Poetry Friday – The Comfort of You

The Comfort of You

As fierce as a summer rain in Texas,
as playful as eighteen cousins,
as surprising as indiscriminate celestial displays,
the comfort of you.

Wrapping me up, taking me out, wearing me thin,
the comfort of you.

Meets me where I’m at,
chases me from solitude,
leaves me breathless,
the comfort of you.

I revel in the comfort of you.

One social media combo coming up. You want a blog with that?

I’ve spent the better part of the past year evangelizing the potential and promise of social media to my internal clients. The seeds I’ve cast have finally found fertile ground. As the product marketing teams I serve look ahead to 2010, they are asking that social media be a part of those plans.

“We want a blog.”

At the risk of insulting my savvy readers, I’m just going to say it … a blog is not a social media strategy. It’s a tactic, just like a news release.

You want a blog? To talk about what? To whom? How often? I can’t just wave my magic PR wand and make it happen. Pros like Chris Brogan, Seth Godin and Darren Rowse just make it look that easy.

Social media is resource intensive. Oh sure, much of the technology and tools such as Twitter or blogging platforms are essentially free, but that just means everyone else can and does use them. Ever attend a 5-year-old’s birthday party and try to have a conversation without yelling? Now you’re getting the picture. It takes time, strategy and mental resources to rise above the din.

Is it worth it? Absolutely, if it supports your objective. Does it take a cross-functional, cross-discipline team to make it happen? You can bet your Facebook Farmville on that.

Like other companies, we are building our social media bicycle while we are riding it. We continue to debate and define roles and responsibilities for social media. At best, it’s a gray area between marketing and PR.

Social media enable companies to speak directly to customers and markets without the filter of the editors and reporters of traditional media that PR was originally chartered with communicating to. For that reason, we currently view social media tools and tactics more a function of marketing. The contribution that PR makes is in the messaging content. Our PR support function is simply not designed or resourced to support social media at the tactical level.

Today, I met with two of National Instruments’ social media mavens, Deirdre Walsh, community and social media manager, and Emilie Kopp an engineer and social media “soldier.”

They have a cross-functional “Communities Team” that includes representatives from product marketing, web, IT, services … you get the idea. PR’s role is in brand and reputation management.

Deirdre and Emilie were nice enough to share their tips, tricks and best practices … and highly recommended “Groundswell” by Forrester analysts Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li

So the conversation continues and I’ve got some reading to do.

What’s your take? Leave your comments here or, if you are in the Austin area on Sept. 18, join me and others for an informal lunch time tweetup for a face-to-face discussion. Details here.

Lessons of the summer

As promised, thought I’d share withyou a few of the lessons of summer ‘09.

Best memory of the summer is snorkeling with the cubs in the British Virgin Islands. It is a rare, wonderful way to explore … and not just because they can’t talk while they do it. We swam hand-in-hand as we drifted and just watched an amazing undersea world float by. Since we couldn’t talk (much), we had to pay attention to our environment and each other. And I adored watching my husband, Matt (often referred to as HOTY for Husband Of The Year), swim with our cubs. Grace and Jack on either side, his big bear paws holding their tiny hands. He has the uncanny ability to calm them or boost them simply with his demeanor or tone of voice. They respect him so much, they never question him when he says everything will be okay or they can do something.

Here are a few more lessons of summer.

