And Now, the End is Near …

Spring has sprung.

This course is done.

How does my garden grow?

This marks the end of Building Social Media Relationships at McMaster University for me.

I’ve learned a ton about the use of social media, its impact on our society and the perils and pitfalls that can affect individuals, businesses and many different types of organizations that ignore these global communication platforms.

This course has also sparked my creativity in a way that I hadn’t anticipated.

For now though, this specific blog is moving into archive mode.

Thanks for reading.

Victory Vibes: Whatever it Takes

They are special artifacts, these matte silver earrings I bought at my favourite store in Parry Sound, Ontario.

Lucky silver earrings by Shelly Easton

Oval shaped and lightweight, the smooth edge is roughed up on one side (accidentally stepped on at a hockey rink) of the earring that is always worn on my left ear.

You see these are my “lucky” earrings — I wear them to my son’s hockey games and my daughter’s dance competitions for just that, good luck.

It is a ritual that is symbolic of crazy superstitions, crazier hair, and even crazier head gear, face painting, clothing and activities that binds me to the nations of fans, no matter what their passions, all around the world.

Rituals and celebrations are what differentiate us as humans. They bind us together and in some cases, like hooligans after a dramatic win or loss, tear us apart. But they are so vital to building a richness and bond to others.

And sometimes, just sometimes, they actually work.

Case in point: my son’s hockey team was down three games in a best-of-seven all-Ontario semi-final playoff before last night. They won 1-0 in overtime to play another day.

Those lucky earrings were jingling back and forth on my left ear as I jumped up and down to celebrate!

Run.Hide.Fight.

Image courtesy of dan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

We like to think because we live in Canada that somehow we are safer than our neighbours to the south.

After the most recent gun incidents — gang members shot dead in a Yorkdale Mall parking lot on a Saturday night and a man shot dead in front of dozens of preschoolers at a Gatineau daycare — it’s fair to say that we, too, have a gun problem.

And while I’m not about to start advocating that everyone become hermits and give in to these incredibly selfish, evil people, it saddens me to think that we need to be prepared for gun violence no matter where we live.

Here’s what Kristina Anderson, a survivor of the Virginia Tech shootings, told the New York Times as part of recent research into surviving mass attacks: “Everywhere I go now, I think about exits and doorways and potential places to hide and things to barricade and fight back with.”

What a heartbreaking commentary on how people are choosing to live in an age where human life seems to be, to some people, totally disposible — no matter what their state of mind.

These mass attacks have prompted large organizations to also prepare videos on what to do if you find yourself in this type of situation. The Houston police department created a YouTube video called Run.Hide.Fight. that has received more than two million views.

On a positive note, perhaps the sharing enabled through social media sites like YouTube will protect innocent lives.

What do you think?

To Sell is Human: We’re All Doing It

“Once upon a time, New York Times best-selling author Daniel Pink wrote a book titled To Sell is Human. Every day, he says, one in nine Americans (similar for Canadians) work in sales, but actually everyone, no matter what they do, sells. One day, Pink discovered the old sales mantra of ABC or Always Be Closing didn’t apply anymore. Because of that, there’s a new definition of ABC, which is attunement, buoyancy and clarity. Because of that, Pink offers people a new way to look at some standard tools of public relations and marketing. Until finally, readers have three specific areas to work on to achieve success:  improvisation, serving others and refining the pitch.”

It’s been a dream to start a piece of writing with the age-old fairy tale opening of “Once upon a time” ever since a colleague at the Calgary Herald managed to get a feature story in the newspaper with that very beginning in 1984.

Almost 30 years later, it turns out that crystallizing a concept into a six-sentence pitch with a fairy-tale opening is the optimal way to successfully sell it to a movie executive. It’s called the Pixar pitch.

To Sell is Human

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The approach is one of several examples Daniel Pink gives in his book, To Sell is Human (Riverhead), an entertaining compilation of new and old public relations and marketing ideas that come from the worlds of psychology, sociology, statistical analysis and prominent business theory.

