Were You Planning To Fail?

Today,  you rally need to go read my friend Holly Jahangiri's guest post on We Blog Better:

 Failure To Plan, Planning To Fail: Why You Need A Social Media Plan

Holly is fantastic writer and blogger who does an amazing job of making each interaction feel up close and personal,  yet she still manages the trick of seeming to be everywhere at once.   Whether you're a social media wiz with 20,000 Twitter followers or a brand newbie blogger who is still puzzled by  'tweet' as a verb,  Holly's most excellent post will tell you things you really need to know and link you to some of the best information out there.  

Once you've read Holly's piece,  be sure to leave her a comment and join in the discussion.

Abandon Drabble

What follows is my very first attempt at a Drabble-- an approximately 100 word story on a particular word, in this instance "abandon".   The inspiration came from my friend Aheila's blog.  Visit  Drabble Day--Abandon  if you'd like to participate or take a look at the other drabbles.



Heather stood   directly in front of the trash can.   She held her tray with it's cup, fries box, and BigMac box which held a smear of secret sauce (ok, so we all know it's really Thousand Island dressing) and a slip of pickle which somehow she had failed to eat.   Heather thought about all the fast food she had eaten in her life;  about all the times she had tried to diet and all the pounds she had lost and gained. Finally she dumped the detrius  into the bin,  just as a uniformed teen ager carrying a  trash bag came up and said, "Excuse me."

Bucking For The Corner Office

Image Credit:  Vlado,  FreeDigitalPhotos.net

For my friends who are not involved with Empire Avenue,  my apologies.   Today's post may not make much sense.    I promise to try very hard to write more generally again tomorrow.  I had something of a revelation this morning.   I was checking on my index-- Books,  where I have been in the number 2 President's position for several weeks now.   Honestly,  I never really considered it possible that I would overtake my CEO.   But since Empire Avenue began showing activity scores on the indices ranking,  my activity score has been going up and the CEO's has been falling.   Today I noticed that I am less than 9 points behind my CEO.  (He's at 291.6 while I am at 282.8.)

My more sophisticated Empire Avenue buddies say that the indices are just a play thing,  and point out that your ranking within an index, even if you are in the top three (CEO, President, CFO) really doesn't mean anything at all.  There are after all more than 200 indices and some of them are certainly more competitive than others.   Part of me is just a little bit secretly thrilled that this week I may become CEO of the Books Index.  But unlike a particularly brain dead acquaintance,  who is creating a Facebook group exclusively for Empire Avenue CEO's and former CEO's,  I know that it really means almost nothing at all.   And I'm certain that when and if I become an Empire Avenue CEO,  I will not be joining a Facebook group.