Normally I’d have been impatient and irritated. But tonight curiosity got the better of me as I stood waiting in the grocery store checkout line behind a woman with the biggest stack of coupons I’d ever seen.  Yes, I’m an admitted geek when it comes to observing consumer behavior (most of us in marketing are), but tonight I wasn’t the only one watching.  See this woman was making it clear to all those around her that she was getting her entire cart of groceries for under $15.

And you know what…she did. Nine bags of groceries for just over $13 bucks.  And people around her cheered her on.  Me included.  Then I checked out, without a coupon to my name, and walked out with my $100+ in groceries in 5 bags feeling kind of stupid.  And maybe a bit irresponsible.

As I was putting away my groceries, I kept thinking about the coupon lady.  I know who she is because her daughter goes to school with mine. She’s probably in the same income bracket as me.  Which made me wonder if coupon use was up among all income brackets or just some.  Turns out data from Nielsen published last month underscored the growing usage trend among higher incomes, showing that households earning $70,000 or more a year were among the top coupon users.

Which of course made me wonder if I should take a more active role in trying to save money.  However, I hate clipping coupons.  Really hate it.  And on the rare occasion when I do take the time to clip, I don’t sort them and don’t end up using them anyway.  (All of this was running through my head while I unpacked the cans and stacked them in my pantry.)

Then as I sat down a few minutes ago to glance through the paper, I see an article about this very subject headlined:  “Great time for U.S. consumers; Bargains are the ‘new normal’.” Jeezzz.  OK.  Maybe I need to pay attention and actually do something.  Other than sigh when I read, “there is a new societal pressure to be careful and smart when buying almost anything.”

No kidding. Everywhere I turn tonight, I feel like someone is trying to tell me I need to be smarter with my money.  I have thought more about “should” tonight than I ever have.  But I’m not a filer.  I lack the discipline for organized grocery lists.  And most coupons are paper that require organization. So I’d probably end up with 20 things of deodorant I don’t like and would never use if I started clipping coupons at this point.  Simply because it was a good deal.

I’m amazed that paper coupons still rule.  Because they are so cumbersome.  But they do.  In fact in the first half of this year there was a 29 percent increase in coupons distributed for food products, and coupon redemption climbed 23 percent during the same period.

Obviously there are a lot of organized people out there.  But maybe a little something else is at play as well, given this insight in a recent New York Times article.  “Consumer psychologists posit yet another reason for the popularity of paper coupons: Because it takes more work to acquire them, the people who do so feel they have outsmarted other shoppers.”

Well, I definitely felt outsmarted tonight. And have vowed to do something about it.  Obviously there are dozens of coupon web sites, but they still require printing and organizing. Not my thing and I know I wouldn’t stick with it.   So instead I signed up for Cellfire, which lets me download coupons to either my Bakers value card or to my cell phone.   No organization required and I can still feel smart (or at least smarter) next time I go to the grocery store.  Somehow I doubt I’ll best the coupon lady with her cart of stuff for $13, but at least I won’t feel irresponsible anymore.

Space Mountain is closed at Disney World today. How do I know this while I’m sitting at home on a couch with what I assume is the flu? Email. That’s all. Just a simple little email. But there’s a reminder in that for businesses: word-of-mouth reaches pretty far and fast these days. I’m 1400 miles away from Orlando right now, and it took approximately two seconds for failure and frustration to reach me.

Word-of-mouth has always been a company’s biggest ally or largest nemesis based on whether or not it fulfills its brand promise. I have a friend who’s pretty pissed at Disney right now because they failed today. Disney’s brand promise is magic. They charge a premium price for submersing their park’s visitors in that magic. But today they didn’t deliver fantasy. They delivered reality: stuff breaks.

That’s cool. Stuff does break. And that’s why this isn’t a rant on perfection. It’s also not a rant on word-of-mouth, as you might have guessed. But today the flu trumps transition. In fact, it’s not a rant at all. It’s a simple question.

Why shouldn’t Disney refund my friend’s park entrance fee? And her airfare? And offer her a written apology promising to fulfill their brand promise if she ever decided to give them a second chance, which they understand probably won’t be the case?

I’ve been to a Disney property four times in my life. Three out of those four times I’ve spent more than 70% of my day either in line for or actually riding Space Mountain. You could say that I went to the Magic Kingdom just to ride Space Mountain. Know why you could say that? Because I did. And if it were closed, I can almost guarantee that I’d end up on the front page of the Orlando Sentinel the next day in a less-than-flattering news story that would undoubtedly include a mugshot. I’d make Clark Griswold look like St. Thomas of Aquinas.

