It’s midsummer now, and I’m happy to have a job as the digital marketing manager for a nonprofit called the Municipal Art Society, which advocates smart/sustainable urban planning, and the preservation & promotion of physical art (buildings, murals, statues, bridges) in New York City. The work is all encompassing including web content management (WordPress), email marketing and eCRM (Convio), analytics, Google AdWords, and social media. Feels good as the pay is great with lots of opportunity for skills improvement, and the people are very nice.

However, I learned a couple days ago that my mother has lung cancer. Stage 4, non-small cell, right lung, spread just to the chest wall. Not isolated, so chemotherapy is the only option. I had wondered if they could just remove the right organ and all might be okay, since that’s the word about kidneys. But I guess that’s not possible according to the doctors.

It’s hard to believe or comprehend the gravity of it all, except to know that someone you love and care for is just not going to be around much longer. Update: So it’s mesothelioma (as a result of asbestos exposure at some point in her life), with anywhere between 3mo. to 1yr remaining life expectancy.

Although the lady I’d been seeing for the last few months — a smart, green-minded, alpha-female architect — and I decided recently to take a break, I just don’t feel like becoming interested (casual or serious) in anyone for awhile. Socializing and being active in various interests are still important though, especially as a way to feel progress and momentum toward something meaningful. Suppose I’m just more selective of how I decide to spend time now, given the new job and time constraints.

Will still be posting interesting things from the last couple months I’ve taken notes on, or podcasts with people interviewed. Stay tuned, and have a safe & joyful summer.

~ Mario

Yeah Right!

Happy April Fools Day

Since moving to New York, I’ve held a daily routine of searching, indexing, and applying for jobs, regular exercise (jog/walk 4 miles, yoga), networking, and reconnecting with people. Some days I’d skip one thing or another, but tried to hold this schedule fairly consistently. It worked well.

Until I received interest from a new acquaintance I reached out to, who wanted to fill a client service manager position right away. At that point two weeks ago, I stopped searching and applying. The company was Addison, a respectable communications firm specializing in annual reports, branding, and information design. Boy was I excited! This was an opportunity to help Fortune 100 clients develop sustainability reports in print and online, along with a small opportunity to provide social media advising too. My interview was earlier this week.

I didn’t get the position, having been told during the interview that I probably wouldn’t be a good fit for their culture. What was wrong? What did I say? Well, I did appreciate the candid feedback. Although we may really want a job, we have to acknowledge that sometimes a position just wouldn’t be right for us in the long run. During our talk, I disclosed a passion for personal productivity and execution. Seems okay right? For this particular position, the nature of the work needed pure project management and lots of client service in a daily environment with many meetings and low-productivity. My entrepreneurial background, low tolerance for inaction, and creative edge were just not going to fit with the needs of the position.

At first I was upset. This seemed like a really cool company with lots of potential to do meaningful work in sustainability communications! But I was thankful for the immediate feedback. What did this mean though? After some reflection, I realized that aspects of our personality, habits, and work history will fundamentally affect not only our fit for a type of job, but also our long term happiness in that role, regardless of the organization we’re working for. I realized at that point, that being an account executive or coordinator in an agency is just not for me, and I might as well not apply to any of these types of positions. Community management, creative marketing, and media production are my strengths. Let’s stick with those.

So earlier this week I also received a second call for an interview. The Rubin Museum was looking for a Web Content Coordinator, who’d develop and manage digital content, and work with their social media accounts. Woo Hoo! Right up my alley. I came prepared on Thursday, having read a fortuitously timed 8-part article series in the NY Times on digital media and museums, published the previous day. I met with 5 people at once, who were all very friendly. I think I spoke a little too much in the beginning though, regarding why my work history prepared me to be an excellent candidate. In retrospect, it would have been great to personally address two gentlemen how I’d help their particular goals in education and production. But alas, time was limited as they had to go after a while. The rest of the interview went fairly well, I believe, having asked some questions of my own, and I should hear back from them early next week. The opportunity to help promote Himalayan art and culture would be amazing!

