Cornell University School of Hotel Administration

SMW Day 5: Connecting, Reimagining, VIP Party

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The final day of what was an exhaustingly inspiring Social Media Week NYC 2012 was fittingly characterized by informative, engaging sessions covering the LinkedIn, Tumblr, and – of course – complimentary open bar bases. Here are the finals words from Day 5, capping off a tremendous week of activity:
  • The LinkedIn Difference: How Brands Are Building Deep Connections with Professionals: Linkedin Director of Eastern Region Marketing Solutions Dale Durrett led an enlightening panel discussion highlighting ways top brands are at the leading edge by marketing on LinkedIn to both businesses and consumers alike. Key takeaways from the session were that the LinkedIn space – which as of this writing has 150+ million users – is a largely untapped marketing opportunity for B2B and B2C outreach, and is ideal for companies to humanize their brands. “People buy from people!” was a tweet that was often re-tweeted during the panel, and its message is clear: with emerging tools available on the platform to carve out a significant presence, @LinkedIn truly allows brands to really add many faces to whatever they are selling through their employees.
  • Let’s Get Ready to Tumblr: Building community by reimagining and redistributing your content: In what was surely the most cozily, “alternative” venue for a Social Media Week session – the Chinatown headquarters of start-up Record Setter – a group of panelists shared their various positions on Tumblr as a serious method for gathering and sharing information with communities. While the panelists universally agreed that millions of people are sharing more than ever on Tumblr, surely a direct reflection of the new ways in which people are engaging with entertainment, news, and fashion content, they were surprisingly hesitant to – and in fact steered clear from – endorsing Tumblr as the go-to blogging platform for brands to engage on. Until Tumblr is ready to take analytics more seriously, the look and feel advantages it provides over the WordPress platform far from outweigh the latter’s platform leg-up on its competition.
  • Social Media Week Closing Party: The VIP invite-only closing bash of Social Media Week was characterized by much of the same Opening Party frivolities: an expansive open bar (thank you sponsors Bulldog Gin and Heineken for providing), lots of engaging conversations, and a terrific space (thank you District 36 for hosting). To top it all off, attendees were treated to music from an amazing DJ that expertly knew how to keep the party rocking all night; a memorable way all around to end what was a likewise tremendous week of activity.
Until next year folks…see you on The Twitter!
Greg is a motivated Cornell University Hotel School alumnus, affectionately known as a Hotelie for life, with keen interests in social and digital marketing for hospitality and lifestyle brands. He’s passionate about sales and marketing in the hospitality industry, specifically as it relates to the dynamic online space. In his free time, Greg obsesses over growing his musical intellect (both modern and past-time artists apply), tennis, and running skills. Check out his lifestyle blog covering these topics at http://www.thesocialsonictraveler.wordpress.com and follow him on Twitter.
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SMWNYC Day 4: Transmedia, Deadly Sins, Tangible Action

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Penultimate Day 4 of Social Media Week NYC 2012 was an amalgamation of transmedia storytelling, social media anti-best practices, and social good discussions, all centered around the integral importance of collaboration. Here are some of the day’s highlights:

  • Collaborative Storytelling: Transmedia and Social Media: A panel of creators from Broadcastr, GMD Studios, Lina Srivastava Consulting, and host Storycode dove into discussion on how exactly the transmedia form enhances collaboration and innovation platforms, and what it means for the future of entertainment, activism, marketing, branding and business. Amidst the debate, the speakers utilized an interactive demo of an innovative digital storytelling tool to outline how social media storytelling in a variety of sectors can benefit from the practice of Transmedia.
  • How and Why We Share: The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media: A fine group of panelists from various advertising, digital media, and publication backgrounds came together to address how social media vices and virtues drive our actions online — from cyber-bullying behaviors to blind re-tweeting and rampant over-sharing. The highly interactive conversation between the panelists and audience alike incorporated various trends, research findings and real life examples that added a layer of necessary concreteness to a largely anecdotal panel theme.
  • New Business Models to Convert Human Intent into Tangible Action (followed by free after party): The evening came to a close with a fascinating discussion – held at the very cool Brooklyn Brewery – from an expert panel addressing how new business models they have created leverage social media to unlock underutilized human intent for social good and convert it into tangible action. From living greener to hitting the gym more often, the diverse panelists from StickK, Purpose, Oceana, Opower, Yoxi.tv, and host The Mutual highlighted some very enlightening ways that social media can guide us to better lifestyle choices. The Mutual sponsored after party that followed – featuring an amazing open bar of Brooklyn Brewery drafts and enormous spread of appetizers – capped the evening off with perfection.
Greg is a motivated Cornell University Hotel School alumnus, affectionately known as a Hotelie for life, with keen interests in social and digital marketing for hospitality and lifestyle brands. He’s passionate about sales and marketing in the hospitality industry, specifically as it relates to the dynamic online space. In his free time, Greg obsesses over growing his musical intellect (both modern and past-time artists apply), tennis, and running skills. Check out his lifestyle blog covering these topics at http://www.thesocialsonictraveler.wordpress.com and follow him on Twitter.
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SMWNYC Day 3: Crowdsourcing, Community, Quizzical

