As you well know I love expressing my opinion on a variety of topics. And here on my blog is not the only place I do this – you know expand your audience and all that.

I am lucky to be able to every once and a while  to do a bit of writing for writing Eat Magazine online. Below are a few of my columns:

First Look: The Okanagan’s Routes Grill - http://www.eatmagazine.ca/first-look-the-okanagans-routes-grill/

Showdown at 5,700 feet: A Cocktail Challenge - http://www.eatmagazine.ca/showdown-at-5700-feet-a-cocktail-challange/

I cannot express the sadness and disappointment I felt a few weeks ago when I heard Rihanna had confirmed she and Chris Brown had indeed got back together.  The 2009 story of how Brown had beaten and brutalized his then (and once again…now) girlfriend is one I still avoid and cringe whenever I think of.

I, like so many, expressed outrage and disbelief. How could this man think it was okay to do something like that to a woman? How could any man think it’s okay? What is wrong with him?

But the weeks, months and years passed and our anger healed, as did the relationship between the couple. I cannot pretend to know the whole story of their reconciliation and truthfully I cannot pretend to understand what would have possibly possessed the singer to go back to her abusive boyfriend. I guess ultimately it really is none of my business.

Then I begin to think of the women who are not Rihanna. The women who feel they have no support system or way out of a violent relationship. I begin to think of all the ways these women rationalize or downplay the violent actions they are experiencing: ‘Well, he was under a lot of stress.’ or ‘He has problems and he can’t get through them without me.’ or ‘Well, he has said he is sorry and we all make mistakes don’t we?’

Unbelievable right?

Almost as unbelievable as the jokes some out there are making.

I have recently seen, on my Twitter and Facebook feeds, tasteless jokes and memes attempting to be made about Chris Brown’s violent actions.

And when I see these it occurs to me exactly how the victims of domestic violence can rationalize their own situations; because as a society we tell them it’s okay, more accurately, we tell them they should too.

Seriously, what exactly is it about a women being beaten, brutalized and battered that is funny?

Nevermind ‘What is wrong with him?’ how about ‘What is wrong with us?’

Before we can stop violence, against women or otherwise, we have to stop sending the message that it’s okay.

STOP SENDING THE MESSAGE THAT IT’S OKAY.

Well its hardly breaking news but it is kind of big in my world. I have crossed BACK over to the other side.  Actually, it is more accurate to say I’ve stretched out my leg, pointed my foot and dipped my big toe into the icy waters of the devil I know…the news biz.

Its been a couple of months now but I am the part-time 11pm News Anchor for CHBC Global Okanagan.

Not that I need to document all of my career tangents – but I felt it important to officially declare the latest happening after my inaugural post on this blog called “Crossing Over” . Where I explained revealed my decision to leave media for the life of Communications, PR and Fundraising.

Those elements are still a huge part of my life. Not only do I feel it is my responsibility to give back to the community in which I live, BUT its also still my full time job…

The truth is this opportunity popped up and I couldn’t resist taking a stab at it. And I’ll say again, what I said in that first post,when an opportunity arises – I like to strike!

So here I am…trying my hand at the high paced, highly dramatic and glamorous  life of an 11pm news anchor. (Hi have you met me? I’m sarcastic). And for those of you who are NOT in the biz but watch Aaron Sorkin’s latest evening drama  ‘The Newsroom’ I’ve got a real behind the scenes for ya’:

Q: CAN YOU SPOT WHAT’S DIFFERENT BETWEEN MY PICTURE AND THAT AT THE HEAD OF THIS POST

SURPRISE!!! Its not what you thought, is it?

(actually the pace is pretty steady but if you call frequent back-combing and half a bottle of hair spray glamorous – well, frankly you need to get out more)

Oh and the answer to the Q in the pic? EVERYTHING!

It has been a full year since I left the media biz and I sure have learned a lot. I like jumping in head first into much of what I do and my experiences in the non-profit (NPO) sector have proven to be a welcome challenge. Paid, day job aside I have formulated this idea during the last 12 months that I am going to use my skills in communications and media relations to help NPO’s affect social change in my community.  I mean clearly the organizations I have been encountering in my previous years as a journo who have struggled to get their message out really just needed someone with the right knowledge fighting  writing for them. I was going to use communications to help change the world!!

Not that I thought that I was the only one who could do this – just that I was someone who could leverage my awesome AM Talk Radio Host status into something really meaningful #sarcasm.

You will notice I have been speaking in the past tense.

