For someone who calls himself a blogger, that’s pretty shameful. Why am I still paying for hosting fees for this blog if I’m not going to write in it?

Well my friends, as Bob Dylan once sang, the times they are a-changin’. I can’t promise regular updates (I’ve got some pretty serious family responsibilities now – more on that later), but I can promise to at least check in with little blurbs from time to time. Hopefully, it’s something that you’ll find funny/useful/insightful.

Back to those responsibilities.

Remember a while back when I wrote that my wife and I were expecting our first child? Well guess what. She’s here! (And has been for a whole six months.)

Her name is Zoe and she’s AMAZING. She’s funny, good-natured, and seriously the cutest baby ever. I may be a terrible blogger, but I make up for it with awesome genes. (My wife’s are pretty good too.) I would share a picture here, but I’m still making up my mind about sharing photos of her on my blog.

The egotist in me says “Do it!” but the privacy-conscious Dad says “What about the Internet weirdos?” I think the egotist will eventually win out.

Anyway, it would be unfair to blame my lack of writing solely on the baby, but she is a factor. Hmm…what else can I blame?

Oh yeah – I’ve got a new job. As some may recall, I previously worked as the Community Manager for Reputation.com. It was a great job and I worked with a great team, but unfortunately, due to some internal restructuring, my position was eliminated a couple of months ago.

As with everything though, there was a silver lining. All of the work I did with Reputation.com and the excellent skills I learned working under an awesome management team perfectly prepared me for my new position as the Content Marketing Manager for Sheffield Marketing Partners.

SMP is a boutique agency in the Chicago area focused on helping businesses improve their marketing communications. Specifically, SMP helps companies translate nonsensical corporate-speak (“scalable efficiencies designed to leverage new paradigm shifts in best of breed technologies”) into narrative-driven messaging.

As Content Marketing Manager, my role will be to help our clients analyze their communications strategies and then develop the most engaging kind of Web content for their particular goals – whether that means commissioning research for a whitepaper, scripting and shooting a funny video, or something cool like a Whiteboard Narrative.

The team at SMP is really sharp and I’ve already learned a lot from them – even though I’ve only been on the job for a day. It’s a really amazing opportunity and I’m looking forward to helping clients of all shapes and sizes cut through the clutter and connect with their audiences in an authentic and unique way.

Anyway, that’s all for me for now. If I don’t live up to my promise to keep writing on this blog, you can always catch me at Twitter or on ScreenRant.com. Talk to you again soon (hopefully).

Yeah, yeah, I know. Everyone already did their Thanksgiving-themed posts last week. I wanted to spend time with my family instead. Sue me. Anyway, in honor of our recent holiday celebrations, I thought I would take a moment to give some much-deserved shout-outs to several businesses that have really impressed me in some way this year.

Working for ReputationDefender these past two years, I’ve come to appreciate the critical role that positive online reviews play in a company’s long term success. But good online reviews should only come from good service. The following companies have kicked ass in one way or another in 2010, and I’m happy to recommend them to you here today.

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Catalyst Ranch – Catalyst Ranch is an eclectic meeting venue in downtown Chicago. I have been there for events on two separate occasions. Once, I was hanging out with the cool kids from Social Media Club Chicago. The other time, I was having my wedding reception. Not only is Catalyst Ranch an awesome place to throw an event, the staff is great and very accommodating. I would use them again in an instant if I actually had a reason to bring 100+ people together. Anybody feel like partying?

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Bank of America – I recently had the displeasure of having my debit card scammed to the tune of $100. I noticed a couple of unauthorized payments and, with the fire of a thousand burning suns, visited BankofAmerica.com to dispute the charges and find justice.

Initially, I expected to run into some hassle. Mind you, I didn’t think I’d have problems because of Bank of America, but because of the problems inherent to all ginormous organizations: bureaucracy. Luckily, everyone I worked with was super friendly and Bank of America’s fraud response team helped me clear up the charges and issued me a new debit card within a week. Needless to say, I was impressed, which is why Bank of America earns my hearty well wishes.

