When is it OK for legislation to govern love?

NEVER!

This week’s Human Rights Campaign in support of marriage equality no doubt inspired a sense of hope for humanity with many (most?) of us. The message that legislation has NO business dictating who we love was loud and clear. There’s plenty of work to be done to drive this to fruition AND ensure ANY law that meddles with matters of love are stopped — including idiotic, money-wasting, ineffective breed specific legislation (BSL) that dictates what types of dogs we can love.

My friend Erika, a fellow volunteer at the local county animal shelter, posted this picture today that speaks volumes. It’s a picture of her and “Mama Mia” loving each other in the only place where they’re allowed to be together — in confines of Mama’s kennel at the shelter. They are the perfect match, but Erika can’t adopt her because she lives in a city that senselessly bans Pit Bulls. This is wrong.

Cesar Millan once said something that resonated with me — something to the affect that a Pit Bull is just a dog in a Pit Bull outfit. Before the Pit Bull witch hunt, Rottweilers were the target and before them, it was Dobermans, German Shepherds… Perhaps, your dog’s breed will be next.

Persecuting entire categories of living creatures based on breed, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, physical/mental capabilities, etc. is wrong and discrimination-based laws should never be tolerated!

Sadly, in the case of BSL, millions of lives are senselessly lost because of it every year in the US alone. Some of these animals may be punished simply for visual similarities with banned breeds — mistaken identity is frightfully common during Pit Bull labeling.

Animals can’t change laws. Animals can’t rally those who can with equality memes. We MUST be their voices not just through fighting discrimination-based laws, but through saying ‘no’ to irresponsible breeding — don’t buy from puppy mill sourced pet stores. Spay/neuter your pets. If you’re looking for a particular breed, consider a breed specific rescue. Check local shelters frequently in person or online via sites like PetHarbor.com or PetFinder.com to find your perfect pet.

Enough is enough with all laws that encourage discrimination of any form!!!

How I stupidly discriminated and you probably do too

I volunteer at a county animal shelter where my official title is “dog walker”. Initially, I focused solely on walking the little dogs because, the big dog section — filled mostly with Pit Bulls — intimidated me. The idea of getting in a kennel with any Pit with their substantial mass, “locking jaws” and general vicious reputation terrified me.

Then, one day the shelter’s kennel manager asked if I would join a new, small committee who’s charter is to drive up adoption rates. In less pretty terms, for the sake of the affected animals and the sanity of shelter staff, we needed to brainstorm ideas on driving down the euthanasia rate — an unfortunate reality in a county shelter when funds are limited and capacity is full.

Without hesitation, I agreed to join the committee and hoped to add value. During the first meeting, the objective became more specific. Our charter was to drive up the adoption rate for Pit Bulls. We discussed the cause of the over abundance of Pits in shelters and I disclosed I wasn’t a fan of “the breed”. I still wonder why they didn’t excuse me that day based on my stance at the time.

One of my first committee tasks was to write bios for the Pit Bulls’ kennels so they’d stand a better chance of attracting a potential adopter. I worked with the kennel staff who know them well to collect personality information. Regardless of the sweet individual facts I’d learn about each Pit, I’d still pass them up during my dog walking sessions, but it didn’t take long before I called BS on myself & thought “How can I write those nice things about the dogs if I didn’t believe them?” So, I forced myself to walk at least one Pit during each of my dog walking visits.

I started with a Pit named Jersey. She was in the room during one of our committee meetings & she didn’t eat me, so I figured we had a small foundation of trust that we could build on. Before long, I worked my way up to walking mostly Pits — after all, they often have lived in the shelter the longest & probably need/deserve a walk the most.

