Todd Andrlik is asking online friends to help his sister, Tricia, who “on March 20, 2008 … was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer called invasive lobular carcinoma. Quite the shocker.”

The family is asking for both financial and emotional support as Tricia deals with what she has described as being like “two cars slamming head-on, my world was rocked”

As a cancer survivor, this touched me, and I made a donation. If you’re doing well, grateful for your health, family, friends, and lot in life, it’s a nice thing to do, and only takes a minute.

Tags: toddand, Todd, Andrlik, tricia, 4tricia.com, breast cancer, invasive lobular carcinoma, masectomy

I’ve been invited to give a 60-minute presentation on Social Media Newsrooms at the 2008 Corporate Communication & Social Media Revolution Summit, sponsored by eBay and Ragan Communications.

The conference is open to the public and will be held August 13-15, 2008, at eBay’s headquarters, 2145 Hamilton Avenue in San Jose, California. My session, The Social Media Newsroom: News Now. Everywhere. will take place August 14, from 2:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m.

I hope you’ll join me at the conference! I’m interested in Social Media Newsroom case studies to include in the presentation. Please comment below or email me with links, suggestions, etc. Thank you!

The conference is not yet listed on Ragan’s web site. I will update this as more information becomes available.

Tags: social media revolution conference, ragan communications, ebay, social media newsrooms

Not too long ago Robert Peek, a PR professional and Director of Corporate Communications at Jacksonville Port Authority, criticized me for using an obscene/profane word in a column I write for Talent Zoo. Robert felt my use of the word was “gratuitous” and not in keeping with who I am and the kind of work I do (corporate communications in particular). So I asked the webmaster to edit the column for me to remove the offending word.

I had called b******* on corporate communicators who claimed ignorance of social media ethics or suggested that emerging media was a frontier of communications that presented new and unforeseen ethical challenges. These claims are a dodge, the timeless virtues of ethical behavior still apply, and it’s not that hard to know when you are being deceptive or manipulative. Unless of course you’re immoral to begin with. But I digress.

Robert made some excellent points, and responded unemotionally and with a well reasoned argument against my use of the word. After some reflection, I decided to change the editorial, replacing b******* with Nice try. I even turned to a colleague, fellow Talent Zoo columnist Jocelyn Brandeis of JBLH Communications, who gave me invaluable help with the edit. It works almost as well and has changed the editorial from PG-13 to G. This was a case in which I felt I needed to honor the conversational aspect of social media. What good are a blog, RSS feeds, pings, trackbacks and commenting if I ignore the comments and criticisms I get? I certainly don’t ignore the praise.

Which leads me to the questions in this post’s title. Was I influenced by Robert, or was I censored? Was changing the editorial, something I have rarely done except in the case of a fact error or misspelling, a valid compromise or did I compromise my integrity? You’re the experts. What do you think?

Tags: editorial integrity, obscenity, profanity, joel postman, robert peek, influence, censorship, Jocelyn Brandeis

I believe the value of each of your social networks increases as you add more people. This week I’m trying to add new connections on LinkedIn. The number of followers I have on Twitter has grown quickly, though I am no Jason Calcanis, and my Facebook friends list has grown, albeit at a slower pace. There is probably a point of diminishing returns, but I have not yet reached it.

I am using a social network strategy I call cross-promotion to seek new connections. (I don’t claim to have invented this, maybe I named it.) For example, I assume most of the people I talk to on Twitter would make suitable LinkedIn contacts, so I post the following on Twitter:

“Launching shameless campaign to add LinkedIn connections: http://www.linkedin.com/in/joelpostman“

(Go ahead, click it!)

I’m not really shameless. All networks have barriers to adding connections, and LinkedIn is probably one of the most restrictive. There is value in trust, and in selecting the people you connect with, but too many controls limit the effectiveness of the network. (Facebook didn’t really explode until it was opened to “everyone” instead of requiring members to have a school e-mail address.)

And on the right sidebar of my blog are links under a heading “Add Me,” so I make no secret I want to add people.

LinkedIn makes this hard to do. LinkedIn requires certain information before allowing you to invite a potential connection. LinkedIn also has a convention called the “IDK.” When you send an invitation to someone, they can accept, or indicate “I Don’t Know (the sender).” If you get five IDKs, you can be thrown off of LinkedIn. LinkedOut as it were.

There are workarounds, large and small. I found (and others have, too) you can indicate you know someone from a Group or Association and then enter anything you want. I was entering “Twitter” for Twitter friends, but then added “Blog” for people I met through blogs. I think everyone should just enter “Hominids” from now on.

For those interested in adding large numbers of LinkedIn connections, check out LinkedIn LIONS (LinkedIn Open Network.) According to the LIONS charter:

“Open Networks = Growing High-Quality Networks. Closed Networks = Stagnating Low-Quality Networks”

A friend also recommend I check out MyLink500.com, which she described as a “promiscuous” LinkedIn network.

It’s interesting that these LinkedIn techniques are viewed as “back doors” and “hacks,” or grassroots community causes vs. features of the network. (Colin Carmichael called this a “hack” on his blog. Thanks for the link love, Colin!) Perhaps this allows LinkedIn to attempt the kind of growth Twitter and Facebook have had while maintaining an aura of trust and exclusivity.

Tags: LinkedIn, twitter, facebook, cross-promotion, metcalfes law, jason calcanis, IDK, LinkedIn LIONS, MyLink500, Colin Carmichael

Congratulations to The Pen Group and my good friend Michael Tangeman on the launch today of the agency’s Social Media Newsroom.

It’s astounding, really, how many agencies talk about social media expertise but do not use either a blog or Social Media Newsroom to post client and agency news, coverage and events. Expect that to change.