International Women’s Day – THINK BIG, start small

Happy International Women’s Day!

We Westerners are so blessed to live in a far-from-perfect world where women are fighting for equality for ALL. Think about what you can do to be equal – hold the door for a man you don’t know, graciously thank him if he holds the door for you. Hold a door for a mommy with a stroller, hold a door for a man juggling a briefcase and a Blackberry.

While there are others that are fighting for equal paycheques and equal representation in the C-Suite, and I applaud them WHOLEHEARTEDLY and say Thank You at the top of my lungs, I’m taking the fight small-time.

I will treat ALL others the way I want to be treated.

That’s my promise for International Women’s Day 2012.

It’s been a while…

Time to get back to blogging. It’s been a busy year and then some for me….planned my wedding, had my wedding, went on a mini-moon and a dream honeymoon, looked for a house, bought a house, sold my condo, moved into my new-to-me house, improved my new-to-me house, and somewhere in all that mess started to consider a career change.
I’m finally taking the advice of my near and dear friends, and working towards an event planning job. But I can’t shake the sports part of me, and so have narrowed my search down to working for a not-for-profit organization that focuses on sports and play. And I want to become an event planner for that organization. This realization was hit upon when I went to a workshop put on by the Women of Influence, called Brand Your Passion. What a great exercise to define my Passion. Some soul-searching was involved (and a legitimate aha! moment or two), as was a fair amount of resume revamping. I have been applying to jobs that interest me, and learning how to massage my experience to match the keywords in the postings.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I still love my job. I love that I grin and get excited about telling people about what it is I do for a living. I know that I am far luckier than many, because I love what I do. I’m not just making money to pay off my new mortgage, feed and clothe myself and my husband. My job, for the most part, matches my life-philosophy. But it seems that since I have revamped my personal life, or is it “grown-up?”, I need to update my professional life too. So this blog gets some more attention again, but it will branch out into the process of transitioning into (hopefully) a different job. I like to work my thoughts out on paper, you see. And if it’s virtual paper, so be it. So here are some fresh thoughts for me to keep in mind:

Goal number 1: Be patient. Everything will fall into place when it’s supposed to.

Goal number 2: Learn by doing. That means doing some volunteer work for a bunch of different organizations, and maybe stretching myself thinner than I already am.

Goal number 3: Meet lots and lots of people. And ask them for help. I’ve always been ambitious, and not always done the follow-through. Now is the time to do the follow-through.

Goal number 4: Remind myself every day how lucky I am to be a) working, b) working for a fantastic company that has already taught me about who I am and who I want to become.

Vote for the most engaged/engaging Mayor in TO’s Race

This article got me started today. Well, no, let me back up a little bit.

Over the last mmm, week, I guess, I’ve gone back to Twitter.

No, it goes back even further than that. I attended a Sports Marketing conference a couple of weeks ago, trying to decide if that was the direction I wanted to take in my career one day. And I learned some very valuable lessons about myself from that conference. I’m not going to discuss them here, but the essence is that I was brought up to believe in the power of NFPs (Not-For-Profits) and I need to consider going back to those roots.

But I also heard a fascinating discussion about using a “multi-platform approach” in sports television. A discussion between “online guys” from CBC Sports, the CTV Olympic Consortium, The Score and Rogers Sportsnet. About how the power of social media is only going to grow, but no one knows just how much or how fast (slight fear exhibited by all four of them when they raised that issue). And since I’ve been exploring the power of social media in my spare time (read: I use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, not to mention WordPress in my free moments), I thought, well, let’s get back to using Twitter as a source for what’s happening in the world.

Gary Coleman died, so has Dennis Hopper, Ron Artest threw a sick buzzer-beater and it’s Memorial Day Weekend. Yup, not earth-shattering stuff, but cultural moments to be had.

This weekend, I’ve been following a fellow UKC alumnus, @caitlinkealey, as she attends the 2010 CAJ Conference. Great job of tweeting the workshops she attended – when the wi-fi worked. I even interacted with a Globe writer about a story he was writing/looking for sources for.

And then I saw the above article from the Globe and Mail’s Twitter feed. I’ve already set up a Twitter list of candidates, simply by searching #voteTO. The article says there are 26 candidates. Gotta do some digging to find out who has filed papers stating their candidacy. Okay, that wasn’t too hard – 30 secs after typing in www.toronto.ca, I get the Toronto Votes page and learn that even the Election Office is on Twitter and Facebook. Hang on, gotta update that Twitter list to follow @torontovotes.

And we’re back. I’ll Google the candidates later and find out Twitter feeds, if they have them. Or I could even check out the Star’s Mayoral Race section online.

