I'm not going anywhere, but my blog has moved to chrisyandle.wordpress.com. Same stuff, different place.

Image Courtesy: CharlieCryder.com

Social media has become our modern morality play…

Protagonist vs. Antagonist.

Good vs. Evil.

Virtual life vs. Reality.

Social media has a purpose. Whether you use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn or whatever else, there must be value in what you post. What you post online can be interpreted as a direct correlation to your character, your “offline” behavior. How you act on the internet – does that accurately portray you in real life?

Twitter is not meant to be your personal “airing of grievances.” It’s not meant for you to spout off a profanity-induced soliloquy about your boss, employer, co-worker, coach, teammate, etc. People have been suspended or fired for their tweets and/or Facebook posts. Just like their behavior at school, students can be suspended or expelled for their online behavior. You can lose out on a scholarship, a promotion or a job with one click of a mouse.

Or in 140 characters (or less).

Like the ubiquitous phrase “you are what you eat,” you are what you tweet.

Tweeting about a bad day at work could result in your losing your job. Tweeting despicable threats could be a felonious act and result in legal recourse. Deadspin reported earlier this week that ESPN reminded its employees that Twitter “is not your personal playground.” Need I remind you of Rep. Anthony Weiner and how he claimed he didn’t tweet a lewd image, but then later admitted he did?

What everyone must understand is that the biggest gap that must bridge your online and offline behavior is consistency. Kevin DeShazo, founder of Fieldhouse Media, educates coaches, student-athletes and administrators on the risks and benefits of social media and helping them manage their online reputations.

“You must be more careful with what you say online,” said DeShazo. “What you say in a conversation between a few friends – even if inappropriate – stays between those in the conversation. What you say to a friend online is capable of quickly spreading to 2 billion people. If you want to have a private conversation, call or text (someone).”

“Don’t just add noise, add value,” added DeShazo. “In an offline conversation, you don’t speak just to speak. There’s a purpose behind what you say. Same (goes) for online.”

Every day, you are responsible for protecting and advocating your personal brand. How you act at work, interact with others, morals, ethics. Those all aid in building your personal brand…in real life. Social media allows everyone to cultivate, build, protect, advocate and – for some – destroy your personal brand within seconds, minutes, days. As Kevin mentioned earlier, “you don’t speak just to speak” in a real-life conversation. So don’t just talk for the sake of talking online. That could lead to be poor decisions and consequences.

Thanks to social media, we have the ability to connect and communicate like never before. What possesses people to say what they say online at times is appalling. Twitter is a telephone, not a megaphone. Think of social media as a crowded hallway. When you add value to a conversation, the flow of traffic is smooth – people walking on the right side of the hallway. But, add superfluous noise to the fold and it’s like those five or six people that want to walk on the left side of the hallway – against the flow of traffic. It’s not necessary. David Carr of The New York Times hit this topic out of the park with his article earlier this month, while Western Kentucky University is aggressively fighting Twitter criticism, a trend started by its administration.

A liberal research staffer in Canada recently was fired; a deputy attorney general with the Indiana Attorney General’s Office lost his job following a tweet suggesting riot police “use live ammunition” against demonstrators. The Aflac duck? His voice is no longer that of Gilbert Gottfried. Here’s why.

Social media is also used by employers to search for talent and screen job applicants. So what you do now – or what you’ve done in the past online – could affect that next job interview. Think twice about posting photos of you and your friends at a party that could reflect poorly on you. Now it seems like everyone has a camera phone, so anyone can snap a not-so-flattering photo of you doing something you shouldn’t. Think twice when you are somewhere when they are people you don’t know because you don’t know what they’d do. Keep your head on a swivel.

I’ve blogged it before and I’ll blog it again: you represent a variety of groups. For example, I represent Baylor University, Baylor Athletics, various sports, my church, my family name, and so on. You have to be cognizant of what/whom you represent. So, typing such phrases as “these opinions are my own,” or “these opinions do not reflect those of my employer,” or “retweets are not endorsements,” have no value. Those are empty phrases and you should spare the 160 characters. Don’t believe me? Just look at the linked examples above.

