Tag: Social Change

Getting Pinned

Posted on by Allison Heaps

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In a cyber-friendly world, be careful what you wish for — you just might get it on sale.

This week at Social Media Week New York, Huffington Post’s  Bianca Bosker moderated Reading Is No Longer Fundamental: The Shift To Visual Vocabulary (hosted by JWT) by engaging industry leaders from JWT, Nokia, and Curalate. Among the various topics surrounding the visual vocabulary discussion was a new model of marketing utilizing visual social media images procured from Instagram, Pinterest, and Buzzfeed.

Apu Gupta, CEO and Co-founder from Curalate, stated that “the shift from people and places to networks about things” is now here. According to the Pew Research Center, the social media users behind the “networks about things” have been classified into three categories: the creators, curators, and online image creators. Creators take pictures of themselves, curators post pictures found online and post to sites used for sharing images with others, an online image creators are a little of both. Which one are you?

The endless surge of social media “exhaust” allows companies, such as Brandwatch, to work with more than 700 leading brands and agencies in monitoring and identifying key insights from text-driven social media. Indeed, the current visual images created by curators and creators presents additional opportunities for businesses to partner with social media. Target and Nordstrom have utilized specific consumer-driven images displayed on Pinterest. Nordstrom has effectively created store merchandizing displays based on those most frequently “pinned” items.

Simply put, brands now know exactly what you want because you have told them! This, of course, is based on the assumption that all the ‘pinned’ items are analogous to a Facebook ‘Like,’ as opposed to a snarky “OMG” or the elusive “dislike.”

Craig Hepburn, Global Head of Digital & Social at Nokia, observed, “The biggest challenge is managing the images themselves.”

Hepburn also asserted that even news articles are being written entirely around images, while Gupta added that that is now a necessary to restore ”context to content.”  Will Palley, Trends Strategist at JWT offered this advice, “Brands need to be judicious about the images they use.”

It is evident that we live in a transparent world — even President Obama was busted taking a selfie. So the next time you pin, post, tweet, your fabulousness consider what you have released to the cyber universe.  In a final comment, Hepburn conceded, the “Biggest challenge is going to be around reputation management and privacy.”

Allison Heaps is corporate wellness advocate living in New York. In her spare time, she practices yoga, runs marathons, and sings jazz. She is a master’s candidate at NYU with a concentration is organizational effectiveness. Contact her here.

Social, Mobile, Digital, Livable: A Review of Randi Zuckerberg’s Dot Complicated

Posted on by Deanna Utroske

A 360-degree perspective on the dot that is the dot-com era is hard to come by—the digital is terrifically vast. Which may explain why books aiming to be how-to guides for the digital age inspire advice of religious proportions: recall the Ten Commands For A Digital Age that Douglass Rushkoff inscribed in his 2010 book Program or Be Programmed. And now Randi Zuckerberg in Dot Complicated, a memoir-esque title on “tech-life balance,” offers up guidelines such as, “Repost unto others as you would have them repost unto you.”

Opiate of the masses aside, Randi’s view of the wired media space is panoramic. Having been Facebook’s first marketing lead, now CEO of the Zuckerberg Media production company and all the while coming of age, establishing a career, and having a family in the dot-com era, she’s a consummate professional shaping and parenting the future of tech. And, she’s giving us a 360-degree tour. Dot Complicated has something for readers at every level of social media savvy.

For those newly enchanted or simply curious, Randi recommends waiting no longer: “If you haven’t yet learned to tweet, blog, or upload photos to Instagram on your own, get on that.”

Dot Complicated isn’t a user’s guide to any platform, but once you’ve read it, you’ll be reassured to know that common sense is virtually all that’s necessary to participate effectively in social media communities.

If you prefer looking at the big picture of digital media, Randi’s ideas about the potential for media content to extend well beyond the medium will be inspiring. She gives us a glimpse of her vision for creating live social TV events that are not defined by any platform. And, social media experts will enjoy a behind the scenes look at silicon valley, the beginnings of Facebook and plenty of diverting celebrity encounters.

Randi’s advice for living well in a digital world centers on the social and the human behind all things tech, addressing etiquette and lifestyle issues, as well as spotlighting the social good that can come of modern media. Given the space Randi devotes to family and relationships topics in Dot Complicated, it’s no surprise that this project, which began as an online lifestyle community and blog, has also led to the children’s book Dot.

