I travel a lot, usually two cities a week, and get to see many places.  Last week’s trip to Detroit for the United Way’s Staff Leadership Conference affected me more than most (photos here).

The epicenter of America’s economic crisis has to be Detroit.  A city already beleaguered by long-standing auto industry woes and economic plight, the recession has hit the city hard, driving it into depression.  Real estate prices in the region are at astonishing low rates.

Nothing emphasized the hard times more than a trip to the restroom at the convention center (I always have to go frequently before I speak. Yeah, I know: TMI.). On my way out, two gentlemen walked in and physically blocked my exit, demanding a donation from me.  I politely declined while knifing my body between the men and through the door. No harm, no foul, but I did get a security guard to escort the gentlemen out.

Several reports of missing laptops coincided my experience.  Chalk it all up to signs of the times in Detroit, where things are pretty desperate right now.  Crime is but a by-product.

Such times bring a natural exodus. Yet, many of this city’s citizens refuse to give up.  They love their hometown and are committed to sticking it out.  And that’s what makes this situation so heart-rending, and yet full of hope.

Bottoms and Faith

It wasn’t all scary bathroom trips. There was the genuine kindness most Detroit citizens emote.  They are good people who want you to feel welcome, and that is clear.  When I discussed such problems, they were quick to defend their hometown, too. Detroit’s a good place, they said universally.

I  met with GM’s Social Media Wonk Christopher Barger for coffee.  Barger is a transplant who has only lived in Detroit for two years, but like other residents adamantly defends the city.

Barger told me of the city’s commitment to work through this, to change its business focus, to evolve and grow through the time. He cited the incredible family first and stick-togetherness that’s almost universal throughout Detroit.  And the city’s hope that a new focus on green, from the Volt and other auto initiatives to attracting general ecologically friendly industries could turn the tide. Perhaps even more tenacious was an attitude that this will take years, and that people were ready for the long haul.

Unlike New Orleans, another city that’s suffered great duress recently, there is no natural disaster to blame for Detroit’s situation. When New Orleans suffered the horrible knock out blow that Katrina delivered, associations and sports leagues rallied to host events there and infuse travel dollars. United Way did Detroit a service by being there, and talking with my friends in the organization it was a natural choice. It would be great if the U.S. events industry in general would also rally around Detroit.

Because of the nature of this situation, America seems to have abandoned Detroit.  That’s too bad, because I admire the city’s people.

Detroit reminds me of my youthful days in a severely depressed Philadelphia during the 80s, where I spent my weekends in Center City. I remember watching on TV as Mayor Wilson Goode bombed MOVE’s headquarters and burned down two city blocks.  That was Philly’s bottom.  That city was in hell then. I was personally mugged in the midst of a crowded street, and had my car broken into twice.  Other family members suffered worse crimes.  You never felt safe, and were always watching your back in the city.

Yet Philadelphians – like Detroit’s citizens – were committed to their culture and kept trying to move the yardstick forward.  Twenty years later, it’s a pretty cool city that for the most part I recognize, but only in the way you recognize an adult who was once a child from your past. Same, but different.

I know it’s bad right now, Detroit, but I love your heart. Keep the faith, things can and probably will get better.

When you have a regular readership, it’s important to communicate changes.  With the CRT/tanaka acquisition, Marinel Mones and Michael Nelson, and their features Great Blogs of Fire and Buzz Meter will move over to the main company blog effective tomorrow.  Their features will augment the senior leadership’s regular entries and provide the industry a regular, valuable look into the changing space of communications. I hope you’ll continue to support them (cheese by Laura Martinez).

That means for the first time in more than two years, the Buzz Bin will become a one man show, similar to Todd Defren’s PR Squared or Toby Bloomberg’s Diva Marketing blog.  As such, there’s no way I can commit to a post everyday, but you can count on about three posts a week. 

