How many stickers can you fit on your board?

I kept seeing Nike products and despite throwing their marketing weight behind their action sports arm, the brand still seems a little out of place at action sports events. They represent some great surfers, snowboarders, skateboarders, etc., but are the fans coming around?

According to a New York Times article published last year, Nike did its homework and has been relatively successful at breaking into the tight-knit world of actions sports: “Big brands that want to enter the action sports market have to contend with the somewhat insular culture of certain sports and with the athletes’ loyalty to smaller, edgier brands. For the last few years, Nike has been on a steady mission to penetrate the market by creating sub-brands like Nike 6.0 and buying smaller brands like Hurley.”

Nike Chosen ad

Brands like DC, Burton, Volcom all seem to inspire an intense loyalty among fans as well, so it will be very interesting to see if the huge dollars Nike is pouring into sponsorships and products will move the action sports needle.

Either way, check out this video: Mark McMorris Slopestyle Gold AMAZING!

And do a little snow dance for me; I’m tired of riding on dirt!

Celebrity chef makes millions of dollars unabashedly peddling a bevy of southern-inspired culinary delights laden with sugar, fat and empty calories. Celebrity chef contracts a health disorder directly attributed to unhealthy eating. Celebrity chef signs a lucrative contract with a pharmaceutical company to promote diabetes awareness.

By the time Paula Deen revealed to the word her contraction of Type 2 diabetes, she was already singing the praises of moderation and offering diabetes-friendly recipes in a campaign to promote pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drug Victoza®. All the while, Deen will continue her career as America’s “awe-shucks” purveyor of down home cooking through endorsements, cook books and television appearances.

While this unfortunate diagnosis is an immediate threat to the Paula Deen Brand, the decision to wait three years before revealing it and the accompanying announcement of the Novo Nordisk partnership damages something far more important: Her credibility.

Deen has built a fiercely loyal fan base through her ability to not only serve up delicious and indulgent food, but also through her genial and down home persona. Spending 30 minutes in with her on The Food Network was like a carefree Sunday afternoon in grandma’s kitchen.

Her decision to turn an unfortunate health disorder into a business venture will raise immediate questions about her motives and authenticity. In fact, Deen is already addressing these concerns publically.

She said she waited three years to announce this because she wanted to give it the time and thought it deserved.

She said she wants to let the world know that “diabetes is not a death sentence.”

She said there are other risk factors for Type 2 diabetes, including genetics and age.

These are all reasonable responses. And Deen has announced that she is pledging a portion of her earnings from the Novo Nordisk deal to the American Diabetes Association (a decision made as a response to the negative media coverage surrounding the partnership). But wouldn’t a public anti-diabetes campaign that is not tied to a drug company accomplish the same objective? And wouldn’t the preemptive and direct engagement of her loyal fans help to mitigate the onslaught of criticism better than a public appearance on the Today Show?

Time will tell if Paula Deen emerges from this development with the same brand equity that helped her get to the top of the TV food chain, but one thing is apparent: the health of her credibility is at stake.

Now, as I’m face-to-face with the second week of the new year, I’m ready, so here goes – one for each month plus one for good measure.

1.  Connect with all clients regularly to gauge satisfaction. Don’t assume no news is good news.

2.  Regularly ask team members for their ideas – don’t rely on stealth suggestion box ideas or even knocks on my usually-open office door.

3.  Get rid of more clutter! Whatever it takes.

4.  Encourage more staff camaraderie. Get that retro bowling party scheduled!

5.  Walk my talk with social media – it’s not enough for the HKA social media accounts to be effective- MY own accounts need dedication and energy.

6.  Be proactive with client campaigns and projects. Seek new ways to help them grow their businesses –and our own successes.

7.   Choose which e-newsletters to keep getting. Next, 86 the others. Finally, read the ones I get!

8.  Keep early-morning workouts going, at all costs. Keep thanking my workout partner – we count on each other to start insanely early.

9.  Get more involved with groups I have joined. It’s quality versus quantity.

10.Get rid of more clutter.  I really mean it this time.

11. Use Reply All rarely. Less is more.

12. Remember that days of the week that start with the letter “S” should be Special (i.e not regular workdays).

13. Make sure our “therapy cat” Kitten has enough treats and pets.

It was a 24-hour journey from Orange County, CA to Nairobi, Kenya and when we finally got off the plane, our eyes were opened to a whole new world…we thought, “Dorothy, we certainly aren’t in the OC anymore.” Although this was my 3^rd trip to Kenya and 4^th trip to Africa, I was traveling with “Crazy Christian,” a friend of mine who grew up in Nairobi and makes Lamar Odom seem catatonic.

