I’m a social media newbie. I’m not an expert, I’m not a guru, I’m not a leading authority. I wouldn’t even say I’m a blogger.

Having been a publicist (and often getting sidetracked with my own entrepreneurial ventures) for more than 18 years, last year I launched PR in Your Pajamas with the goal of helping entrepreneurs get the kind of publicity in newspapers and magazines usually reserved for corporate clients who can afford hefty retainers.

In other words, helping small biz clients get publicity in what you would call “traditional” or “offline” media. Very quickly, I got immersed in social media, which I consider to be an extension of “online PR”.

Writing blog posts here and there, creating podcasts, dipping my toes in social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Linked In, not really too serious about it at all as I tried to juggle the needs and challenges of three companies, with two young kids afoot and living in two countries just to make life more interesting.

A little over a year later and I’m scratching my head wondering why it took me so long to jump fully into social media. After all, if it weren’t for social media and marketing online:

• I would be limited to growing my network and business in just the two cities or countries I live in. It’s kind of cool when I see customers on my site from Australia to South Africa. (I’d love to have said Zambia or Zimbabwe but I haven’t gotten that far down the alphabet yet.)

• I wouldn’t have remembered how much I love to learn. Although I have a team, I learned the basics of HTML (who knew I had an inner geek in me?), SEO, direct response copywriting, affiliate marketing, email marketing and how to get myself to the top of LinkedIn searches for my keywords (thanks my buddy, LinkedIn superstar Lewis Howes). Every day was like a new adventure.

• I wouldn’t have a virtual water cooler. Although I love the flexibility of being a pajama entrepreneur, sometimes it can be lonely working virtually without an office to go to. Engaging on Twitter gives me a way to have a break with my friends, be inspired to do great work by @boxofcrayons, be cheered on by my informal mom ‘support’ group and oh, build my business at the same time. There was one instance where engaging in conversation with Silicon Valley venture capitalist and founder of Alltop.com @guykawasaki landed me a client that engaged our consulting services for several thousand dollars. (Thanks Guy!)

• I used to think Facebook was a waste of time, but it has helped me stay in touch with my “in-real-life” friends. I’ve lived in 4 different countries and it’s much easier to see what my friends are up to when most of us are in front of a computer all day or live halfway around the world. I’d rather have a few minutes to say hello online than none at all.

• I would be limiting my opportunities. When you’re constantly exposed to thought leaders and killer ideas, it does rub off on you. My creativity is at an all-time peak. As I interact with role models like @andreajlee @alexisneely and @sharonhayes who are generous enough to share their expertise with me, I’m constantly connecting the dots and getting clearer on my vision and direction.

• And yes, social media has brought an additional source of revenue for my educational products. After just a few months learning from friends I made on social networking sites, I was able to create and launch products that already added five figures to my bottom line last year. It’s made me re-think my PR agency and coaching company, which has revenue based on the consulting and time-for-dollars model. Watch this space for how that will evolve…

Don’t get me wrong. If you think you’ll just put up a blog or get on Twitter and make five or six figures this year, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Yes it’s possible AND it takes work and giving back to your community first.

But if you’re a business owner interested in building long-term relationships (and isn’t that what business is all about?), it’s never too late to learn something new. You can either start today as a newbie, or wait till next year…and still be a newbie when you start.

They say you teach what you want to learn. And I’m happy to share with you what I’ve learned about social media and what I’ll continue to learn from my peers and mentors.

So, I’m not a social media guru, I’m not an expert, but you can certainly call me an evangelist.

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In creating a PR campaign, you need to determine your key messages and your key audiences, you need to prepare a way to communicate your message (writing a press release, media pitch or media kit), you need to pitch the media and then track what the media is saying about your company.

It’s the same with Social Media except you use ‘Online’ vehicles like blogs, social networks, podcasts, video, and so on to get your message out to your target audiences. Instead of journalists, you pitch bloggers. Instead of cutting out press clippings, you can use Google alerts as a free way for you to track what is being said about your company online so you can determine if your key messages are being picked up, respond promptly to any critical articles and manage your brand’s overall reputation.

In terms of getting publicity, Social Media is making it easier for us to communicate directly not just with potential customers but also media. For example, check out the database of Media on Twitter. Follow and engage with a few journalists who may be interested in your story. Isn’t that less intimidating than picking up the phone to pitch them a story?