But perhaps the most valuable contribution Dot Complicated makes is an analysis of the “public, private, personal” boundaries that social media has rendered delightfully permeable. Randi defines each of these concepts as they exist in contemporary culture and offers useful guidance for navigating a world where “today, everyone is a broadcaster as well as a receiver.”

Randi seems to be every bit a brainchild of the Internet age, and as a result says she is “a passionate believer in the power of authentic identity….We are both the artists and the curators of our online one-person shows. Our digital selves are quickly becoming reflections of our actual selves.”

In Dot Complicated, she describes how to find tech-life balance as much as she models for the reader what it looks like to share faithfully and exercise discretion. The text is an old media template for a life well lived in the new media landscape. In the telling of Dot Complicated, Randi Zuckerberg demonstrates the very authenticity that she advises us to embrace.

 
Deanna Utroske is the Social Media Brand Director for New York Women in Communications and writes on women’s career issues, lifestyle topics and more. Follow her on Twitter @DeannaUtroske.

Eli Pariser: Building the Fastest Growing Media Site Of All Time

Posted on by Nicky Yates

For those who crave a way to share their passion for social change, Eli Pariser and Upworthy are common names. Eli established Upworthy with Chris Hughes of Facebook and Peter Koechly of The Onion with the goal to make important content as viral as Charlie biting your finger.

And it’s worked. Upworthy is the fastest growing media site of all time, bringing the “awesome”, the “meaningful” and the “visual” all together.

Upworthy isn’t Eli’s first venture though. Eli is a true veteran of the Web. He formerly directed the liberal grassroots organization, MoveOn, working as a catalyst for citizen-driven change. Under his stewardship, MoveOn grew 10 times larger and collected more then $120 million in small donations. Eli realized the power of organizing individuals to take small actions for change, tripling the organization’s member base and creating a political shift in the 2006 elections.

“We really need the Internet to be that thing that we all dreamed of it being. We need it to connect us all together. We need it to introduce us to new ideas and new people and different perspectives. And it’s not going to do that if it leaves us all isolated in a Web of one.”

In 2011, after noticing that social media and search engines were eliminating some friends’ posts from his feed and only showing him search results tailored to his tastes, he sounded the alarm on the increasingly narrow lens that social media algorithms and search networks are creating in the name of ‘personalization’ in The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You. His TED talk on the topic has been seen more than 2.5 million times.

Shortly thereafter, he co-founded the company that encompasses both – using his community–organizing expertise to help combat the narrow lens of social media and search algorithms. Upworthy curates meaningful content on social, economic and societal issues that is then massively shared by the site’s community. Upworthy.com routinely breaks its own traffic records, seeing more than 46 million page views in October 2013, and garnering more views than the New York Times, FOX News or BleacherReport.

Join us to hear what he has to say grassroots organization, his experience growing organizations, and the future of Upworthy. Grab your pass now here.

Uniting the Change-Makers & Do-Gooders: Nancy Lublin at SMW NYC

Posted on by Nicky Yates

Creating change and empowering organizations is hard work. And few can do it better than Nancy Lublin. A regular feature on the Nonprofit Times’ “Top 50 Power and Influence” list, Nancy has a reputation for making charity cool and sustainable. As a young professional, Nancy turned Dress for Success into an international success, working in 125 cities in 15 countries.

“Leadership doesn’t always come from the top or from a title or from age or even from experience. It comes from courage—and nobody has cornered the market on courage.”

Now, Nancy is setting her sights on empowering youth to make an impact. As CEO and Chief Old Person at DoSomething.org, she helps get more than 2.4 million teens involved with social and cause campaigns. DoSomething.org has become the largest organization focused on youth and social change, reaching out to tens of thousands of youths and help them rise up from adverse situations. Using the platform she created with DoSomething.org, she saw a void for text-based services for teens. Thus, the Crisis Text Line was born, helping youth with issues ranging from bullying to eating disorders and abuse.

Nancy is also the author of Zilch: The Power of Zero in Business and could be found in the columns of Fast Company for two years. In her spare time, she is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. She was named as the Woman of the Year by the New York Women’s Commission and is considered one of the most successful non-profit leaders in the world. Nancy is a doer, making waves wherever she goes.

