Wait, a Words With Friends Board Game?

I rarely pay attention to commercials. They're my least favorite thing about watching TV. (I don't think I'm alone in this either.) Last night, though, I happened to catch one that boggled my mind.

It started out with a claim something along the lines of "Now, you can turn your favorite digital game into real life!" When I looked up, expecting some crazy visual of people throwing birds at stacks of pigs, I actually saw something that made me laugh out loud. This magically tangible digital game was.....Words with Friends.

I'm sorry, what?

The popular mobile game comes to life!

Is making Words with Friends "come to life" actually a revolutionary thing? I'm pretty sure this existed way before smartphones were even a thought. Although I can see that this is an opportunity for Hasbro to rebrand a really old product and make a new wave of money off of it, I feel like this claim isn't the way to approach it. Have we really already gone so far into the future that we can just pretend that Words With Friends came first and now it's a real life game? Probably not. There are so many other things that game companies like Hasbro could be profiting off of; this one is just silly.

Get Your Head out of the Sand: Advice from Sir Richard Branson

Originally on the Scoop.it Blog.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of listening to a fireside chat with Marc Benioff and Sir Richard Branson at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce X.

Richard Branson hardly needs an introduction, but just in case, he is the founder of Virgin Group, who runs businesses in almost every industry imaginable, including a record label, banks, airlines, hotels, and even space travel. Branson has been an entrepreneur since he was 16 years old. At that time, he had a friend who was a singer who couldn’t get signed by a record label. Branson decided that if no one was going to sign his talented friend, he would create his own record label and do it himself. The rest is history.

Since Sir Richard Branson is one of the most admirable, successful, socially responsible, and positive-thinking entrepreneurs of our time, it’s hard to not listen to every word that comes out of his mouth. In the talk with Salesforce.com CEO Benioff, Sir Richard talked about a plethora of topics ranging from his entrepreneurial beginnings to his sense of adventure to his future plans to make the world a better place.

While each and every topic proved to be equally if not more interesting than the last, Branson said one thing that really hit home for me:

“For a business to not embrace social media…you’ve clearly got your head in the sand.”

It might seem like a pretty cliché thing to say these days, but when I really think about it, it’s one of the truest clichés I’ve heard. Hearing this made me think of Marc Benioff’s keynote speech from earlier yesterday morning, where he shared the statistic that 70% of businesses today have gone social. I remember thinking to myself that the other 30% must be living under a rock. It sure feels good to be on the same page as Sir Richard Branson!

That said, it’s time to get your head out of the sand. One of the best ways to build a presence for your brand on social media is through content marketing. Sharing information not only gets your name out there, but helps build authority and form relationships within your community by providing your readers with quality content related to your brand.

It goes without saying that this all takes a lot of time; time that most of us don’t have.The answer? Curation. Turning your business social doesn’t have to take up 10 hours of your day. You can easily feed your social media accounts with great content and promote engagement among your audience by spending a few minutes each day on Scoop.it. Now that we’ve partnered with BufferApp, you can take a short chunk of your morning, find a few pieces of relevant content to share, add your point of view, and fill up your Buffer for the day. Then, get back to work and let us do the rest! All of your social media streams will now be constantly flowing with content and your readers will have that many more reasons to interact with you and your brand.

Don’t bury your head in the sand; your business needs to embrace social media. Scoop.it is a one-stop-shop for finding great content, providing context, and sharing it to all of your social networks in one click. It’s time to change that statistic from 70% to 100%, and that begins on Scoop.it.

On Relationships

Four months ago, I made a decision.

After twenty two years of growing up, living, and going to school on the east coast, I decided to pick up and move west. All the way west. I decided that, after my college graduation, I was going to pack my things and move from New Jersey to California. The main reason for my move was that I was offered my dream job, but there were other factors that helped me make the decision. I knew that I was going to be living completely on my own in a city where I knew absolutely zero people, but I was comforted by the fact that many other college grads do the same exact thing, and that now, as a young adult without a family of my own, was the time do it.

