Students flooded the streets. Beaver Canyon, the core of off-campus life, became a sea of blue and white. And when I first watched the footage I thought, “Awesome!” But I changed my mind.

You see, I love Penn State. It’s still a huge part of my life. And when something remarkable happens to that community, I can be as rowdy as they come. But when a community as great as Happy Valley turns on itself—and ends up hurting itself— it’s just way too ugly to ignore.

Communities are a wonderful thing—college communities, neighborhood communities, online communities—and most accomplish great things. But sometimes, communities can turn dangerous. And last week at Penn State was a perfect example.

It’s easy to be an asshole in chaotic situations.

I first found out about the Penn State riot online. My younger frat bros who are still in school had pictures up on Facebook. A few sorority girls I knew had links to the footage on Instant Messenger saying how “fucking awesome” it was. To be fair, that was my first reaction too.

But things got ugly. And they didn’t get ugly because of a community of criminals. They got ugly because of a handful of criminals scattered amidst thousands in a massive celebration.

A couple of meatheads, drunk off their own stupidity, thought it would be cool to rip down some street lights. Or break some bottles. Or smash some cop-car windows. And everybody suffered.

This kind of thing happens in communities all the time. Big or small, minority behavior tends to put us all in a whacked out situation. It even happens with communities online.

It’s like that blog post that organically creates passionate response. Usually the response is civil … but then someone realizes they can say anything they want, with no consequence. And a passionate, engaging dialogue turns sour.

And guess who usually gets burned in this equation? It’s not the person who was just there to throw some stones. It’s the people who showed up to genuinely enjoy the celebration. They’re the ones who end up with mace in their eyes.

And then the blame game begins …

I don’t know what happened first at PSU, the rioting or the mace. I’m pretty sure nobody will ever truly know. But regardless, we’ll still try to place blame months from now no matter what.

Students will blame the cops, because let’s face it: cops are the Anti-Christ to a college kid. And the cops will blame the students, because they’re just the spoiled-rotten kids their job forces them to deal with seven days a week. And when I read the post-riot articles online, I can really sympathize with both sides.

Fortunately, the online communities I’ve experienced are far tamer. But the blame game remains the same. Because how individuals act within any community affects how the entire community is perceived.

If some wild card decided to get slanderous tomorrow on Brazen, there wouldn’t be any long-term damage. But someone is going to be offended, or hurt. And when you’re trying to build a community that respects one another despite their differences in opinion, you do your best to make sure nobody walks away bruised.

And there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Just like overcoming great odds as an individual, communities that overcome great odds become stronger and more composed once the next obstacle erupts. The Penn State community will, and so will any other community that looks at what they did wrong the first time and makes changes in response.

I think the first step is to recognize how powerful we are when united. With that unity we can do great things, but can also wreak havoc. And sometimes pride and passion are great catalysts for people with violent intentions.

But I don’t think that means that we should dilute ourselves either. We just have to be more aware of the actions of the people around us. And if they’re malicious, it’s our responsibility to do something about it. And it’s harder to do than you think.

But I think that’s a leadership skill many of us don’t use that often, maybe we don’t even have it. But it’s certainly one that every community needs.

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My friend, Valerie Ludwig, passed away on Monday morning. She had been sick for a few years, but as far as I knew, she was doing much better. We’d drifted apart since High School. Sophomore and junior year we were close. We traveled in the same group. My guy friends dated her girl friends. We hung out on the weekends. She was a great person. Always happy. Always smiling. Always having a good time.

When I got the call from Andrea on Monday morning, I had eerie flashbacks to junior year of high school. It was too similar to the morning I found out about my friend Mike passing away in a car accident the night before.

I pictured Val at Mike’s funeral with the rest of our group, tearful, sad, and most of all confused about how something like this could happen to a 16 year old kid. I remembered Val at my best friend Ben’s father’s wake three years ago. I walked out of the funeral home, balling my eyes out after a tearful encounter with Ben and his mother. Guess who was there to comfort me? Val, strong and compassionate, she gave me a huge hug and told me everything would be ok.

Now it’s her turn. Her wake is tonight. I can’t be there. I wish I could. Now she’s gone and it just doesn’t seem fair. Nobody should die at 25.