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Social Media Week 2012, NYC hump-day edition continued the momentum built up during the week’s first forty-eight hours of events, featuring an exceptional keynote from Behance‘s CEO, as well as two spirited, highly interactive discussions around creating community and social engagement. Here were some of Day 3 highlights:
  • Keynote: Scott Belsky, CEO of Behance, followed by GOOD Panel: Beyond Crowdsourcing: Using The Community To Report: Behance CEO, and Cornell grad (Go Big Red!), Scott Belsky kicked off the full-house session with a keynote addressing many his company’s initiatives to organize and empower the creative world to display and find talent every month. Named one of Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business”, Scott kept packed audience compelled by sharing dynamic examples of how companies can harness their creative energy to yield the optimal output. The ensuing “Crowdsourcing” panel was a more broadly focused discussion on media’s relationship with its community – addressing media’s failures and successes to get authentic, meaningful anecdotes from its communities directly.
  • Creating community around your blog: Savvy self-promoting bloggers and freelancers alike came out in droves to the quirky Gershwin Hotel to enjoy an animated and refreshingly candid debate, hosted by Blogads, addressing ways bloggers can build strong communities. The discussion benefitted from each of the panelists’ divergent backgrounds and their keen willingness to offer very specific, actionable advice to the hyper engaged audience they were speaking to. Big kudos to the bloggers at GalaDarling.com, JessicaHarlow.com and ConcreteLoop.com for a job well done.
  • A Quizzical Evening in Social Media, hosted by BuzzFeed: Closing the day at JWT meant an early evening of light-hearted panel banter, a highly entertaining, rapid-fire game of Pub Quiz, and free T-shirts, food and booze to boot! Relevant thought leaders from BuzzFeed, OMD Word, GE and AdAge engaged the audience with a brief debate on how good social content is almost always surprising, unexpected, and – of course – quizzical.  The open bar and prizes that followed were just delicious icing on top of a very scrumptious #socialmediaweek cake.
Greg is a motivated Cornell University Hotel School alumnus, affectionately known as a Hotelie for life, with keen interests in social and digital marketing for hospitality and lifestyle brands. He’s passionate about sales and marketing in the hospitality industry, specifically as it relates to the dynamic online space. In his free time, Greg obsesses over growing his musical intellect (both modern and past-time artists apply), tennis, and running skills. Check out his lifestyle blog covering these topics at http://www.thesocialsonictraveler.wordpress.com and follow him on Twitter.
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Confessions of the Convert Optimist: A Story For Kevin

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We don’t always get to choose the path we will walk in life, but we do get to choose how we walk that path. There is a saying, “It’s not the years in your life, but the life in your years that really matter.”

I begin this blog entry with the profound quote above – which I recently read in a eulogy for my fraternity brother Kevin Ballantine, who just last Sunday lost his exhausting, three-year battle with leukemia, at the all-too-young age of twenty-three – because they are words that truly I am trying to live by each and every day. The quotation was never more applicable when describing Kevin’s most unfortunate circumstances; ever the most persistent of optimists, Kevin was – as described by innumerable friends, relatives and casual acquaintances – the personification of positive energy, even when faced with the most unfathomably difficult challenges. Never once did he lament the health injustices bestowed upon him or let them defeat his uplifting spirit; instead, he channeled his energies toward relentlessly fighting the good fight against the disease, all the while looking for opportunities to help and serve others with his sharp skill sets and astute mind.