Social media education is paramount. How many more examples of Tweeting Gone Wrong are we going to need before some of us realize there is no difference between how we act online and offline?

“Think better thoughts, make better decision,” said DeShazo. “Not to be the moral police, but the more values you possess offline, the more that comes across online. Don’t give people reasons to doubt you.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I'm slowly beginning to understand this. But things happen for a reason. I retain useless information for whatever reason and I have earned the nickname, Yandlepedia. For whatever reason, I write a blog. I was meant to go to school at certain places, which presented different challenges and opportunities for me. I didn't understand why at the time, but now I have a clearer understanding. And as I look back at those events and opportunities, one thing stands out: I wasn't afraid. Maybe that's because I've lived in eight different states and adjust rather easily.

I don't think I'm becoming wiser in my older age (I'll be all of 30 in June), but I have endured some fortunate - and some not so fortunate - opportunities and events in my short lifetime. I think I've learned a great deal from those experiences, but yet I haven't learned everything. I'm learning new things every day. Every day is another opportunity. Some opportunities have been life-changing, in fact. Scratch that last sentence. Every event is life-changing whether you realize it or not.

You never know what today's opportunity will lead you to tomorrow. Or next week. Or three years from now. Growing up, sports were everything to me. By middle school, I realized that there was no future for me in playing sports. When I got to high school (and the lack of athletic future was evident), I was a loner - a one-man wolfpack, if you will - and pretty much went to school, did homework and watched SportsCenter. Pathetic, really. Now, to make a long story longer...

A random conversation in class one morning led to me keeping a scorebook and such for the basketball teams. After my first year, it led to me doing it for football. Then, baseball. I thought it was cool, but I still didn't know what I wanted to do. College applications poured in. As did rejection and acceptance letters. I always had a fondness for writing and I did some sports writing, but I didn't know what I wanted to do in college.

For whatever reason, I turned down free in-state tuition and opted to attend the University of Southern Mississippi (funny thing: I turned down Louisiana-Lafayette, where I would ultimately end up a few years later). I loved Hattiesburg. I loved the campus. I still do to this day. The main appeal of Southern Miss? Its up-and-coming sports administration degree program. No other school in the south had an accredited program of its kind and I realized that's what I wanted to do. Ok, that's great, but what about practical application?

During a spring trip to Hattiesburg, my mom and I went to a USM baseball game and I met with Regiel Napier, who was the Assistant AD for Media Relations at the time. We chatted for a while and he agreed to hire me as a student assistant in their department. So when I started school that August, Regiel had retired and Mike Montoro had taken over. Being away from home for the first time, I wanted to do something that felt like I belonged. Volunteering in the AMR office at Southern Miss was a good first step. I worked every home football, basketball and baseball game for two years.

I can rattle off a series of events that shaped the course of my life - both personally and professionally. We all can. In April 2002, my mom suffered a brain aneurysm and nearly died. And for that event, I made the decision to transfer schools. For a while, I questioned my decision, but it would be a few years before I realized it was a good one. I transferred to Louisiana-Lafayette primarily for its public relations program and Mike suggested that I look into working in the SID office. That was another life-altering decision. As a student, I was thrust into a two-person office that had to balance 16 sports and staff home events. Guess what? This student had the opportunity to do everything. And I mean everything. Because I had the opportunity to learn new things and do everything in the office (some of it begrudgingly), I was making myself more marketable and attractive for future jobs. I just didn't know it at the time.

After my first year and my boss noticing what I could do, I had more job duties in my second year. While all this is going on, I was taking 15-18 hours per semester and working 50-60 hours per week. It was a full-time job with student pay, but I was getting experience that no one else my age was getting. At the age of 21, I was handling the design and printing of our media guides and programs. I was 21. Because of that experience, I know a helluva lot more now about the printing and design business. Now, I brought some of the workload upon myself because I wanted it. I wanted to learn it. Three years in and I still didn't know if I had a future in this business, but I was willing to give it a shot. In the meantime, I met my future wife the week before I graduated from ULL, so it was a good decision to move to Lafayette. A great one, in fact.

