i lasted 5 days. 5 days! what nailed me wasn’t health insurance (i opted out) or rent (i chose a place 50 miles from work), but deciding to treat a sick pet instead of letting it suffer or putting it down. what will nail you?

play the game spent and walk in someone else’s shoes. then reflect, if you’re a senior leader in your company, on how your terms of employment affect your employees.

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note: i learned of this game by reading sharlyn lauby’s wonderful post, the dawn of economic diversity.

mallika chopra, intent

“what am i doing?”

“what am i doing?”

this question tumbled out of mallika chopra’s mouth at the business innovation factory summit (BIF-7) in providence, rhode island this week.

it tumbled from the stage as it had tumbled from her mouth over ten years earlier while she watched the results of her hard work at MTV india: kids in india were watching scantily dressed kids dance elsewhere.

“what am i doing?!”

flash forward and mallika’s now behind intent.com, a social exercise in declaring your life’s intent with and to others.

her story echoed others we heard at BIF-7. in fact, i’d say it was an overarching theme: what am i doing?

am i doing something that feeds my soul?

am i doing something others can trust?

am i doing something that sees what can be instead of only what’s broken?

am i doing something that creates a meaningful economy?

am i doing something that improves the world?

_______________________

what am i doing? ask yourself.

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to learn about BIF-7, visit the BIF-7 website.

[image: android phone, if you couldn't guess.]

this past weekend i danced the hora with family and friends. we danced on south street, a main drag in philly for cruising when the weather’s good—which it was.

the occasion was my eldest’s bat mitzvah. she wanted to dance the hora, and i wanted to make it happen for her. so you know what i did? i asked. i went into the local police station and asked. they told me to call someone else, and i asked. he told me to call back again, and i asked. altogether, i asked six times.

three months later, the police closed down south street for over an hour while we danced. when people asked me who i was and how i got the philly police to shut down south street, i could honestly reply that i’m nobody. i just asked.

too often we think we know the answer and never ask. we must ask for what we need. and sometimes, when we don’t get the answer we want, we must ask again.

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[image: art + life photography]

oh, why can’t we break away from all this, just you and i, and lodge with my fleas in the hills? i mean,
flee to my lodge in the hills. — groucho marx

it’s tough to ignore the expectation that a blogger should regularly produce content, even during vacation. you might slip from people’s minds, it’s said. you won’t regain the traffic.

life’s all about tough choices and their consequences.

i’ve fled to a lodge in the hills. i’ll see you in september.

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the pew internet project’s released their latest study on the social life of health information. the full report marks the growth in use of online searches, mobile tools and social networks for health information. i want to focus on one thing that leaped out at me while reading it, and that’s the growing use of social network sites by caregivers.

pew found that caregivers use social network sites for updates and gathering information support more than other online social network participants.

“28% of caregivers who use social network sites say they follow friends’ health updates, compared with 21% of other social network site users. Twenty percent of caregivers who use social network sites say they have gathered health information on such a site, compared with 12% of other users.”

pew also pointed out these same sites “can be a source of encouragement and care.” that jives with this terrific article about the nurturing, understanding and path-setting caregivers get from their support group.

“Our collective experience is a priceless resource. At a basic level, we exchange advice for keeping our partners from wandering off and techniques for bathing, calming and medicating them. We discuss ways to handle their hallucinations and incontinence, the mere mention of which often spooks outsiders. We share advice on what to tell the police, and what not to tell them, to keep them from hauling our sometimes violent mates to a psychiatric ward.

“But our group’s deepest value lies beyond such practical matters. We speak of feelings and problems too sensitive or fraught to discuss outside. We recount the disappearance of old friends, whose discomfort around our spouses keeps them away. We mourn the loss of companionship and sex.

“We guiltily admit to bouts of irrepressible anger in face of the intransigence and aggression typical of dementia. We speak about our children and stepchildren—some attentive and devoted, some interfering or remote.

“And knowing that dementia is a terminal disease, together we contemplate death—our spouses’ and our own. When should we refuse treatments or call in hospice? What will become of our loved ones if we die first? How will we manage our own final years as we rapidly exhaust our resources? These are deeply personal, in some ways political questions that science cannot answer.”

this type of interaction and community is something the health care system can’t or doesn’t provide. in the employer setting, it’s a part of what affinity groups offer. these groups have long been present to give succor and voice to minorities related to gender, race and sexual orientation. over time, people concerned about disabilities, generational needs and other discrete groups have also formed affinity groups. mercer’s recent report on the resurrection of affinity groups identifies groups for working parents, military service personnel, adoptive parents and adult caregivers.

caregivers, the next major affinity group

right now, one in five full-time employees is an adult caregiver and experiencing serious ramifications:

• 17% say their health has gotten worse as a result of caregiving (this intensifies with the length of caregiving and based on income and race)
• 3 in 10 find their caregiving situation emotionally stressful
• 53% are taken away from friends and family because of their caregiving responsibilities—an added layer of emotional stress
• 34% would like more information about how to manage their emotional stress
• 32% would like more information about how to find time for themselves

as our population ages, the number of employees acting as caregivers will only grow, and so will their need for support. flexibility will be key, as caregivers routinely report needing to come in late, leave early or request some shift in typical work schedules. but emotional support and advice from people who’ve “been there” will also be critical. today only 11% of those employers who participated in the mercer study focus on elder care. contrast that with the prevalence of affinity groups for women (93%), race/ethnicity (90%) and sexual orientation (84%).

