Latest happenings for Mark

In all your ways acknowledge the Lord, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:6

The above verse reminds me that as I continue to focus on the Lord in all I do and rely on Him to help me through life, I can be rest assured he will make my path straight in front of me. I may not always know where the path is taking me or know what is the meaning of the scenery along the path until later, but God knows and will intend it for my own good.

At this point in my life, there is a lot going on. I am still looking for full-time employment with someone that embraces the uniqueness I bring in connecting and interacting with others via social media. What would I like to do? Well, I really do enjoy using social media tools to connect with people and help them whether that is in customer service, building relationships with customers or teaching them the ropes on social media. I could see myself in a variety of jobs as a community manager, social media consultant, or even in managing websites/content since I have experience in that area too.

While I continue to look for full-time employment, I am keeping myself quite busy in a few groups. One group was started in July with the intention of bringing together individuals and businesses in the Johnson County area and around Kansas City who wish to learn how to use social media tools/networking to connect and interact with their business or personal brand. The name of this group is the Kansas City Social Media Group. It was started in Johnson County, KS since a breakfast group focused on social media outside of the successful Internet Marketing and Social Media Meetup group was needed. Many members of the SMCKC group had expressed interest in a Johnson County SM group. We were approached by Houlihan's who graciously offered their Olathe location to host us and offered the entire restaurant for us to use on the morning of our breakfast. They also serve us a few wonderful items from their weekly Sunday brunch for breakfast on the day of our meeting. In fact, they have a great deal on their Sunday brunch for their social media friends that you can take advantage of during August. We have been very happy with the attendance at the first two KCSM breakfast meetings to date. We had 35 people show up at the July breakfast and around 75-80 people showed up at the August 12 breakfast! For now, we are only meeting for breakfast once a month at the Olathe Houlihan's with this group, but much more could be done with this group as time goes on. Tweetups, meetings outside of breakfast, etc. could happen. There is a planning committee consisting of myself, Shawn Gallagher, Chris Dowell and Marty Taggart that works together to plan and make the KCSM group meetings happen. I could not do it without all of their tremendous help and support.

Also, I was approached recently by Vicky Watson with the New Landings group to help them with their social media strategy as they continue to grow in membership. What is New Landings? At New Landings, their mission is to redefine the way their members view career transition by actively providing resources and new avenues to showcase their skills. They liberate individuals from the bounds of traditional thinking enabling them to create and engage with meaningful work. They are dedicated to the economic recovery of America's middle class. They have some awesome networking events coming up and weekly Wednesday night meetings with dynamic speakers focusing on career issues. They are also involved in a few outstanding programs coming up that will enable unemployed people take advantage of some opportunities to get involved in the workforce. What is very nice is that they list on their home page the number of "landings" or people who have landed jobs in the past year and month to date. They also show the economic contribution these new "landings" have brought to the economy as a result of them getting jobs. It goes to show that New Landings is dedicated to helping people who are unemployed and looking for their next career path. I will be co-leading the New Landings social media team with a few other New Landings members and I am very happy to lend my experience and knowledge to this group to help its members. A wonderful volunteer opportunity that I am looking forward to participate in.

Outside of these two groups, I have been spending time with my family and also taking time to think about how I can start writing more on this blog and my two other speciality blogs. Most people know I am a "chatterbox" on Twitter since I love to connect and interact with people on there, but I have also started to think how I should write more on my blogs to generate lasting content that others can read and refer to often. Twitter is great for quick tidbits to share with others and interaction, but once you tweet something, it is lost in time as more tweets come from you. Generating lasting content ensures people can take their time to read and digest what you share.

That is in a nutshell what has been going on for me lately. I plan to share more info about thoughts from my life on here as time goes on. Thanks for reading.