The adjustment was - and still is - difficult. Making friends and settling into one's new life just isn't the same when you're not living in a small college town. There were a few things that were keeping me connected to my life back at college, but as time has gone on, those things have faded away. The further I get into my new life, the more I realize that I'm really on my own and anything can happen next. While it sounds exciting, it can also be scarier than anything imaginable.

There's one thing, though, that keeps me grounded (aside from my great job and amazing apartment, that is). What is this one thing, you ask? It's my relationships. Whether it be with the new people I've met here over the past few months or the people back east with whom I constantly keep in touch. Having relationships with others helps me get through my days more than I ever even knew. Being in college and living in a small college town (State College, PA) caused me to take my relationships for granted. Now, living on my own in a huge city where it's scary, intimidating, and, not to mention, expensive, to go out and meet new people, every minute of interaction that I share with the people in my life is special. Without the people in my life over the past few weeks, I never would have realized how much a 20 minute conversation with a friend could turn a day around.

Now, you probably going to think I'm going to get on my soapbox and talk about how important it is to treasure the people in your life and thank them for being there every single day. Well, here comes a curveball....

Why can't brands and companies be like this for their customers? [Don't forget for one minute that I'm a community manager ;)]. Everyone always talks about how important forming a relationship with your customers is, but do brands really think about how to form this relationship and the potential impact it could have? I'm a firm believer in humanization. Remind your customers (and yourselves!) that you're not just a brand or a company, but a bunch of humans trying to make a bunch of other humans happy. You never know, you could become just what your customer didn't even know she needed.

What I Haven't Heard

After Jerry Sandusky was convicted a few short weeks ago, I can honestly say that I have not heard his name mentioned more than a few times. Someone else who I haven’t heard mentioned is Victim 2. Or Victim 3, 4, 5, or 6. Or any of the other victims of the child abuse committed by Sandusky.

What have I heard? I have heard Joe Paterno. I have heard Graham Spanier.I have heard Paternoville, football, and Penn State. After the release of the Freeh report last week, it became clear that this is, in fact, a “Penn State Scandal.” More people than just the abuser were involved in this horrible crime and it is time that everyone realized this. With this information (assuming it is accurate), we must take the necessary actions to punish the involved, and begin to move forward as a community.

However, this is not a perfect world. Instead of facing the facts and allowing the legal procedure to run its course, many people within the Penn State community have been taking extreme measures to express their disappointment. Spending hours and hours debating whether or not to keep the Paterno statue standing or whether or not to kill the football program simply proves to the rest of the world that, yes, all Penn Staters really do care about is football. The fact that students and alumni are viciously attacking each other concerning the statue - whether they believe it should be left alone or torn down - as well as the arguments for and against the death penalty for the football program simply show that the rest of the world is right. If the Penn State community truly cared and wanted to be able to move forward, they would be doing what a small minority of people are doing: donating money to child abuse foundations. Spreading the word about horrible crimes committed against children. Taking into consideration the lives of the innocent victims and how they can be made better.

As cliché and preacher-like as it sounds, the statue doesn’t matter. The football program doesn’t matter. The legacy of Joe Paterno doesn’t even matter. What does matter is the lives of young men who were abused as children because of a few awful people. 

When people spend hundreds of dollars on helping child abuse victims instead of flying a plane with a threatening message over State College, or when students spend hours upon hours writing, debating, and discussing how to fix the lives of the victims rather than the legacy of Joe Paterno, we will be able to move forward as a community and let the rest of the issues be taken care of by the law. At this time, and at this time only, will the rest of the world be able to look at Penn State as human beings rather than monsters, and we will be able to move forward into the next era of Penn State.

Eight Months Later

At the Class of 2012 Senior Sendoff Barbeque in April, my classmates and I were told that we were about the first people to enter the real world since Penn State was completely overtaken by scandal, and that we were going to be the first ones representing PSU in the post-Sandusky-case world. Upon hearing this, I realized that the class of 2012 was going to have an extremely unique experience as the rest of the case unfolded.

Since that afternoon in April, Jerry Sandusky was convicted of 45 of the 48 charges against him, and most recently, Louis Freeh released his highly anticipated report that confirmed what we were all afraid of: Joe Paterno, Graham Spanier, Tim Curley, and Gary Schultz were aware of what was occurring and actively covered it up.