In addition to my hands-on learning, I began researching Pits. Here are a few facts I discovered:

• There is no physiological evidence that Pit Bulls have a locking jaw, nor do Pit Bulls have a higher bite pressure than any other breed.
• Pit Bulls are the victims of one of the harshest, often  media driven breed specific  smear campaigns ever.
• It is estimated that 3-4 million shelter cats and dogs are euthanized each year in the US. One million of those are Pit Bulls.
• It is reported on temperament tests conducted by the American Temperament Test Society that Pit Bulls have a passing rate of 82% or better — compared to only 77% of the general dog population.
• Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) is as dumb and unfair as any other form of prejudicial discrimination. It’s ineffective, costly, doesn’t solve the root of dog bite problems  (neglectful pet owners) and ultimately costs many dogs their lives.
• It’s ridiculously easy to mistakenly identify a dog as a Pit Bull, and the instant that label is slapped on them at a shelter, their chances of adoption plummets because of BSL and the Pit Bull smear campaign.
• For Over 150 Years Americans Knew What Pit Bulls Were Famous For. BABYSITTING!

While the above knowledge helped me put a swift end to my prejudicial opinion on Pit Bulls, it was two pits from the shelter who lovingly taught me a new chapter in the age old lesson that “You can’t judge a book by its cover”:

Suzie: While taking her for a walk at the shelter, my husband tripped & fell. Suzie immediately laid down next to him and placed her head on his chest. I saw it with my own two eyes. This was the first time they had met, but she treated him like he was her life long companion who needed her comfort. It was one of the kindest swift reactions that I’d ever seen in a situation where a human needed help. She got adopted that day — not by us (we have a house full of rescues), but where ever she is I hope she’s with a family who deserves her love.

Jersey: The first Pit at the shelter who showed me that despite human ignorance and her less than happy history with owners who let her down, she still loves people unconditionally and can see and bring out the kindness in them.

This post is dedicated to Jersey — who after spending the majority of her life in the shelter, found her forever home this weekend. I wish her a lifetime of the happiness she deserves. Thanks for opening my eyes, sweet girl!

Grant a shelter dog’s wish.

Foster Kittens Officially Ready for Adoption

Today was the last day of fostering the kitties. They’re now 11 weeks old & ready to find their permanent homes. Weened? Check! Spayed/neutered? Check! Vaccinated? Check! There’s only one more critical check pending & that’s the “Adoption” check.

Returning them to the shelter where they’ll stand a better chance of finding their official families wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be — I conveniently had a plethora of distracting tasks to complete when I arrived AND I took a couple of great friends to keep me from veering off into a sobbing puddle of emotions (thank you, Shereen & Roger!).

It’s been fun to watch these furry bundles of cuteness grow from tiny newborns to these fine kitties:

Harper: Beautiful coloring, friendly & outgoing.

Mr. Magoo: Confident, funny & a total Momma’s boy — I’d LOVE it if he and Momma went to the same home (there’s a $10 sale on black cats thru Sunday, Sept 30th!).

Smarty: Quick learner, curious & super easy-going.

Cougar: A cat who knows what she wants & isn’t afraid to use her cuteness to get it. She and Smarty are BFFs & would make fantastic roomies.

As with Momma cat, we’ll continue to visit and keep an eye on on them until they find their permanent families.

All the best, my furry friends! I’ll miss snuggling you everyday. ♥

A new beginning for Momma cat…

The Momma cat we’ve been fostering for a couple months returned to the shelter this morning where she’ll stand a better chance of finding a home. Separating her from her kittens for the last time was terribly sad. Here’s what the scene looked like…

The wimpy side of me can’t imagine going thru this again, but providing Momma with a quiet, peaceful home setting to care for her tiny kittens was worth it & hopefully the experience planted a friendly foundation in the kittens personalities.

Momma is an incredibly sweet & beautiful cat (I’d keep her in a heartbeat if I could). Please let me know if you know of anyone in the Denver area who would be an amazing owner. We’ll continue to visit her in the shelter and watch over her until she finds her forever home.

Her kittens are super close to being the proper weight for spaying/neutering, then will be available for adoption as well.

Farewell, Momma Cat! ♥

 

 

Become a legitimate hero in less than a minute…

The awesome guardians of the furry, four-legged friends at the county shelter that I volunteer at are taking me up on my offer to help open web channels so kind fellow earthlings, like you, can easily send their love! 

