Charlie Fern's Ink

The Story, The Storyteller and a Harmony of Words

2012-01-12T18:12:00.004-06:00

Reporter Mark Gilchrist interviews musician Jim Mayer

I was reading a terrific profile piece this afternoon about my client, Jim Mayer, which was written by Mark Gilchrist, a journalist from Columbus County, North Carolina. When I reached the end of the profile, I felt a little sad because I didn't want the story to end. I haven't read really good writing - not like Mark's - in a long time.

I've devoted more than 25 years of my life to a career in communications, and writing is a big part of my daily ritual. I also spend a lot of time reading and correcting bad writing -- and there's a lot of it in the world. The rare times that I stumble across really marvelous prose, I'm happy right down to my soul.

When you're out in the trenches working on-site with a rock star client during a physically and emotionally taxing week, it's great to encounter a fellow ink slinger who's easy to work with because he "gets it." Bonus when that person turns out to be a skilled and insightful journalist. Gilchrist knows how to ask questions; his amiable, laid-back interview style set his subject at ease. The result was a terrific conversation that Gilchrist turned into a seriously entertaining and heart-felt profile piece that brought tears to my eyes when I read it -- not just for the content of the story, but also for the eloquent way in which he strung his words together.

Gilchrist's January 12, 2012, front-page story (Page A1) was a seriously lengthy piece. The feature started on Page A-1 and jumped to Page A-11 where it continued, devouring nearly a third of the news space on the page before it reached its conclusion.

That's unusual, because big blocks of text are rarely allowed on a newspaper page. They're a visual turn-off, and you'll lose readers in the big blur of text unless a) the story is quite compelling and b) the writing is really, really good.

Both were true in this case.

You wouldn't know it was a long article to read it, because Gilchrist's writing never got in the way of his story. In fact, the writing in this particular piece lures, cajoles and carries the audience along so well that you can't help but see it all the way through to the end. For the 10 or 15 minutes you're immersed in Gilchrist's writing, you're not really reading. You're sitting on a stage, or in a jeep, listening to a couple of Parrotheads (technically one Coral Reefer band member and one Parrothead) banter back and forth about music, life and being a kid in a grown-up's body who gets a kick out of singing and acting silly on stage...but who takes his "other" (non-Coral Reefer band member) life's work of character education for children very, very seriously. It is his passion...and his joy.

I love my job, especially when I get to work with clients who are utterly devoted to such meaningful causes as saving lives and helping children live better lives. My greatest hope is that people will see my clients as I see them, and I work hard to help people understand why we do what we do. In this case, it took little, if any, effort (thanks in large part to the awesome people we worked with in the Columbus County Schools Superintendent's Office). Beyond that, the story basically told itself through Jim's seven concerts, and Gilchrist, one of many reporters who covered the events, truly understood the magnitude of what was taking place. Beyond that, he was able to capture the essence of both the man and his mission in ways that I simply could not as Jim's publicist.

It's incredibly rewarding to see a client's story well-told by a wordsmith with enviable talent. I can see why his editors would be reluctant to cut a single line. Many thanks to Gilchrist for being so easy to work with, for not giving up on print journalism in these days of dramatic change in the news/media world, and for being such a good sport when it came to our insistence that he correct the classification of Jim as a Parrothead (he's a devoted fan of his boss Jimmy Buffett, for sure, but he's technically a member of the Coral Reefer Band, which unfortunately makes headline writing a real pain in the posterior). That winning combination of insight, skill and sincerity rightfully earned Gilchrist a couple of new fans.

Jim Mayer Releases New Single; a Memorial Tribute to 10-year-olds Jasmine McClain and Ashlynn Conner

2011-12-31T20:23:00.000-06:00

My friend and client Jim Mayer's new single, "Show Me The Light," is now available for purchase on CD Baby. Jim, who is a member of Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer Band, wrote, recorded and released this song to honor the memory of 10-year-olds Jasmine McClain (from North Carolina) and Ashlynn Conner (from Illinois), both of whom were victims of bullying. Both committed suicide last month, within a few days of each other, the week before Thanksgiving.

Jim will perform this song for the first time next week in North Carolina, for children who attended school with Jasmine - for every child in her school district, in fact - as part of an hour-long anti-bullying program. He's performed this acclaimed program for children and audiences worldwide, and we're delighted that Jasmine's school district superintendent reached out to Jim and asked him to come and play for every school in their district next week.

I'm also very proud to say that Jim will present this song to Jasmine's mother Samantha next week, in a private meeting in Jasmine's hometown, where this 6-week journey began.

You can hear a sample of the song and purchase it here, on CD Baby. You can follow Jim on Twitter, at @unclejimrocks or on his Facebook page: www.facebook.com/unclejimrocks.

Beauty in Simplicity

2011-12-18T21:17:00.000-06:00

Ah, the human condition - which drives us and is inclined to sink us in oceans of static and disruptive influences that deter and detract us from the things that really matter in life. What brings us back to our bearings on a better course? Sometimes it's something as simple as a song.

2011 Texas Book Festival: Children's Entertainment

2011-10-21T18:01:00.001-05:00

When it comes to this year's Texas Book Festival -- which is this weekend (October 23-24, 2011) in and around the Austin state capitol building -- few words can do justice to the heroic work that the non-profit's tiny staff (which you can count on one hand and still have fingers left over) put in to bringing you this year's awe-inspiring lineup of 250 authors, celebrity guests and entertainers. You'll get a far better sense of what the weekend has in store by simply reading the author list and looking over the schedule.

As volunteer chair of children's entertainment this year, I'd like to selfishly point out that particular schedule, which boasts the greatest lineup, by far, that I've seen in years (thanks again to Clay Smith, Heidi Smith, Roger Polson, and Hannah Norman for doing much of the booking, coordinating, and long hours of legwork to bring it all together).

The children's entertainment schedule for both Saturday and Sunday will likely pose irresistible challenges for kids, parents and tag-alongs who want to see a little bit of everything at the festival... because there'll be something big and wonderful for every little set of eyes in the entertainment tent during every hour of the day.

And here's the best part: The Texas Book Festival is FREE and open to the public.

I don't know of any other event in Texas, or perhaps the country, in which you can see so many incredible authors, musicians, demonstrations, lectures and performers, all day, for two days, for FREE.

Having said that, I encourage you to visit the Barnes & Noble tent and consider buying a book or two (early Christmas shopping!)...that you can have the authors sign at the Festival. You'll go home with some nifty gifts (or selfish finds) and the knowledge that you've done a good deed to support an important cause: Texas public libraries.

The Texas Book Festival is a non-profit organization whose sole reason for being is to raise money, through this one annual event, for Texas Public Libraries. The money is distributed through grants, which libraries will use to build their collections. And that's more important than ever, because tough economic times often lead to drastic cuts in public funding for libraries.

Here's the children's entertainment lineup for Saturday, October 22:

And for Sunday, October 23:

Check back here this weekend and in the days that follow for more information, ideas, and images from the 2011 Texas Book Festival.

Why I love the ukulele (and Martin and Peters)

2011-07-07T13:33:00.002-05:00

Postcards from a Self-Inflicted Vacation

2011-06-14T03:33:00.003-05:00

Dear friends, followers and innocent passers-by:

You may have noticed an increase of unusual activity on this writer's public pages. I can explain.

I am in the midst of a self-inflicted vacation. The past 18 months of my life have been crammed with action, adventure, fantastic but demanding work, staggering personal change, joy, grief and adaptation. During this time I made some tough decisions and soared, took risks and failed, and chased dreams that have yet to be realized…while somehow simultaneously and often unintentionally embracing or rejecting just about everything you can imagine including my identity, marriage, love family, friends, math, work, sleep and higher beings, and not necessarily in that order. After such prolonged excitement I needed to stop and catch my breath.

Believe me, this was not an idea that I embraced at first. I've rather gotten used to going gangbusters in every aspect of my life, so I took to the idea of relaxation with a mixture of anxiety and reluctance. But t once I got past the feelings of you-know-you're-a-mother-when guilt and a few startling moments when I woke up feeling certain that I'd slept through something important (then realized the alarm wasn't set on purpose), I eventually decided that I either had to embrace the idea of time off or give up on it altogether and go back to work.

I chose the former. I'm glad that I did. I've had time to spend with my family and friends, to exercise, clean a few closets, and organize some shelves, take baths and read. I hadn't realized how much I missed being able to sit down somewhere quiet and catch up on my favorite authors, books and magazines. And I hadn't realized how much I needed to re-read a few chapters of my own life, which time seems to have written while I was busy making other plans.

There's nothing that I love more than a good story, and I may have roped a few of you into reading or listening to one or two of them. Perhaps that's because I been a writer and a storyteller for as long as I can remember.

My love of writing (and its side-effect of reading) was inspired during childhood by my great uncle Charles Fern - a terrific writer and successful businessman who decided shortly after I was born that I was going to be his pen pal. It was a role that I happily started fulfilling as a toddler, with the help of a talented staff of trained readers that I affectionately referred to as parents and siblings.

I got much better at the Uncle Charlie correspondence job once I figured out how to manipulate crayons and other assorted writing instruments with which to respond to his letters. Those early experiences turned into a writing hobby, then became a storytelling habit, then a journalism degree, and then a communications career.

In my first career-life I was a journalist, and that's when I learned that what I loved doing most of all was writing columns. If you ask me, there's no better place for a writer to tell stories than in a newspaper column. I missed that after I left the news business and started writing for other people.

I never really had the time to write like that again. But something happened in my fourth or fifth career-life. I discovered social media and a remarkable new word-crunching, microblogging mechanism called Twitter. Turns out that Twitter is a dandy solution for a storyteller who doesn't have time to write her own stories or read anyone else's either, for that matter.

But I've got the time now, actually (see title, above). In fact, I've got time to spend five minutes going back and forth about whether I should write "time" or "time off," and in Real World Writer Time (RWWT), spending five minutes for three words is technically classified as either a condition of leisure luxury or a case of writer's block. Seeing as I am presently a vacationly woman and will be for the next 10 days, it's clear that I suffer from the former condition.

Once I dispensed with the first few days teeth-gnashing, which is an early symptom of self-inflicted vacation-positive (or SIV+) writers, I settled down to do some honest to goodness mindless wandering, absorption and reflection. The in-pouring of various creative and intellectual stimuli led to a buildup of writer-type energy, which, either as a result or a consequence, has expressed itself in the outpouring of communicatable stuff. And everybody needs a place to outpour -- or at least blow off a little creative steam.

Twitter just so happens to be a nifty little safety-relief valve, especially for the clumsily contained stockpiles of unsorted mayhem that only a communicator can generate and amass. Microblogging has allowed me to release years worth of pent-up energy and imagination and finally do something with all those misfit words, left-over lines and ideas that never seemed to fit anywhere else.

Knowingly or not, we all need our sacred spaces, and they can be in public or private places -- churches, parks, concert halls, the bathtub, a comfy chair near a bookcase, or the pages of a personal journal. I have many, including this blog and Twitter.

I created a personal Twitter account so my own writing would have a place to live and breathe. It's a playground for characters and stories - some true, some pure fiction. It's a laboratory for my experiments with words and a proving ground for ideas or lines that I might use somewhere else. A lot of people I know and love have joined me there, and some other really awesome people I've never met have visited me there, too. I've scared a few others away as well, but that's never bothered me. People should enjoy the places where they spend time. And they should love the people they choose to spend time with.

Writers are odd creatures, and it hasn't taken me long to prove that point to readers and innocent passers-by, whom I've half-wittingly exposed to my vacation-positive communicable stuff both here and on Twitter. And it is this very situation that led me to writing this post.

This self-inflicted vacation is as much about relaxing and having fun as it is about taking important time to think about my life and many of the people who are in it, or who might read about it. Sorry about those odd bits, by the way. I should have warned you sooner.

I don't really need any vacation time to realize how lucky I am on both counts, but I did want and need to take the time to tell you so. I am lucky. I am really, really, lucky.

I have a great life. It's been undeniably stressful and overwhelming at times, but I really do believe I wouldn't change a thing, because I wouldn't be who I am now if I lacked even a single moment of what it was. And what I am, apparently (although the jury is still out and some of them have quit on principle), is a dang-good and determined woman who's not half-bad at her worst. I believe I'm starting to see some signs of improvement, too.

I also have great people in my life. I'm not going to dress that statement up in any sort of garden-glovey, summer-hatty vacation language, because it is what it is, and you are who you are, and frankly if I think or write about you too much I'm likely to cry, which would only make a mess of my keyboard. But you are all sacred to me. And I'm so damn grateful that you've allowed me to share my ideas and words…. and time with you. Thank you.

If you love to read, come back here once and a while. And if you love to write, regardless of what you think about your writing, promise me that you will never, ever stop doing it.

Odd Treasures Unlock Unexpected Doors

2011-06-11T21:16:00.000-05:00

Keys to the kingdom of imagination

no place for idle hands

Life Imitates Snoopy

2011-06-11T01:07:00.000-05:00

By Charles M. Schulz, one of my favorite immortals.

Inspiration flows from the tip of a pen (or the keys of a typewriter) and takes shape in many forms -- letters and symbols; characters and cartoons...and Schulz somehow mastered them all.

Deeper Shades of Soul: Searching for things not lost

2011-06-09T02:41:00.003-05:00

My former colleague Peter Wehner has written a terrific and thought-provoking piece about morality in modern times for Commentary Magazine (On Neuroscience, Free Will, and Morality). It's a subject that I've given some thought to myself over the past few years as I've researched, written and lectured about the art and science of communication, public relations (or relationships) and human connections.

