The last week of July I took a vacation and went to Chicago for a week. My trip home included various activities: a bachelorette party, a Stanley Cup grab, Lollapalooza and my mother throwing new books my direction every two seconds (to be fair, it was either do the dishes or read the book.) Some things never change. I began having flashbacks to the eight year-old version of myself trying to barter my way out of reading the Chronicles of Narnia.

So, I started in on Bringing Home The Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World’s Most Coveted Handbag by Michael Tonello.  Most people who know me realize that I am more of a satirical type of person. Chick lit, is not necessarily my thing, ask my best friend Ann- she’s tried to convert me for years, having minimal success.

Suddenly I realized I was on page 50 and loving the book. I’ll spare you the book report, but it goes something like this: man is not happy in his life, man goes on a trip to Spain, man loves Spain, man moves to Spain, man finds soul mate in Spain, man starts a business acquiring and selling Hermes Birkin bags on EBay to a growing client roster, man has a personal life changing experience that leads him to re-evaluate his priorities, this ultimately leads to a game- changing business decision, man makes decision, book ends.  (Hey I can’t spoil it for you; I like Michael Tonello too much.)

As I finished this book on the plane ride back to San Diego, I realized the point Michael Tonello was making; it’s about the journey, knowing when something is right and going for it, and that life and business are never independent of one another. As much as you may try, you cannot separate them.

This story, leads me to where I am today; Bolt Public Relations’ newest office in Dana Point, California, writing this blog. I knew for a very long time that we’d be expanding into the Orange County community. I knew for a very long time that this would mean moving my life from San Diego to Orange County. But, like Michael Tonello, something deep down knew that life and business were never meant to be independent of one another. In fact, at this point in my life, they’ve never been more dependent and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I do what I love, in an industry I love, with people that challenge me to be a better communicator, thinker, writer, orator and the list goes on, daily.

Dana Point, thank you for having us. We are thrilled to be here.

Oh and for Ann, yes I see it now, I think you might be onto something with this chick lit stuff.

So why does Twitter have such a bad reputation? The simple answer is that those who do not get behind the tool truly don’t understand its use and power. The other answers lie in the excuses reasons that people have recently told me as to why they do not like Twitter:

• “I don’t care about the delicious bagel you’re eating for breakfast.” Really? You have no interest in hearing about the best place in San Diego to get a bagel? Fair enough. Then skip over those 140 characters and focus on all of the other relevant content that’s accessible to you in real time right this second.
• “I don’t want everyone to know where I am at every second of the day.” Ok, then don’t tweet about where you are every second of the day. Tweet about what you want, when you want.
• “Who actually has time to ‘tweet’ all day?” (Insert sarcastic tone on the word ‘tweet’ – it’s my segue way to the next bullet point anyway). Use applications. Take a look at Hootsuite (my personal favorite) or SocialOomph. Or read one of our recent Bolt PR blogs about social media applications. And by the way, you don’t have to tweet every second of the day to be connected. You just have to be on Twitter and connect. There’s a difference.
• “How can I take something called ‘Twitter’ seriously for my business?” I don’t have an answer for you other than millions of other people (105+ million registered users, in fact) find the name satisfactory enough that they’re engaging online right now… including some of your customers and prospects. It’s the name and it’s not going to change anytime soon, so get on it or get left behind.

And there you have my Friday musings. I’d love to hear your reasons for loving Twitter, or other reasons you’ve heard why some people do not. Just leave your comments below. I look forward to tweeting with you soon!

Please feel free to leave a comment or email us with any questions.

15 years ago my school had one desktop computer that sat outside the classroom. We were paired with a classmate and were allotted “15 minutes of computer time” (yes, I played Oregon Trail every time). Ten years ago I was an instant messaging queen (I’ll spare myself from the embarrassment of admitting my AIM name, let’s just say I’d crawl into a hole and stay there for awhile if you found out). Yesterday, I updated my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (thankfully we’ve evolved into using our real names on social networks… AIM names are so passé).

15 years ago I thought in 2010 we’d be living like the Jetsons; have a dog named Astro, a car that flies and the ability to teleport. Funny, right?  In some ways we are much more Jetson-ish than we give ourselves credit for.  When was the last time you visited the post office? Read a paper map? Wrote a research paper by hand? Visited a library instead of using Google? Read a book instead of using a Kindle? Some define technology 15 years ago as archaic or simplistic. I call it groundbreaking. Just as I believe the technology advancements of today are. At one point desktops seemed unfathomable too.

Technology has given our society a new vocabulary, connected people around the world and become the social norm.  We’ve gone from fording the river to downloading iPhone apps. Steve Jobs made an Apple something much more than a fruit. Talking has been replaced with texting and the postal service is electronic.

So I ask you, where will technology be in 15 years?

Oh I almost forgot, in case anyone was curious- you can download Oregon Trail on your iPhone. Some games are just classics.

