Pause

Why I hate Oakland

It started the day we got a ticket for parking in front of our house. Apparently we were parked the wrong way, despite the fact that the street is really only one lane, despite the fact that all the other cars on our street were parked in the same direction as ours, despite the fact that we'd parked our car that way, as did our neighbors, for over 5 years.

Then came the ticket for our new car, parked in front of our house, which the ticket said, had an expired registration. Guess the person who issued the ticket couldn't see the temporary registration in the front window.

We contested both of these, H-band having to leave work to do so. And they let the second one go, at least we thought they did. We never heard back after contesting. Though we just received notice that we're in violation of the law and will now have to pay double or my credit will be affected, or the car will be impounded, or worse.

The next ticket came when I went to the doctor and saw there was no parking meter for my spot. I didn't see one nearby, so I simply parked and went to my appointment. I came back and found some gal writing me a ticket. There was a meter she said, pointing down the hill, more than one block away. All the meters work this way now. If I wanted to contest the ticket I could. 

This week, as I started to write my check to the city of Oakland, I found myself losing it. In the "for" line I wrote "ridiculous parking ticket". And then I wrote a note on the back about how pissed I am at the city for doing whatever it can to squeeze revenue out of its inhabitants. I voided the check. I have more room on this blog.

Encounters: People who don't live in "phases"

A very close friend insisted that I meet a woman she'd just met. She just had a feeling we'd get along. After many fits and starts--business trips, cancelled opportunites and challenges getting into the city at the same time--we finally managed to be in the same place at the same time. I'm all for serendipitous encounters, but I've made far less time for these encounters than I used to.

I recall the salad days of the Dot Com bomb, when we had plenty of time and nothing to lose from meeting people who may or may not be helpful to us. I met people on searches, some similar to my own, and could listen to them talk about their endeavors for the sake of listening. Years later, with a small business to help run, time was at a premium. I've learned a new skill lately of folding in these occasional encounters with official business meetings.

This friend of my friend's was traveling far out of her way to meet me. She'd moved to the Bay Area not long ago and had some challenges navigating suitable places to park in the city. I could have gone to her, I thought, feeling a tad guilty.

Over coffee (or an iced latte; it was a hot day) we talked about what we were up to. Clearly our mutual friend thought to put us together for a reason. I knew that my coffee date was working on her third book. I guessed that my friend hoped I would be a potential reviewer of it when it was ready, or could help her with a blog promotion strategy. As she spoke, I realized she hardly needed my help. She'd practiced medicine as an OB/Gyn for years, then decided to follow her passion for art. After creating a national following (she shows in galleries across the country), she thought to expand on her passion for writing. She is now working on her third book, which had received competing bids from multiple publishing houses. She didn't need my help with online promotion; her growing online community was thriving. She had a staff to help her maintain it. Three years ago she had  a daughter, and her husband, a Harvard MBA, had stopped working to explore his own possibilities and now spent his days at their home near the ocean.

I thought to myself, she has everything she wants. What can I possibly do for her? Perhaps, it became increasingly apparent to me, it was SHE who would help me.

Geeking Out: Is blogging wrecking marriages?

I'm on the East Coast for some Labor Day kicking back and will be staying out here on business. But last week in SF proved to be quite interesting. I sat on a panel with people I admire, including Rick Klau and Siobhan Quinn of Blogger, Blogger Founder and now Twitter Founder Ev Williams and his Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone, Salon.com Co-Founder and author of Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters Scott Rosenberg, SocialVibe CEO (and Blogger partner) Joe Marchese, and geekblogger and often dead-on observationalist Louis Gray. The premise of the panel: A general discussion of the evolution of blogging, with Blogger's 10th anniversary as a time peg.

So what do a bunch of us bloggy/microbloggy types have to talk about? The press on the other end of the room had few, if any, questions. I think they (and Louis) wanted to hear more about the beginnings of Blogger from Williams and Stone. And the rest of us, who had built businesses and blogs around blogging, could provide commentary. I added some facts about how the role of blogging has evolved for women. Initially it seemed more a personal platform tool, or a journaling tool. And I still think that it is. But I've also seen it launch businesses for women, who grew their expertise on their blogs and built consultancies. Some launched book and blog-writing careers from their blogs. I've also seen another side effect, one that I can't confirm with data, but more one I've observed among women I read and who have attended the BlogHer Conference numerous times: personal empowerment.

It's not easy to describe, especially in this way, but I will try. I have met quite a few women and mothers who, after getting into their blogging, are getting divorced. One, a mother of two, told me quite plainly about her former spouse, "He couldn't take it. All that was happening because of my blog. He was no longer the big shot." In another instance with a mother of four, the blog didn't compete with the spouse, but it provided a means of expression, and an entryway to other women on the Web, who helped her to see that there was more to life, and that she could have more in a partner. (I didn't tell these stories on the panel; I cited some data from our Blogging benchmark study and mentioned that I've personally seen transformations that women have had as a result of their blogging, including in some cases divorce.)

"So then blogging is wrecking marriages?" Rick Klau joked I had to clarify, absolutely not. People wreck marriages.

But while we have a whole lot of data behind women's media migration patterns and usage of social media to show increased adoption, there's another effect, one no one has measured yet, that I'd like to explore. I'm sure someone like my sister Julie, a genderist and women's history professor, will one day uncover it (hint, hint). Here's my theory: This blogging thing has made us all more accountable. And if we've been living to half our potential, or are living half-truths, we can now see that unlived part of our lives out there, while sitting at the kitchen tables of the women we read, just talking.

Maybe that's fodder for Blogger's 15th birthday.

