Today is my birthday.  Turning 41 is almost worse than turning 40: now it feels like I’m fully committed to the whole “in your 40’s” thing.  Oh well – beats the alternative.

Birthdays are a good time for self reflection.  Are you happy with your lot in life?  What’s left to accomplish?

I’m a pretty fortunate fellow.  Happy marriage, good kids, good health, a career I enjoy, lotsa toys.  (Speaking of toys, my wife’s gag gift today? A food dehydrator, so I can make my own beef jerky. Joke’s on her, though: I’m gonna use it!)

With all those blessings, all that’s left on my to-do list are Hoped-For Accomplishments.

I’d like to see SHIFT achieve at least $20M in revenues.  Besides being a nice round number, it’s the kind of revenue stream that will allow us to further invest in our rising stars.  New services, new career paths, etc.

I’d like to figure out an approach to PR that’s far more transformative than inventing a Social Media Release. I’ve got ideas.  Need more.

I’d still like to travel Mongolia by horseback to the Golden Eagle Festival.  I want to make my way to the Torres del Paine in Patagonia, too.  A visit to Turkey and the Pyramids at Giza are on the Bucket List.  And while I know it’s not much to see, I want to make the sojourn to the site of the Battle of Thermopylae in Greece — a story I’ve admired since High School History, long before the (awesome) movie, 300.

I’d like to own a convertible.  Typical, right?

I want to visit my kids in college, and see their faces light up with genuine delight as I approach.  (Hey, a guy can dream.)

I want to meet my great grandchildren, alongside my beaming wife.

Relatively simple goals on the ol’ Bucket List, now that I think about it.  (Well, I suppose “transforming the practice of PR” is fairly ambitious!  But I am still young enough to aspire!)

What’s on yours?

I can’t say I was surprised to see #CowboyTodd have a better time at SXSW than I would have had I gone.

After a brief scare in which the gunslinger was misplaced by the deliveryman, causing him to miss out on the shenanigans at the Funnel Cake Fandango, the Cowboy proved himself to be a “stand-up” guy for the rest of the event.

The fella knows how to party.  Here’s a sampling of the fun…

Here’s #CowboyTodd making his mark with the ladies…

Here’s the Carboard Cowboy getting into trouble with David Armano…

… And crashing Chris Brogan’s speaking gig — with a little assistance from his partner in crime, Richard Binhammer!

Honestly, the fun never stopped.  Even when it probably should have:

All these shenanigans resulted in #CowboyTodd becoming the #1 “Hottest Trend” topic on Klout by Monday morning.

I’ll be making announcements about the prize winners in the days ahead.  This was just a quick, fun update.  Meanwhile, my extra special thanks to David Alston, C.C. Chapman, Richard Binhammer, Jason Falls and Aaron Strout.  You guys are awesome.

The inimitable Onion News Network reveals just how hard it is to fill 24-hours worth of stuff (contains some NSFW language):

This topic strikes home for me.  It was literally the subject of my very first blog post at PR-Squared, about 6 years ago!  It was also covered recently — briefly but pointedly — by Matthew Yglesias of ThinkProgress and Kevin Jones of Mother Jones Magazine.  Here’s Drum:

Hardly anyone watches cable news. Even in prime time, Fox has a couple million viewers — that’s about 1% of American adults — and the other (cable news) operations have a million or so.  Cable news is a molehill that gets routinely turned into a mountain range because they happen to be talking about the most self-obsessed bunch of gossip hounds in the country:  politicians.

But the reality is that almost no one is watching.  Take away the echo chamber and Glenn Beck would be about as important as a guy on a soapbox in Central Park…

Put that video from The Onion together with the miniscule statistics re: cable news viewership, and it really does all feel pretty ridiculous, eh?

While I can’t be at SXSW in-person this year, I’m sending a proxy.  Literally.

If you are headed to Austin, allow me to introduce you to … “Cowboy Todd.”

Inspired and designed by my friend David Alston and his crew at Radian6, this 6–foot tall cut-out will be making the rounds of the party circuit, “Flat Stanley”-style.

