So...What's Next?!?

Week in Review

This was a very compact week and some of it is kind of blurry. Let's start with a total flash back to 1988. Why? Because a high school friend posted this on Facebook and it is one of those songs that takes you right back to "that time."

Alright, now to recap the week.

My Family

My youngest stayed home from school on Monday and Tuesday. Monday he still had a fever every 8 hours or so, on Tuesday he was completely fine. I, however, was not. My head hurt and my body hurt and I just wanted to take some drugs and fade away for awhile. But I was home with my youngest, who was bouncing off the walls, so I did not get to hide away until my husband came home from work. 

However as I sit here and write this blog, I actually have the house completely to myself and honestly not sure what to do with such freedom. My youngest is staying the night at his nan's house and my oldest is at his first High School Homecoming Game. 

Concept Hub

I think I might have stumbled across something good. For several months I have been toying with the idea of an individualized training solution that was scalable. I built an invite only ning network with videos and books and a Q&A forum as a self-paced training solution, but there is an abundance of information there and still needs better navigation. Then a friend of mine who I spoke to in the past about the idea asked to sign up along with her business partner. We talked and I put together a personalized  10 session program for them at a value of $750 each. I posted some brief information on Twitter and another friend sign up. My first friend referred her aunt who signed up. I enjoy the one on one personalized training sessions, they are affordable to most people and it is scalable. Cool!

Community Outreach

Oh all the opportunities I have missed out on! I was supposed to attend a very cool fundraiser event for Africa on Sunday with my friend Stephanie who is doing some amazing work in photography, but I was contagious. I was dressed and ready to go to a girls night out comedy event last night that supported Start Up Chicks, when my headache got worse. And no I still have not scheduled an appointment to donate blood!

But what I DID do this week is give a social media presentation today to a full house at the Foundation Center for Arts & Humanities month. I was caught on film and it will be posted in a few weeks to view. It was a 2 hour presentation, so I am interested in how they will post the video...yeah I can talk about social media for two hours. Actually  8-10 hours if anyone wanted me to.

Goals for the weekend?

I have no goals. I have no idea what I want to do next. I am wondering around lost right now. I will catch up with you on Sunday and let you know what I wondered into.

Scary Weekend

We got the scary decorations up.

 

But we also are dealing with the national scare....

My little guy, the one with friends who have confirmed cases of H1N1... has had his fever spike above 104 a couple of times this weekend.

I do not have a fever, but after waking up every 3 hours to check on him last night, I am not feeling so hot today.

Week in Review

Fall is here!

The weather has been an absolute delight this week. This kind of weather always puts me in such an optimistic mood.

I was thinking about that today. Why do I feel like everything is going to be great right when summer turns to fall? What I realized is that the major new beginnings of my life often happen in the Fall. 

I got engaged in the Fall.

I had my first child in the Fall.

I started College (FSU) in the Fall.

(Yes in that order...moving on...)

I started my first career job in the Fall

I started the job that changed the direction of my career, in the Fall

I started my company in the Fall.

Basically, it seems for me, new beginnings happen in the Fall. And I like new beginnings.

So, let's recap this past week, shall we.

My Family

My boys and I love to burn stuff. It is a way to release all the things we do not need to hold on to anymore. And it smells good.  

So this past week we spent some time burning some of the things that were representative of a bad start to a new school year for my oldest. 

It was also nice for me to sit by the fire with a glass of wine and tell myself it's all going to work out, it will all turn out fine. And I believe it will be. He is starting to find his groove and focus again and his grades have already started improving.

My youngest had his second week of chess club and is LOVING IT! (my little nerd :) ) I will be meeting with his teacher next week to see how he is doing, but it seems like the same as always. A rough start that will transition to a great year.

Unfortunately H1N1 has hit his school and the neighbor family is home with confirmed cases of the flu, so we are all washing our hands and crossing our fingers...

My oldest son, husband and myself have been watching Lost every night via Netflix streaming video. We are half way through season 3. Although the story keeps getting stranger, we keep our ritual to watch it together every night after my youngest goes to bed. I am not sure if it is because we are into the story or are just enjoying having something to do that is "ours." My oldest spent 6 years as an only child and I think he likes having these moments with his parents that he does not have to share with his younger brother.

Concept Hub

Wow! What an ego roller coaster ride. I recently read a quote that said "when you think it is all about you, God will find a way to humble you." That he did. The past year or so the social media space has become so noisy, and whereas I once was uncomfortable with the amount of attention that I received, now I wonder where all the attention has gone? The answer is it is spread thin. Very thin! Among all the new people in this space. I struggle with the direction I see so many people trying to go with social media though. Frankly I downright disagree with so much that is out there and I am sick of the self-absorbed people in this space. This is the part of the industry that really has been wearing me down lately. So I made a few decisions. One, I started joining the conversations again. I realized that the "been there done that" chip I was carrying around on my shoulder was not getting me anywhere, so I fired up my Twitter account and started seeking out some new and interesting people as well as some familiar people that I once learned from. I even attended a Tweetup last night!  

