Who I am:

Digital marketing strategist with 15+ years of professional experience — eight years in the financial services industry — with specific knowledge of socially responsible investing and alternative asset classes. FINRA licenses 6, 26, and 63.

Who I really am:

Father, former writer and musician; INTP but not a complete misfit.

What I’m looking for:

The ideal position would be within the marketing department of a financial services company or at an agency that caters to the finance industry.  Job title would resemble the following: E-business Lead; Digital Marketing Strategist; E-Commerce Director; Online Marketing Manager et al. But I have many interests and areas of knowledge and would be open to other opportunities.

Reasons to Hire Me:

I know stuff. And if I don’t know the answer, I know where to find it. Everything from web analytics to Google Adwords to Facebook apps to FINRA compliance to what it’s like to drive an ice cream truck in November. Just ask.

I can do stuff. The natural evolution of a career takes you from accomplishing tasks to assigning them — and mine is no different — but I think it’s important to always have one foot in the trenches. I’m great with Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Excel, Mac or Windows, you name it.

I can juggle. I mean this figuratively…and literally. Throw projects at me and I will keep them running. Throw machetes at me and, if I am not mortally wounded, I will juggle them.

—> My Resume <—

Since our first child was born in 2004, we’ve had a Christmas policy:

• DON’T give us any  stuff.
• DO give stuff to our kids.
• DO donate to a good cause instead of giving us stuff.
• We’ll do the same for you and your kids.

For the most part, our family has adhered to this policy, although a few cable-knit sweaters still sneak under the tree each year.

This year we’ve given to several organizations, and I thought I’d zoom in on those we gave to via Help Attack!, which enables you to pledge to nonprofits every time you post something to Facebook or Twitter. Below are the organizations we supported in 2011. The links go to a pledge page on the Help Attack! website.

Health Alliance for Austin Musicians

Mobile Loaves & Fishes

Sierra Club Foundation

Southwest Key Programs

St. Baldricks Foundation

Sundt Memorial Foundation

Wikimedia Foundation

Help Attack! was not the only means by which we gave to charity in 2011, and none of our donations through Help Attack! were large (the median was around $20). But by using Help Attack! we definitely gave more than we ordinarily would have, and to a greater number of nonprofits.

However you choose to give, as you check off those last-minute gift lists, consider giving to a great cause in lieu of wrapped gifts that ultimately wind up in a landfill. (Not that I don’t love cable-knit sweaters, Grandma.)

Happy New Year!

Inbox Zero — the alleged ideal of emptying your email inbox at the end of every day — is a dumb waste of time.  It’s a trap that makes you feel guilty about your supposed disorganization. It makes you a slave to — not master of — your software. It is a pointless exercise in anal retentiveness. Shall I go on?

I tried Inbox Zero for awhile. It was fun at first and then became Sisyphean. Each new email produced anxiety, like, “how DARE you soil my precious mailbox?” Now, while I am not above using the nuclear option (aka Select-All-Delete), I employ a saner approach to email management.

The most crucial element of my approach is the ability to archive, rather than permanently delete, your email. Gmail does this by default. Outlook has enterprise add-ons like EmailXTender that do the same thing, even when space is restricted for individual users.  Once you have the peace-of-mind of being able to retrieve old emails, you can be totally cavalier about deleting them.

So which ones do you delete, and when? I usually have a live-and-let live attitude toward my mountain of email, deleting most as a I go but also allowing them to pile up for awhile. But there always comes a point at which I’m uncomfortable with the clutter and want it to go away. For you, this point may come once a week, once a month, or once a year. For me it seems to be about every three months. When this point comes, this is what I do:

1. Sort by sender and delete all the unread newsletters and spam you’re never going to read. Also the ones from that one ass-head who forwards chain letters and six-year-old internet memes.
2. Sort by date and delete everything older than a month or two. An email that’s been sitting around that long either (a) wasn’t important to begin with, (b) has already been dealt with, or (c) is now so old that it would be embarrassing to deal with. If this step scares you, remember you’re only archiving things, not permanently deleting them.
3. Go through what’s left. Respond and delete appropriately. If there are some you can’t deal with and don’t want to trash, leave them alone and don’t feel guilty about it. Most likely you’ll trash it when you follow Step #2 again in a few months.

And that’s pretty much it. Since allowing a little inbox chaos in my life, I feel saner and happily imperfect. And I never seem to have a problem finding old emails when I need them.

Want more of my thoughts on Inbox Zero? See my post on Get Off My Lawn.