Of course, to have an effective campaign using social media you’ll need to have a strategy in place, be able to communicate well and establish relationships with the right influencers – whether media, blogger or another key connector – who can help you build the buzz around your business.

Just like in PR.

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Fresh off the highest-rated season yet, CBC Television’s DRAGONS’ DEN is embarking on an epic audition tour. The show gives aspiring entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch their ideas to a panel of wealthy Canadian moguls who are entrepreneurs themselves. The prize is real cash and real investment – from the Dragons’ own pockets!

This is a fantastic opportunity for entrepreneurs and small business owners to come down and pitch their business concept for the chance to appear on national television.

As extra incentive this year — entrepreneurs with an eco-friendly business, invention or idea could qualify for a $100,000 Greenvention prize from Sun Chips.

Our socks by mail company actually appeared in a sister show called Fortune Hunters back in 2007, shortly before we got bought out

There are over 40 stops in the audition tour. Visit www.cbc.ca/dragonsden for more information.

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If you’re new to PR, public relations for small businesses is all about building your reputation. It’s the result of what you do and say, and what others say about you. PR establishes credibility and generates awareness outside your limited inner circle so that people can’t wait to come in droves to your site or store to evaluate the information for themselves, join your company, invite you as a potential partner, invest as a stakeholder or buy your product or service.

It’s crucial to include PR in a small business marketing plan as a way to differentiate yourself from the competition.

PR pros can use many different tactics for a product launch, or to sustain longer-term public relations goals such as brand building or local community relations.

Offline PR uses tactics like media relations, speaking at conferences, offering contests and contributed articles to generate publicity with print, radio, TV, events, conferences and other “real life” venues.

Online PR is geared towards reaching and influencing audiences that may exist only on the Internet. Think of it as generating buzz on blogs, forums and social networks. Tactics include SEO-optimized press releases or social media press releases, writing blog posts (on your site or as a guest blogger) that can generate discussions with your target market, creating videos that can go viral, and participating in social networks to connect with key influencers, clients and fans of your business.

Approaching Journalists vs. Bloggers
The lines are blurring with many ‘offline’ journalists now running their own blogs or offline publications having an online presence. However, when pitching to get PR with a print journalist, make sure and check out their editorial calendar to see if there are any planned story opportunities. Tailor your pitch to the upcoming story or theme to increase your chances for success.

When pitching a blogger, they usually don’t have an editorial calendar so make sure you are familiar with the type of topics or posts the blogger writes about. Even just five minutes on their site should make it clear that they cover cars vs. flowers, entrepreneurs vs. fortune 500 companies, high tech vs. fashion.

Make sure and consider your overall small business or startup marketing strategy and resources available in deciding the appropriate mix of offline and online PR that will help you meet your goals.

How are you using offline or online PR to get buzz for your business?

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I find it extremely difficult to say “No”. First of all I’m a Libra and like to keep things in harmony (often at the expense of my own well-being). In business, I tend to have the shiny-object syndrome – you know, where everything looks cool and so I get worried that I may miss an opportunity if I say no. This ends up taking a lot of my time and scatters my focus.

Tell me if this sounds familiar – you’re asked to do something you don’t really want to do or have time for, but you would feel guilty if you said No. Whether it’s a church fundraiser, a committee at your child’s school or participating in a project, it’s important to learn to say No if you don’t want to get overwhelmed, stressed or resentful. It’s about self-protection – people who are able to say No have more free time, energy and feel more in control of their lives.

In your business, where partnerships or teamwork is essential, learning to say No doesn’t mean you become uncooperative. Rather, it is recognizing your limits and being selective in what you choose to do. That you don’t want to do a sloppy job by overwhelming yourself. That you value your time and priorities and aren’t willing to take away from the truly important things in your life. A little selfishness is necessary if you want to stay sane and maintain a balanced life!

So how can you say No diplomatically and without guilt? David Posen, in his “Little Book of Stress Relief” says if you do it properly, you don’t actually have to use the word No.

1. Express your wish to help:
“I’d like to do that for you, but I’m not taking on new projects at the moment.”

2. Give an explanation:
“I have a doctor’s appointment” or “I have another commitment.” You don’t have to get personal.

3. Offer an alternative:
“I won’t be able to do it, but I can show you how to do it.”

4. Find someone else who can do the task:
“I think Sally would be better for the job, and I know she loves to do (those kinds of tasks).”

