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I like thank you phone calls…

There is nothing better than a thank you phone call. We creatives live for the day when our clients call us and say thank you. But not only those thank you calls that just say thanks for our hard work, but when the client shares with you something where you can tell they can see the final product through the same lens as you so passionately created it.

Today was one of those days. I had worked hard on a 25 minute documentary, telling the stories of thriving rural churches in Western North Carolina. These stories were shown at an annual conference for close to 2000 people to enjoy. The purpose, to reinforce that the United Methodist Church is thriving in rural communities across the western part of the North Carolina.

From stories of communities teaming up to provide free dinners to communities, to churches in the middle of farm land creating communities around pre-school child care. In the middle of all these stories, there was one very special moment. A special interaction between a pastor and child.

They call it the Welcome Table in Andrews, NC. All are welcome to come and enjoy a free dinner. Many come because they enjoy the fellowship, many come for a good, home cooked meal. Many faces, many people, joining together to provide a sense of community at the table of good food. The pastor of Andrews United Methodist Church agreed to chat right in the middle of the big gym where close to 100 people were enjoying dinner. During a very passionate part of the interview, a young boy came up and gave the pastor a hug and said thank you! It gives me chill bumps as I write this post.

Today, I received a call from my friend who hired me to take on this project. The first thing he wanted to share was the heart felt reaction from the room of 2000 people when the boy hugged the pastor. The Bishop leaned over and told him, “you can’t stage a moment like that!” No you can’t…you just have to be in the right place at the right time.

I am thankful for phone calls like these…just thankful!

This just made my day! Just made my day!

Does Passionate Writing (Blogs) Generate Revenue?



This post is in response to a great post by Margie Clayman’s Post: “Does Passion Pay The Bills?”

It was also feature as a response to her thoughtful post!

For over four years now, I have been preaching to my clients and my business relationships to write passionately. I have been writing in my blog about passionate writing for close to six months. I am a firm believer in passionate writing and telling rich stories. Do I think passionate writing in the context of a blog secures business…maybe yes and maybe no. There is no universal right or wrong answer. But I know this…my business is built around clients and relationships who have the same passion and fire for the advocacy we choose. I write with heart and passion and I encourage those I work with to do the same. I encourage them to dig deep and find the stories in their organization that brings passion to their readers and audiences.

Passionate writing and storytelling does a few things. First, it allows our audience to see the world through our lens. For that moment in time, they can see life through our senses. We want to help our audiences, our communities see our view as if they were sitting in a theater and their peripheral vision disappeared, fully engaged. This is true sensory engagement, allowing the audience to feel our vision.

From a business standpoint, passionate writing via a blog is a credibility piece. When we meet someone for the first time, they go out and “Google” us. They look at our digital resume. Our blog is a part of that digital resume. We want potential business relationships to make the right choice by wanting to work with us. This passionate writing allows those potential clients to see our viewpoints, understand our positions, relate to our business practices. As entrepreneurs, we want to work with people that are equally as passionate. So this allows potential business relationships have a barometer on our business practices. Writing passionately, with focus, allows potential relationships make an informed decision.

I do not think writing passionately is this new digital discovery that is going to break open the spectrum of blogging. Blogging is just another tool that allows readers to connect with our thoughts. Why not use it a way to reveal the true editorial side of our business. It is the place where we can communicate in our own voice…that is how blogging began. Writing about the topics that make us get up in the morning and enjoy life is what fuels our fire. And if people connect with us through our passion, then it is time well worth it…IMHO.

Passionate writing in the blog paradigm is a no-brainer.

Customer stories…powerful!

You know…sometimes it is better to just let your customers do the talking. Yes sir, in this world of marketing…sometimes it is better to get it straight from the horses mouth. Well, that is what Young Office thinks…so they set out to tell their story through the eyes and ears of their customers.

