What have you done for me lately?

A fundamental mistake. It is a mistake a lot of people make, especially in the business world. Well-meaning, hard-working people do it all the time. I am guilty of it, especially in the past with regards to my professional communications experience.

People do not seek the credit for their work as much as they should. “My work speaks for itself.” “They know what I do/contribute/add to the business.”

While the importance was not as obvious when I started out in the communications field, I see it much clearer today in the retail world. If you want people to acknowledge your contributions or give yourself ammunition for a pay raise/promotion, you have to make sure they know what you have done and how that contribution benefits the entire company.

You cannot just let your work speak for itself.

In the communications field, that means making use of research and evaluation tools to not only show the impact of a particular program, but to also put it into context of the overall goal/mission of the organization you are working for – justify the resources you have used and the ones you will need in the future.

Before you start a communications campaign of any kind, you need to understand where you currently stand. What is the perception of your company? Who are the people or audiences you are trying to reach? If you cannot clearly identify your starting point, you will be unable to determine how far you have “moved the needle” toward your overall goal. How do you increase favorable impressions of customers by 25% if you do not have any idea where you stand at the beginning of your campaign?

It may seem obvious and pure common sense to establish a starting point, but there is always pressure to begin delivering results as soon as you can – in any job. Any practitioner is going to want to demonstrate their worth and justify the faith their employer has shown by giving them a job. But there needs to be a measured, methodical process through which not only is a starting point identified, but a means of measuring the impact of any effort made as part of a strategic communication program.

While most of what I have covered to this point is in reference to hard, tangible numbers, a strategic communicator needs to weave in the intangible aspects, too. You can tell a pretty straightforward story with hard numbers, but identifying the intangibles helps to flesh out the context of overall environment in which these hard numbers were achieved. An increase of new donors to a foundation by X% is great, but the ability to achieve that during an economic downturn while closing 15% your company’s manufacturing facilities puts it into a slightly more impressive context.

I noted in one of my course assignments that as communicators, we are essentially storytellers. We weave a particular tale (hopefully nonfiction!) for particular audiences with a desired outcome as a goal. If our story is told to the wrong group, we fail. If our story is boring and no one cares, we fail. If our story is just the bare bones facts, we will not be as successful as the storyteller who can paint a rich, full, vibrant story that not only captures the imaginations of those we are hoping to influence (sales, regulators, etc.) but also inspires others who hear our story to reach further/try more/invest themselves (employees, supporters, etc.).

Have I lost you yet? What I’m saying is that we – as strategic communicators – need to use formative research to define the scope and goals of any communication program or campaign. We need to include process research to gauge the implementation success of any campaign or program. And finally, we need to use summaritive research to measure the outcomes of a program/campaign.

The final step is to put that information in the hands of our employers/supervisors as a means of demonstrating what the impact of a strategic communications program has been able to achieve: celebrate the runaway wins, identify the opportunities to improve, and make recommendations for new efforts in the future or new directions to pursue with additional resources.

Some will recognize your work. Most are too busy trying to achieve their own goals, they may not fully understand the contributions you or your team has made unless you clearly point it out to them. This is the step people fail to make. Pride may be one of the Seven Deadly Sins, it is not just “pride” when you are announce the contributions your efforts as a communicator have made toward the overall success of your organization is not a sin – it’s a necessity in a business environment that takes more of “what have you done for me lately” view of those who consume resources.

About the Author: David is a dedicated husband and proud father of a strapping almost fifteen year-old son and twin five and a half year-old daughters. He has twenty years of professional communication experience, working in the public relations field and six years of professional merchandising experience with the world's largest home improvement retailer. He has worked for public relations firms in Metro Detroit, hospitals and a state-wide faith-based social service organization helping at-risk children and their families. He holds a Bachelor degree from Michigan State University and has just completed his Masters program in Strategic Communication at Troy University. He grew up on a mid-sized Michigan blueberry farm, spent two years in Texas and now resides with his family outside Tampa, Florida. An avid reader and photographer, David also enjoys building furniture using recycled/upcycled wooden pallets.

What is the message?

The answer to this question can vary: a new version of the Bible by Eugene Peterson; a text message sent via mobile phone, or; a greeting enclosed in Voyager 1 and 2 by NASA and sent to the furthest reaches of space.

For our purposes as strategic communicators, the message is the content of the communication process.

