We’d like to share one of our favorite recipes to start you into a great New Year! Hoppin’ John is a Southern tradition for the New Year’s Day meal. We pair it with some kind of “greens” (spinach, collard, mustard) as that is said to bring you lots of “folding green” while the black-eyed peas are said to fill your pockets with change. This is a basic recipe that we have enjoyed for years. There are many ways to “kick it up a notch” so use your imagination! We wish everyone prosperity in 2012!
As most of my friends and “fans” know, I’m not a huge blogger. I do get a few atta-girls every now and then for writing a small post, but not blogging as often as I should definitely rates an “oh sh_t” instead. Because, as we all know, life is a series of atta-girls(boys) and oh-sh_ts. But today, I will write. And I don’t need the atta-girl. I’m passing out atta-boys and atta-girls today because this week, I have been inspired.
This week, I was invited to attend a meeting for the Milwaukee Chapter of EWI – Executive Women International by a good friend and business associate. What a fantastic opportunity she presented me with. EWI was established in San Francisco in 1938 by Lucille Johnson Perkins. Ms. Perkins recognized the importance and potential of an association bringing key women together to promote their firms and improve their community. I plan to join this organization’s Milwaukee Chapter because it embodies many of my beliefs and it will provide another way for me to give back to the community. One of the greatest things that I left with after this meeting was a renewal of spirit and drive courtesy of this group of lovely, friendly, professional women. They shared a fantastic poem during dinner that every person should read. They should read it to their daughters and their mothers and their friends. It is quite simply called “She”, by Kobi Yamada. Not only was I inspired by its words, but I was inspired to create the image in this post reflecting the words of that poem. Click on it and read it. And then celebrate and share it with a woman you know and love.
My second atta-boy is posthumous. As has been relayed across every media channel yesterday and today a thousand times over, a great man, Steve Jobs, has left us. I have only become an Apple fan in the last couple of years after purchasing both an iPhone and a MacBook Air. I can tell you that I’m a huge fan of both. But it’s not the products that bring Mr. Jobs the atta-boy or me the inspiration – it’s his pure, unadulterated quest to follow the beat of his own drummer. It’s his speech to Stanford University in their 2005 Commencement. It’s his brilliance in forward thinking. It’s his resilience in the face of once being fired from his own company. And it’s his obvious determination to keep moving forward until the last hour – even as he battled his life threatening illness. This is deserving of an “atta-boy” – and so much more. And I just needed to say that. Rest in peace Steve Jobs. Your body may have left us, but your legacy and your spirit will live on and inspire so many more. And your family is in our thoughts and prayers.
So, for you, today – move forward, give back, aspire to do more, inspire those around you.
We’ve said this over and over in our blog posts, as well as in our classes: Social media is vitally important in today’s ‘connected’ world, especially Facebook. With over 600 million users, Facebook is a leader in the social network game and isn’t something a business owner should ignore. Facebook has generated leads and effected sales for many industries, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
FBML was the way to create custom Facebook Pages (also called Fan Pages) for businesses. There have been many case studies on how company’s can succeed using Facebook simply by customizing their Business Page. FBML (Facebook Mark-Up Language) was the tool to do this. It’s very similar to html except that it has added Facebook-specific functions.
Well, today is March 11th and Facebook has lowered the boom on FBML. While existing FBML pages will still work, effective today, new ones can no longer be created unless developed in iFrames (Facebook says the old FBML pages will be grandfathered in and will continue to function, but they still strongly recommend that you convert them to iFrames). iFrames stands for Inline Frame where you embed or ‘frame’ one page in another. This means that custom tabs will no longer be hosted on Facebook’s server but will be pulled from the page owner’s own server (pretty sneaky of Facebook huh? Now they can free up some of their own resources).
At this point, it is still in your best interest to continue using Facebook for business. If the expertise in iFrames is not available within the business, you can study up and learn the iFrames technology or you can hire a consultant to do that work for you. We’ve always said that no one person can know everything. You just have to concentrate on the things that you do best and get an expert to do the things that you can’t. That way you can focus on what’s important; running your business.
What’s next Facebook, Pay-Per-View Movies? 
Just kidding Warner Bros.
This is our final blog post about this event, there will be no more tweets, no more messages on Facebook and no more status updates on LinkedIn. The event is over and it’s time to reflect. It was a long stressful seven weeks preparing for this night and there was plenty of anxiety along the way. Was it worth it? The event collected over $2,000.00 in cash and another $2,500.00 in physical donations to Lake Country Caring so I would have to say YES, it was. It takes a bit to wind down from the pace, reflect on the effort and appreciate the outcome. All that is later, but right now it’s off to the bar to celebrate.
Some time ago, I wrote a blog post about the importance of customer service in this new “Transparent” world of social media. I wrote that if you were not 100% confident with your products and services, you needed to get your act together before putting yourself and your reputation in the public eye. Good news travels fast online, but bad news travels much, much faster.
Do you remember the flood that resulted from the 6” or more of rain we had in the Milwaukee area in July of this year? Well we were one of the countless homes affected by that storm, although ours was not nearly as bad as many others. In our case, it was the excessive amount of rain water that flooded our septic system, which backed up into our finished basement resulting in about 5” of standing water. The carpeting and the baseboards were pretty much destroyed.
After the rain stopped, Susi was on Twitter and saw the following tweet from Drexel Inc.(via Stacey Stoffel):
Followed up a bit later by this one:
Susi Re-Tweeted that one and Drexel followed with:
We set up a meeting with Drexel to discuss the possibility of them replacing our ruined basement carpeting. Initially we were going to go to their store but because of how busy we were, they offered to come to the house. They arrived on time, with a variety of samples. We talked, and they were very informative and personable. They gave us a price quote for each of the selections we chose. We’re all about customer service and they showed that they are too. Later, Susi posted a note on Drexel’s Facebook Page. Here is Drexel’s reply on Twitter:
Followed a day later with:
We decided to have them re-carpet our basement with “Tuxedo” a very modern blend of black and gray tight-pile carpeting. The job was done perfectly, on time and we were super-satisfied. It looked Awesome. We both thought they did an outstanding job and needless to say, Twitter was the basis for this relationship to blossom.
As Jeffrey Gitomer said in The Little Red Book of Selling, “All things being equal, people want to do business with their friends. All things being not quite so equal, people STILL want to do business with their friends.”
This relationship started on Twitter and has developed into a mutually beneficial relationship based on friendship, caring about others, honesty and trust. We have been to Drexel’s since the flood. They held a “Pet Day” and we took our puppy there to commiserate with the other dogs. We had a great time, ate a couple of brats and talked with Drexel’s staff.
The relationship continues: As you know, we have been working hard to make this Lake Country Caring charity event a success which involved looking for sponsors to donate their time, talents, raffle prizes and of course dollars. Drexel said “We would love to help” and donated a super-nice area rug valued at $300. That’s what I call stepping up to help others. Thank you Drexel and also thank you Twitter for bringing us together. And yes, you can re-tweet me on that.
