Thank You For My Freedom

God Bless the fallen and our troops defending our freedom as I write this. Please take a moment to remember and honor all we have to be thankful for.

Source: Remember.gov

There’s always a contribution to be made. As you know, I am a passionate returned Peace Corps volunteer and AmeriCorps inaugural year volunteer. Find opportunities to help where you can at Serve.gov.

Though the Looking-Glass: What This Social Media Consultant Does

“What do you do,” asks an unknowing family, one-by-one. I oblige and explain, and yet am asked again, “what do you do?”

I guess the better question might be is, what does it mean to have a job on the cutting-edge, where business decisions are made around the increasingly credible idea that social media (formerly ‘new’ or ‘emerging’ media) might just save brands enough to make it through these tough economic times?

What I actually do is help business people – any people – how they can benefit from social media. Yes, that conversation – and my deliverables – usually involve money in some way, but it’s how our connections have shifted online that matters most.

How does one measure ROI (Return on Investment)? My answer: How do you measure word of mouth? It’s similar, except, in this case, many of the tactics can be tracked. Getting us closer to a real idea of what ROI is and in the meantime, worry about engagement, or participation, as concepts that are very real. There is a lot to be said for someone interacting with a ‘brand,’ as such.

But to family back home, I see a teeny bit of worry that I’m not capitalizing enough on my smarts or nouse… or whatever inexplexable adjective they might use to describe me.

Pressure To Make An ‘Under 40′ List

I don’t know if  it’s the Ivy League over-achiever in me or if I’m simply more competitive by nature than I realize, but I feel strangely panicky about having not made a 40 under 40 as yet.

It’s not as though I’ve achieved nothing; I earned the two Emmy noms under my belt… but recognition is important on a number of levels. As I get older, I find the need to be singled-out for achievement grows with one’s accomplishments.

Live Podcast: Featured Guest Sree Sreenivasan, Columbia Journalism Professor, Dean of Students and Former WNBC-TV Tech Reporter

[Editor's note: This post and podcast originally produced for Eastwick Communications here...]

Prof. Sreenath Sreenivasan

Those of you who know me know that I don’t scare easily… but today I’m feeling just a tad intimidated.

I could not be more pleased to welcome esteemed professor, dean of students and former WNBC-TV tech reporter Sree Sreenivasan to “Break though the Noise.”

As usual on the program, we discussed influence, the changing state of it and whole lot more.

[Click here to listen if the player above does not appear]

More Peace Corps. Bigger. Better. Bolder.

Today is the Peace Corps National Day of Action.

Very creative holiday wrapping paper from a friend and fellow volunteer.

It also happens to be the day I finally uploaded some of the many photos from my tour of duty in Turkmenistan.
A coinsidence, I think not!

The Peace Corps comes up for me on a nearly daily basis. In fact, I spoke on a panel about social media for non-profits last week and mentioned that I was a Peace Corps and AmeriCorps volunteer and that it was National Peace Corps week. I had instant connections with several people in the audience who came to me later to discuss their experiences in the Peace Corps, too.

So what’s the difference between National Peace Corps Week and the Peace Corps National Day of Action. Well, while last week was about sharing our stories with you. Today is about asking you to take action.

Peace Corps Week Kicks Off

Wow! I can hardly believe it’s been nearly 10 years since I returned from my work as a Peace Corps volunteer English teacher in Turkmenistan. Connecting flights in Azerbaijan… ah those were the days.

Why The Definition of ‘News’ Can Be More Inhibiting Than Helpful

Full disclosure: I worked in local and network TV news for more than a decade. I’m told that makes me a ‘veteran’ journalist. I’ve been lucky to have worked mostly on the frontier of the industry; I was the only ‘cyberjournalist’ I’d ever heard of when I signed on to be one in 1999 (proud employee 11 at ReacTV, rebranded Zatso, then gone with the first downturn). ‘New Media’ as we know it wasn’t even a coined term yet.

Didn’t Get To Go To The Inauguration, But My Plea Lives On…

I wasn’t sure I wanted to reveal this, but, what the heck.

 

Swearing in of President Barack Hussein Obama

After going back-and-forth on my own head, I decided to post this. I think, now more than ever, we should be sharing our stories of enduring humanity. Here’s my attempt…

Put simply, this inauguration means Possibility.

 

I almost went to President Bill Clinton’s inauguration (the first) as a student volunteer and organizer. I could not afford airfare, so I had to decline. This time around, it means even more. I cannot tell you how much this election has meant to me personally, but I’ll try.

 

Who’s Really Poor?: Confessions of a Journalist, Turned Peace Corps Volunteer, Turned Journalist Again, Turned Social Media Evangelist

 

Poverty…
 

To write about it is to see it. To experience it. To try to save people from it.

Hopefully.
 

Once upon a time, I was a TV reporter in my hometown. I was known – and to be known -  by anyone and everyone who knew my stories about last-dash Christmas shopping or Sarah McLachlan coming to town.

 
I often covered a different caliber of stories, though.

I covered the cases of hundreds of missing children, who were almost never found alive and were a constant reminder of, perhaps,  how the media lies in wait for tragedy to befall families. Often of little means, these families would wait, hold vigils and allow us access to their lives that would later make them recognized, for the most unsettling of reasons, at the local grocery store or pharmacy for the rest of their lives.

 

Jennifer reporting on the streets of New York City.

That was my early take on the media before I spent more than a decade reporting for the ‘big three’ and going to Columbia for my master’s. Somehow I knew if I didn’t take a break – a break to give back and help the plight of children – I would, by not making a decision to do otherwise, become bitter.

 

At 22, that’s a terrifying prospect.
 

So I searched my soul, looked back at the list I’d made a couple years earlier and embarked on the most testing experience of my life. I gave up being a local celeb to become a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkmenistan. It was one of the richest, most defining experiences of my life. I still remember a local journalist telling me at my going away party that he could never join the Peace Corps because one can’t be promised a working hair dryer.

Clips & Articles About Jennifer

Magazine, Newspaper & Web
Dinner with Sopranos is offer that’s hard to refuse (Contra Costa Times, Sept. 14, 2001) [theater review]
Jennifer as Peace Corps volunteer in Turkmenistan [written in Turkmen cyrillic, 1998-1999 *Translation to come]
In Action (Page 5, The New California Democrat, Vol. 4 – Winter 1994-95) [DLC of California]
Journey of Love (Clovis Independent-Fresno Bee, Sept. 4-10, 1994) [Peace Corps]
Washington Bound (Fresno Bee, June 10, 1993)
Day of Champions (Fresno County Board of Supervisors Resolution, April 21, 1992) [Declared in part due to Jennifer's national collegiate debate ranking]