So as absurd as it sounds, let me ask again: Why shouldn’t Disney go out of their way to make reparations?

“But, Cliff, c’mon. Seriously? There’s so much more to do than just Space Mountain. You want them to refund the whole thing just because one ride was closed?”

Yes.

Why? Tickets for four people were $1000. If she’d called last week and told Disney that she’d had an unexpected expense that month and she could only give them $600 for her tickets, what do you think the magical customer service rep on the other end of the phone would have said?

“Ha.” That’s what he would have said. “Ha, ha, ha. It doesn’t work like that. It’s all or nothing.”

All or nothing. What a concept. That’s the rule we – as consumers – follow every day in the marketplace. A BMW M5 starts at $85,000. I can’t give a salesman the keys to my crappy trade-in and a check for, say, $8000 and expect to drive that incredibly sweet ride off the showroom floor. Doesn’t work like that. All or nothing.

So why does it work for Disney? Or for major airline carriers when their cancelled or delayed flights cause you to domino your way into travel hell? Or for any company that delivers an inferior experience?

I know some of you are saying: “Well, when you have a poor experience, you don’t have to go back.” That’s true. But why should I pay you for your first failure? It’s your brand promise, after all.

Why are individuals playing by one set of rules and businesses often playing another game altogether? Why aren’t they forced to say: “We screwed up, and this one’s on us”?

More importantly, why aren’t they smart enough to say it? Because those who do often win customers for life. Or at least until they screw up again.

In this age of technology it is a known fact that “they” know more about us than we would ever care to have them know.  Does that mean Big Brother is here?  In some ways you have to admit that he is, but in other ways there is an alarming lack of corporate watchdogs guarding the rep of famous, or infamous, brands.

Social media 101 tells us that you have to get in there and know what is being said about your brand.  And it just makes sense that a company would be part of the dialogue about their own brand.  But I can state with absolute certainty that there’s a whole hell of a lot of leeway in what you can blog, chat or write about, or directly to, a company without ever hearing a peep back from them.  I know since I have personally skewered many a company on www.marketinginsideout.com and a few on www.menologues.com and have yet to hear a thing from one of them.  I’ve also written directly to companies with valid and genuine commentary and in response: nada.

And let’s face it, with all of the technology available to us I know that these companies are following our commentary – we track it.  So why aren’t they interacting with me?  Is it possible that the negative commentary is too overwhelming to acknowledge, or maybe they’ve read my brilliant diatribes and are cowering in a corner somewhere.  Let’s face it – there’s no positive spin for not taking advantage of the ability to interact with your audiences and not following up on what’s being said about your business.  Don’t be so quick to boast of your social media program if you’re just out there saying stuff – and not responding to what’s being said – because that would mean you’re only using ½ of social media – and it’s the easiest ½ at that.

There are some companies that have stockpiled answers to FAQs which they send out instantly as a query is made.  Too bad they generally don’t match the actual questions being asked.  Does the term interactive media mean nothing to you capitalist giants?  Don’t you see the value in a dialogue with your public?  Well, by missing that obvious opportunity you’re giving the edge to those of us who are not arrogant enough to insult the intelligence of our followers by wrapping everything in a neat little box of faux-interaction.  To those of us who get that real life is messy so real communication is bound to be messy too.

I don’t watch television. At all. This is not a moralistic tale of voluntary cultural deprivation to better myself as an individual. I watch plenty of TV. I just don’t watch television. I watch everything I’m interested in on my laptop, on my couch, on my schedule.

Until today, there was only one time this wasn’t the case: Saturdays. You see, I’m a transplant from the South. While the rest of the state is working itself into a frenzy over the Cornhuskers, I’m frantically trying to find which station is carrying my beloved Alabama Crimson Tide. Most Saturdays, I get lucky and find the game on my actual television, because the Tide are currently ranked third in the nation. Not today, though. Not in Nebraska.

I’m sure the game was on television East of the Mississippi, but I had to sidle up to my laptop expecting to periodically check the score on ESPN.com. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. Instead, I opened ESPN.com to find that I could watch the entire Alabama game on their new ESPN 360. Not only could I watch Alabama. I could watch dozens of games. And that was just football. As soon as the Crimson Tide rolled over the Wildcats, I watched Barcelona beat Almeria 1-0. That’s right. I switched from live American college football to live European professional futbol in about three seconds. And I never touched my television.

