I’m extremely excited to announce that on October 31 I’ll be joining the Wildfire Interactive client services team as Social Media Strategist.

In my new role I’ll be working with brands and business to help develop and evolve their social media marketing strategy. I’m excited to get to use the Wildfire platform to do so. The company provides an impressive set of sophisticated technology that power a wide range of marketing tactics. The technology is built for brand marketers to easily create engaging promotions inside of Facebook and online, without custom or expensive development.

For me, professionally, the move is different but familiar. Wildfire is a software company and I’ve spent the last two years in PR at Boston communications agency Cone. However, the role is still as a social marketing strategist and in client services. I’ll be able to continue the work that I started at Cone, helping brands use new media to find creative solutions to business goals. I’m incredibly excited to have access to Wildfire tools to do so.

The move ends my time with Cone, an agency where I spent two years cutting my teeth on some amazing accounts with bright, impressive and hardworking colleagues. For me moving to an emerging tech company that is blazing a trail in new media marketing satisfies two of my professional appetites. It will be hard to say goodbye to Cone and all the amazing people I’ve been able to learn from over the past my time there.

The new position will also send me into the heart of the tech world. Wildfire’s offices are located in Redwood City, California near the Facebook offices and other giants of the tech and social media world. I’m excited to live in beautiful San Francisco and get to know the bay area just as I’ve gotten to know and love Boston in my three years here. I’m bummed to leave my network of friends in Boston. The people here have changed my life and I know without them I wouldn’t be where I am. I’m equally pumped to join my friends in the bay area and build new relationships.

If you’re reading this and want to connect in Boston before I leave please let me know!

-MA

Take a couple of minutes to watch the video below to learn more about Wildfire. In August Robert Scobel talked with Founder and CEO Victoria Ransom in the new Wildfire offices about the company and her how she has been able to build such a successful company.

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Today you got an email from Gmail about Buzz…. ?

Email - is the pre-eminent method of communication in the 21st century, the telegraph or telephone of it’s day. Gmail - is the best, most used and email provider. They are revolutionary in their thinking, for instance, it integrates seamlessly with: docs, calendar, alerts, voice and many other free productivity and communication tools (All of which are provide by Google). Buzz is the bastard child of Wave (yet another free communication tool from Google) A “failure” by Google’s standards buzz will become defunct soon.

So back to your email from Gmail - Somebody (“we were sued by a group of Buzz users”) sued the balls out of Google because buzz violated their privacy. Now I won’t debate privacy – it’s a different thing to different people – as a Millennial I understand if you put things online they are simply not private and am OK with that, in fact I applaud it.

Back to the email from Gmail. In this email Google explains that if you use Gmail – then you are part of the lawsuit and that as part of the lawsuit $8.5 Million (a drop in the bucket) will be set aside by the search giant to promote privacy education and policy on the web. What’s really shocking is that Google emailed all of it’s Gmail users – publically airing the egg on the company’s face.

This appalls me because Google offers such an amazing and forward thinking set of communication SaaS tools (software as a service) and now due to the concerns of a small group they will rethink releasing new products. Their lawyers from now on will be a huge function of any release – effectively killing anything new and revolutionary (or at least stunting its growth). It really is a sad day for the internet and sets back a lot of what forward thinking companies like Google and what they are trying to do – innovate – as well as sets a dangerous precedent for similar companies.

A final thought:
While I do show a great deal of empathy for Google/Gmail/Buzz here I think it’s a cowardly move to send this email on election night – effectively killing the press’s instant reaction to the situation.

If you can pull yourself away from tonight’s political politics, I’d appreciate your thoughts on the internet’s.

The Email:
“Google rarely contacts Gmail users via email, but we are making an exception to let you know that we’ve reached a settlement in a lawsuit regarding Google Buzz (http://buzz.google.com), a service we launched within Gmail in February of this year.

Shortly after its launch, we heard from a number of people who were concerned about privacy. In addition, we were sued by a group of Buzz users and recently reached a settlement in this case.

The settlement acknowledges that we quickly changed the service to address users’ concerns. In addition, Google has committed $8.5 million to an independent fund, most of which will support organizations promoting privacy education and policy on the web. We will also do more to educate people about privacy controls specific to Buzz. The more people know about privacy online, the better their online experience will be.

Just to be clear, this is not a settlement in which people who use Gmail can file to receive compensation. Everyone in the U.S. who uses Gmail is included in the settlement, unless you personally decide to opt out before December 6, 2010. The Court will consider final approval of the agreement on January 31, 2011. This email is a summary of the settlement, and more detailed information and instructions approved by the court, including instructions about how to opt out, object, or comment, are available at http://www.BuzzClassAction.com.