Many of these organizations, my current employer excluded (and that’s not because I am worried about being fired, rather  it is because this phenomena I have noticed mostly occurs in small NPOs and organizations) I have found are hurting themselves when communicating, or not, their message. I don’t want to crap on anyone here but in a few instances I have been involved in a scenario where members of the organization have been very ‘ho hum’ about some key PR issues. This has made me angry.

Maybe not that angry but pretty frustrated as then it is the media who get labelled, by the organizations, as not caring.

If you don’t communicate your message well and to a certain degree help to get your message out you run the risk of it getting over looked.

While still in the radio biz I gave a couple of presentations on media engagement. It is important here to note that when I say media I mean news media. While you would now have to hire me to share those points in detail with you (will work for bacon and gluten free pancakes) I will give you one tip.

Make it easy.

Don’t make the media guess the significance of your happening. s-p-e-l-l-i-t-o-u-t. In your media release (hopefully you are doing a media release) hit them with the cherry on the top of the sundae right away.  In journo terms it is called burying the lead.

“The failure to mention the most important, interesting or attention-grabbing elements of a story in the first paragraph is sometimes called “burying the lead”. ~ Wikipedia

The fact that you are having a health and wellness conference is not the lead. The fact that you are bringing in an internationally renowned speaker who is recognized as the pre-eminent expert on the positive effects of bacon and red wine on a person’s health IS THE LEAD.  That you are having a walk/ride/opening/conference/health and wellness fair is not significant. I’m sorry, but it is true. I feel I can freely tell you that now that I am with you, slugging it out, on the ‘other side of the fence’.

Everybody and their hashtag is having a something. The media is inundated with invites and requests. The problem is what is going to make yours stand out? (if you don’t know what a hashtag is you’ve got bigger problems)

A special speaker? who is it? Why are they so special? Why do we care?

An anniversary? Whopdeedoo – everyone has an anniversary, it better be the 100th

A fundraiser? Wow…really…cause no one else has had a fundraiser here before…

You need to get their attention – like I did with the picture of Tom Cruise as the image for this post. Maybe you rolled your eyes when you saw the word communicate in the title. But then you were intrigued by the ‘Help Me Help YOU’ – PLUS the Tom Cruise pic and you’re thinking: ‘YES Jerry McGuire – I loved that movie. That scene was awesome.’ So then you clicked on my blog and now you are reading it.

That’s how that works.

You get what I’m saying. Make sure you have an important, interesting, or attention grabbing something as part of your pitch to the media and put it bold and 36 font right in front of their eyes. Our businesses or causes are near and dear to OUR hearts but the media must cater to a greater portion of the population, so we must sell them harder on it so they can sell others on it. Because we could all use more people who are championing our ideas.

This by no means is comprehensive advice, there are several other factors to take into consideration. However, this is one basic component I find I am running into time and time again.

Now that I’ve touched on how  best to engage the media, next I’ll talk to you about why you don’t necessarily need them…for a small fee.

Okay must get back to changing the world!

May 25-27, 2012 more than 500 people attended the National Celiac Conference in Kelowna. The conference was earmarked by a $245,000 federal funding announcement, 5 expert speakers and of course – if I was there…some great food.
Thanks to my good (and extremely talented) friend Valerie McTavish for her skills on camera.

At Kelowna’s Gospel Mission an annual event called ‘Stone Soup Chef’ is taking place. Stone Soup Chef is a combined community education and fundraising event for The Mission. Competing chefs can ONLY use the ingredients found at The Gospel Mission on the day of their competition. It all culminates in a final Chef-off gala which raises funds for much needed kitchen equipment.

I put together some highlight videos of the first 3 rounds of the competition currently under way, you can check them out here. For any tech geeks out there, videos are shot on iPhone 4, (Sony V1U crapped out) and edited on Edius:

Round #1

Round #2

Round #3

I recently had opportunity to talk with local business man and social media guy Jim Csek. We did a podcast which, unfortunately, the audio turned out with an echo. I really liked this interview with Jim and while I could have redone it I have found, during my years in radio, once you ‘redo’ a taping the responses are never quite the same and for the most part you want that initial gut response from people. Not to say Jim said anything controversial, its just what he said was really good. So I put that journalism degree to use and transcribed the 10 minute interview which I haven’t had to do since my interning days…

Anyway please read the interview below and if anyone has any advice on Pamela call Recorder…please let me know.

Enjoy!!