Why Kevin had to leave us on this physical world so soon in life is a heartbreaking reality that many, myself included, have painfully struggled to comprehend and accept since his passing. Whether or not you believe that everything in this life happens for a reason, or that some guiding force above us exists, nobody can say that Kevin’s recent passing is anything but profoundly saddening. That said, while we all find ways to face this tremendous tidal wave of grief, there are many positives to take from, and opportunities to carry on, Kevin’s pervasive legacy as the beacon of hope and optimism.

I did not personally know Kevin well. Despite our shared fraternal bond and projected graduation year, Kevin’s illness kept him away from both the Delta Phi brotherhood and Cornell University campus for significant chunks of time, resulting in a relationship that was defined more by distant anecdotes rather than in-person interactions. Even still, over the past six months or so, I have closely followed Kevin and his family’s journey – vis a vie a CarePages blog that his courageous mother Diane ever so meticulously managed –  and have grown to learn more about Kevin as a person than I had ever gleaned as an undergraduate. What I extracted about Kevin has already been iterated above and by countless others; however, I personally have found profound resonance in Kevin’s beliefs and perspectives, as they are perfectly in synch with life’s simplest truth:

An insurmountable object, emotion, or thought is nothing more than our reluctance to take up the challenge of trying to understand it.

Until recently, I had little to no understanding about what this simple truth was, let alone how to incorporate it into my daily life. Ever the opinionated, high-strung contrarian, I spent almost my entire Cornell Hotel School experience in a self-centered,   stressed-out bubble, blissfully unaware of how I was perceived by my peers or how my insistent attitudes rubbed many people the wrong way. In my mind, if someone disagreed with my viewpoints or life priorities, they were both resolutely wrong and that it was my job to convince them that my perspectives were the only right ones. These perspectives, too, were clouded by periods of pessimism and snap-judgments that, in hindsight, were egregiously misinformed and a total waste of my mental energies.

But this was the status quo, and I had little intention on changing the reality. My overconfident, narcissistic attitudes were only magnified once I graduated from Cornell and prepared to embark on a brand new and, on paper at least, very exciting journey – to take on the role as Manager of Internet Marketing for the luxurious Fairmont Southampton Resort, and to live full-time in blissful Bermuda. I didn’t realize it then, but the opportunity would, in the end, be an experience that led to tremendous personal unhappiness and, as a result, have pervasively detrimental effects on both my physical and mental health. For the sake of brevity, I will not go into the specific struggles I endured because of this “dream job” – that said, this extended crisis phase stripped me of nearly all the interpersonal faculties I believed I once possessed, plaguing me with an egregiously debilitating sense of self-loathing and doubt.

The happy ending here is that, in spite of these dark times and struggles I had to endure, they have made me a lot stronger and have – just as Kevin had known for so many – clued me in on what is really important in life. By coming out of this very difficult summer of crises, I have ascertained a tremendous sense of self-awareness, a possession that has been offered so much utility in my ongoing attempt to shift my mindset paradigm from pessimist to optimist. This perspective change is a journey – one certainly that does not happen overnight – and is not one that you can force or manufacture. Instead, it is a gradual, subtle process that is carried out on a daily basis, and informs almost every one of your life decisions. With a more sanguine outlook, the tasks of respectfully dealing with people that just don’t share your belief systems or, more importantly, finding ways to share common ground with even the most antagonistic of thinkers, are far less arduous than when thinking misanthropically. Acceptance of others’ differences, and trying your absolute best to make these divergences relationship strengths, is an enormously enlightening idea that Kevin always embraced, and that I am steadily coming around to.

If there is anything that can be learned through Kevin’s story, it is this: life is far too short to worry about, or waste energy, trying to change persistently pessimistic thinkers. Instead, spend your energy being grounded in reality by looking at all the positive things that go on in your daily life, and build off of those; what will result from this is so much more desirable for your entire physical and mental being. As Kevin ever so wisely once said,

Remember that life is fleeting, and there are more important things than grudges or ill wishes. Underneath our different skin colors, yarmulkes, head scarves, or crucifix necklaces, we’re still the same people. We still want the same thing – for people to be nice to us. All I ask of those who want to help me is this – treat your strangers as you would your best friends… We are all forced to share the same planet, like it or not. And we are ALL responsible for that planet, for the sake of ourselves and our children.

Now those are words to live by. Kevin, you will be dearly missed, but I will personally do my best to live your message of positivity and open-mindedness on a daily basis. I thank you for teaching me this, and know that your legacy will live forever.