I’ve come to find out that she was sick for a long time. She was on steroids that changed the way she looked. But she was never down. At our high school reunion, she looked a little different but she was the same old Val. Happy as hell and chatting with everyone – from the theatre kids, to the bandies to the jocks, she didn’t care. She never cared. She was never stressed. Or at least she never let it show.

And that’s why I was so disappointed in myself for stressing out. I have a good life. I have a healthy family. I have great friends. I have an amazing girlfriend. I’m doing exactly what I wanted to do with my career. Why stress about the little things?

Then I spoke with a mentor of mine. I told him how silly and unimportant all of this stuff seems when you hear about something so tragic. He told me it’s not silly. It is important. We’re put here to do something – to make a difference. What we do with our lives should be very important to us. So we continued on and talked business.

Tragedy will happen more and more as we get older. When it does, we sit back and reflect, but unfortunately we probably forget too soon. And we go on stressing out about life.

But you know what; I’m not going to forget. Maybe for an hour, maybe for a day, and maybe even for a week, I’ll get wrapped up in my own head and my own worries. But somehow, I’ll remind myself of Val and how she handled her hardships – real hardships, and I’ll snap out of it.

But I will continue to care about the things that are important in my life. And for me, with caring comes stress, and that’s ok. I just can’t let the stress consume me and bring me down. Instead, I’ll put it to good use and fight like hell for my friends, my family, my company, my career and whatever else is stressing me out. Because that’s what Val did, she fought like hell for her life. And even though she didn’t win that fight, she made the world she left behind a better place for everyone who knew her. And that’s what really matters.

Rest in Peace, Val.

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1. Figure out what your interests are

You hear it all the time, find your passion and pursue it. Well, I don’t totally buy it. You don’t have to find that one true calling to find a job you like, but you should, at the very least, have an interest in the field you pursue. As far as I’m concerned, being interested means that you would do the work in your free time - without getting paid. You’ll most likely have multiple careers throughout your lifetime, so forget about searching for the perfect one.

What do you read about, talk about, or blog about on a regular basis? Can any of those things be translated into a career? I’m sure they can, you just have to get creative.

2. Specialize to make yourself employable

Learn as much as you possibly can about the ONE field you want to work in. It might take a few weeks, a few months, or even a year, but if you devote enough time and energy into learning everything you can about your field, you will be employable in any economy.

We just hired an SEO guru who has a degree in psychology, and was in grad school for information studies. One day, less than a year ago, he decided he loved social media and SEO. Now he’s turning down job offers from Microsoft and saying no thanks to consulting requests every other day.

Our newest Software Engineer doesn’t have a college degree, but we had to woo him away from multiple other companies in Madison to get him to join the team because of his expertise in open source software development. A 4-year degree is great, but true knowledge and expertise in a particular field will trump a degree any day of the week.

3. Share your ideas with the world (Hint: start a blog)

You can be the most knowledgeable 22 year old in the country on your subject matter, and you can have a great resume, but that’s not enough. If you want employers to come to you, you have to communicate your knowledge and ideas to the rest of the world. Quite simply, this means start a blog! Blogging is, hands down, the best thing you can do for your career.

In his post about how much resumes suck, Robert Scoble says that only 1 out of 98 resumes he receives include a blog URL. Think about it, all you have to do to get to the top of the pile is put your URL in your cover letter or resume. And when you get to the top of the pile, your chances of getting the interview improve astronomically.

Additionally, a resume cannot show an employer your personality or express your ideas. A blog can. I wouldn’t be in the position I am today if it wasn’t for Employee Evolution. And I’ve heard of countless others who have turned their blog into a job. All you have to do is ask around the Brazen community to find some great blog success stories.

4. Control your online brand

When you decide to put your ideas out there for the world to see, you are making a conscious decision to market yourself as a brand. Dan Schawbel, the king of personal branding, has some great resources for anyone who decides its time to create “brand you.” The short version is that you should pick an area to brand yourself in and be conscious of everything you do online.

But this doesn’t mean you have to take down every Facebook picture of you drinking a beer. We’re all fully rounded people. We all have a social life, and a work life. We just happen to live every part of our lives online these days. Use the appropriate social network or blog platform to show each side of your life, and be conscious of the image you project. But don’t be scared, just don’t do anything illegal, and you’ll be fine.

