Giving Thanks: A Weekly Routine that’s Good for the Soul

In our house, Sunday dinners are special. It’s the one time each week when we make a point of being together as a family.

When the first person is nearly done their food, they start Appreciations and Complaints, listing the people or things that caused grief or joy during the past week.

Here are my social media appreciations for the past few years. I have Appreciations for:

Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz, who showed the way for many in the public relations field with their enthusiastic coverage of all things social. They led by example, week in, week out. A particularly good example, at that. Shel’s blog. Neville’s blog. For Immediate Release podcast.

Kami Huyse for pushing at the edges of public relations blogging to examine why people behave the way they do, and how organizations can put that knowledge to work. Communication Overtones.

Evan Williams and Biz Stone for thinking Twitter had potential as a personal communications tool.

Steve Gillmor for knowing how to attract interesting conversations and how to dig at people and stories for something beyond the obvious. Newsgang.net.

Geoff Livingston for linking to me more than anyone else. Oh, and also for sharing his curiosity and energy about this social media thing. Buzz Bin. Personal blog. Now Is Gone.

B.L. Ochman, Allan Jenkins and Steve Crescenzo for not sugar coating their commentaries.

Susan Getgood, John Wagner, Mark Evans, Dave Traynor, Tom Murphy and Colin McKay for anticipating what my thoughts would be if I considered a topic, and writing so eloquently that I feel no obligation to add anything further.

Scott Baradell for having the balls to pander to the T&A audience when he’s not skewering hypocritical journalists, media companies and publicity whores. And for building a superb recommendation site for the latest political, marketing, PR and journalism news online.

Alex Lindsay and the TWIMers, for mixing intelligent discussion with digital geekery and visionary predictions on shooting video, using music and living in a world saturated with media.

Tod Maffin for being an inspiration and a really nice guy (yes, it’s possible).

Judy Gombita for asking questions, making me think, and expecting accuracy, intelligence and good behavior. Blog posts.

Lee and Sachi Lefever for living their dream and making simple cool.

Doctor Jones, Terry Fallis and Bob LeDrew for being pioneers and gadfllies, and to Joe Thornley for being a mentor and instigator for many social media newbies. PR Works, Inside PR podcast, CanuckFlack and ProPR.

There are dozens of other people I have appreciations for. Hopefully I’ll get around to you soon!

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