It's Ok to Like Nickelback

A few weeks ago a friend on Facebook shared an app that showed "People you should unfriend now" and clicking on it took me to a list of all of my Facebook friends who Liked the band Nickelback.

Now, it gave me a chuckle and it was obviously meant to be tongue-in-cheek but it got me to thinking a little deeper. Why do people look down upon other's choices of entertainment? We all have our own passions and guilty pleasures. We're all geeks for something. And yes, you can even be a geek for sports. So why is one person's entertainment any geekier, lamer, or even trashier than anyone else's?

As a lifelong fan of pro wrestling, I have a lot of experience in dealing with the snobiness of others. For the majority of my existence on social media, I posted little or nothing about my favorite form of entertainment. I just didn't want to deal with the potential negative reactions. I also feared what any potential employers might think and Heaven forbid a woman I might be interested in find out about my dirty little secret.

Recently, I finally came to a realization: why am I hiding a part of myself from social media because someone else might be a judgmental jerk. They're the one with the problem, not me.

So I encourage all of you to Like whatever you want and post about it freely. But use the filter in your brain at the same time; no one wants to see 10 posts about the same subject come through their feed in 10 minutes. Other than that one little tip, please feel free to be you online.

The realization I made has also lead to what's become my social media marketing slogan:

Be Real. Be Yourself. Be Human.

Now I haven't trademarked that yet so you're all on the honor system here.

In closing, it's ok to Like Nickelback.

A Small Moment That Could Mean A lot

This past weekend I ended up in a room with someone who at one time was a close friend. We haven't been close friends in a long time because of a falling out. I won't go into the details of the falling out here though maybe someday I will. We actually barely spoke for nearly for nearly 2 years and even in the last year, real conversations are rare.

But I had overheard them talking about something important in their life and I was curious to know more of the details. So when we were in the same room, I decided to ask what exactly was going on. They told me some good news that I was happy to hear and we had a nice, if still brief, chat.

It wasn't until later that it dawned on me: after all of the bad feelings if this somehow ended up being our last interaction then at least it was a positive one. Closure has been a big theme in my life lately and to achieve a sense of it with someone that had been the source of a lot of turmoil in my life is a good feeling.

Most likely, this won't be the last time we speak to each other so I can only hope that moment can be the beginning of a turn for the better for the both of us. But no matter what the future holds I can safely say that I have no bad feelings left and that is a huge weight off of my soul. 

What You Won't Ever Read in this Blog

I know almost everyone with some form of voice on the Internet voiced some kind of opinion on the Donald Sterling controversy in the last 48 hours. Even I did on Twitter (@ChrisCalamidia), so I am not immune to this either.

But when it comes to this blog I am making the decision not to be a part of any controversial or divisive topics. I want this blog to be a positive place for people to come and read. I don't want anyone leaving here angry and I damn sure don't have time for the inevitable flame wars I would get myself into.

There are plenty of places on the Internet for people to argue politics, religion, race, and other social issues. I don't believe the world needs another one.

What the world does need more of is positivity, wisdom, inspiration, and humor

And I intend to deliver those.

The Plight of the General Business Graduate

 



 

That up there is one of my prized possessions. That is my college degree and I am very proud of it. I worked hard for it for a very long time and receiving it is one of the greatest accomplishments of my life. It meant a lot of things for me but there's one thing in particular it did not mean for me: a guaranteed career.

 

Now there are a number of reasons for that but there is one in particular I would like to focus on today. That reason is that my degree is simply in Marketing with no specialization. I believe this is a problem for many Marketing and Management majors as they graduate in this day and age.

 

There was a time when it seemed that all one needed to get in on the ground floor of a good company was a degree in anything. It didn't matter whether that degree had anything to do with that industry. Simply having a degree meant that a person was reasonably intelligent, trainable, and worthy of an opportunity. In particular a general business degree could be seen as something of a "Golden Ticket".

 

But times have changed and I had to learn that the hard way. When the economy collapsed the job market became a buyers market. Companies have the pick of the litter and can afford to be choosy with their hiring standards. So just having a degree is no longer the foot in the door of your dream career.

 

If I had it to do over again I would absolutely do more to specialize myself in something more specific. But you cannot change the past; you can only learn from it and use what you have learned to better yourself going forward and pass that knowledge on to those who are where you were.

 

Coming out of college I had to ask myself the questions I should have asked before. What kind of marketing will I do? What will I market? So that's what I have done for the last year.

 

I've had an interest in social media marketing for several years. So I decided I was going to take the time to really study it and learn it. My study of social media lead me to an interest in learning about search engine optimization (SEO). Studying SEO lead me to wanting to learn how to develop full-scale online marketing strategies. That took me to learning about how important it is to create quality written content for websites, social media platforms, blogs, etc. And that is where the gears really started turning for me as I have always had strong writing skills so that can be a real golden opportunity for me. Going forward I will need to learn more about producing & distributing audio/visual content and I will also attempt to learn web design in the coming weeks and months. 

 

So what I've done for the last year is gain a knowledge base and skillset that will work in tandem with my degree so that hopefully my services will become a hot commodity in the marketing game. It's a learning process that will be continuous as I gain more knowledge and sharpen my skills over time.

 

So my advice to you Management and Marketing majors, still in school, out there is to either learn about a specific industry or learn as much as you can about a niche or niches beneath either of those two umbrellas on your own time. For those of you who have graduated and are wondering "ok what now?" I suggest you do the same with your time. Trust me, you need to specialize in something. And even if you don't feel you need it, you should want to anyway.

About my blog

The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my journey through life and share my thoughts on whatever it is that's on my mind at the time. My blogs will vary in length; make no mistake about it I can be verbose but I've also never been the type to belabor a point. I welcome all questions and comments. If you believe I'm wrong about something, let me know about it. A healthy debate is a good thing. I have no problem admitting when I'm wrong. Maybe we'll all learn something. And that is after all one of the four points of any communication platform. To inform. To persuade. To entertain. And, what I hope to do most, inspire!