Pink argues that most of us are in the business of sales or “non-sales selling” in our jobs and our lives because we are essentially moving, persuading or influencing people to buy, either literally or figuratively, what we’re offering. It could be our boss, our child, our patient or our customer. In the business world, this shift can be attributed to technology like the Web, he says, citing Etsy, an online marketplace for small businesses and craftspeople as one example. “The technologies that were supposed to make salespeople obsolete in fact have transformed more people into sellers.” (p. 30)

Activity is such, he says, that “… in astonishing numbers and with ferocious energy, we now go online to sell ourselves –on Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and Match.com profiles.” (p. 20) This shift in behaviour translates into a workforce where, for example, engineers or computer scientists, not sales people, are now out meeting customers so they can acquire first-hand knowledge about the customers’ likes and dislikes with a product, troubleshoot problems that may not have been identified and solicit new ideas for future development.

Everyone does everything

Image courtesy of keawpiko at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What does this mean for employees in traditionally defined roles in public relations and marketing? The same as it does for everyone: adaptability, flexibility, multi-skilled, creative are all terms that should apply to all staff in all organizations. Pink, a former White House speechwriter who earned a Yale law degree, notes, “What an individual does day to day on the job now must stretch across functional boundaries. Designers analyze. Analysts design. Marketers create. Creators market.” (p.36)

Pink suggests the old ABCs approach of selling – Always Be Closing – as defined in David Mamet’s award-winning play and the subsequent movie Glengarry Glen Ross is dead. The new ABCs are three key qualities that everyone can acquire to move or persuade others: attunement, buoyancy and clarity.

The new ABCs: attunement, buoyancy, clarity

Attunement by his definition is a combination of refined listening skills, strategic mimicry and empathetic behaviour. This state of attunement translates well into social media where organizations should be actively listening online to the public so they can better meet the needs of their customers.

Buoyancy means acquiring resiliency and perseverance with a positive outlook. In fact,

Image courtesy of Kittikun Atsawintarangkul at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Pink argues that positivity is essential to moving others in a world redefined by the internet and social media. People crave authenticity, gravitate to genuine emotion, have access to vast amounts of information and choice on the Web, and through social media have easy access and instant audiences available to express their displeasure to, so the days of a sales person excelling simply at selling are over.

The third quality, clarity, is achieved by shifting from a problem-solver mindset to a “problem-finder” one, Pink writes. Today, marketers online and in person must curate information, rather than access it by “… sorting through the massive troves of data and presenting to others the most relevant and clarifying pieces.” (p. 132) Secondly, they must shift from answering questions to asking questions, in order to uncover possibilities, find problems and build relationships. This is a fundamental principle in social media, where questions are often used to generate conversation and sharing across networks and platforms.

The value of improv, serving others and refining the pitch

Pink offers three areas to focus on to improve the ability to move or influence people’s behaviour. He highlights the benefits of improvisation (having participated in an improve workshop lead by a Second City cast member I can attest to the benefits of this “experiential learning”) and the intrinsic value of operating with a “serving others” approach. And he presents several examples of “pitching” –the one word pitch, the question, the rhyming pitch, the subject-line pitch, the Twitter pitch and the Pixar pitch, a template approach using six sequential sentences that was used at the opening of this report.

Finally, in the spirit of applying more theory to practice, the rhyming pitch is offered as a closing example of how I might incorporate Pink’s points into my use of social media: Perfect the Pixar pitch because it could make you six-figures rich.

Note: This post was originally submitted as a book report for McMaster University’s Building Social Media Relationships course (#bsmrcce).

Bravo for ‘Bossy’: Sandberg, Girls and Leadership

“I want every little girl who [is told] they’re bossy to be told instead, “You have leadership skills.”

                         — Sheryl Sandberg on 60 Minutes, March 10, 2013

Reprinted from The Guardian

Bravo.

Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer for Facebook, hit the headlines this past week with the publication of her book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (Knopf). Simultaneously, she launched a website, Leanin.org, to offer women educational information, encouragement and forums to share career experiences and aspirations and take part in “lean-in circles.”

Her comments about girls and leadership were just some that aired during a 60 Minutes interview that kicked off a week of publicity tours, op-ed pieces, blog posts and commentary far and wide, both pro and anti-Sandberg.

She has many points to make on the topic of women, how they fare in the workplace and how they can and should aspire to lead.

I haven’t read her book yet so I’m only commenting on what I’ve read and heard about it. I’m curious to see for myself what she’s proposing but some of her points, including that women should lean in, rather than lean back, and take leadership and senior roles in their workplaces resonates loud and clear.

