“Enterprise Social Technology” is a book that flew under the radar in 2011.

The book aims to be “a how-to manual that will teach you a process for implementing social technology in its most powerful form.” It wants to give you and your organization a leg up on leveraging social media, social networking and social relevance to change how your business operates and give you a leg up on the competition.

And I genuinely feel like it does just that. There’s 12 steps (chapters) in the book and I’m confident that if you read and take action on each step your organization will be more social and better off as a result.

Here are some things I especially appreciated:

• The emphasis on ensuring social tech goals are intertwined with your organizations’ overall goals and that social tech isn’t a magic bullet
• Building a cross-discipline team approach and ensuring each team member has specific responsibilities they’re held accountable for
• The notion that policy documents should be updated every 6 months or so in such a fast-paced and fluid environment
• Embedding sales professionals into online communities where socially facilitated selling can enhance a company’s profitability
• Establishing measurement baselines, measuring results and then comparing results to overall business objectives while continuously adapting accordingly. I also like the idea of creating and sharing a metrics dashboard organization-wide.
• The importance of pilot projects and the application of consequential thinking during the development of said projects.
• The “key points” at the end of each chapter. This makes it very easy to go back and review the over-arching points when you actively try to implement the book’s advice.
• A fair amount of relevant case studies littered throughout.

And a few things I didn’t love:

• The fact that this book was crowd-sourced (different authors wrote each chapter) likely ensured that the book got finished quicker than an ordinary one-author book and it enabled the reader to get some different perspectives from various professionals. However, I do think at times it hurt the continuity of the book, created a bit overlap (not to be confused with reinforcement of key ideas) and some chapters were definitely stronger than others.
• I believe that there are some limitations to crowd-sourcing, especially for bigger companies and organizations and I wish some of those concerns would’ve been disputed or at least mentioned.
• The ROI chapter had some solid takeaways (see above), but not all measurement is ROI and I think the author of that chapter could’ve benefited from Olivier Blanchard’s Basics of Social Media ROI presentation.

Bottom Line: An underrated guidebook for implementing social technology in your organization and a resource that you can come back to after the initial reading.

Disclaimer: The following post is self-indulgent. Most end of the year round-up posts are. Despite that fact, I felt like this was a good way to pay respect to the work that went into this year and to provide a review of content you may have missed (or have never seen before). Should you decide to keep reading, I hope that it will give you a foundation for where we’re headed in 2012.

Last January I wrote that I wanted 2011 to be about you. It wasn’t.

I wrote that I wanted to read 52 books. I read 27. I only reviewed 3.

I wanted to write more posts and ship a couple of projects. I wrote 47 posts this year, and only 5 after after July. I didn’t ship either project.

And yet 2011 was one of the best years of my life. It was *easily* the best of my professional career.

• I fell more in love with a job that affords me the opportunity to leverage social technologies and my knowledge of integrated digital strategies to market the nation’s #1 ranked cancer hospital while simultaneously broadening my overall marketing knowledge and picking up skills like video editing along the way.
• I spent a lot of time with my buddies drinking cold beers, listening to live music, hanging out by the pool, grilling, dancing, and watching sports.
• I visited with my family. At least one of my parents every day. I grew even closer to my sister. I absorbed lots of wisdom from my grandparents.
• I found an incredible woman who somehow puts up with me despite my desire to frequently say and do things that are “in the box.” (Notice where the post volume started dropping off…)
• I spoke at a really cool online conference to some very intelligent people.
• I stimulated my mind and body almost daily. (Which included running my first half w/ no competition, just for fun in 1:49).
• I started saying “no” more often and I stopped doing things I wasn’t intensely passionate about.

What You May Have Missed in 2011:
22 Key Mentoring Messages – Mentorship is a great way of growing and progressing your career. This post features some awesome insights from my organization’s C-suite the basics of mentorship, embedding it into your organization’s culture, approachability and more.

Reasons Your Employees Are Running for the Door – It amazes me how many organizations don’t “get” why their turnover is so high. Here’s 8 reasons that shouldn’t surprise you. And here’s me angrily ranting after a I read a tweet an executive sent about all her employees getting poached.

