I hit an all time low today.  I spanked my 3 year old - officially - over my knee with three swift spanks to the bum.  And, I feel horrible, ineffective and sad.

She ran across the road without me, without looking - not once but twice - in a state of defiance.  To make matters worse - she then ran down the street (on the sidewalk) and would not return till I announced going up the stairs to our house first (to which she wanted to be first).  I know I’m exhausted - totally exhausted from being up every 1.5 - 3 hours feeding a newborn (I haven’t had more than 4 hours continuous sleep in five FIVE months).  I feel completely unable to mentally, verbally arm wrestle a defiant 3 year old.  So with three hits to the bum, she was sent to her room.

On one hand, I am pleased that I’ve not done this before and she is 3.   My arsenal has been time outs, deliver consequences, and get down on her level to explain this.  Ah.. I am tired.  At very least, I called my twin for twinpower. 

I named my blog twinpower not able to pinpoint what it is.  But its true meaning rings home to me now - a little phone call, me in tears having just disciplined my child, with my twin letting me know that I am normal and that 3 years need the boundaries.  TwinpoWer.

Ah… well.. Coco (not real name) has been in her room for an hour.   Time to get her out with a stern talk.  And then for me, more reading on alternatives to the spank.

Well I’ve hit the motherhood inertia that comes with being a stay at home mom.  Don’t get me wrong - I love it.  I wake up everyday happy about my ‘job’ and pleased that I’ve managed to eek out a routine for me and my two kids.  Still, I feel like the mind goes a bit numb worrying about boiling bubs, putting away toys, toys, toys and arranging playdates.  And then, there is that fixed income thing.  Not enjoyable at all. 

Perhaps I could take on some copywriting work - but what would I submit as sample work?  Not my blog.  I always write in half sentences for my personal stuff.  errr.

gotta go.

I’ve been struggling since joining GG on how to introduce web2.0.  Truthfully, there are so many other e-business opportunities that I can’t just start at web 2.0 without web 1.0.. OR CAN I?  

My sister company in the US launched a blog and I had to slap my forehead.  While I respect their intiative and gumption, one doesn’t start with a corporate blog unless they have some experience blogging.  Right now their blog is a place for long winded press releases - argh!  no rss feeds yet, not many links, etc.

I met with a homebuyer of one of our condominums.  I asked if he would share his homebuying experience as I am eager to hear the experiences and am still putting surveys/research vendors in place (so haven’t done any formal research yet). 

He tells me that we do an exceptional job with the product.  The condominium is beautiful (it really is).  Based on this sophisticated jazz theme - the building is sexy, classy and wonderfully urban.  He says “you can have any information you want, but you have to ask for it”.  Wow - he admits that since he closed the sale on the condominium, the only communication has been legal.  (actually, there were two marketing communications but what matters is his perception - which is that all the communication is legal).  He wants to know about carpets, about lobby changes, about when the recycling program will start, etc .  What a great place for a blog.

Do I start the blog or do I encourage the condominium board to do it?  If I don’t do it myself then, will someone else?   So many questions.. but I do feel closer to understand how I can leverage the blog..

I just saw the movie Babel.  It felt like a parents’ worst nightmare.  A child shoots at a bus killing someone - a parent who has no idea what trouble his sons are in and more. The Mexican nanny who took her two charges across the border so she could attend her son’s wedding.  I felt tired at the end of the movie.

I could see a comment on Americans - that they swoop in by helicopter to rescue one of their own from bad.  And yet the quiet heros of the movie are not found by American media.  the morrocan doctor, the tour bus guide, the nanny.

That American border guards punish the Mexican nanny by deporting her when she is interconnected and doing what she knows best.  She explains that she raised the kids and they are like her own and she is told their fate is none of her business.  What a cruel, black & white, untolerant public.

I also see that the movie’s comment on interconnectedness - that was happens in Japan, reaches Morroco, affects San Diego, etc.

A good movie but I’m left utterly depressed after watching it.  I must read other reviews.

I joined a new company in Sept. with a large GTA home builder. I’ve decided not to mention the corporate name too much for now since I’m not ready to take on the company voice and they aren’t ready to engage in the conversation yet.

The company is very exciting and at its core is a very good brand. Recently, a buyer’s old house (as they are waiting for a new one) burnt to the ground! Upon learning this, x managed to move up their move in date from July 2007 to December 29th 2006! That is a miracle in itself. They also gave the family winter jackets (that the construction crews get), a big basket of food, bought toys for the children and paid for some hotel stays. I learned of this casually as the family was in our lobby getting something and I heard the story - a whisper almost. This kind of thing makes me quite proud of the company - and its a story that is never shared with others.

Anyhow - where I am going with this is that x is a fantastic brand. And as I was brought into the company to manage branding, research and new media, I underestimated how much I could help digitize the business. I took e-business for granted - and now I arrive and there is no e-marketing (no SEM, SEO), no reported web analytics, no intranet, no collaboration tools, no idea that houses WILL be sold online (let alone currently influencing sales). And so, as much as I’d like to push web2.0 - I have to pace myself. I have to desparately raise the expectation of what I can help deliver. I don’t think anyone sees what I know is coming for home building online.

So my first step is to align myself with good business partners. A new agency, online survey vendor, analytics, research. That takes time but I’m getting there.

