Hi world, my name is @JenFriel ... nice to meet you!

SOOO!! I've been taking a lot of meetings over the last 2 weeks with uber important peeps, and I decided that since what I am doing is so wackadoodle noodle, that I prolly needed to write it all out to help them communicate to the other uber important people that they need to tell this story to. So here we go ...

Dear uber important people looking at this site,

*waves* Hi, my name is Jen Friel. You may not know my name just yet - but that's okay, you're about to!! =) I'll let you in on a little secret ... I, Jen Friel, am a nerd. 

I started in social media in '05 on Myspace to kill time working as a receptionist for a movie marketing firm, and parleyed that into working for the creator of Myspace 2 years later, launching his livestreaming platform LiveVideo. My handle on the site was PhotoJeNic (heheeh, get it ... photoJENic ... hehehe), and it is still one of the most watched shows on the network with a fan base of over 600,000 nerds everywhere digging the content I provided.

We used prototype technology and made it work - telling the story of my life operating as a lifecaster. We took a netbook, with an aircard, and a USB based web cam and streamed live from all around Los Angeles. It was AWESOME! However, Brad Greenspan, the uber nerdy dude that I worked for - did not understand how to run a business appropriately, nor did he truly understand the power of the beast he created, and subsequently the site suffered. Checks were bounced, and the nerdy folk dispersed.

*insert sad face*

I then moved to Florida for a few months to work as a commercial model - and even started appearing on Myspace and various other social networks.

Modeling was great, and a lot of fun - however, technology is my heart ... and I KNEW something big was a flutter so I spent all my free time (which I had a LOT of), and taught myself search engine optimization. My theory was that if I could understand how people received their information on search engines, I could figure out how I could place the message I wanted people to hear right in front of their face.

The timing on all of this however, could not have been better. When the recession hit in 08, you had all these people clamouring to figure out who they were, and what life meant to them. All of the sudden, these material things and job titles were somehow irrelevant as the repo men knocked on doors, and the big businesses collapsed. What did people do? They longed for connections, they longed to be touched by those that could help them through their day ... all of those people turned to social media. In came the rise of 450 million Facebook users, the fall of Myspace, and the greatest revolution experienced in generations. We became addicted, we became completely consumed with our newsfeeds, status updates, posts ... you name it - we were on it.

Businesses were suddenly turning to these nerdy folk to help them understand this "social media thing" and I very quickly became someone these businesses wanted to talk to. I managed a couple of celebrity accounts, a politician, and a few restaurants and retailers ... however, NO ONE saw what I saw. I KNEW through and through that this was going to change the world - as we had now changed the way that people received their information. My frustration for clients that didn't get what I was feeling grew ... and in came the #140Conf. It is a large twitter meet up run by @JeffPulver, the creator of Vonage. I couldn't afford a ticket, so I RSVPed to a bunch of the mixers, knowing I knew how to get my way into ANY party in LA, and even if I couldn't manage to attend the conference I could certainly meet the people who were in attendance. Long story short, I got an email from a guy who had an extra ticket - and I got full VIP passes to the entire conference. That moment changed my life. I could FEEL where all this "tech stuff" was going, however I still wasn't able to connect the dots. It took me a few hours of being at the conference before I had the epiphany of "OMG, all these people are such NERDS! ... hot, hot, HOT NERDS!!!!" I knew in that moment the word "nerd" was about to change. Reclamation was under way, and I wanted to capitalize on it. I went home and starting putzing around with the whole notion of "talking nerdy." The branding for "talk nerdy to me" has already been done, however no one had asked that of their lover.

Bottom line, I sexed up the tech industry. All this stuff EXCITES me like you would not believe, and trust me ... that has a full physical effect *wink wink, nudge nudge.*

I worked the entire night coding and creating the template for the site, and alas less than 5 hours later we were in business. See, this was my first post.

I had a mission ... I wanted to change the world's definition of the word nerd. Nerds were now defined as being "hot, cool, sexy, and techie."