In his commentary, Peter writes:

"The ancient Greeks and the Jewish and Christian traditions hold that character is, at least in part, the product of habits, which are the result of a series of choices we make. These choices, taken together and over time, determine whether we are people of integrity. The way we become just and brave is by committing just and brave acts is the way Aristotle put it."

I'm fascinated by the remarkable evolution of social media and the impact it's had on our choices, our lives, our communities and our humanity. The more I've observed, the more convinced I've become that people are profoundly driven by a need for community - not simply for the sake of intellectual engagement or entertainment, but also for the sake of a deeper sense of communing with other human beings.

The rise of telecommuting and entrepreneurialism have driven scores of people out of the commons of the business workplace and into home offices, and it's not long before many start to feel stranded on their islands of isolation. So what do they do? They pack up their laptops and go to places like Starbucks, where they can work in the company of other warm bodies.

The impact of isolation plays out, I suspect, in the rapidly growing world of social media, where people are flocking to connect and collaborate and build virtual relationships with others who share common business or personal interests.

And where you find two or more people regularly interacting in these virtual settings, you'll often see that a kinship emerges, and that kinship often develops into a sense of responsibility for one another. And, as the media, marketers and sociologists have already discovered, these virtual connections between individuals scattered around the world have solidified into remarkably strong and loyal communities. And at the core of these communities are individuals who have proven, through incredible social, political and economic movements and global collaborations, that they have hearts, souls - and yes, even morality.

Science and technology have not rendered our humanity obsolete -- if anything they have reinforced the idea that we are, at our very core, basically decent, caring, moral and spiritual beings ... that we are beautifully and inextricably bound together... and we are driven by forces beyond flesh and bone to connect and commune with one other in whatever ways we can, by whatever means possible.

In his book "Care of the Soul," Thomas Moore wrote:

"We think of the psyche, if we think about it at all, as a cousin to the brain and therefore something essentially internal. But ancient psychologists taught that our own souls are inseparable from the world's soul, and that both are found in all the many things that make up nature and culture."

Both are indelible, I might add, and perhaps even more appreciated and better expressed through the miracles of modern science, technology and medicine.

Fog

2011-06-08T14:07:00.000-05:00

I remember experiences of fog in Carmel, where I lived when I was a child.

Fog smells sweet, first notice...it picks up scents from the ocean as it travels inland....a big dash of salt, some evergreen and sweet flower, a hint of old stucco and incense, a smidgeon of simmering garlic and herbs, and perhaps laughter, too, if laughter had a scent.

Fog slips silently past the shoreline, rolling across leaves and flowers; age-old missions and warm hobbit houses with high-pitched roofs; along, along, along the way until it glides right up to the tip of your nose. While your senses are busy translating the story of the fog's odyssey across oceans and shores, mysterious tendrils of mist coil around you effortlessly, painlessly, unavoidably. In a silent moment you are absorbed and bound in liquid oneness with the fog-traveler and become part of its tale as it stretches ever further inland, embracing and engulfing others as it unfolds.

Dog vs. Man

2011-06-07T13:09:00.000-05:00

Angry Bird

2011-06-06T12:18:00.000-05:00

"The truth shall make you free, but first it shall make you angry."
Unknown

“Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.”
Confucius

“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.”
Marcus Aurelius

“Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy.”
Aristotle

“Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.”
Seneca

“Anger is only a natural reaction; one of the mind's ways of reacting to things that it perceives to be wrong. While anger can sometimes lead people to do shocking things,it can also be an instinct to show people that something isn't right.”
Unknown

“A woman can hide her love for 40 years, but her disgust and anger not for one day.”
Arab proverb

Filament of Truth

2011-06-06T11:22:00.002-05:00

L'histoire comporte une part de vérité.

Pigment of My Imagination

2011-06-05T11:17:00.000-05:00

The Dream Letter-Painting

2011-06-03T17:25:00.001-05:00

Oil and sharpie on construction paper
By N, but really by me

Side of Bacon

2011-06-02T13:28:00.000-05:00

The result of a waking dream.

Motion to Table

2011-06-01T10:51:00.000-05:00

At Johnny's Cafe

Round

2011-05-30T18:41:00.001-05:00

Johnny's Cafe

2011-05-27T09:39:00.000-05:00

Fifty-three years and four months: a love story

2011-05-26T09:14:00.000-05:00

LUCK - NYC Wedding Proposal from Aria Melody DJ on Vimeo.

4+4= I Love You: Celebrating and not capturing in words that which defies logic, explanation and evolution

2011-04-04T17:41:00.005-05:00

It is ironic and mysteriously appropriate that the condition called love, which we spend all our lives pursuing, maintaining or mourning, is not only baffling but also frustratingly, mind-bogglingly, impossibly difficult to either quantify or qualify with words.

Look up love in Wikipedia and you'll find this: "Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection." Accurate, yet rather hollow and clinical if you ask me.

Words. Appropriate words. In the millions of years of communication evolution, humans have continually failed to develop the skills or insight to properly express, in words uttered or symbols traced, this timeless essence of life. When it comes to the quantification or qualification of love, mankind, in all of its boundless, indomitable glory, falls paralyzed and dumb.

Lives, societies, cultures expanding and contracting across centuries stacked end-to-end for 50,000 years; decades of life spreading out between our first and last breaths…yet no greater wisdom has evolved from all of that cumulative human experience and risen to assert itself in any way deemed finally fitting when it comes to topping off the universal repository of the language of love.

I suspect that love climbed out of the primordial muck before lovers did, and it persists to this day to fall under the classification of More Profound Than There Are Words For Us To Prove It. Indeed, love exists, evolves and flourishes in spite of the language or intent of mere mortals, thank you very much.

Perhaps what happens, and what we are then called to describe above and beyond the banal boundaries of our limited vocabulary is, by its very nature, incapturable -- and ought not be captured, according to some supernatural law that we have yet to comprehend. Perhaps we should therefore not surrender in frustration but rather submit in jocundity to the simple truth that love belongs in the realm of the unspoken and unwritten.

Love is the inside joke of the ages, and that fact alone leads many of us look on the truest and most powerful states of it with a mixture of envy, disgust or even concern at times. Timeless, true, immortal love. It is elusive. It is rare. It is frustrating, frightening, and our highest aspiration and greatest hope.

When love exists in all its glory between two people, be it mother and child, first lovers, life partners or crippled old spouses, it is singularly unique, treasured and cherished -- and really only felt and understood at its best by the two who share and struggle to express it.

Most of us will never have that best kind of love. Many may never even see it. But for those who find it and have it, the world is a different place and all of the things in it are richly distilled and have different meaning -- different value, texture, tone and concentration. That kind of love exerts its influence in both subtle and overt ways, from the micro to the macro without boundary, or end, or respect for time or consciousness. It is ever-present, all-encompassing, maddeningly consuming and supernatural.

I know that kind of love. I know it from experience that's far too precious to share in the public domain. And I don't feel the need to explain or defend it. It's so much better, you see, to stand silent and smile in awe (and gratitude) of it.

I want to thank my friend Jim Mitchem (@jmitchem) for asking me to join him in a celebration of love in all its simplicity and indescribable awesomeness. And I want to thank three wonderful people I've met through Twitter -- pals Nichole (napril1023), Molly (@mollyblock) and Staci (@stacijshelton) -- for helping blaze a trail for this simple celebration.

I hope you'll join us today in speaking, writing, mumbling, hollering, pantomiming or otherwise symbolizing (and repeating) the product of 50,000 years of wisdom and evolution...three little words that represent life's most splendidly incomprehensible thing:

I love you.

And you.

And you, my immortal châtaigne mal peigné.

P.S. Here's a terrific link to another I Love You Day supporter site. Be sure to watch the video.

Domino's campaign - taking it to the customers

2011-02-24T15:58:00.001-06:00

The Domino's PR Campaign/rebrand story....

Love this -- "I didn't know you were listening. But I was being truthful."

The Story: Domino's® Pizza Turnaround

2011-02-24T15:53:00.000-06:00

Interesting: Press Release ideas

2011-02-24T14:10:00.000-06:00

Well presented, I might add.

The Heart Machine by Martin Smith

2011-02-17T09:12:00.000-06:00

Love. That is all.

Old Spice: Neck Deep in the Sweet Waters of Friendship and Trust

2011-02-08T15:33:00.001-06:00

Another Wieden + Kennedy score for great (albeit odd) copywriting.

Copy Writing Score: Chrysler Eminem Super Bowl Commercial - Imported From Detroit

2011-02-08T15:28:00.000-06:00

"It's the hottest fires that make the hardest steel."

Why good writing matters - in public relations, marketing and advertising. Ad by Wieden + Kennedy - the people who reengineered the Old Spice brand.

Life perspectives

2011-01-24T16:36:00.000-06:00

Pictures and Words

2010-12-10T19:10:00.000-06:00

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes the wordsmith proves a better artist:

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."

-Jack Kerouac

Nice: Iron and Wine's Boy With A Coin

2010-11-05T15:57:00.000-05:00

Remarkable Canadian Cellist Zoë Keating plays.... Fern

2010-09-14T12:35:00.001-05:00

Chalk another one up for social media promotions...Celloist Zoe Keating has added to her ranks of fans thanks to Twitter, Blip.fm and YouTube. More and more indy artists are promoting their work using social media (and social music) tools, and I'm seeing a lot of singer-songwriters, promoters, and labels actively using (or carefully monitoring) Blip.fm lately.

I came across cellist Zoe Keating on Twitter and was intrigued by her bio, so I checked out her music on blip.fm and YouTube. Turns out she's played with for the likes of Imogen Heap, which makes sense if you like Heap's music/style. I'm hooked.

Here's a link to Zoe Keating's web site if you want to see or hear more....and buy her splendid and inspired music.

MORE ABOUT ZOE KEATING - BIOGRAPHY FROM HER WEB SITE

Zoë Keating is a one-woman orchestra. She uses a cello and a foot-controlled laptop to record layer upon layer of cello, to create lush, beautiful and otherworldy music.

Born in Canada and classically trained from the age of eight, Zoe spent her 20's dabbling in computer software while moonlighting as a cellist in rock bands. Inevitably, she combined the two and developed her now signature style while improvising for late night crowds at her San Francisco warehouse.

Increasingly a role model for DIY artists, Zoë's self-released albums have sold 30,000 copies and several times been #1 on the iTunes classical and electronica charts. She has performed her music live on National Public Radio, on television, outdoors in the Nevada desert, in medieval churches, in punk clubs, and before thousands of screaming teenagers in mainstream rock venues across North America and Europe.

As a cellist and arranger, Zoë has worked with a wide range of artists, including Imogen Heap, Mark Isham, Curt Smith, The Dresden Dolls, Rasputina, DJ Shadow, and Paolo Nutini. From 2002 to 2006 she was a member of the cello-rock trio Rasputina. Most recently, Zoë has been composing music for film and ballet. In 2008 she performed her music live with the Valencia ballet, she composed music for a documentary called "Ghostbird" about the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, and performed her signature layered cello on Mark Isham's score for "The Secret Life of Bees". She is featured on Amanda Palmer's solo release "Who Killed Amanda Palmer".

ABOUT BLIP.FM

If you don't know Blip.fm, you will soon, I assure you. It's a powerhouse of a social music platform -- like Twitter for people who love or make music.

Blip.fm is essentially a crowd-sourced music wonderland; a virtual community in which individual users are the DJs with @ names like you see on Twitter. You can search blip.fm's monstrous selection of music (all genres, from all over the world), and once you find what you're looking for you can play it -- the actual songs you're looking for, mind you, not some reasonable facsimile thereof (as is the case with Pandora).

Joining blip.fm's social music community is as easy as joining Twitter - and it's a similar process. (In fact, blip.fm lets users share their music via Twitter and Facebook now). Users can choose to play songs privately or "blip" music in a public timeline that other users can see and replay (or "reblip").

Music selections are saved in two ways - in the public timeline playlist, which is saved on blip.fm's servers, or on a user's private playlist. Users can review, replay, or reblip their own music, of music from other users, at any time, so long as they have an internet connection.

Blip.fm is already shaking up the music industry, and it has enormous potential to drive another nail in the coffin of old-era radio stations and old-school promoters and isolationist-minded record labels that have been too busy litigating and protecting their interests to pay attention to the real threats to the industry -- technology, social media and crowd-sourced "social" music.

Music stores like iTunes have finally caught on, and they make it quite easy to purchase singles or entire CDs of your favorite songs and artists -- with a single click on the blip.fm site.

(Blip.fm has a companion app for the iphone called BoomBox Pro - but it needs work. I wouldn't recommend downloading it until I've seen them make some serious improvements.)

The site is good for music lovers, and it's even better for independent singers and songwriters. And...mark my words, it'll be the new home for a lot of old radio stations...and professional DJs.

Pantene Commercial: You can shine

2010-09-04T14:28:00.000-05:00

People movers: Three ideas and an animated film about what motivates us humans

2010-08-24T12:38:00.001-05:00

So are you wondering what motivates people? According to this video, it's not money that motivates us. It's three other things:

1. We want to be self-directed
2. We want to get better at stuff
3. We want to make a contribution - to make the world a better place, essentially

I believe it. Why? About seven years ago I left a high-paying job in corporate America to start my own public relations and communications consulting business, and while the money hasn't always been good, I've had an enormous sense of satisfaction about my work....more than I've ever had... FOR THE SAME THREE REASONS.

1. I like being self-directed.

2. I like learning new things and getting better at stuff. (Over the past 7 years as a business owner I've learned a hell of a lot more about fundamental business principles, government and economics than I learned in twice as many years working for someone else.)