But to be effective, that message has to be sent and received with a minimal level of ambiguity, or “noise,” between the sender and receiver. Breaking a message down, as communicators do, we look for the three elements of rhetoric to determine if the message was persuasive: logos, ethos and pathos.

However, as audiences have become more and more sophisticated receptors of the deluge of messages aimed at them every day, the strategic communicator needs to develop a comprehensive plan for not only message development, but also placement of those messages.

Cacioppo and Petty conducted research looking at the Effects of Message Repetition and Position on Cognitive Response, Recall, and Persuasion (1979) and while repetition influences learning, the more exposure to the message over time showed an initial increase in persuasive result of the message, over time, that persuasiveness actually decreased (pg 105).

What does that mean? Get your message out there, but do not over do it? Or does it point to the need for messages to be a little more covert and not quite so obvious. The hero in the latest summer blockbuster movie sports a retro type of Ray-Ban sunglasses and always asks for a Coca-Cola. Is that message linking the hero with those products subtle enough to increase learning and liking and, thereby, drive sales for Coke and Ray-Ban? Was the message successful?

When I was Director of Communications for Boysville of Michigan, I was put in charge of developing a statewide billboard campaign, celebrating the agency’s 50^th anniversary providing successful child care and family reunification services in the State of Michigan.

Despite being a part of the social services industry in the state for five decades, knowledge of what the agency actually did was fairly limited to those who worked in the various state court systems who placed adjudicated children with Boysville. The average citizen may have had a positive associated with the name, but no real knowledge of what the agency actually did.

Determining what the goal of a statewide billboard campaign, at first, seemed elusive as everyone had their own idea of what information needed to be included on the billboards. At the time, the state was poised to open up placements to for-profit companies who had no track record with the various court systems. But the Boysville management team felt it was critical to use the billboard campaign to let everyone know how our agency helped children and families.

With the aid of a PR firm, I convinced the management team that the billboards should merely celebrate the 50 years of service (without specifically noting what service) and raise the level of awareness among Michigan citizens that we helped children and families. The longevity of the agency spoke to its expertise: an organization won’t be around for 50 years if they do not know what they are doing. And building on the positive name recognition that we do good work (help children and families) would help to position Boysville ahead of the newly-come-to-town for-profit companies who had zero track record with the citizens of the state.

We educated subtly. We raised awareness subtly. We appeared everywhere.

The billboard campaign, considered a success, was not the magic bullet that would solve all the organizations issues with new competition, but it allowed us to frame the context in terms of who was already in place, who had a proven track-record and even more subtly, we did it as a faith-based organization, based on our mission, not just in the pursuit of profits like the companies looking to move into the state that were essentially the same companies who ran prisons. In fact, we got all the billboards donated for the campaign, leaving the only expense on the creative design side and printing (yes, this was back in the day of actual paper sheet billboards, not the newer one-piece mylar material used today).

One of my favorite public relations practitioners, Leland K. Bassett, would often tell his team of new communication counselors and managers (including me), that the art of persuasion was often in concealing the art. That adage hold true today. The message does not have to be so ridiculously blunt and obvious to be successful. It needs to be present where people will see/hear/receive it, it needs to be consistent and it needs to be measured (before and after) to determine its success.

About the Author: David is a dedicated husband and proud father of a strapping fourteen year-old son and twin five year-old daughters. He has twenty years of professional communication experience, working in the public relations field. He has worked for public relations firms in Metro Detroit, hospitals and a state-wide faith-based social service organization helping at-risk children and their families. He grew up on a mid-sized Michigan blueberry farm, spent two years in Texas and now resides with his family outside Tampa, Florida. An avid reader and photographer, David also enjoys building furniture using recycled/upcycled wooden pallets.

Vision, leadership and......football?

As I near the end of my Master's degree program at Troy University, I do find myself contemplating the future, both personally and professionally. The email from Dr. Padgett acknowledging my successful navigation of the capstone comprehensive exam actually triggered a number of items for me: relief, confidence, uncertainty, and accomplishment.

But it also brought two nagging questions: Now what? How am I going to move from this new level of accomplishment in my education to a new level of challenge and effort in my professional life? Egads, I'm reliving undergraduate college graduation all over again.

What it means for me professionally is an easier topic to tackle. I graduated in the mid 80s with my bachelor's degree and couldn't wait to get into the field of public relations. I was hired shortly after graduation and just nine months later, I was let go after the firm I worked for lost 2-3 large clients at the same time. It was my introduction into the fickle business world and how the field of communication is viewed differently in theory and in practice. All the books we read for our classes stress how critical communication is at every level of any organization.