My time at ULL concluded with my degree and one semester of graduate school. On a whim, I applied for a graduate assistant position at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. I had two options for graduate school - Marshall or Florida State. Marshall had a job attached to it; Florida State did not. I still wasn't sure if I wanted to continue this career path. When Randy Burnside offered me the job, I knew this was it. I had never been to Huntington before I moved there (Florida State sent me an acceptance letter two weeks after I moved to West Virginia).

The opportunity to go to Marshall allowed me to create many friendships that I still have today, while also learning a lot about myself. My wife (girlfriend at the time) and I lived apart for two years and it was tough at times. I was one of four AMR graduate assistants at Marshall - we were all given our creative freedoms and treated like full-time staffers. There was still a learning curve; Marshall helped me fine-tune some of my better skill sets, while setting fire to some of my bad habits. We started with four GAs in our office and ended with one - me. By March 2007 (our final semester in graduate school), the other three grad assistants had all received full-time jobs and left Marshall. Leaving me to question why I didn't get anything. I finished out the semester, graduated and soon received a job offer from Louisiana-Lafayette to return in a full-time capacity. I jumped at the chance because 1) it was a full-time job, 2) it was a chance to return home, 3) I was getting married a month later and 4) my wife had one more year of college left and I wanted her to graduate.

After just 13 months back in Lafayette, I got a call from Baylor. And the rest is history.

As much as I complained about the full-time work I endured as a college student, I wouldn't be in my current position without that opportunity. And many of those opportunities as a student didn't appear to be worthwhile until after the fact.

If you've read this blog for this long, here's my point...

The best advice I can give: don't be afraid of opportunity. However, an opportunity may appear to be something else, but take it. No matter the circumstances. If you are a student in this field, ask the full-timers for a project to work on. If you are a graduate student in this field, ask for additional full-time duties. If you are a full-timer, ask your superiors and administrators about other areas within college athletics that you wish to learn about. Here at Baylor, there were several of us that asked for a professional development series so that we can learn about all aspects of collegiate athletics. Now, once a month, we have a professional development seminar to learn about a different area within Baylor athletics.

If you remember from fifth-grade physical science class, Sir Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion states: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." This is the same for everything else in our lives. For every action, something is going to happen as a result.

Next time you have a chance to do something, say yes. Learn as much as you can because we are all required to be as well-rounded as possible.

It's becoming a lost art. And thanks to this handwritten habit, I've realized that my once "girly" handwriting (I heard it all through elementary, high school and college) has now diminished to that of a fifth-grader's penmanship. Maybe that's the world we live in... We rely on email, Facebook posts and tweets to express our gratitude.

But, we shouldn't be above penning handwritten notes, especially thank you notes. A handwritten thank you note can transcend many levels; it shows you're genuine and it also adds your personal touch. I still hold on to the thank you notes I've received from a variety of people - and that's handwritten notes on company stationery or in email form.

One of the things I take great pride in is writing someone a handwritten note. I don't necessarily have a rhyme or reason for when I write them. Anytime I've interviewed for a job (the last interview being for my current position at Baylor), I also wrote a note to those people I met during my interview. Plus, I always tried to add a personal touch to each one to make them a little different.

If you are writing a stack of 30 thank you notes to people at the same company, don't make it a form thank you letter. Personalize it. Remember things from your conversation. Pick up on cues. Even if the differences are only the salutation and the first sentence, do it. Personalizing your thank you notes shows that you care. Writing the same note 30 times shows that you don't and that you are just doing it to do it.

Always take the few minutes out of your busy schedule to write someone a handwritten note; it doesn't even have to be a thank you note. It could just be a note to say "keep up the good work" or "I like how you're doing this." I spent three hours Tuesday finishing up my stack of thank you notes to the people I met during my trip to the ESPN campus earlier this month.

Just one small acknowledgement (or that one thank you) will go a long way. You'll be surprised.

At a young age, my parents taught me to always write people a thank you note. Birthdays, Christmas, Graduation. Even my wedding and my kids' gifts. I hope that I'm able to instill the same ideals in my children as they grow older. With social media, people think that email and tweets are enough. In some cases, yes. But, take the extra step and the extra 20 minutes to write a thoughtful, sincere thank you note.

