Alan Is Good

Very shortly, TIME Magazine is going to have to close the polls and admit that the Most Influential Person of 2009 is the founder of the darkest internet community in existence.  Interestingly, they won’t be altogether wrong in doing so.

Every year TIME runs this poll to see who the public considers the world’s most influential person.  Last year it was Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, and the year prior belonged to Korean pop sensation Rain. More »

Haiku Monday March 23, 2009

Firefly catching

Like life, if timing is right

Everything’s all bright

What title would you give it?  I thought of some horribly perfect Twitter puns, but I went ahead and scaled it back because there’s an actual analysis here of Twitter behavioral dynamics.  Despite the subject matter, please pretend that I’m wearing glasses and take me seriously on this one.

Previously, on AlanIsGood.com

Earlier this week I wrote about social media censorship, and generated an ongoing discussion over in the comments on Brazen Careerist.  (Shout out to them for not censoring the really interesting topics!)  As young professionals, we are concerned greatly with what we post online and who will see it.  We are paranoid about losing a job or not being taken seriously by co-workers.  In D.C., the line I hear most often is that people have aspirations of running for office someday.  Here’s a slow clap for everyone out there keeping it clean and professional online.

I’ll recite a quote from my own writings that a few people asked about later – “To appreciate the light, I’ve always wanted to be familiar with and understand the dark.”  We should always listen to and explore the extremes of an idea before making final judgment.  

Under the ‘light,’ I see new media professionals cleaning up résumés and making sure online privacy settings protect their personal thoughts and feelings.  They straighten their ties and prepare to make the best possible impression on their employers.  Their Twitter updates are informative, relevant and thought provoking.

In the ‘dark,’ I see pornstar Eva Angelina telling a well-known social media strategist to “f*** off.”  

More »

Enter: Cisco Fatty

This week, the Cisco Fatty was born.  This girl applied for a job with Cisco, and apparently they made her an offer.  Then she goes and updates her Twitter profile with this: 

“Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.”

Of course, someone with Cisco sees her update, and replied to her – on Twitter.

“Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.”

Laugh, laugh.  Get it all out.  You can see what everyone is saying about the Cisco Fatty in the Twitter Search results for – of course, Cisco+fatty.  The story is spreading quickly, and it will reach ‘meme‘ status in no time.  Someone even made a quick blog in her honor just to make sure she cries about this, at http://ciscofatty.com.   She made her Twitter updates private, but Twitter search archives all.  Long live the Cisco Fatty.  

Social Media Censorship

I’m not a fan of this growing wave of censorship in social media.  It’s interesting to see how it affects different people across various industries.  Here are a few cases I’ve seen recently:

More »

Haiku Monday March 16, 2009

Lucky Leprechauns

Greatest 401K plan

Can’t tax pots o’ gold

Citrus Soda Wars: The Beginning

Coca-Cola is number one in the soda universe, but they don’t sweep PepsiCo in every category.  At no point in history has Coca-Cola ever had a serious chance of competing with Mountain Dew, PepsiCo’s yellow citrus soda.  Mello Yello was released in 1979 to compete with Dew, but never quite made the impact needed to register on the radar.  Despite some success in the South, Mello Yello was plagued with a bad case of ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride.’  

A Surge Ahead

In 1996, Coca-Cola began promoting their answer to Pepsi’s Mountain Dew – it was a yellow-green soda by the name of Surge.  I’ll always remember the day that Surge came to my middle school and offered every student one free 12 oz. bottle.  I hoarded more than 12 bottles of Surge that day using the coupons of others and from those who sipped and hated the soda.  For a time, things were good. More »

Haiku Monday March 9, 2009

My four-legged friends

Unlike our time together

My love never ends

R.I.P. M’Lady