In addition, I may shed a little more light into some of my extracurricular activities as they relate to communications and/or social causes. Don’t expect the mundane personal details, though.  There’s a neglected personal blog for that.

  One of those projects you can expect to hear about is Live Earth 2009. I’ve accepted a volunteer role as Senior Advisor for Social Media with Live Earth, and look forward to helping this year’s effort become a smashing success. 

To make room for this effort, I’ve also tabled the book Social Media for Social Good for the time being. I’m sorry to those who have expressed an interest in this effort.  The Live Earth opportunity is a once in a lifetime chance to use my skills for good, and for the cause I care deepest about – the environment.  Besides, the front-line experience of architecting and marshalling a social media effort on this kind of scale will provide invaluable insights into a next book. I promise to share my experience and hope!

I had the great privilege of addressing the National Park Service public affairs conference last Thursday on social media adoption. Discussion includes Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, focusing on the Service’s mission, and pitfalls like Shiny Object Syndrome. Case studies included:

I’ve signed a contract with Bartleby for my second book with an expected release in the first half of 2010.  The working title is Social Media for Social Good, following along the lines of our class at Georgetown University, and to serve a general thirst for sector-specific social media knowledge from NGOs and public sector organizations alike.

This time I will be joined by Qui Diaz as co-author (similar to Brian Solis on Now Is Gone), and Beth Kanter will write the conclusion to the book. Qui will be focused on providing the case studies and general editing.  An introduction will be authored by a person yet to be determined.

I am thrilled to have these two social cause experts participate in this project. While I’ve executed social cause programs for the better part of a decade, I am not solely focused in this industry, and see myself as a general communications practitioner. Their in-depth knowledge will ensure a great book that will resonate with our core audiences.

What Will Be Different

Now Is Gone was written as a cost–effective general entry level primer for executives and entrepreneurs. This book will be a hardcover, and is going to be much more in depth. We want to arm the next generation of social cause communicators with the tools they need to succeed online.

As such I’m planning on giving away all of the best practices and trade secrets we have. People should be able to read the book, and learn how to create a method to build bonafide strategies, select tactics intelligently, integrate into larger communications programs, and measure for results.   There will be exercises and suggested tests for those who want to measure progress.

In addition, we rushed Now Is Gone to market last time to bring timely information to the marketplace. At the same time that caused some errors. Both I and Bartleby listened to the criticism on the last book and will be engaging in a slower, more thorough writing and editorial process.

There will also be no companion blog.  That effort almost killed me a year ago. Instead I will be blogging about my thoughts and writings during the drafting process and post marketing phase here on the Buzz Bin. Qui is expecting to do the same on Evange.List. Like Now Is Gone, once the book is published there will be no formal tour, and speaking engagements will occur on an ad hoc basis.

Further, we are actively engaged in some original research on Philanthropy 2.0, and it is my hope to include more in-depth analysis and thoughts in Social Media for Social Good. In general, expect a much richer book that will really enable the socially concerned with some meaningful ways to fundraise, educate and inspire online.

And if you are in the business, look out!  I may be calling to interview you soon.

Let’s be frank, many people are distracted these days.  More so than normal. Of course, the economy is the big reason.  But there are many things that can cause distraction in one’s life. And as David Mullen reminded us, sometimes life offers damn good reasons to become distracted.

In fact, right now I am distracted in London, England for a very good reason (image: Big Ben, London by 13Bobby).

But eventually distractions cause us to lose focus and fall into wayward patterns at work (let’s not get too excited about marketing in this post, OK?) and in life.  So where do you strike that balance?  I don’t know today any more than I did 15 years ago when I entered corporate life. I do know that understanding your goals and acceptable levels of performance are real ways to ensure the engine doesn’t get too far off the tracks.

For our content creating clients, we like to recommend an editorial mission to keep performance on track. In Mastermind groups, CEOs are encouraged to list their personal, family, financial and business goals daily (in that order, too), something I still do. 