David’s committed to taking Cowboy Todd to the AllHat2 event, Jason Falls promises to have Cowboy Todd serve you a funnel cake at his Funnel Cake Fandango, and my pals Aaron Strout, C.C. Chapman, Richard Binhammer, and Kyle Flaherty have committed to serve as Cardboard Cowboy wranglers, to make sure the Big Guy gets to a few other events.

Wanna get involved in the fun?

If you spot Cowboy Todd in Austin, be sure to check-in with him via Foursquare, or create a new spot for the big guy on Gowalla.

Take a photo with him and we’ll post the best entries to PR-Squared and the SHIFT Facebook Fanpage.  If you’ve got the funniest picture submission, I’ll draft a guest blog post for ya (or something similar).

Film yourself having a (drunken) conversation with Cowboy Todd, and we’ll give $1,000 to your favorite charity if you took the best/funniest video.

Tweet about #CowboyTodd and we’ll randomly select 5 winners to receive a $25 Amazon Gift Card. (But special consideration will be given if you tweet some funny one-liners, e.g., “Top 10 Things Cowboy Todd Didn’t Say at SXSW.”)

I can’t be there, but I sure hope Cowboy Todd has a blast.

I promise you — the guy’s no pushover.  He’ll drink you all under the table.

I dove into my “Big Thinking” folder recently and emerged with a slide from the “Social Media Trends for 2010” deck created by Jeremiah Owyang of the Altimeter Group, discussing organizational models for corporate adoption of Social Media.

Who is in control of this Social Media stuff?  What are the best practices?

These questions come up a lot, particularly amongst large brands.

Imagine: you have THOUSANDS of employees, who are not asking for your so-called permission to hang out on Facebook or Twitter; who may be blogging (with or without full transparency); who are likely finding and commenting (with or without full transparency) on industry blogs that cover your business. The situation could escalate out of control pretty quickly, especially in times of crisis.

Jeremiah’s slide points to the three major options that large corporations must consider re: Social Media adoption and planning.

The distributed model is the most compelling because it’s the least controlled; it’s a mess, a free-for-all.  Everyone in the company gets to chart their own path.  Join Twitter – or not.  Join Facebook – or not.  Start a blog – or not.  It’s the model that most companies fear the most – it is hard to monitor or contain.  Yet its very looseness gives it power.  Untethered, the company’s overachievers can rise to the top; they can become authoritative “personal brands” in the industry, and could help the business in surprising ways.  Two types of companies adopt this distributed approach: companies that fail to plan (and wind up hoping for the best) and, companies willing to put inordinate amounts of trust in their employees (see: Zappos).

The centralized model is the “default setting” for most large companies.  Accustomed to CONTROL, this approach feels proper and minimizes surprises.  There’s one neck to choke when things go awry.  However, the rigidity of this model ignores the power of Social Media – to expose the company’s talented folks, at all levels, to various niches in which they might be impactful.  The centralized approach is superb for Brand Management and Customer Service but doesn’t answer the question about what everyone else in the company wants to do re: Social Media!  “Are you saying that because I’m not part of your Social Media team, I can’t tweet?” It begs for end-runs from within the company.

Clearly the coordinated model in Jeremiah’s slide is the one to espouse.  It’s beauty is that it is simple, reasonable and effective.  Guidelines are set (simple).  Monitoring and reporting mechanisms are deployed (reasonable).  Everyone gets to play, but knows the rules-of-the-road (which will evolve as new lessons are learned), and also knows that there are consequences for derailing the company’s brand online (effective).

But, as Jeremiah’s slide rightly notes, the effectiveness of this approach can take more time.

The coordinated policies might allow for great public-facing successes in Customer Service, for example, but might not do as good a job showcasing the talents of employees in other divisions.  The Social Media zealot working in a company with a “distributed” (free-for-all) approach will be self-motivated to make a mark; they’ll be fueled by ego to get noticed — and to make an impact before anyone in “Corporate” figures out that they need to set guidelines.  That same employee, working within the regulations set in a “coordinated” model, might find that spadework to be slower going.

What approach appeals the most to you?  What model does your current employer use (wittingly or not)?  Do you see that situation changing?

Although the work’s already started, it’s only now that I can tell ya’ll about a recent Big Win for the SHIFT team.