Last week, we learned Chester Barnard noted in 1938 that the first executive function is to develop and maintain some type of communication system, yet it is routinely one of the first places within an organization where cuts are made or eliminated when faced with economic adversity. A lesson I have learned personally four times during my professional 20-year career in communications.

I provide this background as a means of context for where my vision is derived from, moving forward into the next chapter of my professional life. The information and knowledge I have gained from the Master’s program at Troy University is only a starting point. It will be up to me to not only continue my education, but to use my training and experiences to develop the ability to develop a vision for my future; short-, intermediate-, and long-term.

What I failed to realize earlier in my career is that education is not finite. Just because I finished my bachelor's degree, I was not finished learning. As I put my skills and abilities into practice, I was not paying heed to the changing nature of critical parts of my daily job.

For instance, traditional media was changing in front of my eyes with the rise of the internet and I failed to see it, plan for it and champion ways in which the organization I was working for could leverage those changes to better meet the overall goals of the agency.

It wasn't until my third year away from the field, working in retail, that I fully realized my true miscalculation was neglecting to keep an eye on the horizon. It was one of the reasons I was drawn to the program at Troy University.

Troy's leaders did not fall asleep at the wheel. They did study and research the current fields of Journalism and Communications and planned for the future. By working in the field, I know the value communication can bring to a company. However, if I can not translate that impact into clearly defined results -- results that will at some point be assessed by bean-counters who will eventually put me into a "cost" or "asset" column – I may find myself holding yet another pink slip. My vision is to not experience that again.

I would offer the distinction between “management” and “leadership” as one of the reasons companies thrive or falter. In an article by John Kotter (2013) in the Harvard Business Review, the author makes a simple declaration: management and leadership are not the same. He notes that management is the nuts and bolts operation of common processes most people are familiar with – planning, staffing, budgeting, production goals, etc.

But leadership, he contends, is more about leading an organization into the future, capitalizing on opportunities as they present themselves, helping others within the company not only see the vision but to buy in and become advocates for the vision put forward by the leadership of the company. And this leadership isn’t always found in the c-level offices. It needs to be at all levels of the organization.

I am not a fan of sports analogies, generally, but this seems like a pretty straightforward representation of the difference between leadership and management. There are 32 teams in the National Football League and every season there are coaches who get fired. Many of the coaches become head coaches after putting in time as a coach of the defense, the offense, or the special teams. They are experts in a specific aspect of the game – scoring points, preventing points, etc. They are “managing” a particular process of the team. The head coach role, however, is not restricted to a particular process. It is weaving them all together to achieve a longer-term vision of getting the team not only to win the next game, but enable them to have the tools in place to win a majority of the games to ensure a playoff spot and, ultimately, the Super Bowl. It’s about “leading” and motivating all members of the team, all members of management, to buy into a singular vision that the team can successfully win against any other team they face.

And every winning football team has “leaders” on the field. A quarterback, a linebacker, a safety, etc. They are not a coach. They are just “line staff” members who understand the vision of the head coach, and help to get the other members of the team to buy into that vision. The leaders are not always on the coaching staff.

Interestingly, many of the coaches who get fired from head coach positions do not leave the game. Instead, they return to the “management” positions they held before, where they excelled. They may not have the vision or leadership skills to be a head coach, but they are still experts in the particular processes that make up a successful team.

As noted by Kotter, leadership is not only at the top. It needs to be throughout all levels of the organization (team). A strategic communicator needs to be a leader, supporting the vision of the organization leadership as well as positioning communication as a critical tool for accomplishing the goals of the organization.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About the Author: David is a dedicated husband and proud father of a strapping fourteen year-old son and twin five year-old daughters. He has twenty years of professional communication experience, working in the public relations field. He has worked for public relations firms in Metro Detroit, hospitals and a state-wide faith-based social service organization helping at-risk children and their families. He grew up on a mid-sized Michigan blueberry farm, spent two years in Texas and now resides with his family outside Tampa, Florida. An avid reader and photographer, David also enjoys building furniture using recycled/upcycled wooden pallets.