You might not be in a position to take one of these sweet fur balls home, but you can now become an immediate hero by kindly granting one of their Amazon Wishes. You’ll notice the shelter is currently in desperate need of basic necessities.

Your furry friends at the shelter THANK YOU & so do I!!! 🙂

 

1st day of 12th Grade

Yikes! In the category of time flies…

A lot of you have known me & therefore have virtually known Skrockette for years. This was the first 1st day of school photo I blogged…

This was the last “in the classroom at her desk on the 1st day of school” photo I snapped…

Then we entered the “I can’t be seen anywhere near my mother” phase for the first day of school photos…

And that leads us to today. Skrockette’s first day of her last year of high school. Kind, compassionate, bright and eager to jump into her next chapter. 🙂

“For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today” ~African Proverb

Making couponing modern and sexy…

That’s right, digital enthusiasts & frugal-lites alike…I said couponing & sexy in the same sentence.

Today, Valassis officially announced the Facebook product I’ve been lucky enough to manage the last few months — a couponing app like nothing else out there. Sure, you’ve seen web based coupons before, but have you seen a Facebook app that enables the entire end-to-end couponing experience all within Facebook that ALSO allows you to…

1. Add digital (paperless) coupons directly to your grocery store’s loyalty card in addition to enabling traditional coupon printing?
2. Leverage an array of social capabilities beyond just sharing (Tweet it, Pin it, private message/email it, see what your friends are clipping, invite them to use the app, update, etc.)?
3. See a timeline view of your savings goodness as well as a timeline view of your friends savings?
4. Peruse your coupon shopping list by printed, clipped, & redeemed coupons?

Yup, RedPlum Social Savings does all that, and…

1. It’s a white-label product — skinning & deploying a brand specific instance is a snap. By “snap” I mean being up and running in days vs months.
2. It’s integrated the best of the Facebook platform with Open Graph. Since we quietly flipped the RedPlum skinned version of the beta app live in March, it’s organically grown  a user base of 25,000 users triggering 450,000 open graph impressions — just by  us pushing it live with no promotion what so ever (until today!).
3. For the white label clients, they get the full suite of Facebook Insights analytics reports that they can run anytime to get an accurate pulse on the performance of their app.

All of that is stacked nicely on top of our incredibly mature couponing back-end & the Valassis powerhouse of major retailer relationships (side note:  the science of coupon security is fascinating — individual serial numbers, secret watermarks etc. — it’s just like currency)!

I’ve had the opportunity to demo many new web products in my career — many of those demos were rather hairy & drove me to drink heavily. Just kidding. Sort of. But really, the reaction of demoing this product to leading retailers, manufactures & CPGs has been consistently well-received — a true indicator that we’re filling a gap marketplace in a big way.

Props to Food Lion for snagging the first early adopter spot — we’re looking forward to launching their branded instance of the app soon!

Props to the team — Lea, Mandarin, Matt, Tom, Ana, Vinod, Jay, Duane, & Ian —  for designing and building an amazing app!

Props to the best interns ever for creating this video that tells the app’s story. Enjoy!

The objects of my affection…

So, you’ll hear more about the #1 object of my affection tomorrow (of the non human variety), but for now let’s talk about these…

I know what you’re thinking… “It should be illegal to be that cute.” It’s not. I find their cuteness obnoxious & they don’t even belong to me. They belong to her..