3. I like making a contribution -- and having the freedom to do so as a business owner means I actually DO SO, even during those times when I have less money coming in and less free time to go out and make the world a better place.

Most serial entrepreneurs feel the same way. They dread having to go back to a work environment that robs them of these three fundamental motivators.

What about you? What motivates you?

Here's the video - if you don't like the speaker, you might like the cartoons that illustrate his points.

What to do with a thousand pictures, no words, and one apartment

2010-08-03T01:35:00.002-05:00

Betcha can't tell a story like this one....

They say I write like.... Really? Cool.

2010-07-28T10:24:00.000-05:00

I write like
Douglas Adams

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Aloan - Invisible

2010-07-22T09:27:00.001-05:00

H.O.T. If the rest of the album is anything like this song, you got yourself a hit.

Aloan - Invisible

2010-07-22T09:27:00.000-05:00

H.O.T. If the rest of the album is anything like this song, you got yourself a hit.

Big voice; pretty little horses - Scotland's Grant Campbell

2010-07-01T15:34:00.000-05:00

I believe this is the voice of Scottish singer-songwriter Grant Campbell. From his web site - background/bio/discography:

Campbell’s third & most recent long player ‘Expecting Great Things’ was recorded at home over one sunny afternoon. He decided to experiment with a ‘pan effect’ which has lead to remarkable results; his ghostly baritone voice resonates in one speaker with his enchanting guitar technique in the other, placing the listener centre stage for yet another poignant & crafted sonic treasure. Released in April of this year it is already being touted as one of 2009 finest.

Campbell is a formidable live act, grabbing hearts and bagging admirers every which way along his travels. As well as a string of headline solo shows he has also supported some greats including; Odetta, John Hammond, Michael Hurley, Gary Louris (Jayhawks), Mary Gauthier, The Handsome Family, Howe Gelb (Giant Sand), Alison Moorer, James Blood Ulmer, Micah P Hinson, Califone, Mindy Smith, Alela Diane, Johnny Dowd & Diana Jones.

Other recent work has included a collaboration with leading independent film studio ‘Lionsgate’ to record & produce a cover version of “All the Pretty Little Horses” for the movie ‘The Burrowers’ which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2008.

Scroll down for more....

Expecting Great Things....from Grant Campbell

2010-07-01T15:23:00.000-05:00

Dear Grant Campbell, you're a smart man for putting your music on blip.fm. I like.

Why I love blip.fm and Twitter: One thing leads to another cool find

2010-05-28T14:48:00.001-05:00

Take Away Show #40 _ THE NATIONAL (part 1) from vincent moon / temporary areas on Vimeo.

A shout-out to Eoin Hennessy for this video. His eclectic taste in music led to my discovery of him on Twitter - and then his blog, which is the source of this video.

Another reason why I love Austin: Scrappy Jud Newcomb - Where Did The Time Go?

2010-05-14T17:32:00.000-05:00

Fred Rogers' Lifetime Achievement Award Video

2010-05-05T17:18:00.001-05:00

"We're all on a journey -- each one of us. And if we can be sensitive to the person who happens to be our neighbor, that to me is the greatest challenge as well as the greatest pleasure."
--Fred Rogers

Funny non-flash-mob stunt: Praise You - Fatboy Slim

2010-05-02T11:43:00.000-05:00

Sarah McLachlan's Take on Rainbows

2010-05-01T11:59:00.002-05:00

Somebody thought of it, someone believed it, and someone posted it.

Unlikely friends? Orangutan and Roscoe the dog

2010-05-01T10:50:00.001-05:00

They Might Be Giants - Computer Assisted Design

2010-05-01T10:29:00.000-05:00

Biscuit Brothers - The Tiger Rag

2010-04-19T19:22:00.000-05:00

That Tiny Scarecrow, he can sure sing fast. Cute video - love these guys.

Connie Talbot sings "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

2010-04-19T09:56:00.000-05:00

Somehow I missed this lovely video from 2007. About 22 million people have already seen it, but for the rest of you (especially you moms)... grab a Kleenex and enjoy.

"Lennon's Song: We Love, We Learn, We Grow" ....and I like. (Review)

2010-04-14T12:23:00.003-05:00

One of the benefits of living in the live music capital of the world (Austin, Texas), is that you don't always have to go looking for good music; sometimes good music finds its way to you.

That's what happened in the case of this disc: it found its way into my son's music library by way of his former Montessori school teacher whose husband happens to be Erick Bohorquez -- the man responsible for (literally every aspect of) "Lennon's Song: We Love, We Learn, We Grow."

I love this disc. Period. Bonus that my 5-year-old gives it the thumbs up, too. In fact, it's on permanent rotation for daytime tunes in his room, and it leads the nighttime request list for bedtime tunes, which is a big deal in our family.

The songs on "We Love, We Learn, We Grow" reflect a breadth of soul and talent that can only come from training and experience -- as in life experience. As in traveling the world, playing a lot of music and being a father. According to his biography:

"In 2001, he studied flamenco guitar in Spain. In 2002, he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. Deciding to try his luck in the music industry, he packed his bags and moved to LA, where he got his start at Elektra Records. In 2004 he left California for Austin, where he eventually landed the role as Regional Manager of Marketing and Promotions at Island/Def Jam Records. While there, he was the go-to person in charge of managing Universal Music Group artists while developing and maintaining relationships at Radio, Press, and Retail. Contributing to numerous #1 hits and receiving many accolades including 2005 Major Record Label of the Year. In 2006, Erick parted from Def Jam; then quickly shifted his focus to writing, recording, and playing live."

Children have a way of inspiring good musicians to produce great music....and how great is it that a bevy of talented musicians have grown up, had babies, and filled a whole new genre with sounds that come from the very heart of parenthood. Add this disc to the collection of real and lovely music that's all-age appropriate.

The songs will surprise you, and they'll probably grab hold of you, too, but in that nice way that says, "I want to inspire and entertain you, and I promise not to drive you crazy with pedestrian lyrics and over-simplified sounds." This disc will be a crowd pleaser, and it doesn't matter what the age of the crowd is. (Available on CD Baby and iTunes if you want to toddle on over and give it a listen.)

Erick swings by to say hello and drop off his disc for Mr. E.

Joe McDermott has a new CD out - party Sunday at Ruta Maya Coffee House - Austin

2010-04-06T12:17:00.000-05:00

Watch Joe McDermott's cute commercial announcing his CD release party at Ruta Maya Coffee House on Sunday

I love you.

2010-04-04T03:20:00.003-05:00

Jim Mitchem's story about I Love You Day, April 4.

http://www.obsessedwithconformity.com/obsessed_with_conformity/2010/03/love.html

The world's longest married couple....

2010-03-31T15:18:00.000-05:00

The King of Kid Pop, Joe McDermott, visits St. Edward's University

2010-03-12T13:53:00.004-06:00

More check-ins at St Edwards University

Joe McDermott has a new CD out, and to celebrate this latest release he's throwing a party at Rutamaya Coffee House in Austin, Texas, on April 11, 2010. My Public Relations class has been volunteered to help out...more details soon. In the mean time, you can see some photos from our brainstorm session on WHRRL....rock on, kiddos!

Victoria Williams looked at a frying pan and sang a song

2010-03-07T11:48:00.002-06:00

"We got love that makes us man, love that has to teach us."

On staying together: Love and Marriage - Part 1 of my series

2010-03-05T23:49:00.000-06:00

70 years of marriage...here's to them!
And here's to the couples who strive to achieve it.

Moving speeches: World, here is Canada at its slam-poet best

2010-02-12T23:34:00.000-06:00

All I have to say is YES. Yes. Yes. Yes.

The Great Relaxo-Couch and its Number One Potato

2010-02-11T15:03:00.005-06:00

When I was in my mid-20s, the love of my life was a couch. It was a futon sofa, specifically, and it was supposed to convert into a double bed, but the futon frame was broken and hardly functional since the day we met. Which was appropriate, because so was I.

I recovered the futon frame from the alley behind my 35th Street condo, next to a dumpster between my building and the adjacent apartment complex. At the start of every college break (the end of every college semester), that no-man's land between the two buildings served as Purgatory for various pieces of furniture and junk.

I noticed the futon frame there one day, and it looked to be in decent shape. I called a friend to come over and inspect it with me. [A good rule of thumb -- never dumpster dive alone.] The futon frame was solid wood, and we couldn't find anything overtly wrong with it.

Had either one of us been an engineer, we might have noticed the problem right away. But we were not engineers. We were girls talking about futon frame paint colors as we lugged it up three flights of stairs, one section at a time. Back in my living room, we reassembled the frame so I could start cleaning it up. It was then when we discovered the source of its dysfunction.

The frame was missing a bolt.

The bolt must have fallen out when its corresponding slat of wood split and broke. Turns out that the split slat was a pivotal piece of the frame. It was the piece that pivoted during the frame's transformation from couch to bed. The boltless split slat also served as a buttress. It was responsible for maintaining the platform's horizontal position on one end of the bed.

With a broken buttress of a boltless split slat, that end of the bed tended to fold up on itself, so it looked more like a V than an H.

Suffice to say the broken piece rendered one half of its function useless, which is why it ended up in the alley in the first place, but no matter. The futon was a more comfortable bed when it was a couch and not a bed, mostly because of the brand new futon mattress I bought for it.

I also remember the source of my dysfunction - the end of a turbulent relationship and the beginning of living alone for the first time in my life. In fact, Id recently moved into my first official home -- a 650 square foot condo with a loft and a spiral staircase, centrally located about two miles north of the Texas State Capitol.

I had never owned a home before. And, since I'd never lived alone before either, I didn't know what to do with myself or my living space, but I was determined to embrace the change. I made some repairs. Patched walls. Upgraded countertops. And I filled it with things. My things. Borrowed things. Colorful things. Found things. Made things. And it wasn't long before I was content living there with my dysfunctional couch (and a dog and cat).

I loved what that couch represented as much as I loved what it had to give. It seated three comfortably and often -- four if we were all girls. It was good to my guests. It was true to form and multi-functional. It held me up. It gave me comfort. It said, "Don't leave," when I didn't want to leave. And it said, "I'll be here when you get back," when I did leave.

It absorbed the tears when I laid my head down and cried on bad days. It withstood an assortment of hot and cold abuse. It even tolerated a rabbit named Pickles. And it was only slightly worse for the wear a year later, when I returned Pickles to the daycare from whence he was rescued. And still it hung in there.

That couch was the core and center of my all-time favorite weekend ritual. On many a Saturday morning, I would climb out of bed in my loft, stagger down the spiral staircase and crawl onto the couch, flip on PBS, and lay around half the day watching cooking shows and drifting in and out of catnaps. Sometimes that luxury stretched all the way through the afternoons.

I was no fool. I knew a good thing when I had it, and I knew that someday I'd look back on the experience and smile. In 2000, I left the futon frame for two salmon-colored chairs in Washington, D.C. Sometimes I miss those lazy afternoons with the great relaxo-couch. Sometimes I look back and smile.

Listen to the bean.

2010-02-10T09:28:00.001-06:00

Ogilvy's Super Bowl Ad: Men, Meet Dove Soap

2010-02-07T20:00:00.002-06:00

Discovery - Spoon: "Mystery Zone"

2010-02-06T22:47:00.007-06:00

Belgian Band Gets Creative With Video Annotations On YouTube

2010-02-01T10:41:00.002-06:00

The beauty and torture and tedious agony of silence

2010-01-29T02:39:00.000-06:00

For writers, there is no more bleak and dismal an emptiness than silence -- unsolicited, unnatural silence that "thwarts what struggles to come into being," as Tillie Olsen wrote in 1965, "but cannot".

The writer-dreaded silence is not the fundamentally necessary grief-silence or healing-silence, or learning-silence -- not Keats' agonie ennuyeuse. It's a miserable, uninvited guest in our brains; a Dante's hellion whose visits achieve nothing, produce nothing and leave nothing behind. During those silent times writers languish in mute despair as the "writing dies over and over again" inside of us and the pages of our history turn, blank after blank.

So when you see a writer writing furiously through the day or well into the night, don't disturb her. Let her enjoy a moment of your silence -- and be glad that she's not suffering through her own.

Imogen Heap plays "Wait It Out" | Video on TED.com

2010-01-27T21:35:00.000-06:00

Imogen Heap plays "Wait It Out" | Video on TED.com

Frustrating to anyone with a heart and a sense of purpose - how something as simple and ridiculous as timing can be the difference between a world changed for the better and the tar pits of business as usual.

Robert Sapolsky: The uniqueness of humans | Video on TED.com

2010-01-27T21:24:00.000-06:00

Robert Sapolsky: The uniqueness of humans | Video on TED.com

...and the theory of mind: How we think. How we think others think. And how we think about how others think about others.

Charles Fleischer insists: All things are Moleeds | Video on TED.com

2010-01-27T21:04:00.004-06:00

Charles Fleischer insists: All things are Moleeds | Video on TED.com

Finally, someone who gets it. Charles Fleischer reminds us why we should carefully consider the people we name to the committees of people who name things (important things, like maps), and he shares his own version of math that everyone with a right brain will love - and probably understand.

Brave Combo delivers their 2009 Christmas Present: a holiday music collection with a Texas twist

2009-12-20T04:58:00.008-06:00

When Brave Combo’s Arjuna Contreras handed me a copy of the band’s latest release last week, I knew I was in for an experience. I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to write an objective review about their Christmas Present -- a straight-up collection of holiday music with the classic Combo twist.

