“Life isn’t about Finding Yourself. Life is about CREATING Yourself.”

The title of this post is a George Bernard Shaw quote I employ with my daughters in the hopes I will impress upon them, in a small way with a few words, what I will say here with many more words than their attention spans will allow. How many times have you heard that some person or other is on a quest to “find themselves?” Many times we hear it in relation to a young person starting out in life to find their purpose, or when an older person jokes about what they want to be when they “grow up.”

However, the older I get and the more experiences I have and relationships I develop, the more convinced I am that each individual’s purpose in life is to draw their own map. Throw out the recipe book, the paint-by-numbers kit, and anything anyone ever told you about who or what you should be—and chart your own course.

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The Lines Between Social Media And Sports Continue To Blur

The Philadelphia Wings of the National Lacrosse League (NLL) made history yesterday by becoming the first professional sports team in North America to don jerseys that had their Twitter names on the back of their jerseys. Could this be the sign of things to come as more sports teams look for ways to engage their fans through the use of social media?

Social media is all about engagement–engaging in conversations that heretofore were not possible. And when it comes to sports and athletes, we fans love to engage with our favorite players.

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Marketing, Digital & PR in the Social Media Blender

These are exciting times, because Social Media takes “Will it Blend?” to a whole new level with marketers. And for those of us who’ve been in the business for a while—it’s about time!

For years, marketing people and PR folks wore separate hats—had different skill sets, different agendas—even though they share a common purpose. It’s like the FBI and the CIA not talking to each other and sharing information about terrorism—dumb.

Even the birth of digital communications didn’t turn on any light bulbs at first, even made it worse by adding another silo, but the power and exponential growth of social media shows us why it is vital to string it all together.

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Inaccurate labels and why we need them (and need to improve them)

If I tell you, “I’m going to the baseball game,” it seems as though you’re likely to understand what I mean.

Of course, you won’t. When George Will goes to a baseball game, it’s a religious experience. Me, I don’t even like baseball. Or maybe it’s my nephew’s ball game (the playoffs), or maybe going to the game causes me to miss an important event, and on and on.

We label the experience with just two words, and two words can’t possibly capture the emotions and circumstance surrounding an event.

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Today, Everything Changes

I have a confession to make.

I have been keeping something from you for a long time. Some of you may know my little secret, but for many of you, this will be the first time you are hearing this.

You see, up until yesterday, I had a day job outside of Blue Kite Marketing. For the past year and a half, I have been building my marketing business while holding down a demanding day job.

I’m not gonna lie – it’s been tough. But, it has been worth it. And today, everything changes.

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Pinterest Rivals Twitter in Referral Traffic

To those of you who lead “the Pinteresting life,” you’ve contributed to a phenomenon that is certainly putting its clicks where the hype is. By that I mean, Pinterest is a two-year old cultural sensation that is borderline causing dependency among its users and the rabid audiences they’re developed. This rapid fire network has pinned itself to a rocket with estimated unique viewership ascending 429% from September to December 2011…and I’m not even sure if the sky’s the limit here.

For those who are unfamiliar with the fledgling community, Pinterest is a effective marriage of social bookmarking and visual curation with an extremely fervent user base.

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