My Dow Network – My Corporate Social Utility

Before I left Dow, I promised I would be one of their first “Alums” to get active on Dow’s new social media site, My Dow Network. The site has been around for more than a year. It’s an interesting model – connecting employees, quitters and retirees in a private social community. 

I’ll blog more about it later. For now, check out Dow’s feature story on the network, I’m pictured. Also, Dennis McDonald wrote an interesting summary based upon a conversation with one of my former team members, Trish Bharwada.

Dow alumna Becky Marxer, who is now working at a public relations firm, says My Women’s Network helps her to stay connected with friends she left behind when she moved away from Midland to be closer to her fiancé. 

“This is an easy way to keep in touch,” says Marxer. “Although I’m 600 miles away, it feels like I’m back at Dow.  I have about 35 friends on my contact list.  I can look at their photos, keep in touch with job moves and stay current.”

 

By the way, as an accommodating PR professional, I did not object that they characterized my leaving the company to get married. That said, that explanation is a little simplified and… minorly feminized. Alas, gotta paint the one woman as having work/life balance issues! To be honest, I DID have a life issue – my future husband lived three states away! (Vent completed.)

Dow, I will always love ya – great company, even better people. Thank you for all the opportunities you affored me.

If the Twilight Series Offered an IPO, I would Buy, Buy, BUY.

Predictions can be a dicey game, but I’m going to go ahead and call it. The Twilight Series is about to hit the 24-35 female demographic like gangbusters. As you can tell from my volume of posts on the Stephenie Meyer book series as of late, it’s captured a little bit of my imagination.

But let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about the fact that four out of four of my friends who I’ve lent the books to are hooked too. This is a diverse crowd of folks. All professional women (who would have thought?)… If the Twilight Series was issuing an IPO, I would buy, buy, buy!

Any other twenty-something Twilighters out there? Don’t know about you, but I’ve already sent out an Evite for an opening-night girls night out at the movies!!

Bringing My Colleague Into the 21st Century

UPDATE-2X: Had an awesome session this morning. Though we got to mashups, we didn’t even make it over to Facebook. We’re going to schedule a “part 2″ meeting for next week. Was an incredibly fun session, but I think I my colleague’s head might be swimming a bit at the moment! The Common Craft videos were a huge hit. Sent her a follow-up note with links to some reccomended tutorials.

UPDATE: Meeting rescheduled due to pressing client projects! We’re meeting this Friday morning (9/12). Do you have any advice or links to cool social media tools and/or tutorials??

Today is an exciting day at the St. Louis office of Fleishman-Hillard. Today, I am embarking on an hour of virtual enlightenment with a colleague. Actually, our Outlook meeting maker is titled something like “Bringing you into the 21st century.” 

This is a real treat for me. This afternoon, I get to spend a full hour of my day bringing the world of social media and new technology to a coworker. Here at FH, we do all sorts of “digital bootcamps” to help meet specific client needs – we’re a very “switched on” firm. But I’ve never had the opportunity to sit one-on-one with somebody and help open their eyes. 

Don’t get my wrong, I’m no Morpheus here. Just a passionate communicator looking to spread the good word of social media. Part of our journey will bring us to this blog and we’ll watch this embedded video on Twitter.

Oooh – I’m excited! Wikis, and Facebook and LinkedIn – oh my! IM and Rick Roll and chrome life – oh yes!!

Support Midnight Sun (.com)

With a couple days of space and clarity, I’m getting back to the grind in style! Hope you had a nice Labor Day. (I spent too much of mine reading.) Say, as a follow-up to the Midnight Sun drama from last week, a small group of hardcore Twilight fans have created SupportMidnightSun.com – too cool!

This site is devoted to unifying fans of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series for one purpose: to support Stephenie Meyer and the unreleased novel Midnight Sun. We hope in the coming months that it will be THE go-to site for all information for the book and events surrounding it.

We as Twilighters understand that Stepehnie is going through turmoil that cannot be measured…but here at SupportMidnightSun.com, we hope to make efforts to remind her that there are still plenty of faithful fans who stand behind her 100% and are loyally waiting for her to return to her beloved series… Please, feel free to become part of our movement.

They’re spearheading a care package drive for Stephenie – again, way to convert your Twilight angst into action!! Love some of their guidelines – nothing like helping to keep spirits positive…

4. Do mention: We love her writing, we are not ready to let the Twilight Universe go, that the leak did not affect us (if you read it) or that you are pledging to never read the leak (if you haven’t)…

5. DO NOT mention: How mad you are at the leaker, how you don’t understand how she could or could not continue on, that you are upset about the book being put on hiatus etc, etc. We don’t want to cause any more stress or make her think about the bad any more than I’m sure she already does every day. And please, don’t make the letter a soapbox about if you did or didn’t like Breaking Dawn or any of her other novels. This is a POSITIVE SUPPORT CAMPAIGN with one united purpose.

On a related note, there’s also a Save Midnight Sun iPetition out there. Please check it out – for the love of the book series or for your love of great wonderful amazing grassroots mobilization!

Stay tuned, a colleague of mine (and fellow Twilight fanatic) is developing a Facebook/LinkedIn site. I hate to get all gooey, but heck… Become part of the movement!