Join her and other mover and shakers at SMW NYC this February. Get your pass today here.

A Student’s Perspective: The Guardian Interviews Alec Ross

Posted on by smwnyc

Mehrunnisa Wani is a student at Columbia’s School of Journalism. She is one of ten students providing on the ground coverage of SMWNYC- all from the student’s perspective. She is providing her report from The Guardian Interviews Alec Ross.

“What does the Internet have to with foreign policy and diplomacy? In this day and age, if you care about human rights you have to care about the Internet,” said Alec Ross, senior advisor for innovation, Office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

As evident from the Arab (Internet) Spring, social media was an effective vent for the outrage and the wave of the frustration that swept through Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and, most recently, Syria.

Tweeples, Facebookers, and YouTubers worldwide were all proponents of this change. With their succinct slogans, videos, and blog entries they encapsulated the depth of the oppression. The revolution was filled with narratives of twitter handles and even fact-checking was a collaborative effort, or what veterans would call a crowdsourcing activity.

Some dubbed it as the greatest tools of this age and others went as far as crediting it for fermenting the chaos and subsequently, toppling regimes. Despite the divergent views on the platform, it catapulted social justice campaigns worldwide, abetting and enabling leaderless protests.

The role of technology is, of course, integral –and now becoming closely intertwined with diplomacy. With governments realizing this, some are constricting expression and others such as the United States are allowing its ambassadors, some 195 have twitter accounts and 170 have Facebook accounts, according to Ross.

Ross, however, doesn’t credit technology—wholly—for the toppling of dictatorship-based regimes, but he is finding solutions to the gravest health, economic, social problems in developing nations through social media applications. It’s a new wave – the social networking-diplomacy era, where fostering ties between nations is done through programs like Apps4Africa, bringing fifteen nations and discussing solutions which, in the end, will yield innovative methods in tackling economic development issues and paving ways for sustainable long-term projects.

The consensus is that it is a tool for civic engagement, where information is readily available and movements are accelerated, but what happens when people achieve their goal, when governments are overthrown? Who helps with picking up the crumbs? Are plan of actions created?

“Though social media has proven to be a tool for dissent, it has not yet proven to be a successful tool for governance,” said Ross. With tools set forth by the State Department, Ross hopes that governance connects with the governing and social media takes out the implicit elitism in governing. Two things for sure, social media is equalizing the world and creating a forum of communication between the governing bodies and the people. Social media has become the weapon of the first world, but what about the third world?

 

Mehrunnisa Wani hails from Kashmir, India. She is currently a masters candidate at the Columbia School of Journalism learning to report stories in various mediums, all the while familiarizing herself with the digital media boom so she can utilize those skills to connect the world one story at a time. In the future she hopes to cover conflict zones, learn to code and change the world – simultaneously. She resides in Queens, New York. Follow her on @mehrwani.

Keynote Spotlight: Douglas Rushkoff, Author & Media Theorist Program or Be Programmed

Posted on by Sara Haile-Mariam

Douglas Rushkoff, Author & Media Theorist Program or Be Programmed

 

This post is a part of a continuing series of Keynote Spotlights– check back here throughout the week for more information on the phenomenal individuals who will be gracing #SMW12 events next week!

 

 

 

You can hear from Doug on Thursday February 16th from 9-11:30am, followed by Panel: Just like The 60’s: How Social Media Has (Or Hasn’t Changed Civic Movements) at the Social & Environmental Change Hub.

Winner of the Media Ecology Association’s first Neil Postman award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, Douglas Rushkoff is an author, teacher, and documentarian who focuses on the ways people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other’s values. He is technology and media commentator for CNN, and has taught and lectured around the world about media, technology, culture and economics.

His new book, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age, a followup to his Frontline documentary, Digital Nation. His last book, an analysis of the corporate spectacle called Life Inc., was also made into a short, award-winning film.

His ten best-selling books on new media and popular culture have been translated to over thirty languages. They include Cyberia, Media Virus, Playing the Future, Nothing Sacred: The Truth about Judaism, Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out and Coercion, winner of the Marshall Mcluhan Award for best media book. Rushkoff also wrote the acclaimed novels Ecstasy Club and Exit Strategy and graphic novel, Club Zero-G. He wrote a series of graphic novels called Testament, and his new graphic novel, A.D.D., was just released by Vertigo.