In some circles she’s been criticized because she has a Harvard education and is a multimillionaire. Her critics grouse: She’s out of touch. Her experience doesn’t mirror the thousands of women who don’t have the same credentials and socioeconomic status that she does. She made her money with generous stock options at Google and Facebook. The underlying message is that she really didn’t have to work that hard to get where she did. She was privileged. And, horrors, this is a self-proclaimed “feminist” manifesto.

Really? Is that really as far as we’ve come in the second decade of the 21st century?

Rather than subtly attacking her pedigree, why aren’t we applauding her achievements? Why aren’t we saying, “Bravo, Ms. Sandberg for earning a Harvard degree.” (Two actually.) And “Bravo, Ms. Sandberg, you’re a role model and a leader who has achieved great success at two of the world’s most successful technology companies.”

I’m sure I’m not going to agree with everything Sandberg proposes but I love that she’s opened the conversation up again. I’m relishing the debates and the questions that have slowly started to take shape among my colleagues and my peers.

I’d much rather herald Sandberg’s points of view as starting points for discussion with my daughter as counterpoints to the bombardment of infantalized and sexualized images of women portrayed on Say Yes to the Dress or The Bachelor.

From one “bossy” woman to another: Bravo, Sheryl.

A sweet Canadian icon

It’s a sugar rush unlike any other.

One Tim Hortons timbit offers up an injection of sweetness that makes it almost impossible to have just one.

Two bites is all it takes to experience the sweet satisfaction of the sugar saturated morsel – a true Canadian icon.

Don’t think about the calories. Just pass on adding the sugar into your regular double-double and go for a timbit.

If you can’t resist, snack packs come in 10, 20 and 40 timbit sizes.

Sour-cream glazed are my favourite. How about you?

Disclaimer: As part of a class assignment I was given a free timbit and asked to review it.

Social Media at Conferences: Does it help or hurt?

Image courtesy of smarnad at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Does social media work at a conference?My verdict: sort of. It all depends on how engaged and well versed conference participants are in actually using social media.

Last week I road tested “live tweeting” during the annual CASE District 2 conference, held this year in Pittsburgh. People were using Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram but I concentrated on the use of Twitter.

By the way, CASE stands for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. It’s one of two organizations that provide professional development for people who work in fundraising, alumni relations, stewardship and donor relations and public relations in the higher education sector in North America.

(The Canadian equivalent is the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education or CCAE. This year’s national conference is in St. John’s, Newfoundland June 8 to 10.)

Where’s the hashtag?

I anticipated there would be robust dialogue at #case2pitt because we are inundated with the message that social media, in particular Twitter, is where it’s at in the university sphere. After all, one of our largest audiences are digitally savvy young people.

Prior to the conference starting, the Twitter stream was mainly devoted to promoting individual seminar presentations. In fact, initially it was difficult to actually determine what the conference hashtag was, as the pre-conference communication was minimal.

Once I found the stream it was easy to pinpoint who the active users were going to be – they were talking to each other via Twitter and making plans to get together before and after sessions. At times, this sidetracked communication from conference sessions as their posts became a little too “Insider Baseball” as author Joan Didion would say. The messages were so convoluted and specific to the folks talking that they were hard to decipher or to have meaning to an observer.

Courtesy of Katie’s Krops website

On the positive side, I did find someone new to follow using social media: Katie Stagliano, 14, from Katie’s Krops. She described how, at age 8, she became a “cause marketer” after donating her 40-pound cabbage grown from seed to a local soup kitchen.

She now has a national charity devoted to fighting hunger, with children across the U.S. planting vegetable gardens and then donating the food to those in need. She uses Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to get her message out. Check her out.

And what of my live tweeting experience from @EastonShelly?

It was hard! I found it difficult to listen, tweet and concentrate on the presenters’ next comments all at once. There was a fear I would misinterpret what I heard and send out something that was incorrect to the Twitterverse.

Yet, I was retweeted once and two tweets were favourited so that was fulfilling:

Donna Talarico retweeted you                                        

Mar 4:

@KatiesKrops Inspirational. Thank you for sharing your powerful cause marketing story. Continue to be an “expert” in your cause.#case2pitt

In the end, I appreciated being able to review all the tweets at the end of the day but they didn’t give me a solid understanding of sessions I missed as I originally anticipated.

In my books, Twitter is often akin to listening to the radio: you hear bits and pieces here and there and you may retain small parts of a story but it’s not something you can count on for the full picture.

Maybe that’s Instagram?

A Tale of Technology, Cable TV and Customer Service

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

We live in a world defined ever more by the “benefits” of technology and automation.