…the sweetest, most attentive, beautiful momma cat that ever walked the face of the earth. Her instincts are impeccable — she knows who her friends are & won’t hesitate to clearly warn those who could present a risk to her babies. She’s homeless & was found by the amazing shelter that Skrockette & I volunteer at. She & her kitties are Skrockette’s and my 2nd fosters. Our first was Rudy (yup, named after that Rudy), he was thrown from a car window at 4 weeks old & rescued by the shelter…

…he’s officially what the shelter calls a “failed foster”. He won’t leave his foster home because parting with him would be unimaginable. He’s a Skrocki now & forever. 🙂

But back to our 2nd attempt at fostering — Momma cat & her four kitties. There’s Smarty (she was the first explorer of the litter & is always bright-eyed )…

… Harper (the social butterfly, she connects so deeply to the beings around her, Momma cat always has an extra eye on her)…

…Cougar (super sweet & reserved, not really like her namesake, but I wonder if she might not like branching out a bit)…

…and the little brother, Mr. Magoo (the sweet runt & last to open his bright blue eyes, but now the most confident)…

The only thing stopping me from not keeping them (ALL of them) is the fine line between me and an official “weirdo cat lady” title. Colorado is such a shelter pet friendly state, so I’m sure every one of them will find a home they love, but please do let me know if you’re interested in any of them — it would make me feel a thousand times better to find them a home with good people I personally know.

Many thanks!

And now for some good news…

Did you see this story? “Little boy lost finds his mother using Google Earth” It’s remarkable, inspiring and will make you happy to be alive in times where global connectedness can make genuinely good things happen.

Those of you who know me, know that working for a company who is socially responsible is a big deal to me (& I’m not just talking about companies who have cheesy corporate responsibility posters plastered on their walls with little follow thru). Genuine social responsibility is one of the attributes I loved about Sun Microsystems & love about Valassis.

In addition to having the accolades and data to back up Valassis’ commitment to diversity, check out this social goodness…

RedPlum is Valassis’ consumer brand. You probably see its coupon insert in your mailbox on a weekly basis (it looks like the image below). The next time you do, please take a closer look at the “Have You Seen Me?” section — you might be the conduit that reunites a missing child with their family.

Welcome to infographic mania! Now, where are the standards?

While the “rush thru everything” part of me does appreciate some “chart porn” (as Dan Frommer puts it), the lack of reporting standards by which many infographic creators are operating is beginning to be a major turn off.

Sure, infographics are shiny and alluring, but the data inaccuracy (or perceived inaccuracy due to missing information such as a date, data sources, etc.) diminishes their value. This is a real shame because infographics are an incredibly valuable format for delivering a high volume of data in a highly comprehensible manner.

As kids, we all learned basic reporting standards while being graded on the creation of countless book reports. Why should infographics be immune to basic reporting standards? Infographics creators go through the effort to create something that looks amazing, why not take a few minutes to validate it’s credibility with the following basic elements?

• Date (freshness matters)
• Author(s)
• Data Source(s)
• Advertisement disclaimer
• Content license / distribution terms

This isn’t about hampering creativity. The graphics designers I know are real sticklers about leveraging standards. It more about reliability. These aren’t just pretty, traffic driving pictures — they have the potential to influence critical business decisions.

Stuff I’ve learned in the last 22 months & what’s next…

During “Blogging 101” sessions, I’d always advise aspiring bloggers to not apologize in their posts for not blogging frequently enough, but after an unplanned 22 month blogging hiatus (not counting my ever-present micro-blogging action ;-)), I owe anyone who might still be listening here an apology…I’m sorry and thank you for sticking around!

I’ve been luma-focused on a massive project at Accenture that saw it’s first manifestation of validated delivery yesterday. It’s not yet officially launched in the marketplace, so I can’t tell you a whole lot about it, but can tell you that this milestone presents a nice exit point for my Accenture journey — where I learned a LOT, which isn’t surprising, but what is surprising is over the last 22 months, I have learned a lot about things I wasn’t expecting to learn (some at Accenture, some elsewhere).

Stuff I’ve learned in the last 22 months (pardon the randomness — many points are pulled from notes I would take while living off the grid at 30k-40k in the air):

1. Clarity comes at 30k-40k feet where distractions are few.
2. Give yourself permission to not be uber productive and responsible at all times. It’s OK to submit to sleep, daydreaming, socializing, offlinedness (<– not a real word, but it should be), etc. The work will wait. Life won't. I'm not suggesting a lifestyle of laziness & irresponsibility — the work/life scale has no meter & oddly it's sometimes hard to know when you’re actually clinging to the life scale by your fingernails.