It was great. But while the content was fantastic, the advertising opportunities – from both the “channel” and the brand (yes, singular) on that “channel” – weren’t fully developed. It was as if the ESPN sales guy called a company and said: “Hey, uh, we’ve got this new place to do…something. Maybe run some commercials or something? Cool?” And that company guy said: “Um, cool. I suppose we could…I don’t know…run some commercials or something.” And they did. And it was pretty lame.

So let me point out the obvious to everyone involved. The Internet is not TV. Even when it is TV. Figure that out. When you do and you begin to offer the user (not the viewer) a relevant brand experience (instead of a commercial break), everyone will win.

Until then, the only winner is me. I never have to turn on my television again. Except to annihilate Guitar Hero V. But that’s another blog altogether.

In celebration of Omaha’s Fashion week – I set aside some extra time to finally read the massive September and not so massive October issues of Vogue…it was the best feeling in the world, to sit in my raggedy Old Navy pajama pants and a tank that dates back to 1990, blasting myself thousands of miles away to the runway shows of the future – Fall/Winter 2009 London.

RUNWAY SHOW 09

I was wrapping up the typical experience of reading a fashion magazine. By the time I get to the back of the pub, I was covered in about 10 different perfume scents, and about ready to say DONE for the night, I turned a page that literally took my breath away. Yes it stopped me dead in my tracks and took my freakin breath away. Jonathan Saunders. This designer is AMAZINGLY talented. He has this uncanny way of creating pattern to make something new and different. Organic geometry is how I would describe it. Very much reminding me of the talent that has always come out of Belgium. The Belgian designers tend to be a bit more avant garde, thinking about shape, form and function. Sometimes the shapes are minimal but the patterns on the fabrics are exquisite and original, taking the entire design to another level.

THE OUTFIT IN VOGUE THAT TOOK MY BREATH AWAY.

Vogue had this to say: “I’M still waiting for something to wow me,” confided a Fashion Week friend earlier on Sunday. “I’ve seen a lot of good clothes, but nothing really special, you know?” We know. We know. But all that changed Sunday night at the Jonathan Saunders show, when the Scottish-born, New York-based designer sent out what is arguably the coolest collection of the week thus far.”

A designer who i didn’t know anything about previous to tonight, mixes such graphic patterns and colors together that the ensembles transform into sculptures, paintings, works of art. What’s crazy, is that he completed a line for Target. But i didn’t put two and two together because the Target line is so much simpler and doesn’t really utilize his gifts for patterns and color. They were hip and mod and simple, but nowhere near the complexity and newness of his higher end couture and ready-to-wear lines.

At NY Fashion Week:

“As the androidish models stomped by in sky-high, brightly colored platform pumps, their hair obscured by identical black head wraps, shoulders braced in graphic zigzag capelets, black leather shrugs or kaleidoscopic epaulets, one could easily envisage these strong, future-world creatures easily slaying all monsters, real or proverbial.”

“I was thinking about strength and strong women,” Saunders confirmed post-show. “I think that’s a really important thing to focus on right now. And that came out in the silhouettes and the shoulders and in the colors, as well. And then I was thinking of things that I love, because in these times you’ve got to focus on what you love, whether it’s color or print.”

RUNWAY SHOW 09

Jonathan Saunders’ Fall 09 silhouettes are very Star Trek meets Blade Runner (although the inspiration is birds), but the prints bring a softer touch to the squared off shoulders and severe lines. The prints look like they were created by martians. And the colors are BRILLIANT. The way he pairs tones and color together is like nothing I have ever seen.

This is a great place to end. and say a big thank you to Mr Saunders for taking clothes to a level of art – very much inspiring.

http://www.jonathan-saunders.com/

Bozell announced the promotion of Karissa Armstrong to media director. In this role, she is in charge of the integration of digital and traditional media opportunities across Bozell’s client roster.

“Brands live in the hearts and minds of consumers, not in neatly packaged commercials, ads or billboards. Brands are the cumulative experience over a period of time,” said Robin Donovan, managing principal of media and chief administrative officer of Bozell. “Karissa has a unique perspective to media placement that bridges the gap between traditional, Internet and social media platforms. She has extensive experience creating a robust consumer experience that works together to produce exceptional results.”