As noted in a recent PRWeek article (sub. req’d), SHIFT was recently named as the Consumer Agency of Record for Quiznos.

We’ll be handling both consumer PR and Social Media assignments for this well-known, edgy brand.

We’re delighted by this hard-won victory.  The Consumer AOR piece is significant to us: while Quiznos joins other large brands like Bing, J&J and Wells Fargo on the SHIFT roster, these mega brands tend to retain us for distinct ongoing assignments and project work.

While I can’t quote at length from the PRWeek article, certainly the best part of the piece was the closing paragraph, quoting our client Ellen Kramer, EVP of Communications at Quiznos:

“We hadn’t had a consumer AOR with this kind of strategic plan before,” Kramer said, when asked about the length of the new PR contract. “We all entered this relationship thinking this was absolutely a long-term relationship.”

I’ll toast to that!

Some of our clients have asked us to serve as moderators on their Facebook Fan Pages.

I know such pages are a dime-a-dozen on Facebook, but we are talking about some big-league brands in this case.  Names you know.  “Fan clubs” of which you may well be a member.

Although we strongly adhere to a full-transparency ethic when it comes to Social Media, the clients simply do not want SHIFT’s name to be explicitly affiliated with their Facebook sites.

“Too confusing” … “Brand dilution” … “Won’t ever get approved.”

To be clear, approximately 90% of the posts are approved in advance, by the client.  In addition to helping respond to user inquiries, we also  often have a pre-developed “editorial calendar,” created in cooperation with our Marketing contacts.  We’re not running amok or anything.

Additionally, when a SHIFTer responds to a user’s query, they typically do so from their own Facebook account (“on behalf of” the client), so that if the user were to click on their profile, they’d quickly discern that they are interacting with an external PR representative.

In other words, there is a fair bit of transparency, but, our team members’ roles are not always explicitly called-out, nor is there 100% compliance: sometimes our people are moderating/responding using the client’s name/account info (when requested).

The clients trust us to do so; the posts are generally pre-approved and always innocuous and on-message … but, yea, “authorship” in such cases is not always clear.

Have we crossed a line?

I don’t lose sleep over this one, though it could represent an egregious breach to Social Media purists.

I would understand their complaint: Social Media Marketing’s power stems from the ability to spur direct dialogue between brands and consumers.  Inserting an agency representative in the mix (with not-always-clear distinctions about their role or employer) begs the question, “how is this any different from the crap marketing foisted on users in the first place?”

There is still more transparency than in the past.  There is still a direct connection to the brand (trust me, the clients care VERY MUCH about feedback we report from Facebook and Twitter).  Any and all “major” responses, i.e., to user complaints, are truly drafted and posted by client representatives.  Ninety-percent of the posts are pre-approved by the client.

Although our agency brains get involved in terms of the core digital strategy, including how-to improve our clients’ interactions online with consumers, at this tactical level we are essentially serving as the execution arm (and listening post) for the clients.  It’s all “on-brand” activity in terms of the messages, and if anything our aid ensures that our busy clients can never be accused of not being engaged at all times — a metric that is increasingly important to them, yet is incredibly hard to scale.

Got feedback?  Accusations and plaudits are both welcome.  Help me figure this out, if you feel we’re taking a wrong-headed approach!

I am truly excited to welcome Melanie Collins, formerly the top sales executive at Marketwire in Boston, as SHIFT’s new Director of Business Development.

Melanie is a master networker who eclipsed sales quotas during her tenure at the wire service.  In her new role — which we created for Melanie — she will focus on attracting major B2B and consumer brands to SHIFT’s New York and Boston PR offices.

In this gloomy economic climate, where do we get off “creating new roles” for people?  The answer is not dissimilar to the one I gave those skeptics who questioned our opening of the SHIFT-NYC office last month: we are investing in the downturn, positioning ourselves — via everything from “geography” to “talent” — so that SHIFT is among the first agencies to take advantage of the rising tide that’s sure to come.

As Jim Collins noted in his seminal business book, “Good to Great,” first you want to get the right people on the bus, and then figure out where to seat them.  We are confident that with Melanie Collins on the SHIFT bus, we’ve mapped out a surefire route.

