We are announcing the acquisition of Livingston Communications this morning by CRT/tanaka (original tight race image by Jani Kajala).  The deal closed on Tuesday, March 31. As part of the acquisition, we will cease to trade as Livingston Communications, and become the Washington, DC office for CRT/tanaka.

Personally, I am thrilled by this move. As I mentioned in a prior post, social media adoption is in full swing now. The time is coming when this media form will  no longer be special and become fully integrated into the larger communications mix.  I’d rather not wait three years for it to happen. You can see CRT/tanaka CEO Mark Raper’s views in his blog post.

CRT/tanaka is an outstanding firm with a strong reputation in the PR and advertising space. And we have developed a reputation for strong, results-oriented social media programs.  The acquisition brings us back into the larger communications fold, and together we intend to make CRT/tanaka one of the early firms to integrate social media across the front line.

To start our efforts together on the right foot and continue the social media ethos we’ve established, we published a white paper on the Cultural Challenge to Integration. It is based on a recent series of Buzz Bin posts. Enterprises seeking to adapt social media can use this white paper to help address one of the primary barriers to success.

Here is some third party analysis from Beth Harte and Kami Huyse.

Five Lessons Learned

This marks the end of a three-year entrepreneurial endeavor for me, from the basement to award-winning author, through boom and recession to a successful conclusion.  There are some things I’ve learned along the way, which I’d like to share:

1) Your personal life means more: Being an entrepreneur requires 60-100 hours of your week.   And you and your family suffer for it.

An executive’s life isn’t much easier, but there’s less responsibility and weight on your shoulders.  I value a renewed relationship with my wife much more than being “the man,” and as a result look forward to being more present for her.  I wish I knew this three years ago, but the resulting lessons have created a better husband.  To my wife, Caitlin (pictured above), I love you.

2) Personal branding and companies don’t mix well: One of the biggest challenges I’ve had was the short-sighted mistake of putting my name on the door.  The resulting scaling problems were always a point of contention, and we actually seriously considered rebranding as Verv Communications last spring. We didn’t because of the timely equity behind “Geoff Livingston” and Now Is Gone.

This experience is still one of the primary reasons why I fight personal branding tooth and nail. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to work under a banner without my name on it.  It will be good to become a worker amongst workers in name now as well as spirit. And if I ever start a company again it won’t be named Livingston. Team social media, heck, just team period. That’s the way of companies.

3) Being an employer will make me a better employee: Oh, now I get where my bosses came from. And I think I owe a few of them amends. :) Amazing how it feels to have the shoe on the other foot. Thanks to my prior employers for the experience and the lessons learned.  Even if it took me starting this company to learn them.

4) It’s not all that. I’m not Chris Brogan, but I’m not John Doe either. Yet, you can tell by my irreverence towards nano-fame that it doesn’t mean much to me. In fact, it can be much more of a nuisance than a benefit with issues like privacy, heckling, etc.   For me, what does mean something is benefiting society though strong actions, helping a client, showing someone a way to help grow themselves, and generally, just being kind and giving.

Nano-fame should be a non-conditional by-product of doing the right thing as opposed to the ultimate goal.  Winning means accomplishing something.  What do you want to do? Be known or do something that impacts your world?

5) Don’t announce a deal until it is closed. I still have the utmost respect for Maggie Fox and crew at Social Media Group.  But I think it’s safe to say that both Maggie and I wish we had gone through the paces quietly and found out our cultures did not mix on the side rather than the civil, yet public break-up we experienced.

At the same time, there’s a second lesson from the failed acquisition with SMG.  You can fail, get up and try again. In fact, you can succeed where you have failed in the past.

Thank You

Over the Spring we will be rolling over our branding to CRT/tanaka. And thus this chapter is now gone.  Thank you to everyone for their support over the past few years.

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:

It’s tough losing a bright, talented team member like Qui Diaz, who will leave the company at the end of April to prepare for a new married life in Spokane, Washington. Building the company’s social cause practice with Qui is one of my favorite career achievements. But at least our work to benefit society will continue in the new book Social Media for Social Good due out in 2010. All of us at LComm wish Qui and Ryan a happy prosperous life together.

This presents a great opportunity for a social media-savvy person (original image taken in London). The company needs to find an able-mined director to execute fantastic social media programs on behalf of our clients.

Ideally, we’re looking for someone with 6-10 years of communications experience and the following qualifications:

If you want to be part of a team that’s already done great things in social media, and you’re ready to lead and shine, we need you. Applicants must be located in the Greater Washington area. Please feel free to email me your resume and links to prior social media work at geoff AT livingstonbuzz DOT com.

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?

It’s a new year, and now more than ever it seems we still need great, affordable events to learn about social media best practices.  BlogPotomac 2009 will be held on the second Friday of June this year (June 12) at the State Theatre again.  Like last year, 2009’s line-up features seven sessions from some of the sharpest minds in the business including this year’s keynote Shel Holtz. 