American Education: You Deserve Better – One of my favorite posts from 2011. I genuinely believe that modern day education is severely broken and this post details the change I’d like to see. Some people smarter than me chimed in as well. And here are some resources that initially sparked the discussion.

Carving Your Own Path – Carving your own path isn’t easy. You will have to think for yourself. You will invariably call attention to yourself. People will hate you if you’re successful. This is why most people yearn to be led. This is why most people spend their entire lives following.

Forget Social Media – There’s significantly more noise than ever before. Trying to keep up with all of it and be everything to everyone is a waste of time. It’s just fear manifesting itself through excuses and procrastination and we’re all guilty of it.

Why Being a Thought Leader is Boring – This post totally contradicts the predominant advice that you should try to be an expert in one, narrow niche. While many people successfully employ this strategy, I think it’s boring as hell and this post attempts to explain why I’d rather be well-versed on a variety of topics.

I Probably Un-Friended You Last Night – There’s so much noise, so many things to keep us utterly distracted from the things that really matter why do we insist on validating ourselves with excess “friends” who’s status updates we’re totally indifferent to? It’s time to de-friend those that no longer add value to your lives.

3 Things the C-Level Still Doesn’t Get About Social Media – This title is pretty self explanatory. And 6 months later I think all of these still hold true at most organizations.

Life is Adversarial Enough… – Don’t test people just to display your authority. Most of us (young professionals) inherently know that in the scheme of things we’ve accomplished jack shit. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to. That doesn’t mean that it’s not really hard to balance our desire to climb with the gentle reminder that patience is a virtue.

The Easiest Way to Evaluate Most Tasks – Time, not money, is my most coveted resource; therefore, I get really annoyed when my time is wasted. Here’s the strategy I employ to ensure I’m balancing the execution of a project vs. the resources (time + money) used.

Forget the Dream Job, Take the Money & Run – I don’t necessarily believe this (as evidenced by my career path), but the notion certainly challenges the status quo and I think it’s an idea that warrants some thought, especially if you’re still in college.

Creating Higher Quality Stimuli – Reading things that challenge the status quo and/or oppose my own core values/belief system/internal dialogue require me to re-evaluate where I stand on these issues. More importantly instead of just saying “That’s outlandish,” or nodding my head in quiet agreement, I’m forced into the process of absorbing a multitude of information, evaluating that information, and then evaluating what I think based on that information. I recommend you start doing the same more often.

Disruptive Social Technologies: How Your Organization is Missing the Boat – I wrote a lot about topics that go far beyond business/marketing/social media this year, but here’s one that doesn’t. I think it serves as a good reminder that more organizations need to use social technologies for tasks such as cross functional information sharing and internal networking.

If you’re a glutton for punishment here’s My Top 10 Posts of 2010.

I haven’t thought too much about where this blog is headed in 2012, but I encourage you to:

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Or…

I recently attended our organization’s first town hall meeting under the tutelage of our new president. He spoke about the recent confluence of transformative identities and disruptive technologies that have come together over the last couple of years, leading him to believe that we will cure several major cancers in his lifetime.

I’m hopeful that I am a part of a place that can leverage new computational firepower, quantitative analysis of bio-specimens, and disruptive genome technologies to advance existing paradigms and cure this awful disease.

Your Organization Doesn’t Get It… Yet.

But in the interim, I’m rather dumbfounded and annoyed that more organizations aren’t leveraging disruptive technologies to enhance the way they communicate, organize and operate their businesses.

Even now, after all the hoopla around “social” has died down (a bit) and we know so much more, companies are still insistent about “integrating some of that social media stuff into our marketing.” Never mind leveraging disruptive social technologies to enhance business intelligence by listening to customers (patients in health care), conducting market research, solidifying customer service, managing a community and more.

I get it. I really do. I understand that your organization is big, siloed, doesn’t get social and so on and so forth. I also understand that most people don’t like change. Change is hard.

