Look out, Don Draper wannabes. The best product placements are free. They are produced by real people using real products in real life in quirky and interesting ways that are conducive to the brand's image.

The fact is that slick, staged, overly produced handycraft just can't compete with "real." Have you noticed how television news anchors seem to be morphing into  parodies of themselves, with the fake asides, plastic chuckles and contrived head moves? It's because as YouTube  becomes ubiquitous, we are becoming more and more familiar with authenticity -- so we can spot a phony a mile a way.

Here's an idea for a 21st century ad firm: become an aggregator and distributor of homemade videos featuring effective product placements, like this one featuring Bud Light. It's a smart as anything produced on Madison Avenue for megabucks, and it's F-R-E-E. And it's generated 3.5 million views in less than two weeks.

As 2012 approaches and the Mayan calendar readies itself for the ashbin of history, we face before us some daunting risks, and tremendous opportunities. A recent scientific analyisis of Twitter chatter finds that we're becoming sadder. Through it all, I say to you and to myself:  frown not and be grateful.

It is nonsense, of course, that Mayans living thousands of years ago would posess some supernatural ability to be able to predict the future. We are much more knowledgeable and sophisticated than they the Mayans ever were, and yet we are unable to predict where the second sock of a pair out of the clothes dryer will end up, let alone describe how and when the world will end.

Yet the human proclivity to be so interested in end-of-the-world scenerios says something about the times we live in. We live in dread of global warming, burgeoning government deficits, wars without end, pollution, overcrowding and a general malaise coaxed by an uneasy feeling that the best times are behind us and not ahead. 

But are they? They don't have to be. And is it a question that even matters to us as individuals? Not really, because we are all mortal and as each of us lies on our deathbeds I guarantee that all the problems of the world will not yet have been solved. The situation has always been daunting and always will be.  It is the nature of human existence. So too is the ability to advance, to find joy and to be grateful for what we have. 

Social media is one of those glass half empty or half full human creations that offers both complications and opportunities. Social media can be as confusing and distracting as hell. It can also help illuminate the world around us and enlighten us about ourselves and others. Social media can be isolating, causing us to avoid the real world in favor of a preoccupation with a virtual one. Or it can help us connect with friends and colleagues past, present and future in honest, meaningful and genuine ways that can even be life changing. Social media marketing can be the insincere posturing of a business pretending to be your friend. Or it can be something that encourages win-win interactions with customers that help consumers find better values, and help businesses offer better products and services.

The bottom line is that reality is not a fixed and static thing, but that it lies in our perception of the way things are. If we feel gratitude, we find things to be grateful for. If we see potential, we realize it. If we sense opportunity, we find that, too. 

My resolution for 2012 is to realize the potential, to celebrate the opportunities and most of all, to be grateful.

Happy New Year.

So Twitter has unveiled a new site redesign, and with it comes the predictable pattern of public reaction that I like to call The Five Stages of Social Network Redesign Acceptance:

Anger. "How dare these overpaid geeks toy with MY social network!?" (The one that doesn't charge me anything to use and that I nevertheless access compulsively no matter where I am morning, noon and night.)

Whining. "Hey everybody, have you seen this new redesign? Is iit lame or what? Seriously, the losers behind this monstrosity (the twenty-somethings who in a few years have become billionaires thanks to their creativity, ingenuity and overall brilliance when it comes to web development) don't know what the hell they are doing! Epic FAIL!"

 Acceptance. "In today's world you gotta get used to new stuff, right? After all, change is the only constant! And I'm passionate about change!" (It just takes a lot of anger and whining to get there.)

 Wondering what all the fuss is all about. "This redesign is no big deal. It's pretty much like the old site anyway. I figured it out in a few minutes. Maybe people who aren't into the whole social media "thing" will have problems with it, but not me!” (At least not anymore).

 Saying you liked it all along. “I have a friend from college who works there (who I haven't seen for years but let's not dwell on that), and I'm really psyched that he decided to take my advice and they added/changed/got rid of ______. Let's face it. The site is much better than it used to be. Very intuitive, [latest buzzword], and [latest buzzword].  I love the new redesign! Passionately! Always have!

The majority of business professionals are really, really insecure when it comes to social media. Have you noticed that? I have. Relax, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Here’s why:

You own the special sauce, not the "gurus." Social media snake oil salesmen, of which there are many in the field, are very good at pitching social media "theory" using psychedelic PowerPoint charts, wearing fashionable glasses and dressing down like Mark Zuckerberg. They want to make you think that they know something you don’t. Jargon rich ideas are one thing. Execution is the key. And the only way you can execute successfully is with great content. The fact is, you own the content, not them. 

No one is more of an expert in you than you. We all have a PhD. I have a PhD in Tim Allik. You have a PhD in you. You know yourself better than anyone else does. All of your experiences, personal and professional, have been boiled down over the years and decades into who you are now. That’s a lot of experience -- and a lot of compelling stories and information that matter to your audience. Be confident in that. Content is what counts. The latest widget or social network of the day are the blood vessels, but you are the brain. 