Talking about Brave Combo gets me all misty eyed and sentimental about my college days because many of my college nights were danced away at their shows in Dallas and around Texas.

Brave Combo hails from my college town of Denton, Texas, and around the turn of the 1990s, my college buddies and I were a part of their underground nuclear polka movement. Which beats the heck out of saying we were polka band groupies.

Heck, we were polka band groupies before polka band groupies were cool. Now Brave Combo has people like Bob Dylan appreciating their work and doing covers of their music (like “Must be Santa” on Dylan’s “Christmas in the Heart”).

To their credit, Brave Combo loves all of their audiences equally, as they have for the past 30 years. Keyboardist, guitarist, accordionist, and singer Carl Finch founded the band in 1979, and 31 records and 2 Grammy awards later they’re still making music that transcends audience genres and generations.

In three decades, Brave Combo has done more things to a polka than a husband might his wife of 30 years (but in a kind, connubial way) -- and that’s just for fun on the weekends. But one cannot limit the description of the band’s music to such narrow confines.

True, some of their songs sound like what might’ve happened if the Ramones had ever collided with a polka, but Brave Combo’s work stretches far beyond the boundaries of traditional classification. They’re more of a recipe: start with your choice of salsa, meringue, rock, cumbia, conjunto, polka, zydeco, classical, cha cha, or the blues. Add a whole lot of tempo, one appreciative audience, shake well, and voila: Brave Combo.

Like any nutritious diet rich in fruits and vegetables (Finch is a vegetarian), Brave Combo is best absorbed fresh and unprocessed. Their CDs are well-produced and fun to listen to, but they simply do not do the band justice. No, in my opinion Brave Combo should be devoured live, because that’s when they’re at their absolutely action-packed and unforgettable best. Course everyone who’s seen them live winds up buying their CDs so they can remember the experience (it’s like going to a circus and having a recording of it to take home with you).

If you can’t get to see them because you aren’t in Texas or don’t happen to be on their national parade route, hold tight. Every now and then Brave Combo will come to your house thanks to the wonders of modern technology, which they harness for live-streaming performances.

In the mean time you can familiarize yourself with their music by purchasing any one of CDs in their expansive collection -- all worthy of your attention.

I recommend you start with their latest release, Christmas Present....a compilation of holiday classics with a raucous twist, including a burlesque Bump and Grind version of Winter Wonderland; a samba-style O Christmas Tree; a We Three Kings cha-cha-cha; and the Must Be Santa song that Bob Dylan’s been busy making famous himself with a remake this year.

The first time I listened to the Christmas Present CD I thought, “Now here’s what Saturday Night Live needs for music this month." I’ve been singing along with it ever since.

Memories from the kitchen: the science of smelling and the stirring of deep memories

2009-12-08T23:49:00.011-06:00

Charlie's note: WOW! What a thought-provoking piece are you about to read. This post --another splendid essay by guest blogger Dr. Ellen Weber -- is about the relationship between the 'nog and the noggin; between the scents and the sentient being. You'll find plenty of food for thought below (and links to even more good reading throughout the essay). Gentle reader, I give to you the art-of-scent....

AROMA'S PATH TO BRAINPOWER BOOST

by Dr. Ellen Weber

And oh how I love spices... I relish their rich aromas and flavors, which have summoned the gods... I am wooed by the earthy-dry-fruity-perfumy grassy-acrid-flowery-musky-woodsy pungencies that are sifted from nature and distilled by our imagination. (Charlie Fern ... Memories from the kitchen ...)

Who hasn't had a memory flash of grandma's kitchen when you smelled an apple pie? Or have you recalled a warm family gathering because cinnamon bun aromas send their flavors by to tease your nostrils? Memory magically reappears when you breathe in certain scents of soap, causing you to experience the flooding back of a forgotten holiday. Or when chemicals permeate the air, you may recall a specific workplace setting.

Even the smell of a funeral home evokes recollection, although not always one you'd choose. Simply put, smell stirs deep memories, increases brain chemicals such as serotonin, and alters emotions in the human brain.

Your sense of smell likely goes underrated, though, if as many people do, you use visual first to decode your world. A surprising reality, since smell enables you to gather key facts from any setting. Researchers affirm how different scents influence sensibilities - from well being to difficult decision-making. One recent study showed participants on a tight budget, who splurged on new clothing, when they smelled fresh chocolate chip cookies. Not exactly an ideal recipe for recession woes, as much as one perhaps to stoke an appetite for caution.

Sour as Lemon Juice or Sweet as Syrup?

The ability to smell offers an interesting dimension to life. One that could easily go unnoticed, in spite of the fact that humans distinguish more than 10,000 unique aromas. Is lunch today sour or sweet? Was that beverage bitter or salty?

Speaking of drinks, wine experts harnessed and identified many different categories of scents in an attempt to organize and standardize distinctive flavors in an aroma wheel for wine tasting. The idea was to provide a common language for odors rarely spoken of in similar ways.

It's still difficult to describe any aroma, though, and we tend to disagree on good or bad scents. Yet different flavors impact our brains in strikingly similar ways. Even if you don’t drink caffeine, for instance, aromas from coffee beans likely leave you with a sense of well being. The same is true for chocolate, vanilla, and scents from freshly baked bread. You may not be aware that the olfactory bulb near your nasal sinus connects to a cranial nerve, or that impulses sent to your brain’s temporal lobes create an aroma, but you'll often link scents to different reactions stored in your amygdala.

Research shows brains as better able to distinguish smells than previously thought. Scientists observed rat brains to identify coffee aroma effects on 17 genes in the brain. In addition they found that several brain proteins changed in ways that calmed rats under certain levels of stress. Furthermore some scientists suggest that caffeine aroma may be stimulant enough – even without drinking a cup of coffee.

Smell Can Cause Risk or Create Healing

About 3 million American lack a strong sense of smell through injury or age, and that impairment can lead to disaster. Smell something burning, and you’ll likely rush to turn a stove off, or unplug an empty kettle.

Smell gas and you’ll contact experts who can determine if your pipes have sprung a dangerous leak. Open the fridge and smell an odor in order to toss spoiled meats or clean out unsafe casseroles. Can you see where impaired smell can create hazardous situations?

Increasingly psychologists and other brain experts recommend aromatherapy, such as lighting candles or heating essential oils that stir emotions and inspire imaginations. Benefits of oils from sandalwood, peppermint, lavender and white fir, stretch from healing emotional upsets, to reducing stress, to increasing productivity. Not bad dividends for an average nose. Scents that trigger a variety of reactions from the brain, play key roles in healing people from horrific traumas. Through flavors that evoke positive memories, scents tend to bypass left brain thinking, and boost endorphins, that improve moods and alter right brain activity.

Research suggests several theories about how and why we crave some smells, repel others, since odors influence people differently. Yet experts generally agree that certain smells boost brainpower, through altered moods, and promote alertness while reducing stress. Could any aroma boost your brainpower today?

Dr. Ellen Weber is director of the MITA International Brain Based Center for renewal in Secondary and Higher Education. She is an author, blogger and columnist who shares her expertise with audiences worldwide -- through her writing, lectures and appearances on radio and television. Dr. Weber's experience includes extensive work in multiple intelligence research and teaching at the high school and university level. Dr. Weber is author of the eBook "MITA in the Classroom and Beyond." For more information, visit www.mitaleadership.com.

Memories from the Kitchen and Other Natural Disasters:

2009-12-03T02:13:00.025-06:00

When Food and Friends Collide

Charlie's note: This is the latest installment in an informal and randomly solicited series of guest essays on food and drink (and the sights, sounds, smells and miscellaneous deliverables du jour). Here, the incomparable Nichole Brown talks about her own tastes and truths as they apply to both food and friendship.

by Nichole Brown

When I was growing up everyone I knew basically cooked and ate the same. No matter whose kitchen you were served from, the meal was likely fried, smothered and covered with creamy or buttery goodness. Fried pork chops smothered in gravy. Baked chicken and potatoes in creamy mushroom sauce. Fried okra, fried fish, french fries. Cubed steak in brown gravy with a side of creamed corn. Collard greens cooked with fatback slices and bacon grease. Buttermilk biscuits with butter and molasses. I could go on.

I’ll admit that I enjoyed every calorie and carbohydrate over the years. But when I developed a severe case of acid reflux in my thirties those rich, flavorful meals became my enemy. It’s impossible to adequately describe the burning sensation that slowly climbed my esophageal wall after eating certain foods. Instead of taking "the purple pill" as the doctor prescribed, I sought the advice of a nutritionist who introduced me to an entirely new world of eating.

After weeks of food journaling and experimenting to find out which foods triggered the reflux, I had to give up the Quaker Oats oatmeal packs I had for breakfast most mornings, the Stouffers and Marie Callender's frozen lunches, white rice, white bread, flour pasta, heavy sauces and creams. I now cook my own steel cut oats, make up quinoa recipes and gluten-free pasta dishes. The only food I fry these days is okra. I snack on seaweed sheets and rice chips; I even drink aloe juice.

Not everything I eat is super-healthy, but my food choices are worlds apart from what I used to eat. I’ve grown so accustomed to making healthier choices that I walk past the cookie and chip aisles without hesitation. Still, most people I know cook and eat the same way – except now we’re all healthy food nuts. We’re the Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, local farmer's market and health food store type, more prone to buy fresh fruit and veggies and organic and rBGH-free meats and dairy than processed. It's pretty much the norm these days.

At least that’s what I thought until my oldest friend visited me recently. What should have been simple tasks of making breakfast and lunch ended up being anything but. I went through my cupboards and fridge calling out food options, but she wanted none of what I had to offer. She nixed the steel cut oatmeal with raisins and walnuts. Gave an eye-roll to rice chips with seaweed. No to turkey burgers. No to roasted corn nuts. Wouldn’t even try the C-Boost fruit smoothie and Mango Lemonade. Aloe juice was out of the question, no matter how much I tried to convince her of its benefits to the digestive system.

I take some pride at the one meal she let me cook for her: scrambled (organic) eggs with cheese and turkey bacon for breakfast. Lunch was a different story.

For lunch, she asked for McDonalds, a hamburger Happy Meal, no less. And to make matters even worse, she went out to buy her own supply of potato chips, chocolate chip cookies and orange soda.

I honestly felt terrible that she didn’t like my food and tried to make amends by having dinner in Manhattan. I asked what kind of food she wanted to try, thinking of any number of options from Afghani, Brazilian, Ethiopian Italian to Jamaican, Mexican, Thai, Yemeni. She said Applebees.

*blank stare*

It was my turn to nix her suggestion. In a city with restaurants for every imaginable palate or dietary restriction – she wanted Applebees. Quelle horreur.

I’ve always believed that food brings people together. And eating is one of the most popular social activities. Oftentimes the kitchen is where a crowd gathers at a good house party. But this time, in my house, food created some kind of divide between me and my friend of 33 years. It’s the kind of rift that meant we couldn’t even deal with breakfast before she left to go home. I think we both knew it meant something different to the other. To her, it meant IHOP with pancakes and bacon. To me, Le Pain Quotidien with spinach quiche and fruit.

I learned several things that weekend: that she thinks I “eat weird stuff,” and I think she eats like an 11-year old; that she and I should never plan activities around food; that in my quest to rid myself of acid reflux, I had developed a discriminating palate; and that I had, in fact, become a full-fledged food snob, for which I offer no apologies.

Nichole Brown is the Associate Editor for Corporate Communications at Ogilvy & Mather, one of the largest marketing and communications companies in the world. Outside of work, Nichole dabbles in photography, studies French and samples the many culinary delights of New York City.

Memories from the kitchen and other natural disasters:

2009-11-27T13:47:00.014-06:00

Advertising CEO's recipe for a happy home: One heaping portion of love

by Jim Mitchem

My mom is not a very good cook. She and my father divorced when I was about 3, and I later found out that he was the foodie. So I was raised by my mom and grandmother who are from hearty Irish-Scots-Welsh stock and raised on a series of casserole-type dishes that required lots of salt.

There aren’t any familiar scents that creep up on me and harken me back to a simpler, more wholesome time. We had bread with butter most nights.

There aren’t any secret family recipes that have been passed down for generations, once I found out that the fudge my grandmother made is available on the back of the Kraft Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Creme jar.

My wife once asked my mother about a beef and noodles dish that I raved about when I first met her. “I’d really love to make it for him, what’s in it?” she asked. My mom, a little surprised at the question said flatly, “Beef, noodles and salt.” She forgot to mention water for the noodles, and sometimes ketchup.

Another of the great food memories from my childhood was applesauce.

You get the picture.

However, what my upbringing lacked in quality cuisine, it more than made up for in love. This year my mother is spending Thanksgiving with us. Our kids have been bouncing off the walls in anticipation. What did we plan? Smoked turkey, a little cornbread, some beans and starches and pie. Very traditional fare. And while certain aromas from cooking may well take hold deep in the hippocampus of our children, one thing’s for sure - they’ll remember the love of a grandmother they rarely see. Because even though she was a lousy cook, she was a great mother. And even better grandmother.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Memories from the kitchen and other natural disasters: Charlie shares common scents from the kitchen, thoughts for food

2009-11-17T10:19:00.013-06:00

I love food. I really, really do. I love going out to eat. I especially love restaurants like Joe T. Garcia's in Fort Worth (their amazing family-style traditional meal hasn't changed for generations, thank God); Chez Nous in Austin, Texas; Celadon in San Diego; Sequoia in Georgetown; Pascal's Manale in New Orleans; China Grill in New York; The Red Fort in London; L'Absinthe in Paris and many other places that have created delicious food and splendid memories for my family and me (and perhaps some of you) for generations.

