“A U.S. appeals court has ruled that the F.C.C. does not have the power to force Comcast and other Internet service providers to give equal treatment to all Web content. What the ruling could mean for consumers and the future of net neutrality.”

Net neutrality is not a new concept for bloggers or traditional journalists, but if I can increase the awareness on this potentially monumental issue surrounding this recent legal case, then I’ll take this limited space to do so.

Started in 1934, the Federal Communications Commission has worked to regulate a complex communications system that continues to grow in size. Beginning with the radio, the advancement of technology makes the FCC’s job harder as the years go by.

The FCC is largely able to enforce its power due to its status as a government agency and the legal implications with failure to comply with regulations. Without an agency like the FCC, the US runs the risk of even more communication corruption and a select few entities struggling to own and regulate all content with monetary and other ulterior motives (uh…this is already kinda happening but think bigger, like China and the recent announcement that Google is pulling it’s Web site, Google.cn). Side note: Funny how privacy, control and ownership seem to traverse across many heated platforms? Funny also how the Government via the FCC could quickly become a controller itself…another day.

People seem to worship or hate the FCC (for the side note stated above), but there is no denying that without some type of regulation we would have even greater issues. That is why the recent legal defeat that the FCC has faced in its battle with Comcast is especially destructive.

The broader idea of network neutrality is the idea that without it, internet service providers can control what you access and how you access it. So, you pay Comcast your $40 a month for internet (what you think is access to all that is available) and they can block you from certain sites due to the bandwidth they take up (among other things they could do). By the FCC loosing it’s most recent legal battle with Comcast over this, essentially the judge says, “FCC, your legal power no longer holds up in court on this issue. There are too many holes in your argument and providers can do what they want for now.” That means not only can they block certain sites, but they can control the content you see and how quickly you receive it. So hypothetically, they could make other sites especially slow for you to use so you make a switch to a faster competitor. Side note: You have to control people to not control people. That doesn’t even make sense.

It seems then, that everyone is vying for control of what was originally created to be an open system, and the internet still is, but all points of access and content on the internet are what people fight to control. So my questions are: What is the reason for Comcast wanting control anyway (pure or impure motives)? What are all the possible implications of this outcome? What does this mean for other laws and future laws the FCC tries to enforce? Is this victory for Comcast indicative of an increase in control from providers in the future, or a wake-up call?

For now at least, I’m glad Comcast isn’t my provider.

I took a hiatus from blogging after getting incredibly fed up with the tendencies that seem to be the norm with many “key players” in social media. I do not want that for myself. I am here, in this very space, because I have always been a bit of a secret computer nerd. I like the interwebs and I love communication - it seems only a natural fit that I would have a small bit of it to call my own - whether that is on facebook, twitter, this blog, linkedin, etc. Before I was the marketing manager for my company overseeing social media, I was passionate about social media for personal use. I’ve discovered that when it takes a turn for the professional though, it looses much of its initial luster. Instead of chatting with friends, I found myself combing blogs about SM ROI, top blogging techniques, the death of advertising, and the like. I do not intend to read much of any of this anymore, aside from a few people who actually know what they are talking about.

While I’ve been doing this soul searching I started a personal blog unattached to my name. The freedom of posting without second guessing every word and picture for all the wrong reasons has been inspiring. I feel the beginnings of revival and rejuvenation in my creative life. That being said, I do not intend to be a regular blogger in this space. However, being the person of many opinions that I am, when I feel I have something truly worthy of writing, not simply a rant or a regurgitation or a numbered list from an amateur, when I feel have more than noise to add to this deafening space, I will write it here. I have deleted many previous posts that do not fit the focus of this space for me anymore. I have also kept ones that I have written that are a little off-focus, but I still decided to keep. I’m not sure what this will turn into, and I’m OK with that. But for now, this is the space for AbbyAnnette. I hope it doesn’t clutter your reader, dull your mind or make you want to abandon the world of new media (as I have often felt of late). I’d love to hear your thoughts, whether in the comment section or an email - about anything really. Because if we aren’t here to learn, dialogue, find inspiration and form relationships, then I’m not sure what the hell we are doing. For the faithful few of (RIP) The Picaresque, you have a deep place in my heart.