From meeting Twitter friends in real life (IRL) and making new ones, to walking the red carpet and posing for the cameras, the Bolt PR team had a blast at the #InfluenceSD Awards Show on Wednesday night.  Thank you to all who voted for us to win Agency of the Year; we are proud to announce that we were named Best Agency in San Diego for our use of new media. 

After a very full work day – to do lists don’t pause for paparazzi – we checked into the Keating Hotel (highly recommended!) for “hair and makeup”.  All dolled up, the Bolt ladies arrived at Anthology and checked in on Foursquare.  Chatting with best in community winner, Michelle Guerin of DiscoverSD, and Blog of the Year finalist “Adventures of a Military Family of 8”, we were unsure what to expect once we walked in the VIP doors. 

Inside the gorgeous venue, we found a table with Brad and Stephen, New Brew Thursday, bloggers and Blog of the Year finalists.  Then Krys Justice set the tempo for the evening with his performance and the show began…

Here are the winners: 

Check out the view from stage. The audience looked gorgeous, so I couldn’t help but capture the moment with a TwitPic as we accepted our award: http://ow.ly/i/10i4 

I must admit that I don’t envy the judges and their task of choosing the winners because all of the finalists were certainly new media champions. The good news is that all of the finalists will be moving on to nationals. #InfluenceSD co-founder Melanie Gordon announced the launch of the awards show in cities across the country in conjunction with a national show.

On behalf of the Bolt PR team, thank you so much to @melgordon and @sdmatt for  recognizing new media achievements in San Diego by creating such a fabulous awards program and show, and thanks to the judges for taking on the task of selecting the winners from such a impressive group of finalists! We were honored to be a part of it all!

I think it’s important to remember that social networking does not, and should not, just happen online.

This past week, @AnneRipley and I attended the SDTechScene MarchMingle event and it was a blast. In the midst of this sold-out crowd, we were able to put faces with Twitter names and, immediately following the event, reconnect again online, ‘tweeting’ about how we met  “IRL” (In Real Life). While we were ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ before, the face-to-face meeting solidified those relationships and made it more memorable.

So the moral of the story, just because we have the opportunity to hide behind our computers and network through cyberspace, doesn’t mean that’s the only venue we should be exploring. Get out there and attend every networking event you can. While your words may be memorable, your face will leave a lasting impression.

On our drive back to San Diego the conversation turned to relationships (it’s a car of four women, what did you expect). As the analyzing, interpretation and advice started to flow, I began to realize that the advice I was providing to my friends on communication and relationship building was eerily similar to the communication and relationship building that I practice in my professional existence.

Here are my best practices for positive communication and relationship building, both professionally and personally:

• Do you research. Know who you are talking to. Professionally: when you reach out to media, know who they are, what they have written, their beat and their topics of interest. Personally: hello, who hasn’t Facebook stalked?
• Be cognizant of other people’s schedules. Professionally: it’s always a good rule to ask whomever you are speaking with, if it is a good time to chat. If it isn’t, ask them when the best time to reach them is. I can assure you that the extra bit of courtesy goes a long way. Personally: it’s about breathing room. Do you like to be called at 5:01 pm?
• Be relevant and personal. Professionally: it’s important when pitching media to remember relevancy and timeliness. Tailor your pitches to the specific person you are reaching out to; it shows preparation on your end. Personally: stay relevant in relationships. Don’t bring up an event in conversation that the person you are speaking to was not invited to attend, its poor form. Be current and stay engaged with the person you are speaking with.
• Be friendly. Professionally: being friendly creates a relationship. Sure anyone can make a phone call and pitch, but being friendly makes the pitch memorable. Personally: being friendly builds relationships and opens up doors that may have never existed before.
• Be respectful. Professionally: sometimes a pitch is not a fit, which is ok as long as you end the conversation with class. Thank the person you are speaking with for their time and let them know you’d love to be a resource in the future. Personally: you’re not going to like everyone, but even if you don’t, be nice, be classy and always remain respectful. You’ll come out ahead in the end.

Our car ride came to an end. I’m not sure we agreed on much; it’s amazing how a car full of four women can debate a single sentence for two hours. As we pulled into my garage, we all looked at each other and said, “grab your suits, let’s lay out”. Ah relationships, you can build them, break them and debate them- but we’re nothing without them.

I’ve learned my work ethic from the best, my mother. She is smart, eloquent, a leader, a doer and frankly the most successful person I’ve ever known.  She is also a proponent of “get it done” (what did you expect, she is from Chicago).

To put this in perspective, I got a speeding ticket this morning (whether or not I deserved it is… debatable). Who did I call? My mother (I’m not sure you ever grow out of that), as I was continuing to ramble on about how unjust my ticket was, she cut me off.  She asked me if I had been speeding, I had to own up to it, I had been speeding.  “Well then you got a ticket, it happens.”  As I proceeded to argue why this was unfair, she pulled out the tough love card and said “when does traffic school start?” She’s concise; she sees the problem and already knows the best answer.