*********************************

Jessica:  Hello its Jessica Samuels once again and welcome to my podcast. Joining me today is Jim Csek from, well let’s see, Csek Creative, Welcome to Kelowna and Kelownavotes.com among others. Jim thanks for joining me today.

Jim:  No problem it’s great to actually speak with you.

Jessica:  Jim give a bit of background on your area of expertise and exactly what it is you do before we get into the meat of the topic here today

Jim:  Well Csek creative is a web development company that’s been in the Okanagan Valley for the past 14 years. WelcometoKelowna.com is one of our first projects. It’s a community portal and recently, along the lines of a community portal stuff we created kelownavotes.com for the recent civic election.

Jessica:  I recently sat on a panel with Jim discussing social media and democracy across the world. Today I wanted to talk about social media and democracy as it pertained to the civic election here in Kelowna. A bit of background we just had our civic election here in Kelowna but was interesting this year is that we had a record number of candidates running. Jim was it because we had a record number of candidates or was it because it was more of a sign of the times because social media has become so prominent that you decided to put up Kelownavotes.com?

Jim:  I think there were a number of reasons we decided to do kelownavotes.com one was that there was a lot of candidates running and it was hard to get through all of that information and the other was because social media – we’ve seen what it’s done in other areas of the world now with democracy and we just thought we would give the candidates and the community a way to interact with each other in the election to get more information from them.

Jessica:  I want to specifically talk about the candidates and the role social media played before, during and after the actual election. You guys started the hashtag ‘kelownavotes’ and those of you in the social media scene would know what that means. I actually found it quite useful I put it in one of my streams and I could see what was being discussed, I found it as a great tool to see which candidates were actively participating in discussions or just going through the motions of being present in the weeks leading up to the election.  What were your feelings about the use of the hashtag and how the candidates used social media.  Were you surprised? Disappointed?

Jim: First of all we didn’t actually do the ‘kelownavotes’ hashtag we did the kelownavotes.com which utilizes the hashtag which was actually started out by the City of Kelowna. We just put together a vehicle that allowed the people ….(cuts out)….election for sure as far as social media went and I would say ill prepared in a lot of ways as far as their websites went t and I would just say that most of them were trying to get ready for the election 3 weeks in, 3 weeks to go.

Jessica:  Right…you did cut out for a minute there. I just want to make sure you were talking about the candidates there and that they were really ill prepared and did not use it properly.

Jim:  I would say yes most definitely. We offered a free service to candidates to come in and get training or help them put up their twitter page or their Facebook page. We were taken up by about 6 of the, I think there were 49 candidates that were running for councillor and about 5 I think for the Mayor and about 11 or so for the (school) Trustees.

Jessica:  Okay, so why do think there were not more who took you up on that offer, what do you think was the reasoning for that decision that they made?

Jim:  I think a lot of it was just being unprepared. I think a lot of people did it on a spur of the moment and thought there was a….I guess maybe a lot of people were unhappy with the current situation so a lot of people that it was a good time to run for election. And with that they didn’t think there was much to it. Just put your name out there and hopefully get elected. Buy a few lawn signs and it’s done.

Jessica:  So I’m wondering , and this is my perception, it wasn’t so much of a fear or lack of understanding of social media as it was more generally, which you can say about any election, that it was that people really didn’t know what it took to run for office. I mean you could say that about any election.

Jim:  I would say that’s the most accurate, especially for this one here. Not being a provincial or a federal election municipal elections tend to be most unprepared, across Canada. But I would say a lot of the candidates had no idea what they should be doing and taking the time frame of 3 weeks to run for an election – you know some of the guys were running for Mayor and one of the guys didn’t even have a cell phone and I think as a Mayor you should want to communicate with your constituents.

Jessica:  The ones that took you up on your offer for help with social media, what percentage or were those that ones that got voted in?

Jim:  For sure there was a couple of them that made it, but some of them that came were so far behind the curve they had nothing to start with and had no idea what to do, I think, but I mean they did respectful, in the previous election they may have got elected they got in the 5 thousand vote range and in the previous election that would have got them a seat. This election you needed 10 thousand votes

Jessica:  Right, and again, it was a really unique field and a really unique situation for us in the Okanagan. So some would say okay, and we are going to get to this in a minute – now they have been elected have they been on social media, but that percentage doesn’t make an obvious case for why politicians or anyone should be on social media because it would seem, well if only a couple got in and who knows if it’s because they were engaged on social media they got that seat.

