This beautiful young woman above is named Chimamanda Adichie and I just found her via the TED website. Tomorrow TED opens in my hometown of Long Beach, and like many, I will be proud my city is hosting this extraordinary event and wishing I was on the inside listening to inspiring talks.

But let's go back to Chimamanda. Her talk on TED is called "Rejecting the Single Story" and it's excellent. It's smart, wry, engaging and personal. I hope you'll watch (or you can become a fan of her on FB!) And though she is talking about a universal theme in our everyday lives, a habit of looking at a people or a place through just a single lense of a single story and then making up our mind (on very little information), it is also an excellent idea to ponder for your own public relations campaign.

The truth is we can tell a lovely charming story to death. We can squeeze out all of its juice and interesting bits, we can wear it out - whether it's for a business or a person, a product or an idea. How many of us cringe when we hear a friend or family member bring out that same old story we've heard so many times that we've wanted to yell, "Tell me something different!"

And if we've felt that way, certainly others have felt the same about us, haven't they?

One of the biggest mistakes people make when they attempt public relations on their own is that they try and finagle or force the press into writing about their same old story, again and again. Hey, they wrote that lovely profile on us last year, maybe they'll do it again!

Ah no. Maybe you are the oldest restaurant in town, maybe "so-and-so" has done the most for local charities, or maybe you are #1 in your market. So what? Don't be Johnny one note. Shake it up, look at yourself in new ways, your business, your product, etc. from many angles, and then start sharing different stories. How is what you're doing relevant to what's going on in today's headlines? How are you growing and changing with the times?

There's a very good reason why we ask friends and family, "what's new with you?" when we see them. We like fresh stories, new angles, fresh juice.

Here is what I'm owning about myself this year in a way that I have never fully done before - I am a story teller. Just about everything I do, from being a publicist, to my side time writing a novel, to spending down time with my friends, is about sharing and absorbing some kind of story that really means something personally to me. I have to like clients to promote them, and to come up with creative and useful public relations campaigns. I have to want to tell their story.

So here's a short story I'd like to share with you, and it just happens to be one of the most powerful public relations skills you can have in your arsenal: People will find you more relevant and engaging and useful to them if you share an emotional hook rather than just trumpeting how fabulous you, your goods and your services are.

What do I mean by this? I mean that we no longer live in an age when a successful "expert" is seen as someone who has all of the answers to every aspect of his or her life no matter his or her field of expertise. Indeed, most of us prefer the advice of experts who have fallen down and scraped their knees (just as we have), and then have learned something from it, overcome obstacles, and can get up and share with us the details of how they transformed that particular aspect of their lives.

We would probably still admire Lance Armstrong if he'd won so many races but hadn't experienced cancer, but it's through the grueling but inspiring story of his recovery that we've not only come to love him, but find him endlessly fascinating, and a motivational life expert. How many more millions are enchanted by him, watch him, read him, and give to his cancer charity because he's shared his real story? Countless.

The power of an emotional hook in your story telling is useful whether you need to begin writing a blog, a newsletter, give a speech to a local organization, pitch a story about yourself or your goods and services to the media, and just about any time you need to get up and say anything because as an audience we have little attention for being preached at or sold to, what we want is to be engaged. What we want is for you to tell us a relevant story that might just mirror something in our own lives, make us like you more, and think "aha."

If your words bring someone an epiphany they'll certainly remember you and spread the word about who you are and what you do.

While pondering what excellent examples I should share with you (and therefore preach less) on the excellent use of emotional hooks I came across Gwen Bell (whose Twitter bio reads perfectly: Discovering the Humanity of Technology in Less Than 140) on Twitter this morning (one of my favorite to follow there) and caught up on her blogs. Voila two perfect examples were handed to me on the proverbial platter, but more on that in a second. First let me tell you that I have known about Gwen since the Zaadz social platform site, which then became the Gaia social platform site (where I still occasionally blog). Gosh I've been blogging and involved in social media for a long time (ten years!).

Gwen is a Yoga enthusiast/social media guru & branding expert/enthusiast. And for me she is a truly soulful and mindful example of how to successfully share an emotional hook to engage readers in a blog (spoiler altert: this particular entry very honest and heartbreaking). So "tada" Gwen is my first example. She never grandstands, she never begs for hankies, but she shares from a place of truth where's she's at and what has happened to her to get to this place.