After I hung up the phone, this conversation lingered in my head. Is it possible that life and work are sometimes black and white? I had a phenomenal mentor when I first entered the public relations world. She was tough on me, but I learned from her. One thing she once said to me and has stuck with me ever since was, “well there seems to be a lot of differing factors that are causing you some issues, but all I’m hearing from you is what they are. Do you have any solutions? I’d rather hear 50 wrong solutions than one more problem.” Black and white, cut and dry, whatever you wish to call it there is a point. Not everyone lives in grey. Clients, customers, business partners, and sponsors pay for a result- yes it is that black and white.

Here are my best practices, for being concise and getting to the point:

• Map it out: have a plan and stick to it
• Work smart: it does not matter how long you work on something, if it doesn’t further you to the end goal, it is not worth the time
• Time management: Look at the clock, use a timer, stay on target
• Attitude adjustment: The old adage is true. Think positive thoughts, or if you build it, they will come (who doesn’t love Field of Dreams?)

A friend and colleague told me this week, “if the ride seems to easy, check to make sure you’re not going downhill.” The path to a solution is not always going to be simple. The answer won’t always come in the form of your mother providing you tough love. However, while living in a world of grey might help justify many things- sometimes things are just that black and white, to the point and concise.  Do your best and always bring a solution in your back pocket.

We will now return to my normally scheduled romanticized writing.

I’m lucky to work with fabulous women. I’m challenged to learn, motivated to work hard and inspired to be great (it should also be noted that we have a fantastic time doing it). This past weekend I was lucky enough to be surrounded by another set of fabulous women, who I have had the pleasure of knowing through various stages in their lives.  As we sat on my friends’ roof top deck, looking out at the ocean the conversation topic shifted to careers.

We all have very different careers: public relations, human resources, teaching, and hospitality and tourism. What I found interesting was the way in which we discussed them. Though our careers have led us down very different paths, our approach to work was shockingly in sync. Keep your head down, work hard, work smart, don’t complain, be dependable, and do your best every day.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Sadly for our generation, the generation of Goosebumps, reality television, Apple and AIM it’s harder than it seems.

Our generation has been struck by the entitlement bug.  An ugly bug, which has led us from earning our way, to believing it should be handed to us. A bug, which has taken “please” and “thank you” out of our vocabularies and replaced them with “give me” and “I deserve.”

To play devil’s advocate, our generation came by it honestly. As our world advanced, so did the youth. The sock hops and malt shops of the 1960’s faded into the background, as the preppies and Wall Street brokers of the 1980’s emerged. By the time the millennium hit, our social environment was painted in a drastically new light, a new light that placed value on materialistic tangibles.

As a product of this new social portrait, I’ve heard it all from my fellow Gen X and Y’ers.  At our impromptu roundtable this past weekend, the overwhelming response to the entitlement bug was to ask; what exactly have you done to earn it?

That is my combatant to entitlement, a simple straightforward question. “What have you done to earn it?”

At the end of each day, I’ve earned my successes and failures. I’m proud to be surrounded by women both personally and professionally, that do the same and I challenge our generation to earn it.

I pride myself on a hard work ethic, for me it’s what creates character. I strive for it to be something I practice in all aspects of my life: personal and professional. Because work ethic is such a prominent theme in my existence, when situations aren’t successful for me (both personally and professionally) I take it very hard and go into hyper self-analysis mode.

This past week, I found myself at a crossroads. Now anyone who knows me will tell you I’m my own worst critic, but it would not have taken Roger Ebert to figure out something was off in my normally sublime world. “You have to roll to the bottom before you can reach the top” seemed to be the song lyric of choice on repeat in my mind.

Before I realized it, my team (in both work and life, that’s how we roll) was surrounding me in a veil of support, being able to recognize the one thing I could not: I was struggling.  I felt it of course. I knew in the back of my mind that I was having a tough time, but whether it be my ego  or knowing that saying it out loud made it true, I couldn’t acknowledge it… until I had no choice.

There is beauty in truth. We forget sometimes that colleagues, family, best friends, acquaintances, clients, and even your favorite barista at Starbucks are not mind readers and you probably do a better job at concealing your feelings than you give yourself credit for. Recognizing that I was struggling made it real, but it also provided the people who care about me and want to see me succeed step in.  So what did we do next? We owned it as a team and had a fantastic whiteboard brainstorm session (ask anyone else who knows me, I love a good whiteboard).

Now this is where the fun comes in. After our fantastic whiteboard session we had a plethora of re-organization: new ideas, new strategies, new processes, and I had my sublime spirit back. I was back the next day, ready to tackle our tasks in a smart, methodical and strategic way. Now, a year ago I would have dwelled on the fact that at first I did not succeed, but this time I moved on. Not being successful 100 percent of the time is life; it’s how you recover, learn and move forward that counts. Michael Jordan said it best:

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

I learned a lot this week, I felt a lot this week and I moved forward a lot this week. But I didn’t do it alone, I couldn’t do it alone and I wouldn’t want to. It’s pretty liberating to say that struggle creates success and I’ve never believed anything more.