Digression, line 2 please. Digression, line 2 – Alon Marcovici stated at the Sports Marketing conference that during the Olympics there was a large population of “two-screen” viewers – people that watched the Olympics on TV, but also had their website up on the computer in front of them. Or NBC’s website. Or surfing while watching. Or Tweeting while watching. I don’t remember the exact statistics, but considering I was one of them, and my fiancé was another one, I’m sure there were a lot out of there. *Disclaimer: we both work for sports television channels. It’s to be expected that we can deal with the information overload that is derived from using the website, the iphone app and the TV all at the same time to watch the same event. *Disclaimer number 2: I’m sitting on my bed, typing this blog. My iPhone is beside me to text my fiancé (at work) whenever I need to comment about something in the Stanley Cup Final game 1. I have TweetDeck open, which tweets and pops up a cute window updating me when a FB update/Tweet comes through. And there are 7 tabs open in FireFox.

So it seems that this constant “presence” that Twitter and Facebook have created are now trying to be figured out by the boomer generation. X-ers get it, but don’t use it to it’s fullest capability. Gen Y-ers and whatever the next generation is called are the ones that will make or break social media. Some of them certainly are of voting age. But will enough of the X-ers/Y-ers/Whatevers feel truly engaged by the social “presence” the mayoral candidates are trying to create to GET OUT AND VOTE?!!?

Post-Olympic Blahs?

Much has been made of the withdrawal Canadians are suffering now that the Olympics are over. Our most successful Olympics, in case you hadn’t heard. I got over the (TV) withdrawal pretty quickly, but I had some busy days at work to help me out.

Spring Training has started, which means, at least in my world, time to start throwing out all the crap in my house that I haven’t used over the winter. And now I get to watch baseball for nine months. It makes a nice change for about a month .

But part of Spring Training, if you’re a baseball player, is retuning your mind and body to do what it used to. If you’re not an athlete, you can use Spring Training as an excuse to reflect on what you’ve been doing all winter, and what it is that you really want to be doing.

So what do I do? Start checking out university and college courses that I can take in the spare time that I have. And I found that I’m becoming more interested in fine-tuning my event management skills. Or in English, I want to learn how to throw really good parties for my friends. But it’s more than just throwing parties that interests me. I want to understand how sports events work, especially the mega-events like the Olympics were.

I’ve been lucky enough to have seasons tickets to the Toronto Marlies games this year. And I haven’t been to all of the games, but I’ve been to most. And I’ve also been lucky enough to spend time with members of the Game Operations crew. And it’s intriguing work. Yeah, there’s drama. Like at any workplace, there has to be some drama. But behind the drama are some really neat observations to be made. I’m not going to give away ALL the secrets, but each game is treated like a mini-event. There are scripts to follow. There are people (sometimes pint-sized) to direct. There are seats to sell. And there are different dynamics based on who is working that day, and how they feel. From afar, I see how the games run. But I don’t know all the background work that goes into each day, and I’d like to.

See, as fans, we take a lot for granted. Those guys out on the ice, they’re paid to do a job. WE pay them to do their job. Which is why we get upset when our team doesn’t win the game. But we forget that those guys can’t play if the ice isn’t clean. We can’t enjoy the game if the beer keg is empty. We don’t want to use the bathroom if it’s dirty. We can’t go for smoke breaks without our ticket. And someone has to do each of those jobs. And several someones have to coordinate all those jobs being done. When you track back a fans’ experience like that, you get literally hundreds of people working together to give the fan an experience that they take for granted. I think it’s the puzzle pieces being put together like that, and being put together WELL, that interests me.

By the way, kudos to the Marlies’ Game Crew. And I’ve taken my bias away when I say that. You guys do a great job, from an event planners’ perspective. It may feel formulaic, (and it is!) but you do a great job of not showing how formulaic it really is.

J-Source.ca – Haiti’s reportage

Some food for thought about the journalists’ roles in Haiti. I hate to admit to being skeptical about all of the world aid organizations’ relief-effort fundraising, but I am. Perhaps because I see pieces like this about celebrity journalism and relate it to celebrity relief-effort-fundraising.

J-Source.ca — The Canadian Journalism Project

Posted using ShareThis

In a Flame of Glory

I’m still shaking from a combination of the cold and awe. I just saw the Olympic flame go by my house. Well, down Yonge Street, at the end of my street. But in my neighbourhood.

1:52 pm. The torch starts another leg of the relay. Up north of me, by about 20 minutes, I’d guess. Made my hot chocolate, put on my sunglasses, went outside to scope a spot.