In the end, I guess these tools and other philosophies always remind us to keep the eye on the prize.  Whether that’s family or affecting change or simply doing well at work.  But somehow there’s still no finite answer. Ultimately, distracted or committed, here or there, whatever really matters to you, it’s presence, real true presence that counts.

What do you think?

Ah yes, I should have seen this one coming.  Here they are, your latest version of social media carpetbaggers: The Government 2.0 Expert.  Hey Obama is here, let’s cash in (original image by brtpropshop)!

This is not to demean the many notable public sector projects and efforts that are now under way. It’s just really amazing watching many people in the national and particularly the metro area marketing community suddenly became Government 2.0 gurus.

Let’s hope the Obama procurement process can intelligently vet such newcomers. It’s hard to believe anyone can be a true gov 2.0 expert at this stage in the game.

Disclaimer: I don’t profess to be that guy.  I’ve chatted with many people who are doing this work and have given speeches to government agencies on social media best practices, but they are the ones doing it, not me. My social media experience is national and local, and yes, I’ve done some public sector marketing for DoT and GSA, but no direct public sector social media experience.

by Valeria Maltoni (cross posted at Conversation Agent) and Geoff Livingston

Yup. Times are tough! Whether it’s yourself, a friend or family member, everyone knows someone who has been affected by the economic situation. Jobs are less secure and hard to find, every sector has been hit, the news is bloody awful from week to week, and the Wall Street – Capitol Hill mud fight is just downright painful. But that doesn’t mean your attitude has to go down with current events (image: Worry Face! by dogbomb).

In reality, successfully handling events like these often depends on your own inner solace. That’s not to belittle serious situations, and the somewhat contagious nature of down spirits and news. But as Abraham Lincoln said, “People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

We thought it would be really useful to provide 25 tips on ways to break out of “stinking thinking” and get your day back on the right track. Here are some of our preferred methods:

1) Go to the gym and exercise: It cleans your head out!

2) Step away from the big picture and ask yourself, what’s the next right thing I can do now? Go do it. Repeat this process until good spirits return.

3) Do some charitable service work, and help someone else out. Sometimes this reminds us others have it worse and we have a lot to be grateful for.

4) Write out a list of 10 things that you are grateful for…

5) Go for a walk and notice everything as if it were the first time you saw it.

6) Get out of the city/town/office/your house and spend sometime outdoors.

7) Have coffee with a friend who you haven’t seen in a while.

8) Spend some quality time with your loved ones and family members.

9) Plan a vacation!

10) Watch the sun rise or set. It’s hard not to see the beauty there!

11) Watch a movie. That’s an instant two hour form of captivated attention that will take your mind off things.

12) Eat a good meal deliberately. Take in the whole experience - appearance, taste, company.

13) If you are spiritually or religiously inclined, meditation and/or prayer can calm the mind.

14) Meet new friends. One of the best ways to renew how we think about ourselves is to have a brand new chance to make a different first impression.

15) Read more, especially good fiction. There is nothing better than a well-written story to get your creative juices going.

16) Be more available for last minute meet ups with colleagues, friends, and peers. Sometimes the best events are unplanned.

17) Write down your ideas. Put pen and paper in easy-to-reach places. You might be pleasantly surprised at the number that has potential.

18) Think positive! Use this as your new mantra: “Blame no one. Expect nothing. Do something.”

19) Ask for help. You’ll be amazed at how a collaborative effort energizes you.

20) Slow down. Sometimes we miss all the good stuff that happens in between point A and point B.

21) Discover classical music. Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Vivaldi, Albinoni, Chopin tell amazing stories with their body of work.

22) Take an improv class. Learning a new skill that can help you in presentations and public speaking will increase your confidence.

23) Listen more, speak less. It will help you learn to appreciate others in whole new ways.

24) Teach a class at the local community college/school/library. Sharing knowledge is very satisfying.

