While I was browsing through Pinterest one day, called there by a fun board by my friend Joanne Bamberger called “Binders Full of Women,” I thought it would be fun to create a pin board with my book covers, but then I thought I should add Joanne’s book, Mothers of Intention, since she was my [...]
From January’s perch I have decided to take a look back at 2012. It was certainly a year of media, where companies struggled to find their footing in Web 3.0, where mobile became the buzz word and visual media–both videos and photos–proved there is no end to creativity or time to view everything from lovely [...]
Entrepreneurs are inspiring. They are often people with vision who see a problem and commit to proving a solution. I met 50 or so entrepreneur women at Power Up weekend who were seeking ways to affirm their goals. Kristen Bocanegra, founder of Momme Meals, told the story of her ah ha moment to make meals that [...]
Twenty-five years ago, Paul Newman, with the support of his wife Joanne Woodward and eventually all of his family decided kids with cancer and other life-threatening diseases deserved to “raise a little hell” and go somewhere where even very sick “kids could be kids.” His vision became The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in [...]
While I was browsing through Pinterest one day, called there by a fun board by my friend Joanne Bamberger called “Binders Full of Women,” I thought it would be fun to create a pin board with my book covers, but then I thought I should add Joanne’s book, Mothers of Intention, since she was my inspiration.
Then a light bulb went off over my head. I could not leave out the Working Mom Survival Guide by my friends Teresa Palagano and Suzanne Riss, or Carol Evans’ manifesto on working mothers. Hmm, but then it was clear I couldn’t stop pinning. How could I leave out Camilla Webster’s Seven Pearls, one of the best finance books for women in 2012, or Cherie Blair’s memoir?
Having come up through the ranks as a journalist, I have lots of friends who write books–some of whom I met after they became authors, others I have known as they first germinated their manuscripts. Like Camilla, my Forbes’ colleagues have been among the most prolific but others are out there scratching the surface with forays into digital books!
So, I have filled a Pinterest Board with “Books Written by my Friends and Me.” I know it’s not complete and never will be. Who have I left out? Please let me know!
From January’s perch I have decided to take a look back at 2012. It was certainly a year of media, where companies struggled to find their footing in Web 3.0, where mobile became the buzz word and visual media–both videos and photos–proved there is no end to creativity or time to view everything from lovely photos on Pinterest to videos of every length and topic across the World Wide Web.
Google published its Zeitgeist, a list of lists of trending topics throughout the world. Google’s top ten images included mostly pop singers and the iPhone. I am not sure what that says about our collective tastes.
Over the weekend, newspapers from the New York Times (and online) to our local Journal News published their year in pictures as television stations ran their video montages we always called, “The Year Ender.”
I have my own year-ender rolling in my head. Beyond family, it is filled with images of political campaigns debated, won and lost, binders full of women, Big Bird and Elmo, Olympic athletes competing in London, wars raging in Iran and Afghanistan with more body bags coming home, the Mideast ablaze in rocket attacks, famine in Africa, a man with flaming red hair who opened fire in a crowded theater, and the most indelible of all for me were the images of the double-whammy close to home: Sandy and Sandy Hook. The most haunting, of course, remains the shooting rampage at a quiet little school in a nearby hamlet in CT where my children have friends and where it could have been Any Town USA. Photos of children’s faces frozen in time and Christmas trees adorned with memories will linger. It was a year marked by a country galvanized politically and marked by violence where young soldiers and young children died in vain.
And how did the media handle it? By looping photos and images over and over again. But did they need to? Images never leave us now. They are just a click away.
It’s hard to miss news or the images it provides. If you didn’t see it on TV, there’s a clip in your Facebook newsfeed shared by a friend. There’s an alert in your email about breaking news, or a Google alert on a topic you find interesting.
My colleague, Sean Womack at Touchstorm took stock after the presidential election of how the campaigns used video for better or for worse. He seemed to think they could have used it in a better way to convey the stories they wanted the world to see rather than those they didn’t (like Romney and the 47% debacle). As Sean says, with smartphone cameras, nothing is off the record ever. Here’s Sean’s take: The Camera is Always Rolling
Meanwhile, I look forward to the images of 2013. No presidential politics and, I hope, no pictures of tiny children lost to this world for no reason.
Entrepreneurs are inspiring. They are often people with vision who see a problem and commit to proving a solution. I met 50 or so entrepreneur women at Power Up weekend who were seeking ways to affirm their goals. Kristen Bocanegra, founder of Momme Meals, told the story of her ah ha moment to make meals that are nutritionally sound for new moms who may still be breastfeeding or just struggling with the overwhelming days of having a newborn in the house. From helping out a friend, a new business was born. (They serve the greater DC area.)
Bocanegra told her story at Power Up Weekend in Washington DC, a power packed daylong conference for women. She helped sponsor the conference with a break time snack of homemade muffins. While her business is new, it was much further along than some of the 50 women in the room who were attending to get that first push in the right direction.