As a marketing manager for a major company, I try to stay connected or at least be a strong observer of the social world online. My observations have often left me disturbed and distraught. I have found that most blogs fit into one or more of the following categories, which I have described below.

1 ) I started writing a blog and by (somewhat) chance got a lot of followers and now use it to pay my bills. Because of this I have become a sellout and often do “random” giveaways and have lots of annoying ads on my blog. Some that you even have to click to close. Dooce. The Pioneer Woman. I could go on. I want to know about The Pioneer Woman’s hard life on the working ranch, not enter another amateur photography contest giveaway.

2 ) The expert blogger. Every amateur out there now has the means to become a reporter, social media guru, PR maven, giver of random wisdom, professional chef, etc. for almost free. The problem is most of these bloggers are only in it for purely selfish reasons and have little experience to back up their wisdom. Plus they are often arrogant and big tools. It is also necessary that these bloggers have glamor shot-esque photos and heavily self-promote.

3 ) The emotional blogger. This is where all the teens and tweens and overdramatic 20somethings fit. When I was in high school I started a blog on Xanga under the username abangel28. Those days you wrote, your friends read and perhaps a few nerdy people who came across your blog by happenstance or keyword search. What you did that day. Who you like. Why you hate your parents. You get the picture. A virtual dear diary. Insert all live journal blogs here.

4 ) The niche blogger. You love to bake. You actually are a baker as a day job, but you want to have a creative outlet where you get to blog about your recipes and such. This could also include landscaper, DIYer, decorator, etc. Note: This could quickly become #1 so beware.

5 ) The work blogger. Your business’ Web site has a blog. Maybe you are a photographer, and all photographers have to have a blog these days where they put their pictures and then also insert random quips about their personal life. Maybe your Web design business has a blog about Web design attached to it. Maybe you work for a large corporation that has a blog. This one actually seems to be one of the most legitimate to me.

6 ) Thought leader. Maybe you really have earned the right to be heard, whether by years of experience or resume or both. Seth Godin fits here in my mind. I am thankful for these bloggers because their wisdom is warranted and I often learn a great deal from them.

7 ) The aggregator blog. Now if I’m being honest, I see this more as a simple resource and Web site than I do as a weblog, but it technically fits in this category. Fffound.com. I find these sites very useful because they sort through all the crap and find the good stuff for me. They also can be a wonderful source of inspiration or news.

8 ) The love of. Some people simply love to write. An audience is not necessary, though appreciated. A space on the Web, which might be more convenient than a specific laptop or journal will suffice and adds the element of customization and design to the mix. Perhaps it is a site seen by friends, or just a random onlooker. Perhaps it chronicles the adventures of your family, or acts as a creative outlet.

I have found that most of the blogs I closely follow fit into one of a few categories. I have some level of relationship with the person and therefore they have earned the right to be heard by me and I have given them the space to speak (figuratively). I often know this person in real life (but not necessarily). Niche. I am a lover of design, and so I love to look at blogs that focus on design, whether that is graphic or interior. I am also a lover of cooking, baking and peaking into someone’s exciting life. In some ways blogs like dooce.com are the reality shows of the internet, and I just can’t look away. Thought leaders have a place in my reader because they tend to be more progressive and have actual experience under their belt. Like a distant, one-way online mentor.

Please add any additional categories you believe I have overlooked in the comments section. You might also be giggling at me because you think I am #2 and therefore a huge hypocrite and also ignorant. Be assured, I don’t really care if you are here, which is a huge prerequisite for #2. Unless your name is Bill Handy, Matt Galloway or Andrew Swenson, and maybe a few others, and then I do care.

Note: I realize I switched tense several times and point-of-view in this post. I am OK with that.