He has written and hosted three award-winning Frontline documentaries – The Merchants of Cool looked at the influence of corporations on youth culture, The Persuaders, about the cluttered landscape of marketing, and new efforts to overcome consumer resistance, and most recently, Digital Nation, about life on the virtual frontier.

His commentaries have aired on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR’s All Things Considered, and have appeared in publications from The New York Times to Timemagazine. He wrote the first syndicated column on cyberculture for The New York Times and Guardian of London, as well as regular columns for Arthur, Discover Magazine and The Feature. He also hosted is own radio program on WFMU, The Media-Squat.

Rushkoff is finishing his PhD at Utrecht University’s New Media Program. He has taught regularly for the MaybeLogic Academy, NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, The New School University, and the Esalen Institute. He also lectures about media, art, society, and change at conferences and universities around the world.

Click here to register to hear him speak!

#SMW12 This Time Next Week: Friday Feb 17th

Posted on by Sara Haile-Mariam

Throughout this week, we’ll be giving you a heads up on everything that’s going on at our content hubs this time next week.  Events are filling up fast so check out what’s going on this time next week and click on the corresponding event link to register!

Note that events are listed in chronological order based on the time of day they occur. 

Business & Innovation: 8:30-9:30am: Keynote: Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of LinkedIn on The StartUp of You: A revolutionary new guide to thriving in today’s fractured world of work.

 

Global Society: 9-9:30am: The Guardian Interviews, hosted on the Nokia Global Stage at Big Fuel: Alec Ross

Art & Culture: 9-10am: Where is social media taking the travel industry in 2012?

 

Advertising & Marketing: 9-11am: What Real Time Marketing Really Takes

Social & Environmental Change: 9-11am: Keynote: Jeremy Heimans, CEO of Purpose, followed by Panel: Building A Transnational Human Rights Movement

Global Society: 10-11am: RAPP presents RAPPATHON – Hacking for Change: A New Way of Collaboration

Health & Wellness: 10-11am: Biomarkers, Technology, and Age-Reversal

 

Art & Culture: 10:30-11:30am: Untapped Drive: How innovation and entrepreneurship is revolutionizing daily life through social media & tech platforms.

Business & Innovation: 10:30am-12:30pm: Social Media, Sports, and Gaming

Health & Wellness: 11-12pm: How Socially-Enabled Feedback Loops Are Strengthening Your Wellness

Global Society: 12-12:30pm: Jon’s Fireside Chat: David Hirsch on Venture Funding

Art & Culture: 12:00-2pm: The New Role Models: Chefs, Restaurants, Bloggers & You — An Interview with Robyn O’Brien, Amanda Hesser & Bun Lai, followed by Who is Kale’s PR Agent & What Dictates a Food Trend? Panel Debate

Social & Environmental Change: 12-2pm: Keynote: Alec Ross, Office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, followed by Panel: Team Obama Talks Digital Vision: Strategies and Tools for 2012 and Beyond

Advertising & Marketing: 12-2pm: The LinkedIn Difference: How Brands Are Building Deep Connections with Professionals

Global Society: 1-2pm: Future of Social Technology

Health & Wellness: 1-2pm: Keynote: Daniel Kraft, MD, Executive Director, FutureMed

Business & Innovation: 1-2:30pm: Social Media HAS Changed the World

Global Society: 2:30-3:30pm: Peer Pressure: Using the skills we learned in 6th grade for good

Health & Wellness: 2:30-4:30pm: Feast on Health

Business & Innovation: 3-4pm: Keynote: Jalak Jobanputra on What in the World? The Global Startup Scene: Micro and Macro Trends Fueling Tech Growth around the World

Social & Environmental Change: 3-4pm: Leveraging online platforms to inspire social good

Art & Culture: 3-4pm: Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll: Social’s Steamy Side

Global Society: 4-5pm: Investigative Journalism with Social Media: How It’s Being Done

Advertising & Marketing: 3-5pm: Left Brain Meets Right Brain – The Blueprints for a Sophisticated Social Marketing Campaign

Interested in a particular Hub? Click on the following links to browse events according to content area;  Art & Culture,  Advertising & Marketing, Business & Innovation , Global Society , Health & Wellness , Social & Environmental Change. 

