Brad Marley

Move over, Oprah. From now until the end of the year, I will be writing about my favorite things from the year 2010.

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Dear Reader -

If you are taking the time to read this blog post right now, let me take a moment to tell you that you are my favorite thing from this past year.

As any blogger will tell you, a blog is usually only as good as the readers. So, whether you found me through Facebook, subscribe to my RSS feed, or accidentally stumbled upon this blog while looking for the country singer who shares my name, please allow me to thank you for visiting.

Even though I started this blog as an avenue for sharing my thoughts on the world of technology and PR, I’d be lying if I claimed indifference to receiving comments. When I receive a comment on a blog post, it means, somewhere, somebody is nodding their head in agreement while they read my words. It is such a feeling of empowerment; something you can’t really understand, I guess, unless you put your thoughts in the public forum. It’s confirmation that I’m reaching a group of people, no matter how small that group is.

As we get ready to flip the calendar to 2011, let me thank  you again for reading. It means so much.

Happy New Year.

Move over, Oprah. From now until the end of the year, I will be writing about my favorite things from the year 2010.

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Dumb Little Man.

Lifehacker.

WorkAwesome.

All of the blogs listed above (and more!) are written with one purpose in mind: to make your life better.

Seriously.

When the blogger sits down at their desk to write, the one driving force behind that post is a desire to make our lives easier. Reading these blogs is like employing the services of a self-help guru without money changing hands. Reading just one of these blogs won’t mean your life will change dramatically, but there is usually something valuable to be found on any given day if you skim a handful of the manna from digital heaven.

And this, my fair reader, is what the best blogs do: help people.

I won’t sit here and say that my life has been irrevocably changed because I learned about 100 ways to make my Christmas stress-free, but it helps to have those ideas at my disposal, you know?

Knowing there are always options — and people writing about those options — is why productivity blogs is one of my favorite things from 2010.

Move over, Oprah. From now until the end of the year, I will be writing about my favorite things from the year 2010.

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This past summer, the New York Times ran a series called “Your Brain on Computers” that sought to identify how our ubiquitous digital devices are affecting our brains. The resulting stories indicate that technology is turning us into a society of impatient and distracted beings.

Like the articles suggest, our brains rarely have time to relax anymore as we seek to fill every second of every day with stimulus.

Here’s a bite from one of the articles:

When people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas.

As I have mentioned before, I suffer from low-grade anxiety. It’s something that rears its ugly head at random intervals. But lately I have noticed that it seems to be exacerbated by the myriad technology options I have at my disposal. Chalk it up to a reliance on technology (or two kids running around the house) or whatever. But it’s difficult to sit down and focus on a book, for instance, without my mind jumping from point A to point D, reminding me of everything that needs to be done.

Scientists are now starting to understand that a constant deluge of data can cause us to be unable to live in the moment, which, depending on your beliefs, is a key ability for living a balanced life. Staying tethered to your electronics, no matter how intoxicating it seems, can lead to forgetfulness and severe boredom when there is nothing to capture our attention.

Of course, boredom, in this case, can be good for your brain. A lack of interruptions can allow for more creativity. But those thoughts are zapped when you hear the ding that indicates a new e-mail.

By no means am I anti-technology. But the advances being made in this area give rise to the thought that maybe, just maybe, we are becoming too reliant on artificial stimulation.

It is my hope that as this science advances, we will learn more about how much technology is bad for us, and what we can do about it.

On that premise alone, this is one of my favorite things from 2010.

Move over, Oprah. From now until the end of the year, I will be writing about my favorite things from the year 2010.

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Thanks to an environmental disaster of epic proportions, future public relations students and professionals finally have the modern PR crisis communications case study they have been waiting for.

No longer will we have to use the Tylenol recall from 1982 as the basis for crisis communications lectures in classrooms across the country, or the oil spill caused by the Exxon Valdez as the poster child of  how to ward off negative public scrutiny.

Due to BP’s bumbling PR staff and their inability to properly coach ex-CEO Tony Hayward on what not to say during a crisis, millions watched on their televisions as the company downplayed the severity of the spill, while rescue workers pulled oil-covered bird after oil-covered bird out of the Gulf.

The public isn’t stupid. Something didn’t add up.

Even though BP knew they were unprepared for the oil spill — to be fair, find me a company that would be prepared — they thought that well-written key messages and delivery would quell the public outrage. They were BP, after all. But this is exactly why they call it public relations.

From that point on, things spiraled out of control, ultimately leading to the ousting of Mr. Hayward and one of the most brilliant fake Twitter handles in the history of Twitter.

In future textbooks, this will be placed front and center as crisis communications for the new PR professional, which is why it is one of my favorite things from 2010.

The Five and One series started on a whim when I asked a colleague to answer five questions related to the field of public relations, and one question not related. He obliged and the series was off and running.

Since the first interview ran on February 5th of this year, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing a best-selling author, a woman who is wholeheartedly into rejecting the status quo, and the blogger behind one of the most hilarious sites on the Web, just to name a few.

But what has really struck me since I began work on this project is just how willing complete strangers are to take a few minutes out of their day to answer questions for me. Every time I send an e-mail with a request for a few moments of their time, I tell myself that I won’t be offended in the least if they ignore my e-mail.

And every single time they have taken time out of their busy schedules to answer six questions.

For that, collectively, they are one of my favorite things.