Don’t forget how smart you are. The nature of work today is that we often live in a bubble with other people who, like us, are experts in our field of endeavor. We tend to start speaking in professional shorthand about ideas that we take for granted, but that are target audience will find interesting, even groundbreaking. You’ve learned a lot over the years. What you might think obvious, your audience will find fascinating. 

It’s not dumbing it down, it’s keeping it simple. Have respect for the intelligence of your audience, but remember that all the stuff you know and take for granted is probably not identical to all the stuff they know and take for granted. Don’t write for you. Write for your audience. If you are writing at a level to impress yourself, you’re doing a research paper, not a blog post. Be a teacher, not a researcher. Whether it on a blog, in a webinar or on video, communicate online about what you already know as clearly and simply as you can.

It’s just a conversation. Successful business professionals must also be excellent communicators. At a cocktail party, they are usually great at talking about what they do and all of the exciting things going on at work and in the industry.  But for some reason, when they get in front of a keyboard their brains freeze up. That’s usually because instead of trying to communicate to someone on the outside, they are writing to someone on the inside, to themselves. As I said before: wrong audience. If the keyboard trips you up, bring a portable recorder with you on your commute and just start talking, not to yourself, but to that person you are trying to reach. You’ll be surprised at how much you have to give. 

In the beginning, Occupy Wall Street was a brilliant guerrilla PR effort that forced a reluctant media to start talking about an elephant that's been in the room for decades, namely, corporate – government collusion, otherwise known as crony capitalism.  Since then, the focus of OWS has blurred, and now the movement's  missteps threaten to derail this noble effort completely.  After some thought, here are a few PR recommendations from an admittedly back seat driver for getting back on track and moving forward.

Maintain focus. Initially, Occupy Wall Street enjoyed great focus. The theme was crony capitalism – government and private industry working in collusion, without accountability, to benefit themselves at the expense of the common good. This is distinct from free market capitalism, in which enterprises compete for business in a way that is supposed to benefit the consumer. With free market capitalism, the markets by design hold businesses themselves accountable for their success or failure: if a business makes smart decisions, it flourishes; if it make bad decisions, it goes down in flames. The sectors of the economy most affected by crony capitalism, in my view, are the financial and defense industries. There are certainly other examples – the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries spring to mind – but they are part of a separate discussion about health care. Student loans don't have much at all to do with crony capitalism. Neither do government employment programs. Somewhere down the line, OWS suffered from “scope creep,” taking on all of these topics and more. Recommendation: Sharpen the focus on crony capitalism.

Reassure your audience. In my view, the overwhelming majority of OWS protesters are not against capitalism. In general, they are enthusiastic proponents of the American Dream. The love the idea that anyone who works hard, plays by the rules and delivers something of value deserves to get very, very rich. Steve Jobs is an example of someone that fits the model, and we've certainly seen numerous iPhones and MacBooks at the protests. In contrast to free market capitalism, crony capitalism is what powers banana republics, not the American Dream.  OWS must reassure the public by making a distinction between free market capitalism – which OWS supports – and and crony capitalism – which it opposes. Recommendation: clearly stating that the OWS movement's chief mission is to protect the American Dream itself.

Keep the story on message, not on you. This is where I fear the OWS movement threatens to derail itself completely.  Initially, OWS was concerned more about the common good than a land grab, but somewhere down the road, this changed. To its everlasting credit, OWS has pushed the mainstream media to finally dig into the corrupt relationship between Wall Street and the government, a task relegated to “tinfoil hat-wearing cranks” just a few months ago. Unfortunately, stories like the one Bloomberg News recently broke about the Federal Reserve granting $13 billion in virtually zero interest loans to the banks -- or the Sixty Minutes segment about Congress exempting itself from insider trading laws -- have been overshadowed by efforts by the OWS protesters to keep tents pitched through the winter in public spaces. At some point, “Occupy Wall Street” became more about the protesters themselves than the crimes they were fighting. Recommendation: make the story about the story, not about you.

Use social media instead of tents. The OWS movement has brilliantly leveraged social media to stay connected and to report on examples of police wrongdoing. My recommendation now is to pack up the tents and stay warm this winter. Use those saved calories to organize meetups and use social media to spread the word. One social-media-fueled million person march on Washington would have more of a positive impact on the national discourse than 100 ragged tent cities at this point - and no one will die of exposure. Recommendation: Put renewed emphasis on social media to organize objective-driven in-person meetings and to distribute your message.

Thanks to everybody involved in Occupy Wall Street.  You've done a great service to the nation and the world. If you can stay focused, provide reassurance about your belief in the American Dream, keep the story on message and emphasize social media – not tents - as your primary vehicle for reform, you'll keep changing history for the better.