Internal & External: It's all communication

One of the main focuses of our readings this week in my Troy University class was internal communication.  In many organizations, there is a clear distinction between internal and external communications. Internal is usually seen as employee newsletters, and packaging information for the executive suite to aid in the roll out of new initiatives or programs. External is the “sexier” side, dealing with community relations, media relations and a variety of publications designed for external stakeholder groups.

Making an assumption the two “sides” operate independently of each other or can be directed in a vacuum is a mindset the strategic communicator must strive to change.

In 1996, I was hired to direct the internal communication efforts of a faith-based child care and family reunification agency in Michigan. Within three weeks of joining the company, I was thrust into the forefront of a media relations maelstrom, pitting the agency and its clients against concerned neighbors surrounding two different residential facilities where juveniles in the care of our agency “escaped” and stole cars from residents.

While I was focused on learning the internal culture of the agency, I was hardly prepared to serve as the spokesperson for the entire agency about events I had little or no knowledge about the sites around the state of Michigan. “Trial by fire” was the term used repeatedly by members of the management staff and regional directors of the agency in the weeks that followed.

That experience is when I learned how little the field of communication is understood by management in general and how my role – regardless of whether it was called “internal” or “external” needed to be comprehensive. In 1938, Chester Barnard wrote in his book The Functions of the Executive “The first executive function is to develop and maintain a system of communication.” (page 226)

By 1996, that sage advice seemed to have been forgotten or misunderstood. The strategic communicator of today needs to be keenly aware of how all the components of an organization’s communication plan – marketing, sales, community outreach, political action, etc. – fit into a strategic, comprehensive program. Without that vision or knowledge, there is almost a guarantee for wasted resources, counter-productive efforts and frustration at all levels of an organization.

Internal communication is a key component for any company or client because it is where management has the opportunity – no, the responsibility – to keep one of their largest key publics (employees) informed about the goals, direction, and status of the company for which they work. As noted by Parsons and Urbanski (2012), the structure and internal culture of a company will be a key factor in the effectiveness of internal communication efforts.

I served as Director of Communications – responsible for both internal and external communication efforts – for the next 11 years, until the overall economy began its decline in 2007, proving the findings by Garnett (1997) and Sweetland (2008) that management tend to devalue communication’s importance, resulting in early elimination of communication positions during budget cuts or financial hardships.

Prior to joining the child care agency, I was the public relations manager at a hospital in Metro Detroit, responsible for their internal communications. One of the largest parts of my job at the hospital was the production of a weekly newsletter, Friday, designed to keep not only the employees at the hospital informed about the programs, Mission and happenings at the main campus, but to also make the 23 ancillary facilities around the metropolitan area see themselves as part of the team, not off-site step children. With the help of a very talented graphics designer, I redesigned the publication and won Newsletter of the Year designation from the Michigan Hospital Communicators Association (1995).

Specifically as it relates to public relations, there continues to be a gap between public relations theories and public relations practices (Cheng and de Gregario, 2008; Okay & Okay, 2008) that will not be corrected until strategic communicators take direct, demonstrable efforts to show the value of a comprehensive, strategic communications plan that not only supports the goals of the company, but can stand on its own, with demonstrable outcomes justifying the resources required to successfully operate such a critical function of every executive.

Follow Up Note: The media relations fiasco noted above was not only successfully managed, but helped to create two independent community action groups made up of citizens, elected officials and agency management persons to identify opportunities for improved safety as well as strengthen community relations, an effort hailed by all involved as productive and successful for the entire tenure of this communicator’s position with the agency.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the Author: David is a dedicated husband and proud father of a strapping fourteen year-old son and twin five year-old daughters. He has twenty years of professional communication experience, working in the public relations field. He has worked for public relations firms in Metro Detroit, hospitals and a state-wide faith-based social service organization helping at-risk children and their families. He grew up on a mid-sized Michigan blueberry farm, spent two years in Texas and now resides with his family outside Tampa, Florida. An avid reader and photographer, David also enjoys building furniture using recycled/upcycled wooden pallets.

Remaining Relevant

Welcome to the resurgence of my (mostly) professional blog, focused on topics relating to strategic communications and the topics that impact the field, including diffusion of innovations, opinion leadership, social media, government communication, strategic vision, message development, crisis communication, successful communication and measurement, and many more.

My name is David Jablonski. No, not the world renowned geophysical sciences professor from the University of Chicago. Nor the urologist working in the Orlando, Florida area. I’m the guy who graduated from Michigan State University in 1987 with a Communications degree and has 20 years of professional communications experience, working in the public relations field.