I love cooking, especially with friends and loved ones. I love being in other people's kitchens while they cook. I love trying new recipes. I love the smiles on people's faces when they approve of some new concoction from my kitchen.

I love collecting books about cooking from around the world. I love taking pictures of food. Bring me a beautiful plate of dinner and I'll snap happily away with my camera, whether I'm in a restaurant or at somebody's house.

And oh, how I love spices. In my last life I must have grown and sold spices, or lived along one of the ancient incense and spice trade routes, because I relish their rich aromas and flavors, which have summoned the gods and produced out-of-body experiences for as long as mankind's been eating.

I am wooed by the earthy-dry-fruity-perfumy-grassy-acrid-flowery-musky-woodsy pungencies that are sifted from nature and distilled by our imaginations.

In my own kitchen I have a spice rack on the wall and a spice drawer beneath it. Both are stuffed, sometimes 2 bottles deep, with pure, pungent and prized concoctions. My 4-year-old son and I have often wandered through this collection together, opening jars and tins one-by-one, smelling the contents, and discussing the flavor and use of each. In this way my son has learned about "pungent," "savoury," "sweet," "bitter," and the like...and we have also learned what we should and should not add to a pot or pan (sometimes the hard way).

Certain scents will always remind me of those times when he's climbed up next to me on his kitchen stool and "helped" me spice things up while I've narrated various cooking processes to him.

If music is what feelings sound like, then spices are what they taste like. A single taste can transport us back to a very happy or particularly poignant moment. Of course it can; the sense of smell is very closely tied to memory. I suspect that the two travel down the same neural pathways and wind up in the same grey-matter repositories. Combine the two - smell and memory - and you have the makings of some potent recollections. Last weekend my sister-in-law brought me some hand soap for the kitchen, and the pink sparkly stuff smells just like Christmas to me.

Every time I wash my hands, I am transported back to my family's home on Morningside Drive in 1972, the year that Santa delivered Sesame Street puppets and a "toy" Bissell for me, a red and white sleeping bag for my sister, and tie and a package of underwear for my father. Of course there was more to Christmas than those five gifts, but I was very young and apparently those particular images are tied to - and summoned by - the scent of Aline's Christmas soap.

During any holiday, any time of the year - my kitchen is bound to be a lively, happy science lab where we mix old and new concoctions. On rare occasions over the past decade our experiments have resulted in volcanic-like eruptions from the blender, flour-dust storms, a small fire or two and a landslide of laughs and good memories.

Once, my good friend Nidia and I tried to make tamales in my tiny kitchen in Washington, D.C., and the adventure was so unsuccessful that the only thing we were able to produce was a batch of steamed, gooey, meaty mud balls. After a call to Nidia's mother, we learned that our key ingredient was supposed to be corn meal and we looked at each other, both covered in corn flower, and fell on the floor laughing hysterically. That may have been Nidia's first and only failure in the kitchen, and her pride was like a souffle that had been taken out of the oven too soon.

Nidia is one of the best cooks I know - and I firmly believe that she needs her own Food Network show. That girl can make something really delicious and healthy out of anything, especially if you've got any chiles, cilantro or comino in the kitchen. She's got a supernatural talent for Southwest-style cooking, and she can whip up a pot of stew or soup that will cure any cold, flu or broken heart that comes to the table.

Music and food have another thing in common - they are both universal languages of sorts. We can communicate so much, so very well, through our kitchens and the wonders that are produced and delivered from them.

My neighbor, Karen, is a superb baker-ess, and she's been taking cake decorating classes one or two nights a week for a few months. I know this because I often open my front door -- or my mailbox -- and find the results of her handiwork wrapped up with a bow for me.

We make great neighbors: we both have 4-year-old sons, and we are both on our own at mealtimes a few nights a week.

She's one of the few people I can share left-overs with (and we regularly do). I suspect most neighbors would find it odd - or unsettling - if the frazzled and disorganized mom from next door stopped by to deliver a plate of left-overs and said, "Here, eat this so I won't have to throw it away in two days." But not Karen, bless her heart. These memories have been simmering with other thoughts and ideas, and as the holiday season unfolds here in the U.S., I hope to add more to the pot.

One of the things I'd like to add is a memory, or a recipe, or a food-related idea from you. I've made so many new friends and acquaintances over the past 12 months thanks to my work and the wonders of social media. I'd like to bring you all into the heart of my home -- my kitchen -- this year.

Won't you join me? Send me your favorite recipes, photos, ideas and memories from your kitchens. I'll post them right here from now until we run out of holiday time - or ideas. You can send them via comments to this blog, e-mail, or Twitter - @holidaymeals or @misscharlie.

Saturday afternoon at the Festival: Puppets, Poe, and the Peterson brothers blues band

2009-10-31T02:30:00.007-05:00

Hand to Mouth Puppet Theater

2:15 PM Saturday

For the past 12 years, Hand To Mouth Puppet Theatre has been amazing thousands with the art of puppetry, performing at festivals, museums, clubs, schools, libraries, and in the middle of windy fields.

Robbie Lueth discovered puppetry in 1978 and began pursuing it with a passion.

Her studies of literature, drama and voice, as well as her sense of humor, have served her well in making the magic of puppetry come to life each time the lights go on. Puppeteer, painter, graphic artist, costume designer, and book illustrator Ellen Turner Scott has been an artist all her life. The variety of her experience makes Ellen a performer who amazes and delights audiences wherever she goes.

TexARTS Presents:
Selected works from Edgar Allen Poe
3:00 PM Saturday

In honor of the bicentennial of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth, the 2009 Texas Book Festival, in collaboration with the Harry Ransom Center, features a number of activities and performances that pay tribute to the great American poet, critic and author.

The children’s entertainment tent will feature dramatic readings from Edgar Allan Poe, including The Raven, The Black Cat, Spirits of the Dead, and excerpts from The Pit and the Pendulum and The Fall of the House of Usher. Don’t miss this exciting performance by TexARTS Association for Visual & Performing Arts’ Executive Director/Producer Todd Dellinger and members of TexARTS' Great Shakes Classical Repertory Theater - Spencer Carter, Patrick Mullarkey, and Katie Patterson.

The Peterson Brothers Band and Sean Kindred

4:00 PM Saturday

Trust me -- you’ll be surprised by the performance that this young band delivers. I watched a video of the band playing a Hendrix song at Rutamaya and couldn't believe my eyes and ears. The Peterson brothers (age 13 and younger) and two friends will play instrumental Blues, Jazz, Rock, Christian, Bluegrass and more during their performance - a fitting last act to send blues loving festival-goers off for Halloween festivities downtown.

The Peterson brothers are from Bastrop, Texas, and will perform Saturday as “The Peterson Brothers Band and Sean Kindred.” Their sound is a combination of down home Blues and a little bit of everything else that pleases the crowds.

The Lovely & talented Sara Hickman to play at The Texas Book Festival

2009-10-30T12:52:00.004-05:00

Sara's on at 1:00 PM Sunday

(Children's Entertainment Tent)

Sara Hickman likes to write about things that pop into her head, like bowls full of stars and faithful hearts and birdhouses. She likes to sing and play guitar, too.

The lovely and talented artist has contributed a great deal to the world of music, with a repertoire that includes award-winning music and songs for children and adults alike. Whether you've learned about Sara Hickman through her music, her family, her causes, or her films, you know that her originality, creativity, and enthusiasm bring a fresh meaning to the well-worn phrase "living life to the fullest."

Wondering what to do this weekend? Look no further:

2009-10-30T12:39:00.004-05:00

Here's the lineup for the Children's Entertainment Tent this weekend (posted again for your convenience) - I'll have more info about the performers later today!

Texas Book Festival draws a star-studded crowd to raise funds for public libraries

2009-10-26T14:10:00.022-05:00

PBS TV stars, local celebrities and entertainers will serve up some serious fun in the Children's Entertainment Tent this year

Great causes have a way of bringing out the best in people, don't they? Nowhere is that more apparent than at the Texas Book Festival, where some of the nation's most intriguing authors and popular entertainers turn out year after year to celebrate the joy of books and reading -- and support Texas public libraries.

The festival runs every year around this time, and roughly 35,000 people descend on Austin to attend the two-day event, which raises money for our traditionally under-funded public libraries.

I've been involved with the festival in one way or another since it began, but this year I signed on for my most ambitious effort yet when I agreed to serve as Chair of the Children's Entertainment Tent in late August. I was tasked with finding, recruiting and booking enough talent to fill a two-day schedule of children's entertainment.

With a little luck and a lot of advice and encouragement, I whipped up a baker's dozen of incredible acts: 13 back-to-back performances running from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Saturday, October 31 and Sunday, November 1...emceed by two celebrity news anchors on Saturday and a nationally acclaimed star from musical theatre on Sunday.

On Saturday our little souffle includes a show by the wildly popular Biscuit Brothers at 1:00 PM (see below for details) and a smorgasbord of singers, songwriters and interactive performances before and after that.

I hope everyone will stop by to catch the last show on Saturday by the Peterson Brothers Blues Band. The brothers are two musicians, both under the age of 13 (one of whom plays no less than 6 instruments), and they will be joined by a couple of friends on bass and drums. I watched about 60 seconds of their performance at a local coffee house and knew they'd be a perfect way to wrap up the day. You won't believe the sound that comes from these kids and their band -- they'll give you a good send-off, especially if you plan on catching some blues entertainment later on downtown.

On another note...There's a fascinating twist in the lineup of this year's festival. In cooperation with The University of Texas at Austin's Harry Ransom Center, the Book Festival is weaving in an intriguing mix of activities to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe's birth.

The children's entertainment tent will feature readings from a selection of Poe's works -- presented in child-friendly and dramatic style by Shakespearian actors from the TexARTS Academy for the performing and visual arts (and led by the astonishingly generous and gifted TexARTS Executive Director Todd Dellinger, who will also serve as emcee on Sunday).

I hope you'll come out and catch a few of these awesome acts ... which are FREE all weekend. These generous performers have donated a great deal to help raise money for our state's public libraries (whose already-strapped budgets have taken a beating during the nation's economic crisis). Some of the acts themselves are non-profit organizations, including TexARTS and the Biscuit Brothers, and they work hard to raise money for their own organizations.

Festival-goers can attend performances and support the performers in one simple and rewarding way: Stop by the children's entertainment tent and pick up a few early Christmas gifts for your little friends and loved ones. Many of the performers will have CDs, DVDs and other merchandise for sale during and after their shows.

I could go on and on about the great things you'll find at the Children's Entertainment Tent this year....in fact, I plan to. I'll be updating this blog throughout the week with more information about the incredible lineup this year.

Stars of Wildly Popular PBS Kids TV Show,

The Biscuit Brothers, perform at 1:00 PM Saturday

The Biscuit Brothers star in an EMMY Award-winning PBS kids’ music and education program that airs on KLRU-TV PBS Austin and on a number of other PBS stations across the United States. They also work outside of the studio, venturing off the Musical Farm to entertain live audiences with concerts that are wildly popular with children and draw

an impressive fan base of adults as well.

The Biscuit Brothers program was created by Damon Brown, Allen Robertson, and Jerome Schoolar, whose backgrounds in professional theatre, music and acting led to this successful collaboration. All three write and perform on the show, which is hailed for its originality and distinctly Austin style.

You won’t find much fluff or filler in these Texas Biscuits. With the help of a talented crew and professionals such as Jill Leberknight, who plays “Buttermilk” on camera, the team presents an entire landscape of lessons in the arts. They introduce new ideas to children with original songs, good humor and brilliantly crafted scripts (which cleverly conceal the fact that the show is educational).

The cast and crew are fearless when it comes to presenting complex material. They tackle everything from music theory to geography and tuba repair with aplomb, and they weave it all together into well-delivered, entertaining and memorable programs.

The program’s official mission is to introduce arts-related content to children with ideas that engage creativity and learning. A happy side effect of that work has been the delivery of a splendid repertoire of music that’s distinctly Austin, delightfully entertaining and undeniably worthy of a permanent place in your homes and hearts. The program captures all that’s best about children’s music and entertainment while teaching valuable lessons about life and the many ways we can bring harmony to it.

The Biscuit Brothers have a way with words and music -- and a habit of leaving audiences with the distinct impression that our world is infinitely better when we can Go Make Music together.

PS - be sure to check out the Biscuit Brothers' CDs and DVDs at the show. As the mother of a 4-year-old boy, I can say with some authority that their recordings will quickly become some of YOUR favorite items in your children's media library. Here's one of my favorites - a pure-genius musical interpretation of something South of the Border performed by Biscuits puppet character "Tiny Scarecrow." Cracks me up every time I watch it: Chickens playing bongos. (CAUTION: Addictive melody.)

Texas Book Festival features stars including singer/songwriter Joe McDermott Saturday, October 31

2009-10-23T16:07:00.007-05:00

Joe McDermott: Noon

Joe McDermott has been obsessed with music ever since he was a little kid growing up in Chicago, the youngest of eight children.

"It all started out with a coffee can and a couple of drumsticks my dad gave to me. I think he was sorry he got them." His first gig was when he and his brother performed at a Harlem Globetrotters show. Five year old Joe played drums and sang "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" with his older brother. This amazing debut was arranged by their aunt who was organizing a hospital benefit. "We had medallions and everything - I wore the Sagittarius," Joe remembers.

All he wanted to do from that point on was make music and make people smile. His next big show was in the 4th grade, when he played drums in his brother's rock band.