Jim:  Yah, I would say that for this election social media probably played a smaller role in it but I think when the time comes again in 3 years it will probably be a significant factor in the election. I think we are kind of just getting our feet wet with social media, especially Twitter and that stuff, in Okanagan area. And I think there is one candidate we helped and I think by her accepting that help it probably got her that seat. It wasn’t the biggest determining factor but I think it definitely pushed her over that mark, you know, they were so tight for 7^th, 8^th 9^th.

Jessica:  Now that we are post election, the elections were more than a month ago the new council is in place, they’ve had a couple meetings under their belts what is the landscape of social media for council. Who has kept it up or how many have managed to keep it up?

Jim:  Actually I’ve put together some stats because I knew you were going to ask me that question.

Jessica:  Ha ha ha.

Jim:  Ha ha ha and what we’re saying is, we’re not saying this is a bad thing. We’re going to put out we’re willing to help again, we’re willing to help these people communicate. Because we think communication between the citizens and the elected officials should be paramount and they should embrace that. I know for a fact the City of Kelowna provides each one of the elected officials an iPhone and an iPad so they have the tools to communicate with us – it’s not that hard. So as far as a Mayor goes, Walter Gray, he had a Twitter account, he had a Facebook account and he had a website, as of right now all three of those have been deactivated. So he has, at this moment, no communication in the social media area that I can find.

Jessica: Okay…wow.

Jim: So next we have Maxine DeHart, she has a social media Twitter account, a Facebook account and website all of which are still active. During the election she made 219 tweets since the election she has made 10 tweets. And there’s really been nothing other than a thank you message on her website. But we’ve spoken with Max and Max wants to continue on with it and wants to continue to communicate with her…with the citizens of Kelowna. Luke Stack we see, he has his website up, he never had any social media going on at all. He has his website up, he has updated it since the election. Colin Basran made 31 tweets during the election, since the election he has made one. He still has his Twitter account up though. Gerry Zimmerman had no social media at all. He had a website and he still has that website which hasn’t been updated. Andre Blanliel made 29 tweets during the election, since the election zero. Mohini Singh made 10 tweets during the election, since the election she made zero.  Rob Hobson had, that we could find, no website, no nothing up, Rob Hobson’s been a councillor for quite a while. Gail Given had a website which is still up. The two other elected officials that are still using social media quite actively are Norm Letnick and Chris Gorman, one of the School Trustees that was elected. So they are still actively tweeting and communicating with their constituents.

Jessica: And so, as we wrap up here, when we look at social media, and to refer to something you retweeted earlier today,  I think from a Globe and Mail article about the role of social media in 2012…we have this fresh new council here…you’re active in the community, I’m active in the community – this is going to post this on my website and we’re going to tweet about it…what do you think this says to the constituency that is active in social media? What kind of message this sends? We got on the ball, or on the bus…well I don’t want to put words on your mouth but now they are off the bus. What message do you think this sends, or what people perceive from this?

Jim:  I would think it’s not a very good message. You used us, or I would say some people might look at it, you used us when you needed us. You used the streams that were available, when you got what you needed you turned us off and that’s not a very good thing. So I’m just hoping that most of them just don’t know how to use it and that’s why we’re going to offer again free training and resources to them to get back out there and communicate with the citizens of Kelowna. I mean, I think that’s what a good politician should do is listen as well as speak to the citizens.

Jessica:  Right and perhaps we can account some of this to being a bit overwhelmed. I mean, they are average people like you and I, they have a new job, they were new to social media, I mean when I was new to social media I sure am glad there was nobody monitoring how many tweets I made and some of the stupid things I said on Twitter and Facebook. It sounds like you are willing to cut them some slack and give them some more time to get back into the swing of things.

Jim: I think we have to. I mean it’s easy to say they should be doing it –but it is kind of hard. But they do have tools, the City of Kelowna provided them the tools as well, they gave them the iPhone they gave them the iPad, so the tools are there and it doesn’t have to become overwhelming. It’s a way to communicate to let the citizens know what’s going on. I mean it’s out there everywhere. If you watch any news broadcast you’ll see they’re running twitter feeds and you’ll see anybody that is in the spotlight and they are in the spotlight, they asked to be in the spotlight, it’s kind of a duty of theirs to make sure they communicate with us.

Jessica:  Jim before we go, final question. Do you think social media is changing democracy? I mean not only here but across Canada and around the world. Do you think it’s changing how we live in our political community?