Building customer relationships is key in this world of business, especially in a service industry. Customers talk and they share. My grandfather always preached to me the importance of his customers and the personal relationships he forged. These relationships were not forged just over business deals and exchanging of goods/services for payment. These relationships were forged by listening, taking a personal interest in the lives each one of his customers.

Just yesterday morning, I got up early just to go sit and chat with one of my customers. It was not about business, it was not about projects…we chatted about life, good books to read, and just being entrepreneurs. Their is something to be said for getting to know your customers on a level beyond the daily grind of business. Some people like to keep business and personal separate, and I respect the way they forge relationships.  I choose to share a little about me and hope that my customers will share a little in return. Hopefully over time, that mutual respect for business will turn into mutual respect on a personal level.

That is what I think Young Office has…mutual respect on both a personal and business level with not only their customers but also their vendors. As I was going from customer to customer, interviewing each business person for the video project above…I learned a lot about Young Office. I did not learn about furniture or office environments, I learned about their relationships. I learned that they know how to listen and they know how to work on a level of partnership with each person/group they serve. Each person I interviewed from oobe, Greer Memorial Hospital, the bounce agency, USC Upstate, and Delta Apparel; the message was the same. They had an earnest trust for Young Office, trusted them with not only a costly investment for their office environment expertise…but also they trusted them with their relationship.

You can learn a lot from talking to one’s customers…that is why customer stories are so powerful. You are letting your customers spread your message and empowering others to take notice of your belief in relationships.

Telling Stories for Social Success

I had a recent chat with a large philanthropic organization about their social media usage, successes, and challenges. They hired someone over a year ago to help manage their social strategy and now they were trying to measure success and justify positions and commitment. As we chatted, I was listening to their metric for success…it was centered around the number of dollars raised and how this “perceived” social awareness has driven individuals to give.

This conversation really had me thinking about ways we could re-tool and rethink the approach. They were using mainstream approached to social awareness with outlets like Twitter, Facebook…using these outlets to promote events and build connections. But the more and more I looked at what they were doing…I had no idea what their story was all about. I had to search and understand why I should “Follow” the conversations, why I should be a “Friend.”  I was not even sure who I was talking to, a brand, a person, a large entity.

So I challenged them to start telling stories, case studies of how these philanthropic dollars help the individuals. I would not find stories of success in their digital space, stories that justify the dollars being spent on research The research that helps people. So…I started drawing!

Social Media does not raise the money. Social Media and online tools are just tools of credibility and connection. Yes…we can connect online and build virtual relationships, but giving hard earned money happens because of a relationships, some due diligence, and checking the facts. Checking the facts, the credibility piece, is where the Social Story is so important.

When I meet someone who is talking about giving to a foundation, an event, or idea…it is through a relationship. A real person. We meet, we chat, then I learn more about the cause. Afterwards, I go home and sit down and start searching online. I begin to read websites, get on chats, follow people on Twitter that share those interests. I begin to build online relationships as a part of this credibility search. This is where the social space is such a great tool, it is the PR/Marketing tool that puts information and people at the fingertips of those who are searching to make a decision.

Telling stories works and it works well. So how can we tell stories in the digital space so  when people are searching for information, it is readily available? Well…it starts with the mothership. You have to have a mothership that is the digital home for all the stories. This is the place where all digital, web traffic will go for the audiences to enjoy. This mothership has to be dynamic, meaning it has to have recent information and continually updated.

In this situation, I would start three processes:

1) Start A Blog – The purpose here is to tell rich success stories in the organization. Write a new story once a week, one that touches the heart of the cause. Once a week, find a new success story and describe what makes it so special. Let it be passionate, let it be rich with ups and downs. Let the textual words of these stories grab at the hearts of the readers.

2) Video Record Stories – Use a flip camera, iPhone, some digital video device to capture tiny moments in time that show the life of the story. Is it the moment that a person has been cured of a disease, or did they get to go home from the hospital, did a child get a toy, something that visually represents emotion…the moment in time that grabs the emotion of the event. Put these stories on a YouTube channel, then embed them in the blog posts.