I was being snarky when I created this pie chart, posted here on July 11:

But I was also being serious. Hashtags are overused, especially by marketers. Too many hashtags will make your tweets unreadable and will alienate your followers. You should ask yourself these questions before adding a hashtag to a tweet.

Is anyone ever going to search for information based on that hashtag?

And by “anyone” I mean “anyone sane.” There are lots of useful hashtags, especially those that identify a shared experience like a conference or live TV show. But overly broad hashtags like #web #marketing #guru only clutter your tweets. Anyone clicking that type of hashtag is clearly insane and you don’t want them in your life.

Follow @imtheq

Follow @BryanAndaya

Is it funny?

 You be the judge.

Follow @thesulk

Follow @meganamram

Is it part of a meme?

Tread carefully: If you’re trying to start a meme with a hashtag you will most likely fail.

Follow @_snape_

Follow @satellitehigh

Any questions? Did I miss anything?

Back in March I wrote about how to use Facebook lists to manage who sees what you post on Facebook. Since then Google+ has launched as a direct competitor to Facebook, and Facebook has quickly incorporated some of Google’s best features into their interface. But one thing Facebook is having trouble copying — despite best attempts — is the “Circles” feature.

Circles, on Google+, are pretty much the same thing as Facebook lists: a way to organize your contacts into groups, so you can choose what to share with whom. The difference is that Circles are intrinsic to Google+. You can’t not use them. On Facebook, however, chances are you don’t use lists, and if you wanted to use lists you would have to spend a lot of time hand-selecting which list to add which friends to. Total pain in the behind.

Advantage: Google.

I use Circles to sort people into friends (with whom I can be utterly juvenile and profane), family, acquaintances (e.g. people I know from Twitter only), and colleagues (with whom I share almost nothing – HA!).  It’s easy to do, and easy to create new Circles on the fly.

Why don’t you join me?

I have a new post on Get Off My Lawn. This one is about Mensa, the High IQ Society.

In response to the popularity of social networks, I have launched a first-of-its-kind “antisocial network.” Stay tuned for career opportunities.

I have a guest post on biking to work, culled from a series of tweets dashed off in rapid succession. See it here.

I’ve subscribed to the New Yorker for over 10 years. I consider it the greatest magazine the world has ever produced but I recognize that part of its appeal is that it makes you feel like a member of an exclusive club of sophisticated Manhattan liberals. There is just enough low-brow, off-beat content to keep the snobbishness from being insufferable, but even as you read profiles of B-list celebrities like Anna Faris, or extensive reportage on tugboats and tugboat owners, you visualize the typical New Yorker reader chuckling ironically in a tweed suit.

Since the New Yorker started a Facebook page, the curtain has been lifted on the New Yorker’s audience. Sifting through comments on the New Yorker’s Wall, it’s not surprising that readers seem, well, pretty normal. If the magazine catered exclusively to Manhattan neuroscientists and avant-garde, found-object sculptor/dancers, it would be a mimeographed newsletter, not a mass-market juggernaut with an 85-year history and a million subscribers.

But it was when the New Yorker experimented with Facebook-only content that New Yorker readers revealed themselves to be as ugly and petty as YouTube commenters. (Well, almost.) The content in question was a long rumination by Jonathan Franzen on the suicide of his friend David Foster Wallace, and what it means to be engaged enough with life to choose to keep living. There was stuff about bird-watching and Robinson Crusoe, too, because this is the New Yorker after all. I found the article mesmerizing and touching. Facebook fans, not so much.

Comments fell into three general camps:

1. People who were pissed about the whole campaign in general. (I couldn’t find the fans-only tab, either.)

2. Armchair critics.

3. Ad hominem attacks. (The worst of which was removed but here’s one of the responses.)

4. The sane.

The New Yorker’s participation in social media raises an interesting problem for them, which is best summed up with the over-cited Groucho Marx quote about not joining any club that would have him as a member. The New Yorker preserves its mystique by not making celebrities of its editors (there’s no masthead) and by making readers feel like they’re part of an exclusive club. Now we learn that that club is not so exclusive after all. New Yorker readers are just as petty and flawed as anyone else, regardless of how many degrees they hold.

What should the New Yorker do in the brave new social media world? They could bury their heads in the sand, go back to printing in black-and-white and taking down their website and Facebook page. Or they could slog along, experimenting, taking risks, making mistakes, releasing iPad apps, podcasts, video, and yes even “fans-only” content. Despite the failure of the Franzen experiment (and I do think it was a failure) businesses must evolve or die. So go for it New Yorker, keep pushing forward, no one knows for sure what will or won’t work, there are no social media “experts,” go with your gut and treat us like guinea pigs. Even if I do need to find a snootier club to join.