1:54 pm. Let’s see, they’ll be coming south, but the buildings shade the sun. If I’m going to wait, I want to be in the sun. Ooh, what about the island. I can’t believe no one has thought about standing on the traffic median. Perfect. There’s even planters that I can rest my butt on while waiting for the flame to arrive.

2:08 pm. Looking up the street, the police are starting to close off intersections. Can see the lights from here. Trying to think back to when the last Olympic flame was in Toronto. I was only seven when it came. I’m now 29. That’s a long stretch between being a Games host. But I digress. I don’t remember a lot about the flame other than it was carried by an athlete. Maybe. It was cold. But it was a defining moment in my life. My parents still have the “torch” that Petro-Canada gave to spectators to greet the Olympic Torch with.

2:15 pm. The flame is two intersections away. I can see flags, police, trucks. Cops on bikes are zipping by, making sure everyone stays off the road.

2:25 pm. Here come the police cars leading the actual “parade”. Sponsor trucks are next: Coca-Cola, RBC.

2:26 pm. I’m distracted by cheering. All of a sudden, there is a guy wearing the Torch uniform, and holding a torch. Right. Across. From. Where. I’m. Standing. By some fluke, I managed to pick the spot where the exchange was going to happen. WHOA!!!! He’s relay runner #188 or maybe 288.

2:28 pm. HERE COMES THE FLAME!! I switch my camera to video mode and got a format that I can’t upload here. I’ll post it to Facebook if I can. And maybe later I’ll figure out how to post it here. But it was :39 seconds of absolute mind-blowing coolness. They did the exchange and wow. I’m just speechless. That’s the Olympic flame, all the way from Greece, on its’ way to Vancouver. In 57 days, it’ll be lighting the cauldron at the opening ceremonies.

3:07 pm. Pictures are on Facebook. Enjoy them!

There may be more to this blog later – I’m going to head down to the “Flame celebration event” this evening. Vicky Sunohara will be lighting the cauldron at Nathan Phillips Square tonight. More shivers I’m sure.

Skate Canada is on this weekend!

Every Olympic year, I get really excited for the pre-Games competitions. For figure skating fans, that means the Grand Prix series, consisting of six events and a “win to get in” final. This weekend’s competition is Skate Canada (no, I’m not going to give the sponsors the money by adding their name to the competition name). It’s the last event before the final, and, being the home competition, the one that gets the most TV coverage in Canada.

I’ve been lucky enough to PVR most of the available Grand Prix coverage CBC has shown, and am sitting and watching Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirer skate in the NHK Trophy event as I type this. These two skaters skate out of my former club, so I have to cheer for them But back to Skate Canada, and why I love the pre-Games competitions.

I admit to being skeptical when the Grand Prix circuit was first introduced. But now, I think it is a great series. It gives fans a chance to see top AND upcoming talent from around the World, and it’s early enough in the season that although the skating isn’t always great, the skaters’ improvements from one competition to the next are impressive. Each skater or team only has two events to accumulate points in, based on their placements within the competition.  The skaters with the most points get into the final competition, this year being held in Tokyo, Japan.

The Grand Prix circuit gives me a chance to ‘preview’ the skaters we are likely to see in the Olympics. My fiance doesn’t quite understand the idea of doing the same program all year long in front of the same audiences, and often the same judges. But the excitement for me is to see how each team or skater improves over the season. At each competition, there is at least one program that touches my heart with its’ beauty or technical difficulty (or even both!) and I look forward to seeing how it has improved over the season – come March (when Worlds is held), these skaters have been working on it for about eight months to get the programs as perfect as they can be. In an Olympic year, the skaters typically train themselves to peak a month earlier.

So much can go so wrong in a season – a physical injury, a mental scare – and so much can go right – winning your very first Senior gold medal, a career best score. And for these young competitors, one little change in training can tilt the scales one way or the other. And sometimes, the quality of the field in just one of these events, dictates how you are perceived by the judges throughout your season.

Another dance team from my old club, Kharis Ralph & Asher Hill, are working their way onto the national team, participating this year on the Jr. Grand Prix circuit. With a lot of work, they could be on the senior circuit in time for the next Olympic year. I’ll be cheering on all the Canadians on their way to Nationals in January, and then again at the Olympics on home ice.

