NICHOLAS GAGE:

It was a pleasure to meet Nicholas Gage; a graduate of Boston University like myself, and an award-winning investigative reporter. Gage is famous for his memoir about his family – specifically his mother Eleni. He was nominated for the Pulitzer 6 times!

Nicholas Gage is truly inspirational. He came to the U.S from a small Greek island at nine years old after his mother had been executed during the Greek civil war. He never imagined he would grow up to be an American reporter and be the author of 7 books. As he explained in his speech, the only thing he knew about America was that it was far away. Of course, he didn’t speak English. He came with his sister to live with their stepfather in the U.S.

He quickly learned English and embarked on a career in Journalism. The fact of his mother’s murder by Communists because she would not reveal where her children were hiding, was a haunting experience for him. Many people deal with losses by writing about it, and that is exactly what Gage intended to do. He knew he needed to learn investigative journalist skills to achieve this. This was going to be the one story that moved him to pursue journalism in the first place. While Gage worked at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, he always had in the back of his mind that he would go back to Greece to find out what happened to his mother. He felt this was the way to repay his mother after what she had done – sacrifice her life for him. The Book Eleni became a literary success, and has been translated into 34 different languages. The book has also been transformed to a movie version, which Gage conceded was not as good as the book.

Gage took a traumatic experience in his life that haunted him, researched it to understand the full meaning and impact and came to terms with the tragedy. His experience and achievements are an inspiration and demonstrate the human spirits indomitable will.

PUBLISHING POINT'S TALK WITH TIM O'REILLY

Tim O’ Reilly is an author and the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc. Originally, he was a science fiction writer. He was asked by his friend to write a technology manual.

One thing led to another, and now his company publishes literature on a widely diverse range of topics. They range from the future of education to government policies and to technology’s effect on our lives.

Tim’s stated mission is to, “change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators.” He believes it is a much more effective way to bring about change than mere managerial exercises. By focusing on a vision, strongly believing in your goals, and enjoying what you are doing, work comes naturally. If one does a job that one believes matters, and it could make a positive difference, this matters more than making money.

Their best sellers are topics that people didn’t write about. “I publish things people need rather than what they want,” Tim said. Need recognition is when the consumer identifies a consumption problem that needs to be solved. Apple is great example. Steve Jobs created an ideal state where the consumer can carry one product instead of three with the Iphone. Apple created a lifestyle where the product sells itself and once you try it and own it, you won’t be able to imagine your life without it. This was already successfully done with mac and the ipod. They are taking our needs and making them wants.

The biggest challenge in the publishing industry is the economic change of print. Volume is going down, and the cost is going up. E-books are on the path to becoming more than 50% of the market. This electronic ecology will get better and richer with all types of business models.

We have this opportunity to try things. We are in a period of experimentation. Don’t hold onto the past. Be lit up by the future!

THIRD FORUM:

Eugenia Valliades with CEO Kris Ruby

Mynewconnection was honored to have guest speaker Kris Ruby, CEO of her own Public relations and social Media agency called Ruby Media Group, join us last night. Kris spoke about the founding of the company and the profound effects social media has on our personal and professional lives. An engaging and interactive discussion followed.

It was a pleasure to see so many familiar people attend and to welcome some new guests. Mynewconnection already has a strong base of intelligent and enthusiastic individuals who have a common interest in expanding their network and learning.

The Mynewconnection network continues to bring together professionals from different industries such as law, finance, real estate and media.

The enthusiasm and exchange of ideas by the participants attests to the success of the event. The salon like setting provided an intimate forum that was conducive to this exchange of ideas.

I will keep you informed about the next session!

APRIL 26th FORUM:

The 3rd forum will be held this evening

Monday, April 26th from 6:30pm - 8:00pm

We are honored to have CEO Kristen Ruby -- President and Founder of Ruby Media Group LLC, join us for a discussion.

Looking forward to seeing you tonight!

Address: The Veneto at 250 East 53rd street

HELLENIC TIMES: Entertainment Connection by Nick Katsoris

TWITTER:

Yesterday, I was fortunate to meet Jack Dorsey – Co founder of Twitter!

Some people think – twitter is annoying. The solution for that is very simple. If you believe it is annoying, don’t use it. However, many other people find it useful. It is an excellent way to communicate as Twitter is in Realtime. It can be as informative as you like. You can tune in and out what you find appropriate.

The phases of usage have been for personal, politics, business, celebrities and many other uses.

The greatest lesson in building Twitter has been that its users can come and build their own experience.

Some people come to talk about their business, some talk about the future, or what they are eating for lunch. It does not matter how people approach it. It’s defined to what users want to do and where they want to take it. Each person can use it for his own needs or purposes.

The 140 character limit is not random. It allows anyone with an SMS phone to participate. It’s immediacy, transparency, and approachability has made twitter extremely desirable to use on a global scale.

I hope you will be able to attend my next forum on April 26th with CEO of a Public Relations and Social Media Agency, Kris Ruby, who uses Twitter – one of the most popular media platforms on a professional level for visibility and branding awareness for her clients. Come and learn more!