The marketing of that mission however, was a horse of a different color. I did what I would have told any of my clients to do - had they just listened to me ... rather than try to come up with an idea to be the next Facebook, or Twitter, I said this works, let's just take all the workable elements of social media and use them as wheels to move the platform I created. I made all of the powerhouse components of social media talk to one another. I used my twitter fan base to RT and get the good word of the nerd out. I secured the hashtag #nerdsunite to help spread the message across the 140 character site- which as any tweeter knows, a hashtag is similar to a keyword search you would use in SEO. It's a tag that becomes a link within twitter instantly connecting you to all of twitterverse using that hashtag. See? This is a link for a hashtag ... see how many people are now connected to my message?? Yeah, that was planned.

I knew what the world was talking about through Twitter, so I was able to then speak my own language to them. I had a message to get out - so I did.

Facebook was a no brainer, establishing a fan page (aka like page) was a given, however knowing how to communicate to fans of the site was a skill. Getting people to talk to you as a brand is not an easy accomplishment. I LISTEN to readers of this site, and adapt ... Facebook is the platform in which I can use to speak to them on.

I also incorporated my livestreaming experience in the mix, and downloaded the Ustream app on my droid. There are currently over 1.5 million downloads of Ustream, yet I am STILL one of the only people that utilize this feature. I CAN GO LIVE ALL AROUND THE WORLD FROM MY MOTHER EFFIN CELL PHONE.

Just let that sit for a second ...

MY MOTHER EFFIN CELL PHONE. (Which btw, I was a B2B financial rep for Verizon for over a year and half, and left only because I was the top rep in the nation, and realized there was a ceiling you could hit at age 23. So, that whole cell phone thanggggg ... I kinda get.)

I then archive the feed, and can edit it for YouTube videos ... I mean HELLOOOO!!!!!

I create multi-media web based platforms. If you have an idea, and a message you want to send out to the world ... I can translate it in the language of nerd, and break it down for you within all the workable elements of social media. "The Foursquare, The Facebook, and The Twitter" are platforms to you, but I call the people that created and run them friends. I am social media. (Dude, I even secured that domain and redirected the url ... see ... www.iamsocialmedia.com).

I made internet history with what I knew. No single person has taken an idea and blown up a site as quickly as I have. We are 243,000 in the world and 50,000 in the US - and I am still the driving force behind this. I have a staff of 18 content providers, however this is my baby. I own this site, the branding ... yada yada yada ... I am as dead of broke as possible, however, people pay me to live. I became homeless on this adventure, as I had to stop consulting completely to just be able to keep up with this beast. However, my first night of being homeless I was staying in the penthouse suite of the Shangri-LA hotel in a corporate sponsored suite, in corporate sponsored clothing, under a corporate sponsored blanket, with transportation to said hotel in a corporate sponsored car. (Did you know I was also part of the Ford Fiesta Movement? The largest social media campaign in the country?)

I am a crazy nerd who has NOTHING left to lose. I am consciously aware of the goldmine I am sitting on, and I am smart enough to utilize my extended network to get to anywhere I want to go.

I say this VERY matter of fact, that I do not need you ... but I wouldn't mind having you around. I am PASSIONATE like you would not believe, and this site has a cult following that you can't buy. I know my stuff and wake up EVERY. SINGLE. MORNING. grateful to be alive, and humbled to spend every day in the company that I do.

I do this for 17 hours a day, I am a machine. It keeps me going ... and I have never found such joy in anything in life. I wear weird clothes, put weird stickers on the back of my mac and sit in coffee shops all day to spread the word of the nerd. I'm getting shit done, and I am someone you want to speak to because while you are scrambling to figure out your "social media options ..." I have cracked the code. This is my site, my platform, and even as pieces of social media become irrelevant I won't because I CARE so deeply about this site and the people on it, that they will tell me what the next big thing is.

We are the greatest technologically adaptive generation to ever walk this earth, and we are the last.

I will take a meeting to hear out your ideas, and am open to whatever options may be before me at this point. However, please understand this, you can't buy me, but you can corporate sponsor me. This is my heart. This is my passion. This is my life.

SOOO!!! If you totally want to like play, feel free to print out this permission slip to be Unapologetically awesome, and I look forward to hearing from you while I am on tour. #KThxBye

(and oh yeah ... I was just up for a position working for the CEO of AOL, and even they didn't "get it.")

... and oh yeah ... this nerdy little site even has a theme song ...

HOW AWESOME!!! =)

This to me is just playing ... I took $10 and an idea, and 7 months later turned it into 1.5 million and a revolution. So, how can I help you today???

xoxo,

Jen Friel aka That Nerdy Chick