That’s about all I have to say or will comment about as far as social media and work are concerned, because, well, I can’t use social media for business purposes.

Safe to say that so long as I’m not talking shop on Facebook or drumming up business anywhere other than my standard issue email address and phone number, I can blog about my personal interactions with social and digital media in the field of online marketing. Right?

No, seriously. Tell me I’m right. Tell me I can write about cool new work or perplexing issues in the interactive marketing realm so long as it doesn’t mention my day job.

Please tell me you agree.

I’ve seen some companies that ask their employees to include a disclaimer that says that their opinions and words are not representative of the company for which they are employed. Other companies have multi-page acceptable use policies. Or, in the case of my previous employer, there was no policy at all… other than don’t do anything dumb.

So while a more formal social media policy is in the works at work, I will try to err on the side of caution while still trying to be a productive member of blogging society.

In the mean time, please tell me what you think about the intersection of personal and occupational social media use.

The ANA is an organization comprised mostly of in-house marketing and advertising departments from very well known American companies. The organization provides a wealth of resources on its website including research and presentations from other members and hosts conferences year round, all over the country. This was my first time attending an ANA event.

So needless to say, it was a great opportunity to attend the conference and hear presentations from some very popular consumer brands. My favorite part of the conference was hearing case studies from the companies that experienced the challenges (and successes) of implementing mobile marketing projects. Honestly, I was astounded by the openness of these companies to share this experiences with everyone.

My absolute favorite part of the day was hearing about H&R Block’s mobile app development. The presenter did a great job of recalling the ins and outs of the project and providing very useful “lessons learned.”

My least favorite part was hearing from the agencies that presented. I got the impression that some of the presenters were talking down to the attendees as they spoke about how to develop a mobile strategy and things to consider when undertaking a mobile marketing project. I am extra sensitive to this because the first thing I look for when working with a vendor is the potential for partnership. Any given agency might know more about their product or technology, but it’s important to me that I can collaborate with them to make the best possible project.

Now that the conference is over and I am working on a presentation to share with my colleagues, I am chomping at the bit to work on mobile projects!

I didn’t quite know what to expect from the conference, but I was excited to have the opportunity to find out. The crowd seemed to be a healthy mix of in-house IT and project management folks, with a sprinkling of agency account execs, web designers and developers.

Because I attended with several of my colleagues at Edward Jones, we tried to divide and conquer the 26 different presentations and break-out sessions. I attended the following presentations:

• Ignite STL UX 2011
• The quality of use metric
• UX and Marketing Research: Why we have to work together
• Qualitative/Quantitative: Learn more about your users with Web analytics
• Viral loops: Building self-marketing applications
• Using UX and web analytics to redesign a site to optimize conversion
• They sell farm equipment? Redesigning Monsanto’s Corporate Homepage
• Keynote Presentation: David Gray – “Game Storming”

In many cases, I felt that the analytics-related presentations were too high-level. The 50-minute time slots didn’t give a lot of time to get down and dirty. So often it was more of an introduction to the topic, rather than a deep dive. This was a major bummer for me, because I am taking on the responsibility of building more in-depth measurement profiles for my projects.

My favorite presentation was Josh Jeffryes’ Viral Loops: Making Self-Marketing Apps because he really got me thinking about the importance of social incentives when designing new sites/products/applications. He was also gracious enough to answer all of my crazy questions!

One thing I regret about the conference was that I did not take advantage of any networking opportunities. Since I was new to the conference and to the group, there were a lot of new faces and I didn’t get to talk to anyone. Since I followed along with the conference on Twitter ( @STL_UX), I know there were lots of conversations taking place. Oh, well, there’s always next year!

Were you at the conference? If so, what did you think?

Recently a client request came through my office for an illustrator that does real time drawings of meetings. The idea behind the concept is that written notes are more apt to be biased and meaning distorted than if an artist sketches the conversation.

This was a particularly interesting concept to me, as I like to think of myself as a “words” person.

1. I like lists.
2. And neatly spaced grids.
3. And bullets.
4. And paragraphs upon paragraphs of 12th-grade-reading-level prose with phenomenal topic sentences.
5. Uncharacteristically, I am also starting to appreciate a well-organized flow-chart.