During her two year career at Bozell, Armstrong’s digital media expertise has impacted clients including Alegent Health, First National Bank, StonehouseGolf.com, WriteLife.com, Corn Refiners Association, CoCo Key Water Resort, Borsheims and Kansas Tourism. Her experience includes search engine marketing campaigns, negotiations and placement of television, radio, print, outdoor and online in more than 10 national markets, creation of sponsorships and promotional opportunities and developing strong relationships with key media partners.

Prior to joining Bozell in 2007, Armstrong developed national media experience in the San Diego Area. Over seven years, she worked with a variety of clients including the San Diego Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, Penta Water, TaylorMade, SignOnSanDiego,com and the University of Phoenix. Armstrong holds a Bachelor’s of Journalism from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.  She is also the vice president of All About Omaha, non-profit organization comprised of young professionals ages 21-40 who are looking to get involved both civically and socially and enjoy all Omaha has to offer.

About Bozell
Bozell is an integrated marketing communications company with offices in Omaha and Kansas City. Bozell combines qualitative and quantitative methodology to get close to its clients’ customers. Bozell then uses advertising, digital marketing, dialogue relations, technology and innovative creative to provide targeted solutions for local, regional and national clients. For more information, visit www.bozell.com.

There’s no question the traditional newspaper business model is facing profound challenges. The number of those willing to pay for home delivery is shrinking and advertising revenues are shifting as a result of increased options for local advertising… meanwhile costs are going up. Daily metro newspapers simply can’t make enough money to support their old traditions and they didn’t embrace or leverage change to their benefit.  Instead they “sold” web advertising as an add on, which diminished the value (plus most newspaper web sites stink).  But nothing in the foreseeable future, short of the internet being completely dismantled, is going to enable newspapers to return to their old standard of living.

But try they might.

According to a new survey conducted for the American Press Institute, more than half of newspaper publishers believe readers will pay to access online newspaper content.  The results from the first survey are being presented at API’s Newsmedia Economic Action Plan Conference this week.

Newspaper companies including News Corp. and MediaNews Group are among those that have already said they will begin charging for online content. News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch says the company will charge for all of its news sites, including FoxNews, by the middle of 2010.

One approach favored by many is to erect a pay wall around virtually all stories. Print subscribers are often—but not always—allowed to read articles free of charge. Everybody else must pay, either on a story-by-story basis or on a subscription plan. The Newport Daily News, a small Rhode Island newspaper, recently began charging $345 per year for online access to stories (that’s more than the print version).  (Interestingly enough Google is now developing a micropayment platform and pitching newspapers… which seems at odds with what Google CEO, Eric Schmidt told publishers at NAA in April that “consumers won’t pay for most online news”.  But based on how I read the proposal from Google, it sounds like they might also get a share of sales, which could explain the approach.)

Another option is to charge for just some content and make other content available free. The best example of this approach, with more than a million online subscribers, is the Wall Street Journal. Roughly half of its articles—generally financial news and business reports—sit behind a pay wall, although they are free if accessed via Google News.

This approach is much harder to emulate than it may appear. Between 2005 and 2007 the New York Times charged a subscription fee to read the paper’s most popular columnists online. It ended the experiment exactly two years ago because it seemed to be cutting traffic to the site and harming advertising revenue. The Los Angeles Times dropped an attempt to charge for arts coverage for the same reason.  A newspaper that wants to follow the Journal’s approach must produce copy that is both narrow in its appeal, highly valued and useful.

Paralleling these approaches are two other news content initiatives that could further impact the industry:

First is a content-management approach by Associated Press which includes plans for a system to detect unlicensed use of its content and potentially create new ways for the news cooperative to make more money online.  AP will bundle its stories in an “informational wrapper” that will include a built-in beacon to monitor where stories go.   This news registry will debut in November and will later expanding to videos and photos. Starting in 2010, newspapers that own the cooperative will be able to put their material into the registry as well.

The second approach, by start up Attributor, called the Fair Syndication Consortium includes Reuters and more than 1,000 publishers.  This one looks to be more of direct revenue-generating tactic, but still faces technical and legal hurdles.  Rather than trying to merely corral copyright-protected stories, the consortium hopes to take a slice of the ad revenue collected by an unauthorized Web site. However, to do that, it needs the cooperation of the big networks like Google and Yahoo, who so far have reacted coolly to the proposal. If a split can’t be agreed upon, the consortium will demand that the advertising running alongside the copyright-protected material be removed.