Having had two interviews now, I know that I’ll get better with time. It’s just that when we really like a job, it seems there’s a demotivation to apply to others. I told myself when I moved here that focusing on “Process” is much more important than “Outcomes”. I realize that fretting over what I should/could have said, and being anxious about early next week, does the spirit no good. All we can do is move forward, living in daytime compartments, realizing the past is behind us, and recognizing aspects of the interview process we can improve upon.

But thinking is not enough. We have to literally write these principles down. In our own words. And post them up on the wall to remind ourselves. This is what I did.

Momentum is important. Talking about our goals and feelings with others is important too, hence the secondary reason for writing this personal blog post today. We’re all just human. But we have the power to adapt to change, learn from our past, and get better.

It’s about having a vision. Maintaining hope. Applying discipline. Persevering.

Smiling in the face of it all.

~ Ciao

Credit: Jasmine Wingfield

That I did on February 7th, in case you noticed my absence of daily postings
Many more work opportunities here for communications, media, and digital than in my former town of Orange County, CA.

Had planned to move once I had a good amount of savings, a solid plan, and had sold a lot of books among other goals before leaving. Being here now for a week, the weather’s not bad! Having lived in Northern Sweden for a year at 17, I KNOW what cold can be like. Dressing warm is all one needs to do.

Having a Smartphone with premium applications for Craigslist, the Subway, and free ones like Google Maps, and Yelp are an absolute lifesaver. Checking apartment listings in Brooklyn while my baggage was delayed seemed so radical and fun! By the end of the first evening, I signed a prorated rent check for a shared house. Unfurnished room, but found an unwanted air mattress, table, and chair in the hallway. Easy enough! Chinese neighborhood to the West, Jewish to the East. Plenty of mini food and convenience stores all around me too.

The amount of energy here is intense, but not necessarily overwhelming. Having been practicing active meditation and awareness for a few years now, it’s fairly easy. There’s one particular negative observation though in comparison to visiting other cities: a high amount of trash and mini-debris scattered everywhere. Partially I can understand, since streetsweeping trucks aren’t active during Winter, but it’s a cultural problem, let’s face it. Having seen a subway trashcan cover with the big words “Help keep the Planet Green” along with small subtitles “For New York, your community, our city…”, as a green marketer I thought to myself: Kill the “Planet” notion. Nobody can relate to it because it’s distant and non-concrete. Instead, create a succinct expression about New York City pride, similar to that of “Don’t Mess with Texas”.

After having situated myself, perfected my resume and creative portfolio, and attended a few networking events in the first couple days, I’m now fully on the job application train. First off the list was my favorite PR agency, Weber Shandwick, which has strong practices in digital and sustainability & csr (3 divisions in fact!). There are some other known organizations I’ll apply for open-ended and posted positions.

If you can think of ANY brand, NGO, consultancy, or agencies in marketing, design/innovation, business I should add to my list, please leave a comment!

I’ll be posting little updates in the coming weeks again…Wish me Luck!
And thanks again for being a reader

[Video Link for Email/Other Subscribers - 8min]

“Some of the highlights of Bruce Dale’s 30 year career at National Geographic including 10 trips to China beginning in the late 1970′s, the hologram cover for the 100th anniversary edition, and mounting a camera on the tail of a jumbo jet for in-flight photographs.”

I love the availability of independent short films.
Today I bring you some of my favorites from a series called Break-Ups

[Katy & Ted - Video Link for Email/Other Subscribers - 4min]

Katy is domineering and enjoys a parenting relationship. Beginning halfway through, her language increasingly indicates this, especially when she mentions the various Pygmalion gifts she has provided Ted. Nurturing has its limits in loving relationships: when conditionality, selfishness, and fear are strongly present.

[Tim & Mary - Video Link for Email/Other Subscribers - 4.5min]

When acceptance prevails, shared humor and memories act as the temporary binder. Touching.

[Video Link for Email/Other Subscribers - 3min]

A series of visual metaphors quickly strung one after the other, building on each other. Delightful. With great cinematography and color vibrancy.

