A few weeks back I joined Chris Lam and Won Novalis for Erik Deutsch‘s class on social media at UCLA.

“I don’t want to be sold, I don’t want you to provide me with information, I don’t even want you to show me a picture of a cat…I want to be INSPIRED! Dan Portnoy did just that by telling his stories.”

Talking with students about what I get to do with clients is truly one of my favorite things. Having the opportunity to talk with students, wipe away misconceptions, pull off the blinders and getting into the nitty gritty of how campaigns, stories and general communication can be used for the best possible good is a real joy.

A few students gave their thoughts on our time together.

“At first glance, what seemed to be just a regular ad campaign with some pretty pictures suddenly became real to me.  It wasn’t just a picture but a picture of a “real” family benefiting from contributions to the United Way. I began to let down my guard. I wasn’t just being “sold,” but now emotionally involved. Suddenly, these guys at the United Way became heroes and they have the red capes to prove it!”

Read more from Kaci Bateau

“Two of the industry’s top social media content creators talked about tactics they’ve used successfully to meet their client’s brand strategy goals. Let’s meet the contenders:

In this corner, Founder of Cup of Joe Social, Chris Lam — previously senior PR strategist for Fandago and Green Dot.

In the other corner, Dan Portnoy, the Head Honcho at Portnoy Media Group. Dan develops effective PR strategies to drive his clients Facebook likes from nil to mill; he’s also a crisis fixer.”

Read more from Jennifer Nguyen

Being paired with Chris Lam is wonderful. I think I learn as much as the students when she walks everyone through her campaigns. She’s smart, strategic and has massive results. The fun/wild part for me is that her methods are so different from my own. Color me impressed.

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The long awaited new project from Justin McRoberts is launching today with Pre-orders.

CMYK: The Process of Living Together is a multimedia experience. This project has multiple ways to interact with, from music to words to pictures, this is Justin McRoberts most ambitious project yet.

I’ve had the fortune to be along this journey with Justin for the past year and I can honestly tell you – this project is a game changer. I can’t recommend it enough.

This collection of letters, songs and stories lives in the tough issues of faith and life that I’ve rarely heard a sermon about – that didn’t result in a judgmental dismissive tone.

Do yourself a favor, pick up one or multiple pieces to this project. Sign up for Justin’s email list, say hello on Facebook. Don’t miss out.

Visual artists made pieces that correspond with the general themes of the project and we worked to create some video interviews with Macha Suzuki, Dylan Mortimer and Laura Van Duren as well as this intro to the project. I’ve included it below.

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Editor Note: I find that good stories, no matter where I hear them, can function as inspiration for my next project. From time to time, I like to share a great one so you can share in the joy of the story too.

PBS has really been rolling out the red carpet for some great series lately. The recent Masterpiece Classic of Mr. Selfridge has been full of dynamic characters, social morays and plenty of questions regarding what’s next.

However their latest offering, The Bletchley Circle, is utterly fantastic! A great story of struggling characters. Code breaking ladies of WWII can’t disclose their code breaking skills and are viewed as less than simply because they’re women. Insult of insults! “I’m smart and female so I should get you a sandwich?” But they can’t shut off their talents. In spite of incredible odds, our heroine Susan starts to see a pattern in the recent deaths of several women around London. She reconvenes her old friends to see if they can get to the bottom of this and catch a killer.

I love this series for the intrigue and how the filmmakers talk about the characters. This past week PBS aired a Behind the Scenes featurette about the costume design of the characters. In the short, costume designer Anna Robbins talks about how they removed florals from the entire palette of the series and instead focused on geometric patterns and angular designs to reinforce the analytical mind of the heroine.

There are multiple villains in the series. Not only is a killer on the loose but because of the social conscience of the day, women shouldn’t be worrying about murders and especially about murder victims. Instead a post war Europe encouraged more conventional roles.

I can’t recommend the series enough and the title sequence is full of Enigma machines and other code breaking tools. Again, all angular to show the compartmentalization of the minds of the heroic troupe. Everything that we see on screen is reinforcing the story or the info we’re learning about our characters. Below is the trailer – check it out.

Check out the real world Bletchley Park headquarters

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This week I joined Pennsylvania’s finest Ken Mueller, Karolina Sivas and HuffPost Live host Jacob Soboroff for a candid conversation about non-profits and the use of celebrities. Check it out below.

PS. As a life long Celtics fan it’s funny that I was defending Kobe Bryant.

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