It's a lost art, but it's an artistic practice worth keeping.

I'm sure you've heard this old adage (or some variation): Behind every great man, there's a great woman. I'm not a great man, but my wife, Ashleigh, doesn't stand behind me - she stands next me. She's my (much) better half. Without her, I'm nothing. And without her, I probably wouldn't here.

When I am down, she picks me up. She tells me to toughen up. On days that I don't want to go anymore, she makes me stronger. For all the hours I work and the days that I'm gone, she still supports me because I'm doing what I love. She helps me overcome obstacles that I think may be impossible to overcome.

Had we not met, I would have continued down a path I didn't like. Even after the last few less-than-stellar weeks I've had, she's been there, my better half. Sometimes with two screaming kids (and she's screaming, too). But what she does every day is amazing. She takes care of a 3-year-old and a 7-month-old, while working. After spending just one day with the kids, I have a growing respect for what she experiences every day.

Without her, I'm nothing. She puts a smile on my face every day. She gave me two beautiful children and a French Bulldog that won't leave my side.

Today is Ashleigh's 30th birthday. She will take turning 30 a lot better than I will five months from now. I don't tell her enough, but she means the world to me because without her, I'm nothing and I wouldn't be here today.

I love her and hope that I can make her birthday special just like she makes every day special for me.

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If you don't mind me tweeting about my dog, my kids, social media, athletic communications and Baylor Athletics, you can follow me on Twitter at @ChrisYandle.

Those This is SportsCenter commercials you see on TV? Minus Sam the Minuteman sitting in the lobby with Andy Roddick and the Syracuse Orange making copies, those commercials do have some truth to them.

Within 10 minutes of arriving on ESPN's college-sized campus in Bristol, Conn., our travel party (head coach Scott Drew, videographer Ashley Farrell and me) were a mere 40 feet from Jerry Rice, Darren Woodson and Kordell Stewart, among others. It's second nature in Bristol. Thanks to Ashley's stellar camera work, we were able to chronicle Coach Drew's nine-hour whirlwind tour through ESPN Studios, otherwise known as the Car Wash. It's a fairly accurate description.

I've been fortunate enough to make two ESPN trips in the last three years. The exposure for the school is amazing. Perhaps even more amazing is watching all the moving parts of ESPN in motion. When we arrived on campus shortly after lunch, there were 2,000 people hustling and bustling. When we left campus after 8 p.m., there were 2,000 people still hustling and bustling. Four trips to ESPN Starbucks (for me) and one 5-Hour Energy (for Coach Drew) later, I'd go back in heartbeat.

Before we left Waco, I was joking with my wife that I was going on a manhunt for Colin Cowherd and Michelle Beadle. We weren't even on campus for 30 minutes when - while waiting in the ESPN Radio Green Room for The Scott Van Pelt Show - Colin Cowherd walks in the room. I don't get star-struck by famous people, but, for whatever reason, I was startled when I met him. While I enjoy listening to him because he says it like it is, he was just a normal guy, down-to-earth and was caught up on his general Baylor sports trivia. So, I did something I never do because I hate taking photos...

I asked Colin if I could take a picture with him.

It was pretty cool. Coach Drew was determined to find Beadle for me, but to no avail. A valiant effort, nonetheless.

While we may think that ESPN people aren't normal just like us, I have evidence that they are. Everyone we met was down-to-earth, friendly and made us all feel welcomed. The think that struck me the most during our trip: after initially meeting the SportsCenter anchors during Coach Drew's two live hits, they emailed us within five minutes. That's amazing. It also leads to something I try to do and I know others that do, as well - after you meet someone, always try to send them a note of thanks.

I'm still amazed by all the moving parts in the various divisions of ESPN. Of course, I was not surprised that, at some parts of our trip, there were people at ESPN meeting each other for the first time. After getting the chance to stand on set, I now have a newfound respect and understanding for how ESPN gets everything on TVs across the globe every night. Simply amazing.

