Kamala Harris, Madam Vice President-Elect, made history as the first woman to be elected to the White House. There have been 48 Vice Presidents previously, all white men.
This opens the door for women female leaders of all races and religions. I am grateful that my mom, who turns 96 years old in a couple of weeks, was alive to witness this historical moment.
Me and Mom. Don’t you just love that smile?
Not knowing how many Thanksgivings or birthdays are left for Mom to enjoy and remember, I dedicate this blog post to my mom, Thelma Kurzweil, who has been a driving force in my life. We have always had a special and unique bond because she was 45 when she had me, a bit late in life overall, and really late for back in those days when most women had their babies between the ages of 18 and 25.
Mom is a true pioneer among her generation. She ran her own commercial and residential real estate company from the 1950s through the 1990s at a time when many women were Suzy Homemakers.
She also invested in commercial real estate as another revenue stream. She was so proud that the first Subway franchise in New Jersey opened in the building she owned in Teaneck, New Jersey and was thrilled that the income from that building funded my college education.
My mom showed me that women can have it all – career and family. The secret was the dynamic balance between the two.
Through her example, I learned a steadfast determination to never give up. My mother always told me that “I could do anything that I set my mind to” and that “If it is to be, it is up to me.”
She encouraged me to go after what I wanted and work hard. It was that mindset and through her example that led me to form Amendola Communications 18 years ago. From my mom (and Dad) I gained an entrepreneurial spirit that I am so grateful for.
I have been told that my agency’s success is due to my core values: hard work, authenticity, and a passion for changing the world around me, one client at a time. Like my mom, I am a tireless networker and while many agencies have struggled, especially during the pandemic, Amendola continues to see a constant stream of new clients coming on-board.
One of the most valuable lessons my mom taught me was to lead with care and compassion. I am not the typical hard-charging, “take no prisoners” type of executive who is focused solely on the success of the business.
Like my mom, I am genuine, and I care about my team and my clients. I am interested in their lives and their well-being, and I approach both more as a friend than a business associate. That’s how my mom approached her relationships, and it is something I inherited.
She encouraged me to surround myself with good people, who radiate positive energy and have positive outlooks as life is too short for negativity. My mom has never been easily impressed with money or power. What sets her apart is her kindness and generosity.
She has always been “a giver” – actually to a fault. Though a fierce card player and now bingo player, she never kept score with friends or business associates. She encouraged me to give from the heart, not because someone gave me something.
Mom has always stressed the importance of finding time to enjoy life –- to take time to smell the roses, “slow down” and appreciate what you have, rather than regret what you don’t. I try my best, but I am not as good as she is.
Not being able to see Mom during the first phase of the pandemic because her assisted living facility was on lock down was extremely difficult. Fortunately, I was able to visit her with “window visits.”
The social isolation had a negative impact on Mom for sure, but she is a survivor, and her positive attitude has helped her find a reason to continue to fight each day. After all, she lived through World War II, a depression, and many other hard knocks of life.
Mom encouraged me to never remain stagnant, to always challenge myself and to look for new opportunities. She explained that life is what you make of it and drilled into me that we all control our own destiny. “You never know what you can achieve until you try, as there are no real limits.”
Growing up my mom told me that anything is possible if you work hard and set your mind to it and that is the motto I have passed on to my daughter.
Mom has not only had an impact on my life, but also, on my daughter’s, who is a sophomore at Berkeley. Growing up, Jackie spent a lot of time with her grandma and they share a special connection. My mom continues to be an inspiration to me and to the next generation of entrepreneurs — my daughter.
Today I marvel at Mom’s zest for life. Not even a global pandemic can break her spirit.
She plays BINGO every day and brags about her daily winnings. She tells her caregivers and peers about her family and the numerous life lessons. And believe you me, she has vivid stories and anecdotes and many words of wisdom.
Mom is a very gifted storyteller, although she may embellish a bit. Dr. Mike calls Mom “his favorite patient” and looks forward to her weekly life lessons.
Nurse Theresa says, “What impresses me the most about Thelma is that she always is kind. Her mood never changes, regardless if I wake her out of a deep sleep or if she is in pain.”
