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I’ve learned so many things before even getting to SXSWi.  For instance, I can now spell “hemorrhoid” without the squiggly red line appearing below it!  That alone, is a big win. Maybe not, but since SlideRocket doesn’t seem to have spell check — pretty crucial to my life.

I’m heading off to SXSW tomorrow, and probably won’t be blogging much while I’m there.  I will of course be on Twitter, FourSquare and Gowalla!

The hub of my presentation activity is at www.whowantstolike.com.  I’ll be posting the presentation there on Sunday, and Nicole Franklin, our awesome PR person at RTCRM will be uploading other goodies as the week goes on.   If you want to check out the Twitter activity around the presentation, the hashtag is #want2like.

January 14, 2011 | In: Blog

Digital Behavior Goodies

(x-posted from Treffpunkt)

I really do appreciate how much I get out of FastCompany.com.  This morning was a bevy of really good stuff that everyone should read.

Sofa-Friendly iPad Reading Could Eat Into Primetime TV’s User Attention
The iPad effect.  Are people actually reading again instead of just watching TV?  Looks like they may be reading Web pages and books on iPads. What they don’t know is if they are dual-screening or just reading.

“Alone Together”: An MIT Professor’s New Book Urges Us to Unplug
Not an anti-technology rant, but rather showing frighteningly addicted we’ve become to digital reassurance of our status in the world.  I added this to my reading list, but I’m afraid it will be really depressing.  From the sounds of it, people are living lives of such quiet desperation that they live for mystery of what the next text message contains.  Bonus points to author Sherry Turkle for managing to equate this to actions in a Jane Austen novel.  Seriously.  That part just made me happy.

British Health Technology Entrepreneurs Courting Silicon Valley’s Heavyweights
How a Breakthrough in Hysterectomies Could Lead to Better Family Photos
The latest ground in healthcare is technology and a lot of people seem to be figuring this out.  Two articles from the past couple of weeks really showed the innovation and potential business possibilities if we leave our comfort zones.

Pac-Man Reboot: In the Bio-Arcade, Microorganisms Change Gameplay
Healthcare and science gaming seems to be all the range these days.  This was a totally new twist on it.  In this case Stanford University scientists are actually micro-organisms as part of the game.  Weird, and raises ethical questions even if they are only using brainless paramecium.

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Elderly

Photo Credit: sicamp (C) creative commons attribution

As we leave 2010 and head into 2011, a sad thing has crossed my mind – we are leaving the Greatest Generation behind.  I was having lunch with my great-aunt a couple of weeks back, she’s somewhere in her 80s or early 90s, I’m really not sure. At her age, she still works a few days a week and even has learned to use a computer at work.  But she’s never bothered with the Internet.  Yes, there’s stories of the “silver surfers” — but she’s not one of them.

Until recently, she really was fine with that, but she’s realized she’s being left behind.  It’s not that she cares about learning the technology, and the family does a good job of calling and sending snail-mail cards and such.  The issue is with community groups she belongs to — her synagogue, in particular.  Like so many groups they do everything via email and online, which is fine for 99% of people.  But what about those people truly caught in the digital divide?

We, collectively as a society, have an ethical responsibility to ensure that we don’t leave our elderly behind.  Moving into the future community groups, and even possibly corporations, will need to develop new infrastructures and strategies to ensure that we don’t leave our elderly behind.  Right now, it’s a matter of providing offline alternatives — maybe organizing a phone tree that notifies elderly members of upcoming events.  But as the Silent Generation enters their golden years, they are digital.  They use the Web, email, and smartphones.  And leading edge Boomers, by no means elderly yet, are starting to feel the changes of age.  The issue for them will be ensuring we are building tools and features that are accessible to arthritic hands and failing eye site.

At the corporate level, I think elder-care may be a new area of corporate social responsibility to explore in 2011 and on.  We all are aging, despite our efforts to make it stop.  With technology moving at the speed of light, it’s not a matter of ability to ease transitions into aging — it’s a matter of will and commitment.  Imagine if every organization, corporation, PR group, and marketing team were judged on not only how profitable* their efforts were – but also by how accessible their websites, apps, and such are to the elderly.  Besides just ensuring we don’t disenfranchise people just due to aging, we’d also be building a world that is probably easier for people who require assistive technology for other reasons.

What’s on your score card?  Is it just dollar signs, or are people are part of how you measure success?

——————–

*profitable could be simple ROI, or successful programs, grant applications or whatever you measure success by.

December 27, 2010 | In: Blog

Be the Mayor of Anywhere

IRL @Foursquare "mayor" badges i made for my team at work.