The United Nations has chosen the first Monday in October to be World Habitat Day – a day to stand up and let it be known that affordable, adequate housing should be a priority everywhere. The theme for the event on October 5th is “Planning our Urban Future”

What can you do?

ADVOCATE for decent housing for all by submitting a photo of yourself holding a sign that says “It all starts at home” and submit it to Habitat’s photo petition on Flickr.com Habitat’s goal is to collect a minimum of 500 photos to deliver to the White House.  Submit your photo by Friday, September 25, 2009.

Today, 1 billion people live in slums, and that number is growing rapidly. The U.S. can be a leader in the fight to help reduce global poverty and improve the lives of people living in slums. Urge your legislators to support the Shelter, Land and Urban Assistance Act of 2009. Tell Congress to pass the SLUM Assistance Act!

EDUCATE your community with Habitat for Humanity’s World Habitat Day handbook to learn more about the importance of secure tenure and neighborhood revitalization.  Get even more information about the issue of insecure tenure by reading Habitat’s Shelter Report: building a secure future through effective land policies.

Brainstorm ways to get more people involved. Learn from the successes of last year’s campaign, and come up with brand-new ways to celebrate and publicize the important work of Habitat for Humanity.

Take a virtual tour of the Capotillo informal settlement in the Dominican Republic and put yourself in the shoes of those who live in a broken community of violence, poverty and danger.

Link to Habitat for Humanity’s World Habitat Day 2009 resources page on your social media pages, personal web site or blog to spread the word and raise awareness.

DONATE to be a part of making the world a better place and support Habitat’s efforts. Donate online today!

Here’s a clip from a Habitat project in Cambodia

After speaking with various individuals in sustainable marketing and design, and having spent the last 20 months immersed in better understanding the fields, I’ve come to some conclusions that I’d like to share with you.

News can be great for environmental scanning and sometimes better understanding a market, bit by bit. But just reading the news and commentary will take you a lot of time and effort to develop actionable insights. There’s just too much information out there! The explosion of media outlets for news and commentary has been great in so many regards particularly the long tail, but what has inevitably happened is an abundance of choice which places greater burden on the user to filter, scan, and absorb. For some, this process can be fun. However, there’s plenty of nonconsumers of news media who are just too busy with their personal and professional lives to visit multiple websites, newsletters, and read magazines. For them, the mass media (online or off) doesn’t provide them sufficient value that helps make their lives better or enjoyable for the time/money invested.

In speaking with fellow marketer Peter Korchnak, he relayed that many of his clients are small businesses and for he and them, media stories on sustainability primarily focus on big corporations – a segment that represents only a tiny proportion of the business community in any country. Considering this fact, one has to wonder: How can media really make a positive difference in the lives of people?

In my opinion, the value that news and commentary media provides is best handled by a professional whose job it is to observe and analyze it for either curated environmental reporting or actionable intelligence which is then provided to the people who need it most. Otherwise it may just provide a time sink for people.

What we’re left with in terms of real value is the following: education, best practices aligned to specific contexts, case studies, and research – all of which take more time & money to produce than news and commentary media. For people willing to learn, the outlets that provide these services include professional journals (to a degree), seminars, workshops, books, reports, databases, and educational/training organizations.

If we’re increasingly living in a limited-attention span world due to larger numbers of media outlets and personal & professional activities competing for our attention, it only makes sense for folks to participate in what brings them (and perhaps their staff), the biggest bang for their buck or hour-spent.

Everything else is ephemeral brain candy and activism/journalism.

Although I caught the irony in that this post was a commentary, I’ll continue to try and bring you valuable content to here on my blog that will either enlighten, educate, and sometimes delight you

A little break from the usual bout of topics, I bring you today a slideshow of photos I had taken while on a day trip to the Arizona border and back. It includes landscapes, plants, flowers, grasshoppers, and a family of owls!

Taken with an 8mp Canon SLR without a telephoto lens, digitally zooming in & cropping and adjusting contrast and levels where needed, and selecting the best photos for sharing. Enjoyez!

[Desert Photos Slideshow Link for Email/Other Subscribers]