3. I suck at being a road warrior. I’m grateful that my world is a bigger place now & I have the passport stamps to prove it, but the most amazing places on earth look like a Disneyland facade when you don’t have the people who matter most beside you.
4. Don’t expect acknowledgement and/or reward for your hard work, amazing contributions, and super powers — be your best because it inspires YOU. That’s it. That’s the only validation you need.
5. Some of the most necessary career alliances aren’t about perfect partnerships, but are more about an unspoken agreement to use each other in a mutually beneficial yet respectful way. Augh. I hate that, but it’s true. To contrast that dark point, some of the most important career alliances are those few (1-3 if you’re really lucky) who stand beside you in the darkest, riskiest, most challenging, unpleasant situations…AND would love to continue working with you. I can say this…I am really lucky and really grateful.
6. The war against the glass ceiling is alive and well. If you’ve not called bullshit on it when you’ve seen it, you are part of the problem. What did you do the last time you saw an act of discrimination? If the answer is nothing, you missed an opportunity to make a difference that matters.
7. Often, moments of clarity are the recalibration that lead to the next moments of not having a clue as to what the hell to do next, but knowing you have to do something. Do something. Fine tune if it was the wrong thing, but don’t be paralyzed by the fear of doing the wrong thing. There’s nothing sweeter than seeing your your ballsy decision validated as the right one.
8. Personal down time isn’t optional — it is required for self-preservation. The following do not count as down time: submitting expenses, bio breaks, daily grooming (you have a real problem if you’ve ever considered adding shower time to your calendar — that’s not normal), etc.
9. As you advance your career, rigorously protect that part of your brain that remains open to weird ideas & free of your ego. It’s sad to see once brilliant leaders submit to making decisions that best serve their ego — I don’t think they actually realize that’s what they’re doing, by the way.
10. Know when your personal stock is up/down and mold your conversations with your boss with that in mind.
11. The most personally valuable lesson I’ve learned is I now know my physical, emotional and intellectual limits — this might sound strange, but it’s rather interesting to hit (and realize) your thresholds even if it is painful. I also have had much of what I’ve always known about my character and convictions validated. As a result of knowing my boundaries, I now know how to protect them.

What’s next…

I’m taking a couple weeks off to reconnect with family, friends & myself; then, I’ll take on a product management directorship at Valassis, re-engaging with a few of my former Sun friends/colleagues. More to come on that topic, but you can expect to see me dial up my engagement in the social space again — something I LOVED doing at Sun.

All the best & thanks again for sticking around. 🙂

My Next Gig

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

Today was the first day of my new job at Accenture. To be perfectly honest, I had become extremely complacent in the warm womb of Sun Microsystems & had a change not shoved me to stretch, I’m not certain that I would have, but I’m super glad I did. While I was still learning every day as a result of being around super bright people, I wasn’t uncomfortably challenged & therefore, probably wasn’t progressing as much as I probably could/should have.

I can’t post much on the details of the specific product/project I’ll be focused on just yet, but I can tell you that it’s going to be an amazing challenge & the silver lining is I’ll get work with a lot of super bright folks…most new, but a couple of folks whom I’ve worked closely with in the past & whom I highly respect: Will Snow & Liz DiTucci.

I want to extend a sincere thanks to everyone who helped me gain insight along the way (through good & even the not so good experiences) & especially those who offered such kind words of encouragement & direction — I owe you. Say the word. I’m eager to return the favor.

I want to offer a special shout-out to the following folks who went out of their way to give me a boost in finding my next gig: @WillSnow, @MMaryMary, @BrianHerman, @Neeraj, @Barton808, @twothirds, @Helzerman, @EvvivaKippen, @SnoopDave & , @JimParkinson.