Next Monday I am moderating a panel on “Entrepreneurship” at RSA Conference, the world’s largest IT Security tradeshow (and a long-time client).  In preparation for the session, I’ve been having some brief 1:1 meetings with the panelists, all of whom are successful company founders.

One theme has threaded across all these calls: the need for ongoing customer validation.

As an entrepreneur, it is easy to get “stuck in the weeds” of running the business.  For as many decisions you may need to make about the company’s strategy, there could easily be a dozen small-bore decisions, e.g., “We’re running out of offices — where are we going to put that new exec’s desk?”

It’s important to rise above all that.  You don’t become an entrepreneur to play small ball.

As an entrepreneur myself, I try to continually raise the question, “What do MOST clients care the MOST about?” Invariably, as a PR agency, the answer has been “Media Coverage” although in recent years the meaning of “media coverage” has morphed due to Social Media: for some clients, “tweets count as coverage.”

So if MOST clients care MOST about “coverage,” we must ask ourselves: are we providing stellar training to the SHIFTers responsible for garnering the coverage?  are we scheduling specific blocks of time for each of these employees to work the phones/email?  are our pitching practices consistent across all teams?  are our monitoring systems up to snuff?  are our measurement guidelines properly aligned across all programs?  etc.

It’s not enough to ask these questions once, or even once per year.  Because “coverage” is so important to our clients, these are questions we really need to ask ourselves every month.

And it gets pretty tactical (because it needs to).  For example, on a semi-regular basis, I will gather the junior staff in a conference room and have them “Pitch the Principal.” I act as a jerky reporter/blogger and challenge each person in the room to pitch me on one of their clients, in front of their peers.  Each account pro is then “coached in the moment” by me, and by their colleagues, about how they can be more relevant and impactful.

Such sessions can be harrowing for newbies, yet we keep it positive and by the end, most folks agree it’s been invaluable.  Everybody wins in the end — especially the clients, who can be confident that the SHIFTers charged with carrying their banner to the media have been through the wringer!

I offer this as just one example of how agencies must keep a pulse on what’s important to clients.  Just as we abhor it when clients chase after shiny objects, we can’t make the same mistake; we must stay focused on what counts most, to most clients, and align our processes towards successful outcomes.

Meanwhile, yea, I’ve got to find a place to put that desk…

I was in St. John last week. Glorious. Recommended.  (That’s no postcard or Google Image Search Result attending this blog post – it’s a photo from my very own Flickr stream. Blissful!)

Although we headed to the Virgin Islands to escape our work and daily routines, I am so glad I brought my iPhone with me.  I can’t tell you how often we wound up consulting the Web to decide on restaurants (“did you check Yelp?”) … excursions (“did you check TripAdvisor?”) … beaches (“how early do we need to get up to nab a parking spot at Trunk Bay?”) … and basic travel tips about everything from buying groceries to feeding the island’s wild donkeys (don’t).

If you’d told me before our departure that I’d be “on the web” that often, I would have grimaced.  I was looking to disconnect!

Yet I realized that the Web (in general) and Social Media (in particular) are now so interwoven in the fabric of our lives and decision-making that it really only made our vacation more enjoyable.  We didn’t lose any of that sense of discovery you search for when visiting a new place; rather, we had a chance to learn from others’ experiences and steer our course toward the most worthwhile adventures, which we “made our own” once we got underway.

I’ve been on planes, trains and automobiles ever since our return.  Not only haven’t I been able to simmer in that post-tropical zen-like state that typically comes after a vacation, I’ve barely been able to sit at my desk (much less blog)!  Yet I’ve made a promise to myself to “give back” to the Web community.

As soon as I have some free time, I’ll draft our family’s Yelp reviews of the kick-ass egg scramble and gracious hosts at the Donkey Diner … I’ll tell eager beachgoers on TripAdvisor to get to Trunk Bay before 9am if they want a parking spot … etc.  I’ll add our voice of experience to aid the next wave of visitors to that lovely Carribean jewel, with thanks to those who went before and did the same.

It wasn’t just the much-needed dose of sunshine that made me feel optimistic about the future. I was truly inspired by the wealth of shared knowledge I held at my fingertips.