Business Leaders, Politicos, Politicians, Diplomats…
Lawyers, Journalists, Accountants, Community Group Leaders…
Why should you come? The applications benefit them. Social media is an ever growing area that applies to politics and businesses. Networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkdin and YouTube have really expanded business opportunities for Americans over the past several years. These networking sites can help politicians reach a whole new demographic, specifically the young American generation.
Generation Y is the FUTURE. Reaching this demographic could change our future, for the better. These kids are going to be controlling our world and they best go in well equipped. You can also learn about
Click here for our Press Release for our Grand Opening on Saturday.
George Bailey is my father. During the best days of the economy, I saw my father more than once offer to personally guide and explain to his clients, mostly middle-class hard working Americans, how to refinance and consolidate their debts, and plan for the future.
More than once as a child, a client of his would emerge from his conference room, notice the resemblance in our faces and say, “Your father is a great man.” One man was so grateful for closing a loan no one else could that saved his livelihood, that he left my father a huge chunk of his estate: nearly two dozen properties in Jersey. Dad would relinquish (without profit) nearly all of them saying, “I did not earn these.”
Another time a carpenter working my basement would come up to me, with tears in his eyes and said, “Your paapi worked so hard to help my family. I won’t let him down working on your home.” He didn’t.
And there a dozens of more stories of clients, of employees, of complete strangers, who called my father the most kind businessman they ever knew. And would ask me, “please don’t let him down.”
My father often spent more time ensuring customer service and satisfaction than he did at home with his kids. More than 3 times a week, he’d work late hours by himself, correcting forms and triple-checking loan packages for his employees, so that they could be home for dinner with their families.
Then in 2007, the economy crashed.
While our bills and debts piled up, my father kept his idle employees gainfully employed for months, so they could make their mortgages and afford their children’s educations. When he caught an employee cheating him during this time, my father refused to fire him–citing that if he did, his employee’s children and wife would be the ones to suffer, and that would be unIslamic of my father to cause.
Even now, with my family going through so much in the doldrums of our economic recession, my father works into the night not just make ends meet, but to make sure those clients of his don’t lose their homes. He feels morally responsible to do so, just like George Bailey did. Because he knows these people. And because he’s an American: we always try to do the right thing.
While I never tell him this (and he never reads my blog), this video makes me think of him, and how on the worst days, he made sure his staff, clients, and their families were taken care of, because he knew what it meant to be a responsible businessman. My father is an American hero for all the right reasons, and he’s a small business owner.
Dear Congress: Help Main Street. We’re the Real America.
Social Media is Generation Y‘s printing press. It isn’t a fad. It isn’t temporary. It’s the beginning of the people driven economy.
What does that mean?
By the end of this decade, consumers and electorates will access in real-time to just about all the information they need to make a decision about who to vote for, and what child-labor backed companies to boycott. And they’ll be getting this information through word of mouth, blogs, Twitter and yes, even Facebook.
This poses a huge problem for corporate giants and “election-favorite” candidates.
Why?
Because now people can organize and respond to something they don’t like in real time. That means a serious restructuring of our economy and political culture in the next 30 years, and that small businesses and dark horse candidates have a much more equal playing field if they’re aimed at becoming regional powerhouses and world leaders.
Mr Smith and Mr. Bailey Finally Have A Chance.
This video is from the activist website MOVE YOUR MONEY. MOVE YOUR MONEY focuses on getting Americans to take action against what it perceives as gross excesses by banking giants by getting everyday Americans to move their money to local community banks. It focuses on the theme that community banks look out for the little guy, while large banks have only one rationale: greed.
It’s hosted on the popular social/new media site, YouTube, where it has around 500,000 views from site users with and without YouTube accounts.
What’s so important about it?
About a month later during the State of the Union, President Obama announced his intention to divert TARP funds to help community banks lend more to “the people who need it most”. We can only wonder where the administration might have gotten that idea. The otherwise neglected industry of community banks and savings & loans now have regular meetings with administration officials, as well as national attention to their brand(s), in part because of social media tools like the YouTube video above.
Social Media tools allow for the dissemination of information in real-time. Better than any other mode of communication we have out there (unless you believe in telepathy). It means that we’re becoming a people-driven economy, where the consumer has a lot more power than the institutions they interact with. Companies and politicians who don’t take heed of that do so at their own peril.
We are Maryland’s Premier Consulting Firm for Social Media and Grassroots solutions.”
Now, what does that even mean?
Well, we’re a new media consulting firm. This means that we use the latest new media and social networking applications and apply them to create unique solutions for businesses and political clientèle. Our partners and staff consult clients on the use of new media campaigning to enhance marketing campaigns, grassroots presence, and fundraising potential. Also, we deliver young interns and volunteers to any and all political or social events. We help politicians create a system of grassroots to enable a greater span of communication through out the region.
We utilize social media tools to connect our clients to the the people they want to hear their message. Then, for political clients, using our vast networks, help campaigns put together the grassroots support that helped get Obama elected in November 2008.
New Media, Youth Involvement, and Grassroots.
That really is our game plan, and it can help a local business grow a loyal and dependable customer base, an embassy develop a reliable press and public interest platform, and get a shiny-eyed first-time (or incumbent) candidate elected to office. That’s the reality of what we do. And why you should think twice before going it alone in an economy as bad as this one.
If you’re interested in just how we make such heady claims a reality, well it takes more than a blog post to that. But we can give you an idea of the new media tools we use:
Now, this blog post isn’t designed to answer all your questions about new media, social media, or why you’d ever need a consultant to help you with any of these problems. But it does give you food for thought.
The idea came to me after this summer, I spent time consulting a few Iranian groups on political matters. I wasn’t too bad at it, and I had some coups (and flops) along the way. But where I definitely had a knack was connecting to people, organizing them effectively, and using social media to make it all happen.
I am by no means brilliant, but I am a risk-taker. I began setting up my firm’s office with a few interns the other night in College Park. It was pretty exciting, even if cubical walls kept crashing on my head.
I’m trying to think of a new name for the firm though. When I formed it over the summer, there were only two partners, but now I’ve taken on a few new faces, and am going in a new direction. A few ideas include the Bunny Project, and Khan & Associates, but we’ll see. For now Khan and Associates is winning out.
I have a lot of faith that this will be an exciting project.