So why is it I had to wait 30 minutes in line at the local Cogeco store on a recent Sunday to hand in my mom’s cable box?

I had a lot of time to think about this as I patiently waited my turn. There were three people ahead of me and at least six came in behind me, many lugging unwieldy pieces of equipment that are somehow necessary or presumably, not necessary, for our full TV viewing pleasure.

As technology advances, it reverses the characteristics of every situation again and again. The age of automation is going to be the age of do it yourself.

– Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan

Funnily enough, the kiosk I leaned against as I waited also boasted numerous brochures advertising Cogeco’s various services. The Cogeco Digital TV brochure declares: “At Cogeco, we put you first in everything.”

Image courtesy of Suat Eman at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Um, I think not. Unless you mean first in line to wait?

There were three staff working, with one service desk empty – shouldn’t you be fully staffed on a weekend when most people have time to run these crazy errands?

And why couldn’t the technician who came to install a new router not take the old piece of equipment with him? This would have been an efficient use of time for the customer, my mom, who has mobility issues, and me, who helps her out.

When I finally did make my way to the congenial service representative, more technology snafus: my mother’s phone number was linked to someone else’s name, presumably someone who had that number and had Cogeco service years ago. This sort of confusion, aided and abetted by an antiquated computer system no doubt, did not enhance my admiration for a Canadian telecommunications company that has a legal stranglehold on providing cable service in my city.

For better or for worse: A self-serve society

The self-service era is well upon us in this age of technology. We pump our own gas, we get cash from the automated tellers at the bank, we pack and pay for our own groceries using machines, and books are checked out of the library using self-service scanners. In the business world, unmanned robotic shelving units in giant warehouses are amping up efficiency and allowing people to focus on more important activity in the work environment.

I’m not looking for a revolution from my cable provider but perhaps some radio frequency identification tags and self-service kiosks can transform the experience of returning an old piece of cable equipment?

Cogeco’s brochure asks: “How can we help you?”

By putting the customer first.

Hurry up Spring!

Photo by Ariane Cauderlier

With 24 days to go before Spring officially arrives, there’s time to enjoy some activities that will shorten the wait.

Here are 10 tips on how to incorporate a Spring-like attitude into the next three weeks without spending a lot of money:

1. Visit flower shops, nurseries and if you’re lucky to have one nearby, an indoor community garden, to revel in the greenery, the warmth and the colour. You can just window or green thumb shop! (The Burlington Art Centre, near where I live, has a lovely little indoor garden that is a sight to behold on a dreary winter day.)

2. Forego a couple of lattes and spring for some tulips or primulas to brighten your desk or your kitchen.

3. If you’re housebound or can’t jet off to New York City, for example, to enjoy the botanical gardens there, you can always make a virtual visit. Check out the New York Botanical Garden website and download an app for Monet’s Garden. Or visit Monet’s Garden at Giverny online and enjoy the visual feast.

4. Browse gardening books at your local bookstore or borrow some from your local library. The outstanding photography and brilliant colour will cheer you up immediately.

5. Listen to Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, or Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (the Spring section of course!) to put you in the right musical mood.

6. Cook up a feast of pasta primavera with the freshest ingredients you can find.

7. Take a walk near the water, in the woods or along trails where you can marvel at the tiny critters scurrying around for food, the geese and ducks noisily reminding us of the busy mating season ahead and songbirds, like cardinals, entertaining us with colour and sound.

8. Obtain maps online and plan out some spring road trips – either by bike, by car or by public transit.

9. Start adding a coloured shirt or scarf into your daily attire to break out of the black and brown cycle of winter clothing.

10. Think about spring cleaning. Just think about it and go find some daffodils to admire instead!

Enjoy!

Taking stupid out of the Harlem Shake

I first heard about the Harlem Shake phenomenon last week from my university-attending son, who was home for what we used to call “reading week.”

In a few short February weeks this “dance” has taken on a life of its own – as these things do in today’s world of social media and instant communication.

Several students at various universities in southern Ontario have posted their Harlem Shake masterpieces on YouTube. Production of Brock University’s rendition, making the headlines of the St. Catharines Standard Feb. 16 edition, involved 2,000 people and caused about $5,000 in damage to the student centre. The University was apparently tweeting about it and receiving congratulatory tweets as well.

This is an interesting example of some of the challenges we face in the realm of social media everyday.

