Getting my act together in 2010, I’ll be blogging here again

I want to tell you about my New Year’s resolution. I know a lot of you hate the idea of resolutions, but honestly I don’t understand why. It’s all about rebirth. That’s what the Babylonians thought when they first came up with it. And who are we to question the Babylonians?

In 2010, I’m going to write more. I wrote a lot in 2009 actually, but most of it was marketing copy for Brazen Careerist. In 2010 I’m going to take things back to a more personal place.

I’ve gone through a lot of changes in the past year, and there’s a lot that you don’t know. For instance, I spent the last year trying to train a dog who knows how to open a refrigerator door. I failed miserably, and a week ago I had to give him away.

I also moved in with my girlfriend, who I’m incredibly in love with. The only problem is that we live in Wisconsin, in a 900 square foot apartment with 1,500 books (mine and hers).

Oh yeah. I spent two days in Mexico convinced that I was going deaf. I went to a Mexican doctor and he pulled a dime-sized ball of wax from my ear. I was fine, and it reminded me to stop being so neurotic.

Those are just a few things that I’m likely to write about.

I thought it would complement all these changes quite nicely if I changed my blog design too (thanks Zerflin). Even though blogging isn’t anything new to me, I hope that the experience I have this time around is as fresh and as fun as the great new look my buddy Benjamin has given to the site.

My goal is to keep writing and keep posting, even when I suck. And hopefully some of it will make you laugh. That’s one of my goals, too.

So here it goes. I’m back in the Blog-O-Sphere.

We launched the new Brazen Careerist today, and why bigger does mean better

This summer has been packed with change for me. I moved into a new apartment—the nicest place I’ve ever lived. As we speak my girlfriend is moving in with me. Huge changes.

“Bigger and better things,” is the first phrase that come to mind, though I don’t think that bigger is the word I should use to describe it.

I’m certainly not living in a bigger place. Compared to the dump I lived in last year, it’s actually a lot smaller. And sometimes smaller is what we want.

We just launched the new-and-improved Brazen Careerist—a career management tool for next-generation professionals. It will help change the way people control their professional identity. We’re going to get bigger. That’s scary when bigger doesn’t always mean better.

What I learned from the transition into my new, cozy apartment is that living in a big place might mean living in a dump. It’s hard to maintain and it doesn’t always feel like a home. One of my chief concerns with the new Brazen Careerist was that the same principal would hold true.

But I’m not scared about that anymore.

I spent the last month and a half reaching out to bloggers in our community to ask for help promoting the Community when we finally go live. It’s something we had never done before because we never felt this passionately about a product launch. I figured it would be a challenge, but after sending over 100 requests, I didn’t receive a single “No.”

I’ve always felt humbled being able to say that Brazen Careerist would be nothing without its community. And after experiences such overwhelming support pre-launch, I don’t even care how cliché it sounds when I say it.

And through that I realized why I had been so scared in the first place. Not because the Community was going to get big and clunky—Ryan Healy has been way too anal for that to happen—but because I am going to have to change the way I work as a Community Manager.

I pulled Penelope aside a couple weeks ago to talk to her about this.

“How exactly does a Community Manager scale?” I asked.

“Where does his/her career path lead?”

“Ryan, you’re doing a great job,” she reminded me.

And I realized that I know exactly how to scale my job. Well, not exactly. The Community Manager role in business is still a little young to know the exact path, but I know that it involves growing along with the Community and continuing to be a voice to as many as possible even when that number rockets through the thousands, to the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions.

Long story short, I know that you’re all going to love the new Brazen Careerist. It’s cleaner. It’s more fun. It’s social media. And the focus is finally right where it should be—on you.

And even though you may be a little shell-shocked at first—like my girlfriend feels about her shoes being housed in the same apartment as my 90lb Labrador—the bigger-and-better Brazen Careerist is going to be everything we promise that it’s going to be. And I’m still going to do everything I can to be your voice and bug our development team to make the changes you all want to see.

If you haven’t already checked out the new Brazen Careerist, please go take a look. And if you’ve never joined, now is the perfect time to go become a member.