Gwen is also a great example of how to become successful today, and do what you love, by leading the way in a new industry by sharing your journey to inspire others in authentic, creative, and dynamic ways - but we'll cover that in another blog at another time.

My second example of using emotional hooks in a superb way comes from another of Gwen's blogs. It is titled "How Good is Your Digital Tale" (isn't that perfect?) and shares a commencement speech one of my favorite authors J.K. Rowling gave at Harvard in 2008. Rowling's speech shows off what a tremendous story teller she is indeed, and how she has used her own early challenges, and her own learning of the horrific challenges of others, to create stories that get to the heart of what is important in the human experience. Those who turn their nose up at the Harry Potter series don't understand that it's true magic is about kindness and love.

I hope you'll take the 20 minutes to watch, but if you don't have the time please remember two of my favorite quotes from it:

"Failure means the stripping away of the inessential." - J.K. Rowling

"What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality." Plutarch

We are in a huge place of transition right now, and it's making many folks very worried and very unhappy. Many people have seen the way they're used to making their living either infringed upon or completely disappear. People are having to downsize, and make career transitions at times in their lives when they thought they should have very smooth sailing, or would be able to retire early, living on easy street.

And now we have a new reality, and it's hard. It is. I don't want to make light of any of the challenges anyone is facing right now, but the truth is that life guarantees nothing, nada, zip. I'm not saying this to be a downer, but to face a hard truth that many of us pretend isn't the case.

I personally would like very much not to have to deal with chronic fatique and migraines, but they have been a large fact of my life for ten years (smaller fact earlier than that), and I know that many people who deal with both aren't able to work from home as I can, at a job they really love. I would very much like for a lovely friend of mine not to a) have a very challenging cancer and b) to have to work while having this cancer so she can continue to have health coverage. I would like pre-existing conditions to apply to no one, and I'd like decent health care for all.

But we're here to talk about business and innovation. Ahem.

And yet, there are many who are swimming in this tough economic time, swimmingly beautifully, swan-like, showing the rest of us what's possible in marketing and branding and putting ourselves forward in unique ways now that we have all of this amazing technology at our fingertips - for very little investment.

Following I'd like to share how a few people I've had the privilege to come across who are using the Internet and other technology to live the life of their dreams:

One of my personal favorites is Havi over at The Fluent Self because she too deals with a chronic health condition and yet her coaching business is soaring, and it's soaring in such a wonderfully creative way, and she gives me courage. I love that every word, every graphic, every seminar speaks to the heart of the matter as to why you might be stuck (isn't that all of us someplace?) from her sharing her own personal story.  I also love the gutsy, frank honesty of White Hot Truth with Danielle LaPorte (who just raised her rates thank you), and the mastery of understanding the importance of comfort by the best selling author Jennifer Louden.

The Internet can not only take us all over the world with a few key strokes, but also get our name and expertise out to a larger audience (in a very low cost way) than many of us ever thought possible and it can connect us in some pretty amazing ways. Yes it means you have to update your Internet browswer and operating system more frequently (note, I need to do the operating system thing NOW), yes it means you have to learn how to use new applications, and new software, and a digital camera, and the like, but once you do oh it feels so very good! My business partner and are learning to use Drop Box now - what a joy it will be to have the possibility of having shared folders without our computers being networked!

There are people now monetizing what was thought to be un-monetizable, and if they can do it, well, so can we. Don't believe me? Let the four year old website Copyblogger and its 101,676 email subscribers and 44,000+ twitter followers open your eyes. Founder Brian Clark has hit on a magic combination, he gives away choice information for free, knowing that when you're ready to invest you'll remember how helpful he's been. In 2009 marketing mavin and best selling author Seth Godin called Copyblogger #3 of the 100 most influential online marketers in his new book "Lynchpin". This recent entry on the power of using feminine language to sell by guest blogger (note, Brian shares the love and the credit. Smart!) by Lexi Rodrigo is so worth reading!

I am now forever grateful to both twitter and facebook for the connections it makes for me daily. I have almost totally given up watching t.v., something I only rarely enjoy. While Vanity Fair lost a briliant opportunity this month to explain the phenominon to a large articulate audience they instead chose to slide into snarkiness and totally missed the point. If you want to watch twitter feeds about your friends going grocery shopping please feel free, personally, I prefer to follow the leaders on subjects I really care about. Each time I check my twitter feed I learn something new I really wanted to know.