You may remember that I previously wrote a post titled “What the Eff is Marcom” a while back, which Andrew Swenson then kindly followed with a guest post describing his thoughts on Marcom. He and I have recently been discussing marketing, and he sent me a nice little email that I’m going to repost below without his permission (better to ask forgiveness right?) followed by some of my thoughts. I took the liberty of bolding sections that I thought deserved bolding.

Before all that fun happens though, I find it interesting that we, even as professionals, throw around these terms without being able to succinctly and accurately tell people what exactly marketing, public relations, branding, etc. is and instead usually respond with an evasive, “Well, it’s difficult to explain.” Sure we can pull out our old class notes, do a quick search on Wikipedia, phone a friend, but I think before you ever try to act like you know anything about the world that is promoting a brand, you must be able to describe what you do without referencing an index card or an agency’s slogan.

Andrew says…

“I’ve written and deleted this four or five times. I don’t want to over-complicate this, so I think rather than try to bury myself in marketing theory, I’d describe my personal ethos behind the marketing function. Maybe I’m naive here, but I think that each organization’s (and probably each marketer’s) understanding of their role and function is different.

I see marketing as expression of brand through effective communication. That expression, of course, finds itself iterated most often in the four Ps we all talk about.

But beyond guiding and shaping product, place, promotion, and price, I believe that the marketing function is primarily about people.

All of the brand research I do, all of the sales history analysis I do, all of the product guidance and innovation I do as part of the traditionally defined “marketing function” doesn’t mean anything if I can’t deliver something that adds value to a person’s life. So what’s my function? Find a product that will add value to someone’s life, price it so they can afford it, place it where they can find it easily, and promote it so they understand why it will add value to their lives (this may include social channels, whatever…).

So for me, the marketing function is primarily about communicating the benefits of a product and backing that up with a product that actually delivers on those marketing promises.

Of course in the end, the goal of the marketing function is primarily transactional. I’ve gotten slammed by PRs who feel that they have a higher calling to focus more on “relationships” than transactions. But they really go hand in hand. The goal of relationships between brands and customers should be for brands to prove they can make good on their promises (thus fueling transaction).

But I don’t think that the goal of transaction should ever, ever, ever outweigh the importance of adding value to people’s lives. If it does, then I’m just a big marketing douchebag running another marketing douchebag blog.

I guess that’s why I’m so interested in empowering consumers through connection. It shouldn’t be about which company can build the highest walls around their garden, it should be about consumer choice, which, I think, will keep all of us honest in the long run.”

—

On the tails of this email comes a discussion I had with some friends last night about the well-known distrust of marketing, public relations and advertising professionals. We are labeled(often rightly so) as liars, manipulators and douchebags. (I’ll save my personal branding discussion for a more ranty post). I think what separates the liars from the genuine advocates is motive. We all want to sell more, bottom line, but what are you trying to get consumers to buy, the way you do that and how is what matters. Side note: Lately I find myself gravitating away from communicating with words and more to communicating with design. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. But that is branding, and branding is another post for another day.

So, what do I think marketing is? The picture to the side is a classic representation of the four that I find pretty accurate. I also agree with Andrew’s eloquent definition, but I’ll modify that by saying, “Ultimately, I think marketing is simply an avenue to sell a product or service. Let the customer know about it, let them know why they should buy it and facilitate a positive experience in the process. If that doesn’t happen, then you have failed.” Say what you want about SM and the works, it’s usually about ROI. If your business isn’t making money, then it won’t make it. And if marketing isn’t contributing to the bottom line, then the department won’t last, no matter how pretty the pictures, words, relationships are. Call me old fashioned. And don’t throw your awareness BS at me, that too is eventually about the bottom line.

There are many companies out there limping along that never had a vision strong enough and a culture established enough to gain buy in. One thing I learned from working at Wal-Mart’s headquarters is the strength of getting your employees on board with the vision of the company. Call it drinking the water or whatever metaphor you want, but when people get on board with you, you will succeed. If your company doesn’t have a culture, hang your hat early and start a company you actually have a vision for and the ability to articulate that vision. Then you’ll get buy in. And with buy in, you will succeed.