 

Geeking Out: The New, New Agency

I never considered myself an ad girl. When it came to publishing I was all about the editorial, the center well baby! Early in my career I took a job at Time Inc's Custom Publishing division, and though I had an editor title, it felt a bit dirty building editorial that fit brands' needs. Today I am grateful for the experience because I learned how to play nice with brands AND create compelling content. I learned that content providers can be verry verry precious people, and that sometimes really good creative that also accentuates, or aligns, with brand messaging ain't a sin.

Today there's migration coming from the other direction--PR and advertising folks are building content in order to achieve that same alignment. They may or may not be going to publishers to achieve kismet, they often seek out the content themselves. Bloggers are a primary source, though agencies are still getting up to speed on how to treat content providers. Do they pay for engagement, or do they request "organic" endorsement (a.k.a. hope for a favor?) 

Redesign Update: Not yet folks

I spent a good hunk of the weekend working with H-band on my header concept. He's a Creative Suite impresario, but he ain't no creative director. "Just tell me what you want," he said, "and I'll make it." But the thing is, I'm no creative director, either. I don't have a visual in my mind. In my perfect world I'd share some key words and phrases, and what I want to accomplish with my blog, and someone would take my order and come back with a visual representation that I could yay or nay. When it comes to design I like it or I don't. I don't build. This limitation pisses me off.

But we did manage to start a visual. I'm worried it's looking too much like the cover of The Secret meets daylight. So I think up some flair.

"Can we throw in a wine stain, something like that?"

"Why?"

"I don't know. Just throw one in."

It's still a work in progress.

Geeking Out: An introduction to my social media posts

I reserve a good portion of my blog for personal expression and revelation. But given what I spend the bulk of my time doing--building a social media company--I can't help but have errant thoughts about where things are going in the new, new media space. I find that I am often so busy with the must-do's of running a business that this subject gets relegated to my reflection time. It's not work to me. I suppose it is personal.

But, hearkening back to a panel I was on with such bloggy people as Robert Scoble, who insisted that one must be as focused as possible on one's blog to cultivate strong readerships, I feel a conflict coming on. What am I writing about? Myself, or my industry? In deference to my multiple interests I'm going to break out my "workier" posts so that people who are interested in all things social media and marketing-related can find them. Behold my new section, "Geeking Out." I'll put my past posts that conform to this criteria in this space as well.

Wait, aren't we all media professionals?

So I find in my personal email account about 30 angry replies to a spammer, Beth Brody, who took it upon herself to spam the whole digital media world with "Jump Start Social Media Guide For Small Business". I wonder if she's read her product, it might make mention of the best ways to approach "influencers".

The angry replies, while justified, amused me because they were from savvy media people who, following Beth's lead, perpetuated the spamming with such requests as, "Take me of your f*%^ing list!" I believe that is because Beth had all of us blind copied, so we weren't aware others were on the list who could see spam fury at its greatest. Though after the tenth or eleventh angry request, I would think someone would notice they weren't just pinging the spammer.

Next came emails from some in the group, informing the uninformed that they were, in fact, spamming the whole list. And yet spamming the whole list while doing so. 

And so it continues.

For all of you who are wondering how to make the madness stop please contact Patient Zero: beth@brodypr.com.

On hugging and professional PDA

I'm a hugger, and I never thought that much about it. When I'm at parties and meet people for the first time, I hug them before I leave. I see people I know on the street, I hug them. When I'm seeing people in business settings that I know well I hug them. It only just occurred to me recently that we don't all have the same criteria around when we should hug in the office, especially if it's a male-female interaction.

I was recently visiting with clients that I know well. I've worked with one of my contacts for three years now. He makes it out to San Francisco every few months, and it's always good to talk social media with him. I know him well enough to know he's planning his wedding, which takes place in a few weeks.

When I saw him and his co-worker I approached arms out. I had just come back from BlogHer in Chicago, where I had been used to hugging, even kissing people on the cheek. I forget that while me and my business pal are friendly, he's not so much a hugger. Upon reaching out for him, he swerved for the shoulder-to-shoulder hug, looking off to the side. I accidentally whacked him in the face with the hand I reserve to clutch and pat my huggee on the back.

To prove I'm becoming more like my mother every day I reverted to her method of pain reduction and reactively grabbed his face, because somehow grabbing someone's face makes whacking them hurt less. Just when he was probably thinking, "please don't touch me any more than you already have."

I've stopped kissing people on the cheek except when I'm in NYC, and even then I assess the target. Probably the dumbest thing I ever did was this May when, despite all the hubbub about swine flu, I went to a friend's wedding in Mexico, came back with a raging cold, and still insisted on making my way to New York for a conference and some meetings. I visited with another professional pal who asked me what I've been up to.

"Just got back from Mexico," I said, then started hacking uncontrollably.

"Oh really?" he said, trying to not look overly concerned. As I left, I grabbed the poor man, who was relocating to an office in another country, hugged him and provided a cheek-to-cheek airkiss.

"Besta luck!" I said.

I envisioned what he was saying to himself silently, "Typhoid freak, please leave."

Post-BlogHer '09: A Reminder of the Power of Listening to Influentials

My latest on Jack Myers.com. BlogHer '09 from the marketer's perspective

Pardon My Dust

Things look a little different here at Pause, no? I've been wanting to re-design for years now and just haven't been able to think of my angle. I'm playing with palettes for a while, and with content, while I get closer to embracing the mojo I felt back in '04-'05, when I had a real vision behind my blog. BlogHer '09 got me back to thinking about my blog purpose. Please accept this site as a work in progress. Purpose doesn't come quickly, but the palette change definitely gets my mind thinking again.