5. Establish a Network of weak ties

We’ve all heard how important networking is for your career, but how exactly do you network with experienced or high profile people when you’re barely out of school? It’s easy, you put yourself out there. Start by researching who you want to get in touch with, then send them an email that adds some type of value and request a quick meeting.

In the past two weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with high level folks from companies like Accenture and Ceridian. And I’ve had random meetings with young CEO’s of great start-up companies like Banyan Link and Unigo. I used to be unsure of setting up phone calls just to chat, but I’ve now realized that that’s what successful people do. They connect with other successful or soon to be successful people, just because. And if you want to guarantee yourself a job no matter how bad the economy is, that’s what you have to do. You have to create as many weak ties as possible.

There are many different ways to approach your career. If you want to find decent jobs by actively job hunting for the rest of your life, a good approach is to have a degree, a solid resume and some relevant experience. But a great way is to do all those things, and embrace this 5 step process. Do it right and you’ll be amazed how many potential career opportunities come knocking on your door.

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At first glance, this seems crazy because Gen Y is job hopping every couple of years and employers can’t figure out how to get us to stick around. But as I thought about it a little more and I discussed the topic with other retreat attendees, it made total sense. We grew up watching our parents get laid off, then we went to college and saw the collapse of Enron, Arthur Andersen and others, and even now, we’re watching Wall Street completely screw up the economy. Couple that with the rapid pace of change we’ve seen throughout our lives, and a little security sounds pretty comforting.

But here’s the thing. We shouldn’t be looking for job security. And companies shouldn’t promise it. Promising job security means promising employment. And when everything changes at the blink of an eye, no company can promise employment. But what they should be able to promise is employability.

Promising employability means that a company is promising to provide you with the right mix of training, skills, experience, and mentoring, which will ultimately leave you employable no matter what happens with your current job. The best security you can have is the security of having the skills that employers need—the skills that make you employable.

So, when you go on your next job interview or when you talk to your boss about your career plans, ask him what the company is doing to make you employable. If he can quickly give you a list of five things, congratulations, you’re secure. If he’s stumped, it’s time to rethink the job you’re in.

Many companies have no idea how to provide Generation Y with the skills we need to be employable. So, they need our help. Jeanne Meister is researching and writing a book to help companies understand what Gen Y really wants. She has the ear of corporate America, but she’s asking for a little help and insight from us – Gen Y.

CLICK HERE to take the Four Generations @ Work survey and do your part in helping Corporate America understand what changes they need to make. And hey, if for no other reason, there are some pretty cool prizes you could win if you take the survey by October 15.

The Prizes:
1. Ipod Touch
2. Flip Camera
3. $50 gift certificate to Amazon

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And at first, saying that leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Frat guys get a bad rap, because a lot of us flat-out suck. But many of us are actually pretty good guys … promise.

But here’s the deal. I learned a lot from my years as a greek. Sure, I partied hard, got up late and skipped a bunch of classes. But I spent a lot of that time building community right outside my door, in my frat.

Here are few things I took away from the fuzzy, fun-filled days and nights I spent with my fraternity in college.

You can get a lot by doing a little.

The worst part about joining a fraternity is the pledge process. But after it’s all over, the rewards you’ll reap over the next four years (and beyond) are immeasurable.

I try to think about blogging the same way. During the first few months of your blog, you’re pretty much at the bottom of the food chain. Hardly anyone wants to talk to you and you’re putting a lot of time into something when time is pretty scarce.

Some days you want to quit—and lots of people do—but for those who stay, you get to enjoy a community experience that other people miss out on.

Just like pledging, once you’re initiated, the blogosphere becomes your playground. It’s effortless to make connections. And if that’s all you’re looking for, you’re in great shape.

But going above and beyond is better.

A lot of people pledge frats, “pay their dues” and coast their way through college with all the perks of fraternity life. But others take a leadership role. They strive to make a difference within their community. These people gain the most out of fraternity life.

Being a part of the blogosphere is very similar. The more you put in, the more you get out.

The Brazen Careerist community has leaders in every niche. They’re not just blogging; they’re making their niche better or even the entire sphere better.