Our Community Feedback group is open and for business. Let us know what you think!

An Inauguration Day stranger, Memorial Day promises and the inconvenience of change

Four months ago, I was sitting in a bar with Ryan and Dan Healy, and Penelope. It was Inauguration Day. We watched our country make history swearing in the 44th President of the United States.

The room was a can of sardines, but more optimistic. Tangled in a motley web of businessmen, congressmen and college students, we parked it next to a middle-aged bald guy. Pulling out a shot glass from his jacket pocket and slamming it on the table, he asked the barkeep to pour some whiskey.

“Hey,” he said. “Would you guys like to take a shot with me?”

Dan and I looked at one another, then back at the guy. “Sure,” we decided.

“It means a lot that you both are doing this with me,” he said. “I’ll tell you why after Obama takes his oath.”

We sat there, quietly sipped on beers, listened to Biden take his oath, then Obama. Looking over at our friend, I saw tears.

“Cheers,” he said. We took our shots. I forgot what whiskey tasted like midday on a Tuesday. Closing my eyes for a moment, I regained my composure. When opened them, the man was pointing to a pin he was wearing on his chest, a young man in uniform holding a puppy.

“This is my son,” he said. “He died in Iraq four years ago.”

He told us how passionate his son was to go into the Middle East—keen on making the world a better place—only to find himself appalled by how everything was being done. He couldn’t wait to come home and dedicate his life to changing America’s foreign policies.

He never got to do that, but his fortitude lived on through his father. Obama’s Inauguration—in his eyes—was the catalyst for change that his son had dreamed about.

“On Memorial Day,” he said, “do me a favor.”

“Tell my son’s story to someone … anyone.” He just wanted his son’s story to be told. And today, I’m doing the best I can to live up to my promise.

During the month of May, two amazing bloggers, Sam Davidson and Matt Chevy, teamed up to get young bloggers talking about change. I couldn’t think of what to write about. Then I remember the promise I kept to that stranger on Inauguration Day and the lesson that I learned.

It has nothing to do with politics, or foreign policy, or Republicans versus Democrats. It’s about the power each of us has to make a difference today, right now, if we’re devoted enough and perseverant enough to make things happen. It’s a fragile gift, because we never know when that chance might be taken from us.

I’ve been thinking a lot today about the people I know whose dreams of cultivating change were cut too short. Like my friend Kaity, who might have lived on to help save the rainforests if she didn’t die of an over dose two years ago. Or my friend Chris, who would have made one kick-ass electrical engineer if he didn’t die tragically in a fire before he even graduated college. And of course, Sgt. Mark Allen Maida … a total stranger to me if it wasn’t for his father.

As another Memorial Day drifts past, and we all go back to work, school or whatever else we do with our time, let’s try not to forget how easy it is to fall back into idle behaviors. Let’s try to remain focused on the things in our lives that we want to and need to change.

Change isn’t enclosed in bubble wrap. It’s not going to wait until we’re ready to commit. And when the chance has gone, we rarely get a chance like it again.

The Bar Scene Teaches Us About Using Social Media The Right Way

The coolest thing about being a community manager is that I get to socialize all day. It’s a big part of my job to create genuine conversation. And it reminds me a lot of starting good conversations at the bar.

Social media is a lot like being out in the bar scene. And being an effective social media user is a lot like being an effective bar crawler. It takes enthusiasm and it takes endurance—and all of us have a off-putting experience that we wish we could forget.

Don’t call me alcoholic. I’m not. I’m just being allegorical. And what better to turn into a metaphor than two of my favorite things? (more…)

Why This Struggling TV Show Has Generation Y Written All Over It

A new chapter of NBC’s Heroes started last night. And while most people were cringing to see what offbeat plot twists the writers could possibly err on this year, I was still sitting on the edge of my seat.

Heroes is my guilty pleasure. Even though the ratings suck and critics are cutting the show zero slack, I’m a sucker for good character development. That’s what keeps me watching week after week.

Consider it my inner Gen-Y enthusiast talking, but Heroes has Generation Y written all over it. (more…)