Today’s featured story is one that’s near and dear to my professional heart. It’s about the future of public relations and social media, two things I’ve spent a ton of time studying and practicing. Hop on over to Mashable and check it out.

I’ve been doing a ton of traveling lately (oh summer, I hardly knew ye…) and have fallen out of the habit of posting here. So, to get back in the habit, I thought I’d start by linking to posts I think are the bee’s knees. Here’s one for today from Marketingprofs, one of my favorite resources for social media news and stats.

Read “Building a Brand on Twitter: Here’s One New Way” to get some clever tips on doing just that.

P.S. If you’re not already, you can follow me on the ol’ Tweet machine: @cupcakie

(Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Andvari // Sigur Rós)

I’m a reader, and, I’d like to believe, a writer (I don’t think the desire to write makes me one, even though I get paid to do so). I’ve read countless books, most of them forgettable, but one stands out as the most important I’ve ever discovered. It’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo, and it’s about a bunny.

Yes, my favorite book is sold in the children’s section. It has illustrations. And my younger daughter gave it to me.

It changed my life when I first read it a year and a half ago and continues to do so every day. The book tells the story of Edward, a china rabbit that belongs to a little girl named Abilene. A gift from her grandmother, Abilene loves the little rabbit fiercely. Despite this, though, Edward is vain and closed-off to loving her or anyone else. It’s not until he falls overboard during a boat trip that he begins to open his heart and shift the way he sees the world.

Alone and helpless (because, you know, he’s just a china rabbit), Edward experiences life with other people and places, which changes everything within for him. He spends 297 days at the bottom of the ocean before he is rescued and begins his adventure of relating to others. He experiences fear, anger, sadness, joy, attachment and, ultimately, an epiphany. It’s through this miraculous journey that he ceases to be the selfish little rabbit he once was; it takes the experience of literally being broken (again, china rabbit) for him to truly understand the meaning of love and what it means to have a home.

God damn, I love this book.

“If you have no intention of loving or being loved, then the whole journey is pointless.”

This one-day conference is focusing on social media’s impact on brands and consumer perception and will address such topics as:

- What are the best case studies of how leading brands manage their reputation?
- What are the leading insights and tactics to integrate Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with Social Marketing?
- What are the most effective technologies/tools to help you listen, monitor, optimize, and engage via social media/social networking and SEO?
- How has crisis management changed as a result of real-time social communications such as Twitter and Facebook?
- How do leading brands organize themselves for optimal reputation management?
- How are the best organizations actively listening and participating in social conversations?
- What is the role of employees in strengthening your brand across the social web?
- How do you manage the challenge of effectively representing both your personal and business identities on the social web?

I’d be going even if I weren’t moderating a roundtable. What, you ask, am I going to be discussing? Why, I’ll tell you! My topic is “People Are Talking About You…But What Are They Saying? How To Be A Part Of The Consumer Conversation.” Neat, right? I think so! Click here to check out the list of sponsors; it’s impressive.

There’s still time to register, so if you’re going to be all up in New York tomorrow, I highly recommend you check it out. There will be speakers and moderators from companies both large and small across all sectors. If you’re passionate about protecting your brand (or doing better work for your clients), you owe it to yourself to attend.

Hope to see you there!

Location: City University of New York Graduate Center

Time: 8:00 AM-1:00 PM

Location: CUNY Graduate Center; 365 Fifth Avenue; New York, NY 10016

Registration Fee: $195

I took the kids to their very first concert last night…

If you live in or near Philadelphia and have never been to a show at The First Unitarian Church, you’re missing out. This place is by far the coolest place I’ve ever seen a musical act. It’s a real church (yep, you can do the worship thingie there every Sunday if you want) but it’s like no church I’ve ever seen. It’s old (established in 1796) and colorful (check out that photo I snapped last night…those colors are real) and the acoustics are otherworldly.

St. Vincent, one of my favorite performers ever, played last night (Swedish duo Wildbirds and Peacedrums opened for her and holy moly, were they awesome.) and it was the first show I took both of the girls, ages 9 and 12, to. We sat in a pew no more than 10 feet away from the stage and the view and sound was spectacular. Annie Clark sounded angelic (wow, I’m totally dropping all of these church references accidentally, I swear!) but the best part of the night by far for me was seeing Lola’s reaction to the entire event. My sarcastic, often-sullen tween was mesmerized. She was happy. She smiled and clapped and sat on the edge of her seat the entire time. She couldn’t wait to buy a tee shirt and when we arrived home around 11:45, she promptly updated her Facebook status to read “Just got back from a St. Vincent show!!! EPIC!!!!!! : {D” By far, it was one of the proudest parenting moments of my career. Now she wants to learn the guitar. Words can’t express how amazing I feel about this.