The Opportunities are Endless

But in a world where disruptive technologies give us the ability to potentially cure cancer, why can’t we leverage digital/social solutions to put an end to pointless meetings, collaborate across teams, dissipate important news or information, etc.?

Top-down hierarchical institutions wont always be the norm and the power of open source projects is becoming increasingly evident. Rule-followers and drones might keep their mouths shut and do what they’re told, but the industrial revolution is over and those people don’t impact meaningful change anymore.

Linchpins who ask hard questions, challenge the status quo, and demand to be pushed outside the comfort zone do. How do we scale the work that they do – the value they bring to the institution? How do we share it? How do we leverage it?

Oh, You Want Some Examples?

• Cross functional information sharing – What if there was an easy way for front line people to communicate issues to upper management, and then for upper management to share noteworthy changes to the PR/Marketing department?
• Increased Office Efficiency – What if instead of an hour long status meetings (# of people in meeting x how long meeting lasts) where people go around in a circle and say what they’re working on there’s a sharepoint employees keep updated where others can go and see what projects are relevant to them?
• Internal Networking – Most companies organize employees in such a way that all the account executives sit together, the creative sits together, the IT sits together. What if there were internal forums where employees could bond not just over their job description, but other things that interest them. Wouldn’t something like that unlock new collaborations and opportunities to learn and become more well-rounded employees?

How about?

• Increasing internal brand awareness
• Idea generation (brainstorming via Google docs anyone!?)
• Facilitating the spread of research, insights, etc. and making the information more accessible

The list goes on. And on.

What’s Next?

As we gradually come to understand how disruptive social technologies can enhance our own internal communications perhaps we’ll see forward thinking organizations take it a step further. Can you imagine MD Anderson, Mayo Clinic and Memorial Sloan-Kettering all leveraging these disruptive social technologies to enable their respective physicians, physicists, geneticists and more to collaborate with the other institutions in an effort to cure cancer?

The future is now. Don’t let your organization fall behind.

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The following is a guest post from Mitch O’Connor.

The Internet has often been described as the “wild west” of technology – it’s exciting, constantly changing, and there are loads of opportunities. But there’s the complicated side of the wild west as well – vague regulations, little enforcement, and morally questionable practices. A divisive issue that’s at the heart of this metaphor is Internet anonymity. Proponents claim that the Internet is one of the last places where people can express truly unfiltered freedom of speech. Opposers of Internet anonymity claim that it can lead to crime and deception, and indeed, people do tend to lie more on the Internet than in person.

Social media is changing the game of course, and a lot of discussion is going to be had about Internet anonymity in the coming years. However, proponent or not, one thing is clear – anonymity removes accountability, which can lead to dirty sales practices. You might think you can get away with these tactics because people can never trace them back to you personally – and you’d be right for the most part. But the image of your company or website will suffer, and the temporary increase in sales caused by those dirty tactics won’t make up for the long-term damage that they can do.

#1 – False Reviews

This might be the easiest dirty sales tactic to succumb to. It’s incredibly simple to create a review of a product yourself and post that review as somebody else. People have been known to do this on sites such as Amazon, ConsumerSearch, CitySearch, Yelp, Epinions, Customer Lobby, TripAdvisor, and any other site that allows users to post their own reviews of products or services. Certain sites make this process even more attractive. For example, you could probably go on Fiverr or Craigslist right now and see an ad for a writer willing to create a positive review of your product for a small fee. Again, Internet anonymity will allow you to get away with this.

However, people are becoming more and more aware of bad reviews and fake customer testimonials. Reviews that sound overly salesy or that stick out (i.e. one ecstatic review among hundreds of bad ones) will be a red flag for any discerning Internet user. Researchers at Cornell University have even developed software for developing fake reviews. Not only will you lose the trust of your customers, but if you live in the E.U., you could eventually face legal action.

#2 – Bait and Switch

Remember how annoying being Rickrolled was? Maybe this never happened to you – basically somebody would send you a link to a video, telling you that it was something important. Then the link pointed to the YouTube clip for singer Rick Astely’s 1987 “hit” Never Gonna Give You Up. Sadly, some companies do this to their customers – promise them one thing then give them something else.

