Friday, March 25, 2011

My Little Quote for the Little Black Book of Career Advice

"Business, like life, isn't always fair. Whether on the job, volunteer assignment, whatever, I believe there will be situations when office politics or economic conditions just might attempt to compromise integrity, talent and career potential. Sometimes, we will need to burn those faulty infrastructural bridges in order to build greater ones to redirect your career path. Success is NOT about fitting in, popularity, or having the highest title or salary. Success is all about standing true to yourself and the accomplishments you achieve amidst all those obstacles along the way. So go ahead, change course, and don't forget to enjoy the ride!" -- Gloria Buono-Daly

I would often wonder if I was the only person who ever imagined that directing one's career sometimes required breaking those darn, dysfunctional, ties. Why kid yourself? I quickly learned that many coaches, HR experts and top leaders share this sentiment. We can't all be blinded by that very, old, cliche, intended for the docile masses in the workplace -- "don't burn bridges." I'll leave with where I started, "business, like life is unfair," but goes on. We all win when we continue to redirect and reinvent ourselves even if we happen to burn a few. Share your own career wit and wisdom quote by visiting
◄►Little Black Book◄►
By the way, Dee Dee Myers, the first woman to serve as White House Press Secretary, as well as being the second-youngest press secretary is campaign empowerment ambassador. Myers is also Contributing Editor to Vanity Fair; an analyst for CBS News; popular lecturer on politics, the media and women's issues; and author of the New York Times best selling book Why Women Should Rule the World. To read Myer's celebration of women and to learn more about her visit ◄►Empowerment Journal◄►

You might enjoy reading some career wit & wisdom from many notables including the likes of 2011 Matrix Awards Recipient, Gwen Ifill, and former Matrix Award Honorees and Presenters, Arianna Huffington, and Nora Ephron, etc.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Twitter Turns 5 Today - Happy Birthday to You.

Would you believe it, today is Twitter's 5th B-Day.

Still no definitive business model or $ profit yet Twitter continues to spread wings and ripple effects! Wishing you many more twitterers, tweets and B-Days!!!

Below is a blog from 2009 all about Twitter

Twitter, a micro-blog with a 140-character-limit blurb known as a “tweet” having potential to create a chain of social media networking events that can lead to exponentially larger alterations of social media networking instances. Twittering appears to have maximized the power of connecting. In less than 4 years, it is  estimated that there are over 250 million twitter accounts worldwide.

But if you think that Twitter and the bird’s far reaching effect is enough to make your media campaign a success, try spreading your wings and flying. You just might find yourself in a nose-dive!

Of course, everyone is twittering, with hopes of creating shifts in perspectives that will lead to greater connections, better businesses and stronger communities.

It’s been said that a sea gull’s simple flap of a wing can change weather, and so too a simple tweet can create ripple effects in the customers, employees, friends, colleagues and even those people and entities that you have never known and now suddenly have become your followers.

Why then are there still no analytics for measuring effectiveness, or tried and true processes and marketing solutions from this bird?

Although Twitter’s wide massive appeal has grown so quickly in such a brief time, it is still considered new. Twitter became available to the public in 2006 but really gained momentum in April 2007. According to Wikipedia “The tipping point for Twitter's popularity was the 2007 South by Southwest, SXSW, festival. During the event usage went from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000.” This all occurring after the Web 2.0 buzz of 2006, which arose 2 years after the first Web 2.0 Oreilly Conference, October 5 – 7, 2004, at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco, CA.

Today, there are many factors that contribute to the success of a social networking marketing campaign and Twitter is just one of the many digital integrated marketing tools. Besides having experience, skill and passion about what you are communicating, successful social media marketing requires a well thought out, detailed, marketing plan and timeline. Even with all this, there are still no guarantees; What works for one company or person  may not be as effective for another.

While there are no magic bullets that will guarantee the overall success of your campaign, below you will find a listing of some helpful tips to guide you through the process of integrating twittering into your corporate digital marketing programs:

1. Create momentum with effective communications and set up kick-off meetings well in advance of your deliverables

2. Optimal participation is key. Schedule regular (weekly or bi-weekly) meetings (virtual or in person) and involve as many employees/departments in your organization.

3. Ensure that your meeting handouts include guidelines for branding specs, e.g., having company logo included on all tweets, regardless of whether a company is using different blog/tweet names for different products,/themes, etc., appropriate tone, buzzwords, keywords, etc.

4. If your social marketing media campaign calls for multiple bloggers and twitterers, make sure your respective tweet names match respective tweet blogs; This information should all be mapped out (e.g., spreadsheet) and incorporated into your digital marketing plan alongside all of the other marketing tools you will be integrating

5. Use common sense and discuss best practice to ensure employee tweeters know their leaps and bounds when contributing to avoid compromising your blogs/tweets integrity and reputation

6. Tie in tweets with your company’s blogs – an example is how Martha Stewart’s tips, ideas, etc., from her blog into tweets – again, not necessarily coming from someone from her company, but created such a brand following that followers as well as employees include her ideas in their blogs

7. Understand and learn of the importance of following potential customers, existing customers, vendors, suppliers, etc.

8. Incorporate short and simple auto-respond tweets for new followers – assuring real-time reply in the event no one is able to respond immediately; Although the majority of folks recommend not using auto-responds, my suggestion is to test the waters but keep auto-responds short, thanking them for connecting and sharing relevant information.  If you feel auto-responding is working against you, simply remove it. At least you can say you gave it a try.

9. Understand the importance of hashtags and other application enhancements and use them carefully. E.g., including hashtags in your tweets, e.g., #followfriday; and applications, Tweet Meme, etc. There are pros and cons to hashtags - some folks feel the short 140-character blurbs get distorted from the #hashtag symbol while others are embracing it. So far, I haven't been incorporating hashtags into my tweets. I plan on giving #hashtags a try soon.

10. If you are interested in following please feel free to follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/gbdaly

written by Gloria Buono Daly (c) 2009

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Irish Soda Bread Easy 1-2-3 Recipe

Happy Saint Pat's Day!

Like many households on Saint Patrick's Day, in the center of our breakfast table you will find tasty, Irish, soda bread to celebrate the luck and charm of the Irish. I baked this easy Irish soda bread earlier today and just had to share my easy recipe by posting on my blogs. The great thing about this is the prep time was slightly less than 5 minutes and it baked in an hour.
INGREDIENTS:
► Flour 3 1/2 cups
► Sugar 3/4 to 1 cup (or try sugarfree alternatives; e.g., splenda or equal)
► Baking powder 1 tablespoon
► Eggs 2 medium size
► Milk 1 cup
► Melted butter - 1 stick
OPTIONAL:
► Raisins 1 cup
► Caraway seeds 2 tablespoons
► Be imaginative. I used Flax Seeds

Step 1 : Soda Bread Dough (3 min)
► Prepare oven at 375°; In large bowl combine dry ingredients
► Flour
► Sugar
► Baking Powder
► Optional ingredients - I added 1/2 teaspoon Flax seeds
► Add remaining ingredients - Milk, Eggs, Melted Butter


Step 2 : Knead Dough (2 min)
► Knead dough and divide the dough into 2 round loaves
► Sprinkle flour if dough is too moist and sticky
► Using a cake knife, mark the top of each dough loaf with an X

Step 3 : Place loaves in 375° oven (60 min)
► Wait at least 10 minutes before slicing

Total time - 1 Hour and 5 Minutes




“Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.”
--Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Irish author and satirist.


By Gloria Buono-Daly, March 2011