Please respect my rights

This work by Sean A. Donahue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Perspective: Radio edition.

Today’s topic is perspective. At work today I got a call from a listener that just fits everything I’ve been talking about recently.

“Hello Sean, I won Monster Truck tickets, but you never told me to pick them up, so I didn’t so I want tickets to the next concert that comes into town.”

HUH Are you kidding me, this winner was with me and I told her the same thing I told the rest, pick the tickets up on Friday. Now it’s OVER A WEEK AFTER the Monster Trucks were in town. When I told her that I would be unable to accommodate her request and offered her dinner and some t-shirts she screamed at the top of her lungs she said to me :

“Fuck you, I’ll never listen to you ever again.”

She got mad because I didn’t agree with her and in the end she took her ball and went home. Is this my fault, no. Did I offer a substitute prize? Yes! But she was so blinded, by not getting what SHE WANTED, that her fit and hanging up on me didn’t bother me at all. Ten years ago, I’d be shaken. I’d be worried about that one person.  What happened if she determined the ratings of my station. OH NO!

But I realize now that I can’t control her actions. I can’t control that she didn’t pick up her tickets. I can take responsibility for calling her week of the show reminding her to pick up the tickets, I can take responsibility for even having her tickets with me at the event waiting for her. I can’t take responsibility for her not picking them up.

That’s what years in radio have given me, perspective. Instead of worrying about what I can’t control, the actions of other people and how when they don’t get the results that THEY want, I worry about how I can deliver results to them.

It doesn’t matter if she got mad and took her ball home.

I’ve got other friends to play with.

And for the record, her ball sucked.

Promotion at work!

Great news! I’ve been promoted to Director of Digital Media for my company regional office.  I’ve been hoping for a day like this where I can take the knowledge that I have been growing with my #wahooligan group of friends and utilize it to improve my companies position online and utilizing Social Media to our advantage.  It’s a new adventure and I hope to take it to new heights!

Thanks to my family and friends who continue to encourage me on this new path.  

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Thank you Robert Frost, I’m back on a new road. Where it takes me depends on the friends I make on the way.

Joe Paterno and a lesson of hate

Joe Paterno died today, and there are some who choose to hate on him.

I do not condone his actions but I remind everyone of John 8:7 .

So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Read more…

Why your content matters: an examination of the Klout/Wahooly process.

As we continue to wait for the Wahooly creative team to put together their final touches on a project that we are all excited about. I thought I would take some time and examine an issue that seems to be problematic with the group as a whole.

“OH MY GOODNESS, MY KLOUT SCORE JUST TOOK IT IN THE TANK! WHAT DO I DO?”

While panic is the normal process for such a drop in Klout, it may not mean much at all.

Let’s look at what the Klout score really is. It’s a measure of your 90 DAY ACTIVITY! It’s not how special you are this moment, not how horrible you were 91 days ago, just a snapshot of your overall web presence.

Klout looks at  your Twitter retweets and mentions, your Facebook comments, wall-posts and likes, your LinkedIn comments and likes, your Foursquare tips, To_Do’s and Done’s and your Google + Comments, Reshares and +1′s. (1)

At this moment it DOES NOT measure Facebook Pages, Youtube, Instagram, Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, Last.fm and Flickr at all. You could have the greatest followers in each and every one of those services and right now it won’t move your Klout score one one-thousandth of a point. At this time the algorithm does not measure them.

But Sean, I’m great in (one of the things that Klout doesn’t measure right now). That’s great. you will be one step ahead of the rest of us when Klout DOES put those in the algorithm. Keep doing what you are doing and success will follow you. Read more…

“DILLIGAS?” – Inspired by Kat Goodale

Grade a paper, grade another paper, grade a third paper and yet not one person gets the impact of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. This is getting tedious. I really need to stop. Maybe if I grade 7th grade math my ears won’t bleed from stupidity.

It never ends. It’s an ongoing battle against iPads and iPods and no matter what I do I can’t get into these kids heads. What I need to do is find a way to break convention without getting suspended.  The last time I got suspended just because I made them roll a condom over a banana. It wasn’t my fault that stupid McKenna Richardson protested to the school board because her god wouldn’t want her to ever touch a condom. I failed to stop myself from taking out a picture of Lucy and show her what happened when you are 16 and you don’t use a condom. Stupid brat told her mother that an “unfit mother” was teaching her. So it was my fault she couldn’t handle her science experiment to dissect a frog. Again she brought up god.  I wanted to go “hey girl, you know you are going to end up marrying some asshole who is going to be telling you that you are doing the “lord’s work” while he’s shoving his sausage down your throat.”

But I didn’t. I just told her that God made the creature and if she wanted to pass she had to tell me if it was a male or female frog. She guessed wrong, I failed her and here I am , grading papers while waiting for the stupid school board to make a decision if I keep my job.

“Ms. Anders,” a voice cries from down the hall. “The board is waiting for you.” Read more…