After the economic downturn in 2007, I left the field and thought I would explore the retail/merchandising field. And while I have enjoyed progressive success in this new (for me) field, my heart and true love is still the communication field and how it influences almost every aspect of every field you can imagine.

In order to remain relevant return to the field, I felt I needed to expand and grow my own skills and knowledge base, so I enrolled in the Strategic Communications Master’s program at Troy University. One of my professors (Dr. Steven Padgett) requires a professional blog as part of the coursework and I am embarking on the second course under his direction; thus the “resurgence” of this blog.

Thank you for reading this far. For your future reference, the address for this blog is:

http://davidstroyuniversityprofessionalblog.blogspot.com/

My goal (in addition to an ‘A’ in this class) is to publish a new post each week for the next nine weeks and beyond. While this blog is a requirement for my course, it goes beyond simply checking off an item on a list of things to do. This will give me an opportunity and outlet to provide some insight and thought-provoking information for fellow communicators as well as those looking to understand what a strategic communicator utilizes (tools, skills, research, etc.) when developing a specific course of action or a strategic communication plan.

The Asset-Light Generation

A great discussion about the difficulties faced by newspaper publishers written by Alan D. Mutter, media consultant, introduced me to the term ‘asset-light generation,’ a term coined by Mary Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the top venture-capital firms in Silicon Valley, according to Mutter’s post.

Mutter’s post and the report by Meeker (linked in Mutter’s post) outline one of the most significant challenges faced by newspaper publishers: remaining relevant to the younger generations who have grown up with digital devices like computers, video games, cell phones, and tablets – and who rely on those devices for news instead of traditional printed newspapers.

According to Meeker, the asset-light generation prefers to have services do “chores” for them (grocery shopping, home/car cleaning, laundry/dry cleaning, lawn care, etc.) and do more from their smartphones or other computing devices (banking, investing, shopping, reading, etc.), thereby keeping their “assets” minimalized and mobile.

How do publishers connect with this segment of the population? How do they transform their existing product (printed newspapers) and make it not only accessible to the asset-light generation, but also desired and relevant? It’s a question yet to be answered, but from this communicator’s viewpoint, the starting point is better understanding the audience segment in question. What drives this group? What are the important beliefs and values held by the asset-light? What are the things that will turn them away?

Understanding the diffusion of innovations research would be a great place to start for publishers. Les Robinson’s article “A summary of Diffusion of Innovations” notes a key component for tapping into the diffusion of innovations five distinct categories – Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards – is to recognize each of these categories has its own “personality” and there will be different approaches needed to connect with each group.

Social Media Networks

According to the Diffusions of Innovations (DoI) theory as outlined by EverettRodgers (1995), diffusion is the process by which an innovation (1) is communicated through certain channels (2) over time (3) among the members of a social system(4). What will be critical for newspaper publishers to understand is that the rise of social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Pheed, etc.) has dramatically changed three of those major ingredients: channels, time, and social system.
 The sheer number of social media networks available presents a daunting task: which networks do the publishers study? The channel along which information flows is now greater than any time in the past. While it may all have a common core channel – the internet – it is further fragmented by as many social media networks as there exist. Wifi, smartphones, and tablets allow almost anyone to spread information instantaneously. Whether at work, school, driving, shopping or recreating, people can instantly share data and images almost as quickly as events occur, sometimes in real-time (remember the Boston Marathon bombing?). Identifying the opinion leaders as identified in DoI has now become more challenging. The low-keyed, meek person at the office who is virtually non-existent in the workplace may have a social network following of thousands online. How do publishers identify these opinion leaders? These are all the issues publishers will need to consider as they look for ways to remain not only relevant, but to merely exist in the future. Just as I look to return to my chosen field, the the bottom line answer is that there won't be a simple, single quick-fix for publishers. It will require creative, strategic thinking and planning with input from those familiar with the changing landscape in the communications field.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About the Author: David is a dedicated husband and proud father of a strapping fourteen year-old son and twin five year-old daughters. He has twenty years of professional communication experience, working in the public relations field. He has worked for public relations firms in Metro Detroit, hospitals and a state-wide faith-based social service organization helping at-risk children and their families. He grew up on a mid-sized Michigan blueberry farm, spent two years in Texas and now resides with his family outside Tampa, Florida. An avid reader and photographer, David also enjoys building furniture using recycled/upcycled wooden pallets.

