The importance of a brand to stand for something more than its product or service is almost mandatory these days. Many think that this is a relatively new concept to stand for something outside of what you sell but it’s not.

Last night Lacey Paterson passed away. We are with heavy hearts that our friend is gone, she brought such joy to our lives and was an inspiration to us all. We posted a small photo slideshow, please share.

Another addition to this seemingly growing series of how other industries can help the social web grow up, this one takes a walk with photography. I have quite a few friends who are photographers whether by profession or hobby many traits and habits extend pass their disposition. I began looking at how we can take the basics and learn how to interact with the social web more effectively.

It’s been said that with age comes maturity, guessing by a few of my friends though you might think different. When the email newsletter was but a teenager struggling to find it’s place amongst business it would often have outburst of unruly behavior. Much is the same with social media design. How can we take the lessons email learned about design and apply them to social media?

Lately it seems as if the market for social media 101 and 102 have hit critical mass, unfortunately I think it’s just beginning to grow. Everyone will get into the business of telling you how to leverage, game, manipulate, and pendulate wants against needs. The more we become a “friending” society the more we need to be reminded that we are still human. Yes, there are ways to help nudge or further expose a desire into a “friending” action but the incessant documentation and rules for social media needs to find a plateau. This isn’t to say that those who are creating materials for those just becoming acquainted with social media are wasting their time or creating useless chatter amongst the internet. It does seem, however, that we are wanting to abandon our humanity for something more enticing. This happened with the advent of email and email newsletter campaigns, still heavily used but often tossed to the side for more social fields, email has been through this and maybe we should learn some lessons.