For example, consider a possible affiliate link like this:

Infant costumes at Halloween express

An affiliate would probably host this link because they realized that “infant Halloween costumes” was a popular keyword phrase. However, if he or she decides to use that popularity to point the user to other things, they’ve just pulled a bait and switch. If this link led to adult costumes, Halloween decorations, or something completely unrelated, ask yourself – would you consider buying from Halloween Express or its affiliates? Your visitors won’t either. Not to mention, certain types of bait and switch can get you in trouble with the FTC.

#3 – Excessive Popups

This tactic isn’t necessarily “dirty,” but you’ll definitely lose some credibility if you use too many popups. While it’s true that popups can be very useful for getting email subscribers, they’re undoubtedly annoying when excessively used as a sales technique. In fact, the Psychology Department at North Carolina State University once conducted a study where over half of the participating college students quickly closed popups regardless of what they say. Also, don’t forget the fact that you can’t place Google ads on sites that have more than three popups. And don’t even think about using popups as a bait and switch.

#4 – Deceptive Banners

In an effort to fight against “banner blindness,” some webmasters like to place flashy banner ads next to their affiliate advertisements. The problem here is that they look spammy and untrustworthy – probably because the majority of them are. Banners that claim visitors are the “one millionth!” or that look like Windows alerts completing a download are often blatantly false advertising. A rarely used (but just as damaging) technique involves using banners that look like links to popular sites such as YouTube or Facebook. If you’re doing this, you’re essentially creating something along these lines:

#5 – Bad Emails

Call it “unsolicited bulk email” if you will, but spam is still widely used as a sales technique. In order to avoid possible violations of your ISP regulations, fraud allegations, and a bad reputation in general, just avoid this practice altogether. Generating an organic, targeted email list takes time, but it’s not impossible. Forgo the quick tricks to get real customers.

Another aspect of the “bad email” game involves the overuse of auto-responders. Even if you have a dedicated email list, you don’t want to send your customers a barrage of auto-sent offers. This depersonalizes your business and is generally annoying.

About the Author: Mitch O’Conner is an online marketer and writer. When he’s not building sites, generating traffic or writing content, he enjoys spending time with his wife and kids, watching TV, playing games and camping.

Vinny Chase and the gang from Entourage debuted their 8th and final season Sunday night. A LOT of people love the show. In fact, it’s a 9/10 on IMDB.

I like the show alright, but it doesn’t stand up to shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, or Boardwalk Empire. One evening I was in the process of pointing out all the shows flaws, when a buddy, irritated with me, explained “you can’t watch it that way.”

Evidently, you have to kick back, enjoy the fun, and try to point your critical lens somewhere else. This is also true of blogging. It’s why people read the shit out of “5 Ways to Get More Followers on Twitter,” but completely gaze over posts that require a little more thought.

Here are 3 ways to obtain more readers using the “Entourage” approach:

Keep it Light

Season 7 ended pretty dark with Vinnie’s cocaine habit, but people who have previewed the final season assure us that the show is returning to its lighter roots — there will be a happy ending for all of the guys. Fans of the show want to see the crew boozing, making boatloads of money, and being surrounded by beautiful women.

Don’t try to explore the depths of complex stimuli on your blog. A couple of people will appreciate it, but the masses will be bored and confused. Keep the tone fun and the content simple enough to understand. Make it actionable enough for a 3rd grader to implement.

Be Predictable

Everything is going to work out for these guys in the long run, we’ve already established that. Hollywood is glamorous. Super-stardom + money + women + fancy shit + an entourage = a simple formula for people having fun watching your show.

And that’s what people want to see on your blog, simplicity and predictability. Whatever the focus of your blog, stay on point. If you write about entrepreneurship, feel free to explore the entire realm of possibilities around that topic, but don’t suddenly shift to community management. That’s not what people are used to seeing. It’s not what they’ve come to expect from you, and they’ll likely skip right over it. They come to your blog your go-to-topic, don’t deviate.