The issues are complex. I get that.  Newspapers pay their reporters to write stories and then many sites republish those stories and make money via advertising using content someone else paid for.  I get the angst.  But personally I don’t think the pay for content model is going to restore the news (and particularly the newspaper) industry to its level of previous profitability or even save it.  I think it’s short sighted and even misguided thinking.  Given the nature of the net, “news” won’t stop because news organizations wall off their content.  While I have all the respect in the world for a good, thorough reporter, they no longer have a dominance on reporting and analyzing the events in our world. My concern is that this move will only further marginalize the profession of news reporting with large segments of the population.

The hand wringing is about the art of journalism, but isn’t all of this really about advertising revenue? If you think about it, I mean really think about it, our subscriptions to the paper never really paid for the creation of news.  You can’t tell me monthly subscription revenue even came close to paying for the costs associated with producing a paper.  As a percentage of revenue, I wonder if subscription costs even cover the cost of paper and the home delivery.  In reality, advertising dollars underwrote the cost of journalism and those shrinking dollars are the cause of all the hand-wringing and why newspapers are in a world of hurt.

Not too long ago, we had the publisher of our local paper publicly say in a speech at a function that the paper wasn’t in the journalism business, it was in the ad business.  Many were shocked, but I gave him a lot of credit for having the balls to come out and say it.  To me it’s innovation newspapers missed and innovation they need.  Rather than trying to return to what they were, they need to face what is and get on with it.  And there are some very progressive thinkers in the industry with some great ideas for how newspapers can build community on and offline and regain a more progressive, leadership role.  But the train on pay for content has left the station and seems unstoppable at this point.  I just hope no one in the industry thinks it is a magic bullet.

By no means are the issues or ideas being discussed in the industry simple or unanimous. Opinions are as heated as they are varied.  Yet the simple question remains:  Will consumers pay for news online?  Will you?

I doubt I will.  At least for general news. I have too many other choices.

Some very insightful and thought provoking commentary has been written on this subject. If you haven’t followed the subject, here are some posts worth a read:

• Veteran alt-journalist Bill Wyman, in a piece in the web magazine Splice Today (headed by New York Press founder Russ Smith) summarizes the challenges of the newspapers in five easy pieces. His two-part essay, Five Key Reasons Why Newspapers Are Failing (one here and two here) takes aim at claims of civic virtue.
• Chris O’Brien, a business reporter at the San Jose Mercury News, contributing to the MediaShift blog, wrote one of the best explanations I have ever read about the inherent fallacy of the paid-content issue.
• In response to O’Brien’s post, and in further exploring the concept of the so called “original sin” committed by newspapers, Steve Buttry C3 Coach at Gazette Communications in Cedar Rapids, Iowa wrote a thought provoking post that basically summed up why the original sin in the newspaper model was more about failing to innovate rather than about failing to charge for content.  I agree with him wholeheartedly.
• In another post from Chris O’Brien, he advocates more of a anecdotal and observational approach to problem solving and innovation rather than a pure numbers approach which can often obscure the important lessons of the way people behave.  This struck a chord with me.  While I certainly value data and models as part of the analysis and planning process, I have found that anecdotes often provide me better insights into how to creatively solve a problem than numbers do.  In his post,  he states: ” I don’t believe there’s a magic data set waiting to be assembled that will lead us to the big “Ah-ha!” I don’t think we’re one reader survey away from figuring it all out. We live in an era where people turn to data as a crutch, leaning on it to give themselves a false sense of certainty. The facts don’t lie, right? Except we know that they do. A lot of such data is formed by the biases and frames through which the questions are formulated, asked, and then interpreted. The newspaper business has failed to recognize its own flawed frames. To this day, no matter what you hear from a newspaper executive, they still believe their primary purpose is to get people to read them in print. It’s why newspapers still spend so much money propping up circulation by subsidizing a large number of people through persistent telemarketing.”

I couldn’t help but smile and reach for my camera tonight as I glanced over and saw these two cats laying across my laptop.  They are two peas in a pod.  Elliot is the latest foster cat in the home for wayward animals (a.k.a. our house).