IRL Foursquare "mayor" badges i made for my team at work as holiday presents this year.

Check out my thoughts about our end of year reprieve from the FDA at Treffpunkt.

And check out my post about Steampunk on Grant McCracken’s CultureBy blog.  The awesome picture below takes you to Polyvore, not Culture by.

December 19, 2010 | In: Blog

You Don’t Seem to Blog Much

If this site is all you knew of me, you’d think I don’t really write much.  Life is pretty full, and since the blogging is hard to bill to clients I have to pick and choose my time.

The majority of my blogging efforts these days are over at Treffpunkt,  the RTCRM Digital Integration & Innovation team blog. I should probably do the occasional round here of the things I’ve posted there.  I suppose that’s what this post kind of is!

Here’s a few of my recent posts that I think are worth sharing:

I also really want to share Perspectives a monthly publication of briefings the Digital Integration & Innovation team (which I lead) puts out every month.  As department head, I get the joy of both contributing and editing my team’s submissions before they go on to our managing editor, Nicole Franklin.  The December, holiday themed issue, just came out and should be added to the list below soon.  Our January issue will be focused on things we’re keeping an eye on in 2011.

December 5, 2010 | In: Blog

Healthy Thinkers

A week back Jon Richman, my colleague at a sister WPP agency, asked if I’d be interested in getting involved with a new project of his.  It took about ten seconds of reading over the idea to say, “Yes!”     Here’s what Jon is up to:

“I realized that it would be simple to bring together many of the people that could help fulfill some of these ideas and requests with those that need help. That’s why I created Healthy Thinkers.”

Healthy ThinkersIn a nutshell, Healthy Thinkers is about using doing some good for healthcare.  Jon is bringing people from all parts of the healthcare system together to see what we can do.  Through the site people can submit ideas, vote on them, ask for help with an idea, or comment on ideas or requests submitted.

One of the greatest parts of this is that it allows people who otherwise might be competing against each other to collaborate and actually try and do some good.  When you work in Pharma Marketing, most people think you are the devil.  Truth is there are a lot of us who want to use our powers for good.  I know that I’ve amassed a crazy amount of knowledge around the healthcare industry in just the few years I’ve been an insider.  I’m both amazed and terrified at by the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry.

Idealism is good.  Idealism is even better when it’s matched with action.  It’s not enough to say, “we need to change things.”  You need to actually try!

Come join us over at HealthyThinkers and let’s see what we can do to improve healthcare for those who receive it and those who provide it!

I couldn’t believe when I first saw this book. a few years ago.   I had completely forgotten about Sassy magazine, and suddenly I had a rush of memories.  They didn’t publish it on Amazon’s Kindle platform, so it took until now for me to break down and buy a hard copy.

How Sassy Changed My Life

How Sassy Changed My Life

I’m reading this now and am now intrigued that it may be a hidden cultural watershed for many Gen-X women.  I remember first hearing about Sassy just before the first edition was published back in 1988.  I would  have been a freshman or sophomore in high school at the  time.  I’ve always thought myself mainstream of the mainstream back in those days, but I in reality I was pretty much in the freak and geeks club.  If you watch Glee — that was me.  I was indeed in Show Choir, although unlike those kids we tended to win regionals.  I was in drama club, leading to that degree and 9(ish) year career in theatre.  And I was one of those kids others got in trouble for cheating off of, at least in English and History.   If you cheated off of me in math class you clearly weren’t paying attention to my utter lack of natural skill in that area.

Whenever I would read about what it was Gen-X was supposed to be or be doing in those days, I just couldn’t relate.  I was hardly a slacker or into grunge.  Actually, I didn’t develop an appreciation for Kurt Cobain and Nirvana until my 30s.  Musically I would define my high school years by Bell Biv Devoe, Bon Jovi, and whatever else was on the Top 40 charts, with a brief brush with Rush.

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Everything is Connected

Everything is connected if you can see what's not being said, what's missing, and read between the lines. Understanding those connections not only makes us people, but better marketers. In the end, it's all about understanding how what you are doing is relevant to someone else.

My job is to understand those connections and be able to help you to not only be able to see them, but also use tthose connections to improve the world around you. Sometimes it's just why someone would care about your product. Sometimes its understanding how services like Twitter are help return a lost sense of community.

Either way, it's about making connections.

Life Stream

Shevat Altar  Need more. NOW!  A little brewsky  You can take the bear out of Washington....  BTB on a little break  "Oh, My!"  

Through the Years

This site has been through many iterations since I first launched it in the Summer of 2000. Every iteration since 2001 is actually captured in the Internet Archive.

  • Take a little tour down memory lane