The only area that I can push on web 2.0 is getting all the exec onto RSS feeds for listening to competitive and brand conversations. I’ve downloaded RSS Popper - which is freeware and funnels feeds to my outlook. I need something that feeds outlook because I can’t change people’s behaviour too drastically. I’ve just haven’t had time to perfect all my feeds (then will copy the URLs etc to others’ email boxes.)

Then, I’ve got a PR agency in the US to look at incorporating online/blogs into a campaign. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. I need to start sharing my bookmarks with fellow workers but with no intranet I feel a little lost.

Laurie.

I checked google trends again to see how web2.0 is faring.    We experienced quite a bit spike in September.  What saddens me is that much of the conversation is in languages that I don’t know.  (google shows the cities, regions and language origins of the trend)  I know IBM is working on a language translator.   What progress that will be.

Unfortunately with this google trend, there are no articles explaining the peaks.  If you type “Bush” for instance, the peaks in conversations are attributed to a news story run during the peak (which presumably accounts for the peak itself).

I can’t sleep.

I’m thinking about how much e-business is missing in the home building industry and it bothers me. Do I start by introducing traditional tools that have engendered positive user adoption like intranets and then suffer under the load of creating first time content? or do I jump to the 21st century and introduce enterprise social software which is still not yet understood by the vast majority of companies but would place the burden of content generation squarely on employees? I need collaboration.. I am so perplexed and this prevents my sleep.
There is a good article on enterprise blogging

Two months ago, I maintained a very active internal blog as an IBM employee within the internal IBM BlogCentral. IBM has impressively introduced tools for advanced collaboration - dogear for social bookmarking, an employee directory (blue pages) that allows people tagging, the wonderful sametime 7.5 for corporate instant messaging, wikicentral, and more.. Upon my return from mat leave in March ‘05, I studied web 2.0 and pushed my learning in a company that would embrace it. I was so happy to blog internally.

About IBM. As of this past summer, a little less that 1% of IBMers were active bloggers. 3% had blogs (active and inactive). But in a company of 329, 000 - a 1% adoption creates the largest blogging environment in a private domain - that I know of. And quickly, those who were blogging got to see the light. The power of enterprise 2.0 and its promises towards collaboration, innovation and employee retention.. I say that last benefit cautiously because I did leave IBM. But the enterprise 2.0 did lift my belief in IBM. I love the company. I just can’t travel the way my job required of me. With more time, I could have found the right job in IBM. *sigh*.. I did get a few perfect job offers on my last day.

That said, I enjoy my new job immensely. The home building industry is rich for learning and I see where I can make strong contributions. I know I can help easily in the areas of branding, research and web strategy & development. What I deeply underestimated was the contribution that I could make in e-business in an industry still shackled in traditional processes.

I have this book called “how digital is your business”. Truthfully, I’ve never cracked its spine but its cover title serves to inspire me for this industry.

I was invited to present to the Northern European Marketing Board for IBM on my views on web2.0 marketing. Its a long story.. but I unleashed a presentation in IBM on web2.0 - its importance, why the conditions are right for this major internet revolution to stick and to my great surprise and flatterly, I contributed to a massive wave of web2.0 thinking inside of IBM. I got to meet the greats - a phd student, Pranam Kolari, who masters in blog spam (splog), another student, Sacha Chua, who researches corporate adoption of social networking tools and doubles as an incredible web2.o evangelist, yet another, Aaron who studies wikis and enterprise 2.0 pushing IBM’s innovationjam full of ideas (and who was my original inspiration for blogging), another ibmer Jen who doggedly pursues the creation of web 2.0 services,  another IBMblogger Luis,  who, as a knowledge management contributor, managed one of the most popular blogs inside and outside for IBM, and still another who has educated me on the future of second life.

I miss my blog. I feel separation anxiety for the posts that I no longer have. But happily, I learned that 31 people in IBM were reading my blog today. And I’ve been gone for two months.

Laurie.

I attended my U of Toronto MBA alumnus life long learning day today.  Its free to alumni and they bring in speakers from Yale, Harvard Business Review, University of Sussex, etc.   All day was spent on fostering creativity.  Here's a recap of the best lecture - one by the Dean of the Rotman School at University of Toronto - Roger Martin:

• Businesses are experiencing commoditization of goods, slowing d'd - and the need for innovation and creativity has increased.  So how to foster?
• To create a conducive enviro - must recognize the fundamental tension between 'reliability' and 'validity'. 
• Reliability is the mindset to produce consistent, replicable outcomes.  Substantiate based on past events, to minimize judgement, to avoid the possibility of bias.
• Validity is the mindset/practice of producing outcomes that meet the objective, that substantiation is based on future events (an entrepreneur says I have an idea about a new widget for the future), it integrates judgement (I know it will work), and acknowledges bias.
• Yet, common processes in an organization favour reliability.  e.g. "prove-it" response to an innovative idea - prevents validity from occuring.  Validity can only be proven based on future events.
  
• need for both - though two forces tend to dislike each other.
• Reliability processes are taking over accidentily and may be stifling creativity.  Examples given are CRM vs. customer intimacy, Incentive/Comp instead of job meaning, shareholder value max instead of corporate social responsibility.
• So if you want creativity - recognize a need to balance both and create a context for validity to exist.
• Finally - creative must feel like a valued member of the community.  Recognize that 'abductive' logic (the logic of what might be - future based) does exist., create a design shop environment but not overlay traditional infrastructure.