Baxter at left, Elliot at right

It seems everyone in our house has a soft spot for animals.  In addition to the standard fare like two dogs (both of which have since passed away) and cats (more on this craziness later), we’ve raised baby birds who’ve fallen from the nest, baby bunnies abandoned by their moms, turtles rescued from the middle of the highway, umpteen hamsters (including Bear, the one-eyed blind hamster), guinea pigs and even a squirrel.  It comes with the territory as parents.  At least it has in our house when our girls looked at us with those big, pleading eyes asking us to “save him” or  “make her better.”

Yes I said squirrel.  This was one of our more bizarre animal rescues. He fell out of tree in our backyard after a storm and his mom never came for him.  So we took him in.  Feed him with a little tiny bottle and nursed the darn thing to health despite the Vet telling us it was futile.  Rocky was a real trip.  About three weeks after we got him healthy, he jumped out of his box and I discovered him playing with the cat. Actually teasing the cat.  He’d run across the floor, scamper up the drapes and wag his tail at the cat who sat looking at him.   We tried to let Rocky loose in the back yard, but I’d come home from work and he’d meet me at the door, climb up on the screen door and want in the house.  It was nuts.  So we eventually took him over to Elmwood park and set him free.  I cried all the way home.

The story of the current cats in our household is very telling of the neon signs we must have our foreheads that says “softies” and of our daughters who know how to pull our strings.  It started with Mr. Jinx, an absolutely incredible cat that my husband and I got right after we were married.  He was a special cat and we adored him.  He watched over my kids as they were born.  He put up with all their pulling and prodding with a smile and a purr.   He was their best friend.  He was almost 21 years old when he started having terrible seizures and he ultimately passed away shortly after Thanksgiving almost five years ago.  We were heart broken.  My husband, who is a big tough guy, even broke down.  Jinx was one of the family and we still have his photo (and ashes) on the bookcase.

We all grieved for Jinx, but decided for the girls’ sake that we should get another cat.

Where we find ourselves today started, when my oldest daughter fell in love with a rescued farm cat who was in need.  He was a teeny tiny gray tabby when we got him, pretty feral and pretty sick.  He could fit in your palm with space left over. After several hundred in vet bills we nursed this scrawny cat, Max, to health.  He was definitely her cat.   And now weighs in at nearly 16 pounds.

Then, the girls and I, were at the Humane society and I fell in love with this pretty mangy looking orange tabby that was about 6 months old.  He came right up to me and jumped in my lap, started purring, and looked at me with these sweet eyes.  He reminded me of Jinx.  So I couldn’t resist.  I brought him home with a bow.  He’s everyone’s cat, he doesn’t discriminate.  Everyone wants to hang with Baxter and he wants to hang with everyone.

Then a few months later, I discover that my daughter had rescued another sick little kitten and had been hiding it in her room for two days.  Mary Jane, a.k.a. Janie  (yeah my 17 year old daughter thought the name was pretty funny) was a 4 week old gray fur ball.  Several hundred more in vet bills.  Now that Janie is grown she thinks she is a princess and has decided I’m her buddy. So I’m the one she follows around, much to my daughter’s chagrin.

Then, the same daughter comes home one night with yet another kitten that she says she found huddled up near the garbage cans near a restaurant she was at with her boyfriend.  Again, this was a tiny kitten in need, very sick.  Jazz is a calico and spent her first couple days curled up in my husbands lap.  More vet visits, more money.  Today Jazz still follows Jeff wherever he goes and when he sits down, she wants to be near him.

Those four somehow became permanent members of the household, although that wasn’t the initial plan.

Last winter we had another foster who snuck in our house on his own.  Literally.  We woke up in the middle of the night  to this crying sound.  We got up to find out which cat got locked in which room and found “Houdini”.  He was an adult gray cat who sort of looked like Janie, but with long hair.  We couldn’t for the life of us figure out how he got in the house.  The only thing we could think of was that he snuck in through the garage and at a glance we may have thought he was Janie when we let him in.  We ran ads, we sent emails, we registered with lost and found at the Humane Society. We tried everything to find his owner.  When we took him to the Humane society they told us that if they couldn’t find his owner in a week that he would be euthanized.  We’re both too big of softies to let that happen, so we brought him home and started looking for someone willing to take him.  Finally after 6 months we found him a great home.

After all that, we thought we were done with the home for wayward animals.  That was until 4 weeks ago, when my youngest daughter asked if Elliot, her boyfriend’s new kitten could stay with us for a few days while he moved into a new apartment.   Being the softies we are, we said sure.  That was 4 weeks ago, and before the new apartment lease fell through.  At this point we don’t know what the plan is or how long Elliot will be in the home for wayward animals, but in typical fashion, we’ve become attached to the little cutie.