A telltale sign of a community leader is someone who takes it beyond the blog. They connect via email, on the phone or in person. They’re finding ways for bloggers to work together and they’re actually creating a movement for change in some cases.

I like to think about it in terms of the people in the frat who would stay in their rooms during a party versus the ones who left that sanctity to be more social. Sure, you can lure people back to your room to party, but you’re a lot more likely to experience something fun if you throw yourself amongst the masses and let loose.

Mixing it up is a good thing.

My favorite thing about frat life was our diversity. We weren’t the homogeneous crew of greeks you see in movies. We had lots of differences. And it’s what made our house so distinctive.

And what would any good community be without a little diversity? What I love most about being Brazen is all the perspectives and passions we share. We are all quite different, but at the same time, united by the common desire to build relationships with fascinating people.

And sure, you may think frat guys are far from fascinating. But the good frats aim to be. Mine was. We had the meatheads, but we also had philosophers and some-day corporate execs. We were far from dull, and that’s what most communities should strive to be.

There are tons of different people with different agendas in the blogosphere. Some are writing, some are commenting and some are just reading with little-to-no visibility at all. But they’re all fulfilling a role that’s important to any community’s existence.

Inter-fraternal relations are vital.

It only takes a moment for a good party to go bad. One second you’re drinking a beer, the next, you’re getting jostled around in the midst of a frat-on-frat brawl. Lame.

Community leaders try so hard to build relationships with similar organizations. Then, out of nowhere, beer muscles get the best of someone and all goes sour.

It’s understandable. Everyone wants to be at the best. And in a way, you are, of course, competitors. But like anyone who understands community knows, it’s better to have an alliance with the competition than a vendetta against one another.

When building online community, establish good relations with your competition and try not to talk trash too much. The party is a lot more fun when you don’t have to worry about bad blood over spilt beer

Because in the end, it’s all about throwing a great party.

That’s the biggest similarity between my frat-guy years and my new adventure building an online community. Every day Brazen is working to bring the most thought-provoking mix of readers and writers together.

Our goal: To be the most stellar group of thought-provoking young professionals online. The community everyone wants to party with—the big name on campus.

And maybe that sounds too greek for you … and if that’s the case, don’t get turned off. I’m far beyond those years (for the most part). I’m just happy to (right now) have my dream job. A job that bonds my party-boy years with the (quasi)-professional I’ve become today. And I’m loving it.

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I didn’t say it. The New York Times did. And this was before the disaster that took place on Capitol Hill yesterday.

The article, written by Alessandra Stanley, goes on to say that the pending economic crisis, which has since become not so pending, “is confirming the worst fears of Gen-Y, namely that our baby boomer parents are leaving us a world convulsed by war, drowning in debt and melting down under global warming.”

She’s got a point. The world, and more specifically, The United States, is screwed up right now. The House just rejected a $700 Billion rescue plan, effectively causing the largest drop in the stock market since 1987. And the word is that House members pending reelections played a major role in the rejection. You’ve got to be kidding me.

But way before the most recent “Black Monday,” for years, us 20-somethings have been graduating into a world where we are buried in debt before stepping foot into our first job, and dealing with living expenses that are often more than average starting salaries. Our generation has inherited a world that needs some serious fixing.

And yesterday was just the final straw in what’s been a disastrous 8 years for America. But, as bad as yesterday was, it may be a blessing in disguise.

When we look back on Monday, September 29, 2008, will we say that it was the beginning of the end, or will we say that it was the day America took a long hard look in the mirror and decided to make a change?

I’ll choose the latter.

I’ll choose it, because I see a group of 20 and 30-something’s prepared to clean up the mess. Blaming our parents, or Congress, or the baby boomers, or even the President, won’t get us anywhere. But recycling, going green, being fiscally responsible, starting non-profits, starting for-profits, and actively involving ourselves in the presidential election is a good start.

Despite our youth, and despite the fact that we aren’t in traditional positions of authority, I see Generation Y, or as I recently saw us referred to as, Generation We, pushing change and making progress in every area.

In Washington D.C., the Progressive Happy Hour group is hosting debate parties and constantly trekking over to Virginia, vowing to knock on 100,000 doors in hopes of turning the battleground state blue before November 4.

