Peter Anagnostos from Cleveland State University was nice enough to invite CBC to a City Club of Cleveland function on March 11. That’s always a good thing. The City Club, which turns 100 next year, is one of many reasons why we all should brag.

Always captivating, this latest Friday Forum didn’t disappoint despite a morning snowstorm that prevented several busloads of students from attending.

Aimee Mullins showed up, though. In fact, the day’s speaker did so in toe-less heels. Apparently, a foot of snow and freezing temperatures doesn’t bother everyone, even someone with two prosthetic legs. Or should I say, especially someone with two prosthetic legs?

I get the feeling that Mullins doesn’t complain about much, especially the weather, and not just because there’s infinitely less sensation in her lower legs than her presentations. The average Northeast Ohioan — whiny when the thermometer gets too high or too low, among many other things — should take notes.

Mullins was born without fibulae in her legs. At age 1 she had both legs amputated below the knee. The alternative would have been life in a wheelchair. The result has been 35 years of remarkable accomplishment, including a stint with the U.S. Department of Defense at age 17, a star track-and-field career at Georgetown University, and most recently acting and modeling stints.

The one thing that does bother Mullins — immensely — are the tags attached to physically impaired individuals. She came to Cleveland to redefine “disabled” while also promoting Cleveland State’s SPIRE Academy. “The only true disability,” Mullins told the audience, “is a crushed spirit.”

Strong words, for sure. Even more powerful, to me, was the story that Mullins related about a 5-year-old girl who had come to her for advice. Born with brittle bone disease, the girl was coping with one leg that was several inches shorter than the other. Eventually, her prosthetist suggested amputation.

Now, that would have scared the hell out of me back in the day. It still would. But this little girl, behind encouragement from Mullins, went ahead and had her leg amputated. And what had been her biggest worry going in? Finding fashionable shoes to wear with a prosthetic leg. “That’s what she wanted to talk to me about — shoes,” Mullins said. “Then she went home and asked her parents when could she get a new leg.”

The girl got that new leg and just six months later crossed paths with Mullins. Wearing red, sequined Mary Janes, she pulled up her dress to reveal her new look —a pink leg tattooed with characters from “High School Musical 3.”

“She asked me if I could get her Zac Efron’s autograph,” Mullins said.

Amazing. While we moan, the spirits of these two soar. And even if there is some merit to our misery, we’ve still got one less “good” leg to stand on than the two of them combined.

It didn’t take the recent revolution in Egypt for CBC to realize nothing rallies the masses these days like social media.

We first felt the impact of Facebook, Twitter, and similar platforms a year ago during voting for our annual Connectors Choice Awards. The number of total votes doubled from the previous year to nearly 2,000.

While social media have continued to surge in the last year, we weren’t expecting another 100-percent swell in votes toward our fourth and latest Connectors Choice Awards. In fact, we were actually anticipating fewer votes, based on a few changes in the voting process.

Foremost, we stated up front that only one vote per email address would be accepted. Stuffing the ballot box had been a problem in the past — there was nothing stopping someone from voting a hundred or more times — and we made it a point to resolve that. To our readers’ credit, most listened: Upon double-checking the final tallies, we only had to delete about 200 illicit ballots.

In addition, we dropped the number of categories from 21 to 19. On top of that, CBC appointed for the first time a national panel of judges to narrow the final ballot to three nominees per category. No longer was the entire universe of local event-planning and networking groups and individuals eligible during the final voting.

So, how’d we end up with 3,672 votes?

Simply put, Facebook makes a difference. The same can be said for those maximum 140 characters that Twitter users are allotted per Tweet.

Nobody realizes this better than three of the top four CCA vote-getters — House of Blues (1,234 votes), Event Source (1,046), and Rock the House Entertainment Group (902). As a Facebook “friend” of each company, I’m well aware of their social media marketing strategies. And good for them. Theirs is a promotional lesson that could benefit every company.

Even the organizations and individuals who have yet to catch up with social media earned their share of votes this year. The lowest winning total of votes was 440 — which is about how many the ENTIRE first Connectors Choice Awards attracted four years ago.

Social media or no social media, CBC’s annual awards competition continues to grow in popularity. But there’s also no denying that the easiest and fastest way to make your point these days is to stick it in your status update.