I’m not anywhere near State College right now, and I’m not sure if that has made it easier for me to generate rational thought about all of this information, but either way, I know there are a few things that I have figured out since this all began.

After months of skepticism, questioning all of the facts, being influenced by Penn Staters and non-Penn Staters alike, I have finally come to terms with the fact that a horrible thing has fallen upon the university that I hold so dear. Yesterday, it was confirmed that this is, in fact, a “Penn State Scandal,” not just a “Jerry Sandusky Scandal.” Four other very important men were involved, and not only did they do nothing, they actively covered up what they knew of the abuse that was occurring.

That said, and keeping in mind that I am one of the first who was a student when this started and is now in the “outside world,” I want to share the message that I try to send to everyone I encounter:

This situation is most certainly not representative of the entire University and its students, athletes, and faculty. One man committed many awful crimes, and four men enabled and overlooked them. The lives of these men are forever tarnished, and I could not be more ashamed because of them and their actions.

I, for one, am still incredibly proud of the degrees I earned and wouldn’t change the university name on them for anything. I did not choose to go to Penn State because of football or Joe Paterno. I chose Penn State because of the amazing quality of academics, because of the world-renowned professors, because of the boundless community associated with the university. I’ll always wear my colors with pride because I am more than those men, and the Penn State community is more than those men. WE are and always will be.

Looking Back: My Last and Favorite Semester of College

This is my senior column from Onward State. (originally posted ononwardstate.com):

                                   

If someone had told me that I would make the most new friends and have some of my most unique experiences during my very last semester of college, I probably would have laughed. That isn’t how it’s supposed to work, right? Wrong.

It took me until the beginning of the Spring 2012 semester to join Onward State, also known as the second semester of my senior year. One of my closest friends, who had been writing for OS for a while, had tried to convince me to join for about 6 months before I actually went for it, and I still owe everything I got out of this experience to him.

I never could have imagined a group of people so amazing as the Onward State staff. After being a member for only about 20 minutes, I already felt like I was a part of the “family.” Over the next few weeks, I ended up making some of my closest friends; people who I know will be a part of my life forever. In case I needed affirmation of this sentiment, I found it during THON weekend. Though I wasn’t dancing for Onward State, I truly felt all of the love that they had for each other and for me. Between bawling my eyes out to Dip, meeting and subsequently confessing my apparently undying love for my favorite OS editor to Kevin Horne, getting piggyback rides from Tyler Hoy, and waving up at press row at least once an hour, I found a group of people that made me wonder “where have they been all my life?!”

After that, I got to spend some of my favorite days and nights of college with them. Monday night meetings, exploring every downtown bar with Mel and Shawn (and some crazy Romanian), pretending I know how to play fantasy baseball with all of the guys, spending a glorious evening at Café 210 for #OS210,interviewing the Nittany Lion, spotlighting Shane McGregor’s famous blonde hair – I could go on forever. I really do have the wonderful people of Onward State to thank for all of these awesome experiences and memories.

All of that said, what’s the moral of the story? Things don’t always work the way they’re supposed to. In fact, they rarely ever do. Maybe you aren’t supposed to find your lifelong friends and have so many of your favorite experiences of college at the very end, but if it does happen, embrace it. I’m not going to write a novel here, but just take my word for it that this also applies to almost everything else in my life. I changed my major/minor combination about fifteen times, I did things I never thought I’d do (who lives in France for two out of three summers of college?), I took a risk and followed my passion instead of listening to everything people told me I was “supposed” to be doing, and now I have an opportunity to have my dream job in San Francisco.

So, what’s my biggest piece of advice out of all of this? Live the life you love. Cliché as it is, follow your passions, take risks, be confident in yourself, and embrace every moment, whether you expected it or not. I might have only learned these things this semester, but I wouldn’t change one thing about it. No matter where I end up after I leave the happiest valley in the world, I know that I will always smile looking back on the memories I made and the people I met at Onward State this semester. I love you guys!