Yesterday, I spoke with Jordan Goldman, a recent college grad who decided he’d had enough of universities providing high school seniors with inaccurate, boring and often misleading descriptions about their outrageously priced schools. So, he gathered a team and started Unigo, a company that puts the message back in the hands of the people who really know what the school is all about–the students.

In a couple of hours I have a meeting with Rich Littlehale, a Yale student and budding social entrepreneur, who recently started Twigtek, a company that helps organizations raise money by collecting old cell phones and helping the environment.

The list goes on and on. Young people have looked at the disastrous situation this country is in and decided to do something about it –way before “Black Monday” caused mass panic.

As Progressive Happy Hour organizer Brian Komar eloquently explains, we are in the midst of the NEXT Progressive Movement. He says, “Change doesn’t come from parties. It comes from movements. This movement will bring the change America needs. Young people are always the early adopters, and this time younger people are paving the way. . . . My sincere hope is that this movement becomes multigenerational.”

This is the attitude that Generation Y has demonstrated, and must continue to demonstrate. Because it’s not about being a hero; it’s about working together and making smart decisions for the greater good because we see the mess that we’ve been dealt. And when you see a mess, there’s only one thing left to do: clean it up.

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I hear it all the time. Nearly every time I speak, someone will chime in with this question. And I don’t blame them really. It’s a legitimate question. But in my opinion, it’s a bad assumption.

Why would I be upset that you are going above and beyond to meet the needs or requests of my fellow employees? I want my co-workers to be happy with their jobs. Of course, I’ll expect that you go above and beyond to make me happy as well. But, what’s wrong with that?

The secret is to forget about trying to make everyone equal at your company, and figure out how to make every group feel special. Whether it’s a particular demographic, a gender, a religious group, a generation or even a personality type, your organization should go beyond the paycheck and put in the extra time to find out what each small or large group wants, and give it to them.

Do something to make a particular group or individual feel special

The other day, I spoke with Susie Gorsline, the Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Au Bon Pain, and she told me how they are making a particular group feel special.

Au Bon Pain is hosting their Annual International Company meeting this week. They have managers and executives from 29 countries attending – so obviously all sorts of cultures and religions will be represented. Out of respect for Ramadan (the Muslim religious observance that takes place during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and calls for fasting from dawn to sunset), they decided to accommodate their practicing Muslim population of managers. Breakfast will be served before sunrise at 4:30 AM, a prayer room will be provided, special plates of food will be offered, and wine will not be offered to those who indicate they are observing the holiday.

Needless to say, Gorsline and her team received tremendous feedback from their Muslim employees – many indicating they were proud to be working for such a forward-thinking company. And get this, it cost them next to nothing – just a little time and effort from the conference organizers and the hotel staff.

Tell ALL your employees about your initiative

It’s great that all of the employees who were directly affected by the Ramadam accommodation felt proud to work for the company, but don’t think they’re the only ones who want to hear about it. If your company is creating special initiatives for young employees, employees who lose a family member, employees who have a baby or employees who are approaching retirement, don’t keep it a secret, tell everyone!

I would be thrilled to know that my employer cares about my fellow employees so much. When Susie sent out the email notifying everyone of their intentions for Ramadan, it wasn’t just the Muslim employees who responded positively, many others replied with emails commending the HR department, and it was the hot topic of conversation for the rest of the week.

It’s amazing how helping one small group can make every other group proud to work for your company.

Watch the Trickle down happen

American Express wanted to cater to their baby boomer employees, so they created a program promoting the new concept of phased retirement. The program allows soon to be retired baby boomers to transition from full time work to full time retirement and transfer the invaluable knowledge they’ve gained during their time at the company. It’s a great initiative for experienced workers who are almost ready to retire, but either need a little more money, tenure, or just aren’t quite ready to quit work cold turkey.