Embrace the Escapist

One of the most appealing things about “Entourage” is that for 30 minutes or so you can escape into their world. For a bit you think “wouldn’t it be nice to have all this excess?” You genuinely feel like you could have their life if you got the right breaks.

This is one of the of the primary reasons all the lifestyle independent blogs and ‘quit your job’ blogs often do well. Most people desperately want to escape the mundane and earn a lot of money, live anywhere they want, and travel as they please. Appeal to this desire by leveraging content that demonstrates how people can obtain a better life whether it’s through side projects, changing their mindset, overcoming their fears and more.

8 seasons and a 9/10 on IMDB are both indicators of success. Your blog’s success metrics are different, but by following the “Entourage” formula you will be well on your way to a long and fruitful blogging career. Unless you get distracted by Google +.

In many jobs there’s a lot of disconnect between the ivory tower and the front-line employees. I doubt AT&T executives know that on an average day there’s at least 4 tech trucks parked outside my apartment complex, their inhabitants visiting with each other rather than answering tickets.

Here’s 3 things that the C-Level suite still doesn’t understand about social media:

1.) That the job never ends.

Executives inherently get that the Internet is “always on” and that customers are always talking about your brand, but what they don’t often understand is that you could literally work all the time if you so desired.

You could spend more time:

• Searching Twitter and Facebook for people talking about your brand and answering their questions, pointing them to your content, and fostering a genuine relationship with them
• Scouring message boards and engaging with people discussing your brand
• Creating more content, promoting and sharing it on more outposts

We get that you saw something cool that Brand X did, or a metric that Brand Y put on a pretty slide and wondered why we didn’t think of that. Chances are we thought of it, but a big part of our job is prioritizing what will make the most impact for our brand, and there’s only so much you can do every day. This is especially true if social is integrated within the majority of your business objectives.

2.) There aren’t always specific projects.

Executives always want to know what projects you’re working on. Community managers, coordinators, analysts, etc. that work primarily with social media don’t usually have projects that span months at a time with fancy flow charts and time lines.

While we do sometimes execute bigger campaigns (ones that hopefully don’t end at the end of said campaign), much of our day-to-day job is significantly more granular that. A lot of our time is spent:

• Keeping up with constantly shifting emerging trends and technologies
• Creating content to raise awareness, drive traffic, and convert new customers
• Facilitating interactions with our customers and also helping our customers engage each another
• Determining new KPIs to measure, evolving ways to convey key metrics and ROI to you

We’re in the trenches, connecting with the people who open their wallets for our product. We’re not scheduling vendors, organizing projects or conveying vision to the masses — we’re executing on the front lines. It’s different; good companies need both types.

3.) Your customers don’t care about your marketing message or your branding campaign.

You think they do, but they really don’t. They care about what you can do for them, how your product makes them feel, and if your brand’s narrative becomes a part of their story. Hipsters don’t wear Wranglers. Rednecks don’t drink Hennessy.

“Get a PDF of that article about our new hand soap in Magazine XYZ and tweet that out. Share it on our Facebook page too.” – Imaginary C-Level Executive

And that’s fine. Social validation is important, but your social channels are not just another platform to push out your marketing message or your accolades. Accumulating counting numbers like Twitter followers and Facebook fans means absolutely nothing if those people aren’t actively engaged with the content your sharing.

Part of that is having great content, but a bigger part of it is NOT shoving that content down their throat, rather giving them what THEY want, and then taking it a step further and fostering 1-to-1 relationships to ensure it really is what they want. Give them a reason to share your content, but also show them how.

Creating ambassadors that market your product/service for you is takes a lot longer than blasting your marketing/PR messages out of the bullhorn, but the ROI on advocacy will be better, particularly as our society becomes increasingly dependent on the word-of-mouth from friends and family.

What other things have you found that the C-Level just doesn’t get about social media? How should employees on the front line explain these things to the higher-ups?

With all the noise overwhelming our lives and our social streams it’s easy to miss the good stuff. Here’s my effort to provide a little signal by curating some of the best/most interesting/funniest posts (and videos) I read during the month of April.

