Friday, February 27, 2009

Making Lemonade!

How do you take an issue from 0-160 in 60 seconds?! Your hire a guy like Shaun Dakin. On March 26 Shaun is going to be speaking to an audience at Siteworx headquarters on how he took his little nonprofit, with no budget or staff, into prime time using social media tools. His story is really, truly inspiring and I'm in awe of what he was able to accomplish.

Shaun is the kind of guy that we all are blessed to get to know. He's so dedicated to what he believes in and can come up with some of the best ideas. He is a voracious networker and such a well-read marketer, every time I sit down with him I'm enlightened with fresh ideas.

People like Shaun are so hard to come across today. I think our decade or more of prosperity has made many of us quite soft. We've all gotten far too comfortable with the status quo and have an incredibly low threshold for ambiguity. Shaun is the kind of person who knows how to make lemonade out of the lemons he's been dealt. And his lemonade is quite delicious!

I hope you will come out and join us. You can register for the event at http://www.siteworx.com/company/news/events/online_strategies_in_09_social_media.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

When is Enough, Enough

I'm one of the few people I know who's an eternal pessimist. I can always see the down side to every scenario and like to look ahead. Sometimes that turns into a dry sense of humor and an inability to have fun, but admittedly it's who I am and I understand that about myself.

What we've been experiencing over the last two months has been really quite incredible. The steady drumbeat of bad news from Wall Street, Main Street and every other street in between has become a cacophony. It's so bad my 9 year old is talking about all the companies he's heard that are going under and how it's so hard to make any sales.

He even wondered aloud what would happen if his Kumon tutoring school went bankrupt. It would be the end of his daily assignments and weekly trips to the center for lessons. Yes, that's right. All the bad news has got him schemin' on the demise of his math tutor.

I decided about two weeks ago that I would take a break from the news until the election. It took me all of 2 hours to break the commitment. Wow, depressing isn't close to what the news is right now. Terrifying is closer to what I think most people are feeling.

Well, I've decided to STOP worrying about the eventuality of it all. The sad fact is that most of us don't have much control over anything, but ourselves.

I've made a commitment to stay true to my faith, keep a positive outlook and by all means avoid letting the frenzy in the media get me upset.

You see, if we're upset, then we're more likely to read their news, look at their broadcasts, listen to their breaking news and in the end drive up their ratings. It's really a crime what the media are doing to us today. Let's commit to take a few steps back from the ledge and stop listening to all the drama and fear mongerers. The only way they can control us is if we give in to their hysteria. Let's keep our heads and work to support one another. The alternative is just too sad to consider.

Way to go Sis!

I'm so proud of my sister over at The 3 Letter Word blog. She's one of the smartest, most committed women I know. Years ago, when bulletin boards were in vogue, she really got into commenting and discussing politics online. She was an early, early adopter of social media, before all the buzz.

Then suddenly, she stopped commenting and quit the bulletin boards altogether. Life got busy, politics got boring, and other priorities seemed to take over. We even stopped talking about politics when we got together. More important things to talk about like family and work.

Well this election season has gotten her all riled up and newly committed to sharing her perspective. I LOVE it. She's the kind of person that you just don't argue with because it never ends. Really, it's kinda amazing that someone can be so tenacious and convicted of their beliefs. I could go on and on about how much I love and respect her, but she already knows that. While I don't agree with her all the time, it's really kinda amazing to follow her when she's in her element.

Hope you'll check her out.

Trishie