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If you don't mind me tweeting about my dog, my kids, social media, athletic communications and Baylor Athletics, you can follow me on Twitter at @ChrisYandle.

Editor's note: As many of you know, I don't like the term 'SID' because I believe it is outdated and a misnomer. I'm only using it for the title of this post to save on words.

Between tweeting, live in-game blogging (for some of us), preparing post-game notes, answering media questions, et al., do we really have time to keep a scorebook on the road? It's a serious question. And for being the visiting team, it's not official, so why do it? With assistant coaches and other staff on the bench keeping track of everything possible, my time (and yours) is better served in other arenas.

Like tweeting updates and fan engagement.

Compiling accurate and in-depth post-game notes.

All things that media, fans and casual observers will use or reference.

So, why keep a book? If you can read between the lines, I decided to do away with keeping a scorebook on the road. That would just be another thing for me to track during a game. ESPN, writers and every other media member don't care if I can keep a mean scorebook on the road or that I would bring four, finely sharpened No. 2 pencils and set them in a certain pattern. DO. NOT. CARE. What they care about it is the information we, as a profession, can provide them. In the simplest of definitions, our job is to make the media's easier. I know that last sentence may shake some of your worlds at the core. But, alas, it is the truth. So, the question I ask: Why?

I know my talents, energy and efforts are better suited elsewhere.

I get to be creative with my pre-, in- and post-game tweets for Baylor men's basketball. Yes, sometimes, it can be tedious. But, we have the chance to offer insight and commentary that may not be available to those not at the game.

Life on the road doesn't have to be that stressful. Much like Saturday Night Live's hilarious "More Cowbell" skit, think of it this way: More tweeting, less scorebooking. While we are busy providing information to the masses, we need to think about making our jobs on the road a little easier.

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If you don't mind me tweeting about my dog, my kids, social media, athletic communications and Baylor Athletics, you can follow me on Twitter at @ChrisYandle.

Image courtesy Jeff Young

What is it that makes 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds feel so invincible behind a computer screen? Or grown adults behind an anonymous screen name? In all honestly, many people don't realize the potential consequences - both good and bad - about what you tweet or post on Facebook. Naïve as it may sound, I do think there are many people that truly don't realize the resounding effects of one simple tweet.

For all that there is good about the Internet and social media, the bad appears to be almost infinite. The good news about social media? We can share our thoughts, ideas and what we're doing 24/7. The bad news about social media? We can share our thoughts, ideas and what we're doing 24/7. We live in 2012, the world with a 24-hour news cycle. By now, I probably sound like a broken record, but... you need to heed what you tweet because you don't know who is watching you.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Social media knows no bounds. While I was teaching last semester, I spent an entire two-hour class period on how social media can adversely affect what you do in real life. And I'm not totally convinced that some of my students didn't take me seriously. When you apply for a job, that background check could very well include searching your social media history. You never know who is watching, whether your profile is public or not.

Every day is a job interview.

You don't want something you tweeted or posted on Facebook to be the reason why you didn't get a job or why you no longer have one. That is why social media education is so important. Censorship is not the answer. Don't believe me? Just look through American History books. Every time someone was censored or something was taken away, anarchy nearly ensued. Ignoring the existence of social media or stonewalling it won't make it go away. Social media is here to stay and censoring it will only make it worse. With the speed of communication in 2012, we all must be careful about what we say, type and do. The world is watching.

Social media reminds me a lot of my high school and college Latin classes (yes, I took what equates to six years of Latin) ... people take social media for the literal translation. For face value. And because of that literal translation, we all could use a daily education (or re-education) in social media. You can't be sarcastic in a tweet without someone taking it for truth.

Twitter has become a major communication channel for sports - college and professional. It doesn't matter the league or the game. There is someone...or lots of someones...tweeting their commentary about a particular game. It allows us as athletic communications professionals (or any field, for that matter) to tweet commentary, instant updates or answer questions that otherwise wouldn't be answered in real-time.

To make a long story longer...