Jim: I would think so. When I look back at history, my mother escaped from the Hungarian revolution back in 1956 and back then what they got was the voice of the radio. She said they listened to Free America Radio where it said keep fighting the American troops are coming, but of course there were no troops coming but that’s what they understood. So they only had that one so they didn’t have a voice out, there was no voice for them per se to let the world know what was going on. The only time they got to speak was when they were actually outside of the country. I think now with social media, although the government can shut it down, is that we have more of a voice and if it becomes concentrated enough it actually gets heard. Like you see Occupy Wall Street and that, some of those movements have gathered some steam and garnered the attention of the news media which then amplifies that message. So I do think it does help for sure. It allows more people to speak and if it’s concentrated it gives it a greater voice.

Jessica: Jim, thank you so much. Jim Csek from Csek Creative as well as WelcometoKelowna.com as well as on Twitter @jimcsek is that correct?

Jim: That is correct

Jessica: Alright thank you so much

Jim: Thank you Jessica.

Fauxtoshop of course!

Leila Pejman and I take opposite sides of the issue on this edition of PopGoTech. The Topic: celebrity ‘retouched’ photos. Its all based on a tech article from the New York Times which talks about new software that can ‘detect to what extent beauty and fashion photos have been retouched’.

I’m pretty passionate about this topic but you’ll have to tune in to  see what side I sit on.

Below I’ve posted the picture of Kim K. which Leila is referring to – listen to the podcast, take a look at her photo and give me your thoughts.

“It’s no secret that women have long been overlooked and under-compensated, and while great strides have made in recent decades, the value placed on women versus their male counterparts is still consistently unbalanced”

Now hold on…before you start rolling your eyes this is not another ‘men are keeping us down’ diatribe. Nope. This is a ‘women, we’re keeping ourselves down’ diatribe.

The above quote is from a book called Knowing Your Value by Mika Brzezinski.  And I feel there will be no hyperbole in the statement – ITS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS I’VE READ .

It has directly effected the way I conduct myself at work with surprising results.

The book was given to me by the wisest woman I know…my mom and she gave it to me after I chose to leave the broadcast biz (Crossing Over). As usual Rozi’s timing was impeccable. This book had me forehead slapping, frustratedly sighing and ‘oh my god that is totally me’ – ing starting at page 1.

Mika uses her own experiences during her long climb up the broadcast ladder to be co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe as her basis for experience. Add in interviews and anecdotes from the likes of writer and director Nora Ephron, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and broadcaster Joy Behar (and from a few men too ) and you end up with a brutally honest, but funny ‘how to’ on what not to do to get ahead in your career.

I have recommended this book several times and talk about it when I can. Actually I’m sure its getting a bit annoying. But it has that effect on you.

But wait…there’s more…

I actually put her advice into action.

I admit it. I WAS the one who thought “Well if I just put my head down and work really hard and do all those extras whether they ask me to or not they will just recognize what a hard worker I am and truly value me”

Holy f**k was I naive.

It boils down to this: recently I had a performance review with my employer. It was going well. Actually going great. So great that I was asked to take on additional responsibility…an even greater challenge than what I was already doing. Plus it came with additional compensation.

Boy was I flattered! But its just that isn’t it? Who sits in a performance review and is FLATTERED by an increase in responsibility? Sure perhaps, feels complimented,  a boost to the ego but I’m sure,”Gee they must really like me” is not the prevailing thought going through the head. If it is, then give your head a shake.

So I nipped that puppy in the bud pretty quickly…I countered with an alternate suggestion for compensation. Actually I gave two options.

End result? My boss remarking on how impressed he was by my assertiveness and confidence in what I had asked for.

And I think its key to point out here that I didn’t ask for anything outrageous and without being able to defend my requests.

Ladies – read this book. Do it.
Men – get it for your ladies…they need it. Do it.

Oh and BTW my first suggestion was turned down and the second accepted. And I’m pretty sure he still likes me…

Thanks Mika.

PopGoTech co-host Leila Pejman and I chat “To swear or not to swear” when it comes to social media.

Admittedly I totally jumped on the Ellen Barkin train this week – more out of pure fascination on how one person can incorporate some many F-Bombs in 140 characters.

Leila, on the other hand, was non too amused by the profane Ms. Barkin.

Where do you draw the line when it comes to swearing? Do you have a different standard in real life VS social media life when it comes to profanity? And is it possible that Ellen Barkin can swear a blue streak around Samuel L Jackson?

Take a listen.
*** THERE IS SWEARING IN THIS PODCAST***