I just grabbed breakfast with a friend, who also works in the Social Media trenches, and it wasn’t long before we found ourselves nodding vigorously in agreement that “the lawyers are getting worse.”

In my humble opinion, the bigger a brand is, the more it can and should invest in lawyers who MAXIMIZE their ability to be adaptable to market conditions. 

Instead we find that bigger brands’ legal eagles are doing their best to muzzle the company’s own evangelists.

It shouldn’t take 3–5 days to approve a tweet.

It shouldn’t take a week to approve a comment on an external blog.

It should be allowable to post a perfectly appropriate twitpic.

It should be allowable to re-share content that outside consumers have themselves proactively shared across their social graphs:  If a consumer tweets a photo of themselves holding the brand’s top product (“Here I am with my SuperWidget! I love this thing!”), it should not require special dispensation to RT that photo with a simple, “Thanks for your support! We love it too!”

If the brand has hired outside consultants or has paid relationships with bloggers or other Word-of-Mouth evangelists, it should be perfectly OK for those folks to re-share public announcements by that brand.  My friend told me that despite his publicly-disclosed relationship with a large tech brand, they disallowed him from re-tweeting one of their own (positive, public) posts.  The phrase, “WTF?” comes to mind.

Bizarrely, in my experience this is getting worse, not better. In the early days of Social Media, more often than not we ran across some perfectly reasonable lawyers.  I am not sure whether that was because they didn’t quite grok it in the first place, or because early social evangelists were perhaps more dogged in their demands, or because those earlier-days legalistas were so comfortable with brand standards that they saw no harm in sharing content developed by trusted brand insiders.  In any case, as Social Media has professionalized, so, it seems, have the watchdogs.

It’s kinda making things difficult.  And boring.

And that’s my Monday morning vent.

Every now and then I look away from my workaday RSS reader (also known as Twitter) and take a gander at my original Google Reader feeds.  There is so much good information in there (for free!); honestly, we should all view this as a veritable Golden Age for marketers who possess even an iota of curiosity about how-to do their jobs better.

For just one example, let’s say you’re a marketer who’s just now getting around to investigating the latest socnet craze, Pinterest.  You’ve been hearing about it for weeks but hey, jeez, c’mon, you’re busy!  But today your morning meeting gets canceled (hallelujah for “found time”) so you decide to dig in.  

Bingo. Thanks, TechCrunch, for this post titled “Everything You Need to Know About Pinterest” …

And that’s all well and good for basic stats (and yes, this Pinterest thingy sounds cool and important!), but, what are you supposed to DO with it? Bingo.  Thanks, Social Media Examiner, for this post on “26 Tips for Using Pinterest for Business.” 

That’s a good basic primer, but heck, this is fairly lite reading.  You’re only 15 minutes into your 60–minute set-aside of found time.  You want to go deeper?  Bingo.  Thank you, Scott Monty, for some in-depth perspectives on Pinterest, written in layman’s terms, and complete with additional (and invaluable) links to further reading.

You’re revving now. But you still question whether adding Pinterest to your already overburdened social strategy is the right call.  Well, a smart guy like Shel Holtz suggests giving it a whirl, though some guest writers at TechCrunch are willing to give you enough fodder to continue having second thoughts…in fact, they’ll give you 7 legitimate reasons why Pinterest isn’t ready for tech brands. 

Here’s my point: there are a jillion people out there who are willing to do your thinking for you.  That’s awesome.  But only you can pull the trigger.  Within minutes (literally), you can know enough about anything to know whether you want to try it out.

Do that basic research.  And understand that that’s probably all you need to know, to try. So try a lot.  Fail a lot.  Win a lot.  Learn a lot.  Then pay it forward.  That’s how this golden age will continue.

If you work in marketing, at some point in your career you’re likely to find yourself gravitating to certain disciplines.  Maybe you were originally hired as a marketing generalist but over time you’ve found yourself to be the go-to guy or gal on questions of ____ (fill-in-the-blank: Social Media, SEO, Email Marketing, and so on).

Is this a good thing?

Let me make one thing clear: it is not a bad thing.  Specialization has many benefits.  Becoming the go-to resource on anything can mean more $$$.  After all, as any rare book scout will tell you, “A book called ‘World History’ isn’t going to do well, but a book called ‘Peruvian Shovel Makers in the Seventeenth Century,’ that’s going to be worth a lot of money to someone.”