1. It demonstrates the power of social media – the event was organized via Facebook and Twitter within hours. The Brock student who came up with the idea because he thought it would generate school spirit was surprised by how many people actually showed up on a Sunday night to take part.

2. The university seemed to be walking a fine line between observing the shenanigans and adopting a “silence is agreement” approach and then asking for reimbursement for damages once the event had happened and been shared on Twitter.

3.  In addition to students being involved in their schools’ versions, several have posted their own personal 30-second clips, filmed with roommates. Many involve nudity, various rude gestures and can only be characterized as tasteless in the extreme.

It’s surprising in an age when we consider twentysomethings to be smart “digital natives” who are savvy users of social media and technology that they don’t appreciate the speed at which news travels. And some don’t recognize that potential employers routinely check the online presence of potential employees. Be prepared to kiss that internship goodbye if you can be identified in a tawdry clip found in a Google search.

This type of situation also underlies the importance for all institutions, public and private, to have good social media policies in place and to always be vigilant about what is being said online.

What more do you think we can do to educate our young people and our employers about effectively using social media and avoiding personal and PR disasters?

You call this art?

Photo by Sarah Janes for McMaster Daily News

It looks like a souped-up mini-flying saucer and it’s roaming around the floor of the McMaster Museum of Art.

Named kulturBOT, the small robot was created out of a modified floor sweeper and mounted with a mini camera and projector. Creators David Harris Smith of McMaster and University College London’s Frauke Zeller programmed the robot with text to “review” exhibitions. Currently, it projects text and images onto the museum walls of an exhibition called About the Mind.

Some wags might say it’s out of its mind and so are we, if we consider this art.

Voice of Fire: Courtesy of National Gallery of Canada collection

It is an age-old controversy that has raged for years. In 1989, Canadian politicians made headlines around the world when they contested the National Gallery of Canada purchase of American painter Barnett Newman’s Voice of Fire for $1.8 million. Originally displayed in the U.S. pavilion at Expo ’67, many thought the acrylic painting looked like an oversized flag. The headlines screamed: This is art?

But these features and exhibits raise the time-honoured question: What is art, exactly? Perhaps an even more valuable discussion should centre around answering a simpler idea: How can we enjoy all different types of art and broaden our understanding?

Carol Podedworny, director and curator at McMaster’s Museum of Art, offers three tips to embark on Art Appreciation 101:

• First, she says, pick a show that you want to see. It could involve an artist you are familiar with or it could be a blockbuster that’s getting lots of advertising. Most important is the notion that “there’s something there that you want to see,” she says. If you have a vocabulary for art, then you can just fall into an exhibit and make out okay. But if you’re new to this experience, put the odds in your favour by choosing something or someone you’re intrigued by so you’re a step ahead.
• The second tip is to “take your context to the experience,” she advises. “Walk in and think about what you are seeing in terms of where you are with your own personal bias and agenda. You make a relationship with what the artist is doing. They’re often contemplating the social milieu. If you come to it with your own stuff, then it becomes meaningful. Bring something of your own to the experience.”
• The final step to immersing yourself in art is really quite simple: Let yourself go. “Think about it as if you are listening to a piece of music that you love,” Podedworny says. “It stimulates you. It inspires you and you just embrace it.”

And now, in the age of the internet and instant digital access to collections all around the world, starting the act of appreciating art is even easier.

Big Snow, 42nd Street: From the Museum of Modern Art collection

During this past weekend’s gigantic snowstorm, the Museum of Modern Art in NYC tweeted from its collection, Andreas Feininger’s black and white photograph called Big Snow, 42nd Street (1956), with the admonishment: “Bundle up East Coast!”

Even in a snowstorm, you can appreciate art.

To infinity and beyond

View from International Space Station courtesy Cmdr. Hadfield

Is it just me or does anyone else get really excited by the photos Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield routinely sends back from space?

He has completely mastered the social media sharing experience as he tweets – @Cmdr_Hadfield – several photos everyday.

Storytelling par excellence

Each photo has a little story to go with it. The photo and a sentence usually sum it all up. Or it’s part of a bigger theme he’s embarked on that day.

He learned he’s being followed by lots of people in the United Kingdom so he’s promised to send out more photos concentrating on that area. Last week, he tweeted photos of New Orleans in honour of the Super Bowl.

