really matters to you, but more on personal commentary in a bit.)
• After a year break from the local FPRA board of directors, I was installed today as the Accreditation Chair for ‘08-’09. I’ll be helping people through the workshops, interview and testing that I went through earlier this year.
• I took on the responsibility of chairing a new Communications Committee for a non-profit board that I serve on, and worked with my team to develop a survey and the beginnings of a marketing plan.
• I was very recently re-approached by the University of Central Florida to teach a public speaking class for undergraduates. For a moment, I thought I would be teaching in the fall semester (whoa). But it looks like it could happen in the spring instead, and I’m quite excited.

Now for what inspired me:

• The first point of inspiration is of course the story I opened with, but that was really the last. The straw that broke the camel’s back, if you will.
• A good one was the FPRA Annual Conference I mentioned earlier. I spent the better part of a week in professional development mode, listening to inspiring speakers, hearing about new research and learning some cool things. It just kind of reminded me of the importance of picking your head up from your desk and peering over the horizon every so often.
• My former esteemed employer started a blog. Encouraging the firm to blog was a focus of mine before I left. It didn’t happen while I was there, but they are rocking it now. 
• I’ve recently had a surge in Twitter and Facebook activity. And I started having some tweets pushed to my phone via text. Increased usage of both applications has revived my inner social media spirit.
• Last but not least, I consume a lot of online media and am constantly reminded of the value that blogging can have … credibility (at least one can hope), exercising my writing muscle, networking and relationship building, search engine optimization, etc.

And it all adds up to recommitment:

• It’s probably pretty apparent at this point, but I am going to re-commit myself to blogging. I can’t promise how often, or how lengthy, or how relevant, but I’m going to try much harder.
• I downloaded the newest version of Wordpress so that I have the latest gadgets.
• I updated my masthead… gave it a shiny new photo and a spiffy little tagline that will hopefully lend some context to what I’m doing. My mission is to explore all things marketing, communication, and PR to uncover and discuss more sources of leverage for my clients.
• I’m going to stop being lazy and start using some pictures to make my posts prettier.
• I won’t say I plan on it, but I’m sure it will happen – I’ll probably go off topic and I’ll probably get personal from time to time. When you own your own business, it’s pretty hard to separate your personal life from your work life, so I see that as a natural tie. There aren’t that many people reading anyway, right?

Cheers! 

I have been on Twitter for a few months now and have foundit to be quite a bit more fascinating than I would have otherwise given itcredit for. I must admit, when I heard the NPR story about the site the day ofits launch, my initial reaction was “why do I need to know what my friends aredoing every second of every day?” Because truthfully, I don’t.

Of course, that’s not how I have actually experiencedTwitter. In fact, there are very few people that I know personally using thetechnology. And for me that is a large part of its appeal: the ability to makecontact with scores of heretofore unknown individuals, of like mind or not, ina socially neutral environment where all that is expected of you is theexchange of pure information … personal, social or otherwise.

Sure, people talk about what they’re doing … but more so they talk about what they’re thinking or what’s of interest to themat the moment. They share instantaneous thought (for the most part, anyway) and they do it in 140 characters or less. In a world of information overload, that’s as close to perfection as I’ve come in a long time. So what’s the biggest drawback? I have to figure out how to say it in less than 140 characters. If you know me, you understand my dilemma.

I grew up in a small town where letting the kids play in the street and leaving your car doors unlocked were commonplace. I was also raised in a household where doing the right thing was required. In society today, it’s obvious that is no longer the norm. There is a shooting a couple of times a week in Orlando. We all receive e-mail scams on a daily basis. And kids are being accused of killing other kids.

So even if that’s true in the “real-world” of 2007, when it comes to business, and getting an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work, people deliver what they promise, right? Wrong. Last week I attended a seminar on e-commerce for small business that was hosted by our local small business development center. I was amazed at the number of people in attendance that had experienced some sort of malpractice from a web development firm. The stories ranged from holding a web site hostage and posting a “this customer does not pay his bills” message at the client’s URL, to abandoning work mid-project, to simply providing a less than acceptable product, never to be reachable again.

I’ve also seen and heard about blatent abuse of the social media platform. With every story I hear, my jaw drops, and I say, “How could someone do that and sleep at night?” But no matter how much it bothers me, its naive to think it isn’t happening every minute of every day.

As a small business owner, I’ve carried my upbringing into my business, and fortunately, my partner holds the same ethics. Sometimes we joke that we’re too nice to be businesspeople and we over-service our clients a little too much. It’s not that it’s really possible to be “too nice” or to provide “too much” service to your clients. It’s just that in today’s business environment (and in daily life), that kind of honesty, reliability and trustworthiness is the exception.

The experience at the seminar made me realize just how careful you need to be as a business owner. You can’t trust someone just because they say you can. You can’t rely on someone just because you have a contract, or gave some of your hard-earned money. You can’t believe everything someone tells you, or promises you. It’s important to check references and review previous work. It’s always best to hire someone who comes recommended by a friend or colleague. And more than anything, always ask yourself, “What is my gut telling me?”

I’m a member of LinkedIn. In case you’re not familiar, it’s an online social network that is focused on professional and career networking. You connect with people you know, you meet people they know, and everyone finds their dream job and lives happily ever after.

So I received a request from someone on LinkedIn to become part of their network today, as I have many times before. But this time at the bottom of the e-mail I received, it said “Fact: 23 people join LinkedIn every minute”. Wow. I knew social networking and Web 2.0 were really taking off, but 23 people a minute is more than significant. Especially for a site that doesn’t have quite the notority that MySpace or Facebook does. I’d call that a tipping point.

Today’s big buzz is that Facebook has launched a new advertising program.

In case you don’t already know, here are the basics:

This has certainly sparked a lot of discussion. The application of user activity and information to advertising rubs some people the wrong way, saying it’s an invasion of privacy. While I can understand why, I think this is just the natural evolution of the online community that we need to embrace. From the first days of the Internet to the beginning of the social media revolution, there has been controversy. But we adapt. Social networking is already commonplace, and this too will become less exciting.

Facebook is bringing word-of-mouth marketing, no doubt the best way to get business, to a more attainable level. Viral social ads are expanding the horizon of how we communicate, much like advertising in RSS feeds. Businesses are demanding to be part of the game and they’re willing to pay to do it. So I say let them. If people don’t like it, they’ll drive change through voice and action. To some extent, we’re pretty capable of self regulation. And personally, I think I prefer ads tailored to me or brands endorsed by my friends over mass marketing.

Some people say “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” I disagree. The more things change, the more change it brings. Arguably, that’s the genius of our society. I believe it’s Facebook’s choice, actually their right, to find ways to make their business more profitable. And it’s every user’s choice whether or not to be a member. Props to them for being innovative, because afterall, controversy breeds attention, and attention, increased usage.

We’ll have to see if I feel differently once I have ads invading my profile. So far, it seems like businesses are reacting to the news favorably. Today alone, more than 100,000 new Facebook pages from businesses have been launched … mine included.