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Southwest Airlines – I don’t fly too often for business (or pleasure for that matter), but when I do I like to use Southwest for two reasons. One, they have a hub at Midway that makes flying anywhere in the country fairly easy. Two, their rates are typically much lower than the competition (not to mention the fact that they don’t charge baggage fees.) When I flew out to San Diego this past summer for Comic-Con however, my satisfaction with Southwest really jumped up a notch. Why? Customer service, pure and simple.

The flight crew on my trip out to San Diego was the best I’ve ever experienced. The lead flight attendant in particular was funny, engaging, and friendly throughout the flight. I’m actually kind of disappointed I didn’t get his name so I could send a note to Southwest singling him out. Yes, the flight was that good. Anyway, kudos to you Southwest for a job well done.

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Travelocity.com – I don’t typically book travel on websites like Orbitz or Priceline (see above paragraph re: Southwest), but my mom frequently uses Travelocity.com. This fall, my mom was booking a flight out to Las Vegas to help my grandmother move. She used Travelocity, as she has done numerous times before, and I watched her punch in her credit card information and receive a confirmation e-mail within minutes. Unfortunately, the following day she received a voicemail from a Travelocity rep saying the transaction didn’t go through and that she would have to repurchase the tickets.

At this point, the tickets she bought were no longer available and the comparable option was several hundred dollars more expensive. After much time on the phone trying to ask reasonably why one would receive a confirmation e-mail for an unconfirmed transaction, my mom gave up and bought slightly higher priced tickets at a much more inconvenient time. It was a frustrating process, and my mom expressed disappointment in Travelocity for the mistake. So, being the good son that I am, I aired her grievance on Twitter, knowing that Travelocity (if they were any good at reputation management) would be listening.

Within a couple of days, I received a response on Twitter directing me to a customer service agent’s e-mail. I sent an e-mail explaining the issue and, lo and behold, my mom got a call the following day offering an apology and a voucher for her troubles. Now, I’m not one to hold companies at ransom online. The squeaky wheel shouldn’t always get the grease. However, if a company accidentally or deliberately screws up, they should make amends in some way. In this case, Travelocity more than made up for its initial faux pas, restoring my mom’s confidence and impressing me enough to inspire the retelling of our saga on this blog. Way to go Travelocity!

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Ace Limousine – Since we were going to be gone for six days over Thanksgiving, Nicole and I wanted to take our dog along with us to visit family. This raised a few issues. One, I had to pay extra to fly with the little guy. Two, it was his first time flying, which made us all nervous. And three, I had to get him to the airport.

As city-dwellers, Nicole and I are both used to taking public transportation. However, (correct me if I’m wrong) you can’t take dogs on the CTA. We do currently have access to a car, so we could have driven to the airport and done the long-term parking deal, but that’s always a pain and it would still require a shuttle to the airport (not an ideal prospect early in the morning). So instead, I decided to hire a car service. It couldn’t be much more expensive than a taxi, right?

After doing some research, I found Ace Limo. They had decent ratings on Yelp and when I e-mailed for info, they offered a fair rate. At this point, it should be noted that I requested a sedan. Well, as luck would have it, when we left our apartment to meet the driver the morning of our trip, the man is standing in front of a white stretch limousine. With an incredulous grin on my face, I told the driver I asked for a sedan and he replied that the limo was “what they had available.” Sweet! I didn’t have to pay any extra, and we rolled up to the airport in style. Way to go Ace Limo! Even better than the free limo upgrade was what happened on our return trip. (No, we didn’t get upgraded to a helicopter.)

Our flight came in late because of some delays out of Atlanta. Some car services will charge extra money if a passenger does not show up at their scheduled arrival time. That’s patently unfair since it’s impossible for a customer to know if their plane will be delayed. Ace Limousine has no such charge and was easily accessible even though our plane came in an hour and a half late and well past midnight. Now that’s good customer service.

My only quibble with Ace Limousine is their website. Come on guys, it’s 2010! Spruce things up a bit. At the very least, use SSL for processing your payments. I’m sure I could point you in the direction of some people who could help.

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I’m sure there were many other companies that kicked ass during 2010, but I can’t think of any more off the top of my head. Maybe in 2011, instead of waiting until the end of the year, I’ll give businesses love every time they do something good. In fact, I think I’ll make that my mini-resolution.

If you’ve had a great experience with a business this year, please feel free to share it in the comments. Alternatively, if you’ve had a negative experience with one of the companies I mentioned, please feel free to share that as well. An open dialogue is important to help businesses learn from their mistakes and grow.