You can spend 7 days on a boat with family and still love them, maybe even more. Separate bathrooms are key … along with a clear understanding if who is cooking and who is cleaning.
It’s important to keep your own beat. Matt and I took a hand drumming class at Drumz this summer. Incredible experience to spend time just drumming with others. You don’t have to speak, don’t think of anything but your own beat. In fact, the minute you allow yourself to have the thought, “I got it!” … you lose it. Important lesson for the rest of my life – it’s important to keep my own beat and not allow the rhythm of others to speed me up or slow me down.
I like my husband. I mean I love him, of course, but I learned REALLY like him, too! Sending our children away for four weeks of sleep-away camp was great couples therapy!
Speaking of camp … some cheers, songs and jokes never go out of style. Trust me, I heard them ALL, several times on the two-hour trip back from summer camp.
Final lesson … you can do a LOT of growing up in four short weeks. Grace went to camp as an often goofy, sometimes shy 10-year-old and returned as a true-hearted Kiowa with new self-confidence, sure of herself, her abilities, her personality and her style. Gave me a glimpse into the amazing woman she will soon be. When we left Jack at camp he gave us is usual smile, but I knew he was nervous. Sleep-away camp was NOT his idea of fun, but we knew four-weeks steeped in all things boy would do this little brother good. Four weeks later, I saw a Golden Arrow warrior standing in front of me. He had tried new things, learned he could stand on his own. Another amazing person I am thrilled to know.

Poetry Friday – On the recent dearth of night time intruders

Where did my little ones go?

Those tiny night time intruders.
My persistent, yet snuggly, sleep disrupters.

Now so gangly … stretching,
growing out and always up.

Minds expanding,
eyes questioning,
mouths defying.

Soon enough, I’ll push you out of the nest.
Testing, stretching your wings so you can truly fly.

But not yet, my little ones.
Cuddle up … there’s plenty of room.

Summer wrap up

Salt Island - The British Virgin Islands

Forgive me, it’s been three months since my last blog entry. I won’t lie to you, I have thoroughly enjoyed literally unplugging and spending offline time with HOTY (Husband-of-The-Year, Matt) and the Kovacs cubs (Grace and Jack). We’ve packed quite a bit into the last 12 weeks. Let’s bring you up to speed.

We spent seven days sailing the British Virgin Islands with family. The four of us joined my brother-in-law and his wife (the sailing experts) and his mother (my husband’s stepmother … my bonus mother-in-law) on a 41-foot catamaran. I highly recommend this … assuming you already get along with your family, of course. If you’d like to know how we did it, I’d be happy to share tips we learned along the way. Check out pictures here.

When we returned to Texas, our cubs spent four weeks at their first “sleep away” camp at Vista Camps in Ingram, Texas. Yes, four weeks. In cabins. No air conditioning, no kidding. They had a GREAT time! Were they homesick? Of course … at first. But they soon settled into the camp routine and had an incredible time. In fact, when we picked them up one of the first things they said to us, after “I missed you,” was “Can we come back next year?”

While they were at camp, Matt and I relaxed, went on a few dates (with each other), took an African hand-drumming class together at Drumz (also highly recommended) and moved our little tribe into our new apartment.

Yes we are STILL in a apartment … about 18 months longer than we thought we would be. Thanks to the recession, and tighter mortgage rules, we are still the proud owners of an adorable 70-year-old house in a charming neighborhood minutes from downtown St. Louis. And we, like other gainfully-employed families in our situation, are saving up for the downpayment we’ll need to buy a house while we still own a house. Me? Bitter? Nah.

So as long as we are going to remain in an apartment, we thought it was time to get a bigger place that would allow us to unpack a few more personal items and settle in a bit more while we ride out the market. The upside? The kitchen is bigger in the new place, we were able to hang some of our favorite pictures and display our beautiful sea shells from the BVIs and our grandfather clock fits. AND there is no yard to mow  … or water for that matter. While we miss our books and many other things that have been packed so long, I’ve probably forgotten I even own them, we are enjoying the simplicity of living with less (less stuff means less clutter) and a the conveniences of a swimming pool we don’t have to maintain and an on-site gym.

As I write this, the cubs are back (yea!) and we are back at work (yuck … but I DO like that whole living indoors thing). We are unpacked, settled in to the new place and back to our usual level of “controlled chaos.”

As the summer winds down over the next few weeks, I’ll blog about some of my lessons of the summer.

’til then, take care!