I have a friend who was a journalist not too long ago, but rather than bemoaning the state of his industry when he saw the writing on the wall he went about getting his teaching credential, and transitioned into teaching without missing a beat. He now spends his days with smart but "at risk" high school students and can't wait for his day to start. He is so excited to share what he knows with these kids he gets a bit giddy describing them and how proud he is of what they're accomplishing. He also writes a pretty funny blog that has some pretty wry observations about his own gen "x" generation.

We can decide we want to learn and grow and open up to what's new and possible, or we can continue to hold onto the increasingly weak life preserver of our memories on "how it used to be." And lest you think age is the dividing line I beg to differ. I have no idea how old Intuitive Healer Hiro Boga is, but I'm pretty sure she's not a gen "y" or gen "xer," and yet she has found a way to use the Internet that feels completely integrity based, compelling and totally modern. Her website is beautiful, her newsletters insightful and a breath of fresh air, and I'm really hoping a reading with her is a gift I can give myself for my birthday next week!

What is so exciting for me as a writer and publicist is the great array of personalization and personality the Internet and all of the new technology allows. You really can be you at your best. You don't have to use anyone else's format, or template, or color palette. You can certainly be guided by what is working well for others, but then you can be you - beautifully, and if you play your cards right you can make money at it too.

I've been pondering this over the past few days as I tweak my LinkedIn profile and finally ask my friends and colleagues for endorsements (not my favorite thing to do, but really, who does find it fun?). I like to give endorsements, but asking for them...well...eeek. But I'm doing it darn it. I want that profile to be complete! So, yes, I've been pondering what I'm proud of and here's what I've come up with:

I'm really proud when my creative ideas come to fruition the way I imagined. The above photo is from the Oct 2006 Long Beach Magazine, which is one of the issues I was proud to be a part of. I found the gorgeous young model Shane R Duffy (Tough, yes but someone had to do it) and he was the coolest ever to work with (and he was a vet who had been to Afghanistan). The photo was by Lauren Avila and make up by Aliesh Pierce. It was shot on location at Umberto's in Long Beach. We had a lot of fun and I would love the opportunity to work with them all again soon.

I'm also very proud when I can get a client (or a friend) to see themselves and their product and or in a fresh and expanded way...and well, I'm proud when I take decent photos like below!

Me on a 1941 vintage cruiser that I rode in the Belmont Shore Christmas Parade the night before (photo courtesty of Charlie Gandy, our Mobility Coordinator who charmed me into two very fun outings).

I don't know about you, but I've forgotten about fun for a long long time.

Oh, I love my work, I love my clients, and my work can be very fun, but fun just for the purpose of fun, just hasn't been in my vocabulary much. And two things led me to realize how much I miss it. About a month ago I took myself off to our local art emporium to splurge on some art supplies - something I hadn't done in years. I wanted create some illustrations for my baby nephew Simon's bedroom (at the time he wasn't even born yet). I hadn't drawn in several years either. I had a marvelous time picking out paints and ink pens, and now I'm having an even more marvelous time putting together the illustrations (thank you to my sister for recommending that "bugs" would be a safe and creative item to draw for a boy's room).

The second thing I did lately that reminded me so much of past fun I want to bring into my life more was riding a bike. My friend Charlie cajoled me into going on a "vintage" bike ride with a group of vintage bike collectors called the "Cyclone Coasters". Going in I was a) afraid I might fall off and b) wouldn't be able to accomplish the whole ride (especially not as we were going to ride first in the Belmont Shore Christmas Parade the night before).

And guess what? I did not fall off the bike (a beautiful '41 cruiser kindly provided by Bernard). And I didn't quite finish the entire bike ride. I made it almost the whole way, but bowed out when we were close to home because I could feel I was coming down with the flu. But the point is, it didn't matter. No body cared, and the most important thing is that I had such a good time! I had totally forgotten how much fun it is to ride a bike. How fun it is to feel the sun and the breeze on your face as you speed along seeing your landscape from a totally different perspective. I'm really fortunate that Long Beach is really beautiful by bike.

Unless one actually does it for a living (or is aspiring to do it for a living) people tend to think writing is easy. Ha. Writing, good writing, excellent writing, is actually very hard, and for a very good reason, it has rhythm, purpose and allure. It beguiles, explains and seduces. It entertains - how else can we explain that we humans, very physical beings that we are, can be completely enthralled by a series of squiggles on a page?