Wedding info overload

Okay, so I’m not the first to say this. But you know What? There is a LOT of information out there in the Internet. And I Want to know, how does it affect us mortal human beings?
In my circles of friends, the show ‘Til Debt Do Us Part has been talked about frequently lately. I mean, three different conversations, with three different friend groupings, none of which overlap (with the exception of me!). That’s a lot. It seems like all of a sudden, we realized that the World is in a recession, and we need to be smart about spending/saving if we want to get ahead. Which we all do, since we’re ambitious, savvy, twenty/thirtysomethings.
In a random Facebook comment to Joy (as part of one of the above conversations), I wondered if there was an internet link to details/tips from the show, in particular a link explaining the rationale behind the jars used on the show. Lo and behold, she posted a link to the blog of the show’s host. That’s why she’s so awesome: she does the Internet research on my idle wonderings that I don’t have the energy for. The title of the article? “So, you’re getting married?”

Which then led to the inevitable checking of my wedding e-mail account:
And I saw the 12-month countdown e-mail from theknot.com. WHOA!!! My brain just went into overload. What do I still have to do? I still need to buy so much!?!? What about where to go for a honeymoon?  Who really needs those really cute Just Married flip-flops? What about the travel itch that I get mid-November? Where is all this money going to come from? Will my sweetie and I still be in the same jobs this time next year? Will I ever get full-time benefits? When will I be able to afford kids? Why is Toronto such an expensive city? What happens if I move out to the ‘burbs? <click click click> go the keys and mouse. And now I’m drowning in information. I get a panicky thud in my gut, and then have to breathe deeply, in through my nose and out through my mouth, and cling to the mantra “You still have time. You’ll get it done. And paid for. You still have time. You’ll get it done…and…paid for.”

As Deanna says, “Baby steps, Jen. It’s okay to be re-learning how to walk.” But I’m so used to acting in FULL STEAM AHEAD! mode, that baby steps are a challenge. Although, watching two-year-olds walking (taking baby steps) has a certain joy that can only be experienced by taking the time to focus on each step the two-year-old takes. So now when the internet leads to a brain overload, and I have to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, I’ll visualize myself as a two-year-old. And work on being okay with it. And maybe slow down my mad clicking of the mouse at the same time.

I’m not a Word Processor, but I like words

One of the themes that you will see in all of my blogs for the next little while will be the focus on the PROCESS of writing. We all have to learn to write (was it Freudian that I typed ‘right’ in that sentence before correcting myself?) when we are children, and then we refine it when we start to take “English” in middle/high school. And then, if you want to be a writer/journalist/crafter of Words, you make an entire career out of the process of writing.

For me, though, I want to focus not on the “choosing of the order of the words” type of process, but the creative process. I went to a networking event on Thursday, and I started talking to two women who blog. Fabulous, absolute strangers that have a vested interest in the way humans communicate, I thought to myself. Maybe they can help me. I don’t know with what, but I know I need some kind of help from people that have been there before me.

I told them that I was struggling with the “self-edit” part of my brain. We all have one. I sometimes call it my filter, or my “stop button”. It’s that part of us that questions why we say what we do, (why couldn’t we just shut up?) act how we do, and not say what we really mean to say. I also shared that part of the reason I’m writing a blog is to get over the “self-editing”. So I posed a question to them: “How do I present who I am in my blogs (and other online spaces like Facebook and Twitter) without self-editing, and stifling the creative side?”

One woman answered, “By being authentic about what you write about.”

But as a person that doesn’t open up to just anyone, how do I do that?

The other answered, “If you’re honest and interesting, people will come to read your blog.”

I talked about this same difficulty with “self-editing” with Deanna, and she suggested that I create a list of topics that are “safe” topics, and just stick to them. But that seems to defeat the purpose of my blogging. I want to be more creative, to push the envelope a little bit. I am in a very safe space at work, at home and even intellectually. I need to dabble on the scary side.

She did give me a great suggestion for a topic for my blogs…a little TV show called “Battle of the Blades“. I will be doing a wrap up blog from last week’s show along with a blog of this week’s show.  But alas, you’ll probably know the results before I get a chance to write about them, as I’ll be watching the show from my good ol’ PVR, since I’ll be at work during the actual airing of the show. But still, I gotta get the Words out in the World. That’s my first baby step towards the scary side of the blogosphere.

September/October is a time for renewal

Hmm, so it appears it isn’t just me that is going through a renewal period. It’s Fall Launch on TV – brand new seasons of great and indifferent shows kicked off a couple of weeks ago; www.ctv.ca relaunched their website; and ESPN is attempting a new format for their 30th anniversary. Yup, they’ve been around for that long.

Read this great article from the New York Times (attribution: I pulled this link from my Twitter feed: www.twitter.com/richarddeitsch, a writer for Sports Illustrated & SI.com) to find out just what it is that’s changing.