5. Admit your limitations:
“I don’t have experience in that, so I can’t help you” or “I’m not comfortable with that.”

6. Offer to do it later:
“I can’t help you now, but I can do it next week.”

7. Offer to do a part:
“I’d be happy to do this part for you.”

8. Ask for the priority:
“I’m in the middle of several projects, which one would you like me to set aside to do this?”

9. Give yourself time to think about it:
“Can I get back to you? I’ll have to check my schedule” or “I’ve had a few things come up and need to deal with those first”

However, I find the tenth and most simple way to say No is to smile and say:
“No, but thanks for asking” without launching into the why. People aren’t really interested in your busyness – they’re too busy contending with too much busyness of their own.

So take the time to evaluate and come to terms with your limits: What you’re able to do, what you’re willing to do, and what you want to do. After that, give yourself permission to say No without guilt and find more time and joy to do the things you really want to do.

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A while back I wrote about How to Build Your Own Media List. Whether you build your own or buy a list, here are three tips that will help you maximize your chances of getting PR and avoiding media pet peeves.

1. DO A BIT OF RESEARCH – even if a paid media list is customized to your product or service, it’s usually based on keywords only – the more generic your key words, the more possible contacts you will pull. Which is why an unqualified media list can have hundreds or a thousand names that you pay for, with only a handful of reporters actually appropriate to you. If a magazine or media outlet sounds interesting, check out their website to see if there is an appropriate section or column where your company could be covered.

As you scan the print or online publication, think about:
• Are they interested in product reviews, book reviews, fashion or trends?
• Is there a giveaway/contest, guest articles, a CEO profile, inclusion in their gift guide that you can contribute to?
• Are they a Print publication or Online website? Often there is a way to get included in their newsletter for subscribers. 

If you can look at the last couple of articles an editor wrote, you can refer to it in your pitch (if appropriate). Knowing what they are writing about will help you stand out. By individually tailoring your pitch, you don’t come across as a spammer! Doing a bit of research will also tap your creative juices and you’ll learn what works best in your pitching.

2. CONTACT EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS – if you’re terrified of pitching the media by phone, editorial assistants are valuable connections! They usually work for print publications and the best way to describe them are ‘editors in training’ – if there is an editorial assistant listed, they may be the friendliest to a pitch as they forward it on to appropriate editors and are usually more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

Do remember that just because they are called assistants doesn’t mean they don’t research and write their own stories. Also, an editorial assistant does move up to become an associate editor and maybe even editor-in-chief one day. If you maintain your contacts well, they’ll remember you.

3. REMEMBER EDITORS WEAR MULTIPLE HATS – some reporters/editors cover a certain beat, but also contribute to other magazines and maybe even have their own blog. Find the right avenue to reach them by reading their profile. You never know where things will lead – the most important thing to remember is to establish a relationship even if you don’t get publicity right away. Keep an open mind. By being resourceful, creative and persistent, you will be surprised at what comes your way when you start building some buzz for your business.

If you’re a mom entrepreneur wanting to jumpstart getting PR with no time to waste, do check out my media list for moms with hundreds of reporters here. I won’t be doing an updated list for 2010, so this is your last chance to get a copy. You can download a free sample from the page if you’d like to see what it looks like.

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There is a crowded little island that everyone in the world has been to several times, including you and me – and it’s called “Someday”.

It’s so appealing that many people who go there never return.

“Someday I’ll have the family, house, luxury car and 2 dogs and then I’ll be happy. Someday this current misery will end, the venture capitalists will understand my genius and I’ll figure out what I really want, and then I’ll be happy. Someday I’ll retire financially independent – just wait and see – I’ll be really happy then.”

The problem with living on this island is that you don’t appreciate today, even though we don’t even know if we’ll make it to tomorrow. We focus on the goal as the means of fulfillment: the thing, answer or solution which has the power to give us happiness.

Fulfillment is not something you can get or own. It’s something you can be. It is always available, every day, by living according to what you value most. Achieving goals can be very satisfying but living a life on purpose, on the path toward the goal is fulfilling as well.

