Going Viral….Newly Defined

23. March 2020 · Comments Off on Going Viral….Newly Defined · Categories: Blogging, Business Consulting, Business Consulting & Coaching, Business Development, Digital Marketing, Mountain Woods Media · Tags: , ,

Just when we were ramping up again for business networking, spring fun and frolic, concerts, andpink and white kentucky derby hat patio lunches all of us globally have been very suddenly relegated to “Healthy at Home” social distancing status.  Two trade shows cancelled, multiple community meetings indefinitely postponed, even SXSW and Derby until maybe September they say!?? No juleps, no spring hats, no ponies….

So this is what they mean now by going viral?  We are beginning newly defined work in the age of a possible pandemic.

Most surprising during Covid-19 have been the efforts to reconnect. Calls from senior friends and relatives joking about being “in lock up” and to send more craft supplies.  All of the airlines sending email begging us to fly.  A personal call from a business banker checking on our business after only the second week.  Are we alive?  Are we working?  Do we need anything?

Truthfully, we said we had lost a couple of marketing clients temporarily but happily gained some business coaching client projects trying to find their way through the current economic crisis.  We have familiarized ourselves with the online forms and paperwork steps needed to coach some people through the Economic Injury Disaster Loan process with the SBA.  It is pretty much like preparing a fresh business plan, just a bit darker in tone.  You are telling the lender numerically how you plan on finding your way during the pending economic crisis and how you plan to stay in business.  Very challenging to coach someone through it.  A deep dive into crisis management.

We have also been watching the daily 5 pm fireside chats with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear to check for updates for updating client social media accounts.  He has become an overnight meme celeb with his empathy and his tough talk to get bingo parlors in Pikeville to shutdown to protect their clients and encouraging all of us to flatten the curve.

We learned a new hashtag:  “#doomsurfing” and have resolved not to do any more of it just before bedtime.

The biggest business lesson has been finding inner resolve to stay positive within a now very, very quiet office and resisting the urge to binge the daily firehose of negative news.  Staying productive, doing some computer updates and consolidating computers with some data migrations, catching up on paperwork, finally reading all of the slides from last year’s Pubcon workshops and tackling a few new virtual management workshops will be on the top of the list.  Maybe a little distance walking, garden weeding, and furniture restoration in the garage on the back side.  And of course, we welcome your cheery phone calls:  859 816 5176.

Stay healthy.  We will be meeting face to face again soon.

Starting and Restarting 2020

28. January 2020 · Comments Off on Starting and Restarting 2020 · Categories: Blogging, Business Development, Mountain Woods Media, SEO · Tags: , , ,

You know that spring clean feeling when you start the first week of a new year?  Yes, that one.

I had that. One.  For a very brief shining moment.

With a fresh New Year’s Eve tiara on my desk from a glittery dinner the night before, I resolved to kick it into high gear this year.  Fully.

Then I looked down at the orthopedic boot still velcroed to my leg.  Wondering how soon I could actually kick anything or hike rocks or dig in the dirt.  And took some more ibuprofen and drank some more coffee.

Hung up on some more Apple Support spam calls from a Motel 6 in Texas.  Told the fake Googler that I didn’t need any help with my search engine rankings.

Closed political news.2020 Mountain Woods Media, LLC

Sighed.

I took a week off from writing that week and delayed post holiday business until later in January.  Got out fabric, needle, thread, paints and queued up a massive watch list on Netflix.  Hobbled to the fridge occasionally and gobbled Ferrero Roche chocolate and kissed the hazelnut in the middle every time.   Everyone I knew was on a beach in Mexico anyway, so staycation for me was the new plan.

Giving myself permission to heal, I willed the bones “good luck” and focused on just rest and fresh media.  My mother sent jokes by text.  She had broken the same foot two years before.  We were kindred pals.  It was a good week.   I hemmed a pile of dress pants for business networking, designed a few new items for an upcoming toy show display, journaled with a pen and paper rather a keyboard.  Made mad plans for a decade do over to 2020.

It worked.