Well, the next thing you know, this initiative actually trickled down to benefit their Gen Y employees. The young employees ended up getting exactly what they wanted too – hands on training and mentoring from the people who were running the organization

No matter how hard you try, you’re not going to please everyone by treating everyone the same. We’ve all come from different backgrounds and we’re all at different points in our lives. So put in the extra effort and figure out how to give every group special treatment — not just Generation Y

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You can blame whomever you want, but that’s not the point. The point is that an undergraduate degree today is worth about as much as a high school degree was 30 years ago. College is a place to make friends, grow up, and learn how to get work done without someone watching over you.
College does not teach us the ins and outs of the industry where we land our first job, and it certainly doesn’t teach us other real-world lessons like how to play office politics, or how to handle being ridiculously busy one week and completely bored the next. Entry level workers are just not as prepared for the real world as they need to be.

But there is a solution. It’s called training–lots and lots of training. In fact, if companies want to get real buy-in from their new hires, they should be prepared to provide so much training and mentoring that their entry level workers feel like their first job is really corporate grad school. I recently discovered a company who gets it, and amazingly, they’re in my backyard.

Epic Systems of Madison, Wisconsin has taken training to a whole new level. A friend of mine started working there a month ago. She’s basically still in college for the next six months - except, it’s college with a purpose.

She goes to work every day and takes classes with the other people in her on-boarding group. They have assigned mentors, they do training programs, they listen to experienced employees teach them about the “Epic way,” they do daily assignments, they watch funny You Tube clips after lunch, and they even have to pass tests.

The college atmosphere goes beyond office hours. The majority of new hires at Epic are young, and they almost always end up becoming friends with each other. They go to Epic parties; Epic events, and they hang out with each other on the weekends. Everyone I’ve talked to loves it because it’s the perfect transition from college to the real world.

It may sound silly to older employees, but Gen Y grads aren’t ready to graduate to a quick 3 days of basic job training, and then a 9 to 5 every day in front of a computer. We’re looking for a learning atmosphere at work and social opportunities outside of work. Epic has figured out a way to successfully engage Generation Y by understanding the major disconnect between our generation and corporate America – we’re not fully prepared for the real world.

And it’s not just me who thinks Epic knows what they are doing. The majority of its employees were hired directly out of college, and they now accept only 2% of the 40,000 to 50,000 applications they receive every year. They were founded with an investment of $70,000 in 1979 and are now a privately held company valued at $1.2 billion. Sure, those numbers are good, but when you consider this is a company located outside of a small Wisconsin city, and they heavily recruit from out of state; those numbers are amazing.

Epic knows that traditional schooling is no longer enough, and they’ve taken the responsibility to prepare their employees for life in the real world – both personally and professionally. Hopefully other companies will start taking notes.

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Social media has already changed the way people communicate and interact with each other and it’s changing the way business works – for the better. But still, a recent Challenger, Gray & Christmas study found that 20% of companies have banned social networking sites from employee computers! If your company is one of those 20%, you should seriously reconsider. Here’s why.

It’s called social NETWORKING for a reason

Network, network, network. It’s all you heard from your parents growing up, your professors in college, and every successful person you’ve talked to since. Companies inherently understand (I hope) that employees need to network both inside and outside the company because you never know where that next big sale, or new hire will come from. In a recent press release, Nick Ragone, Director of Ketchum’s Communications & Media Strategy Group says, “Banning these types of sites would be the equivalent of asking your boss, ‘Do you think I really need to make sales calls or network; can’t I just hang out in my office and wait for the phone to ring?’ ”

Of course not! Why then, would any company consider blocking a website that allows all of your employees to be in one giant virtual room with the best and brightest from inside and outside your industry? Sounds like a case of short-sighted management to me.

Social networks are the best place to recruit

Yes, I’m aware that “passive job seeker” is the big buzzword in recruiting these days, but there’s a reason for that. Passive job seekers are the people your company really wants to recruit. They are the ones who are perfectly happy in their situation. They make a good salary, they enjoy the people they work with, and their employers are happy with their performance. But they still hang out on social networks, they’re actively involved in online communities, and they read blogs. And they will listen to a more attractive job offer if your company can create the online presence you need to connect with these people.

Active job seekers on the other hand, are actively searching for a job for a reason. They’re on Monster, CareerBuilder, and JobFox because they really want to get out of their situation. But, chances are, they are in a less than perfect job because they couldn’t get anything better. You may find the occasional gem of a resume in your inbox, but you’d be much better served to connect with the people you really want through Linkedin, Twitter, or Brazen Careerist.

