I Hate to be Cliche, but...

... it is December 31st, and it's possible I'm the only person working today. (At least, working until noon, when my office closes.) That being the case, it seemed like the right time to blog. Plus, during my morning scan of a variety of websites and blogs, I came across a post that got me thinking.

One of my favorite sites, for its educational value and it's snarkiness (and let's be honest, most of us enjoy some good snarkiness) is the Bad Pitch Blog. (To their credit, those who get 'snarked' at by the site's bloggers deserve it. And seriously, if you haven't checked out the Bad Pitch Blog, do so. It's an invaluable learning tool for any PR professional.)

Anyway, the Bad Pitch Blog had a post about Industry Predictions and New Year's Resolutions.

So in the spirit of the season, my New Year's Resolutions for this blog and for CCG:

1. To continue to put together top-notch monthly lunches (okay, an obvious one, but important nonetheless).
2. To make this blog a more vibrant community, which means: more posts (so you all will make this one of your morning must-reads) and more contributions from speakers and the CCG community. Please, let me know what you want to see here. Do you want this to just be your site for updates on our lunches, i.e., not a true blog? Or do you want more?

My New's Resolutions for work:

1. OK, so maybe this is every PR professional's goal, but it's important anyway: To create better pitches that result in more significant coverage for my employer.
2. To get at least one good, meaty story in The Washington Post. (Though truthfully, I'd really love 3 or 4. But maybe that's just greedy.)
3. To keep my office organized.

And, of course, my New Year's Resolution for my personal life:

1. Less clutter at home. (The "I get distracted" reason as to why there are piles of stuff everywhere only appeases my husband so much.)
2. I'd say "Get better about working out" or "Eat better" or some of that nonsense, but I've decided to be more realistic this year. Sure, I'd love to work out consistently or eat fewer morning pastries, but making that a resolution will probably only lead to disappointment. So why do it, right?

And now, I want to turn this over to you, my 2 or 3 readers? Any New Year's Resolutions you'd like to share? Or feedback on what you'd like to see from CCG and/or this blog?

-- Robin

January Lunch...

Howdy Partner: How to Bring Together a Coalition of Agencies, Companies, and Other Entities to Work on a Larger Initiative

Wednesday, January 30, 2008
noon – 1:30 p.m.

District Chophouse
509 7th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004

Speakers:

• Nick Ramfos, Director of Commuter Connections, Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
• Holly Menninger, Public Policy Associate and COPUS Activities Manager, American Institute of Biological Sciences

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An email will be sent out to CCG members in early January asking for RSVPs for this event.

If you're not currently a CCG member and would like to become one so that you hear about this and future CCG lunches, send your name, title, employer, and email address to the group at capitalcommunicator (at) gmail (dot) com.

Linked In...

Since we launched this blog in response to our lunch about Web 2.0 and new media and the like, it only seems fitting that the next topic to inspire a post is, in fact, again about this topic.

I've been on LinkedIn for a few months now. I've been slowly and methodically collecting friends... or whatever it is you call your contacts on LinkedIn. I know a lot of people like to go out there and link up with everyone, but I've been much slower in doling out invitations. (I've also found it very interesting to watch who proactively tries to connect with me.)

That said, I have my first story of seeing some action come from my LinkedIn membership. I got an email this week from a colleague. The colleague recently heard about a very promising job opportunity at a local company. So what did he do? Well, he didn't just send in his resume.

Instead, he surfed through the networks belonging to his LinkedIn contacts, and saw that I was connected to someone at that company. He sent me an email asking if I would be willing to make an introduction to my link so that he could find out more about the job. He also graciously said he totally understood if I wasn't comfortable doing so.

Are you kidding me?! I was happy to do so, and not only because I think highly of him and his work ethic. This was the new social media at work... The first time I'd been able to actually get involved in a real LinkedIn transaction. I'm excited. And I hope the connection works for him.

Maybe there really is something to this whole LinkedIn phenomenon after all...

-- Robin

Welcome...

Last week, the Capital Communicators Group resumed its monthly lunches with a presentation about "Blogs, Social Networking Sites, and More: How to Use New Media Tools in Your Communications Outreach."

After a presentation like that, how could we not start a blog?

As we start this blog, the three CCG officers will be posting entries:

-- President Robin Ferrier
-- Vice President and Treasurer Joe Balintfy
-- CCG Founder Mark Oswell.

We also encourage you to make comments on what we say. And if you're a CCG member with a good idea for a post on any communications topic, please send it to us to post on your behalf. (With enough high-quality posts, we may ask you to post directly.)

So what will this blog be? Posts debating communications issues, posts about upcoming lunches, posts with information from past lunches, posts about current events that relate to communications topics... So basically, all things CCG.

During the last lunch, one of our presenters said the average number of readers for any blog is 1. By having three contributors, we know we've already beat the average, but I have to admit, I'd like to crush that average. So please, start reading and keep reading. And let us know what you think.

-- Robin