The next week saw a break in the weather and a few warm January days making it easier to go to some business meetings and start physical therapy appointments.  The exercises aren’t hard, but must be done.   My therapists know people that I know.  So chit chat and leg lifts have been bearable.   The ice machine is my reward.

So in it’s own time, 2020 is evolving and patience is the goal.  A client reported a phone call lead he received from Los Angeles never would have happened without our optimization work.

Time to hustle, get through another Valentine’s Day ….because spring is just around the corner.

 

New Year, New View, New Focus

04. February 2019 · Comments Off on New Year, New View, New Focus · Categories: Blogging, Business Development, Mountain Woods Media · Tags: , , , , ,

Looking to pick up my darn chin….maybe fly a bit.

Slightly bummed that the annual snow feature no longer worked on this WordPress site due to a long ago Jetpack update, what was even more disconcerting was over the last couple of weeks my devices were blocking editing my own website. I initially discounted it because I had plenty of client work to do…but this week it was starting to really bug me and was wanting to drastically revamp the site. I tweaked DNS settings, ranted at Namecheap, messed with different cache cleaners, ran scans in Wordfence, dropped the broadband modem accidentally on the floor. Nothing. It was mystifying as I had been able to access all of the other sites hosted on the same server. On a whim, I finally changed the settings inside of wireless security and toggled a few things…magically my site came back up.

So a toggle, a reset, a new view.

Everything, and I mean literally everything, has been a “new view” for the last year. So many new views it has been a bit paralyzing. The cheery outside view of my over-the-top Vegas style Christmas lights masked the inside-the-house chaos and my inner spirit pity party for one. I have changed views and moving destination plans twice, shifted from owning to renting, to renting again and again, back to owning. Now I listen to trains while I write instead of goats. No longer do I have a partner corporate structure, nor the same desk, office furniture, conference table, filing system (still not solved), clients, car, coffee pot and mugs I had for many, many years. Realization that I can make snack choices without taking an office vote, take lunch whenever, luxuriously read writer blogs till midnight, set the thermostat as low as I like and secretly wear ragged black mitts like Charles Dickens’ Tiny Tim without staff ridicule is wildly freeing!

As well as scary.

This week also meant dealing alone with a dead furnace on a zero degree day, a power outage where I couldn’t do client work, and a young woman bleeding in my foyer after an assault on the corner. I intervened, solved, picked up my darn chin. I warrior goddessed without a pal. I looked for light.

Telling people I was postponing some decisions due to grief fog was a bit of a cop out this year, but also a comfort. Pushing out of the scheduling box, getting back to having international dinners with a view with new friends, as well as many driving adventures has been good energy and allowing for the necessary reset. Even slowing down to look at trees covered in hoar frost as I drove up to Hamilton, Ohio this past weekend was magical…despite the zero degree weather. Making rest stops without having to worry about compromise, both mentally necessary and completely novel.

The time spent has also helped determine business direction, what to keep, what to throw away in terms of client services in a “spark joy” way. It has been a better time of transition than I originally envisioned. Have also been strategically looking for cracks where new light can get in….taking inventory of the depth of my consulting resources.

“…Reveal the fierce urgency of now. Reveal how shattered we are, how capable of being repaired….”

Two writers who have been stretching me, Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me and Maria Popova of Brainpickings.org fame both shared the “Focus” meme which I caught in social media in Maria Popova’s blog entitled: A Responsibility to Light: An Illustrated Manifesto for Creative Resilience and the Artist’s Duty in Dark Times. I have printed it out multiple times and pasted it all over the office. Although my workspace is still chaos, I have periodically unpacked yet another box, painted another wall while rereading this meme. You can even order it as a colorful poster.

Inspired by Toni Morrison, illustrated by Wendy MacNaughton and written by Courtney E. Martin, this to me offered a call to humanity, action, and creative resilience for traumatized artists in rough times. Written shortly after Leonard Cohen’s death, these words echoed as well to me Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” observations on grief, widely shared this month following her passing:

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

 

So all this to say in a very round about, disjointed way that apparently I am on a trajectory of visualizing new work as art, rather than work.

It is a must in these times.

Onward.