To those faced with making a career change, aim high — you may be surprised. 🙂

P.S. If you’re looking, Accenture is doing a LOT of hiring. I’m happy to refer you, if we’ve successfully worked together in the past.

My Favorite Sun Microsystems Memory

In honor of the close of the Sun Microsystems acquisition, here’s my all time favorite tribute to Sun & specifically the people I was lucky enough to work closely with — the brilliant, hard-working, fun folks who built & managed Sun’s primary web properties.

Many thanks to Tim Caynes, User Experience Extraordinaire, for creating the following.

“Social Media ROI: Socialnomics”

When chatting about corporate use of social media, I’m beginning to see a shift from “Why?” to “How to do we catch up?”, but if you’re still wondering why or are in the challenging position of convincing a decision-maker that it’s a necessary leap, you may find the data in the following video useful.

The biggest threat to live conference stream participation: back-channel mobs

In light of limited budgets, a lot of us have been attending conferences via live web streams. This is great. We even get a nice sense of inclusion thanks to chat streams and the twitter back-channel. For the most part, this is incredibly helpful, but there’s a nasty underbelly that is a real threat to this web conference-topia — the back-channel mob. Per Danah Boyd, “…if the audience doesn’t want to be challenged, they tune out or walk out. Yet, with a Twitter stream, they have a third option: they can take over.” We’ve all seen this happen and it’s just as inexcusable as Kayne’s faux pas.

We wouldn’t tolerate an in-room bully to move on stage and take over a conference session — either the conference staff or audience would stop it. So why do we allow, and in some cases encourage, the same behavior via the back-channel? I suspect one reason is because since the back-channel is relatively new, protocols and guidelines are not yet defined nor understood. Speakers don’t always know what to expect or how to effectively integrate the back-channel with the front-channel. Back-channel participants easily veer off course. Front-channel participants infuse an interesting dynamic by being the eyes/ears for the back-channel, but in some cases use the back-channel to spark an angry mob. Conference organizers don’t feel responsible for back-channel crowd control even though they provide the technology to syndicate the conversation on a larger than life big screen.

This needs to change if we don’t want to continue to see great speakers either walk-away or refuse to allow back-channel goodness to occur during their talks. Danah touches on a few good back-channel guidelines in the following sentence:

“I will do my darndest to give new, thought-provoking talks that will leave your brain buzzing. I will try really really hard to speak slowly. But in return, please come with some respect. Please treat me like a person, not an object. Come to talk with me, not about me. I’m ready and willing to listen, but I need you to be as well. And if you don’t want to listen, fine, don’t. But please don’t distract your neighbors with crude remarks. Let’s make public speaking and public listening an art form.”

A few other proposed guidelines:

Back-channel Participants
Be respectful (no profanity, rudeness, trolling, etc.). Ensure your contributions are on-topic and add value. Save speaker evaluations for the session evaluation process. Be mindful that public speaking takes courage, even for the most seasoned speaker.

Speakers
ID a back-channel moderator, preferably someone who is seated in the audience, who can call out critical questions as time allows. This integrates the back-channel audience with the in-room audience and builds a sense of inclusion. It also helps to reinforce the back-channel guidelines and enables you to focus on your talk. Plan for including the back-channel conversation in your talk and let the back/front channel audiences know up front how they can best participate.

Conference Organizers
Ensure back-channel protocols and guidelines are well defined and easily accessible. Know that you are responsible for back-channel crowd control. Don’t assume that every speaker wants or can effectively manage the back-channel syndicated on the screen behind them.

What else?

[Poll] Does the new Twitter retweet feature annoy the crap out of you?

Additional thoughts: “Integrating Community Into Corporate Websites”

Matt Zellmer has an excellent post titled “Integrating Community Into Corporate Websites“, where he summarizes a comparison study that he ran regarding six high tech sites (Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, and SAP).

Some thoughts:

I agree that one size does not fit all, but whatever the corporate community/social media user experience/information architecture is, it should be somewhat cohesive & at a minimum, there should be some cross-pollination in place by making the all inclusive community bits findable & easy to navigate between each other & the main company site.