i asked cali yost her thoughts on the need for more attention to adult caregivers and she responded:

“I’m not surprised by the finding that only 11% of employers are focused on eldercare.  The growth of online networks and affinity groups fills the void between what more and more people are experiencing and the lack of support from employers and the community.  At some point, the tidal wave of eldercare is going to slam into Corporate America and resources and flexibility will be devoted to the issue.  But until then, it’s good to see organic communities of shared experience and need stepping to the plate.”

many companies already provide elder care resources and guidance through their employee assistance programs or other similar providers. creating an affinity group—a caregivers community—is a logical extension. i’ll put money on our seeing a rise in the number of adult caregiver affinity groups. what pew’s study shows us is that underpinning these affinity groups with an online social network that bends time, geography and level will deliver the much-needed emotional ballast caregivers seek.

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more reading:

• the social life of health information, 2011
• sloan work and family research network elder care and the workplace topic page

the georgia children’s health alliance has taken a lot of grief for this campaign. the links here are a smattering of the hue and cry. the campaign originally consisted of billboard ads and a website with four personal narratives. the billboards have been pulled and so has one of the videos.

i’ll be honest; i don’t like the campaign. i’m going to break down why in this post, because dissecting this campaign offers valuable lessons for employers working this health puzzle.  i’ve included the billboard ads and one of the four videos. i wanted to include the one from bobby, but that was pulled. rightfully so. i review why in “message” below.

your face here?

health awareness is not promotion

one of my issues with this campaign is that it’s a health awareness campaign, not a health promotion campaign, the difference being that one makes you conscious of something and the other helps you do something about it. stealing from the world health organization, health promotion is “the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health.”  awareness campaigns have knowledge as the end result; promotion campaigns: action taken.

what works

even though i don’t think this campaign works as a whole, i don’t want to shortchange the fact that (most of) the videos do. the kids are emotionally naked. they bring you into their world, and it’s painful to be there. most grown-ups watching this video—parent or not—would want to do what they can to alleviate their pain.

what doesn’t work

now for what doesn’t work and what i think would’ve fixed it. i’m breaking down my reasons into three buckets: tone, message, and location (or channel).

tone. there’s a vast difference between the tone of the billboard ads and that of the videos. the kids break your heart. they speak about their pain, about being ostracized, about their illnesses in stark terms. the billboard ads use punchy lines and common jokes, like having “big bones,” to make a point.

how it could’ve been fixed: stay true to one tone—the tone that’ll appeal most to the audience you’re trying to reach. the alliance has been a little wishy-washy on who that audience is, but most of us would agree it’s parents. the genuine tone of the kids is the one to stick with and carry through to the billboards. it has the emotional pull and resonance the billboard text currently lacks.

message. with any communication, your aim is to leave your target audience with one clear message about what they should think, feel or do. consider the “it gets better” project. it’s name is its message, and the message is carried through every video as well. here, it’s unclear what the main message is. parents could feel shame, sorrow, inadequacy. as to what they should think or do? that’s left to their own invention.

(note: bobby’s video was pulled and replaced with this awkward one. here are my planned comments on that video which features bobby talking about his love of donuts, his hiding of chips so he can eat them later, and his vegetable disgust. “a separate issue is bobby’s video. i parenthetically added ‘most of’ when talking about what works about the videos because bobby’s stands out as being different. he talks of his love of food. of donuts and chips. i’ve no doubt he loves these things. most of us do. but in a campaign about childhood obesity, his testimony seems open to ridicule. its message validates the person who already believes solving obesity is as simple as telling someone to put down the donut. this video may be meant to show parents their food choices matter, but it’s a poor, misplaced choice and makes bobby vulnerable.” obviously, others turned up the heat on the alliance and they pulled the video, which would’ve been my suggestion as well.)

how it could’ve been fixed: kill the glib, dire billboard text. replace it with a combination of the kids’ real words and a new tag line. i’d play around with something we parents hear regularly from our kids:  “mommy…daddy…help me.” one billboard could read something like: “mama, help me: i want to play outside. stopchildhoodobesity.com.” not only would this approach play to our role as supporter, nurturer and steward, but it makes it clear that parents need to step up and learn how to prevent and reduce obesity and its many related problems. the idea needs work, but a clear call to parents to help their kids live a full, happy, healthy life might be a more persuasive technique.

location/channel. bj fogg explains effective behavior change as putting hot triggers in the path of motivated people. what he means is that we need to seize opportunities when someone shows a readiness to make a change. we need to allow them to act right then before the moment’s gone. you could argue that the billboard is a hot trigger, but we have no reason to believe that someone driving down the road is specifically motivated to tackle his or her child’s obesity problem. nor does driving down a road constitute a very good opportunity to take action.