It’s a little crazy in our house.  Always has been. Probably always will be, given our history.  But I can’t imagine our home any other way.

P.S.  No one in our house can watch those Sarah McLachlan SPCA Commercials without crying.

I feel incredibly fortunate.  My family is healthy and happy.  I have a great job.  A comfortable home.  And a little bit of a cushion should disaster strike.

But many aren’t so lucky.

Thankfully my circumstances are such that I’ve never needed to reach out for assistance.   But I’ve had lots of exposure to the enormous need as a result of serving on non-profit boards and through volunteer work.  To see a grown man or woman in need weep because they have no choice but to ask for help….to see staffers weep in frustration because there just isn’t enough to go around….is a humbling and eye opening experience.

I grew up with little.  In the way of material things.  But in many ways (especially as I look back now) I grew up very rich.  In a home with strong values, where three simple rules were drilled into my head:  1)  work hard 2) be a good person and 3) give back.  I remember many hours in my childhood sewing blankets at church, delivering food baskets to families in need and raking leaves for elderly neighbors.  My family didn’t have a lot of money to donate to worthwhile causes, but we always seemed to find ways to give.  To share what we had and to give of our time. Sure I grumbled back then because I wanted to play with friends instead.  But my Mom made it clear in no uncertain terms, that this is what you do.  You help out where you can.  So I did.  And today I can’t thank my parents enough for the values they taught me.

Today I’m even more aware of the need to help out where I can.  There are so many people struggling in our communities today.  And the last year has taken a massive toll.  Charitable giving fell in 2008 by the largest percentage in five decades, according to a study by the Giving USA Foundation. The decline was the first since 1987 and only the second time there has been a drop since Giving USA began publishing its annual reports in 1956.  More people are out of work, they struggle from week to week and they have less to share.

But while giving is down, need is way up.

Nearly two-thirds of public charities receiving donations saw decreases in 2008.

• 54 percent of human services charities saw an increase in need for their services
• 60 percent of human services organizations were cutting expenses, including cutting services or staff, due to funding shortages;
• Among organizations working to meet people’s basic needs (food, shelter, clothing, etc.), more than half (53 percent) said they are underfunded or severely underfunded for 2009.

Individual giving dropped 6 percent and corporate giving dropped almost 9 percent. Some experts said they were surprised the drop was not even bigger, given that endowments fell by as much as 40 percent, the stock market declined by a similar margin, corporations posted unheard-of losses and unemployment was rising at a fast clip.

In the fall many organizations start their fund drives.  Locally our United Way kickoff just took place last week with hundreds of people lining the pedestrian bridge in Omaha (in the pouring rain) to be a visible reminder of the real need to Live United.  And this year, more than ever, we all need to do what we can to help financially so that services in our community can help those in need.

Please help out.  Every single dollar makes a difference.

Last week AIGA Nebraska held the “One Inch Round” design contest awards show at the Bancroft Street Market . This was a contest where everyone was invited to create 1″ button designs – as many as they wanted – and upload for professional review. Over 400 buttons were submitted from Nebraska creatives, and the entire show was concepted, designed and organized by a Bozellian, Ryan Sorensen, who’s on the AIGA board.

The judging was based on a point system and whoever had the most points, would walk away with a 1″ button maker (valued at over $300). The judges were brilliant minds and the line-up made it daunting at the same time extremely inspiring! (Stanley Hainsworth: Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of Tether , Stefan G. Bucher of 344 Design and lastly, Robynne Raye Co-founder and Principal of Modern Dog Design Co.) wow!!

Because our team wanted the button machine in a baaaaad bad bad way (Did I mention we wanted a button machine? In a bad way?), we uploaded as many designs as possible over a span of a few days. Even the writers were pitching in some awesome ideas! It was indeed a group effort. In total we entered upwards of 40 buttons and came oh so very close. It was a great time and challenge to think “Small”. What words or visuals have the most impact in such a small scale? So much of what we thought would work, did not seem to translate in such a tiny format. And lingo like “I Showered Today” or “I Like Toast” were memorable and received big recognition.

All in all, it was a completely fun opportunity where we were able to fuse our whacked senses of humor with our love for design. And thanks to the contest, we are now hooked on making buttons. (our order for a 1″ button machine is being placed as we speak…)