Program Plan: The Social Media Center of Excellence – Jeremiah Owyang

9 Companies Doing Social Media Right and Why – Amy Porterfield

Social Business vs. Social Marketing: Understanding the Fight Over “Content” – Olivier Blanchard

1900 Word Ad on How to Create Advertising from David Ogilvy – 37 Signals

The Realization is Now – Seth Godin

Moving Beyond Teachers and Bosses – Seth Godin

When Failure is Cheap Why Not Give it a Go – David Meerman Scott

Influence is About Information, Not Egos – Jason Keath

Why I Run a Flat Company – Jason Fried

Perfect vs. Interesting – Seth Godin

The Secret to Climbing the Career Ladder: Realize There is No Ladder – Whitney May Parker

10 Truths I’ve Learned on the Open Road – Adam Baker

No, You Can’t Pick My Brain. It Costs Too Much – Adrienne Graham

What the Middle Looks Like – Sarah Peck

The Teaching Cogs – Carlos Miceli

The Creative Badass Manifesto – Justine Musk

The Sleepless Elite – Melinda Beck

Real Time vs. Slow Time & a Defense of Sane Work Hours – 37 Signals

Cranking – Merlin Mann

What Centers You? – Sam Davidson

Awesome/Funny:
The Best Obnoxious Responses to Misspellings on Facebook – Someecards

Incredible Hip-Hop Beatbox Cello Experience – Youtube Video

50 More (Viral) Images the World Shared in 2011 – Adam Singer

Russell Brand on Newsnight – Youtube Video

Raise your hand if you’re sick and tired of seeing Facebook status updates from that one girl that dated that one buddy that one time in college. Or what about that dude you had 6th grade science with?

I used to think having a shit-ton of friends made me important. If I add everyone I ever meet other people will think I’m important and people will know that others care about what I have to say. Social validation at it’s finest, friends.

Some people and brands still think that way. I think that’s cute. Hell, there are plenty of brands that try every bullshit trick in the book to accumulate friends and followers that don’t matter, don’t influence crap, and don’t impact the bottom line.

You know what that’s called?

Pointless noise.

There’s so much noise, so many things to keep us utterly distracted from the things that really matter why do we insist on validating ourselves with excess “friends” who’s status updates we’re totally indifferent to, who we’ll never speak to again?

Well… probably because of our narcissistic egos, but it’s time to get over it people. It’s time to de-friend those that no longer add value to your lives.

This doesn’t mean you can’t talk to them at the 10-year reunion or if you run into them on the street, but it does mean you’ll have more time to read books, think critically, exercise, and create things that matter because you won’t be browsing insignificant updates that don’t matter.

That’s why I probably un-friended you tonight. I recommend you do the same, especially if they don’t add value to your life — me included.

Oh – and if you take self shots on your cell phone with your shirt off, and your male. I DEFINITELY de-friended you.

Related: You Don’t Know 1/5th of Your Facebook Friends

I don’t surf the net/ No I never been on MySpace/
Too busy letting my voice vibrate/ Carving out my space/ — Jay Z (Beach Chair)

Because of the Internet and social media it’s easier than ever to keep up with your friends and colleagues. I’m a big proponent of cultivating relationships, helping one another, and spreading ideas — that’s primarily why this blog exists.

But this vast and changing social landscape also makes it increasingly easy to compare ourselves to others, to spend countless hours looking at people’s Facebook photo albums, or reading blog posts talking about the latest gadgetry or waxing poetic about the same old nonsense.

I encourage you to leverage the speed of social media to solidify connections, advance ideas, and create positive change, but I also encourage you to cut all that other crap out.

• It doesn’t matter that Jenny wrote a book before she turned 30. (Even though she’s super awesome).
• Ignore the virtual tour of your old classmate’s new house.
• Stop reading 10 new ways to market your Facebook page. They’re not new. 100 people have written this exact same post.
• Hell, stop reading this blog if you’re not learning something new, if it’s not leading you to take action or adding value to your life.