R5 Productions booked the event and, as usual, did a fantastic job. The shows at First Unitarian are all ages and the average ticket price is $15, so you can take your kids or younger siblings or current hottie out without getting a second job to pay for it. I saw Metric here in the basement about four years ago and it blew my mind. R5 Productions deserves lots of love and praise; they’re responsible for helping to bring brilliant artists to our city at a price that most of us can afford.

Last night was a historic event for my girls and me. We all remember our first concert (mine was Shaun Cassidy in Raleigh, NC). How fitting that theirs was in such a special place.

My new favorite show is on MTV. WTF, man? This ain’t 1992.

I’ve chronicled my love of Degrassi, Sweet Valley High and John Hughes films, so it’s no big surprise that I’m completely fascinated by the teenage experience. In fact, I’m working on a YA novel and a start-up that’s geared towards kids age 11-17, I have the sense of humor of a teenage boy and I share clothes with my 12 year-old daughter (In fact, I’m rocking acid washed jeans and Lola’s Adidas kicks today. Pow!). But that’s not the only reason I’m all over “My Life As Liz.”

I could never get on board with “The Hills” or anything else that MTV has churned out these past years, so I was taken by surprise when I totally got sucked in by this show within the first three minutes. It’s thirty minutes of teen angst at its finest and revolves around Liz Lee, a high school chick in a small Texas town who’s a bright red beacon of awesome in a shallow blonde puddle of average. The “It Looks Real But It’s Scripted” production completely captures what it’s like to be struggling with your identity and finding your place in the world (or small country town…not that I would know anything about that, being a redheaded alt-girl who grew up in Western North Carolina…), including rejecting the banality of the masses while at the same time longing for inclusion. Le sigh. Growing up is exhausting.

One of my favorite things about the show is that while Liz has an unrequited crush on her friend Bryson (who, SPOILER ALERT!) has a girlfriend), it’s not all teen romance and hormones gone wild. It deals more with friendships, bitchy popular girls who make fun of her because she’s different, finding one’s voice and making it work where you are because, really, when you’re in high school you’re pretty much stuck wherever you are until you graduate and figure out a way to get the hell out of town.

Now that I think of it, maybe it is 1992, year of my high school graduation, after all. I’m blaming “Hot Tub Time Machine” on this one.

(Follow Liz Lee on Twitter right…over…here!)

So this post is a little less about social media and pop culture and and marketing nerdiness I usually write about and a little more about a topic that’s near and dear to me for a few reasons. you can break out the violins if you want-that’s ok with me. I’m gonna hit you with something a little heavy for your Monday. Ready? Let’s do it.

I’ve been in treatment for eating disorders since I was 15 (I’m 36 now; you do the math, ’cause I suck at it). My original diagnosis as a teenager was for bulimia. I went to therapy, grew up a little, went to school and things were cool for a long time. I got married. Had two awesome daughters and enjoyed both of my pregnancies. And then, for some still-mysterious reason, I hit 29 and things went bananas.

I started restricting my diet to the point that I ultimately checked into two programs for anorexia. One of them was The Renfrew Center, the country’s first residential eating disorder treatment facility. Those folks are great at what they do but unfortunately at the time, my insurance refused to cover the complete costs for me to receive inpatient help even though my healthcare providers strongly urged me to do so. Yep, another strike against our not-so-hot healthcare system; it didn’t matter that I could go to a chiropractor and get adjusted for just $30 or have my teeth cleaned twice a year at no additional charge if I wasn’t covered to receive the life-saving treatment I totally needed. So I attended their day program as if I was in high school, commuting to and from their Philadelphia campus for a few weeks before my insurance capped it altogether. Another tricky element of my time there was that I was a bit older than most of the women I was there with (since then, Renfrew and other ED professionals have made great strides to address the concerns of women of all ages). Needless to say, the time I spent there helped, but I was far from recovery at that point.

So it came as no surprise when I found myself struggling with body image issues a few years later.

In 2008 I spent six weeks at Life Healing Center in Santa Fe, NM. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but holy crap, did it do the job. My private insurance once again failed me, but this time my family was there to help with the enormous cost of treatment because I think we all felt that “three strikes and you’re out” was a sad but true possibility. At that point I was a 34 years old professional and married mother of two and I couldn’t afford to be passive in the confrontation of my issues anymore. The time for weekly 55-minute therapy sessions and pep talks from loved ones had done all they could do; flying my bony ass seemed like the best choice. (A quick time out to send my enormous gratitude to Bob and Paulette Estok, the most amazing, loving and compassionate people I’ve ever had the good fortune to know. I’ll find a way to pay you back every penny someday, I promise. And yes, them’s A LOT of pennies!)