Here’s the full line-up…

Morning Sessions

• Author Shel Holtz will deliver our keynote
• Ace Political Blogger Shireen Mitchell on Government 2.0 and political blogging
• Ford Social Media Lead Scott Monty discusses integration of social media from a corporate perspective

Afternoon Sessions

• SOBCon Organizer and Successful Blog Author Liz Strauss will kick off the afternoon
• Social Media Consultants Aaron Brazell (Technosailor) and Altitude Marketing’s Amber Naslund will be on a two person panel discussing personal branding versus organizational social media
• Network Solutions Social Media Swami Shashi Bellamkonda will discuss how social media has changed the world by requiring immediate response (disclosure: Shashi is an LComm client).

To get a little more unconference-like this time, our seventh and final session topic will be determined by attendees in a month-long open voting session starting on April 1.  In general, our modified format will remain the same.

Debbie Weil and Viget Labs are continuing as advisory board members, and I will chair the event this year solo.  Both Debbie and I will co-emcee BlogPotomac 2009.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be updating the BlogPotomac site to reflect speakers bios and pictures, the new agenda, as well as the new dates. Tickets will go on sale January 19 at a cost of $95. Like last year, we will limit the amount of tickets to 150, and any profits will be donated to a charity once all costs are paid.

With the sun rising on 2009, all of us at Livingston Communications wish you a happy, prosperous New Year.

The recent “web 2.0″ boom of the past few years has changed the dynamic of the workplace, in many ways for the better. At the same time, it has brought an era of dramatic privilege, a sense that employees should do what they want, whenever they want, and that employers should work to fulfill those desires if they want to keep said employees. And in my opinion, that change in work ethic proves the point that some things don’t change for the better.

Nothing typifies this more than the crazed directions the personal branding phenomena has branched into. While many purists debate with me about semantics — feeling that personal brands really mean an individual’s reputation — it’s clear that the movement has become something much more akin to Internet fame and rock stardom.

Lately, you’re not hearing that attitude so much. Millenials are now realizing their first economic downturn, and a more sober attitude seems to be arising from the general web 2.0 crowd towards works. The common statements of the day are “I’m grateful we’re busy,” or “I’m happy to have a job.”

That’s not to say that some of those gains should be turned away. In a world where you move from job to job or project to project in periods of years and months (rather than decades), it’s only natural to seek work in areas of interest. But being satisfied with a non-fulfilling job — even just for today — is OK, too.

One almost surefire result of America’s most difficult economic time since the Great Depression will be a return to old fashioned work ethic. This ethos, something that got drilled into me by my father and mentors in my twenties, revolves around good stewardship. While the nature of jobs have changed dramatically within a much shorter window of time, the principles of good stewardship still apply.

Good Stewardship

For the purpose of this discussion, let’s define stewardship as the successful execution of the management another’s property or financial affairs; one who successfully administers anything as the agent of another or others. So when someone pays you to do something — a.k.a. a job — they are financially compensating you for acting as their steward (Image: Working Class Hero by Jurek D.).

You don’t see fulfillment or building personal brands in this definition. Far from it really. What is evident is an underlying attitude of service. Rather than preach, it seems best to put down ten of the standards I try to apply to my own activities past and present:

1) I am responsible for my actions.

2) As part of my job (either full time or as part of a consultancy) I am paid to perform a service. I will do this, even if I only intend to stay for a year (or the project is for a couple of months).

3) Sacrifice is required at times. I make those sacrifices, even when it affects me personally. I did this before I owned my own company, too.

4) That’s because a job is not about accepting status quo, instead taking the baton and moving it further.

5) Success means passing the baton on so the next guy can take it and run, with a real opportunity to do even better than me.

6) By being a good steward, I will build a good personal reputation as well as benefit the larger brand. But selfish motives in day-to-day activity will actually reap the opposite reward.

7) In that vein, I succeed when my boss/client/company looks good as a result of actions taken.

8) Agreement with my company/client is not something I need to perform my responsibilities. If I voiced my concerns and I’m told to do something a different way, then so be it. I’ll do such activity with the best attitude possible.

9) When I make mistakes, I try to own them and when appropriate make amends

10) Perfection is not possible, but progress is. Therefore, I seek to evaluate, analyze, explore weaknesses, and build. More progress is always attainable.

I’m interested in your thoughts about shifting work ethic attitudes. Here’s another thought from Bonnie Parrish-Kell.

Please excuse me for taking the opportunity to write this brief post that shines some light on some of Livingston Communications’ current efforts.