I also decided to dedicate some time to outlining a plan for the TAG Enterprise 2.0 society and possibly a related conference in the Spring.  I started blogging on the TAG Community more and developed a strategy for my own participation on the Lens site.

Notice none of this is billable. However, I was referred a few new clients who were told that I have been doing this social media thing for along time and was the person they needed to talk to. I also launched my first bootcamp and after tweeting about it had a few more people express interest in participating in a bootcamp. My billable hours this month might actually be higher than it has been any other month this year, all through word of mouth. Not counting my chickens before they hatch, but it has been a nice ego boost to get the vote of confidence from some great people.

Meanwhile I am still working with PBA on building a community at Lens. I have recruited a great guy to help with the outreach, someone who has been volunteering with me on Digitainment.

But for the most part, I am reading a lot, writing a lot, and spending time nurturing my relationships. 

My Community

I posted recently that a friend of mine and I have launched a new idea to match nonprofits with emerging artists. Well I set up a new twitter account to get some feedback on the idea, and 3 times now I have received notice from SlideShare that our slides were "hot on twitter" and were being featured on the front page of SlideShare. To date the slides have been viewed over 300 times, and I have not pushed them out to hardly anyone...

So, I decided it would be great if we could launch a few pilots in conjunction with some holiday campaigns. I have reached out to a CEO I know who runs a large agency that serves nonprofits and he has expressed interest in working with us. I am also talking to a friend who works at Big Brothers Big Sisters. I think we just might be on to something here.

Beyond that, I met with a potentially new client last week who told me a heart wrenching story about a woman who had some very rare complications while delivering her second child and almost died. In fact, 90% of the women who face this type of complication do die. Basically the blood does not clot and this woman went through 19 pints of blood! He was tearing up I was tearing up and the one thing that came to mind is how many times I keep telling the people at the blood bank, "not now, call me again later." Well, the people who need the blood do not have time for later. So I will be making my appointment to give blood. My family and I are also participating in Light the Night this weekend. Last year my husband took the boys and participated in memory of his cousin. This year I am going to join him.

Beyond that the weekend plans are to decorate the house for the fall festivities. I will post pictures.

Update

Light the Night is NEXT weekend...

Celebrating Oktoberfest

Yesterday, my husband and I drove to Helen, GA to see a friend perform for Oktoberfest.

First we spent some time enjoying a glass (or two) of Merlot at the majestic Anna Ruby Falls. 

Then we enjoyed the performance of the Chicken Dance...yes...The Chicken Dance...

Finally we had dinner that was perpared by an authentic German Chef at a restaurant that I can not remember and then we headed home in the pouring rain.

Overall, it was a very nice get-away.

Week In Review

It was a wet one...but everyone knows that already....

My Family

I am not sure how my oldest son pulled it off, but the new Halo game came out on Tuesday. This would have been a challenge for him, because although he pre-ordered the game and paid for it with his own money, per house rules he would not have been allowed to play the game on a school day. Of course, thanks to the rain and the floods, there was no school on Tuesday, and ...yeah...you can guess how he spent the day.

My youngest started Chess camp this week and he already learned all the moves that I could not figure out when it was just the two of use trying to learn the game. He definitely is enjoying it already.

My husband continues to work, and work, and work...but I cannot complain when there are so many people without work .

Concept Hub

I finished a project I was working on and have been taking some time just thinking about what direction to go next. As I was telling a good friend last night, the social media space is noisy, but beyond that it is noisy with people who simplify it, which makes selling a holistic and comprehensive strategy more of a challenge. I have been posting some Enterprise 2.0 over at the TAG community and getting some good traffic on that blog. I'll reveal a little secret here....most of those posts are over 2 years old. I have been trying to get people to understand Enterprise 2.0 for a LONG time. But all in good time I suppose.

Also, I launched a new idea for fund raising. I met with Monica over at Milk Money Consulting and she endorsed this idea which gave me the motivation I need to introduce the idea to the online world. Here are the slides;

The Idea

View more presentations from Concept Hub, Inc.

Community

Yesterday I was feeling kind of down, but I had an awards dinner that I had to attend. The Atlanta Children's Shelter was honoring 8 women/moms who have hit rock bottom but in a very short amount of time, not only picked themselves up, but have excelled! Who was I to feel bad about ANYTHING. Here are some pics from the event.

Well, gotta pack. I am heading to Helen, GA this weekend...a much needed break.

