Everyone who hates to plan raise your hand. Go ahead; be honest here. Yes, even you in the back with the sideburns. I see you!

Remember back in the halcyon days of new media when just about everyone wanted to be a "rock star", "ninja", or "guru"? Back then (and, really, we're talking about a couple of years ago at most), folks would shank each other with a sharpened Pinterest post to be known as the Rock Star of their niche, the New Media Ninja, or the wise and sought-out Guru. I know this because I was right there with them. The titles were cool!

No matter how good your blog post or article is, folks won't share it if your headline is boring as warm dishwater. Upworthy learned how to turn great headlines into millions of site visits and social shares a month. What they learned, you can learn, too...and you won't believe how easy it can be!

I believe we can all agree that, in the pantheon of superheroes, Batman is right up there. He is vengeance and the night and a cultural icon that goes back more than half a century. Countless kids grew up wanting their own Batcaves and Batmobiles and Batarangs and, well, you get the idea.

Whenever a big event happens I like to park myself on Twitter and read the live commentary. Imagine an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, with dozens of smart, funny riffers who serve up a LOL-funny line every minute and you've a good idea of what my Twitter feed is like during the State of the Union address or the premiere of Sharknado. The companies and organizations who have a presence on Twitter don't disappoint either. Some of them, most of them, do badly, but a few really shine on big Twitter nights. 

If you've spent any time at all working in social media, you've heard the aphorism "Content is King".

We all develop bad habits, especially on our social media platforms where we are largely self-taught. Often, we don’t even know we’ve made a mistake until we see the results — reduced traffic to our site, the mentions column of our Twitter feed blown up like Michael Corleone’s car, an angry Facebook mob storming the comments.

Are you all ready for Christmas? I know I have a couple things left to do, a little last-minute grocery shopping and such. You know how these things go.

Not long ago, I was wandering around the FreedomWorks site, searching for inspiration for a new article. I read a few posts from my fine fellow-writers, spent a bit of time poking around FreedomConnector to see how other folks were using that resource, and then a tiny link on my FC dashboard page caught my attention. It said, "University"

One of the things I've learned about political activism is the two most precious commodities for any group or campaigns are money and people. Yes, I know I just gave you a candidate for "most obvious statement of the decade", but stick with me a minute. We know, even for groups at the local level, money can be awfully hard to get and we'll break our brains and our backs to get more.