So this “cool” factor was further proved today when I stumbled upon a YouTube on their site: thefuntheory.com. I’m a little hot and cold about microsites since they often cost a pretty penny to produce and from my research don’t always produce results that make it worth anyone’s time and money, but this video is pretty sweet.

What’s the coolest brand you know?

This post is about the hyphen (cue School House Rock music). Now, I’m not usually one to brag, but I did darn well on my AP grammar test in college. But like all good journalism students, my awareness of grammar and general knowledge of AP style have waned over the past couple years.  So I surprised myself recently with the realization that I still know very little about proper hyphen placement.

Here are some of my recent hyphen struggles (like most good AP students I defaulted to the hyphen, usually to my detriment):

… our over-sexualized nation.
Reasons why I should never leave the house without make-up.
She is an under-appreciated employee.

The list goes on. Makeup is a bit of a wild card in this post since most of my questions have involved prefixes and suffixes in regards to the ‘ole hyphen.

Lucky for me (and you!) I have my trusty Working with Words – A Handbook for Media Writers and Editors near my desk at all times. While the AP Stylebook is a very handy reference, it does not typically provide detailed grammar rules with numerous examples. So in Working with Words, “Chapter 10 – Spelling Relief” has a section titled, “Hyphenation as a Spelling Problem.” YES! It’s 21 pages long, so I’ll just give you some highlights.

• Suffixes are not usually hyphenated unless adding one would result in three l’s in a row:
  • catlike
  • shell-less
• Sometimes, compound adjectives in which the “suffix” is really a separate word are hyphenated, and other times they’re not:
  • penny-wise
  • streetwise
• Many compounds that use a preposition such as down, in, off, out, over, or up are hyphenated, but many other compound words with prepositions at the end have dropped the hyphen:
  • break-in, carry-over, close-up, fade-out
  • breakup, fallout, holdover, takeoff
• Prefixes generally not hyphenated (my list, the whole thing is WAY too long): a, anti, bi, by , dis, full, hyper, mid, mini, multi, non, pre, re, semi, ultra, under, up
• These prefixes are generally hyphenated: after, all, co, ex, like, odd, off, one, pro, self (exceptions selfish, selfless, selfsame), well, wide
• Words beginning with the prefixes half and pre are sometimes hyphenated, sometimes not. You’ll just have to look them up. (that is word for word what the book said…awesome.)

There’s more but you’re bored and I’m tired of typing. Here is a classic example though: long time (n.) longtime (adj.).

The moral of the story is, have the book handy because there are very few hard and fast rules and I usually can’t remember them anyway.

*** I would like to apologize in advance for the inevitable grammar/spelling mistakes in this post and all others. I solely edit these and it takes many pairs of eyes to ensure all errors are found.***

So what is it about me that has caused me to spend my entire life buying pretty new journals only to write four over-dramatic entries and then leave the $25, vintage floral-cover bound notebook out to dry, only to cheat on it weeks later in another room with a tan, leather embossed one?

This is what I have decided is the reason. It’s my deeply ingrained flaw that I will commonly call “perfectionism.” My mom tells tragic tales of me throwing fits at a young age in the middle of the street because the seam on my sock wasn’t on the top of my toes just so. Or the late nights spent on the “hamburger project” in the 6^th grade when everyone else brought in a construction paper design and I made a 3 ft. x 1 ft. fabric construction that dwarfed everyone else’s project. And I carried that sucker in smiling. Knowing my A was just a flick of the red pen away.

So how does a perfectionist continue to blog? I think we have to look at the reasons we are not blogging. What excuses are we making? Are they valid? Are you really too busy? Is the vision of your blog really so off? Do you really have nothing to say? I think the real thing that stops me from regularly blogging is two-fold, and sadly is probably what also stops me from finding my dream job, starting my own businesses, moving to Portland and a host of other things. A combination of fear and lack of discipline, coupled with this package of perfectionism.