There’s significantly more noise than ever before. Trying to keep up with all of it and be everything to everyone is a waste of time. It’s just fear manifesting itself through excuses and procrastination and we’re all guilty of it – some more than others.

Take a queue from Jay-Z and bury your head in your own work. The less time you spend comparing yourself to others, caring about what others think of you, and educating yourself on things you inherently know the more time you have to carve out your own niche.

You might find that when you pick your head back up, you’re ahead of those you were comparing yourself to — more importantly you’ll be ahead of where you were before you got in the trenches.

Photo Credit: Juergen Kurlvink

Just a reminder: These are blogs that I enjoyed reading, for whatever reason. Perhaps they were valuable for me, merely entertaining, thought provoking, were about something I’m interested in (i.e. social media) or potentially something I thought my tribe would enjoy. As always, I would love feedback. Did you catch these posts during November? Did any of these resonate with you? What are some of your most recent favorite reads? Even better, what’s your favorite thing YOU wrote during November? Share it with me in the comments section.

Sixteen Great Twitter Moments – David Spark (Mashable)
Here is a great example of Twitter serving as the connective tissue that made some really great moments and opportunities possible.

Reinventing Crisis Communications for the Social Web – Brian Solis (PR 2.0)
This is a somewhat lengthy post, but Brian really delivers the goods. He literally provides a dynamic process to integrate crisis communication into the existing corporate communications and marketing workflow. There’s tons of applicable advice and insights packed into this post. It’s a must read if you’re in PR.

37 Ideas to Grow Your Job Search Network Right Now – Jacob Share (Job Mob)
If you haven’t figured out by now I really like actionable posts that you can immediately start implementing after reading and determining value. During the current economic recession, whether you’re currently job searching or not, you need to start (or continue) building your network right now. Use Jacob’s ideas as a starting point.

25 Ways to Fail and Come Out on Top – Valeria Maltoni (Conversation Agent)
A lot of Valeria’s stuff really resonated with me this month. I am a big believer of failing (albeit failing fast) and learning from those failures to keep progressing a moving forward. This post effectively illustrates 25 different ways to do just that.

10 WordPress Plug-ins for New Blogs – Darren Rowse (Problogger)
This post provides a quick glimpse as some solid plug-ins if you are starting a new blog or just looking for a starting point to add some plug-ins. Unlike some of these other posts I debated about adding to the list because it’s not this though provoking (wish I would’ve thought of that) post, but I went back and included it because I definitely think it could potentially benefit many of my readers just getting started in the blogosphere.

Target Audience or Key Relationships – Why it’s Okay to Miss the Bullseye – Mike Sansone (ConverStations)
Mike discusses how it is important to know your target audience, but if you hit outside that audience, those additional conversational relationships can be beneficial by increasing your visibility, potential for collaboration and more. It’s a short, thoughtful read.

Is Social Media Becoming the New MBA? – Rohit Bhargava (Influential Marketing)
One of the questions I am most often asked is, “Was it worth it to get your Masters degree?” (Yes) I thought Rohit’s take on whether or not an MBA is becoming an optional asset and the possibility of hybrid options (such as social media) offering many of the core benefits and skills people expect to receive from an MBA was both thoughtful and discussion worthy.

The Marketer’s Attitude – Seth Godin
This is potentially my favorite post of the entire month. It’s what I aspire to be as a marketer. I’d like to think that I am very good at many of these (charisma, intellectually restless), but there are others I definitely need to work on (being comfortable with ambiguity). What about you?

10 Killer Resources for Social Media Entrepreneurs – Brian Clark (Copyblogger)
Here’s another post I went back and forth on including, but again decided at least half of these resources would definitely be stuff that you guys might be interested in. Whether you’re deep into social media or just getting started, there’s a resource for you in Brian’s post.

Save Your Career: Start a Blog – Joseph Jaffe (Jaffe Juice)
I featured this piece in a recent post, but I wanted to share it again here. I can’t emphasize enough how many opportunities my blog has brought my way. Blogging is the way to stay relevant during these tumultuous times. Joseph gives you 10 reasons to start the blog and then 5 ways to take the plunge.