Beatles Review

Friday afternoon I felt very fatigue, in fact I could not get motivated to do ANYTHING! I checked my temperature and it was climbing slightly. I rarely get sick, but I thought perhaps I might have caught something. By the next day I was fine. However just to make sure we decided to lay low this weekend.

We have been playing the new Beatles Rock Band game, the one that came out on Wednesday. Yeah...we started playing it last night, finished playing it this morning. It was fun, but way too short. Unless you are a die hard Beatles fan and will play it for fun when friends and family come over, I recommend renting this game as opposed to buying it. 

Besides being too short it also contains too many little known songs and does not include some of their more popular songs. I am assuming the rest of their songs will be available to purchase as a recurring revenue stream.

However, the game is worth renting (and buying if you are a huge fan). It starts with their young innocent years of Twist and Shout and I Want to Hold Your Hand. As I was singing and twisting I was baffled about why my mom does not like the Beatles. The next challenge is at the Ed Sullivan Show and then the British Invasion. As you play the game you get to see how quickly their sound and style changed, and I understood quickly why my mom is not a fan. Not her kind of music.

I truly enjoyed seeing the dates of each song release and truly began to put together how the Beatles did stay ahead of the music curve. At the same time I could hear all of the influences of the time in each of their songs. 

My 8 year old son played the drums on almost all of the songs and it was very cool to hear him play some of those more challenging beats. I switched from guitar to vocals whenever one of my favorite songs came up. When we play again I might set up the mic stand and see if I can play guitar while singing.

The overall sound of the game is awesome. They even include sound bites of the band talking before and after the songs. One favorite was when Ringo yells out "I have blisters on my hands!" after the song Helter Skelter.

Overall it is a fun game, but seems to have been released too soon. There is so much more that could have been added to the game and I suspect that as opposed to adding the various elements that could have been included they simply expected the game to sell because of the soundtrack...and I am sure it will.

Week In Review

This week has been a bit of a blur, definitely with it's ups and downs. Monday we drove home from St George Island leaving us little time to jump back in the groove, but life keeps moving and we have to keep up.

My Family

My husband has come home from vacation to a plate full of work. He has been putting in very long hours to meet deadlines and it does not seem to be slowing down. I am hopeful this is another sign of the economy improving.

The boys are back in the groove of school. My oldest has gone into overdrive with extra-curricular activities. In Elementary school we kept him in one activity at a time, in middle school he seemed to have no interest in anything, which I accepted but told him he had to have at least 1 activity when he started High School because it would help him get into college. He signed up for Debate right away. Last week he informed me that he has also signed up for a career club, a club that sends books to Africa and...table tennis (!?!)

 

My youngest is doing well. It seems he has at least 2 hours of homework each day though, but for the most part he is staying focused. He is interested in Chess club, which started this past week, but I still need to figure out scheduling before I sign him up. I should have that figured out next week.

He has become an incredible reader, bringing home a new book each week which he buries his head in. He is also enjoying the new neighbors we have. We have had 3 families with young children move in to houses on our street over the summer and they all tend to hang out in the cul de sac at night.

Concept Hub

It has been a great privilege to have Mallory work with me this year, but unfortunately business never got to the point where I could bring her on full time. This month she starts her new job at the Georgia Aquarium and I look forward to see what great things she will introduce to their already thriving social media program.

Mallory has been instrumental on the PBA Lens on Atlanta project, which will launch quietly next week. I will be highlighting that project on my corporate post this weekend.

I am also finishing up a project for another social network site that is in soft launch; iglued. It has been described as a social management tool for busy volunteers. I am very excited about the potential of this one and very happy with how their road map is coming together.

The other social network I have been involved with, eRollover also has some exciting growth happening which will be announced in the next few weeks...and that is all I can say about that. 

Community

This has been a lame week for me in regards to community outreach. I continue to contribute to my Concept Hub for Job Seekers site, and I learned that one of the members just landed a new job. More good economic news :)

I have gathered some things to bring to Goodwill...yeah I know, that is a stretch when it comes to community outreach.

I do have a few upcoming fund raisers on my calendar, and over the weekend I will be working on my plan to help promote Arts & Humanities month, but admittedly this has been a slow week for community involvement.

Our yodeling friend is performing in Helen, GA this weekend. If this sore throat and aching muscles is not anything more serious than fatigue (I hope, I hope) we will be visiting with here this weekend. Beyond that we have a bit of house work and yard work we need to catch up on.

I hope you all have a great weekend and enjoy the changing weather.

Pictures

Week in Review

A good week.

