Cari Shane

In the Age of Social Media, Why PR Should Matter to Businesses, Both Small and Large

2013-06-06T11:06:48-04:00

I tell my clients all the time that social media is Public Relations' BFF, or as I prefer to call it, BFFL -- "best friend for life."

Why?

Consider the following scenario which I have recounted thousands of times over the years to clients ever since social media became an integral part of the PR bragging strategy, a face-changing entity in the world of Public Relations:

If, when I started out in the Public Relations business in 1990, I had landed a business client an interview on, let's say, the 6 o'clock news on the NBC affiliate in Washington, D.C. and low and behold there was a huge accident on the Beltway (not an unlikely scenario) and 65-thousand people missed my client's interview, that would have been it, it would have been a "too-bad" moment. My client's so-called day in the sun, his/her three minutes of fame (three out of a lifetime of "15 minutes of fame," the much touted measurement by Andy Warhol), would have been over. I would have been supportive. I would have told him/her "you were fantastic, you hit all the talking points on which we worked, it's a bummer more people didn't see you, maybe next time people will drive safer during their commute and more people will get home in time to see your next interview."

Fast-forward to 2013 and I will never again have to have this disappointing discussion with a client. And it's all because of social media - PR's BFFL. In the age of social media, though agonizing for commuters, a tie-up on the highway doesn't mean a death sentence for a hard won media landing. Search engines, websites and blogs, social sites (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, so on and so on), all allow a media moment to live for more than a lifetime. The 21st Century has given us what our PR forefathers and foremothers prayed for: media moments that can be resurrected as often as the whim strikes, to coincide with a company campaign, a marketing event, a Hallmark holiday, another PR moment, a "fill-in-the-blank here."

Let's focus first and foremost on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and what a media landing does for a company's SEO.

Ken McGaffin who runs the company, Linking Matters, writes, trains and consults on link building, online PR and market research. In a recent post on Search Engine Watch, McGaffin waxes poetic about PR and SEO and makes my heart sing in the process. It's my mantra as a PR person. What the highly respected McGaffin says, I say too. It's not only about the PR moment, it's about what you do with your media moment and what the world of search engines can do for you in return! While I wouldn't say I scream this at my clients (in other words, it wouldn't translate into a text in all caps), I do seriously underline my comments, comments I repeat over and over again - yes, like a broken record.

In his post, McGaffin interviews Ken Deutsch, whom he calls "a seasoned specialist in public affairs." According to McGaffin, Duetsch takes SEO "seriously" which, apparently, is not the norm. Says Duetsch, "many PR people stop at getting media coverage and think their job is done. They get a placement in the New York Times, but they don't follow up to make sure a link is put in. So they're not taking advantage of the SEO side of the story." Note: that link is only one out of many strategies to promote your PR moment.

Here's the really exciting flip side to Deutsch's comment. Mike Cherenson, former Chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and EVP of Success Communications Group says, "public relations professionals are skilled storytellers and content generators and should be a part of every SEO effort ... The future of SEO is not in the technology, it's in the ability to tell stories that readers and Google will find interesting... and that's public relations." In other words, it's not only what SEO can do for your PR, it's what your PR can do for your SEO.

Oh boy, how I love this very Kennedy-esque concept. It's such a great shot in the arm for PR, which unfortunately for budget-strapped medium-sized and small businesses, isn't a priority when it absolutely needs to be.

Let's take a look now at a few other ideas generated by McGaffin that support the need for an uptick in public relations in general by businesses of all sizes.

SEO, PR and the Press Release

"Putting it simply, SEO enhances a press release," says McGaffin. He's right. It's absolutely true. Therefore, "use popular keywords and the press release, never mind any stories it generates, will continue to bring search engine traffic. And the editorial links the press release generates bring direct click-throughs and lead to higher rankings." For the doubters, it's a measurable entity. That is, PR now comes with a more effectively measurable ROI. "PR helps SEO directly by increasing branded traffic," said Lindsey Kirchoff, a Media and Speaker Relations specialist at HubSpot.com, interviewed for McGaffin's article. "We always see a bump in branded traffic after a big campaign! ... SEO grounds PR with hard, measurable data. PR has always been notoriously difficult to pin down, but SEO adds hard numbers to the equation. I also think that SEO allows PR to be less isolated from the rest of the team - sometimes PR can feel like an island. SEO helps PR connect their work to the rest of the company's business goals." Ahhh Kirchoff, you are so right. It's exactly why PR, marketing and social media should never live in a vacuum. It's like I say, PR, marketing and social media are a trifecta that works in tandem to help build an individual or company platform.

So, as PR makes you more "Google-able," it begins building a foundation for free PR. If a reporter can find you because you have great SEO (generated in part because of prior endorsements by other media outlets), you get placed in his/her "rolodex," end up on the radar screen and you are well on your way to becoming a talking head for your industry.

The middle school lunchroom of popularity

I have been known to say that social media sites are analogous to the middle school lunchroom. The popular table gets more popular as more people vie to sit where others are sitting; this rule applies whether or not the popular table is even talking about anything interesting. And, I'd wager a bet that those at the two-top are having a more engaging debate. That said, Twitter is a prime example of how popularity breeds popularity, (the more followers, the more people want to follow you); it's the way journalism has always functioned. Once you have been quoted, you are likely be requoted. Writes McGaffin, "Journalists will often quote, comment or enlarge upon other journalist's work. Bloggers are also constantly citing other stories." It is exactly what I've done here; the proof is in the proverbial pudding. "So if you get your story covered in one prominent media outlet, it is likely that you'll quickly see a cascade of similar stories and links spring up." It's the rolling stone of Public Relations. "You'll get links you never even asked for," says McGaffin.