I spent most of Tuesday morning in head coach Scott Drew's office, sitting in on a two-hour interview with a good friend of mine, Josh Parrott, who is writing an upcoming feature piece for Basketball Times. So, for two hours while they chatted about this and that, I would chime in every now and again, but most of my attention was to Twitter on my iPhone. I have four full-time jobs - husband, dad to two kids, Associate Director for Athletic Communications at Baylor and social media monitor. The latter really has no official title since all of us who are intertwined in our social media apps of choice are all employed in monitoring social media.

During the two-hour interview, I'm sitting in Coach's office, tweeting, re-tweeting and reading other tweets that were circulating the Twitterverse. The main case in point... Urban Meyer's alleged banning of Twitter among the Ohio State football players. Within seconds of the initial tweet declaring Coach Meyer's "ban," Twitter was in an uproar. Some siding one way, the majority siding the other. The seesaw continued for a few more hours. Then, the truth eventually surfaced from a few of the present players that proclaimed that "ban" was, as it turned out, not true. 

Ronnie Ramos, the NCAA's managing director of digital communications, offered his views on the biggest questions facing sports journalism in 2012. It's worth the read. I've only had the pleasure of meeting Ronnie once (at 2010 CoSIDA Convention in San Francisco) - he's extremely sharp. Read everything he writes.

Everything is newsworthy on social media. The Ohio State ban/no-ban is just one of the many examples of why you should:

a) take a few deep breaths,

b) count to 10,

c) check the facts and/or

d) repeat "Serenity Now" over and over before you hit that tweet button.

Because, once you hit send, it's out there. Oh yes, you can delete it, but by that time, that tweet has been screen-capped or archived onto some random dude's hard drive located in his mom's basement.

Our second, third and fourth full-time jobs
A few graphs above, I mentioned I have four jobs. The fourth one - social media monitor - multiples into many others relative to social media. Kinda like the Mogwai in Gremlins. Public relations (and its many professional arms) ranks at the seventh-most stressful job in America for 2012, according to a recent study. There are a lot of reasons for that. I can think of one - social media. For everything that social media does to make our professional lives more mainstream and manageable, multiple that by about 100 and that's how much more difficult social media can make our jobs. You can't just monitor your Twitter feeds from 9-5. This is legitimately a 24-hour job. You have to monitor and protect your brand, as well. And by brand, I mean both your corporate and your non-corporate accounts. But, as I wrote several days ago, you need to make sure that line is not blurred but clearly defined.

In my opinion, monitoring leads to effective education. You have to monitor what is being said about you, your company/school and everyone involved in your company/school because, as Kevin DeShazo of Fieldhouse Media puts it:

The need for monitoring won't go away - it's an issue of risk management and protection (for your student-athletes and the university). But education and empowerment changes behaviors.

Those two sentences ring very true. Education does change behaviors. Proper social media education now can help everyone, including student-athletes, take those good habits with them into the real world.

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If you don't mind me tweeting about my dog, my kids, social media, athletic communications and Baylor Athletics, you can follow me on Twitter at @ChrisYandle.

Why is Twitter so powerful? Perhaps only Malcolm Gladwell's New York Times Bestselling book, The Tipping Point, can explain Twitter's meteoric rise in our culture. It seems like every day we are reading about another idiot tweeting or posting "anonymous comments" about their bosses or co-workers or privileged information that - apparently they weren't aware this could happen - could/will get you fired.

Or in student-athlete terms, could get you suspended or dismissed for your team. Social media is serious business. It helps us engage and communicate like never before, but it doesn't stop those of us that lack a "mental filter" from posting stupid things and suffering severe consequences for posting said things. Twitter is a telephone, not a megaphone. It is a platform to communication; not a soapbox for people to bitch. Twitter will only continue to grow at its current rapid pace if we allow it to continue. Twitter symbolizes what is both good and bad in this world. And now that gray area that separates those two words may be becoming grayer.