——————————————————————–
This mandatory announcement was sent to all Gmail users in the United States as part of a legal settlement and was authorized by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Google Inc. | 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway | Mountain View, CA 94043

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Hello! After listening to a podcast today on imedaconnection from Nalts, a YouTube star and soc med video consultant I decided to create this video. If you don’t know me that well give it a watch and then go make your own! YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web and you should own your search there. Be brave – Record Video.

-Marcus

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“Find a partner and build a team. No one changes the world alone.” – Alan Khazei

As part of the live video podcast Rule53 Alan Khazei brought his passion for social entrepreneurship and his experience founding City Year to a room of young entrepreneurs Sunday the 22^nd.

The podcast – a production of DartBoston – pairs a proven entrepreneur with an under 30 Boston professional who has an early stage startup. On Sunday Alan was paired with Ashli Stempel a Northeastern senior who is founding PULSE. PULSE is a non-for-profit with a mission to help juvenile offenders transition back into their communities through activity based workshops.

The event brought out some of Boston’s young bright stars including entrepreneurs, social media folks and tenacious students. Based on my informal pole post event (“Hey, what did you think?”) The crowd was genuinely impressed by Alan’s deep experiences as a business man, entrepreneur and social activist. Alan’s ability to articulate and transfer his knowledge and experiences maybe his greatest strength as a public speaker. Several times during the show he provided one line bits of genius:

“We need a system to celebrate social entrepreneurs, like the system for entrepreneurs.”

“You need 5 people to start a project…you need a team”

“Sun Tzu – every battle is one or lost before it is fought….it’s not the battle, it’s the training and preparation.”

The show centered on how Alan was able to establish City Year and then turn it into such a successful non-for-profit. He also talked about how he had to fight to keep Americorps (modeled after City Year) alive after funding was cut for the program. This transitioned nicely into Alan telling the story of why he is running for senate. He made a great name for himself as a champion for big citizenship at City Year and that’s what he wants to bring to the senate.

There are 9 days left before the special elections on the 8^th. I hope you all get out and vote and choose someone who will be the kind of person you want in the senate. I’ve been working with the Khazei campaign for the last month and he is the candidate I want to fill Ted Kennedy’s old seat. He is a savvy business man, a tough negotiator and the peoples champion.

If Alan wins this election it will be because of a groundswell of support from citizens. It wont be because of money, TV ads, political leverage. I find this one of the most attractive ideas behind this campaign.

The word-of-mouth for Alan’s run, generated by the event was tremendous. The live podcast reached an online and offline audience of over 50 people and the video has since been watched over 100 times. The link to the show was shared on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and through email and was clicked through by over 300 people. On Twitter over 30 people sent over 100 tweets to a combined network of 27,020 people.

You can watch the whole show here:

Alan Khazei and Ashli Stempel – Rule53 DartBoston

If you are reading this you are probably involved with social media or online communications in some fashion. If this is indeed true I think you will be impressed by the support that Alan has demonstrated for our community and his understanding of the big ideas behind it. The video below expresses this.

I would love to hear your thoughts about how Alan can improve his chances in these final days. As always I appreciate any and all comments!

Thanks

-Marcus

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Startup companies amaze me, better said the people behind startups amaze me. I’m attracted to the entrepreneurial spirit like a moth to bright lights. There is something just sexy about the excitement and risk involved that makes this game so much fun.

When I moved to Boston I got a job at a startup and it was a wild ride, now that I’m no longer working there I’ve started doing it myself as a social media consultant. I attend young entrepreneur networking and development events each week and soak up their tales of success, failure and ingenuity. I have been meeting more and more with young entrepreneurs in coffee shops, bars and living rooms to help them figure out how they can use social media tools and enter the content game.

What I have been seeing is that each business no matter where it is in the development stage comes with a philosophy. These young entrepreneurs are very passionate and it’s because they have a mission behind their work that drives them. You ask them about the weather and in an instant they have you convinced that their product of service is going to change the world.

That’s why it blows my mind when I ask these people if they are blogging or creating content and they say “Well, I’m not really sure what to talk about”. The internet is the greatest platform in the world for disseminating information about your passion. And also it’s not just one-way! You get to hear from all those people who love your idea, can help you, want your product or have criticisms you need to hear.

Are you a young entrepreneur who wants to, build a network, get feed back, build an army, sell product, make connections, change the world, get VC funding and get credit? Of course you are! So then you need to get into the content game. Start a blog, blog everyday about what you know best for 30 days and see what happens. Keep track of twitter followers, readers, traffic, comments and leads. I’m positive that at the end of those 30 days you will have more defined goals, know your business better, have a ton of contacts, build your personal brand and become an expert in online communications.

Do you have a brilliant idea for entrepreneurs to use when getting started? Please share.

Thanks to Beepie K for the photo and @GaryVee for the inspiration.

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