25) Sing along while you drive.

Happiness is a state of mind and a choice. When you step into the field of possibility, you can do anything you put your mind to. What are some of the ways you use to break out of “stinking thinking”?

In the past two years I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with great minds like Brian Solis on my book, and later folks like Toby Bloomberg, Jason Falls, Amber Naslund and Beth Harte on blog posts. This week I collaborated with Joseph Jaffe for one of his Jaffe Juice podcasts; a fantastic discussion about how we as social media voices have the power to affect great change with our social networks (download here).

We often get stuck in the conversations about marketing and communications here, but social networks are about people. And we have a great opportunity to make a difference every day and affect change. There are many ways to do that, including fundraising, political activism, education, and much more. We in many ways have an obligation as members of larger communities to do this.

We discussed Dave Armano’s effort to help a victim of domestic abuse. For further information and analysis see Beth’s blog for a marketplace discussion of Armano’s effort.

We also talked about LComm’s project with Save Darfur, and were joined by Allyn Brooks, who talked about about Social Philanthropy and the Darfur crisis.

Our question to you, the social media consumer: What are you waiting for? Add your voice now: http://www.addyourvoice.org/ - send President Obama a postcard and play your part to Save Darfur. Or do something else and affect change within your network and the world… One person at a time.

This post may seem a little bit off the beaten path, but as one of the leading marketing blogosphere outposts from the Capitol Region, it seemed appropriate to shed a little light on a once in a lifetime phenomenon happening here. The Obama inauguration is transforming DC into a gigantic celebration similar to a New Orleans Mardi Gras or a New Year in the Big Apple.

This will be my fifth inauguration since moving to the district in 1992 (I’ve live here for 16 of the last 17 years), and none of them have been as celebratory as this one. Longer term residents, including some who saw Kennedy inugurated, say that this is a completely unique event.

Consider the parties. The usual events — dubbed inaugural balls — feature several black tie parties. This year, in addition to the ten official inaugural sponsored balls, wide swaths of congressional delegations, political bodies and special interests are throwing their own balls and parties. Further, the District has passed a temporary waiver on late night bar hours for the four-day festivus weekend.

It’s to the point that the city will pretty much shut down next Tuesday for security reasons as 1-3 million visitors flood the National Mall to witness the 44th president taking his vows. We actually are closing for the four day inaugural weekend as the preceding Monday is MLK day, a federal holiday, and most of LComm lives across the bridges and could not come to work on inauguration Tuesday anyway.

I will be attending my first ball on Sunday night, the Lincoln 2.0 ball sponsored by the District of Columbia. This one is particularly fitting as the inauguration has taken on the Lincoln theme, celebrating the other famous president from Illinois. Lincoln 2.0 is being held at the same place as Abraham Lincoln’s 1865 Inaugural Ball, what is known today as the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Then there are the floods of celebrities and performers coming in to witness history. It may as well be Oscar night!

Every administration seems to affect the city (Washington Post’s Linda Davidson photo shows Obama visiting Washington institution Ben’s Chili Bowl). The Bush I years were conservative yet solid. The Clinton years, well, they were wild, but open, fun, and sometimes contentious. The Bush II years were just downright repressive at times. I’ll never forget driving across the Key Bridge months after 9-11 and seeing a tank pointing its canon across the bridge from Georgetown.

Like the rest of the country, Obama’s win seems to have set off a sigh of relief in DC. And one hell of a big inauguration party. Only time will tell how the cultural feel of the city will change, but until then all eyes are on O.

What about your neck of the woods? Any special inaugural activities planned?

After much thinking and several conversations with the LComm team, I’ve decided to embrace the personal brand marketing theory. And, based on that theory it is evident that I need a new image for 2009. I mean, who needs value?

Thanks for the great year of interaction and discussion on the Buzz Bin. From all of us at Livingston Communications have a fantastic holiday season, and we’ll see you in 2009.