Today he ended his posts with this breathtaking shot of, as he wrote, “From here to the horizon to forever – a quick glance out the window of the Space Station.”

He’s an astronaut. A Leafs fan. A consumate teacher. A proud Canadian. A talented photographer. And a poet who has an uncanny sense of what to shoot and say in 140 words or less. Incredible.

And he’s doing this all from space. Literally floating around in the International Space Station, orbiting the Earth.

Sarnia, Ontario from the International Space Station. Photo courtesy of Cmdr. Chris Hadfield.

Walk off the Earth

Maybe it’s my age and the nostalgia nerve that’s being tweaked – I remember being in our sunroom on Charing Cross Road in Chatham, Ontario in the humidity of July, 1969 watching Neil Armstrong step down onto the moon’s surface. I was in awe.

I’m still in awe, sitting on the shore of Skeleton Lake in central Ontario in the same July humidity, picking out stars and the space station as it silently drifts by.

Now, benefiting from technology and the expertise and perspective of an incredible astronaut, I can enjoy the views of Earth from space via a Twitter feed. Several times a day.

Wow. Thank you Chris Hadfield.

(I can’t wait for the NASA robot rover Curiosity to start tweeting from Mars!)

Heard it through the grapeVine

Have you heard about the new six-second video app for Twitter called Vine?

Not sure what Vine stands for, although “V” is probably for video. Marvin Gaye’s rendition of Heard it through the Grapevine keeps looping through my head whenever I think about it.

The app launched two weeks ago and social media users, including newspapers, have been busy road-testing it ever since. It’s only available on iPhones, some iPod touches and iPads at the moment, but it’s likely everyone knows someone with one of those devices to give it a whirl.

This week’s class assignment was to write a blog post about it.

Use it. Don’t lose it.

My first step was to try and actually use the application. Integrating practical with the theory. Make a six-second video that automatically loops. How hard could it be?

Here is my result:  vine.co/v/b10LOxO26Pn. (What do you think? Be honest. I can handle it.)

The “pros” to this tool:

1. It’s free and if you use your own props (which most people do) there’s no cost.
2. It’s user-friendly and encourages creativity. If I can drum up an idea and story board, be prop master and videographer and post it to Twitter, then anybody can!
3. It’s fast. Six seconds isn’t long, but then again, it’s long enough in this instant gratification world we live in.

The “cons” include:

1. It’s fast. Is six seconds really long enough to effectively tell a compelling and meaningful story? The jury is still out on that. Maybe, turning it into a “pro,” it forces us to be even more ruthless and succinct with our edits and storytelling?
2. It’s gimmicky. Lots of babies and animals playing on our heart strings. But then again, that baby Clydesdale in the Budweiser Super Bowl commercial was a lot longer and it was a winner.
3. It’s a haven for pornography. Nothing more to say on that front. The creators must get that fixed.

Mat Honan, senior writer with Wired magazine’s Gadget Lab, predicts this new tool will be big. Really big.

I agree. Remember, you heard it here first.

Hurrah for Women

The last week of January 2013 was a good one for women. At least from where I sit in southwestern Ontario, Canada.

Courtesy of Vince Talotta for the Toronto Star

The provincial Liberals elected Kathleen Wynne as party leader and she’ll be sworn in as Ontario premier Feb. 11. Her key opponent was another woman, Sandra Pupatello.

British Columbia and Alberta are now governed by women. There’s some talk that Olivia Chow will give Rod Ford a run for his money by joining the race to be mayor of Canada’s largest city, Toronto. And then there’s Hillary Clinton, the now retired U.S. secretary of state, who stepped down on Friday from her four-year post after logging the most miles ever for a person holding that role. She was a machine. A very smart one.

No matter what your politics are, you have to admire the depth and breadth of knowledge, intellect, experience and skill these women bring to the table and in service to the public good.

They’re a refreshing and necessary counterpoint to the Kardashians and Lohans of this world. When I’m looking for role models for my daughter and her friends, I’m happy there are many to choose from.

Courtesy of Dave Chan for the Globe and Mail

And yet, in the same week, in a final interview with the Globe and Mail, is the disconcerting plea set out by retiring Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps.

She says there needs to be more women appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in order to maintain gender equity and keep our reputation intact worldwide. Since her replacement was a man, only three of the nine sitting judges are women.

Her blunt message is that the situation is not good enough.