[Header image via Flickr User Jen Collins used under a Creative Commons License]

Dear God. Has it really been almost six months since I’ve written anything substantive in this blog? (My blog post about the Detroit Lions getting screwed notwithstanding.) For somebody who sings the importance of personal branding, I don’t do a very good job of it for myself.

Well, the time has come to put up or shut up. If I’m going to have the gall to call myself a blogger, I better start blogging. Special thanks to my friend and former co-worker Surj Gish who told me that he sometimes checks my blog and is always bummed to see nothing new. (Guilt, it would seem, is my best motivator.)

Of course, there are some problems with climbing back up on the blog horse after a long absence, primarily the fact that I have a whole bunch of stuff to say. So, to save myself the pain of typing out thousands of words describing the last six months (and to save you the pain of reading it), I’ve condensed the most important things that are going on with me into nine easy-to-digest bullet points.

Here we go:

• I got married. Yes, that’s right. I am officially off the market. Just kidding. I’ve been off the market for years. You see, I married my high school sweetheart, a wonderful, smart, supportive, and incredibly caring girl named Nicole Tersigni. She’s also wickedly funny as you can see from her on-again off-again blog Two Girls, One Brain (co-written with her long-time friend Addie.)
• I helped build a house in Hawaii. Swinging a hammer never felt so good as it did this summer when my wife and I went to Kauai, Hawaii for our honeymoon. We had talked about doing something unique for our honeymoon that was also service-focused, so we checked out Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village program. The Kauai trip fit our schedule, and looked awesome, so we signed up. It was a great experience and we made tons of awesome friends, all while building a house that will (eventually) provide shelter for a deserving family. Plus, they talked about us in the local newspaper!
• I still work for ReputationDefender and I’m loving it. Awareness of data privacy and online reputation issues has never been higher, and in my position I get to work with some of the brightest minds in the field of Internet privacy and security. It’s a great opportunity, and I encourage all of you to check out the work we’re doing everyday. While we’re at it, read our blog, follow us on Twitter, and fan us on Facebook.
• I still write for ScreenRant.com and I’m also loving that. Not only did I get to go to the San Diego Comic Con this year (a dream come true), I’ve also had the opportunity to do sit-down interviews with cool entertainers like Tony Todd (aka Candyman, aka Guy Who Scared Me When I Was Little) and the directors and star of the fascinating documentary Catfish. The site is continuing to grow and get noticed by the Hollywood elite, plus everyone on the Screen Rant team is awesome. Epic win.
• I’m working on getting into shape. I was working out for a while doing P90X, an insanely difficult workout routine that consists of 60-90 minutes of hardcore exercise six days a week. I got into Phase 2 of the program and was making a lot of progress before I hit a wall. Since then, I’ve become increasingly sedentary in my lifestyle, which is kind of bugging me, so I’m jumping back on the fitness wagon. (Though I’ll probably wait until after Thanksgiving so I can have one last hurrah with a gigantic meal.)
• I haven’t given up on my web comic…although I have taken a major break. My robot web comic, They Are Coming For Us!, is super fun to write and I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t keep at it. Unfortunately, I don’t get paid to have robots say funny things and it’s hard to fit it into my schedule. I will start writing more on that blog, however, just as soon as I get things organized. Which leads to…
• I’m trying to be more organized. Keeping a strict schedule is not my strong suit, but I know it’s important if I’m going to get everything done that I want to do. So, expect to see more blog posts here, on the robot blog, and elsewhere as I extend my tentacles across the intertubes.
• I’m growing a mustache for charity. I’ve grown mustaches in the past (it looked great for my 70’s cop costume last year at Halloween), but this time I’m adding the scruff as part of Movember. If you would like to raise money for men’s health research and awareness, please donate to my Movember team here.
• I’m having a baby. Well, my wife is, but you get the point. Yes, I’m going to be a father. It’s pretty heady stuff for a 24-year-old guy, but I have to say I’ve never been more excited about anything in my life. I don’t want to jinx it (fingers crossed) but I think Nicole and I are going to be awesome parents. For more on the baby’s progress, check out our official baby blog.