A few months back, I blogged that there is no such thing as a personal Twitter account. There really isn't. For instance, I have a "personal" Twitter account, @ChrisYandle, and I tweet all sorts of things - pictures from road trips, current events, Baylor, my family, etc. Because I am a representative of Baylor University, that "personal" Twitter account isn't that personal. What I tweet or say in public can be a direct representation of Baylor. That's the world we live in. And those people that go as far as to add their personal disclaimer - "These views are my own and do not reflect [insert employer here]" - need not waste those characters. Use them for some other useful description because putting that disclaimer in your Twitter bio or on your Facebook page doesn't protect you.

And before you starting saying anything about First Amendment rights, I implore you to re-read what exactly is covered under the First Amendment. The First Amendment applies only to government employers, not to private employers. Thus, what you tweet can and will be used against you by your employer if you were to do something that doesn't reflect positively upon them.

Personal vs. Corporate
With that being said, which is better: tweeting from a personal account that also tweets brand messaging from your employer or separating the two? My answer would be the latter and that answer has been supplemented by a story out of England. A South Carolina-based company, Phonedog, is suing a former employee for - wait for it - keeping his Twitter followers after he left the company. Noah Kravitz tweeted for Phonedog as @Phonedog_Noah, but when he left the company, he changed his Twitter username and effectively took his 17,000 followers with him. Now the company is seeking damages totaling $370,000 ($2.50 per user, per month). I have no idea how they put a monetary amount of each follower, but they did.

The bigger question might be: are those 17,000+ followers following Noah or @Phonedog_Noah? In clearer terms, when we follow someone on Twitter, are we following "that" person or are we following the brand? That's the hairy part about mixing personal and corporate accounts and that seems to be the trend in college athletics, especially the Athletic Communications folks. Surprisingly (or not), I'll use Baylor as an example:

We have several "official" Baylor Twitter accounts: @BaylorAthletics, @BUFootball, @BaylorMBB, @BaylorWBB, @BaylorBaseball, @BaylorSoftball, @BaylorFutbol, etc. Each sport-specific Twitter account builds that sport's brand equity with its followers. So, when I tweet from @BaylorMBB, there are several people that know that I'm the one tweeting stats, updates and photos, but they are following Baylor Basketball, not me. If you want to follow me, you can follow @ChrisYandle. There has to be some sort of separation between what is corporate and what is personal.

At Baylor, we strive to make that differentiation. Because, as the Phonedog story suggests, corporations/athletic departments could have control over the branding/followers you have built over time. I follow some fellow AC folks that use their personal accounts to tweet play-by-play or offer commentary. Some may do it because they want to ratchet up their follower count. But if you haven't already done it, you may want to heavily consider making that separation because if/when you leave your current school, are those followers going to follow you to your new school when they only cared about the things you tweeted about their school? I do have several Baylor fans/alums that follow me because I work for Baylor. Will they follow me to a new school? Maybe, maybe not.

But social media has become such an intrinsic part of our personal and corporate branding that you cannot afford to screw up. If you are the contact for a specific sport and you only tweet about that sport's team, you need to create a school account for that sport, @SCHOOLSPORT, and create/modify the other account to become your "non-school" account since "personal" really isn't that personal.

As for @Phonedog_Noah, it is both ridiculous and a scary reality. Intellectual property could come into play. Phonedog may have a case and this may set the precedent for all future incidents such as this. If you didn't think it were possible for pro and college sports to become more popular, Twitter has made it so. Our fight with branding has become more of a war because of social media and protecting your message and reputation has become that much more important.

Do yourself three favors: 1) stop putting words similar to "these views do not reflect my employer, yada, yada, yada" in your Twitter bio - it's a waste, 2) understand that the First Amendment and 3) make the clear separation between your "non-corporate" and corporate Twitter accounts. Those two things will greatly affect (in a positive way) your personal and corporate branding strategies.

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If you don't mind me tweeting about my dog, my kids, social media, athletic communications and Baylor Athletics, you can follow me on Twitter at @ChrisYandle.

I've never been one for making New Year's Resolutions because, quite frankly, I would need to make a New Year's Resolution to not break my original New Year's Resolution(s). I would start out with vengeance, breaking out of the starting gate like Secretariat, completely dominating the list of goals I set forth for myself and making a true effort in bettering myself.

That would last a week, maybe. 10 days. One year, I lasted an entire month.