We arrived to an entourage of Christian’s family and friends and it felt as if the paparazzi had arrived snapping shots at every corner. This was the type of welcome even us PR pros couldn’t have orchestrated. We were introduced to some of the Kenyans who would help navigate our journey. At first, they seemed demure and quiet, but soon their true colors came alive.

Meet Cherro who has more energy than Kim, Khloe and Kourtney combined! Her spirit, energy and charisma were contagious and she truly is set to start her own talk show in the Kenyan world.

Jack, otherwise known as “Odeo” which means midnight in Kiswahili was the soft spoken driver behind the crew. His beautiful British English entranced the ladies on our team and he was a force to be reckoned with.

Q otherwise known as Kuyo was the ornery one with a tude. He kept us on our toes with his sarcasm, humor and outspokenness. Underneath it all, he is a Big Teddy Bear although he made need some serious training if he ever chooses to get married.

Mordecai known as “Sweet Mordecai” (think Neil Diamond without the Caroline). He was the younger angelic brother whose big brown eyes made us melt and charmed us all.

Now that you’ve met the Kenyans…you will have to stay tuned for our first adventure…it’s all about cross-cultural communication!

Think I’m going down to the well tonight and I’m going to drink till I get my fill

And I hope when I get old I don’t sit around thinking about it but I probably will

Yeah just sitting back trying to recapture a little of the glory of, but time slips away and leaves you with nothing mister but boring stories of glory days

-Bruce Springsteen

Ours is a culture of relentless forward progress.  We communicate in real time. We access limitless information with our fingertips. We are around the world and in our living room all at once.

So why then, in this age of unparalleled innovation, are we still stuck living in the past?

The idea of culture repeating itself has been alive and well for decades (we have all been told to “hold on to those out-of-style fashions” since they will no doubt be back in someday). But the 21^st century has ushered in a more aggressive and penetrating obsession with nostalgia and reinvention that threatens to dilute our cultural relevance.

Look at the top-grossing films of 2011

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2
2. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
4. Kung Fu Panda 2
5. Fast Five

All five of these films are either remakes or sequels (with Pirates being a sequel of a remake of a carnival ride). Extend this acid test (or acid wash test) to fashion, music and design and it becomes evident that virtually every facet of today’s popular culture is borrowed from another era.

Why are we so enamored with nostalgia? New media clearly has a direct influence on this phenomenon.

With such an infinite array of options for news, entertainment, art and communication, we will naturally gravitate to those that evoke a meaningful emotional response. And an easy way to access these responses is to tap into a phase in life when we were young, idealistic and undaunted by the challenges of adult life. As Mr. Springsteen calls it, “The Glory Days.”

The end result is a voracious cycle of media-induced “Instant Nostalgia.”

Here’s where nostalgia stops being fun and whimsical and becomes a problem. The paradox of Instant Nostalgia is the fact that, in an age of open, universally accessible information, we are more closed off to new ideas and concepts than ever. We live in our own cultural silos where we are comfortably shielded from being marginalized, challenged or, worst of all, being deemed “uncool.”

By sheltering ourselves from taking new risks, embracing new theories and tackling challenging concepts, you end up with, well, Transformers movies and derivative 80s synth-pop.

Improving on past innovations is a hallmark of American culture. Some of our greatest innovators are renowned for doing just that. However, getting too cozy with the past can lull us into a false sense of cultural security.

The scary thing about irrelevance is that nobody knows exactly when it occurs. You can be a trend-setter one day and a punch line the next. Our growing reliance upon Instant Nostalgia may one day lead us to a teenage wasteland of tired concepts and uninspired ideas. Can American idealism survive? I think so. It just needs to sober up, throw away those old high school yearbooks and look boldly to the future once again.

I attended the 3^rd annual Leaders of Integrity Awards, founded by Russ Williams of Passkeys Foundation. I love this event, and also enjoy Steve Churm of Churm Media being the emcee. But with ethics and integrity the topics of the day, and the speaker being a Jesuit priest, I somehow didn’t expect a dynamic presentation. Wow, was I wrong! And I was not alone in my A+ assessment: Dr. Spitzer had the audience fully engaged and energized on the subject of what makes an authentic leader of integrity. You could have heard a pin drop – except for the occasional bursts of audience laughter.

At first, it sounded like psycho mumbo-jumbo, as Dr. Spitzer began by tossing psychology terms at us. But quickly it made sense.  Dr. Spitzer’s thesis is that an “authentically noble” leader has a contributive  personality, rather than an ego-comparative personality.  The more common ego-comparative personality is debilitative, according to Dr. Spitzer. People with this dominant mode compare every step they take to others. They are constantly assessing their own successes or failures in the context of others’ successes or failures, and can’t be satisfied or happy unless they are better than the next guy. He rattled off example after example of how these comparisons deter a person from being a leader with integrity. Hardly inspirational, yet this is the norm.