3) Take Lots Of Pictures – Use a digital camera to show pictures, images of the stories. Show happy and sad faces, struggles, excitement, emotion. Use visuals to paint the picture of the story. Put these images on a Flickr account and embed them in the blog.

All three of these things are centralized on the blog, showcasing passionate stories of the philanthropic organization. Spend months writing, recording, and capturing these stories. Each time you capture a new story, share it with your friends on your social outlets. Do more that just post links to the stories, but tell us why this story meant so much to you to share. You have to be just as passionate in your sharing as you are in your writing of the post.

Over time, you are building a library of stories, case-studies. These can begin to become focal points of your PR/Marketing exercises. Sharing the stories as campaigns. Imagine billboards, tv spots, brochures being created around these stories of success. All driving traffic back to the blog where people can read more. Imagine your PR campaign, sharing these stories with media outlets, enticing them to come write about the stories for their audiences. It all starts with stories and putting them in one spot. Build a library of stories over time.

Are you inspiring…



Write passionately I say…

Blogging is so hard to wrap our heads around. Finding our voice is even harder. We sit down to write and nothing comes out…nothing translates to from our head to our fingers. Who are we talking to…who are we trying to relate. Are we trying to write to inspire ourselves or writing to inspire others?

Sometimes it takes defining our motives…looking deep inside to define our voice and and defining those who we are writing with and for.

Do we write to meet a length quota or do we write without recognition of length, unknowingly fulling our space inside the walls of our blog…inspiring thoughts to inspire others. We write for ourselves but we write to be “read”. We want to articulate…we want to connect…we want to be heard.

So why do you write. Do we write to fulfill other people’s parameters or do you write with the same passion you find in life.  Are we so wrapped up in the technology that we forget to write our thoughts that bring inspiring thoughts to our daily lives. Watch out, we might say something that inspires another person…and create a culture of change.

We must write…write what drives our soul. We must ignore the constraints, forget the technology, forget the competition, and write the inner most passion that makes us get up in the morning and conquer the world.

We are entrepreneurial writers at heart…we believe in our ethic…to write passionately.

Listening for moments…

This past weekend…I was on the coast. Actually on the Outer Banks near Kitty Hawk, NC. I found myself in the middle of a story…one of many layers. For the past few months, I have been working on a project surrounding Clergy Health in North Carolina…going inside the lives of a few pastors in North Carolina.

I found myself in Poplar Branch, NC on Currituck Sound…just inside the Outer Banks (OBX). My goal, to interview Pastor Renee Edwards and capture her story. Her story is one of amazing grace…finding her place with a congregation on the OBX. But this post is not about the project, but this little moment in time while following her. See this post is the story behind the story! It is about the story that probably will not make in the final project.

As I walked into the Sunday School room…I was so worried that my big camera would take away from the morning’s chat. So I tried to do my best to be like a little mouse, moving all around capturing moments without disturbing anyone. Paston Renee Edwards introduced me as the session began…it was 9:45am and the talk for the day was about a letter.

There were probably 12 or 13 in the class and each wrote a letter to God. One of those exercises that has such a personal place. I was so worried…this small little room and this big ole camera intruding in this little moment in time. My goal was to capture some interaction between Pastor Renee Edwards and the rest of the class…let’s just say I was in the right place at the right time.

Each person had an opportunity to share their letter. A few shared and tears broke through. It was like I was suspended in time watching from a 1000 miles above yet feeling the emotion like I was sitting next to each person reading. One of the gentleman chose to read his letter…as he moved to the toughest part of his letter, he passed it to his wife to finish the last few lines. As I looked over, Pastor Renee Edwards was holding his hand, shedding tears with him. Such exposure, so much trust, willingness to share for all to hear.