My partner Georgia and I have spent the past couple of weeks nose-to-the-wordsmithing-grindstone on a pretty exciting and ambitious project, Ignite Inc. and their first product CritiqueIt, a tech launch that will literally revolutionize how people create their work. We have been editing the mini business plan (to debut at the holiday party tonight along with a product demo), and doing our best to suss out and bring forward the clearest and most persuasive language our clients have come up with. Fortunately for us Alexa Fleur and Ashley Bradford are very creative, and we had much to work with. Then we added our own polish and twists and terminology until it was one appealing little beast. We wanted readers to think, "oh, I can't wait for this!" and frankly we think we hit it.

It doesn't hurt at all that the CEO of the company, Alexa Fleur, is one super talented graphic designer (take a moment to read her blog about the adventures of a brand new CEO here - and yes, that is all her own original art work!) besides being a truly groundbreaking ideator. So the mini not only reads well, and sound enticing, it's all wrapped up in a sexy beautifully designed little package. Sweet.

Now I'm moving onto the company's initial website, trying to call up the magic again. You'd think that since we got the mini down pat it would easier. Ha again. The job now calls for capturing the imagination when attention spans are often at their most fractured. I'm inspired, but restless as I humbly call on the muse for inspiration (dictionary and thesaurus at my fingertips). I will feel like a truly accomplished human being if I ever get a handle on how my own creative process works (all I know is that today a good breakfast out, and a brisk walk are in order).

Curious about what the heck this product actually is? I won't share the website just yet, but here's a very short sweet version on the mini plan as a movie.

I was thinking earlier this week how amusing it was to find myself yet in another "transition" phase, finishing up with two clients and jumping into a big new project with another as my new partnership kicks off (and a new website will launch) and then I caught myself and realized, "we're always in transition." We don't actually ever truly arrive anywhere. The plane might land but the world keeps spinning. And I remembered years ago reading in a book on Buddhism about learning to just go with the flow and not trying to grab onto the side of the bank for safety, and thought, "Oh, I finally really get it, it's no use holding on anyway because nothing's safe."

It's easy to fall into the belief system that if we just do "x" everything will be fine, our life will be okay. Alas no. It might accomplish a goal, and be a really nicely accomplished goal at that (like a lovely new website, a complimentary article, gaining a new client, winning an award), but then we look up and realize we still need to finish answering emails, submit another bid, go to the grocery store and buy dinner and on and on. We are always in process and never really arriving.

And that can be unnerving or it can be liberating, depending on how we want to think about it. I used to get really bummed when I created a piece of art work or wrote something and once accomplished didn't think it was any good. I felt it held no real value if it wasn't something I wanted to keep, or give as a gift. I didn't realize that while I was in the process, while I was creating, I was learning all kinds of new things. As I write this I learn something new and have small "aha" moments.

This ability we have as humans to constantly learn and grow is quite astonishing and something I'm very grateful for. Now I'm moving forth to learn about all things tech and social media and the very first thing that has struck me as I start to read Techcrunch and AdAge and Fast Company daily is how elegant and creative not only the writing so often is, but the thinking behind it.. I'm a bit dazzled, and tremendously grateful to be a fly on the wall. If anything is going to move us beyond our current downturn and our challenges with the planet's limited resources it's elegant and creative thinking.

Happy Thanksgiving week!

So here I am on my own blog after, what, two months away? Yikes. It has been a whirlwind over the past few months but you know what? So what. I knew what I was doing when I started spinning faster and faster and getting on a trying too hard jag. I knew it and I did it anyway, I knew it was bad for me, my creativity and ultimately my productivity because like many of us I still carry around that idea that if I work harder, more, and anticipate other's needs I'm a better person.

But last week a two and a half day migraine I got it, I heard it, and I slowed down. And then I ran into someone who told me that they always look for ways to bring "balance, adventure and relaxation" into their life and I thought, um, wow. Wow. Balance, oh sure, I always chatter along about balance and my need for it, but adventure and relaxation too? What a combo. What a joyous combo. What an idea for 2010! I'm completely smitten with this idea, more of which I will share in a moment...