While I was there I did lots of reading, and one of the books I came across was called “Life Without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and How You Can Too,” by Jenni Schaeffer with Thom Rutledge, LCSW. At first, it sounded like a sitcom (that’s just my strange sense of humor for you), but I quickly realized that this was a book that really spoke to me. I read it cover to cover within two days. It now sits on my desk, where I refer back to it at least once a week for inspiration, reference or gratitude for the journey I’ve been on.

So before this totally turns into a Lifetime Movie of the Week (Too late? Maybe so.) I’ll explain that the genesis of this post comes from Jenni Schaeffer’s upcoming appearance at Bryn Mawr College this Saturday, February 27. Brought to you by Valley Green Counseling and Bryn Mawr College Body Image Council as a part of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, the event is free and open to the public. Scoot over here to register and seriously, tell everyone you know about this. It’s important. For realz.

I realize that my involvement and passion for pop culture, media and fashion could be construed as feeding into the obsession we have with weight, image and unhealthy behaviors, but I’ve always been aware of the fact that there are so many factors that influence how we see ourselves and our bodies. I’m no psychologist (although goodness knows I’ve known enough to pick up a thing or two) and I’m certainly not someone who has everything all figured out; as far as I’m concerned, I’ll be in recovery for the rest of my life, fingers crossed. Every day is a challenge in some way or another, but I’m working on it. I’m getting things figured out bit by bit, and I love that each step I take makes me a better mom, a better friend and maybe most importantly, a better me. I love what I do and couldn’t imagine taking a job where I weren’t examining what’s going on on a cultural level. I may not be saving the world with my work (although I am committed to doing good in the world at all times and would love to find a bigger way to integrate that into my professional life) but I sure as hell know I’m making a difference by taking care of myself and making a commitment to living an authentic life that I can be proud of going forward. Don’t worry, though. I’m still the same wacky, tattooed goofball you’ve always known. I’m just a little softer around the edges these days.

And now, when you take me out to lunch or dinner, I’m actually going to eat instead of pushing my food around on my plate. If you’re not careful, I might just polish off your meal, too. In a good way.

In just over an hour, Tiger Woods is scheduled to make a statement regarding his recent sexual shenanigans, car crash incident and the future of his career in golf.

When will celebrities and their publicists ever learn?

Unless Tiger plans to spill the details, TMZ-style, about his floozies, the public doesn’t really care. Unless he’s going to give us full disclosure, it’s irrelevant. This tightly-controlled PR stunt reeks of obviousness and is totally self-serving; we’re not dumb dumbs. This is about wooing back sponsors and restarting the money machine so he can replace that Escalade he totaled when his angry wife attacked him with his very own golf clubs.

The simple fact that he’s refusing to take questions from the press and will read a prepared statement in a closed setting tells us everything we need to know. Sure, he might be sorry, but this is so not the way to convince the world that he’s on the path to making personal and professional amends in a sincere and active manner.

It’s great he’s in rehab for his problems. 6 weeks in an intense treatment program worked for me, but it damn well took more than a couple of months for me to get my head together. A straight up “I’m sorry, please forgive me, I know I screwed up and disappointed my family and fans” message is all nice and good, Mr. Woods, but give us a little more credit. Until you’re ready to get honest – REALLY honest – with yourself and your wife, it doesn’t really matter what we think. Take your time, dude. The world will be here when you get your house cleaned and in order. Everything else can wait.

I am totally bananas over the copywriting team responsible for the latest Old Spice campaign. Let me just state that I have no idea if the people responsible for these magnificent creative accomplishments are male or female. I don’t know if they’re short and fat or tall and skinny or any combination in between. They might be gassy. They could have bad teeth. They could be vegan (just kidding, all you vegans out there!). It doesn’t matter. They’re awesome, and I want to spread my non-sexual, Old Spice-scented love for them all over the internets.

For more Old Spice goodness, scoot over to oldspice.com. The videos are hilarious; the execution of this campaign for a product that’s totally not aimed at me is totally impressive. Plus, the dude who stars in the commercials is the coolest (you can find him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/isaiahmustafa). Seriously; copy such as “Don’t smell like sunsets and baby powder. Smell like jet fighters and punching.” deserves a holiday or something. Or at least a trip on that boat or two tickets to that thing you love.