As each person read their story, their letter…Pastor Renee Edwards was there to listen and comfort. Letters to God are words from the depths of our souls. Words crafted from our deepest feelings, expressed in ways we have never been able to articulate. Language gave life to these deep thoughts, expressions for all to hear. The tears provide relief and resolve that the burden have moved from their hearts to their pens.

As we moved around the room, I was slowly moving from spot to spot…trying to be prepared to capture the moment. I wore soft shoes that morning and made sure I had the rubber footings on the end of each leg of the tripod. This allowed to move quickly and reduce noice for noticeable movement. Churches have a tendency to creek and echo with the movement of video equipment. I have to have the ability to move fast, effortlessly so that I can be in the right place at the right time…capturing that moment.

A gentleman on the opposing corner from Pastor Renee Edwards decided to share. He fumbled through his book and decided to pass for someone else to read. You could tell he was going to have a hard time reading his deepest thoughts. His son-in-law was sitting next to him and he too past it on for someone else to read. Pastor Renee Edwards was next in line to read this letter. As she agreed and began to read, it was apparent that the letter was about her. As she read the words, her eye-lids began to fill with tears. Tears…those tears that express thankfulness and humility. It was the ultimate compliment, the ultimate moment…to capture the subject of the day reading a letter to God…and it was thanking her!

Moments in time make storytelling so wonderful!

Creative Approach to Storytelling



I have had numerous people ask me, what is your approach to your business…your creative approach. Well, I could talk or even lecture about my approach. It comes from years and years of experience, training, education, and teaching. So…here it is in two paragraphs.

Bobby Rettew, llc – Creative Approach to Storytelling
Storytelling has been and will always be the major focus of how we work with our clients. Every organization has a story to tell, so it is up to us practitioners to find and tell that story. We work with organizations to identify the audience, the purpose, and the delivery of each and every message. Then we create a plan that best identifies the message within the organization, and work with the organization to deliver that message.

We bring a documentary approach to production, looking within and allowing the individuals within the organization to become the voice of the message.  We have the ability to write and craft a traditional-style message, but we find that if the organization and its members are a part of the message, then the audience connects with the organization. We use the storytelling approach to building relationships.

To listen to the “truth” … whose truth?



Storytelling is probably the oldest craft alive: the ability to tell stories so others can see a point-of-view and repeat for others to enjoy. Journalism is one facet of storytelling, being able to provide an objective: an un-biased point-of-view of “news” for others to consume.

I have been closely watching the incidents, like the rest of the free world, in Tucson, AZ that began with the shooting of many innocent American’s on January 8th. This story has been the epicenter of local, regional, and national topics from gun control, free-speech, political transparency, and even defining what it means to be American.

As Sarah and I were having lunch, she asked me…”Why do you think so much focus has been on Gabrielle Gifford’s story and not as much on those who have been wounded and died, including the little girl” Well, it is my belief that the story of Congresswoman Gifford is the true pinnacle of this whole incident. As stated by the surgeon’s, this is a case of miracles.

From HuffingtonPost.com article on Friday, January 14, 2010:

It was the first time Giffords had opened her eye since the shooting. Kelly told Giffords to give him a thumbs-up if she could hear him. Instead, she slowly raised her left arm.

“The doctor said this is amazing what she’s doing right now and beyond our greatest hopes,” Gillibrand said.

“It felt like we were watching a miracle,” Wasserman Schultz said. “The strength that you could see flowing out of her, it was like she was trying to will her eyes open.”

On ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday, Gillibrand added, “Everything that we love about Gabby was all there at that moment.”

Kelly told the president and first lady about the development as they drove from the hospital to the University of Arizona’s McKale Center, where Obama would speak at a memorial service. Kelly gave the president permission to tell the crowd about his wife’s progress.

“Gabby opened her eyes,” Obama told the cheering crowd. “So I can tell you: She knows we are here, she knows we love her, and she knows that we are rooting for her through what is undoubtedly going to be a difficult journey.”