Family

The kids are getting in the groove of school, as am I. My youngest is having his standard challenge of focus...but I think his teacher this year is not going to be so fanatical about it. Yes I believe focus is important, but that the TRUE challenge is he gets bored. This is standard in my family tree. However, I see a bit of maturity in him, which gives me a bit of hope.

My oldest shows signs of focusing on his career. He has mentioned more than once that his participation on the debate team will help him get in college. Today I volunteered to participate at the Digitainment booth at the Atlanta Music Convention. There was a room specifically of the US Gaming Arena, and they invited Digitainment to host a booth there. I also recruited my son to be there.

They had plenty of games to keep him busy. 

He also got to exercise his social skills beyond his core group of friends, which is something I am going to encourage him to continue practicing.  My goal is to get him to continue going to these core networking events with me so that he can learn about the career options that exists, practice his business networking skills and perhaps find jobs that will be relevant to his career goals. 

Concept Hub

More good meetings, more proposals. I HAVE to tell you that I brought a client to StudioPlex Studios to meet with Les Ottolenghi and I could NOT have been more proud of how that meeting was handled. 

I also had the GREAT privileged of being the presenter for Training Pros Executive Round Table. 

My approach for that presentation was that Social Media impacts EVERY department in an organization and that a social media policy and strategy NEEDS to be part of the organizational culture. Here are the slides of the presentation.

Mapping Corporate Goals

View more presentations from Concept Hub, Inc.

The event was at The W in Buckhead. It is an absolutely beautiful facility. Here are a few pictures;

 

 

Community 

I love that I have set a content calendar for this blog. If you have not noticed that pattern yet, on Monday and Wednesday I try to blog about leadership ideas and on Friday or Saturday I write a week in review which encompasses my family, my career, and community activities. I then my post a weekend blog.

This content calendar keeps me focused on what I need to do to develop content for the blog, which keeps me committed to doing something noteworthy in the community.

So this week I get to tell you that I and Concept Hub are very much involved with promoting the Arts and Humanities Month in October. I will also be presenting on October 9th. More and more I am drawn to the vibrant activity  in Atlanta relating to Arts and Entertainment and I feel privileged to be involved in highlighting the talent that lives in this city.

I am also staying continuously involved with the Atlanta Children's Shelter. This week I hope to bring my husband to the shelter and share with him why I am so impressed with the work they do. I also hope to donate some of my younger son's nicer clothes and toys to the shelter and let him understand what these donations are providing for children who are facing some hard times right now.

For the remainder of this weekend I am in planning mode. I have a new project with a new client and a few new directions that I am navigating. I also plan on organizing the house a bit and even getting the traveling dump known as my car cleaned out.

Overall....It's all good.

Week in Review

It is finally Saturday. On Monday I realized that this was going to be a long week, and it was. It was a good week, but a long one.

Here is a recap.

My Family

It is time to select after school activities. Over the summer my youngest son and I attempted to teach ourselves chess. We could only get so far. This Fall he is going to start Chess camp and then teach me how to play.

My oldest has signed up for the Chattahoochee High School DEBATE team. This is going to be fun. He is already a pretty good debater...not sure where he gets that from ;)

I mentioned in an earlier post that we started watching LOST. We are almost done with Season 1. We just might make it through all of the seasons before the 2010 season starts.

There was one episode, the one where Claire returns, but so does Ethan and Ethan begins to kill the survivors until he gets Claire back, yeah I was having a hard time handling that episode. So I jumped online to see if I could find out more about what I was getting myself into. I discovered Lostpedia! So, now I know what I am getting myself into. My oldest son and husband are not real happy about me cheating though :P

Concept Hub Inc

Lots of meetings this past week, a couple of new proposals went out as well as a few invoices. I put together a new Capabilities Presentation.

Capabilities Presentation

View more presentations from Concept Hub, Inc.

I am going to add a couple more case studies to it in the next couple of weeks.

I am starting to look at some new directions; not drastic changes but a necessary evolution. The landscape is very different right now, not just because of the recession, but because of the maturing market. I have been checking in with a few peers to test my assumptions and they are feeling some of the same things I am feeling.

As the time is right I will post updates.

Community Outreach

This week I presented a Job Search Presentation to a group of professionals "in transition." I have also been growing the Concept Hub Job Seekers site. I find these activities to be incredibly rewarding. I can see the hope return to people after I share with them a  few ideas or insights. In return I renew my own hope in regard to the challenges I am facing.

As far as plans for this weekend - more taxes!!! I also recently learned that someone I have a lot of respect for is fighting liver cancer. I have been trying to think of what I can send to him that shows that he has my support. The church I used to go to has an amazing bookstore, and I think it is a good time for me to visit again. It's been awhile. So I am planning on early services tomorrow. I have a meeting scheduled with a good friend and business partner tonight, and overall looking forward to laying out my plans for the near future.