As he grew, Joe's creative endeavors shifted for awhile to fine art and painting. While he learned to play guitar and played in rock bands, he moved to Austin and earned a Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas. Hoping to make it in the art world, he took a job as an art teacher at Athena Montessori. Five years later, he opened his own preschool, The Phoenix School, in Central Austin. Little did he know how this melding of creativity and immersion in early childhood education would lead to his future career as one of the nation’s top children’s music recording artists. "It’s amazing how it all evolved so organically. I’m not sure about fate, but it seemed there has been a guiding hand in this," Joe says.

In a rambling old Austin house, Joe and his wife ran the preschool in the front two rooms, and on the weekends played music in the back room studio with friends. Joe realized that children were an unending source of inspiration for songwriting. One year, he recorded a tape with the school children recorded as a Christmas gift for the parents. It was just a dabble into the world of children’s music, but the response was so positive, and his own experiences as a parent made songwriting for children an irresistible force.

Joe’s first nationally distributed CD, I Am Baby, won a Parents’ Choice Recommended Honor in 1998; and both Great Big World (2001) andEverywhere You Go (2003) won the esteemed Parents’ Choice Silver Honor Award. Joe was honored with his first NAPPA Gold Award for Everywhere You Go, which includes the Children’s Music Web Award winning song, "Baby Kangaroo." This song also captured a second place prize in the International Song Writing Contest, Children’s Division in 2005. In 2007, Joe released his fourth family music CD, Everybody Plays Air Guitar, which received a Parents’ Choice Recommended Honor. Many songs from all four releases are in regular rotation on XMKids Radio.

McDermott’s proficient songwriting abilities enabled him to compose music for children’s video games (Zombies Ate My Neighbors) and educational software. One project teamed Joe with Stan and Jan Berenstain, authors of the classic Berenstain Bears books. Impressed by Joe’s work, author Stan Berenstain enlisted him to adapt ten of their books to song. After working with Joe, Stan Berenstain said, "Joe McDermott is not only a magnificent songwriter, he’s also an absolute wizard at communicating with children through music." Many of Joe’s catchy songs have been arranged for orchestral performance, allowing him to perform with the Austin Symphony Orchestra and the Allen Philharmonic Symphony.

Children’s music is a full-time focus for Joe McDermott. "What I love about this genre is how open it is to expression." His artistic training helps him create visually rich songs that evoke emotions in "people of all sizes." He’s been called "The maestro of imagination" for his creative approach and appeal.

Children's Entertainment Stars Rise Early in the Morning to Perform at the Texas Book Festival on Opening Day (Halloween-style)

2009-10-21T01:11:00.004-05:00

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Opening act: Mr. Johnny and Sharon: 10:00 a.m.

Mr. Johnny and Sharon are five-year favorites of the Texas Book Festival Children’s Entertainment Tent. This year they bring scarves, bugs, drum sticks, streamers, bubbles and more to the Festival’s opening act, which will inspire children to dance, jump and sing along in the "most interactive music show" in Central Texas. The duo has performed together for more than 10 years at venues such as ACL, Austin Museum of Art, Nutty Brown, Wild Basin, Zilker Hillside and regional schools and libraries. They also publish KidEvents Weekly, a digest of the best kids’ activities in Austin. See www.mrjohnny.com for more details.

Walter T. and the Rated G's: 11:00 a.m.

Austin musician Walter Tragert

Walter Tragert's musical training began in the cradle and involved his rocking to the rhythm of "Gloria" as interpreted by his adolescent brothers' garage band. Since his portentious start, Walter has crafted his own career as an acclaimed songwriter and performer. He's been hailed as Texas' answer to Graham Parker, Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello, but he's undeniably unique, with a bona-fide brand all his own.

A veteran of Austin's live music scene, Tragert has recorded and performed with a variety of artists, from Ian McLagan (The Faces, Rolling Stones) to The Tosca String Quartet (David Bryne). In 1988, he joined Grammy nominees Michele Valeri and Ingrid Crepeau as a cast member of their child-oriented show Dinosaur Rock, touring from coast to coast to the delight of thousands of elementary-schoolers.

When it comes to his combined talent and take on music, Tragert is in a class all by himself -- except for those times when he's in a class full of children. Walter is fully in his element as a teacher at the Armstrong Community Music School, which is run by the Austin Lyric Opera. He has 20 years of experience teaching guitar and songwriting, but he says the greatest experience is working with children -- engaging their curiosity and energy and providing an outlet for both through music.

Music journalists have praised Tragert as one of the best of his genre. He has a "soul-man's delivery with a poet's heart," according to Texas Music Magazine.

Tragert recently released his first full-length children's music album, "Rough day in the Sandbox." The artist got together with a few well-known friends to record and produce the album, which was released this month (October 2009). The result is a splendidly creative collection of songs that appeal to a wide range of audiences and age groups. Walter Tragert lives, works and occasionally uses his kitchen to cook gourmet meals in Austin, Texas. He has one cat but considers himself a "dog" person.

Walter T. and the Rated G's (a lineup you won't want to miss) will present "A Rough Day at the Sandbox" at the Texas Book Festival on October 31.

You can LISTEN to sample songs on Tragert's new children's music release HERE.

The Texas Book Festival's Lineup of Children's Music and Performances

2009-10-20T01:59:00.009-05:00

Save the boobies! Peace, love & yummy cakes for Ro

2009-10-03T02:40:00.008-05:00

Breast cancer is costly: Physically. Financially. Personally. It’s especially hard on women who work for themselves and have limited personal insurance -- women like Rochelle, a 30-something supremely talented massage therapist and deeply spiritual healer/caretaker I know in Austin, Texas.

Rochelle was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer a few weeks ago, and she faces one incredible battle against this wretched disease. It's a battle she is physically and mentally ready to fight. Rochelle's good friend (and my neighbor) Karen, a diva baker who takes the cake for the cakes she bakes, doesn’t think that paying medical bills should be part of that battle.

Karen decided to put her baking talent to good use. For a $50 donation to Rochelle's medical bills, Karen will whip you up one seriously delicious cake - or a batch of her “crack” concoction cake balls (a batch is roughly 6 dozen cake balls). Word on the street is that the chocolate-chocolate cake balls are the best, but you can custom-order your favorite flavors and toppings, too.

If you don’t eat cake but want to help cover the costs of Rochelle’s treatment (which begins this month), you can send a $50 donation instead. All of the proceeds will go directly to Rochelle’s medical expenses. Central Texans can also support Rochelle by scheduling an appointment for a massage. What a relaxing way to help a friend fight cancer.

For more information, e-mail Karen at cakeforthecure@yahoo.com. You can also contact charlie@charliefernink.com.

Telling tales out of Speechwriter School: the writer doth gettare un'ombra

2009-09-16T10:29:00.011-05:00

"Lord love a duck," as one of my favorite professors used to say.

"Major League Asshole," as one of my former bosses might say.

Both would be right in this case, I'd say.

A soon-to-be-famous ex-Bush Administration staffer (now labeled an untrustworthy and unemployable ex-speechwriter, I suspect) has toddled out across the South Lawn of the White House to hang some dirty jockeys, which apparently grew quite bunched during his short stint putting words in the mouth of a past president.

I chuckle and shake my head every time I hear about another former "Bush Insider" parading around America talking all expert-like about "extensive" experience and lessons learned while serving in the office a U.S. president.

I wrote speeches for Laura Bush in Texas from 1995 through 2000, and I was her White House speechwriter in 2001-2002. Matt Larimer hadn't made his big entrance onto the national stage by then, apparently, because his name doesn't ring a bell. Then again, I don't pay much attention to bells that signal feeding-frenzy time for tasteless, self-righteous piranhas. The bell tolls for them and them alone.

Like any other office in America, the White House has always been (and will always be) staffed by an interesting mix of people who range from one extreme to the other -- from bright to dim; loyal to opportunistic. From decent and hard-working to lazy spawns of Satan. The higher up the career ladder you go, the more pronounced the extremes. The world is full of bad people, frankly, and that's one of the lessons that most of us learn by the time we reach our 30s.

The people whom I've always thought of as heroes and leaders don't run and tattle on the people they perceive as bad guys. They're above all that. The best among us know how to be kind, forthright, self-conscious and willing to admit their own shortcomings. They make mistakes like the rest of us, sure, but they don't blame others for it. And mistakes don't dissuade them from working hard to make the world a better place in spite of the bad people working around and against them.

Wise people and worthy leaders are usually generous with their portions of edification and generally look for ways to celebrate the good in life. They rise above the petty fray and let the bad guys sink their own damn boats. And down there, among the shipwrecked souls, you won't find any legacies and important chapters of history waiting to be written. You'll find gossips, snipes and troglodytes who have nothing better to do than stir the sand and muddy the waters of their own miserable abyss.

Telling tales out of the nation's Number One Speechwriters School might make Latimer feel better about the bitter pills he felt he was forced to swallow, but in doing so, he's also proved himself something of a bitter pill.

The book, a semi-educated "insider" tell-all, betrays a man who is looking for a job with a new administration or a new political party -- a man who is apparently willing to sell his soul, and sell out his friends, for a few bucks and a few minutes of fame along the way.

His book may have a short shelf-life, but his pettiness and self-aggrandizement are set in words of stone, immortal. He's cast a pall across the office of the president and all who work there; he's also done a good bit to undermine the nation's trust of any political leader and further disillusion an already politically weary voting citizenry. Beyond that, he's hurt a lot of good people who were there in the trenches, too.

Tsk. Such a tragic story. And precisely why little boys should not play with matches, especially when they're standing on a bridge.

A browser's bookshelf: order is in the eye of the beholder

2009-09-10T00:33:00.008-05:00

I am a book person. I love books. I browse and admire them. I tote and collect them. I shelve, stack and compulsively rearrange them. My books are not alphabetized or systematized. Dewey Decimal has never seen the likes of my library, nor would he want to, because my brain has a mind of its own when it comes to the kingdom, phylum or classification of words and titles, bound or unbound (a fact that has confounded colleagues and assistants for years).

Most of the time I enjoy hunting for books in their various stores around my house. I always come across a title I'd forgotten, or a book written by a friend, and those encounters evoke in me the kind of smiles, Aha's and memories that others have when they flip through photo albums.

I thought it brilliant that Amazon.com launched a campaign to ask customers "What's on Your Bookshelf?" and I love that one of the featured shelves belonged to two of my favorite people, family members Joel and wife Kathryn (who is a terrific poet and author herself).

I don't know about you, but when I'm in someone else's house, if there's a bookcase nearby I can't resist inspecting it. It's a habit I learned from other readers and writers. Books say so much about people and the things that interest them. How they're arranged does, too. Few would be so bold as to snap a photo of a great row of titles that belong to someone else; after all, book cases are private matters, aren't they? We have standards. Rules of etiquette apply.

Inviting people to show off their books is a novel idea, yes, pun and all....and a splendid diversion for book browsers like me.

I'm a veteran supporter and happy volunteer for the Texas Book Festival, which is one of my favorite fall festivals in Central Texas (and which raises money for Texas public libraries). A respectable smattering of books on my shelves either came from past book festivals or were written by authors who were featured at them.

If you're wondering about the authors, celebrities and musicians who will be reading, paneling, opining and signing at this year's Texas Book Festival October 31-November 1, visit the website: www.TexasBookFestival.org.

I'll let you in on one little secret: The lineup for the Children's Entertainment Tent so far is Tremendous (with a Texas Capitol T), and I can say that with some confidence because I'm helping the festival line them up. Grown-ups will walk away from that experience smiling as big as the kids who brought 'em. We'll have more details on entertainers and the schedule soon.

Elizabeth Gilbert, on writing

2009-09-01T14:40:00.002-05:00

Great piece about creative ventures.

Digitry, wizardry and gadgetry, oh my! The tool that turned Charlie into an early adopter: Text4vCard

2009-08-24T11:09:00.014-05:00

If you happened to be wandering around the Austin Interactive business technology conference last fall, you might have heard whispers among the gadget-loving trade show elite about some new business cards being flashed around. Flashed, as in electronically. As in uber-cool business card technology.

The buzz was about a clever and timely innovation from a feisty little Central Texas startup called Text4ROI, which is one of 10 select companies that will be showcased in StartupRow at the InnoTech conference in October. The firm is led by equally feisty CEO and co-founder Carrie Chitsey, who announced today that her firm’s patent pending new product – Text4vCard - is ready for prime time. And it’s oh-so-easy to use.

“With Text4vCard, you can send your business card to someone instantly, and they don’t have to be signed up with our service or download any applications before they can receive a card,” said Chitsey.

Text4vCard is an electronic SMS business card exchange service that lets people share contact info (plus any personalized text, like a Twitter user name) through cell phone text messaging. Users can then import the info to any contact database that accepts standard vCard formats, such as Outlook, Gmail, Address Book (and soon, SalesForce).

Chitsey, an acclaimed entrepreneur, innovator and Fortune 100 sales and marketing veteran, calls the service “phone agnostic” – it isn’t bound by any proprietary technology, so just about anyone can use it. All you need is a cell phone with a text messaging plan and a computer. And, if you happen to own a smart phone, you can add the vCard to your address book within seconds.

The evolutionary technology is bound to make the cavemen of Corporate America stand up a little straighter, especially now that they can shed their 100-pound card stock in favor of a weightless alternative.

The idea of exchanging contact info electronically isn’t new, of course. Companies have fiddled around with the concept before. But no one has approached the level of sophistication and ease-of-use that Text4vCard delivers. The service has advanced capabilities like a dashboard, which can generate reports about distribution, use and ROI. Users can see how many vCards they shared at an event and how many people actually added the information to their contact databases. Text4vCard also lets users add and share more information than other SMS-based services.