But words CAN be extremely limiting. Limited by personal vocabulary, by listening comprehension, by connotation and by the language itself.

The best example I can think of is how you explain the middle-ground between liking and loving someone. There isn’t a word in English, at least one that I can think of, that adequately explains the feeling of liking someone more than a casual acquaintance without the full-on connotation of love. Thus, the term “LIKE like.”

Person 1: “I like Chris.”

Person 2: “Do you like Chris, or do you LIKE like Chris?”

Okay, I admit that is probably a horrible example…

Which is a great example of how words can be limiting! (You fell right into that one, didn’t you?)

Anyways, the whole reason that I wrote this post was to share a link with you. But I won’t share the link until I explain who posted it first. My college friend Wendy (you might remember her from the Books for Cameroon project this past fall) amazes me with her ability to learn new languages and successfully interact in many cultures that are very different from each other.

Wendy was born in Taiwan, moved to Missouri in elementary school, studied and interned abroad in London and Paris, and, most recently, spent 2 years in Cameroon, West Africa, serving as a Peace Corps volunteer. She speaks more languages than anyone else I have ever met. She learns new ones for fun. One day, Wendy will probably rule the world, and be able to talk to everyone about it in their native languages.

She shared a link via her Twitter account from the Wall Street Journal on how language influences culture. The article goes beyond the cliche “how-many-words-for-snow-do-eskimos-have” and provides some very interesting facts on the effects of language and perception of reality on criminal justice, politics and economics – see the bit about Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson and the wardrobe malfunction for proof.

But lately I have been surprised by the number of business people I have come across that do not understand the cost (or, more importantly, VALUE) associated with interactive marketing and making digital efforts congruent with other marketing activities.

Grace Smith does a great job providing a basic explanation regarding the process behind quality strategy development and interactive marketing execution in her blog post, “Why Web Design Doesn’t Cost £40.”

There are certainly opportunities to scale pricing, design, technology and even the skill-level of people doing work to cater to clients’ budgets and there are certainly resources that can provide “a” solution for whatever budget a client determines.

But for me the biggest hurdle to any quality project is client education. Having to opt out of negotiations because the client and the agency are not on the same page regarding project scope or objectives is the absolute worst. Having a project end sour because of poor communication regarding expectations and deliverables sucks. Every decision-maker cannot take the time out of their full-time responsibilities to learn all there is to know about the web. Not everyone is willing to trust an agency to guide strategy. It’s my goal on my projects to make the process a little less painless and to develop trust with my potential clients.

A few things I have been working on to ease the pain of these scenarios include:

1. Upfront communication about process, deliverables, timeline and budget
2. Set measurable objectives at onset of the project to evaluate success of initiatives
3. Document, document, document everything
4. Keep up to date on latest solutions
5. Really understand my clients’ businesses, challenges and motivations

Do yourself a favor and take 35 minutes to watch this documentary called Lemonade that chronicles the big things that former ad agency employees were able to do once they were given the gift of losing their job.

During this recession, I have watched fellow colleagues get the pink slip. I have watched friends struggle to find jobs and go on countless interviews. Question their worthiness. Despair over their future. I’ve feared for my own future.

But as these strangers stories will attest, there truly is something to the phrase, “a blessing in disguise.”

Knowing that I work in interactive marketing where 99% of our products are never even printed out onto a laser jet, I started reflecting on how much has changed in my industry, and our world, in the last thirty years.

My mom took computer classes where they used punch cards. My grandpa was on the original ARPAnet team. I remember the days of DOS. And here I am today.

I wonder what the future holds for technology, marketing, and, well, my life.

In a semi-related note, my childhood friend, Lauren, just had her first cover story published in Southwest Airlines Spirit magazine. Her article is about obsolescent technology. Read it! http://www.spiritmag.com/features/article/last_tech/

Then I started reading the Clients from Hell blog and found that sometimes these sorts of things can be humorous.

Today, they posted a Dilbert cartoon:

Not going to name names or anything, but seriously… this happens to me at least once a week.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

While at times it can be very frustrating (and humorous) to provide client services to people who do not understand web design and development, I really do enjoy educating people about the process.

Now if only they would trust me to provide them with good counsel!