This miracle has broken down so many conventions and pre-dispositions, bridging gaps of communities and bringing together an American story right before our eyes.

Yet, there are so many stories that are untold, those left for us to understand. We are still trying to understand why a young man would use a gun to shoot so many a point blank range. In some of the pictures, he looks like just another person, another American, someone that could be buying groceries in the next aisle. We are trying to understand why, understand his fundamental Truth that made him make the decisions he made that day.

We are also trying to understand a small church in Topeka, Kansas and their motives for protesting during funeral services of those who perished during this event. Life Magazine did a photoessay of this group, and if you look at their faces and remove the picket signs…they look like you and I. Who are they and what are their truths? What provides them the voice to shout so loudly that it is necessary to bring another opposing view-point to this volatile discussion. I do not have the answers…but I have some thoughts.

Dr. Johnny McKinney of Boulevard Baptist Church has been guiding us through a discussion and examination of the Book of Genesis, a interesting text with many points-of-view. So literalist look at this text as the true faith based creation, and others look at it as a metaphor for how to live a good christian life. We all have a point-of-view. During the discussion, he told a story of the holocaust and the trial of the architect of the holocaust in the 1960’s.

Dr. McKinney tells us that during the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, as one of the holocaust survivors walked in to testify, that person collapsed upon seeing Eichmann for the first time. He did not collapse because he was so mad or overwhelmed with emotion from the events of the holocaust, or even what they had to go through in the concentration camps; but that Adolf Eichmann looked just like you and I. He looked “human.” This man thought the Jews were an evil group of people, and wanted to separate them from the rest of the human race.

So here is my question, why are we trying to protest the evil ones? Who are the evil ones? Did Jared Laughner see Gabrielle Gifford as evil? Does Westboro Baptist Church see those who they are protesting as evil? What is their poinit-of-view and what drives them to passionately advocate for their message. Or maybe they are driven by fear as well, not willing to take part in mutual discourse. Maybe their message is a one-way avenue to impose their truth. I am in search to understand and see their point-of-view, not to accept…but to understand. To take part in mutual discourse, open conversation, one of understanding.

As I was sitting and listening to Dr. McKinney speaking, I wrote the following. It was in response to this past week and the words of his talk this morning.

To understand ones truth does not mean you accept ones truth.

Examining and exploring another truth is a path to understanding, to see and hear another point of view.

Our truth is our reference point, our ethos. It is the foundation that makes cry, scream, laugh…our lens.

When we listen to other truths….it sometime takes out of our comfort zone both intellectually and emotionally.

When we begin to understand another truth, we put away our emotions and allow our logic step ahead and process anothers’ point-of-view.

We can dissect another’s truth and allow our emotions to express our acceptance or rejection.

We choose to not hear another point of view or truth because of fear of the unknown. Fear of what we are not certain how our logic will interpret and how our emotions can to take control.

Fear sometime drives the resistance to understand and listen to truth.

Our truth is powerful.

As storytellers, it is important to seek and understand the other point-of-view. It does not mean we must agree, but to seek and understand is the path to quality discourse that bridges gaps. As humans…quality discourse leads to healthy conversations.

Why do I write about something this political and personal on this blog, because our stories are stories of truths. We tell stories from many different points-of-view. They are full of messages and ideologies that shape the way audiences perceive a message and form the truths that shape their lives, and the lives they influence. We must be cognizant of our messages…and understand the opposing point-of-view and the people it will influence. Mutual discourse is a beautiful thing.

Do you have thoughts? I invite you to let me know! I am open for thoughts and discussion.

Who is really telling the story, your story? Thinking Outside Disclosure and WikiLeaks.


So the other day, I posted this one Twitter. I wish I could find the Tweet that prompted this response, but you can read above. Yes, I have been thinking. My brain does work sometimes outside the online world of mindless 140 characters…my synapses are in full brain activity.