“You can enter more than your name, phone number, and e-mail address,” Chitsey said. “We have more fields for information and customized text and you can revise your information any time. If you change your phone number or switch jobs, you can instantly update your card.” Editing on a whim is a nifty capability, especially if you find yourself at a speed dating mixer or Star Trek convention and someone with green horns asks for your number.

Text4vCard may be the belle of the ball at cocktail parties and trade shows this fall. In fact, speakers and exhibitors at four upcoming trade shows in September and October will be flashing their new techno-cool Text4vCards, and people have already started snatching up vanity names. By the time South by Southwest 2010 rolls around, we'll all be texting our digits on gadgets.

I'm no early adopter by any stretch of the imagination. But Carrie and her colleague Dave Valentino had me sign up for a free trial, and - what do you know! I discovered it's rather fun to exchange business cards this nifty new way. I always took great pride in the design of my old paper cards, but it's pretty cool to tell someone to text my name to 70626 and see what happens. And yes, after a few tries, I succumbed to vanity and paid a little extra for "MissCharlie," so the rest of you Charlie girls will have to think of another vanity name (and I'd hurry, because they're going fast).

To see a live demo, text TXT4 to 70626; or for a free trial, visit the Web site: www.text4vcard.com.

Photo illustration by Roy Pena. Thanks, Roy!

8th grader's miracle shot: Take that, LeBron James

2009-06-23T12:53:00.002-05:00

Twitter Delivers Supreme Justice for the Average Joe Consumer

2009-05-21T03:53:00.015-05:00

Twitter is a fascinating technological tool: part party line, part search engine, part trend tracker. It's also a lot like a Ferrari. You can't fully appreciate it after a mere test drive. You need time behind the wheel - pushing buttons, exploring features and taking it full-throttle on the open road. That's what reveals the truth about power, functionality, engineering and design.

I slid behind the wheel of Twitter six months ago so I could tap into conversations with high-caliber professionals and peers. I fully expected to be inspired and entertained. What I did not expect was to witness to the rise of a real-time system of free enterprise checks and balances...with a sphere of influence that spans the globe.

Twitter has reshaped public relations with a power-packed subscriber list and audience of influential consumer groups, journalists, political officials, celebrities and corporate executives. And Twitter has given a voice to the average Joe for the first time since corporations dropped the iron curtain of automated customer service a few decades ago.

I remember the first time I encountered an automated system instead of a voice on the other end of the phone line. “This is the end of customer service as we know it,” I thought - and so did millions of other people.

Public outcry for human interaction led some to put a person at the end some automated odysseys. Unfortunately call center reps are programmed to be as ineffective as touch-tone systems. I feel for them, though. They've got draconian rules on one end, emotionally charged customers on the other end, and no power to exercise independent judgment in between. Ever try to get a customer service person to abandon their scripts? Whoo-ee.

It's a sad state of affairs, but we have more grey matter than other mammals, and we’ve harnessed it to learn get-the-operator shortcuts and code-words like “escalate the case” when we've exhausted negotiations. But unless you have hours or more to invest (in my case a year with American Airlines), the odds of a satisfactory resolution are weighted against the underdog.

But now we have Twitter. And early-adopter businesses such as Southwest Airlines have seen how it provides checks and balances for internal operations and external relationships. Twitter is an early-warning system for impending public relations crises, and it may help uncover the size and source of a system failure.

Case in point: I ordered flowers online from Teleflora the Saturday before Mother’s Day. I knew I’d pay a premium for the transgression of dragging my feet and waiting for last-minute deals. I was prepared for that.

I chose the arrangements for both my mother and mother-in-law and worked through pages of online forms. Just before I crossed the Confirmation Page finish line, I was abruptly re-routed by an error code that implied I was crazy to expect same-day delivery... but might I agree to Sunday delivery instead?

Absolutely, I clicked, and slogged through the forms a second time, only to fail again. Sunday delivery was an option on Screen 2, but the payment processing Page 4 disagreed. Apparently 6 million other Americans were ahead of me in line for Sunday delivery. I started over again and cheered when Monday delivery was approved for both orders. I would not have survived a third taunting.

You can imagine my surprise, four days later, when I received an e-mail stating that the flowers were not delivered to my mother. No phone call to the recipient, or me -- an e-mail with an option to reply online or call an 800 number. I chose the latter and learned, after much time of the phone, that neither arrangement had been delivered -- three days late and counting -- and I was offered a litany of excuses.

People spend too much time developing excuses instead of solutions. Nobody wants to know why you dropped the ball -- especially when the game involves little old ladies or anyone's mother. All we want to know is that you delivered a win. Period.

The Teleflora rep promised flowers THAT DAY with an apology note (or an explanation). She offered a 50 percent refund and a phone call when the delivery was confirmed.

Wednesday and half of Thursday passed. We called again and learned the flowers still hadn't been delivered. This time we were told the flowers might make it by Friday afternoon and the rep offered to take 20 percent (not 50 percent) off the original bill.

I assured Teleflora that Texas and Kentucky have people with flowers and driver's licenses who are willing to take money in exchange for delivery. We eventually reached another agreement, which I didn't trust. I called a florist 3 blocks from my mother-in-law’s house and had another arrangement delivered that day. Successfully.

Next, I logged on to Twitter and started micro-blogging about the experience -- and what do you know! Within 24 hours I had a senior vice president with Teleflora on the phone. She was absolutely terrific, and as nice and appropriately mortified as she could be, especially now that it was Friday afternoon and my mother still had not received her flowers.

The executive personally took my case, which she fought nobly on my behalf for three solid days. I am happy to report that the flowers reached my mother yesterday, after a 10-day-long odyssey past the Port of Mother's Day.

Thanks to Twitter, (and to Teleflora for having the good sense to be ON Twitter), I found Jennifer Simms, who had the compassion and authority to personally solve my problem.

It’s a shame, really, that customer service is languishing in an age of technology and advanced human understanding. It’s not just that automated systems that have brought us down. It's that organizations have lost sight of the fact that people matter.

Employees are not just tools with numbers assigned to them. They are an organization's greatest resource -- people with hearts and minds who can be effective ambassadors of goodwill if given the freedom and authority to do what's right. Employees should be allowed to exercise independent thought and solve problems in real time on the front lines with customers.

One U.S. company is a model of success in customer relations: Southwest Airlines. Their philosophy and standards of practice are so impressive that they have a single-digit employee turnover rate. In fact, you'd have an easier time getting into Harvard than you would finding a job opening there.

Southwest Airlines gets it. And they’ll get it whether Twitter lives long and prospers or fizzles out tomorrow. The proof is in the pudding -- in this case the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

This week Southwest Airlines was ranked Number One by the ACSI, and they got there because they value people, support and trust their employees -- and much more.

"We work from the mantra that we're in the Customer Service business, we just happen to fly airplanes," said Linda Rutherford, Southwest Airlines' vice president of communications and strategic outreach. "It is that focus on the Customer that centers our efforts. We want to use each interaction with a Customer to win their hearts and minds and earn their repeat business. We capitalize the "C" in Customer and the "E" in Employee for a reason. It's a daily symbolic reminder that it's the People--our Customers and our Employees--who make Southwest different and successful."

Linda spoke to my public relations class at St. Edward’s University this spring, and after one student commented about how many things Southwest Airlines seems to do right -- and better than everyone else -- Linda kidded that her company could probably expand into the consulting business for a number of their successful innovations (customer service, social media, public relations, and more). For the sake of consumers everywhere, I wish they would.

So here's to you, Southwest Airlines, for earning yet another gold star the honest way. America LUVs you.

Odd people make interesting music

2009-05-15T14:13:00.002-05:00

If a dance club collided with a 3-ring circus, you might get something like this:

Poker Face - Lady Gaga

Strangely compelling.

Things that make you go hmmm - and other noises I can't make.

2009-04-25T15:15:00.009-05:00

Three Cheers for Austin's Green Fern Events and its Technicolor Founder, Emily Kahn. Happy Earth Day!

2009-04-22T15:05:00.014-05:00

If I were a mystic who could see energy fields, I'd wager that my good friend Emily Kahn's aura is green. In fact, I bet it's more like 67 shades of green. She has what you'd get when you cross a green thumb with the Midas touch in a person who is devoted to preserving and protecting this earth we call home.

And if you had an hour to listen to her (which would be a well-spent and highly entertaining adventure, I assure you), she could tell you about environmentally friendly ideas and practices from the macro to the molecular level, if you're willing to go there.

Emily is founder of Green Fern Events, a company she's been building for the better part of a year and officially launched this month. She threw open her company doors today, appropriately, in honor of Earth Day.

Green Fern Events is an absolutely, totally, thoroughly environmentally friendly event planning firm whose capabilities range from corporate events and regional conferences to weddings, bar mitzvas and private parties.

Emily pays shocking attention to detail when it comes to dreaming up and running gorgeous, affordable, well-planned and splendidly executed events. I came to love Emily because of her joie de vieve, exuberant wit, optimism and humanity. I came to respect and admire Emily for her passion, determination and knowledge about her work. She's the real deal.

And she's invested an enormous amount of time an energy in researching the absolute best products (often both organic and fair trade) and the most thorough environmental practices. The result: a company that can plan a bad to the bone, green to the core event at a time when we (especially we in Central Texas) want and need it most.

Conferences and events are among the largest polluters on earth -- who knew that? Emily did before most of us, and she can give you a dozen reasons why without blinking.

Emily can go as green as her clients want their events to be -- right down to a conference Web site that's hosted on servers that use renewable solar energy.

After each event, Emily's clients receive a full report that details exactly how they saved the planet, and by how much. And that makes for good corporate responsibility ...and good news. How'd you like to plan an event that leaves everyone feeling good - from employees to consumers - and leaves your "green-washed" competition in the dust?

And because Emily loves sharing her knowledge, she'll teach you as much as you want to know about making a sustainable difference in this world, whether you're planning an event, or planning a better future for your children.

Indeed, Green Fern Events is not just another Central Texas event planning firm. It's a kick-ass company run by a subject matter expert who loves life and leaves others feeling pretty good about their lives, too. And, no offense, but that should leave her local competition feeling a little you-know-what with envy.

So here's to you, Emily Kahn. I wish you and Green Fern Events rip-roaring success (and I rather like the name, too).

Mastermind of the "I Love You" social media experiment reports that the love bug nibbled on about 80,000 people worldwide

2009-04-20T17:08:00.017-05:00

I'm proud to reprint, below, an inspiring and informative blog entry by my friend Jim Mitchem, an ad guru and founder of Smash Communications. Jim sat down and wrote about the "I Love You" social media experiment and the impact it had on him (and tens of thousands of others worldwide).

Please see his blog, Obsessed with Conformity, for more wit, wisdom and pure genius. Thanks, Jim, for allowing me to be a part of your brilliant scheme. And thank you for introducing me to the fabulous StaciJShelton, whose talent and work is, well, awe-inspiring. Read on for more:

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Disney World

by Jim Mitchem
Smash Communications

Saturday, April 4, 2009 was a pretty special day. We got up before the sun and filled the car with enough clothes and bulk food items to last us a week at Disney World. It was also the day of our annual fantasy baseball draft. Of course everyone else participating in the draft would be sitting around a kitchen table in North Jersey, while we were driving south on I-95, but we were up for the challenge (besides, we have a movie player in the car for the kids). But before any of the driving or drafting began, I posted 'I Love You' as my Facebook and Twitter status. It was an idea that was born about a month earlier - as a Social Media experiment to see if these three words could take SM by storm. Even if for one day. We didn't have a lot of time to prepare, so I shared the idea with a couple of really good friends on Twitter (@StaciJShelton and @misscharlie), threw a blog post together, and did my own part to add Love to my SM stream early that morning.

We had a really good draft, despite learning that our youngest daughter gets violently carsick watching movies while driving. And by the time we got to Florida, I was overwhelmed with the massive response to our #iloveyou experiment. Not only did we all help make Love a top trending term on Twitter the entire day, but we did so without an open endorsement from any from the Twitterati. Love was a grassroots effort that spread because of its sincere nature. Love doesn't need big endorsements, as it turns out.

In the end, the post received over 80,000 views in 48 hours (up from an average of a few hundred a day), we had nearly 2,000 Facebook attendees and there was a feeling of Good Will for the entire weekend. I was humbled and grateful, to say the least.

Many people congratulated me on this exercise, and a few people inquired about how I might monetize the effort. But I didn't get into this project for notoriety or a payoff. It was just a test by a regular guy and some pretty extraordinary people. The goal was to see if Love would have an impact on our SM stream. And boy - did it ever.

Thank you.

Jim

Note: I would be remiss not to mention Mark Murnahan @murnahan as a very important partner in helping spread the word about #iloveyou. Without him, I don't think we'd done nearly as well. The same is true of Lolly Daskal @lollydaskal and Laurie Smithwick @UpsideUp (who got Kirtsy involved) as well as hundreds of other people that I'm totally grateful for. Thank you.

Jim is a father, husband, copywriter and founder of smashcommunications.com.

Number time

2009-04-13T14:08:00.005-05:00

If ten is 10 then
10 ones
is one 10.
If 10 ones is
one 10
then
1:10
is 10 past one.
If 10 ones past one
is 10 past one
then once again
I'm late.

On Fast Cars and Double Lives, for the boys from 1985

2009-04-07T02:35:00.006-05:00

Blip.fm has done a number on me, almost as bad as Twitter did when I dove in to that social stream a few months ago. For the past couple of days I've been living large in Blip.fm's virtual world, throwing down song titles, inciting tempo-tantrums, and giving props to strangers and DJs in far-away places.