But before that I have to share two epiphanies I had yesterday - most publicists will tell you there's no way to guarantee press, there are best practices you can incorporate to encourage it, but guarantee, no. And I follow this, I don't promise press, but what I have done instead is felt responsible for my client's success, no matter how well they're following my recommendations. It's a guilt I've carried over from my year's as a sales rep and you know what, I'm doing my best here and now to let it go. I'm also doing my best to not overwork things (a favorite pastime) because I finally get that it doesn't always make people feel like they've got a superhero on their team, it makes them feel stressed, stretched, and overwhelmed - especially when you are asking things of them (and asking again and again) that they just aren't used to doing.

Publicists like to know better, we do, but sometimes we need to chill and remember that for many hiring a publicist is an emotional experience that pokes at people's hidden fears and secret dark corners. Sometimes we need to learn to tread lightly and be okay with clients moving at baby steps.

With that being said, which makes me feel much better, I'd like to go back to the topic of balance, adventure and relaxation. Actually I'm going to ignore balance and relaxation today and focus on adventure. I have the privilege now of working on a tech startup. More will be revealed as we go, but I am super excited about becoming a green-tech-innovation-creativity junkie. I am having a great time on twitter, finding articles like this one on Ad Age (just as I love becoming a nutrition and wellness junkie for Susan Dopart, M.S., R.D.) and the possibility that next year I could be jet setting off to interesting conferences or just going to the West Side for Twiistup. Maybe I can rub elbows with cute innovators like Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan of Method, and maybe I can even go to Copenhagen and research bike culture and um, Elves (for my novel, but it's a long story so I won't bore you).

Mercury in retrograde, or so I've been reading today, is an excellent time to dot your "i's" and cross your "t's" which is what I'm working on - because here's what I really try my best at as a publicist, never asking my clients to do things that I haven't done first. I want you to have a great up to date headshot, so I've got one. I want you to read the media of your industry, and know who the top players and journalists are following your topic, and so I'm reading the media of your industry (sure, you can send blind press release blasts via a service and sometimes they'll get picked up, but it usually takes focus, persistence, and an interesting angle pulled together just for that press outlet to get good stories placed). I want you to be on facebook and twitter sharing your industry focused thoughts (and showing off your personality) regularly, daily+, so I'm on it doing just that. I want you to blog and so I blog (though I admit I should do so at least four times a week and I haven't been of late, my bad, but normally I'm pretty darn prolific). I want you to have a clean, interesting, engaging website that is search engine friendly with the right SEO keywords and yep, I've got one - and now the second one, an expanded and more strategic approach, is in the works.

Whew! But it's important. How can I ask my clients to do things I can't do? Some people do it very easily every day. I can't. I'd feel like a fraud.

What I have not done yet, but need to do asap is back up everything on my new external hard drive, and find a great Mac expert locally. However, I did email someone locally on craig's list today who purports to be just that and am keeping my fingers crossed.

I've spent the early part of the day doing research for inspiration on new websites for my new partner's personal site, and also our new site together. We will be working with some very talented graphic designers, but of course we need to have details and directions for them to go on. We are on a tight timeline to pull things together and want them to flow nicely, and of course we want the new sites to be beautiful and clearly understandable and emotionally engaging.

I love the photo above by Robert Flannagan from www.123rf.com. I have used his work before and it's so inspiring. What I love particularly besides the yummy fresh green, is that though these are under water creatures they so mirror the look/color of spider chrysanthemums that I love so much.

Today I also revisited Vanilla Bicycles which I love the great use of photography on, and so love the stylish-yet-organic look of (and has me longing for a vintage bike). I'm going to buy some kind of bike soon, alas not in this sort of hand-made price range. And via twitter I stumbled upon Creative Coast, a non-profit site out of Savannah Georgia that is really nicely done - great use of color and theme and the layout is so fresh and easy to use. Really, big kudos to them on a spectacular idea and subject.

My creative spark is refresh through reading and visual imagery. I am over using the word "love" this post so I'll say that I adored the September issue of Vogue. I dog eared so many pages it's crazy. I love nothing more than going through old (or new) magazines for ideas, for sparks, for connecting the dots. I especially loved the article by Beverly Johnson on her first Vogue cover, and being the first African American woman ever on the magazine's cover - things have changed a bit over the years, but not enough. But Oprah is helping, she is. I also love that hand-painted illustrations of restaurants and stores are popping up again, as a more whimisical way to show off a place, a room, a feel. It made me want to get out my paints again, which I've put away now for years.