National Ranked Blogger Jason Fall, the lead voice at Social Media Explorer, wrote up our reputation management efforts with Network Solutions. Jason said, “This reputation management effort was a success. It’s still ongoing and not finished by any means, nor is any social media effort. These are not episodic, quarterly defined campaigns. These are ongoing conversations and relationships with your customers. But as Livingston Communications and Network Solutions have proven, even those can be quantified and measured.”

And the world’s top change blogger and non-profit social media consultant Beth Kanter did a case study on our current Save Darfur campaign. Beth wrote, “Be A Voice for Darfur is an excellent example of multi-channel campaign designed to bring attention to the appalling genocide in Darfur. Geoff Livingston and Qui Diaz are behind this brilliant multi-channel campaign that is using social media for social good.“

Thanks to both Jason and Beth for taking the time to write these case studies.

At least we can be grateful for one thing this year: No more turkey from this guy!

See you next week!

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of Now Is Gone’s release! So much has happened since then, it’s been amazing and humbling at the same time. Thank you to everyone who supported Now Is Gone (image by lunaweb).

I know Brian Solis also was humbled by the reception towards the book. For me, it was a life changing event (may write more about this on Off Hours), and the culmination of a 15 year dream of becoming an author.

Consider some of the milestones:

Perhaps the most exciting news is that we are approximately 2/3 of the way through the first print edition, and are starting to weigh edits/changes to the original manuscript. The second edition will provide an update, as well as the lessons learned. Some likely changes include more on influencer relations, more on social networks, less on blogs, more on the media’s use of social media, and fewer typos

A Final Bow for First Edition Sources

The following bloggers had either blog posts cited in and/or were interviewed for the first edition of Now Is Gone. Some of them won’t make it to the second edition as the book will change quite a bit.

These sources will remain listed permanently on the Now Is Gone blog to honor them and provide business readers additional source material. If you have questions about marketing the book, or the use of bloggers as sources, I refer you to the previous post, “Marketing Now Is Gone.” To the bloggers, thank you for creating great content in the new media world. The book’s sources are:

• Teli Adlam, The OptiNiche Blog
• Adam Aleman, FlashReport
• Todd Andrlik, Todd And: The Power to Connect
• Scott Baradell, Media Orchard
• Cam Beck, ChaosScenario
• Richard Becker, Copywrite
• Jordan Behan, Tell Ten Friends
• Toby Bloomberg, Diva Marketing Blog
• Bob, Bob Meets World
• Kristina Bouweiri, Make It Better
• Chris Brogan, ChrisBrogan.com
• C.C Chapman, Reality Bitchslap
• Ed Cotton, Influx
• Todd Defren, PR Squared
• Chris Dorobek, The FCW Insider
• Alicia Dorset, GM FastLane
• Kevin Dugan and Richard Laermer, The Bad Pitch Blog
• Eric Eggertson, Common Sense PR
• Li Evans, Search Marketing Gurus
• Kyle Flaherty, Engage in PR
• Susan Getgood, Marketing Roadmaps
• Heather Green, Blogspotting
• Lewis Green, Bizsolutionsplus
• Karl Greenberg, MediaPost Publications
• Chris Heuer, The Future of Communities
• Sally Seville Hodge, Marketing Profs
• Shel Holtz, A Shel of my Former Self
• John Horrigan, Pew/Internet
• Kami Watson Huyse, Communications Overtones
• Shel Isreal, Global Neighborhoods
• Beth Kanter, Beth’s Blog
• Rob La Gesse, Stuffleufagus
• Tim Leberecht, iPlot
• Charlene Li, The Groundswell
• Joe Lichtenberg, Marketing Profs
• Brian Lusk, Nuts About Southwest
• Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent
• Richard McManus, Read/Write Web
• Jake Matthews, 10e20
• Brian Oberkirch, Like It Matters
• Lee Odden, Online Marketing Blog
• Janice Partyka, GPS World
• Jeremy Pepper, Pop! PR Jots
• Ike Pigott, Occam’s Razr
• Chris Polito, Total Telecom
• Jeff Pulver, The Jeff Pulver Blog
• Aaron Reed, SYS-CON Media
• Laura Ries, Origin of Brands
• Kim Roach, Lifehack.org
• Frank Rose, Epicenter
• Jay Rosen, Press Think
• Hanni Ross, Successful Blog
• Darren Rowse, ProBlogger
• Steve Rubel, Micropersuasion
• Mike Sansome, ConverStations
• David Meerman Scott, Web Ink Now
• Doc Searl, Linux Journal
• Brian Solis, PR 2.0
• Steve Spalding, How To Split An Atom
• Michael A. Stelzner, Marketing Profs
• Amy Stodgehill, Green Options
• Mario Sundar, Marketing Nirvana
• Dan Tapscott and Anthony Williams, Wikinomics: The Blog
• Robb Tokatakiya, Tokatakiya
• Joe Wilkert, Publishing Blog 2020