“Numbers do count. I was sad that I was not replaced by a woman. We are looked at not just as a model for the courts in Canada, but around the world – and I think it’s very important that the Supreme Court of Canada remains a model.”

Women bring a different tone and approach to the important work done at the highest court in the land, the judge suggested.

“We speak our minds very easily,” she said. “We do not hold our cards. We all had offices one beside another, which also helped. We kept our doors open. When we see someone sitting in the office of another now, it is an attraction, a magnet to participate in the conversation. It is really a different court.”

Different does not mean good nor does it mean bad. It speaks to diversity. Conversation. Different points of view. Respect. Leadership. Surely it upholds a standard to which we eagerly aspire. And that we want our daughters and our sons to embrace and see reflected in the society they will inherit.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, are you listening?

The Power of Perseverance

Lessons learned from perseverance are life changing.

They are hard to learn and sometimes, as a parent, it’s hard to watch as your kids go through the formative experience. Often it means making a mistake. Failing even.

But they are vital and necessary and yes, character building.

The factor that most distinguishes people who are satisfied with their lives from those who are not is their higher level of resilience.

— Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson

This guiding principle came to mind when the controversy erupted last week over the fact that Beyonce lip-synched the American anthem at U.S. President Obama’s inauguration ceremony. It turns out that Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jepsen lip-synched their songs at the Grey Cup half-time show in November.

What exactly is wrong with these folks? Are they that afraid of making a mistake or screwing up that they can’t just sing the song they were supposed to? Are we as a society so small-minded that we expect perfection all the time? Is there no room for variation, a stumble, a “real-time” moment that distinguishes a live performance as just that – live?

And what does it say in the long term? Are we raising a generation that is too afraid to mess up, make a mistake, persevere? Resilience shouldn’t be a dirty word. But you may end up in the dirt or with mud on your face once in while to get there.

Forever 51: What it’s all about

Image courtesy of renjith krishnan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My teenage daughter favours buying clothes at Forever 21. I favour clothes from Talbots. A friend’s teenaged daughter dubbed Talbots, the Forever 51 store. Ouch. Funny, but not so much on further reflection.

What is she implying exactly? That women of a certain age, okay, in their 50s and gasp, 60s or 70s, are trying to stay forever young with the clothes they choose to wear? I like the clothes because they’re usually well-made, affordable, conservative but not too and there’s a good mix of business and casual styles. And it’s one-stop shopping. I’m in, I try on, sometimes I buy and I’m out. If I wanted to, I could order online but that just seems like more of a hassle than it’s worth at this point. That may change, but for now I’m a bricks-and-mortar clothing shopper.

Are there broader implications for my prickly reaction to the sarcastic renaming of a favourite store? And how are the musings about Forever 51 and the purpose of this post linked?

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A sense of purpose
Part of this week’s assignment was to describe what my personal blog was about. We worked a bit on this in class and then we were off to the races. Initially I was flummoxed. What exactly was this blog about? I haven’t been having trouble coming up with topics to write about. This was a creative exercise that I relished. But the topics did seem to be all over the map in terms of subject matter.

Then it hit me. This blog is about reflecting back a world that I don’t encounter often enough in either traditional or digital media. Me. The middle-aged 50-something married working mother of two who has power of attorney for a parent with Alzheimer’s. A smart, curious mama bear who loves to go to the hockey arena or lacrosse field as much as she loves to go to dance competitions, the ballet, the art galleries and the theatre.

I love to discuss books, politics, media, films, and music (rock, country, opera and everything in between) for a start. Being a lifelong learner (hence this course) is as important as thinking about retirement and how, as a cancer survivor, I can give myself the best opportunity to make it there and thrive.

Photo courtesy of Anna Quindlen website

A complex voice
I thought about Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Anna Quindlen’s “Public and Private” columns from the 1990s in the New York Times when I thought about my blog. I want to replicate that type of social commentary. So, me, is a little complicated. Complex. Interested and engaged in communities, both near and far. And I know I’m not alone. There are legions of us out there, many awake at 3 a.m. (thank you menopause) trying to make sense of the day that was and the day that lies ahead.

The intent of this blog then is clear: to give a voice to the legions of intelligent, interesting Forever 51s, wherever they may be.

And how do I measure success? If readership and public conversation increases. With Forever 51s and 21s and everyone on either side or in between.

Lance and Oprah: The Brand Dance Masters

Courtesy of OWN website

It has been a fascinating exercise watching two international celebrities, Lance Armstrong and Oprah Winfrey, engage in full-on brand management this past week.

