Customers who visit MacysAmericanIcons.com will be able to submit brief videos celebrating the people, places and things they love about America. Called “American Icons,” the new television commercial will tell the story of what makes America great in the eyes, and through the lens, of people from coast-to-coast. In mid-May, Macy’s will debut the final 30-second spot on national television as part of the launch for its “American Icons” program. 

“Macy’s recognition as America’s department store is a credit to the customers who have shopped our stores for more than 150 years. We could not celebrate our ‘American Icons’ campaign without asking these customers to participate by sharing their visions of what makes this nation great,” said Martine Reardon, Macy’s CMO. “We’re excited to be giving our customers an opportunity to co-create this special salute and together, we’ll pay tribute to the people, places and things we love about America.” 

For the “American Icons” television commercial, Macy’s is seeking high-quality, creative interpretations in video, sequential stills and animation. The selected elements will be edited into a video montage that will feature content from across the country. Videos must be in high definition, 1920×1080 in resolution and no longer than 10 seconds in length. 

Macy’s is looking for clips that visually depict each person’s favorite thing about America, such as hometown landmarks, scenes from a family farm, sharing a meal with loved ones, playing baseball with friends, visiting national parks and monuments, taking a road trip, landscapes, flags, quintessential houses, stores, signs, roads, classic cars, family portraits, great faces and special celebrations like state fairs, parades and fireworks. 

Consumers whose contributions are used in the final commercial will receive a credit posted within the spot on youtube.com/macys. 

Videos may be submitted for consideration between now and April 29 at MacysAmericanIcons.com. For more information, see official rules and regulations at MacysAmericanIcons.com. The “American Icons” program launches May 15. 

Patrick Brandt is making predictions about the obsolescence of email. We are seated in the lobby of the Dallas W Hotel, where he’s hosting a social media conference called “The Big Social,” and he’s wearing a Roger Staubach Dallas Cowboys jersey. The legendary quarterback keynoted the morning, telling audiences that even he has an iPhone and email, although you won’t find Staubach on “the Facebook.”

As CEO of social media monitoring software Telligent, Patrick Brandt has often been at the bleeding edge of technology. In 2006, he helped found the online photo service Cyberpix, long before Shutterfly and Snapfish liberated digital photo prints from cameras. (That’s even before Ofoto, if you can remember them.) He later founded another small startup, Skywire Software, which was later sold to Oracle.

Now, he heads up Dallas-based Telligent, an enterprise software solution for midsize to large companies to manage internal communications and external social media communication with customers.

SUCCESS: When someone asks what you do, what’s your 5-second elevator speech?

Patrick Brandt: Telligent creates social software for businesses and online communities. We allow you to create your own private online community, with your data and your information integrated with your systems. Dell uses it for their customers, help desk, forums, blogs, wikis and activity streams. Some companies use it as a social intranet, like Facebook inside your company, with your company’s brand integrated into your company’s systems.

S: But why is that important?

PB: Social software for businesses—this is the way. What email was for businesses 10 years ago, before it became a must-have tool used by every company, is what social software will become for large companies. You want that Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter-like experience in your business life, too. You want to be able to access information on such a platform, instead of just relying on a traditional face-to-face interaction.

S: So then, back-and-forth email conversations will be replaced with these company intranet systems?

PB: Yes. In the next 5 to 10 years, email is going to go the way of the post office. We’ll use email for more formal communications and less timely or urgent matters, and instead use social interaction such as direct message or a post in a group forum for everyday use.

S: Do small companies believe this is inevitable? Why can’t they continue to use email and use third-party apps like Google Chat to interact with each other?

PB: Here’s the key. Your customers are going social and that’s how they want to interact with you; therefore you need to interact with them in the same way. This is what people mean by the consumerization of IT. For the first time, customers are dictating what enterprise software is needed by companies. That’s a huge shift for consumers leading the way.

Three More Questions with Patrick Brandt, CEO of Telligent

S: What’s your favorite inspirational quote?

PB: “Ask not what you can achieve, but what you can contribute [to your family, your employees, your customers, your community]. If you focus on what you can contribute, imagine what you can achieve.” —Peter Drucker

S: Finish this sentence: You first knew you were an entrepreneur when…

PB: I took the money I earned from mowing lawns and bought a stock in Nike. The day that $5 dividend check signed by Phil Knight of Nike came in, I knew.

S: What object in your office are you unreasonably attached to and why?

PB: Artwork by my kids. That’s stuff that can’t be reproduced.

Here are some blunders, big and not so big, to avoid when putting your résumé together:

• Lying about your experience.
  Augmenting your credentials with a little fiction might help you get the job, but you almost certainly will be found out. This could cause you to be fired sometime down the road. Worse, you will have gravely harmed your reputation within your chosen industry. Industry people travel in the same circles. It’s highly likely that your employer will someday bump into someone who knows the real you, so don’t say you were Phi Beta Kappa if you were a C student. Even a little white lie can backfire.

Here’s a real workplace example: An employee’s company was relocating to another state, and people were offered severance packages if they did not want to move. This man used the company fax machine to send a résumé to a potential employer. He listed his current position as chief information officer, when in fact he was not involved in technology at all and held a lesser title. He was found out because he left his résumé in the company fax machine, where co-workers found it. Not only did he not get the new job, he lost the one he had, along with severance benefits he would have received.

• Typos and misspellings.
  You send a very negative message about your quality of work and attention to detail if your résumé and cover letter aren’t perfectly clean. Don’t rely on your computer’s spell check function. Your computer won’t know if you negotiated with unions or onions. Review each word carefully, and have someone else review it too. Even if you are a good word person, it’s easy to miss a typo because you know what you intended to write.

• Cutesy-pie layouts and stationery.
  Some people believe that their résumé will stand out in the crowd if they stray from the conventional layout. This might work well if you are sending a résumé for a creative job like a graphic artist and you know that someone is definitely going to look at it. It could work against you, too. In fact, some companies scan résumés into a computer for later review. If yours is too radical, it may not scan and you won’t be considered at all. If you want to alter the color of your stationery, make sure the cover letter and résumé are the same color. And keep it conservative – no hot pinks.

• Telling too much about yourself.
  Don’t feel that you have to share personal information, and be careful what you do share. You might run into someone’s bias, so avoid hitting those hot buttons. If you were president of the Young Republicans, your Democrat interviewer may not be impressed. Working for environmental or political causes won’t impress everyone the same way. If you list golf as a hobby, someone might think you would spend too much time on the course. Even mentioning leadership roles at your place of worship could keep you from getting an interview. You can always discuss what’s important to you once you are seated face to face, but don’t deny yourself that opportunity.

Source: careerbuilder