Power Up was a daylong conference created by Uneeka Jay of Philadelphia, the founder of Power Mommy Nation. Her personal mission is to empower women to take control of their lives and be successful according to their own definition. That message was loud and clear. Most of the 50 attendees were current solopreneurs or what I’d call “second shift entrepreneurs,” like Jay herself, who gets a paycheck by day and lays the groundwork for their dreams by night. For a one-day conference, Power Up packed a lot into a well-organized schedule.
Jay who goes by @powermommy on twitter and blog radio opened the conference with her talk called “Before the Click.” When I read the title, I wondered what she meant by “click.” Being in digital media, I assumed she meant a web click and wondered where this was going. Instead, she explained. “The click” referred to the final click of the coffin lid. She explained how seeing that final click of her mother ‘s coffin changed her life.
She challenged the women in the room to define their goals and fulfill their dreams before the click of their lives.
Following that theme, JJ Geronimo, a dynamo digital woman, is the author of The Working Woman’s GPS . She, like a couple of other speakers, reminded the type-A attendees that many of them were doing too much, saying yes to too much and needed to streamline and negotiate their lives so they could accomplish what they want without crowding out their dreams. As I have often said, it’s all about balance–not having it, striving for it. Some days one side of the scale is up and some days it’s down.
For me these were more than reminders. They gave me a chance to pause and reconsider the personal goals we often let go with the demands of life. Sometimes it takes someone else to push you. Sometimes, a gathering of women with purpose can do just that.
Since this was an event mostly for entrepreneurs, three of us speakers offered practical help. Cecilly Kellogg (known to the twitterverse at simply CecillyK, the woman with the swatch of pink hair, and to the blogosphere as the writer, Upper Case Woman, gave a crash course in social media, followed by attorney and entrepreneur Stacey Ferguson, known online as Justice Fergie and a co-founder of Blogalicious, who elaborated on creating a business out of blogging which focuses on the multicultural social community of women online.
I led a workshop I call The Brand of You, a how-to for dynamic communications, especially important for solopreneurs. The workshop focuses on choosing the right words to clarify their message and communicate their unique value proposition in everything they do and project confidence in doing it.
Many of the attendees were from the Philadelphia Social Media Moms group (PSSM). Their tweets of the day and close connections made us all feel even more like we were part of a circle of friends with a common mission: to uplift each other.
Even attendees inspired us. At 29, Tevyka H. is an Air Force Veteran new to the DC area, who has begun blogging in hopes to somehow to be a voice for returning women vets. She was looking for tips and ideas about how to create a social media voice as a foundation to launching something more.
To top off the day, the only male speaker, Jim Smith, Jr., founder of JimPact, gave a motivational capstone. He was described as Uneeka Jay’s mentor and coach, the guy who helped her move toward her goals of empowering other women. His colorful storytelling and sometimes funny presentation encouraged us to get a TAN–defined as “Take Action Now.” His focus is for his clients and audiences to get the best out of themselves to excel at what they do. With that, the non-stop day ended with our heads buzzing and our plans swirling.
Sponsors included The Wine Sisterhood, Momme Meals, and Honest Tea.
Twenty-five years ago, Paul Newman, with the support of his wife Joanne Woodward and eventually all of his family decided kids with cancer and other life-threatening diseases deserved to “raise a little hell” and go somewhere where even very sick “kids could be kids.” His vision became The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in rural Connecticut, not far from his home near Westport.
That vision grew into multiples of camps in America and overseas, now called: Serious Fun Camps. This year, 2012, in celebration of the 25th year of that first camp many celebrities, as they have in the past, have offered time and talent to support the Connecticut camp and the Serious Fun Camps mission.
Singer/Songwriter Natalie Merchant is one. She spent a day, with a crew at The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp during Session 7, when my 14-year-old daughter was in residence. Now a video has been published and is going viral with kids telling their stories, intercut with interviews with Paul Newman, kids singing along with Natalie, like Clare, in the barn-like dining hall and doing what kids do best there–having a helluva time! Here’s the video:
And here’s the CBS Sunday news story on the anniversary shot on day 1 of Session 7. It was a busy session and Clare loved every minute of it. She keeps in touch with Camp friends everyday on Facebook.
Here’s more about Clare’s experience meeting some of the benefactors after her first year at camp a few seasons ago: (note read down a few pars & you will get the whole story).
And when you see kids having a good time, remember the kids who have a hard time being kids.
Welcome to my New York!
I have had a kaleidoscope career in media–digital, television, radio, books. My interests are as broad as life itself–financial and business, family and work-life, health care and politics, even travel and history. I am passionate about the advancement of girls and women and throw energy behind special causes: childhood cancer & Lyme disease research and awareness.