Much has been written about Armstrong’s motivation for finally admitting to wide-spread doping, lying, and cheating during his tenure as the king of Tour de France racing. The questions abound: Can he really refurbish his reputation? Will the good will connected to his cancer charity work ever be strong enough to help his image rebound from the devastating facts finally made public?

Media pursuit
There will be many PhD theses written about Armstrong’s calculated approach. What about Winfrey’s motivations? No doubt her team avidly pursued him for months, if not years, to try and secure an agreement for him to appear on her show. Undoubtedly so did the teams for other broadcast media heavy hitters like 60 Minutes, Barbara Walters, 20/20, Diane Sawyer, etc.

I argue that Armstrong gravitated to Winfrey because she’s not known for being an aggressive interviewer. She’s less confrontational, and often talks too much when asking questions, allowing the interviewee to avoid directly answering what was a solid query that demanded further probing. By choosing to tell his story to Winfrey, he had more control of the tone and flow of the interview.

How did Winfrey benefit?
First, the use of traditional and social media to acquire free promotion for the exclusive interview was rampant. Word about the interview was put out one week prior. Then the interview’s primary news – Armstrong admitting guilt – was leaked. This prompted a week long media frenzy to heighten awareness about the broadcast. By the time the first interview actually aired, media were saturated with the story and consumer interest was high.

Secondly, while Armstrong wanted to benefit from the brand attribute of sincerity (Aaker, 1997, p. 347) that Winfrey exudes, she too capitalized on this. The interview was billed as an attempt to get to the heart of the matter – not too tough but trustworthy.

Finally, this event appears to be part of strategy to reboot the “Oprah” brand. Since launching her own network more than two years ago, she has lost a considerable amount of money and prestige. She’s fired staff and reconceived the network’s mission a few times.

The show that featured Armstrong, Oprah’s Next Chapter, normally runs on Sunday nights and is the network’s best offering. It plays to Winfrey’s strength, celebrity profiles, that worked so well on her incredibly successful syndicated show, Oprah. By running the interview over two nights on unconventional nights – Thursday and Friday – she drew in viewers who may have stuck around to check out other network programming. New viewers would be good. That approach would have helped entice advertisers to come on board as well – a solid revenue stream continues to be important for sustained success.

In the end, this was a masterful dance between two brand management masters.

Three burning questions

Image from Google Images

The Past
My first introduction to the joys of newspaper reading meant sprawling in front of the fireplace in my parents’ living room, absorbing the Detroit Free Press on Sunday mornings. Now I read the Globe and Mail online, the New York Times digest is pushed to my e-mail and I’m venturing into following news sites on Twitter.

When I studied journalism at Ryerson, we worked on typewriters. My first introduction to writing on a computer came during a summer job at the Calgary Herald, which used a “mainframe” system – something I still don’t understand but reminds me of what is now called cloud computing.

In 2000, I was the first writer/editor for McMaster’s award-winning online newspaper, the Daily News. Back then, it was revolutionary. Now it’s simply one more tool in an arsenal of communication approaches used to reach internal and external audiences.

The Present
Change is inevitable. During my career as a journalist and as a public relations practitioner, the modes and methods of communication have rapidly evolved. As a lifelong learner I’m keen to learn about new ways to communicate and collaborate. Building Social Media Relationships offers an overview of social media tools and concepts, and combines the perfect mix of practical application with theory. The course will help me learn how to assess and enhance the use of social media with my professional work and personal interests.

The Future
The three burning questions I want to answer are:

1. What is the difference between curating and editing?
2. What are the most effective ways to measure success?
3. How will newspapers bridge the gap between print and the digital world?

I’m interested in learning how Canadians are getting their news. How do you do it?

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Staying creative in winter

Earlier this week CBC radio host Tom Power shared tips gleaned from a Forbes magazine post on how to stay motivated and creative at work in the winter. (This is known as a “rip ‘n read” in journalism parlance.) Check out: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/01/07/12-tips-for-staying-productive-through-the-bleak-winter-months/

Personally, I’ve always relished the short January days and cold (not today) nights as the perfect time to regroup, hunker down at work, write, read and reflect on the year that was and what I hope to accomplish in the year ahead. It’s a fresh start, just like September, with our memories of returning to school forever imprinted on our brains.

Words to live by

Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.
— John Lennon