Sharing what you had for breakfast in a social media setting is one thing, but when politics start creeping in, you have a REAL opportunity. A LOSING opportunity.

As soon as you start talking about your political point of view, you are likely to infuriate, anger, tick off (or worse LOSE) one of your closest social media friends.

You may not mean to. Maybe it’s a innocent link to a Conan O’Brien sketch of a Sarah Palin impostor shooting the “Masturbating Bear”. (Seriously, what’s NOT funny about a “Masturbating Bear”?)

The above is proof there’s always a chance you can lose half your audience. When thinking about talking politics in a social media setting, just remember the “Masturbating Bear”. You still there?

I’m not hating on the look because I do work hard at keeping up with it, but the most annoying thing to me right now is that those words in the title bar run over my logo! I’m sure it’s an easy fix that’s right under my nose, but I’ve kinda given up on it because I plan to be moving this very important information to WordPress in the near future.

Speaking of which, I’ve had some issues with hosting and blogging and WordPressing and a bunch of other “ings” today (is there a money-ing?) and the greatest time wasted was on my “smart” phone. Dumb phone quit receiving email about 2 days ago and boy is it tough doing business with NO EMAIL!

A number of people from Sprint were nice enough to help me out today and I’m just hoping it doesn’t take another 6 hours to go through and delete all these duplicate contacts and calendar events. Ah, technology. Always so much to keep up with, especially in your blog.

Which incarnation is this now?

For the last 15 years, I’ve been involved in different aspects of “traditional” local media from internship to running satellite feeds at WFTS in Tampa to my last position of Sports Producer at WGCL in Atlanta, GA. From the age of nine, I wanted to be a sportscaster and I was able to live that dream out in the nation’s 8th largest television market-exceeding my wildest expectations.

Here’s proof:

Not that I need to prove myself, I just wanted to share what I did previously as a way to lend more credibility to my new business venture, since the “new media” is still foreign to a number of folks. And that’s OK!

I don’t go out in the Charlotte community pitching myself as an “expert” in the social media field because I don’t believe anyone can be an expert in an emerging field and it just rankles me to hear some people position themselves as such.

Where I can benefit clients is as a “life raft” from traditional forms of marketing and advertising over to the new variety of social media platforms that are available! I know because I’ve been involved in BOTH! Please let me know how I can help you!

I like his article, not because he mentions me or my former career, I like it because he makes note of the fact that the city of Charlotte has such potential if only people knew where to look. The attendees at BarCampCLT were some of the smartest people I’ve ever met. Some had college degrees, but I bet a few did not. Remember when a college degree was all that “mattered?”

Well, if you are a business owner or an individual in Charlotte, there are people surrounding you that can help you in ways you probably never thought possible. They have different backgrounds and interests, but they’re all pretty good at getting you where you need to go. Don’t be afraid to get on the ride because the people you meet through conferences like BarCampCLT are tommorow’s Bill Gates. Even Jared.

So, I’ve got work to do now that Jeff has been kind enough to link my social media consulting business in his article!

Not just any 8 hour day though, it was an 8 hour day that included learning whatever it is you wanted to learn from people who already knew what they were talking about. A real challenge as well for them to throw as much information at us in a 45 minute window they possibly could. Technology, concepts, comedy and more were all included in this adventure put on at Area Fifteen in the NODA area of Charlotte.

I personally learned how to make webcasts that DON’T SUCK from @techherding, SEO and online marketing from @CoreyCreed, more about managing my social networks from @dizzySEO, and discussed the future of journalism with a panel hosted by @underoak. The good news is that I wasn’t TOTALLY clueless about any of the topics-the bad news is that I still have a lot of work to do to catch up!

This blog post is the first of many more changes you’ll see…

Seriously though, I had a couple of good thoughts come up last week and I feel if I put it out there for everyone to see and consider it will be such a good idea I won’t be able to make it work for myself. Not that I’m against sharing in the blogosphere, quite the contrary. I enjoy brainstorming with my local crew because I can see them face to face. I also enjoy the “national” crew, but as with all things social media, there’s an intense desire to share but also to “get ahead”.

So what’s the perfect balance between “sharing” and “keeping it close”?

There are many challenges ahead, but as I mentioned on Twitter this morning, one may receive MANY rejection letters in a lifetime but it’s what he does with them that matters.

Lucky for me, rejections over the phone don’t stick around as long as paper!

Now, you may ask, “Why is that annoying?” Well, having to catch grammatical and spelling errors every day of your life can get to be pretty insane, since those two things say so much about you the person-and my aim was always perfection. Attention to detail is so important and I was never satisfied with those type of errors from anyone else, much less myself!

Of course, not everyone cares, but they should. If I see a misspelling or grammatical error, I am less likely to find your information credible. Now, if it’s a one-time error, I get that…but if I visit your site more than three times and the same error exists, I’ll probably move on.

Just one recommendation: do a proof-read of your own work before you hit “publish post”. It’s a good carry-over from “traditional” media to the “new media” landscape.

Is her hiring the start of the future for local Fortune 500 companies, or those companies in general? That’s the question we’re all asking.

In the meantime, the rest of us will go on trying to bring attention to good people like Scott and Lisa.

This may be an obstacle you face in your daily dealings with others who have shied away from Social Media outlets to this point, they may feel like they are in the dark. That’s why I am here-to guide them into the light. I think I did a pretty good job explaining the basics, but I tend to keep it simple because I’ll fully admit to still being in “learning mode” myself.

We all have to admit that the answer to “What is Social Media” can change on a daily basis and I really hate giving the “Twitter” or “Facebook” canned response. Are you surprised when someone doesn’t know what Social Media is? How do you go about explaining it to them? I’m guessing everyone’s answer is different, making this a pretty cool discussion.