For example, if your goal is to live in Mexico when you retire, start taking a Spanish class. Read novels written by Mexican writers. Research their art, history and culture. Learn to cook Mexican food. If you can afford it, go there to explore and find the community where you’ll want to live.

It isn’t necessarily the big pleasures that bring the most happiness, sometimes it’s doing the small stuff.

Have breakfast in bed. Walk on the beach at sunset. Hug your children. Kiss your partner behind the ear. Find a long lost friend. Take that class you’ve always wanted to take. Spend an hour at the bookstore. Plant flowers in your garden. Give someone a compliment and make their day. Look up at the stars on a clear night.

Remember – “life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.” (anonymous)

So, get off the island of Someday and go do the small stuff today. What’s on your list?

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I think the theme for me in January was “creating” and “cleaning up”. I spent a lot of time creating systems, teams, content and starting a couple of PR campaigns for high-profile entrepreneurs. I also got to look at my business with fresh eyes and decided a bit of clean up was in order – so a few products are getting retired.

Since February is the love month, if you have a Mom-related business, product or expertise, you’re going to love this sale.

http://prinyourpajamas.com/mom-media-list/

Until February 28th, you can buy the Mom’s PR Media Lists at 50% off. You’ll also get a bonus “How to Be a PR Maven” tip book to help you maximize using the media list.

I’m doing this because these lists were compiled in 2009, and I don’t want to update them anymore.  Of course, you could compile your own list of journalists who are interested in Mommy matters. But why spend your precious time doing that when you can get a Mom’s PR Media List right now at this incredible deal?If you’re at all interested, do grab the list of your choice now, because I’m pulling these lists off the market — forever.

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If you’re new to the term, an editorial calendar is a listing of the major themes or features planned for upcoming issues of a magazine. An editorial calendar is often in the Media Kit created by magazines (and sometimes newspapers) to attract advertisers. In theory, an editorial calendar tells you in January, what the magazine will write about all the way till December.

Sometimes they are made public so that writers and PR consultants (or even you, the small business owner!) can approach the magazine to send a media pitch in advance of the story’s planned publication. Think of the themes that Oprah has for her magazines every month like “Get Well” or “Gratitude” or “special reports” that appear in your local or national paper.

One of the services we provide clients in my technology PR firm is a listing of editorial calendar opportunities. Our database makes it easy for us to pull these opportunities up and have a systemized way of pursuing PR proactively throughout the year.

For example, an editorial calendar by eWeek tells us they are writing about Social Networking in the Enterprise, for their April 5 issue. Which means that we should be pitching the story now (lead times for weekly publications are 4 – 6 weeks out, monthly magazines can be 3 – 6 months out).

If you’re doing your own PR, what you can do is think about the key publications you want to appear in and see if you can find the editorial calendar on your targeted publication’s website, either on the writers submissions page, or perhaps even on pages targeted toward advertisers.

Here’s one by Fast Company, as another example. http://mediakit.fastcompany.com/ – download their media kit and in the editorial calendar section you can see that in June they are doing a story on “The 100 Most Creative People in Business” – dazzling thinkers, rising stars and bold names reshaping the future. If you’d like to be part of the story, you might start thinking of pitching the editors sooner, rather than later.

It’s a great way to increase your chance of a successful pitch since the reporter is already looking for a source like you for his or her story.

Oh, and because I mentioned Oprah, it was interesting that on her site she offers a contact form to pitch stories but only serious queries for advertising (minimum $50,000) will be considered. Due to the volume of requests they receive, I don’t think they put out an editorial calendar – in fact I think this website here, is someone else’s clever ploy to capture your information. It looks like it’s from Oprah but on every page there is no info except for an opt-in form, and it is not on Oprah’s main site. I wouldn’t fall for it, you’ll probably get spammed!

Have you used Editorial Calendars successfully?

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Last week, Steve Jobs and Apple launched the new and eagerly anticipated iPad. Over the years I have admired Apple for their branding, product launches and product innovation.

This post is a more personal glimpse at a much-respected and innovative thinker. I thought I’d share with you a speech by Steve Jobs where he shares three very powerful stories. It never fails to inspire me.

Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky ­ I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation – the Macintosh – a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me ­ I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything ­ all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Steve Jobs, CEO ­ Apple Computer

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