So I have been thinking…there is definitely a difference between the one who is telling your story and the one who is capturing that story that is being told. Big difference. So my friend Gregg Morris (@greggvm) askes:

Good question Gregg! And I responded with this Tweet:

We are just proxies…we are displaying what we see, hear, feel, smell, understand, and comprehend through our point of views!

Thanks Mike (Mike Bell @ProformaGuy)! You are talking about delivery and how people view those who are delivering.

So here is my real thought to this little Tweet and Blog combo explanation. Coming from a journalist background, I always felt that our views were skewed. Even though we were supposed to tell a story with an unbiased position, they are always going to be skewed. There was only hope that we could get closer and closer to the purest position in the way we tell stories, with each piece we produced or story we told. We were always looking through the lens, a bias based on news of the week, the politics of the organization, the financial potential from ratings/readership. So who can really tell our story from an unbiased position.

Storytellers are proxies, delivery mechanisms for the story we are telling…those we are trying to re-create for others to view. Now I am staying away from the advertising world, becuase here we can create the realities we want audiences to view. This is more of a PR position or even a journalistic/documentary position.

Each time I pick-up the camera and work with a client, I try to maintain the message of the story and organization. When I write a story, I stay away from supposition and try to stay as close to fact as I can…or interpretation of fact. So why should we care who is telling our story? Because it is important to understand the lens they are looking through. You have to see how they might perceive the story, even your story before they even begin the project. Do you want them to create a reality that does not properly represent your message…ultimately divesting time spent in a message.

These biases can be considered conflicts of interest. But is storytelling one of Fiction or Non-Fiction, and can we create that dichotomy so simply? And if we are paid to tell stories, document those stories, provide a proxy view-point of those stories…how should handle and disclose our view-point.

Now that Social Media has entered the picture…more and more individuals are providing view-points, telling stories, and using these outlets as means to reach audiences. As proxies of these stories, we should disclose our pre-dispositions, our conflicts, our view-points that are statement of fact.

In October of 2009, “FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials” where “Changes Affect Testimonial Advertisements, Bloggers, Celebrity Endorsements.” FTC states, “Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect.”

Should we as storytellers be subject to these guidelines? Yes, I say. But to what capacity? Everytime I work with an organization to help tell a story, I should disclose to the organization my viewpoints and conflicts. Everytime I finish producing a story for an organization and post the link to my Facebook wall or even Tweet about it, I should have to disclose my relationship to the organization.

In an article by NPR, Laura Syndell looks at bloggers and disclosure of paid endorsements. Laura writes, “Kelly McBride, of the nonprofit Poynter Institute for journalism, says this is an important step: While many consumers can tell a commercial from a program on television, she says they can be naive when their Facebook friends say they’re a fan of McDonald’s.”

This is why when I work with organizations to create and establish a Social Media or New Media plan/strategy…it is my position that I do not Tweet, update a status, or communicate on behalf of the organization. I talked about this in a recent post. I typically do not follow those who are Tweeting, Blogging, Facebook”ing” on behalf of an organization without disclosure.

Social Media is such a progressive new area of digital publishing, should it held to the same professional standards as traditional marketing/pr/news outlets? Why, because it is “Social Media.” It is place for people to speak freely socially, to interact, and to build relationships. Why is this an issue, because organizations have been abusing this idea, acting on behalf of “a brand’s message” to influence a decision. Thus, de-socializing “Social Media(s)”.

So is the WikiLeaks idea/site privy to these types of ethics? The whole concept is that they are publishing information that typically not disclosed to the public in an open-source mentality. Many of the individuals providing information for WikiLeaks are not disclosing who they are and there relationships.