Yes, she is a little repetitive, but she makes everyone she comes in contact with smile. In addition to her words of wisdom, she injects humor in all that she does.
To survive in good times and in hard times, I also draw upon making people smile/laugh every day as I hear Mom’s powerful words, “You have to laugh at least 3 times a day.”
As we embark on a new era with Kamala Harris, Vice President-Elect, I look forward to seeing future generations of women realize the endless possibilities. In other words a day when a woman being elected Vice President, or even President, is normal rather than noteworthy. Mom, thank you for being my guiding light and my inspiration.
Many healthcare, life sciences and healthcare IT marketers may not realize it, but virtual events (such as online-only conferences) are not new. They’ve actually been around for roughly a decade – starting right about the time broadband connections became ubiquitous.
But you never heard about them? That’s not surprising, because they were pretty much treated as “less than” events. They were the sort of thing organizers would do when they didn’t have the resources to pull off a live event such as HIMSS, and organizations would participate in when they didn’t have the budget or personnel to attend live events.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and suddenly virtual conferences and other digital-only events started looking a whole lot more attractive, even to the big players.
That’s the world we live in for now. With many states restricting attendance at indoor events to a maximum of 50 people, it’s unlikely that we will be gathering together face-to-face anytime soon.
As someone who has walked countless concrete floors in countless poorly ventilated halls in countless cities across this great nation, I can tell you that’s not all bad news. My feet have never felt better as an adult, and my shoes have lasted far longer than they usually do.
Of course, even if the ability to hold in-person conferences and other events has been curtailed that doesn’t mean the need has gone away. And suddenly, almost overnight, virtual conferences (and other virtual events) have gone from fighting for scraps in marketing budgets to being front-and-center in many organizations’ plans.
Since it appears we’re going to be stuck in COVID-19 limbo for the foreseeable future, savvy marketers will want to learn the best ways to take advantage of these virtual events opportunities. Fortunately, I addressed this very topic in a recent post for the Forbes Agency Council blog, which you can read here:
In it I cover not only ways to maximize the benefits of virtual conferences but also other types of virtual events such as webinars, various forms of content and even video conferences.
Instead of pining for the days of stale, overpriced sandwiches, never-ending, never-moving taxi lines and nondescript hotel rooms where previous guests clearly violated the “no smoking” rules, give the post a look. And afterwards, if you find you need some help in executing some of these ideas for virtual events, give me a call or shoot me a note. My Zoom is always open.
One of the late George Carlin’s most famous comedy bits was his list of oxymorons, or as he put it words that don’t go together with other words. He used examples such as ‘jumbo shrimp’, ‘exact estimate’ and ‘military intelligence’ to make his point.
There is one more phrase I’d like to add to the list: honest self-evaluation. Pulling off the blinders and seeing ourselves as we really are is one of the most difficult things in the world to do.
We all think we sing a little better than we do (especially after a couple of cocktails), or look better in that dress designed for models who are built like coat hangers, or can decorate our homes as well as Martha Stewart. That’s the way our brains are wired, to make us feel good about ourselves so we can get on with our daily lives instead of curling up into a little ball in the corner as tears of inadequacy roll down our cheeks with only our ever-adoring dogs giving us comfort.
The same is true in business. We often see our PR and marketing programs the way we want to see them instead of the way they really are. There’s nothing like a little confirmation bias to help us avoid the ugly truth.
But just because you believe something doesn’t make it true. That’s why it often helps to bring in another set of eyes to perform a PR and marketing audit of your integrated program. As my recent blog post from the Forbes Agency Council points out, an impartial third party “one that had nothing to do with developing or executing the current program” can often help you see what you’re actually doing well and shore up any areas you might have missed.
As the presidential election cycle heats up we are hearing more and more about how certain campaigns are making (and have made) imaginative use of data to help boost their candidates’ chances of success. A good example is a story I heard recently about the early stages of Michael Bloomberg’s now-abandoned campaign.
According to the story, the campaign did some research to determine where the 50-100 most influential TV political talking heads live. They then made an effort to place yard signs in those neighborhoods, and perhaps all along the pundits’ route to work, to make it look like there was an organic groundswell of support for the former mayor of New York City so they would talk about it.