the second breakdown here is that anyone who’s triggered to visit the stopchildhoodobesity site won’t find much. it features the videos of the four kids, a brief video on georgia’s childhood obesity statistics and an invite to join the conversation on facebook. there’s no support here. no guidance. no resources. no links. that’s coming in a previously unmentioned phase two and three, according to a recent interview given by ron frieson of the alliance. if you do visit their facebook page, you’ll find a stunning lack of involvement from the alliance. it’s been taken over by haters and others, including a representative from the CBS show the talk, who’s hunting them down for comment, i assume.

how it could’ve been fixed: don’t rely solely on one channel. billboards may be right for georgia’s culture, but there are significant shortfalls with their use, including fighting for attention in a cluttered air space. add channels that are relevant to and can springboard your audience to guided action. for example, ancillary materials shared with doctors, health clinics, community centers and schools bring the subject closer to the desired audience at a time when the information can be combined with personal discussion.

create a social strategy and follow through on it. the campaign’s use of facebook, twitter and youtube is ill-thought-out and poorly executed. they had an opportunity to reach out to the community, to rally discussion, to pull in people who’ve been there and can advise, nudge and empathize. instead, they’ve ceded the facebook page to the individuals commenting on it instead of engaging them in conversation, and they’ve let their youtube and twitter page languish. the obvious fix is: don’t take the easy step of using the tools and miss the hard, first step of planning.

these are my opinions, and these things can be subjective. a young woman who was part of the campaign eloquently spoke out about how her confidence grew because of being part of this campaign. what are your thoughts?

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this is a very personal post for a very good cause.

mother’s day is BS. it started off cool—and in philadelphia—until hallmark hijacked it.

what remains cool are mothers. in all their shapes and forms.

i’ve been mothered by my share of women (and men) in my lifetime, and i’m grateful to all of them. there was lorrie and sandy, second moms who rounded out my own mom’s mothering. aunt babette, who rang me weekly during my post-college freak-out to make sure i was holding steady. rachel kuhn, a woman who knew me for a mere six hours when my dad unexpectedly died. she called me daily for weeks and grew to be one of my most trusted friends. carey, who mothers me by giving me the swift kick in the ass as only a sister can.

and finally, my own mother—a woman who taught me about moxie, grace and conviction. left with two tween girls to raise and no job to speak of, she pulled it off. and then some. the woman worked her butt off. she went from homemaker to co-founder of a financial investment management firm, with twists and turns that i’m sure set her hair on end many a time. she scraped and sacrificed to give my sister and me the things she felt would make anything possible.

but it wasn’t until recently that i reckoned with one whopper of a sacrifice. when i was 16, she sent me across the country to live with my dad, a man she was uncertain of. what compelled her was fear for my well-being in a high school relationship. i’m certain she wracked both her brain and her heart to figure out which of two lousy choices was the best for me.

i hadn’t given this episode much thought in years, and when i did it was with anger. i focused on my losses. then one day about a year ago, this story came up during a random conversation with a friend. she listened. asked some questions. after sitting silently for a minute or two, she commented how scared my mom must have been and how empty her house must have felt. she asked how often i called my mom during this period.

“i have no idea. i’ve blanked it out.”

that jolted me. now i needed an answer. i called my mother that afternoon.

“mom, when i was living in CA with dad, how often did i call you?”

“not often.”

silence.

being a mother, i understood that silence. this time i saw the struggle and the sacrifice from a mother’s eyes. the loss of a daughter at age 16, sent 3,000 miles away for her sake, only to see her…and have her be angry about it…once, maybe twice a year.

mothers make sacrifices so routinely, we fail to see them. anna jarvis wanted to recognize these sacrifices when she fought to create a day for mothers. today, epic change—an organization that uses storytelling to aid grassroots changemakers—is taking up that charge through their “to mama with love” collaborative online art project.

this year, to mama with love is raising awareness and funds for four magnificent women who are scraping and sacrificing for the children they love. i’m giving them $1,000 if they raise $5,000 by wednesday at midnight. that should be simple. won’t you help make it so?

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p.s. mom? i get it.

have you seen clocky? when clocky’s alarm sounds, it literally hops off your nightstand and runs away, forcing you to get out of your cozy bed and find it in order to smash the snooze button. i bought one for my sister and her husband. they now hate me.

i want a clocky that’s a bit smaller and can sit on my desk. that way, i can set it at regular intervals to force me to get up and move!

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this is me. the kids are my adorable, exasperating, marvelous girls. my husband, the man behind the camera, took this picture two years ago at an inn in virginia. staying there’s become a part of our holiday tradition. we hike, lounge, read, eat, laugh and frolic.

hope your holiday’s similarly filled with wonderful traditions.

see you in the new year.
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today i’m guest blogging on authentic organizations about an issue i’ve been grappling with for some time but that has recently gathered steam. CV harquail and i were commiserating on the allure of things we’ve determined are not in our path (now), and she invited me to write about it for her blog. so, here it is…

Welcome to my confessional: I’m feeling the stress of not having it all.

What should be amusing about this is that I don’t even believe in the notion of having it all. But let me tell you, I’m not amused. I know that I don’t have it. And I want it.

read more…