Social media can directly impact your bottom line

Social networks and blogs are very much about networking, connections and conversation, but if your company big whigs won’t go for anything that doesn’t directly impact the bottom line, show them that social media can do that too.

The Washington Post reports that Marriott made more than $5 million in bookings from people who clicked through to the reservation page from Marriott’s corporate blog. I don’t know the exact traffic numbers for Marriott’s blog, but I do know that the longer blogs are around, and the more you write the more direct traffic you get. And in this case, an increase in direct traffic will no doubt lead to an increase in revenue.

If you hired right, your employees will not waste work time on social media

Ketchum’s press release pretty much sums it up when they say, “Yes, there are a few bad apples that may waste time on these tools, but they will find ways to waste time even if they don’t have social networking sites – they will find something else to distract them.”

Top employees, the employees you should hire, will spend time on social networking sites, but they will not do it at the expense of getting their work done. There are only two possible reasons that your employees are wasting time on these sites. One reason is that you hired the wrong people, and you should get rid of them ASAP. The other option is maybe your company needs to provide more work to employees or re-think how you define employee engagement.

Some companies are so obsessed with controlling employees, they’ve failed to see that banning social networking at work is no different than controlling the number of employees who received a PC in the ‘80s and limiting the number of employees with internet access in the ‘90s. And we all know what a great idea that was. So go ahead, ban social networking at your company. But do so at your own peril.

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I can’t think of a more important goal to be able to meet as an online community manager. Because while we all know the Internet can be a powerful vessel for cultivating relationships, nothing beats the personal touch of face-to-face interaction.

So while I just wrote a post giving advice to would-be community managers, I don’t mind reiterating one of my most important points. If bringing your online community offline is not one of your principal objectives you’re missing a big part of the equation.

Social media use has a short shelf life for many users.

This is true for blogs especially. Most won’t last more than 2-3 months. Even within a strong community good bloggers can lose focus or get bored.

I think it’s because online just isn’t enough. You can spend all day connecting with people all over the world–no boundaries–by the click of the mouse, but you’ll be missing out on a whole lot of life. Sometimes a few boundaries are exactly what people need.

Bringing people together on a local level is exactly what some people need to stay engaged on a global level. While talking to some of our Brazen bloggers, it was great to hear people say the meet up gave them motivation to go home and write. It got me motivated too. And we all need that little boost of encouragement sometimes.

Global communities lack local appeal.

When you have a community of like-minded people online, and there are enough of them in proximity to each other to bring them together offline, don’t miss out on that opportunity. It’s a great way to strengthen the group in a way you normally can’t accomplish via the web.

What was really cool about the D.C. meet up was that it won’t end after the initial night. A few of our D.C. bloggers are in the process of making Brazen Careerist meet ups more regular. And you know when people don’t need an open bar to get together that you must be doing something right.

Tim Ferro put it best. While he was thrilled that we came up and put together the event, he wouldn’t mind doing it on a regular basis, with just our local D.C. crew.

“I’d pay for my own drinks just to get this group back together,” he said.

A great way to connect your community with other organizations.

CORT Business Services, the official sponsor of Brazen Careerist, D.C., is a perfect example. Not only were they absolutely amazing hosts, but they also knew how to connect with a Gen-Y audience without trying to hard sell us on anything.

Brian Keating, CORT Account Executive, spent the entire evening chatting with community members who could totally relate to what their company does: Help young people like ourselves deal with the stress of job relocation by making the process more seamless and worry-free.

It was great to see a Gen-Y friendly company like CORT come to the meet up. Not only did they benefit from a night with an engaging group of young professionals, but we all enjoyed engaging with a company that’s creating solutions to make twentysomething life a little easier.

So for all of you online community managers out there, don’t get too lost online. Always look for ways to bring your community together in the real world. It will not only strengthen what you’ve created, but give you a gauge for where your community can go.

I for one can’t wait for our next Brazen Careerist event. It gives me goose bumps thinking about where we can take things next. In my head, the wheels are always turning. But I’d love to hear what you think too.

How can online communities bring more to their members’ offline lives?

Click here to check out more photos from Brazen Careerist, D.C.

UPDATE: Brazen Careerist, New York City is underway! Click here for more information.

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