David Armano

The thing about insanity cycles is this. You never realize you're in one until you're dangerously close to losing your sanity. But that's the perfect time to put an end to it. Insanity cycles aren't as rare as you think. Sometimes they are the repetitions of actions which lead us to destinations we don't want to be in.

Upon first arriving at Edelman, I noticed that our language was a bit different when talking about community aspects of social media. Instead of saying "Facebook this and Twitter that" we often refer to the properties organizations manage online as "embassies". While we work with clients closely in both consultative, strategic and tactical ways, it seemed like the right time to take a step back and focus on what's really important. Engaging your community. So Call this a blueprint if you will for how you and your organization can think about building and managing multiple embassies in a hyper-connected world.

An individual who aligns themselves with a larger organization and has established a reputation, let's say in a niche is no longer representing themselves, they represent themselves, and the organization they work for. In other words, they become ambassadors for both.

Here's the thing about selling. Nobody wants to be sold to. What people do want are solutions. Need a new car? The problem is that you've outgrown your old one or worse yet, it's just gotten too expensive to maintain. Did the world change when you weren't looking? You might need help navigating that change, but you don't need to buy a bunch of stuff from a menu—you do need people, skills, talents, tools and the right relationships to help. But help really means "help me solve this"—and that means doing it together. So when you're "selling" what you're really doing is showing how well you can work together to solve the problem.

The e-mail came in like hundreds of others. I read it, thought about it and took the e-mailer up on their offer to unsubscribe. Frankly, I was upset that I ended up on the e-mail list. I never asked to be. And while it tried to come across as humble, real and authentic—it just didn't really do it for me. It took time out of my day that's valuable to me. I felt inconvenienced to have to go through the unsubscribe effort, though strangely satisfied after it took.

Last year at SXSW, I handed over the panel I proposed to my former colleagues at Dachis Group (Social Business By Design). This year will be different. I've submitted a panel on why PR's future may not look like PR.