I’ve spent the last year developing an online social media certificate program with the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee School of Continuing Education. Initially I was conflicted about a “social media certificate” but have come to a point where I think for some individuals, it’s a critical step in their career development journey. There is no [...]

Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insights and Content (Amazon affiliate link), written by Mark Levy provides an easy to consume roadmap for the would-be writer in all of us. He expounds on six simple principles that are based on freewriting as an approach to unleash your mind and capture it in written [...]

I recently had the privilege of contributing to development of the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development, (an American Hospital Association organization.) Emerging Media Handbook, Four contributors provide great content in a 30 plus page whitepaper that outlines a clear roadmap for healthcare providers looking to the future of communications. I had the pleasure of focusing [...]

As the number of social networks grows, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the effort to maintain each one independently. Each network may serve a purpose to your personal or professional life but it is easy to lose track of the networks you've joined, are managing or are interested in. For individuals, there is a [...]

The last six months have been very exciting for me and amazingly busy. I serve as the Director of Social Media and Digital Communications for Aurora Health Care, a not for profit health care provider that serves the eastern half of Wisconsin. We have over 29,000 employees and provide care for millions of people.   [...]

I’m overwhelmed by the number of opportunities available to take Aurora Health Care into a new direction with digital communications and social media. It’s an exciting time for me and my team but it is also challenging because we’re facing the Fear of Start. In an organization of 30,000 employees, one of the most challenging [...]

I received an advance copy of Paul Gillin's new book Secrets of Social Media Marketing in October. I've finally gotten the chance to dive into this work and have been very pleased with the well written and very instructive material. I'm in the process of developing and launching a social media program at Aurora Health [...]

I just wrapped up a meeting with Erik, Jason and Greg from Avicom regarding social media and opportunities in the health care sector. It was refreshing to have a face to face conversation with individuals who "get it" and see the opportunity for using new media tools to communicate with internal and external audiences. You [...]

I've had the pleasure of participating in the second iteration of the Age of Conversation. I was one of the 100 contributing authors to the original Age of Conversation and now have the pleasure of being a member of the 237 member team that contributed to Age of Conversation 2.0. Each of the author's contributed [...]

The following video is making the rounds online. It’s a guy named Matt who has traveled around the world and danced. Danced in 39 countries and filmed it all. According to his web site , “In 2006, Matt took a 6 month trip through 39 countries on all 7 continents. In that time, he danced [...]