Why Start a Blog and 25 Ways to Make it Work – Valeria Maltoni (Conversation Agent)
I told you Valeria was on fire this month! Like Joseph’s blog, I have recently featured this post, but I’m going to continue banging the drum for blogging. Valeria gives valuable insight into both to you and your readers as to why you should start a blog, and then offers 25 tips to making it work for your business.

Answering the Ultimate Question: How do I Convince my Boss of the ROI of New Marketing – David Meerman Scott (Web Ink Now)
There’s a lot of people out there asking me the question of, “How do I convince my boss we need to be involved in social media? How do we measure the ROI of new marketing?” David offers a great video that answers this question both cynically and pratically. If you’re one of the people that has been asking this question, start here in building the foundation for your explanation to your boss.

Change Blindness – Faris (Talent Imitates, Genius Steals)
David Damore was kind enough to share this with me. This is a fun video that showcases change blindness, and shows how we process visual data. This is more fun than relevant, but I promise it’s more interesting than the chain letter your grandma e-mailed you this morning.

The Reluctant Social Media Client – Aliza Sherman (Web Worker Daily)
I’ve been working on a project lately that continually reminds me of how deep I am into this space, and that there are others that just don’t “get it” yet. Aliza offers four great ways to help you handle the reluctant social media client. As for my opinion, they have to want to learn, and if they do they’ll become equipped a lot faster (and be more successful) than the company (person) you have to convince and cajole.

Everything is Risky – David Armano (Logic + Emotion)
David writes, “The internet is slightly different. And it’s evolving. It’s unpredictable, messy, organic, empowering, addictive and pervasive. It’s good and bad—highly interactive, responsive, connective and alive. In fact, it’s a lot like life. And like life, with it everything is risky. That’s a good summary of his post, but there’s a bigger takeaway. Please go read it.

The You Show – Seth Godin
I love this post because I really admire the people who put on their show. I can be wildly passionate, very outspoken, sometimes on the fringe of obnoxious I suspect. That’s who I am. On a competitive sports field, I’m don’t have the stoicism of Derek Jeter. I am yelling and fist pumping, and talking a little noise. The thing is in any business situation (particularly with superiors) I’m stoic, soft spoken, and tactful to the point of not necessarily conveying my true thoughts and feelings. Is this good or bad? I’m not sure, but I know that I love the Jeff Widman’s out there than put on their show.

Finding Great People Should be a Top Priority Especially in a Bad Economy – Ryan Healy (Employee Evolution)
I have always been a proponent of hiring good talent, and interested in the way people define good talent. There’s people with 4.0′s that couldn’t carry on a conversation with a box. The point is, the one Ryan makes, is that companies need to invest in finding great people and that doesn’t mean sifting through a stack of resumes received via monster. [Remind me, I'll expand on this notion in a post soon.]

Open Letter to CEOs: Don’t Cut SM Staff – Shel Israel (Global Neighbourhoods)
Being passionate about social media and the ways in impacts businesses makes this a must read for me and anyone that feels the same way. Here’s my favorite excerpt, “This is the time to think about the most efficient way to be closest to you customers, to what’s left of your company ecosystem. You need to be among the first to detect the nuances of your market and adjust. You need to think about the most efficient way to keep in the conversation. ”

The Top 5 Ways to Brand Yourself Inside Your Company – Dan Schawbel (Personal Branding Blog)
I think that when a lot of people think about personal branding they think about me, me, me. The reason I included this particular post from Dan this month is that 3 of his 5 reasons emphasize how personal branding can really benefit others including your team, your company and your boss. Certainly they all help your own personal brand as well, but remember that the best brands thrive on helping the team succeed and that the first person you need to make successful is your manager.

Involve, Create, Discuss, Promote, Measure - Valeria Maltoni (Conversation Agent)
Here Valeria has taken a framework from Gary Hayes and Laura Papworth and expanded on specific aspects showing how someone would progress throughs social media marketing. Who do you think are doing these things well?

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