April 26th FORUM:

We are living through a social media revolution where social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN are used on a professional level for visibility and branding awareness. Kris Ruby, a fellow Alumni friend from Boston University, began her own Public relations and social Media agency called Ruby Media Group LLC where she specializes in social media optimization and branding in real time. Her mission is to socialize businesses and ease business owners into transitions into a social lifestyle.

She is a powerful force of example for many female entrepreneurs and executives. She is motivated and has carved her own path in the social media and personal branding field. What is most impressive is that she has done all of this on her own during a time when many other young people may have chosen financial stability over following their dream career. She created this company straight out of college and her story is very inspirational to other young graduates in the country who are still looking for work- Kris's story will hopefully inspire you to create your own path and start your own company!

She recently led several speaking engagements – her most recent speaking engagement was a workshop on Social Media at Columbia University Business School, and she will also be speaking at Microsoft on Personal Branding so we are honored to have her as our third CEO guest speaker for the Month of March! Kris Ruby joins us among a line up of many great speakers for MyNewConnection -- Ronaldo Stern, CEO and Owner of of H.Stern Jewelry, and Howard Smith, Vice Chairman-Finance of C.V. Starr & Co.

MYNEWCONNECTION is proud to

Announce the 3rd forum held on

Monday, April 26th

Please join us for a discussion with the CEO

Kristen Ruby -- President and Founder of Ruby Media Group LLC

6:30pm – 8:30pm

The Veneto at 250 East 53rd street

PLEASE RSVP at Mynewconnection@gmail.com.

Seats are limited!

INTERVIEW WITH KRIS RUBY:

Eugenia: What led you to create your business? How did you get started?

Kris: I graduated from college in May and have since opened up my own social media marketing & PR agency. I was one of the few seniors who had a job lined up out of school, but after working there for 2 months, I decided I wanted to follow my passion and open up my own agency. Rather than getting down about the economy, I chose another path of entrepreneurship and created my own career. My mission is to empower business owners to use social media and to ease their transition into a social lifestyle. I also help executives define their personal brand and adapt their brand to the social media space.

• Growing up in a time where Facebook and MySpace dominated the web, I had a natural interest in seeing exactly how much any company can benefit from using social networks.

• Being a frequent blogger and member of social networking sites, while also possessing a love for PR, I wanted to start a company focused on social media, as well as the traditional methods of a PR and Marketing firm.

Eugenia: What is the difference between Web 2.0 and social media and networking?

Kris: Web 1.0 was a lot more static and business card like- social media is more heavily based around customer engagement and expanding your sphere of influence.

Web 2.0 is a more customizable interface and you have the ability to frequently share relevant content with other users. Social Media and Networking is different- it is fully user controlled and allows the user to virtually connect and share anything to any other user on the network. It uses a simple interface in which the user is restricted to how much they can customize it, but is centered around the information that users exchange.

Eugenia: What social media & PR services do you offer?

Kris: RMG offers the following Social Media Marketing, Public Relations and Personal Branding services.

• PR 2.0- Optimized Public Relations

• Social Media Marketing

• Personal Branding

• Social Media Education & Workshops

• E-Marketing- Building viral buzz

• Content Creation & Development

• Viral marketing

Eugenia: Can you talk about some of the challenges you have faced introducing social media to clients?

Kris: C suite executives are primarily outsourcing social media rather then doing it in house. I think there is a huge fear factor involved in social media; however, once executives overcome this and are properly trained on how to use these social tools, they are often very engaged and push their internal marketing team to use social media. The executives who are not blogging, tweeting or posting on Facebook are missing out on a huge opportunity to promote and cross market their brand to their consumer base. In the future, we will see a large shift towards more companies using social media marketing as the primary customer service tool. We will also begin to see more companies using social media for HR & recruiting efforts to attract better talent. Finally, there will be a very large shift in the way companies choose who to hire based on their personal branding efforts and presence in social media networks. All companies will begin to pre-screen and "social profile" candidates before inviting them in for a first round of interviews. With the advent of google optimizing real time tweets and indexing them in search engines, company's can no longer hide from social media.

Eugenia: How do you measure success using social media for branding?

Kris:

• Pages hits, number of people who respond to your posts, tweets and blog posts

• Retweets & re-distrbution of your content

• Blog Placements

Eugenia: What general advice would you give someone who wants to startup a small company as you did?

Kris: Go for your dreams! Don’t let anyone stop you- go against the grain.

• Make sure you are connected- you never know when the right opportunity will come up.

• Be open to the opportunities and jobs that the universe sends your way

• Say Yes!

• Start a business plan

• Begin to establish your personal brand identity before you start your company so that you are well equipped once you have started it

Kris’s Social Media Profiles:

Her Company: rubymediagroup.com


Her Company’s Blog: blog.rubymediagroup.com


LinkedIn:http://www.linkedin.com/in/krisruby


Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/KrisRuby


Follow Kris on Twitter:http://www.twitter.com/sparklingruby