The Poynter Institute recently posted a link to their website that “Stars and Stripes Journalists are barred from viewing WikiLeaks documents.” In the article, Mark Prendergrast from Stars and Stripes writes, “Journalists are supposed to report before they write. That means gathering as much information as they can – in breadth and depth – and consulting primary sources whenever feasible. That might mean an editor clicking on Wikileaks to verify information in a wire story. Or an art director doing a screen grab to illustrate that story. Or a reporter reading a document in full for context in assessing a statement about it.”

Bottom-line, journalists need to know where the information came from, the source of the information. How do they know in this “public domain”? How do they know where the information has come from and if it is truly accurate.  This primal thought process should be the same as the we work we as “marketers do” for our clients everyday…we should disclose relationships, our predispositions, and why we are working with an organization when telling our stories.

I have recently joined WOMMA, the Word of Mouth Marketing Organization and been reading through lots of the resources offered not only to it’s membership but also to the public. I find this information a great guide for people like myself when navigating this world of client based work that leads us to tell stories on their behalf.

So where do we go from here? Well…I know that we must question our intentions each time we “Write” or “Produce” a story on behalf of a “client” or organization. We must also question or intentions when we distribute these “stories” and what message we are sending when we distribute. The intention of distribution is just as much a part of the storytelling process as is the actual story itself.

5 Links of the Week | December 19, 2010



Hello friends, here are my links for the week. As you can see…they include storytelling, Medicaid budget cuts, Facebook, Yahoo, and Del.icio.us. I hope you enjoy and let me know your thoughts about any of these articles!

Storytelling is not a Conversation
Nathan Ford
“Markets are Conversations.” Ten years after the Cluetrain left the station spouting these words, many advertisers are still left behind, desperately clinging to the romantic notion that they are storytellers. On the net, though, such ideas are fast becoming anachronisms. For the last fifty years or so, there were a few ways for a person to be influenced by the outside world (radio, television, printed materials, actually leaving the house) and advertisers had every base covered with their brand-related stories: a billboard with a smile, a commercial alluding to Orwell’s 1984, an ad that talked about cars like normal people do… each expertly tuned to play on our emotions. CLICK HERE to read more.

Budget: Medicaid, DSS, prisons hope to run deficits
$264 million-in-the-red proposals to be discussed today by board
December 14, 2010 | GINA SMITH
Three state agencies will ask a state budget panel today to run deficits totaling $264 million. With the state facing a mountain of unprecedented financial woes, Gov.-elect Nikki Haley and the state’s congressional delegation met behind closed doors Monday and discussed some of those urgent budget needs, including shortfalls for education and the state’s exploding Medicaid program. CLICK HERE to read more.

The 2011 Listening Platform Landscape
December 15, 2010 | Zach Hofer-Shall
After an entire month without any acquisitions in the social media data space, there is no excuse but to get back to normal blogging. I assume I’ll be back to posting on M&A again soon, but in the meantime I’ve been busy working on some big research and now it’s finally ready to show off. Today we’ve published “The 2011 Listening Platform Landscape,” a report aimed at helping Marketing and Customer Intelligence professionals navigate a crowded and fragmented array of social media data tools and technologies. CLICK HERE to read more.

December 16, 2010 |  Jennifer Van Grove
Facebook accidentally went live with a handful of prototype features earlier today, including a site-wide yet short-lived overhaul of Pages. Roughly 45 minutes after the mistaken update, Facebook disabled the site, reverted back to its previous state and then tweeted apologetically about the downtime. But that brief span of time was enough for Facebook members and Page admins to get a sneak peak at new features in the works. CLICK HERE to read more.

December 16, 2010 | Alexia Tsotsis
For a couple of days now, we’ve been hearing rumors that the Yahoo layoffs included the entire Delicious team.  Now Former Yahoo employee and Upcoming founder Andy Baio has tweeted out the above Yahoo! product team meeting slide that seems to show that Yahoo! is either closing or merging the social bookmarking service as well as Upcoming, Fire Eagle, MyBlogLog and others. CLICK HERE to read more.