Well, that’s it. I hope I didn’t bore you, I just had lots of great news to share. If I think of anything else, I’ll make sure to add it. In the meantime, follow me on Twitter. BYE!

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Here is the official definition of the rule that negated the touchdown.

“If a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass (with or without contact by an opponent), he must maintain control of the ball after he touches the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone. If he loses control of the ball, and the ball touches the ground before he regains control, the pass is incomplete. If he regains control prior to the ball touching the ground, the pass is complete.”

The referees believed that Calvin Johnson lost control of the ball when he hit the ground. What they failed to see (and what every Lions fan and most Bears fan agree happened) is that Johnson didn’t lose the ball. He let it go as he was getting up from the ground. This should have been considered a “second action” rather than the end of the initial catch. Of course, if Calvin Johnson had simply kept the ball in his hands when he stood up to celebrate, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.

I think that the referees interpreted the call incorrectly (though most analysts think it was correct). Still, they were just doing their best to make sense of a stupid rule, so I’m not really upset with them. The problem is with the rule itself. It gives the referees too much discretion to determine whether a player has possession of the ball or not. Possession plus two feet down in bounds should be a touchdown, simple as that.

Last year Green Bay’s Greg Jennings had a TD called off because of the same rule. Obviously, the NFL needs to reexamine it in the off-season.

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Blues music may have gotten its start in the muddy delta of the Mississippi, but few places in the United States have done more to advance this quintessentially American art form than Chicago. For proof of the Windy City’s proud blues tradition, look no further than the annual Chicago Blues Festival.

Since its inception in 1984, the Chicago Blues Festival has become one of Chicago’s flagship festivals and the largest free blues festival in the world, providing hours of entertainment to hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. Just a few of the famous names that have appeared at the Chicago Blues Festival in past years include B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Bo Diddley, among other musical legends.

In preparation for this year’s 26th annual Chicago Blues Festival (June 11th-13th), I’ve put together five fun facts about the festival that will help turn even the greenest blues fan into a true blues hound.

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1) You never know who will be there!

The Chicago Blues Festival is definitely the best place to see the world’s greatest blues musicians, but over the years it has also become a place for other famous performers to strut their stuff. One of the most notable Blues Festival collaborations came in 1986 when rock and roll icon Chuck Berry joined forces with the Rolling Stones’ legendary guitarist Keith Richards for a special headlining performance.

2) You can make a few hundred thousand new friends.

Since its first year, when 165,000 people showed up to pay tribute to the late Muddy Waters, the Chicago Blues Festival has ballooned in attendance, eventually amassing an unprecedented 800,000 visitors in 2007. Is there really anything better than singing and swaying with nearly a million blues fans on a beautiful summer day?

3) The Chicago Blues Festival has gone high tech.

When it comes to festivals, I never like to be too organized. Sure, I might take a look at the schedule to make sure I don’t miss anything important, but for the most part I enjoy just walking around and taking in the scene. Of course, I’m probably in the minority, which is why the Chicago Blues Festival has released its very own iPhone application.

The Blues Festival iPhone app features an array of tools to help visitors get the most blues action possible, including live schedule updates, artist descriptions, a color coded map of the festival, and a direct link to the Blues Festival Twitter feed. Plus, since we don’t want to go through another Great Chicago Fire, the app has a cool “Encore Flame” that the audience can use instead of a cigarette lighter.

4) The Chicago Blues Festival is also about education.

The “Blues in the Schools” program, originally developed by Chicago musician Billy Branch in 1978, is a unique opportunity for Chicago-area students to learn about the culture and history of blues music, as well as how to write and perform their own blues songs, under the direction of professional blues musicians.

Thanks to retired Chicago school teacher Kay Jones, Blues in the Schools has operated as an extension of the Chicago Blues Festival since 1988. In the 21 years since, a performance by students in the Blues in the Schools program has been the traditional opening act for the festival.

5) Did I mention it’s free?

There are a ton of great concerts in Grant Park during the summer, most notably the mega-sized music festival Lollapalooza, but few of them offer hours upon hours of entertainment for absolutely free. Granted, you will still have to pay 8 dollars for a strip of 12 “food and beverage” tickets (one of Chicago’s patented summer festival rip-offs), but I really don’t mind spending $20 on a few drinks if it means I get to sit in the sun all day and listen to music.

