Entry #6

I have a few things on my mind this morning. Social Media. Healthcare Reform. Retirement & Pensions. These are things that matter to me and since marketing is my field and my firm is in HR consulting, I get to have opinions about them and it's related to work. At this point I should say: do not construe anything said here as advice and anything I say is my opinion and not representative of the firm I work for. In fact, what I really hope will happen is that you will comment and share insight and provide feedback to help shape a collective perception (think wisdom of crowd sourcing).

Now, on the subject of social media: I get it; I like it; I use it. I'm on FB, I'm in LinkedIn, I tweet. But I'm charged with developing the social media marketing strategy for my firm and I don't get it for business. I can see maybe for internal communications, alumni relations and knowledge sharing, but for building business? Developing customer relationships? Even creating client/prospect community is a stretch for a B2B firm (although I'm open to possibilities here, what it will take, how it could work, what kind of resource and other investment). So that's the first thing: how can I make social media an effective part of my marketing strategy? At least that's a fun problem to have.

Healthcare: should be free for all, right? I'm not sure - consider the tradeoffs and costs. But I will say this for sure, healthcare is broken in the US of A. My friends and family who are physicians vacillate among hating their jobs because of what's happened to the practice of medicine to hating insurance companies because of what's happened to the practice of medicine to hating lawyers and not just because it's fun to hate lawyers. I have access to excellent healthcare and still I'm generally not in love with most of my care. Also, I see what my parents deal with as older, sicker people who have a lot of interaction with the healthcare system and it is not pretty or easy or reassuring.

Retirement: hah. I knew a long time ago that I wasn't part of the demographic who could expect to retire set for life at 55. I am part of the demographic that has been facing a social security system expected to go bankrupt right around the time I should be retiring. That reality has shaped most of my career and work expectations. Think about entering the workforce just when they say your pension system will be bankrupt when you are ready to retire. What impact would you think that would have? Naturally I figured I have to work until I died. But today's unprecedented cataclysm has me rethinking the concept of pensions and retirements. I would gladly trade off circumstances for security. What I mean is, teachers slog away for years at a rewarding but exhausting job for relatively low pay when you consider they're shaping our future. Part of their trade off is the board of ed pension - less now for future security. That is a compelling value proposition. If the state wants to give me that kind of security for less take home now, it's hard to argue; it takes off a boatload of pressure - if it's not the children monkey than it's the financial security monkey on my back; I could do with one less monkey. And for me it's not like less take home now will create a deprivation. I am one of the lucky ones. I'm not living the gossip girl life but we are the Huxtables. People like me can afford to give up something now and sorry but I'm not buying the argument that higher taxation stifles creativity. That's part of America's rugged individualism myth which is useful propaganda for creating a divided community. Opps. Went there. Ciao for now.