With regards to community sites outside of the main site (or company domain), another example of when this is OK is for open source communities. But there again, there should be some cross-pollination (at least links from the main site to the external open source site(s)).

Two additional principles I would suggest are:

1. A single set of guidelines/policy (including community moderation) for all community tools that are officially sanctioned/branded by the company. Again, open source communities that reside outside of the main site are an exception.
2. A single search engine. When people are seeking community contributions centered around a particular topic/product, they should be able to do this via a single search query.

And what about globalization, localization & internationalization? 🙂 That’s one area that companies seem to have forgotten about in their over-all social media/community strategies.

Exiting the Sun Ride

[Cross post from my final entry on my Sun Microsystems blog]…

Today is my last day at Sun. It has been a thrilling ride and one that I would do all over again. I’ve learned a lot, worked with some of the most brilliant people on the planet, worked for the world’s best management team who was more than willing to accommodate my requests to work on programs that most inspired me & happy to give me room to get my groove on, and now…I walk away with more experience and friends than I ever imagined I’d acquire through a job. I kicked butt & had fun! (I hope someone creates a tee-shirt for that McNealy-ism.)

Hands down, my favorite role (ever) is the one I am now exiting. Being your tour guide for Sun’s community sites (blogs, forums, wikis, etc.) went beyond just a job — it became an obsession. I was lucky enough to work directly with tens of thousands of Sun fans worldwide & Sun employees in every organization and in every rank in the company — from interns to our CEO. I’ve enjoyed every minute & every conversation (well, minus the spammers, trolls, & an unnamed executive blogger who asked me to air brush his mustache off his profile picture).

While it makes me sad that this is my last blog post on this site, I welcome change and wish my Sun fellows well as they embark on the next incarnation of Sun. “Thank you” to each of you for such fond memories — especially those who helped make the community sites such thriving & robust communities. It’s no wonder Sun is seen as a pioneer in this space and a poster child for corporate social media done right.

The world is a whole lot more connected thanks to social sites, so there’s no need to say good-bye — I’m just right here, here, here & here. I have a few irons in the fire & will be sure to keep you posted on my next big thing. 🙂

To new beginnings!

There’s something cool about people in sync…

Buying Corporate Gripe Site Domains: Effective PR Defense Mechanism?

RaganTV.com has an interesting interview posted with Paula Berg, media manager at Southwest Airlines. She explains how Southwest buys domain names that may be used by hostile consumers to denounce the company or it’s execs — these kinds of sites are also known as “gripe sites”. Per Paula, “[For] $10 or $15, what’s the harm? It can prevent some PR crisis down the line.”

My take is this can become a slippery & expensive slope. The best way to quiet an angry mob is to listen, then promptly & efficiently react — I’ve found that more often than not, they’re right. Having a company engage in the discussion on the gripe site might actually be perceived as more credible since the conversation is happening on community turf. At best, buying gripe site domains might make the conversation slightly less findable.

Thoughts?

Does your corporate social site inadvertently lock out compelling contributors?

To me, the primary objective of any company blog site should be to tear down all communication roadblocks (firewalls, difficult tools, overly rigid policy, etc.) that stand between employees & the world to enable free flowing human to human conversation. The Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has done that with their blog site.

The content, in multiple formats (video, blog posts, etc.), as told through compelling stories by their employees is heartfelt — like this (they need a video embed feature).

Though the underlying recruiting objective of the site is obvious, the site’s design & functionality is super comprehensive & efficient to use — which is paramount considering the focus of the employees/medical practitioners is likely not blogging, editing HTML, etc.

When decision makers choose a new media platform for their employees, the employees’ skill set, work style & time available for blogging, is often not considered because the platform decision makers (usually in IT) are primarily focused on the technology — which can be just as important as considering the users capabilities to successfully utilize the tool. The level of effort involved with supporting less tech savvy, or time available individuals (CXOs, practitioners — as in doctors & nurses in this example, etc.) should not be under-estimated. Trust me on this one.

