A Sussex Cream Tea Tradition

A Sussex Cream Tea Tradition

The Sussex afternoon light drops in the sky
The tea and scones grace the table
Beckoning tired family members to unwind

A man done with the day loosens his tie
The children quietly eat the scones and read fables
The peace surrounds the family traditions that bind

by Pauline Brannigan March 27, 2009

New England College had a campus in Arundel, England when I was an undergraduate. One of the traditions we often had for special occasions on the American campus in Henniker were Sussex cream teas in the afternoon. There has never been a scone that was more tasty than the first one I ever had at an International Student Council reception. One of my colleagues brought in scones today and was harassed because there was no poem to accompany the gift of the food. (A ditty about Cake had been presented earlier) I wrote this to bail him out and to honour the tradition of the Sussex Cream Tea....

Goals are coming together My Wheel of Life

I haven't forgotten about setting goals. I have been thinking about them in the quiet moments of my day for weeks now. I finally have said out loud to two important men in my life, my husband and my boss. I want to write and set goals that I know deep inside myself can and will be achieved this year. In reflection of the 2008 list, I went through the motions of doing it. As a result, they got lip service. The result is I wasn't able to say I achieved my intended result.



Rob Vaughan, my boss at SelectMinds sent each of us a great exercise on giving points to goal or resolution categories called "The Wheel of Life" . They include: Family, Financial, Career, Social, Health, Mental, Spiritual, and Personal / Prestige. These equate to general areas relating back to personal happiness and success. In our discussion on the way into a client appointment yesterday, I found myself saying, "My primary objective is to set goals that are achievable and will encourage me to be a better person both professionally and personally by my own standards at the close of 2009" Here goes a quick sample of the goals I am still tossing around metrics and specifics for myself:



1) Health: I want to strive to be healthier. This means following doctors orders. Getting more physical activity. Eating smart. Taking my vitamins daily. Moisturizing! Finding positive outlets for disappointments and stress. If I am able to fine tune measurable actions to create better habits, this will stir results. I have been off to a great start this year with taking care of some nagging medical issues.



2) Family. Fiona needs to complete obedience training. I need to see my family more both my parents and cousins.



3) Spiritual - Last year I forced myself to read Eat, Pray, Love. I was surprised how much it impacted me. I would like to re read it and take notes and develop goals from it. Beyond this, I would like to do a bit of Church shopping. Although, I was brought up in the Congregational Church, it isn't aligned with my current philosophy and I don't agree with many of the edicts coming from the UCC Conference. Time to look around for a new spiritual home. I am thinking Church of England, perhaps or "Catholic light".



4) Social. For the past couple of years, adding new friends in Connecticut has been a goal. I have tried a ton of things. This year, I am going to relax this effort and concentrate on being a good friend to the people in my life already. Especially, those long lost friends from New England College I have connected with through Facebook. They were like family for four years. I am not losing them again.



5) Financial. For me, this one goes hand in hand with professional. First of all, I want to continue to build the savings account outside of my investments and 401K. Second, continue to be prudent about credit cards. Finally, I want to help others get on the path to financial success by assisting people in making smart decisions.



6) Career. I want to really have a successful sales year from a numbers stand point at SelectMinds. It is crucial to have a success here in spite of the economy. Beyond this, I want to be seen as a leader and an expect on Corporate Social Networking. I want to continue to educate myself and others by promoting the SelectMinds brand and my own personal brand in the space. NOTE: One combo goal between financial and career is to feel like I deserve my cleaning service back!



7) Personal or Prestige. This one is really about hobbies and interests. I guess I want to travel some place unique this year outside of Florida and the Cape. I want to check a new experience off my things to do and see before I die list. One thing that is already scheduled is taking a pistol permit class. Yup, I am going to be a gun toting blogger shortly.



8) Mental. Having just found this as a new category I am still formulating ideas. This is about personal growth, i.e. Professional Development courses or other education.. self help type books. My initial thought is this isn't a total priority this year. I will put some "Mental" effort to looking into possible goals.



From this, my next steps are to formalize the actions and steps for my primary and secondary list of objectives this year.

Nike is Just Doing it with Community

Remembering back to the days, about sixteen years ago when Nike launched the “Just Do It” campaign. I was at New England College in Henniker, NH. The Model UN Group I was a member of was putting together a Model Middle East Summit. It was a lot of work. We found each other screaming “Just Do IT” to each other all the time. It became a mantra for the organization and for many of us in our professional lives as well.

I think that Customer Self Service is basically an evolution of the “Just Do It” campaign. In reality, Nike has created a community to let their running/jogging customers AND PROSPECTS to do it together and better. In a recent NY Times article, Nike’s community was highlighted as their most recent advertising genius. They are enabling their customers to interact and find better ways to “Just Do It” all with the trademark Nike Swoosh neatly but understatedly featured. The community member they feature in the article is also 53 years old not 22 years old.

For those of you that are still looking for the hard data on why communities are essential to business, let me clearly talk to your wallet….

· Nike has dropped their traditional media budget by 22%
· That equates to 149 MILLION dollars.
· Members choose to visit the site 3x a week.

How is that for data?

Here is the crucial quote I found from the section on Nike:

“We’re not in the business of keeping the media companies alive,” Mr. Edwards says he tells many media executives. “We’re in the business of connecting with consumers.” Trevor Edwards, Nike’s corporate vice president for global brand and category management.

I will repeat a profound question recently poised by my colleague Derek Showerman:

“When are you going stop preaching to your customers and start listening to them? A community is the vehicle to JUST DO IT for you.”

Here is a link to the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/business/media/14ad.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

I want to thank the Nike Corporation for my Mantra …