Pretty clever if true, wouldn’t you say? What’s more significant is that it’s plausible.
We’ve all heard stories about campaigns using sophisticated analytics to micro-target ads on social media. They may have hundreds or thousands of data-driven variations designed specifically to push exactly the right buttons of the individual who sees those ads.
In other words, the ads I see may be very different than the ads you see or our neighbors see. But they are meaningful to each of us.
One area of integrated marketing that has typically been difficult to quantify in this way is public relations. This is due to the nature of PR itself.
When you see an ad on the Internet or TV, receive a marketing email or even get a piece of snail mail, there is usually a next step you can take. You can click on link (sometimes inadvertently, thereby dooming you to forever see messages that make your blood boil), heed the urgent yelling to “CALL NOW!!!,” text a five-digit number, etc.
With PR, however, that is usually not the case. To respond to an article that captures your interest you actually have to go out of your way (the horror!) to search for a company. Or at least type in a URL. Without an action, it’s difficult to get a read on just how effective the PR campaign has been in capturing the hearts and minds (and potentially the wallets) of your target audience.
Difficult, but not impossible. Earlier this year I wrote the blog post “Three Ways to Make Your PR Campaigns More Data-Driven” for the Forbes Agency Council. It offers some key insights not only into how to measure the effectiveness of your PR campaigns but also what to measure. (SPOILER ALERT: It’s not ad equivalency, which has always been one of the worst measures of the quality of PR.)
If you’d like to learn what those ways are, follow this mercifully shortened link to the original article.
While PR may still not have the sophisticated analytics of the more advanced election campaigns, it has definitely come a long way in the last few years. Be sure you’re up on all the latest options so you can take advantage of them.
There are plenty of classes you can take. Or you can shortcut the process by letting a data-driven PR agency like Amendola Communications do it for you.
Interested? Send me an email or shoot me a text and we’ll help you make your campaign a winner.
It isn’t often that we get a chance to see ourselves as our children see us. But I recently received that gift when my daughter Jackie wrote the post, “My Life Growing Up with a Powerful CEO as a Mom” for the Daily Californian blog (cleverly called The Daily Clog). For those who don’t know, the Daily Californian is the student-run newspaper at UC Berkeley.
The post was created in honor of International Women’s Day, but when I read it I have to admit I didn’t feel like the powerful, fearless woman she described. I was more a pile of mush. (Funny how our kids have a way of doing that to us.)
Why did her words have such an effect? Maybe this except will help explain it:
“While she has always amazed me, growing up with such a busy mom was hard at times. Not understanding why she was always working was difficult as a child when a lot of my friends’ moms were home more often. But as I grew older, it only impressed me even more that she could single-handedly run not only her own company so successfully, but also her family. I’ve learned so much from having such a strong and hardworking mom. While I sometimes struggle to voice my opinions, my mom tells it like it is and doesn’t take anything from anyone.”
Although there might be some debate as to whether that last sentence is a virtue or a liability (LOL), I am so proud that Jackie was able to see past the things she may have wanted strictly for herself in order to understand the bigger picture. I am also glad that she found inspiration for her own life in my story.
Isn’t that what we all wish for? That our kids will take the best parts of us and use them to become even better?
I was also touched by this statement:
“The greatest lesson she has taught me is to believe in myself, even if no one else does. Her mantra is, “˜think you can, think you can’t, you’re right either way.’ And while my dad and I make fun of her every time she says it, it really is true if you believe in yourself, anything is possible. If you don’t, you’ll have no chance of achieving whatever it is you want.”
Yes, I do say that a lot, but only because I truly believe it in my heart of hearts. Jackie is one more proof point that it is true.
As you can probably tell, I am one very proud and humbled parent. But it’s great to see, after all the trials, tribulations, laughter, tears and battles that go along with raising a child, that in the end our relationship not only came out intact but that she sees me in such a special light. All I can tell you is the feeling is mutual.
May you all have the opportunity to see yourselves through the eyes of your children, and may you like what you see.