One year, I made a New Year's Resolution to not make a New Year's Resolution. Yeah, I stooped that low and I was cliché in today's society. I prefer to call them personal goals because that, in essence, is what they are. They are personal goals you set for yourself in order to become a better person. Ever since becoming a father for the second time, I find it that much more important for me to set forth personal goals to become a better person.

I want to be an example for my kids. There are things I don't like about myself and I want to change them. I've expended wasteful energy on things that don't deserve it, being mad about something that I could easily forget about. I want to set an example at work and at home. I want to learn to overcome trivial things - minutiae - and focus my energy on accomplishing my goals, whether they are personal or professional.

For the first time in a few years, I've opted - you guessed it, by now - to pen a list of New Year's Resolutions 2012 Personal Goals that I want to achieve on/before Dec. 31, 2012. Thank goodness for 2012 being a leap year because I have that extra day to get it done. My list is both personal and professional in nature. I'm a fan of Top 10 lists, so I've settled on 10 personal goals I'd like to accomplish in 2012 and what better way to settle it than in a blog, so I can be held accountable and I can keep all two of you that are interested up-to-date. Plus, Michelle Pfeiffer's character in New Year's Eve (which I saw with my wife on our Christmas date night) made a list of 10 Resolutions she wanted to accomplish in 24 hours...I opted for the 366-date approach.

Here's what I have:

1. Start running again. It is one of the few things I can do without being judged and I can do it to clear my head. Plus, while I was in graduate school, I lost about 70 pounds and felt great.
2. Better attitude. There are days I don't have the best attitude, whether it's because I'm lacking sleep. Or the kids were in "fantastic" moods. Or whatever the reason was. Some people have called me a "caged bear" at work. I hate that. That's not me.
3. Accepting criticism better. The downfall of a perfectionist. I take things so personally at times and a lot of times, the criticism I receive is coming from a good place. There are some times I think the criticism is coming from a not-so-good place, but it's not fair to lump everything into that category. Criticism will only make me better.
4. Accomplishing 1-3 will help me lead a happier life. I'm blessed to have an amazing wife/best friend and two beautiful children and a dog that loves me no matter what. I want to live to see my children get married, and to see my grandchildren.
5. Give myself more credit. Those that truly know me know that I am the first one to discredit what I do. I don't like tooting my own horn even though there are still some people that think I have an ego (they need a reality check). It's ok to give yourself a pat on the back for doing something outstanding and I need to allow myself that opportunity from time to time.
6. Laugh more. This doesn't need any explanation.
   
7. Cut back on stupid, frivolous things. Starbucks is nice for an occasional treat, not an everyday thing. I have to have my coffee in the morning and throughout the day (if possible), but more water, less diet coke.
   
8. Be stronger. I used to be really thick-skinned and wouldn't let anything anyone said bother me. Then, my self-esteem went to hell in a hand basket and allowed everything affect me. No matter where I am, there will always be people that find solace in making other people miserable or making fun of others. And I've always been that guy, but I don't want to let those affect me anymore. Those people don't matter.
9. Make a difference. I want to make a difference in peoples' lives. I don't know how I want to go about doing that, but I do.
10. Continue to pursue my dreams. How apropos, I conclude my list with a cliché. If I don't achieve some of the previous items on this list, I may just give in and not try to continuing chasing my dreams. I don't want that to happen. Will achieve all my dreams? There's a 99-percent chance I don't, but chasing our dreams is what keeps many of us going each and every day. Without dreams and goals, what's the purpose?

Those are mine. Some good. Some bad. All of them, I think, will help me become a better person - personally and professionally - and a better husband and dad. You may be like I was and think that New Year's Resolutions are something you have to do each year to conform to everyone else. But, I have a good personal feeling for 2012 and I want to start it out on the right foot.

Goals are important to us. They challenge us. I challenge you to challenge yourself and make your own list of personal goals for 2012, not a boring list of New Year's Resolutions.

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If you don't mind me tweeting about my dog, my kids, social media, athletic communications and Baylor Athletics, you can follow me on Twitter at @ChrisYandle.