I just pulled the plug on our work to prepare and submit a proposal for a federal contract. And the decision is all about me. The deadline is short; the project, while important, is shall we say, budget-challenged; and the day after the proposal is due, I have to make one of those miserable fly-in-fly-out-in-one-day trips halfway across the country.

So I decided that I’m not going to work until 3 am then get on a plane, not see my kids for two days straight, and end up exhausted and probably sick.

It’s about me, me! And why not? After all, the sign on the door does say Rosenberg Communications!

This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• Astronaut Nicole Passonno Stott will be guest-blogging from space for More Magazine.
• Are you STILL doubtful of the impact of social media? Watch this.
• Branding Strategy Insider discusses the role of different types of brain on different business roles and functions.
• Seth Godin lists the three choices all education leaders need to make in order to compete with new technologies and methods of learning.
• Social media is really about the most effective form of communication out there - storytelling.
• Steve Rubel offers three tips for “managing the stream before it manages you.”

Me and my 15-year-old daughter driving, one of her friends in the back seat:

Me: That woman who just walked past, I was thinking, “That’s a good-looking woman, until I saw she was holding a cigarette.”

Daughter: Dad! Are you kidding me? You shouldn’t be looking at other women. You’re married.

Me: So.

Daughter: So? You’re married.

Me: You think Mom cares if I look at another woman? She doesn’t care.

Daughter: That’s disgusting. You’re not supposed to be thinking about anybody but mom. Maybe religion. Think about religion when you’re not thinking about Mom.

Me: Okay, next time I’ll think: God, that’s a good-looking woman.

This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• Seth Godin talks about the advantages of very tiny businesses.
• The Obama Administration is seeking to update rules for federal websites and their use of tracking cookies and other tools.
• This article in Fast Company wonders, with all the Web 2.0 technology and entreprenuerial spirit… who needs Harvard?
• Rumors of the Chevy Volt’s 238-mpg rating may be greatly exaggerated and that’s no small PR problem.
• The web has created a new purpose - and a new ROI measurement - for the press release. It’s not media mentions, it’s SEO.
• Check out this podcast to learn how to use Facebook Connect for business.
• Matthew May explains why you need empathy to be an innovator.

I’ve been in public relations since 1985, nearly a quarter of a century. Back then, newsletters were still laid out using wax-backed paper and fax machines were just sprouting up in offices. And media relations was pretty much a straight-line path — we knew who to pitch, how to pitch, when to pitch. Our targets were print, television, and radio. We worked the phones. We held press conferences. The creativity was in the pitch; it wasn’t in the strategy.

Today, nothing is a simple, straight and narrow path. There is no clearly marked path. The breadth and diversity of information sources means that today, while the pitch is still important, the strategy is everything. That’s where the real creativity is found.

Recently, I’ve done some work with two other public relations firms that are still searching for the straight and narrow path, presenting to clients as if it still exists. For some clients, I guess it still works. For other clients, like the ones involved with the projects we were working on, let’s just say that what these other firms were presenting didn’t go over too well.

Me, in the car, with my 15-year-old daughter, who is, of course, bi-racial (her descriptor), in the passenger seat. Hip-hop is on the radio. I break into a very cool dance-while-driving.

My daughter: Dad, please.

Me: I can’t help it. I was born with the rhythm in me.

My daughter: Dad, please.

Me: All us white boys are.

My daughter; Dad, please!

This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• Sometimes it helps to have a wingman for social networking.
• Chris Brogan reminds us to ‘warm the mug’.
• Mashable: Teens aren’t tweeting.
• Teens might not be, but John Quincy Adams is tweeting.
• Freakonomics points out how Starbucks is adapting its approach.

I’m a whiner. I admit it. But this past Sunday in church I had an epiphany. The priest had left his notes in the rectory. As a result he delivered a too-long sermon that, amongst twists and turns, delivered some very good messages. His bottom-line: shut up and stop complaining, and live life as God wants you to.

He’s right. I realize I complain for two reasons, almost always about being tired and overwhelmed. One, at home, because I always feel I’m falling short taking care of home and family — whining about being tired is my verbal permission not to fix one more thing, clear the wooded part of the property, and so on. Second, at the office, because I always feel as if I’m falling short in how I ought to be driving the business — whining about being tired is my verbal rationalization of not being satisfied with myself as a business owner.

But the priest is right. I’m going to shut up and stop complaining.

I can tell you this already: not complaining sucks.

It has been months since we have heard from the ethnographer we dispatched to live among teenagers. We had feared that he had become comatose while watching reruns of Gossip Girl. But this report has just reached us:

“15- and 16-year-olds spend an inordinate amount of time talking about how much they hate their cell phones and discussing ways they could break theirs and still have it covered by the warranty. Have to go now. We’re going online to look at pictures of Reggie Bush and imagine he is our boyfriend! His abs are heaven-sent.”

We just pray we will be able to bring our ethnographer safely back to civilization.