You can also view the full #SMW12 Schedule by Clicking HERE. 

Event Guide: Social & Enviornmental Change

Posted on by Sara Haile-Mariam

We’re doing all that we can this week to help you optimize your #smw12 experience.  While each of our hubs serve as homes for specific content areas, the number of sessions we host on a specific topic far exceeds the capacity we have in our Hubs.

To help you navigate the schedule and find sessions that are relevant and interesting for you, we’re constructing a series of guides, which we hope will surface new and interesting content you might not have otherwise been aware of.

Your Guide to Social & Environmental Change

Monday February 13th 9-11am:
The Guardian Interviews, hosted on the Nokia Global Stage at Big Fuel: Don Tapscott

Tuesday February 14th 12-2pm:
Keynote: Rachel Lloyd, Executive Director & Founder of Girls Educational & Mentoring Services

Tuesday February 14th 3-5pm:
Social Media for Social Good

Tuesday February 14th 5:30-6:30pm:
Women, Money & Social Power: What Made The Komen Debacle A Win For Women

Wednesday February 15th 9-11am:
Keynote: Alex Bogusky followed by Social Innovators Collective’s Innovative Models for Social Good Collaboration

Wednesday February 15th 1:30-2:30pm:
Crowd Sourcing Human and Monetary Capital for Social Impact, Hosted by LinkedIn

Thursday February 16th 12-2pm:
Panel: Weapons of Choice: The Design of Insurgency

Friday February 17th 10am-11am:
RAPP presents RAPPATHON – Hacking for Change: A New Way of Collaboration

Friday February 17th 1-2:30pm:
Social Media HAS Changed the World

Friday February 17th 3-4pm:
Leveraging online platforms to inspire social good

Coming up over the next couple of days, SMW Guides on Advertising & Marketing, Music, Science, Technology, Startups, Small Business & Health & Wellness.

 

 

#SMW12 One Week from Today: Monday Feb 6th

Posted on by Sara Haile-Mariam

Welcome to the first of post in our “One Week from Today” pre-Social Media week blog feature!  Throughout this week, we’ll be giving you a heads up on everything that’s going on at our content hubs this time next week.  Events are filling up fast so check out what’s going on this time next week and click on the corresponding event link to register!

Art & Culture: 9-11am:  The Mobile-Social Living Room: How Emerging Media is Reviving the Live Television Experience

Advertising & Marketing: 9-11am: Keynote: David Eastman, CEO of JWT North America, followed by Top Trends that will Shape Social in 2012

Business & Innovation: 9-11am: Keynote: John Bell, Global Managing Director at Ogilvy, on The Insidious Plot to Socalize Enterprise

Global Society: 10-11am: Managing Social Media on a Global Scale

Health & Wellness: 10-12pm: Keynote: Carol McCall, Chief Strategy Officer of GNS Healthcare

Health & Wellness: 10-12pm: Keynote: Michael Graves on People First: Redesigning the Hospital Room

Advertising & Marketing: 12-2pm: Beyond Borders: Impact of Social Media in Global Economy

Business & Innovation: 12-2pm: Keynote: Jeff Dachis, CEO, Chairman & Founder of Dachis Group Followed by Panel: Big Data and Bigger Conversations: Measuring Your Brand’s Social Performance

Global Society: 12-1230pm: Jon’s Fireside Chat: Social Listening with Patricia Gottesman, CEO of Crimson Hexagon

Social & Environmental Change: 12:30-2:30pm: Global Keynote: Don Tapscott, Speaker, Consultant & Author of Macrowikinomics on Re-Civilization: Empowering Change Through Collaboration

Global Society: 1-2pm: Global Social Media Listening

Health & Wellness: 1-2pm: Fast Forward Health presents 73 Cents followed by Q&A with Regina Holliday

Health & Wellness: 2-8pm: The Walking Gallery: An Exhibit

Art & Culture: 3-5pm: Keynote: Jermaine Dupri on Building Community

Advertising & Marketing: 3-5pm: State Your Case: Research vs Social Analytics

Business & Innovation: 3-5pm: Keynote Howard Lindzon followed by Panel: The Evolution of Reg-FD: How Social Media Has Changed Investor Relations, Hosted by StockTwits

Social & Environmental Change: 3:30-5:30pm: Is it Getting Hot in Here? Considering Social Media’s Impact on Climate Change

Global Society: 4-5pm: 10×10 Educate Girls, Change the World. Accelerating social change and leveraging media, technology and innovative strategic partnerships to get there.