But.  There’s always a but.

The amazing era we live in is also marked by greater-than-typical levels of disenfranchisement and disintermediation, so as an individual and an organization, it’s worth being a bit wary.

I prefer an exceptional generalist to a subject matter expert.  The former can jump into nearly any situation and add value.  What happens to the subject matter expert when the subject is no longer relevant? 

I know, I know, you’re busy planning a trip to the Apple Store to buy that sexy new iPad, and coordinating your SxSW festivities with all the other Social Media cool kids.  Spare me just one minute (and maybe a congratulatory tweet, eh?)

Now that the news has broken in PRWeek, I am delighted to note that H&R Block returned to SHIFT’s roster this year.

We’re working under the auspices of my friend Scott Gulbransen, who leads the Social Media charge there, and with whom we’ve had the honor of working with at Sony Online Entertainment and Applebee’s, in years past.  Here’s the relevant PRWeek blurb:

“SHIFT is our partner in developing this content strategy, not only in implementing it, but in helping us grow it and mature it over time so we reach our objective, which is owning that tax conversation,” said Scott Gulbransen, director of social media at H&R Block. “Our goal is to own the tax conversation in America, and if we’re going to do that then we have to be a good content producer, and so [SHIFT is] helping us deploy that.”

SHIFT will also lead content strategy, creating infographic campaigns, developing content strategy and distribution, and advising on social media strategy. It will also facilitate content-syndication efforts and blogger relations, including working with third-party bloggers to develop content for H&R Block.

And here’s a quick-n-dirty video I was able to paste together after twisting Scott’s arm during my last visit to Kansas City (this guy is honestly up for anything, god bless him!):

We’ve already been on the case for a few weeks and are off to a running start! Special thanks to the entire team at H&R Block for a triumphant return to the SHIFT family.  This marks the FIFTH client to return to SHIFT’s roster after the Great Recession took its toll, and we could not be more delighted.

Last week Social Media Club launched its first ever fundraiser, which will help expand SMC’s efforts to meet our global missions of sharing best practices and promoting digital media literacy across more than 325+ chapters in 52 countries. As part of the effort, the leadership asked supporters to write their own “Social Media Club Story” (tagged #mysmcstory).

Here’s mine…

It was the very-first-ever meeting. Brian Solis was there.  Kristy Wells and Chris Heuer were there.  Sally Falkow and Tom Abate were there.  A handful more.  Van Hoosear.  Foremski.  I barely knew any of them at the time.  It was the first time I’d met Brian in person, for example.

I kinda had to be there (or so I explained to my wife, who was starting to wonder why I was never home!): the first agenda item was the Social Media Press Release, which was a big focus for folks like me, Tom Foremski, Heuer and Solis, et al. at the time.

The meeting was in a borrowed conference room, after-hours, in a non-descript Silicon Valley office.  Handmade signs led the way through empty corridors.  “What am I getting myself into? This is weird.”

But seated around the horseshoe-shaped conference tables sat a bunch of smart, committed, enthused, curious people who dispelled all doubts.  They got it.  They shared it.  OF COURSE I was supposed to be here.  For the first time in my 5–year stint in San Francisco, I felt like I was among kindred spirits.

After the meeting, a bunch of folks planned to grab dinner together.  I truly wanted to join.  But just then I got a frantic call from my wife: a litter of abandoned raccoon pups had wandered into our house!  She had rallied support from the neighbors and had captured the robber-faced rascals, but, ummmm – could I get my butt back to Danville to help dispose of the critters?  I hastily said my good-byes to Chris, Kristie, Brian, et al. and sped home.

To make a long story short, that very night of the first SMC meeting, at close to midnight, I found myself high in the Berkeley hills at a private residence-cum-wildlife preserve.  In the living room, as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do, a baby deer pranced up to us, and the lady of the house asked my wife to feed it from a baby bottle, while her hubby — oblivious to the commotion — watched a football game on a 60” tv that took up the entire wall of the tiny living room.

In other words, August 16, 2006, was among the most amazing nights of my life.  And that’s my (convoluted) #smcstory.

Please consider throwing a few bucks towards this worthy organization’s long-term growth.