If the tool is too cumbersome & time-consuming to use (especially by the employees with the most compelling stories to tell), then what’s the point? And believe me, you want their contributions.

My New Virtual Mom

While in couch potato mode watching mind-numbing Kardashian episodes, an interesting Kleenex commercial came on promoting their new campaign: getMommed.com.

I checked it out, took a brief quiz & found the best matched virtual mom for me is a nice lady named Magnolia. She had me at “There’s nothing that pie can’t cure, honey.” But that’s not all. Magnolia has her own Facebook fan page. I love that. I joined out of pure curiosity of seeing what Momma Magnolia will do next.

By the way, my real momma is a lot like Phyllis — extreme in-your-face mothering is her style. So, please don’t tell her about Magnolia, alright?

Unintential Mentoring

The collective sum of the wisdom depth & breadth of people whom I consider my mentors is unbelievably vast. For this, I consider myself incredibly lucky & grateful.

Here’s the twist. In many cases, (not all, of course) the mentor didn’t realize they were mentoring me. I’ve had amazing learning experiences from highly experienced people, people far more educated & brilliant than I can ever hope to be, super green interns, angry mobs, hostile trolls, homeless people, super old and super young people & every age in between, complete strangers whom crossed my path for the slightest slice of time, people on the internet whom I’ve never met (some know of my existence, but many will never know I am their pupil), people I have absolutely nothing in common with and frankly can’t stand, etc., etc., etc.

They all influence my thoughts and opinions. They all arm me with experiences that I’ll hopefully leverage well at some point in my life.

It makes me wonder how I may be adding or detracting value to those around me. Who might I be unintentionally mentoring and is the result for the greater good?

“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure its worth watching.”

~ Source Unknown

Happy Blog Action Day: Climate Change and the Pine Beetle Devastation #BAD09

As many of you know today is Blog Action day & the topic is Climate Change.

A climate change near & dear to my heart is something that weighs heavily on many Colorado residents & visitors minds: the devastating consequences of Rocky Mountain pine beetle damage due to climate change. The vicious cycle looks like this:

Lack of cold mountain temps -> increase in pine beetle population -> millions of acres expanding pine tree death -> devastatingly fewer trees (none in some areas) to remove greenhouse gas from the atmosphere while the decomposing trees actually emit millions of tons of carbon -> compounding and terrifying impact to our ecosystem. This isn’t hypothetical. The damage is done and increasing.

The good news is with 6.791 billion of us calling this planet home, we can help address climate change crisis. Here are a few ideas:

• US Environmental Protection Agency “Climate Change – What You Can Do” (at home, school, work & on the road)
• Blog action day blog posts (scroll down a bit & have a look at the panel on the left side)
• Blog action day tweets
• Register your blog for Blog Action Day & post your own ideas today

@kevinokeefe, Lawyer, on Companies who block Social Media

By now, you know how passionate I am about the proven goodness that companies see via the use of social networking (see the fine print here for one example). So, it’s no surprise that my stance on companies that block social sites is not one of support.

Kevin O’Keefe, my most recent favorite blogging lawyer, (but not my 1st favorite — sorry Kevin), has an excellent blog post on the topic titled “Companies and law firms blocking use of social media : Insanity is rampant“.

A few of my favorite quotes from his blog post:

“Maybe things have changed since I started practicing law almost 30 years ago. Back then law firms got their best work by word of mouth. Both lawyers and non lawyer personnel were expected to represent the law firm well in all they did (some things we were more proud of than others). We knew the more our employees came in touch with other people, the greater the opportunity people got to know them, and when the need for a lawyer arose, the people our employee’s met would think of us. Novel concept? Hardly.

Now we have one of the most effective mediums – the Internet – for time and cost effective networking and we’re telling lawyers and other legal professionals they can’t use it. Can’t use it because of fears born out of ignorance. That’s nuts.”

Have a look at the full post. Well worth the read.