But there was no such joy for Charlie tonight. I navigated over to my new Blip.fm homepage and was shocked to find....nothing. Nary a Fail Whale in sight...only a flat note: "Blip.fm is undergoing maintenance."

By then, the first song on my playlist was thoroughly entrenched in my short-term memory, and it's not the kind of song that you'd want to have wandering around the infinite loop of your hipppocampus. So I went elsewhere and found it on another Web site that, until 20 minutes ago, I'd never heard of. Guba.com. Who knew!

Life is good when you can quench your thirst for The Cars with a couple of keystrokes. The following video is for my brothers and sisters from the world of vinyl and tape...and for my new pals who are out there floating among the 1s and 0s.

Photos of the places where my mind will drift

2009-03-27T02:14:00.011-05:00

If you want to know what makes my heart ache, this about sums it up.

I have my own versions of some of these photos, and videos from some of the same locations. Every time I visit Cornwall, I have a deeper desire to stay. And every time I leave, I feel as though I've left myself behind. Invariably I try to bring bits and pieces of England home with me -- photos, food, sand, pebbles, wood, music, clothes, toys, friends.

But it's impossible to surround yourself with something you love so much without actually being there. Seeing these particular selections through someone else's lens, though, adds indescribable richness and depth to the etches, tones and hues of my own recollections of the place.

These pictures remind me that the villages and towans and beaches where the other part of me lives really do exist. The clock ticks here, and time passes there. Hayle exists beyond my imagination. These photos are someone else's proof of it. And the place is as beautiful to them as it is to me.

You Say "Tomato" and I Say, "Oof! My back!"

2009-03-22T01:07:00.002-05:00

escalade by ~poivre on deviant ART

TED video on Twitter...have you seen it?

2009-03-12T16:49:00.000-05:00

Twitter on TED:

One billboard; too much spare time

2009-03-11T01:50:00.007-05:00

Four Public Servants and Three Hours on a Tuesday: one of the most rewarding panels I've ever moderated

2009-03-02T22:30:00.001-06:00

While the rest of the nation was watching President Obama's State of the Union speech last week, I was moderating a rare and powerful panel discussion on the importance of public relations in government at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas.

I coordinated the evening's discussion for the benefit of my public relations class and other university students. The panel was awe-inspiring: a member of the Texas House of Representatives, a U.S. Attorney, a Texas Supreme Court Justice and an Ambassador to the United Nations for Economic and Social Policy. That these four sacrificed their time on Tuesday night, when millions of others were focused on the State of the Union, or work, or their families, spoke volumes about their hearts and passion for education.

One panelist had an additional challenge - she's a state legislator. In Texas, the state legislature meets for 140 days every other year, and our biennial legislative session is currently underway. Dr. Diane Patrick, a rising star in the Texas House of Representatives (from Arlington), set aside her busy legislative schedule, a committee meeting, and time with her family to join us. Rep. Patrick serves on the Texas Public and Higher Education Committee (among others) and her background is one of educator and community activist. Before she was elected to the Texas House of Representatives, she was a college professor at UT-Arlington.

By day, Supreme Court Justice Don Willett is immersed in researching, writing opinions, and communicating with judges, attorneys, clerks, staff, and folks who are impacted by appellate cases that reach the state supreme court. He is also a busy family man -- father of two with a third on the way. U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's district covers 93,000 square miles of Texas, from Brenham (east of Austin) to El Paso, including Austin and San Antonio. His communications tasks are enormous; he oversees 140 prosecutors who handle thousands of cases. As for my guest the Ambassador, I could fill the rest of this blog with a list of his responsibilities and communications.

Rep. Patrick explained the complexities of communicating with constituents, lawmakers, legislative staffers, government officials, etc., and of separating legislative communications from political communications. She answers most of her 500 daily e-mails herself and her staff takes scores of calls a day.

Her office produces an electronic newsletter every 2 weeks to keep constituents informed about legislative issues, including the 6,000 bills that will be run through the legislature this session. Rep. Patrick said her legislative job is to help people solve problems; and a top priority is informing and educating her audiences (which can be a challenge; many voters couldn't tell you whether their representatives work in Austin or Washington, D.C.).

We discussed the unique communication challenges of the judicial branch: judges must hold themselves above the fray, must be impartial and non-political (even though Texas judges are elected), and must follow legal and ethical standards that are far more strident than any other branch. Justice Willett told students that one tough part of the job is setting aside personal feelings or values to issue rulings that uphold the rule of law.

He admitted there were times he has been personally opposed to an opinion that he was bound by a higher calling as judge to write in favor of. "The law isn't wet clay that you can mold," he said. It's interesting to think about public service demanding personal sacrifice in this way, and in this branch of government. I can't help but admire people with the strength of character to defend the Constitution and the rule of law against a multitude of influences, including one's own conscience.

These public servants have the added task of communicating about emotionally-charged issues with passionate people from every walk of life. Anyone who's ever tangled with an angry mom knows that it's just about as dangerous to take on an emotional 40-year-old woman with children as it is to corner a grizzly bear with a den of cubs. Put that in a courtroom, and you've got what Johnny Sutton does for a living. If a case goes badly, there's a family involved who's going to want to know why.

A sobering moment for me was when Sutton, who prosecutes cyber-crime, pornography, and sex offenses (among other federal crimes), warned my students to be careful when they're online. He recounted a chilling story about a case in Dallas in which a small "mom and pop" organization had 70,000 subscribers to its child pornography Web site (which brought in about $25 million a year). Roughly 1 in 7 children are preyed upon when they're online in the safety of their own homes. As great of a tool the Internet might be, it is still a dangerous place for unsupervised children. So parents, put your computers in a centrally located room, like the living room, where kids can be supervised online.

The Ambassador discussed government's duty to be a "Democracy of Deeds" and obligation to report how those deeds are being carried out. He praised the effort to create Recovery.gov, which anyone can visit to see how federal money is being spent. It's a great first step for a government that moves very slowly (a source of both security and frustration). But governments generally lag behind in this world which grows more connected by the hour. As I write this, borders are erased as new global communities are formed in another dimension, which is as real to many as the guy you bumped into in the hallway this morning.

Government benefits from the Internet and its countless powerful and emerging tools for communicating and organizing constituencies. Citizens mobilize online to help countless causes and non-profits. And the more we Tweet or book Facebook time around the world, the more able we will be to make our own decisions about our counterparts on other continents (who are remarkably similar to you and me, it turns out).

The Ambassador said these tremendous movements and interesting financial times have produced a greater demand for transparency, honesty, and accuracy in government communications. People want to know more. They expect more from the institutions that receive tax dollars (and the schools that receive tuition checks). Our country's actions should align with our ideals. People want to know what's being done: where, when, and how much it cost us. And people want to know their voices are being heard.

The panelists answered thoughtful questions about the constraints of communicating in their unique jobs, balancing personal values with sworn duties, and public service as a career choice. They left my students with a challenge to never stop seeking truth. They encouraged students to analyze and research ideas; to consider many news sources and read opposing viewpoints. One student asked Mr. Sutton how to become a better communicator. He said, "Be yourself." He's right. The rest will follow.

Our discussion was scheduled to conclude in an hour. All four panelists stayed past 9 p.m. (the two-hour mark), and Justice Willett and Mr. Sutton stayed for the entire three-hour class. They answered every last question and offered to be a resource to any of the students who might have additional questions about public service.

I've been marveling about this panel, and all the knowledge it imparted. Collectively, the speakers represented about 100 years of noteworthy public service. I was moved by the magnanimity of that moment -- by the rare and candid, heartfelt discussion. My students have no idea how lucky they were to have the undivided attention of four spectacularly kind, intelligent, and passionate public servants for three hours on a Tuesday night. But they will someday.

Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith (1897-1955) said, "Public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, that honor is to be earned, not bought.”

Indeed.

Now is not the time to skimp on words: what this country needs is strong communicators

2009-02-16T22:47:00.000-06:00

BUDGET FREEZES, HIRING FREEZES..AND NOW YOU WANT TO GIVE YOUR CUSTOMERS THE COLD SHOULDER? THIS IS NOT THE ICE AGE, FELLAS. IT'S THE 21st Century.

Recent reports suggest that many U.S. organizations have reacted to the recession by cutting budgets and employees in their communications, public relations and public affairs divisions -- a decision that stems from a belief, often at the top of an organization, that such areas are non-essential.

Yet during any period of crisis, the opposite is actually true: The greater the crisis, the more vital the need for leaders to engage and communicate with internal and external audiences (employees, shareholders, analysts, consumers, media, opinion leaders, regulatory agencies, governments, and the general public).

Clear, consistent messages promote trust, confidence and loyalty. Perception is a powerful force that can dramatically impact a business bottom line. The leadership of any organization would do well to keep the lines of communication open during any critical decision-making or action-taking process. It’s equally important to relay known facts and decisions as information becomes available.

Experts in marketing and communications point to the benefits of advertising products, sales, money-saving tools and financial services during a recession. One solution to the communication gap -- especially for organizations that have already made budget cuts (and those looking to save money)-- is outsourcing to firms that specialize in communications and public relations.

Small and independent firms have less overhead, and therefore can offer better prices and personalized service. Corporations that bid on government contracts or receive taxpayer dollars earn incentives and win bids when they work with firms that are certified woman-owned, minority-owned, and disadvantaged businesses (WBEs, MBEs, and DBEs).

The pool of talent in small, independent companies continues to grow as highly skilled professionals with subject-matter expertise strike out their own. And contractors cost less than full-time employees in terms of taxes, training, benefits and resources.

I've worked in the field of communications for 18 years, as a print news reporter and editor and a government press aide; as a White House speechwriter and corporate public affairs director of executive communications; and now as a business owner. I have seen the salvationary effect of consistent, honest communication. And I have seen the failure of strategies that call for being forthright only when the law requires people to be.

If outsourcing isn't a viable option, then deploying strong communicators internally must be the alternative. Organizations must focus today on hiring, promoting and developing talent with communication skills throughout the ranks of both leadership and staff.

It boggles the mind that people place more value on a good pair of shoes than they do on the caliber of their words or the content of their Web sites. A good friend at the White House Writers Group once told me that some leading ladies pay their fashion consultants more than their speechwriters. I marvel about what that says about their priorities. So long as they look good, who cares if they sound good? As long as you're keeping up appearances, there's no need to provide much value or substance. Sound familiar? Sound like a few mighty corporations that have fallen of late?

Welcome to the 21st Century. Innovation is reshaping societies and ideas on a global scale, while average folks struggle to make sense of it all. Technology is growing faster than a speeding government, it's more powerful than a local server; it's able to leap entire generations in a single bound. What does it mean? It means, simply, that communicating with people matters more than ever. People want relevant, useful information from organizations and leaders they can trust. Organizations must embrace these values -- change or lose leadership, employees and audiences. History doesn't matter. Size doesn't matter. People with courage, integrity and strong communication skills matter.

A recent report on research, training, and organizational development stated, "As it becomes increasingly difficult to obtain and retain top performers with strong leadership experience, organizations may find their greatest asset -- their workforce -- in jeopardy." The report, which included comments from hundreds of HR professionals and line managers from North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Brazil and South Africa, highlighted growing concern about ill-equipped employees who assume higher-level positions due to a lack of available talent. "If businesses continue to ignore the oncoming leadership gap, they may see devastating consequences," the report warned.

A research scientist who worked on this project said, "Companies should be concerned, because poor leadership can have serious top-to-bottom ripple effects, from employee burnout to under-performance of the entire company."

Indeed.

Today, those who strive to communicate (which means both listening and talking) will come out ahead of the competition when the country recovers from this economic downturn.

There’s a message in this madness. Are you willing to listen -- and deliver?

T-Mobile turns to the posterior for persuasive positioning

2009-02-12T11:11:00.000-06:00

Another clever ad for T-Mobile, which highlights one of the problems of non-flip phones: derrière dialing. Here's how it did on the "viral" charts.

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Case Study: Dryel can hang the competition out to dry with ads that target the newly budget-conscious

2009-01-31T13:28:00.000-06:00

I recently saw a commercial for Dryel (a home dry-cleaning product), and I had one of those “Aha!” moments. Dry-cleaning is one of the first casualties of a household budget during a recession, and that’s a problem for all those “Dry Clean Only” garments in our closets.

For Dryel, penny pinching times present an opportunity to reach an important audience: Upper-middle and middle-class Americans (and Canadians) with a wrinkle in their dry-cleaning budgets. Dryel has a cost-saving solution for that growing pile of "Dry Clean Only" clothes in the hamper.

And someone on that company's executive committee realized that now is the time to spend money on ads that put Dryel in front of an emerging market. People may try Dryel now because they have to. If the product is good enough, though, people will buy Dryel later because they want to.

I looked at the company's Web site statistics, and there was a substantial spike in traffic in October 2008, when news of the recession was really starting to hit hard. I suspect that their website will continue to have higher-than-usual traffic as people start looking for ways to save money...and Dryel makes an effort to show them a different dry-cleaning solution.

So listen up, all you companies out there who are cutting your advertising and marketing budgets, take note. Now is not the time to stop communicating with your audiences. Now is the time to, in the words of character Jean Luc Picard, "Engage." (Thanks Jim Mitchem, advertising guru and expert on the high-impact use of the color orange, for sharing the video, below, with folks on your blog.)

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I'm going with these guys, Fantasy Football or NOT!

2009-01-28T15:08:00.001-06:00

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They might even be able to keep up with my three-year-old. He's THAT fast.

Marvelous ad campaign by the Discovery Channel

2009-01-25T12:42:00.000-06:00