Blogging: Get on-board or be left at the station

While looking at a lot of the current and recent research connected to social media -- specifically blogging -- as a cutting edge communication tool, it has become pretty clear there are some simple truths to be noted:

1)      Internet use continues to increase around the globe, even in less technologically developed countries. While the access method may be changing (desktop computer, laptop computer, tablet, smartphone, etc.), more and more people are being “connected” to the Internet.

2)      Blogging continues to rise as a tool for information dissemination, whether it is being done by companies, public relations practitioners, journalists or “citizen journalists.”

3)      Those who are embracing the use of social media as a means of making more customized, meaningful connections (or relationships) with various audience segments are potentially able to strengthen their branding efforts.

Internet Use

As noted in a recent quarterly update for Internet service providers, Internet use/growth is expected to continue even in the United States by 3% annually through 2017. Growth will be much higher in less developed regions. While the method of access might continue to evolve, the bottom line remains the same: People continue to use the Internet more and more, whether it is via a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a smartphone or a tablet device. Being accessible via the Internet should remain a critical component of any company’s comprehensive strategic communication program.

As the Baby Boomer generation ages, use of the Internet by “older” groups continues to grow. Younger generations have grown up with the technology, so it is doubtful their use will diminish. Rather, the tech-savvy generations may become more discriminating in their sources of information.

Blogging

As a format for sharing information, connecting with customers, or demonstrating an area of expertise in a particular field, weblogs continue to grow. As noted in my previous blog entries, “citizen journalists” use blogs to drawn attention to issues not covered by mainstream media or from a slightly different perspective than the same stories that are covered by mainstream media.

Credibility continues to be an issue for bloggers. The ability to demonstrate support, proof and reasoned commentary through the use of blogs will be increasingly important to those who desire to be professional and successful bloggers. Journalists often maintain supplemental blogs in addition to their published works on either broadcast or print media, helping to solidify the overall credibility of blogs.

Journalists aren’t the only ones using blogs. Companies use social media like blogging to build their brands. According to Richard Honack, lecturer of executive programs at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management "social networks do not sell product, do not sell services, they sell brands, they are brand builders."

Even leading communication/journalism educators, helping prepare future practitioners to be well-rounded, diversified strategic communicators are incorporating ongoing blogs to be part of the student’s coursework.

Branding

Branding is not a new concept. Building and strengthening a brand via the Internet is becoming much more important. The basic building blocks of branding online are the same, essentially, as off. The Internet merely allows these traditional functions to happen at greater speed and with increased need for responsiveness by the companies looking to establish and build their brands.

As noted in a great introduction to using the Internet as a branding tool from 2007, to build a brand a company needs to understand its customers. What motivates them, what attracts them, what turns them off. A company needs to utilize a full spectrum of marketing communication channels and techniques to gain insight and have interaction with their current, past and future customers. And finally, the content supplied by these companies has to have value.

Information supplied and collected via use of the Internet moves at a much faster pace than branding efforts in a traditional marketing branding model. Social media like Facebook, Twitter and even blogging allows companies to establish direct connections with potential, current and former customers in nearly real time, allowing for a deeper, more personal connection between the consumer and the brand.

What does it all mean?

Simply put, the Internet and use of blogs will continue to grow as a highly targeted interactive communication vehicle, enabling communicators – regardless of their professional capacity – with an opportunity to establish and build brand awareness and loyalty for their business endeavors or clients. The savvy communicator needs to recognize this opportunity and get on-board with this developing technology in order to remain relevant in the marketplace. The alternative is that you will be left behind.

Sources:

Internet service providers - quarterly update 4/15/2013. (2013). (). Austin, United States, Austin: Hoover's Inc. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1341267270?accountid=38769

"Put yourself in the Spotlight; Evolving your brand means evolving your marketing. All signs point to social media as the way to go. Just ask broker-turned-marketing-guru Ryan Hanley." Employee Benefit Adviser 1 May 2013: 24. General OneFile. Web. 5 May 2013.

Simmons, G. J. (2007). "i-branding": Developing the internet as a branding tool. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 25(6), 544-562. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/02634500710819932

Um, that cup is full...

Thankful:

I try not to be a cup-half-empty kind of guy. But I can't say I'm a cup-half-full kinda guy all the time, either.

Instead, I'm a guy who's mostly just thankful to have a cup because there are a lot of people out in the world who don't.