Behind the scenes at Babaloos

Once again our new media guru, Tony Arranaga, is out in the field producing great social media for our clients.  Here he visits with Chef Robert Gonzalez at Babaloos Cuban Cafe who describes this tasty dish.

Thanks Tony……er where is the sample you brought back to the office?

At what point do you step in?

What should you do when a colleague’s employee is getting a reputation for being a “troll” online?  What’s a troll? It’s someone who consistently posts comments on blogs that are intentionally inflammatory, derogatory or full of hate-speech.  What would you do?

Julia and Me

© Columbia Pictures

I had the lucky fortune of seeing “Julie & Julia,” last night. When I heard that Meryl Streep was cast as Julia Child I remember thinking, “I love Meryl but as Julia Child…mmmm, I don’t know about that.”

What an incredible performance by Streep. She crafted the character with all of the quirkiness, charm and wry humor that one remembers of Julia but she also brought an unexpected lustiness to her that was brilliant. And I loved her all the more for it.

On to the story.  Although the theme  was to parallel a journey by both characters on separate paths yet united by food and the contemporary character’s sharing of her journey through writing a blog, I found my self disappointed when the film bounced from Julia Child’s story to the present day story line. As sparking as Amy Adams is, I still wished the story was entirely about Julia.

Still, I am left with wonderful feelings for the film. It was one of those rare occasions where I honestly did not want the film to end. I fell in love with Streep’s characterization and wanted to know more about Julia Child’s adventures.

I felt both fulfilled and still hungry for more.

I believe I enjoyed the film on two different levels connected by a common thread. What I mean is, both Streep’s performance as well as the true nature of Julia’s personality could be distilled into one word: authenticity. Julia was about “I am who I am and that’s enough.” Streep dug into that and revealed it in a magically effervescent, genuine performance that could easily be turned out in a lesser actor’s hands as a one-dimensional or over-the-top.

Authenticity is a powerful thing.

Everyday, I celebrate authenticity with my clients.  I want my clients to project authenticity with great story telling.  Making promises that they can keep and telling the truth. As individuals we want to be moved, we want to be inspired and we want to feel important.

Those chords within us are only struck by authentic actions, and the resulting tone is pure, fulfilling and lingers long.

TB4T

Too Busy for Twitter. That’s where I’m at today. After taking a short but very needed vacation, I’m back in the office and probably more overwhelmed than when I left. But that’s a good thing right?

Which get’s me thinking. How much do I let myself get bogged down in details that I could put off for later or for the weekend? Twittering is a very important part of my business, both for my clients as well as myself. I literally had to DRAG myself over to the twitter.com web site today to engage with my tweetpeeps. It got me thinking that I need to institute a morning, noon and night strategy for twitter. Meaning that I will make it a point to engage in conversation and share in the morning, at lunch time and in the evenings to catch up with what’s happening.

Monday night was the third anniversary for our client Ticoz. It was a huge success. As I greeted guests and tag teamed with the host on managing the event, my New Media Advisor, Tony Arranaga was busy as ever taking photos, posting comments on twitter and Face Book and engaging his audience in a play by play account of the action.

Having someone on staff who gets this and who is constantly thinking of ways to make our news vibrant and rich with content is truly a great thing. We’re working together in both the real and virtual worlds.  Yes, social media takes time from your day.  Yes, it can seem less important that other pressing issues.  But the reality is that social media is an essential part of our company’s success as well as the success of our clients.  Enough said.

Now, if I could just make more time for my blog….

Blog to the Nation

social media graphic

So yesterday I was on the phone with a reporter from a Tampa Bay newspaper who told me that he loved my story about client Lee Brandon and had met her before and would love to cover the story but that due to cutbacks and layoffs at the paper he wouldn’t be able to do the story. He promised to pass the information along to colleagues though. Then in a conversation with my sister last night, it got me thinking once again about where media is going. On the one hand, we have our new President, who throughout his steady and disciplined campaign reached out to young and old alike through social media–not only his Web site but also through “twittering,” to those hunger for Obamanews. Yet at the same time, newspapers around the nation continue to dwindle. Our very own Republic has laid off countless staff, the Scottsdale Tribune will fold after the first of the year and BizAz is no longer and history. Where will the information age go next? It’s true we have moved from consumers of information to prosumers of information, creating our own content on the web..blogs, podcasts, video uploads, etc. Yet with no “journalistic integrity,” how can we always be sure that content subscribes to the same ethics and balanced approach that reporters have sworn to uphold from the time the first news hit the press a century or more ago? And then there is the reality of advertising. While consumers are bombarded with messages from every part of life, TiVo allows for fast forwarding and reduced readership means fewer advertising dollars to support printed content…where are we headed? My sister says that for the first time in her life she feels like she is connected to an American President. She can share her ideas and her feelings on Obama’s website. Trust me, I believe that even during his presidency I believe he will continue to use social media to stay connected to the American public. Yet I am still conflicted. Communication at the highest level while locally news dwindles. Great stories need to be told, the question is from where will they be born?

Dude, where’s my blog?

I have neglected my blog and other social media that are so important to my business.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks.  After months of summer slow down, the last few weeks have been so busy I have really been working round the clock.  My work day usually starts around 7am and doesn’t really end until about 7 pm.  Many weeks I also have two or three evening events and I often work through the weekend.  Wow it’s been crazy.  Lately I’ve been thinking of hiring an assistant.  That’s a good thing right?  I mean, for the first two quarters of this year its been a mad dash to find new clients and service the one’s that I have.  Now every day is a lesson in organization and I often wish I had someone to handle a lot of the administrative tasks around here, yet at the same time I need someone who can also write, pitch and research.

Should I hire an intern from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at ASU?  I’m wondering if I would spend more time supervising and teaching new skills than benefiting from the extra hands.

I’ve also looked into what is called a Virtual Assistant—someone who handles all of a businesses administrative tasks from their own home—often never even stepping foot in a client’s office.

Although this has some merit, there’s nothing like being in the thick of things and seeing first hand where the priorities lay.  One of the best assistants I ever had was a high-school student. Shalice was amazing.  Everyone called her Shalice Felice and it was perfect because she anticipated my every need.  She went through my voicemails, transcribed them and prioritized them.  She went through email and inbox prioritizing and hunting me down if there was a fire.  She was empowered to make decisions–and she did.  I miss her and I hope that, wherever she is today, she is doing well and above all, appreciated.

Until I make a decision about an assistant, I’ve learned to start each day making a list of important tasks and reviewing that list at the end of the day to see which items require immediate attention the following day—hopefully to the exclusion of other distractions.  And of course the phone is ringing so I have to go.