All this to say, if you come to my blog, all 10 of you, for reasons mostly professional, you might be disappointed from now on. There are so many people out there blogging about social media and marketing that I’d rather buy a gun then a new iPhone app these days. So I’m sure my love for communication, advertising and marketing will work its way into my posts, but I’m determined to see this sucker through and not just abandon it to begin anew only to cheat again, and it looks like I’ll be posting more personal and less professional sounding entries. So enjoy, or don’t. But at least I’m not a cheater.

I have found that good habits are forged with accountability, determination and consistency, and bad habits infest themselves in my life and strangle the good habits out. I also often find myself hating strongly disliking those people who run 6 miles at 5 a.m. every morning before fully reading the paper and sitting down to breakfast of toasted wheat germ cereal and French press coffee. EVERY morning. What are they doing right? What am I doing wrong?

According to the all-knowing Hetty Fore, it takes 21 days to make a habit and 21 days to break a habit. I have always thought a bad habit can be instantaneously created and a good habit is what takes days to make. I was wrong. I think that is a lie many of us believe. One misstep in the road and suddenly we are off the wagon, rolling down the ravine, face first in the desert with no water in sight. Life puts roadblocks in the way of our habit forming to get us off course, whether it’s sickness, travel, work, money problems, etc. The reality is that these roadblocks will always present themselves and it is pushing past the roadblocks that leads to continued success. It is also the things I mentioned above (accountability, determination and consistency).

Another thing to consider is the fine line between a habit (good or bad) and an addiction. I did a little Wikipedia research on habits, of course. According to Wikipedia, “A key factor in distinguishing a bad habit from an addiction or mental disease is the element of willpower. If a person still seems to have control over the behavior then it is just a habit.” That is a scary thought. One minute you have an innocent bad habit and then the next you have a full-blown addiction that you don’t have the willpower to beat. I think we should all take our bad habits a little more seriously. This might be a silly addiction in comparison to drugs or dieting gone eating disorder, but I think I have a full-blown snooze addiction. I cannot wake up to my first alarm. Ever. Never ever.

It also seems the best habits are the ones that are so deeply ingrained in us that we perform them subconsciously. Well, the best good habits. My co-worker wakes up every morning without an alarm clock at 5:30 a.m. A subconscious habit. The wise Mimo once said that he has to trick himself into being organized. I think we can trick ourselves into good habits. My latest trick is to park behind my housemate who cannot drive stick shift and leaves for work way before me, unless I go to yoga. Normally I do not park behind her, but lately I’ve been parking behind her. And I’ve been going to yoga. It’s genius.

I hope this hasn’t sounded too “7 Habits of Highly blah blah blah BS,” but maybe it would do us all a little good to think about the habits in our personal and professional lives.

I’ve wanted to write about my thoughts on Gen-Y for quite some time, and a more in-depth post will come later, but I think what has to be considered when discussing generations are that there are always exceptions to the rule, age is a universal demographic and personality plays a big part as well. I say this because I think some of the aspects that shape my generation, my age, my personality and my own exceptions have been a contributing factor to this mini crisis I’ve been having. Yet the more I voice some of my thoughts to my peers and those older than me, the more I find I’m much less alone than I thought I was.

Some of the things I have read about other people’s thoughts on Gen-Y I agree with, and what I’m getting at if you’ll bear with me is that I expect to be happy in my job. From what I read about what other people have decided about my generation, other Gen-Yers expect to be happy in their jobs too. I also think that careers are much less like a ladder and much more like stepping stones and some stones are just a little more conducive to stepping than others. I’ve also decided that work is a great (read unhealthy) scapegoat for other problems in life, and when we heap all of our dissatisfaction from other areas of our life on our job we really aren’t doing anyone any good and we are skewing our preceptation about what really is the problem.

Andrew Swenson reminded me that I recently commented on his blog “[...] when we try to force ourselves to be the picture professional that the generation before us is/was, we find ourselves (generally speaking) unmotivated, unfulfilled and discontent. I think they would tell us ‘work is work’ and my response is ‘well, I’d like to enjoy it most of the time.’”

So when moving forward in my career, in my friendships, in this post ¼ of a century life, I’d like to enjoy it most of the time. Call me entitled.