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Bottom line,  if you’re in Chicago from June 11th – 13th, there’s no excuse to miss out on the Chicago Blues Festival. So download your iPhone app and start strumming your electric guitar now, because I’m planning on seeing you there!

Back in December, I fulfilled a lifelong goal. After years of laboring day and night over my keyboard, blogging and tweeting until my fingers cramped up into strange claw-like shapes, I finally reached the point where Google auto-filled my name. It was a triumphant day for me, filled with tears of joy and celebratory showers of champagne, but in my heart I knew it was only the beginning.

Yes, Google did auto-fill my name, but only when I typed in “Rob Frap.” A win, certainly, but a small one. Never content to rest on my laurels, I vowed to keep working on my Google presence until I was able to appear in Google’s auto-complete for “Rob Fra” as well. And from there, of course, I would work for “Rob Fr” and, finally, “Rob F.” About a week ago, my hard work paid off and I achieved this last goal, joining the ranks of the many fine Rob F’s on Google.

As you can see from the picture at the top of the post, I’m just below “Rob Fantasy Factory” and just above “Rob Figliulo” — some rather esteemed company, if I do say so myself! Obviously, my next goal is to have my name suggested after typing in “Rob,” but that’s another level of Internet fame entirely.

Do I have what it takes? Will I someday be able to join the ranks of Rob Zombie, Rob Lowe, Rob Thomas, and Rob Pattinson? Only time will tell. In the meanwhile, I will bask in Google’s glow and the two or three extra visitors that will make it to this blog thanks to auto-complete.

(In case you couldn’t sense it, this post was written with tongue firmly in cheek. While I am happy that I’m gaining some gravitas on Google, and I definitely think you should spend time working to build a strong personal brand online, I’m really not this self-absorbed.)

[comic via Toothpaste for Dinner]

“Personal branding” is one of those phrases that gets thrown around a lot in conversations these days. Not that I’m complaining of course. I use the phrase a lot, and why shouldn’t I? It’s a pretty succinct expression. Whether it’s your blog, your Twitter feed, or your Facebook profile, the way you choose to identify yourself online is, in essence, your personal brand. Considering that I work in the world of social media, it makes sense that it would come up.

The problem is, I’m not entirely sure what my personal brand is, especially when I compare myself to of some of my peers. Take Tim Jahn for example. Through his work with Beyond the Pedway, Tim has made connections at every creative company in a 50-mile radius and has carved out a nice niche as Chicago’s go-to digital video guy. Likewise, Rebecca Denison has turned an aptitude for social media measurement (as channeled through the eyes of a young Gen-Y professional) into a very entertaining and frequently enlightening blog. It’s no wonder she’s a member of the excellent team at Edelman Digital.

Looking at those two and how they have spent time crafting their identities online, I am somewhat envious. Where they have a clear focus, I feel like my web presence is fractured. At first glance, you might say I’m a blogger focused on copywriting and social media. Under closer examination, however, that identity doesn’t hold up. For one thing, I don’t update this blog nearly as often as I should, and, obviously, you can’t be known for something if there’s no content to validate your expertise.

That’s not to say I’m not writing online of course. To the contrary, I’m active everyday creating high quality content for my company, ReputationDefender. Unfortunately, while much of my writing there focuses on social media, it is social media as defined within the scope of the ReputationDefender brand (reputation management issues, personal privacy, etc). For the company, that is good, and it is exactly why I was hired. However, for me personally, it doesn’t help to define my brand as a marketer since it doesn’t appear on my personal blog.

Apart from ReputationDefender blogging, I also spend a lot of time writing for the entertainment news website Screen Rant. In this role, however, I don’t even consider what I do to be blogging, but rather online journalism. While I inject opinion into the articles I write, and occasionally pen longer editorial pieces such as this recent piece about Captain America (NERD ALERT), the focus is on getting the facts right and crafting a clean narrative. In other words, I treat writing for Screen Rant as if I were writing for a magazine or newspaper. It’s a different medium and it deserves a different approach.

Given my competing priorities online, I sometimes find myself wondering whether I should even call myself a blogger or if I should just go with the more general term of “writer.” Perhaps six or seven years ago what I am doing with this website could have been called blogging, but, considering how far the medium has come, I’m not so sure anymore. If you don’t have a clearly defined niche or a regular audience for your primary website, are you still blogging or is it just an exercise in vanity?