Art & Culture: 4:30-5:30pm: Social Sharing and The Art of Doodling

Health & Wellness: 4-6pm: Designing for Desire

Health & Wellness: 6:30-8:00pm: Networking Cocktail Reception, Sponsored by Johnson & Johnson

Global Society: 6:30-9:00: Meet the Afropolitans: Digital Media + Culture In Africa

Interested in a particular Hub? Click on the following links to browse events according to content area;  Art & Culture,  Advertising & Marketing, Business & Innovation , Global Society , Health & Wellness , Social & Environmental Change. 

You can also view the full #SMW12 Schedule by Clicking HERE. 

 

 

 

 

Keynote Spotlight: Alex Bogusky, Co-Founder of Crispin Porter + Bogusky

Posted on by Sara Haile-Mariam

Alex Bogusky, Co-Founder of Crispin Porter + Bogusky

This post is a part of a continuing series of Keynote Spotlights– check back here throughout the week for more information on the phenomenal individuals who will be gracing #SMW12 events next week!

You can hear Alex speak on Wednesday February 15th from 9-11am at the Social & Environmental Content Hub followed by Social Innovators Collective’s Innovative Models for Social Good Collaboration.

Alex Bogusky’s career in communications began over twenty years ago when he joined Crispin and Porter Advertising in 1989 as an art director, eventually running the agency a decade later. Under Alex’s direction, Crispin Porter + Bogusky grew to more than 1,000 employees, with offices in Miami, Boulder, Los Angeles, London and Sweden, and with annual billings over $1Billion. During Alex’s leadership, CP+B became the world’s most awarded advertising agency. CP+B is the only agency to have won the Cannes Advertising Grand Prix in all five categories: Promo, Media, Cyber, Titanium, and Film. In 2002, Alex was inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Hall of Achievement, and in 2008, he was inducted into the Art Director’s Club Hall of Fame. In 2010, Alex received the rare honor of being named “Creative Director of the Decade” by Adweek magazine.

Always drawn towards social responsibility, while at CP+B, Alex created groundbreaking cause initiatives such as the “Truth Campaign,” the most successful youth-focused anti-tobacco education initiative in US history, and helped Vice President, Al Gore debunk the notion of “Clean Coal,” with TV spots directed by the Coen Brothers of “Fargo” fame. In 2010 Alex left what he called, “the best job on the planet,” to create The FearLess Revolution with his wife, Ana Bogusky, and Rob Schuham. He and his band of insurgents, recently launched COMMONCM, a collaborative network for rapidly prototyping social ventures under a unified brand.

Click here to register for his keynote!

Branding Social Change; The Persona of Change Through Social Media

Posted on by Darcey Howard
El Lissitzky, 1929

The use of the words branding and social change in this title is not an attempt towards commercialization or to cheapen movements such as the Socialist Revolution, Women’s Suffrage, or Civil Rights Movement, but to more clearly identify how we are reaching individuals, giving expression, and creating the tribe around a movement.

The internet may be a phenomenon of our generation, but social change has utilized the benefits of branding since the invention of large format printing for posters during the Belle Époque era of the late 1800’s.  One of the greatest examples of branding social change of this kind is the Communist society’s use of previously banned modern art and movies as the perfect platform to attract, inform, and motivate the illiterate masses.

Not intended as a history lesson, I’ll fast forward to the current tides of social change: the uprising in Egypt, Occupy Wall Street, The Tea Party. All have used social media as a conduit to the masses and each other, giving their own unique voice and persona that distinguishes them not only from each other but to the media.  This is where we come full circle.  This, my friend, is known as branding.

An adviser to small businesses and start-ups, Darcey launched the Solo-Preneur Success Program based on brand strategies and corporate citizenship platforms. Her work has been chronicled in The New York Times, Forbes, TIME, and AOL Online; she has keynoted at IBM, the SBA, MORE magazine Re-invention Convention, Staples, BDO Seidmans, T-Mobile, and on her own DVD “The Essential Guide.”