This has been a rough couple of weeks. The United States government is disappointing in many ways, and the economy is paying the price. If you watch the news, it's very easy to get sucked into the discussion of a "double-dip" recession and all the other negativity that permeates the conversation, but to be honest, it won't help matters much. Listening to pundits and media people express their dissatisfaction and outrage only fuels the fire of fear. That being said, there are two things you can realistically do, and you need to pay attention to them both.

ou have great ideas, a command over how certain aspects of your business work, and a hunger to grow within the company. You are trying your hardest to be part of the solution to help your business, and your career, grow. You may even be a fantastic manager for your team. But you tend to run into roadblocks with upper management green lighting new projects or budgets. Being successful today requires two-way management. "Managing up" is actually much more difficult than managing your team. Here are some tips to help you assess and retool your approach.

We often create our own hair-splitting quandaries in this business. When marketing our brands, when servicing clients, and when planning integrated programs, we are constantly running into our own would-be messes by overstating the relative strengths of certain platforms.

Dear David Cameron: I'm afraid you may be missing the point.I appreciate that the past week has been a difficult one for you and for many people in the U.K. Having left your fair shores just a few days before the violence began, I, like many others, am deeply saddened by the news coming from the streets of London, from Manchester, from Liverpool. But the riots were not caused by social media.

GRPs -- gross rating points -- are coming to online advertising, and I think it's a good thing. TV ad measurement giant Nielsen recently announced a new online campaign ratings product for Web ads that will include GRP measurements, broken down by basic demographics, much like what the company offers the TV industry.

Sometimes on a Saturday morning when my son wakes up a little earlier than I would like, I bring him into bed with my wife and I and we crack open the iPad and look at pictures. My son will swipe the pictures to the side and we'll reminisce over the fun days we've had, and he'll ask questions about places we've been. It's fun and sentimental, but it also gets me wondering what his future "scrapbook" experience will be like.

Once upon a time, the media landscape was a simpler place. Large-brand marketers had the ability to predict the impact of a specific level of media weight and develop campaigns around this process as common practice. Actually, this is still common practice today. However, the digital era brought with it new approaches, new forms of advertising, new advocates shouting from the rooftops, and a new set of metrics -- or did it?

One of the things we are asked to deliver most often to management, clients, panel audiences, is the lauded list of "Best Practices." On conference calls and around tables around the world, all day long, these lists are passively solicited on topics as broad as digital media, or in specific areas: search, social, mobile, video. The implication that once we've provided the list, the job is done, can be discouraging.

My nephew is 9, and my niece has just turned 7, and I think it is fair to say without the least bit of bias that they are clearly sweet angel geniuses and the embodiment of perfection on earth. Seriously, anyone would say that; it's not just 'cause I'm their auntie. But last night, my friend Dave gave my sister an odd bit of advice about parenting: "Get them on Facebook at least a year or two before you think they're ready -- and friend them. I know more about my daughter through Facebook than you could imagine."

I think we sometimes tend to overlook just how important Amazon is to the Web. In all the buzz and hullabaloo of IPOs and venture capital funding, we take for granted that Amazon is basically the Wal-Mart of the Web. That being said, there are some issues that should be raised in regard to this retail superpower.