What do you think? Am I imbuing the word blog with too much importance? If you spend most of your time writing for some other publication online, does that define your personal brand, or is only what you post under your own name? Let me know what you think in the comments.

The very first concert I ever went to was Weird Al when I was around nine. Needless to say, he holds a special place in my heart. Enjoy.

According to a 2007 article in the New York Times, the average cost of a one-hour scripted network drama is approximately $3 million. If you have a flip cam, basic editing software, and a computer with Internet access, you can produce your own web series for less than $5.

Between YouTube and the ever-decreasing cost of digital video technology, it is possible for anyone with a creative vision and a bit of entrepreneurial pluck to share their very own movie or television show with the world. Over the last couple of years, a few of my friends have been working on their own web series, and I thought it might be interesting to take some time today, in anticipation of their pending second season premiere, to talk about the show.

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Moxie Spendlove was conceived in 2007 by Jason Biggers, Jeremy Scheffee, and my sister Shelly Frappier, who also plays the title role in the show. The series revolves around the character of Moxie Spendlove, a “wide-eyed socialite who inherited the family fortune, became president of her grandfather’s gag gift franchise, and set out on a mission to find something that would make her truly happy.”

Season One of Moxie Spendlove introduced a diverse cast of characters to help (and hinder) Moxie in her efforts to find her purpose in life, including Moxie’s chief confidante (who spends most of Season One deep in the closet); her buck-toothed assistant (with a secret identity); and her two sweet but scatter-brained socialite friends (whose leaching habits would lead to their assassination). Actually, I was the person recruited for a two-scene role as the British assassin hired to kill them.

Now, I should note that I am not an actor, or at least I’m not anymore. In high school, you might have said I was, but even that would probably be a stretch. Nevertheless, I had a great time filming my scenes and I was happy to be involved in the production. Interestingly, the very fact that they asked me to lend my talents is what I think makes Moxie Spendlove successful.

Nobody involved in Moxie Spendlove is a professional actor or director, they are just regular people like you or me who had a fun idea for a story and the passion to bring it to life. They rely on friends to fill roles, they use apartments and local store fronts as sets, they design their own costumes, and they shoot and edit the show by themselves. Is it perfect? No, not exactly, but that’s not the point. Is it fun? Is it funny? Is it a great example of the kind of show you could put together if you were dedicated? Yes, yes, and yes.

I love when people pursue their creative passions, and I know from personal experience that that’s what happened on the set of Moxie Spendlove. With that in mind, I encourage you to watch this trailer for Season Two and check out the show when it premieres on May 31st.

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For the last five months or so, I’ve been working on a contract basis as the Community Manager of an Internet start-up company called ReputationDefender. In my work, I’m primarily responsible for writing customer-facing communications, including newsletters and daily blog posts about online reputation management, Internet privacy, and personal branding issues. In addition to my writing, I am also responsible for monitoring and managing the company’s presence on social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook. It is in this part of my job where I get to have some of the most fun.

For instance, take a look at this exchange I had with a guy named Jay Braymer on Twitter.

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Although Jay didn’t mention ReputationDefender by name, nor did he use an @ reply to tag us, I was still able to see his message and respond to it because I was monitoring the appropriate search terms on TweetDeck. The resulting conversation was not only comical, but it helped demonstrate a value that my company offers, namely that we can help you effectively monitor and manage your online reputation.

Now, I know it probably seems like I’m patting myself on the back too much for something that seems pretty obvious, but the truth is that some companies will only engage their customers at the mention of their brand name. If I had only been looking out for mentions of @RepDef, I would have missed Jay’s message and thus missed the opportunity to have a unique and memorable exchange. Monitoring a diverse set of keywords relative to your core competencies is a great way to start interesting conversations and move beyond the realm of mere self-promotion.

Will Jay become a customer of ReputationDefender? Maybe yes, maybe no. To me, though, that’s not really the point. At the end of the day, when I look at how I used Twitter, or other social media tools, I ask myself, “Did I have any fun or interesting conversations today and did I represent my company’s brand well?” In this case, I’m happy to say yes on both counts.