The Consumer-Generated Media (CGM) that most inspires and motivates me is personal. At the end of the day, social media is all about cementing connections, nurturing narrative, and redefining relationships. Yes,I have a day job at Nielsen promoting CGM and social media as a business vitamin and stimulus, but much of what helps me intuitively understand how and why CGM matters redounds to what I explore, test, and experiment with in my free time ... usually at a personal and even family level. DosBebes (blog dedicated to our twins) and Cucina.com (family recipes, inspired by my Sicilian mother and six siblings) are good examples of personal CGM.  

And so I spent this Memorial Day attempting, once again, to stitch together what seems to be an almost endless narrative from an archive of video interviews I conducted with my father before he passed away in 2007.  World War II was one of our favorite and engaging conversation topics. What follows are three short video clips, drawn from several hours of interviews and conversation, that capture slices of his experience as a young 18 year old cadet in World War II.  In so many respects the War changed everything for my father.  It served as a ticket out of Trenton, NJ.  It both tempered and expanded his view of a world undergoing dramatic change. It exposed him to personal tragedy (11 of his Trenton Catholic classmates were killed).  It opened up a gateway to higher education through the GI bill.