In contrast, the contributive personality does just that: contributes – without comparisons. These people seek to optimize the good in everything around them, as their primary purpose. As leaders, they are constantly seeking to contribute, for the greater good.  Truly inspired leaders of integrity have this characteristic. Unfortunately, this is all too rare.

Dr. Spitzer concluded that inspirational leaders are believable, with noble visions. And of course they have principal-based ethics. Most importantly, each morning when they get up, standing before their mirror, they put on their contributive identity, before their ego-comparative identity.

My take-away? You can bet I will work on being more contributive and less ego-comparative (especially now that I know what these terms mean).

How about you?

I couldn’t resist this lead, though it’s not what you think.

Truth is, this was one of the most rewarding, inspiring Sundays I’ve spent. Two others rivaled this one  – the same event in 2010 and, likewise, the same event in 2009. Let’s say I’m a glutton for inspiration.

I’m referring to none other than Working Wardrobes’ Men’s Day of Self Esteem. This year was the 15^th annual event and this organization knows what it’s doing.  Each year just gets better and better.

There were 137 gentlemen and nearly 300 volunteers, who did everything from helping them shop for professional attire for job interviews to providing haircuts to serving a delicious Mexican lunch. By the way, Working Wardrobes’ Founder Jerri Rosen is adamant about using the word gentlemen, as this is, after all, a day of self esteem, and they are gentlemen, regardless of their current situation. Calling them just men, or, worse yet, guys, will get you chastised. The entire day is framed around creating an atmosphere of self-respect and a positive vision for their own future.

Back to the underwear . . . I was one of the pairs of personal shoppers. Not a great shopper myself, I team with my good friend Michele, who IS a great shopper. Together, Michele and I were one of 45 teams who each helped 3 gentlemen on their road to success, during three 50-minute rotations through the Los Amigos High School Gym in Fountain Valley. We scrambled to figure out their sizes and then helped them find a suit (or sport coat and slacks), another pair of slacks, a couple of dress shirts, two ties, dress shoes and dress socks. Did I say scramble? All the teams raced around the gym, scouring the racks of clothes, trying to make THEIR gentlemen look great and be chosen for the fashion show finale. Everyone’s “before” and “after” shots were amazing.  See for yourself, check out the Working Wardrobe’s Facebook page. All three of our gentlemen looked terrific and we batted .666 – two of our gents were featured in the show.  Much of the clothing was brand new, courtesy of Men’s Wearhouse. The rest was very gently worn.

The gentlemen who attend this event are determined to turn their lives around. They have committed to the road back, attending six coaching sessions at their halfway houses before coming to the Day of Self Esteem. Some are battling drug or alcohol addiction. Some are veterans plagued with post traumatic stress syndrome. All have seen better days and are eager to see these better days again.

For me and the other volunteers, it’s a long, but rewarding, day. For the gentlemen who attend, it’s a possible path leading to those better days ahead. Whether you volunteer time, donate much-needed money, or bring your no-longer-needed clothing, you know you are making a difference.

Sign me up for 2012!

There’s a problem? Yes, a big one. Viewers are contributing to the shift and money towards more sensational and mindless television. Lisa Ling’s Our America debut on the OWN earlier this year saw an average of 574,000 total viewers. The recent Kim’s Fairytale Wedding offered two evenings of bickering and controlling wedding planning with two hours each, averaging 4.4 MILLION total viewers on Sunday’s installment, with 4 million on Monday. I recorded both installments and hung on every minute.

Some people just like to relax with some meaningless television. This may seem harmless, but let’s think about it more. With the masses tuned into anything Kim Kardashian, who is famous for being famous, advertising money and airwaves continue to move toward this type of broadcasting. With such high viewership, the Kardashians keep getting more attention and more promotional deals. As a family, the Kardashians are expected to be worth $1 billion in the next couple of years.

I am one of the reasons why reality shows continue to take up the airwaves. Keeping up with the Kardashians gets huge numbers and advertisers and producers take note. People watch the family live lavish lifestyles, all while the economy is struggling and youth are protesting. Advertisers start to see value in this and similar shows become some of the big money makers. We complain about it, but really, we’re furthering the conversation. Our “meaningless television” is slowly starting to dominate, making the Kardashians, and even the fist-pumping kids of Jersey Shore, too rich for their own good. I hear so many people complain that there isn’t good television anymore… and I’m so incredibly sorry, but I helped cause this.