PR is all about bragging rights

This is one of the best reasons to engage in public relations. Step back for just one minute and think about your reaction when you go to a website whose homepage shouts, "As featured in the Huffington Post..." or "As seen in the Washington Post." You know you immediately think something "better" about that company. There is a twitch of a thought, at least. It's human nature. It's the cool kid in the middle school lunchroom who, one day for some reason (backstory unnecessary) decides to sit at that two-top. It's an endorsement that changes the minds of every pre-teen at the school. The two-top is now cool. That's perception and it's also consumer reaction. It's what PR is all about. Just think, does someone with an Ivy League education necessarily have a more intelligent comment than someone who went to a no-name school? No, but we get that twitch when we hear that so-and-so went to Princeton. The value of that Ivy League education is the value of the media landing. In many cases, it's priceless and the bragging rights can bring with it a rolling stone effect of media and consumer popularity. "You ... increase trust from other reporters," says McGaffin. "If you've already been quoted or covered by a respected publication, then other reporters will think you're a safe bet to write about, too." Oh how that middle school lunchroom has such a last effect on us all.

PR isn't rocket science.

"SEO experts should think of PR as a way to build strong referral links," says Kirchoff. Adds McGaffin, "learning about public relations will help you understand the process - but it might teach you that there's a lot you don't know. If that's the case you might do better to partner with a PR resource." PR doesn't need to be expensive. For many, the yearly retainer is an over-rated dinosaur. 21st Century PR is about thinking outside of the box not only in angle development but also financially. PR is about organic SEO, messaging, differentiation, pitch development, developing a story idea that fits with the breaking story of the day (week or month) as well as growing evergreen angles. It's about editorial calendars and taking a national story and finding a local angle for powerful, local media attention. It's about finding the human-interest story that allows a media venue to talk about a company in a way that grabs a wider audience.

Also on HuffPost:

A Moving Concern: Transitional Trauma

2013-04-24T07:52:52-04:00

"They moved 15 years too late," says Christina Steinorth, who three weeks ago helped her aging parents move out the home in which they'd lived for 37 years.

Despite her specialty in counseling seniors and children of aging parents, Steinorth, a psychologist in private practice in Santa Barbara, California, found it tough to get her own parents, aged 76 and 80, to move when they could "handle it better."

That's because moving is traumatic, especially when you've collected decades of memories and "stuff." In fact, more often than not, the thought of moving -- trying to figure out where to start -- leaves many "paralyzed," putting off moving or even creating a plan until the move becomes much more of a problem than it really has to be.

"My parents were so stressed about the thought of moving that they talked about it for five years," explains Steinorth, 48. As they debated the how, when, where, why and what to move, they got older and Steinorth's worries grew. "For years I was afraid they would trip down the wood stairs," recounts Steinorth. "By the time they did move, they were five years older, which made moving that much harder."

Like so many aging adults, Steinorth's parents put off the "inevitable," because, in actuality, moving is so much more than moving.

"While each person or couple reacts differently, moving out of the home where children have been raised, where memories have been captured, is a physical, tangible announcement that 'an era has come to an end,'" says Steinorth, whose book, Cue Cards for Life: Gentle Reminders for Better Relationships, was released in January.

"It's really a case-by-case basis," agrees Jan Berry, MSW, director of the Dr. Tarfur Generations program at St. Luke's Medical Center in Phoenix. "Seniors associate moving out of their home [with] a loss of control." One of the biggest obstacles, according to Berry, is the fact there is a "stigma attached to independent and assisted living facilities."

"We want to change the conversation," says Mary Kay Buysse, executive director of the National Association of Senior Move Managers (NASSM), a non-profit trade association that represents a fast-growing industry of companies that help plan moves, the way wedding planners help plan weddings. "We need to debunk the myth about downsizing. It isn't negative," says Buysee. "Moving to a smaller space can expand your independence because it relieves you of all the stuff that 'owns' you. It frees you up both mentally and physically to enjoy life. Downsizing is like losing weight. When you lose weight, you gain years of life, energy and independance. There's no negative in losing weight. And the reality is, there's no negative in rightsizing."

Yet for the majority of seniors, "rightsizing" is still considered "downsizing," a concept that remains a negative and, more so, a stresser. In actuality, it's not about the move, per se, but rather a combination of things including, "the message that the move sends plus the totaling of a series of losses that adds up to trauma," explains Steinorth. "Because moving brings to light everything an aging adult has been feeling for years, moving feels like the big finale. It's like the final announcement of what they have been feeling for years that, 'my friends aren't around, I can't take care of myself, and now I have to give things away that I have collected, that had once been very important.' It's just really sad," concludes Steinorth.

The Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory, developed in the 1960s by psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe ranks moving as number 32 out of 43 of life's most traumatic events. The enormity of moving is captured in famed Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham's Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Personal History: "There are certain experiences -- childbirth is one; moving is another -- that nature and time definitely draw a curtain on, so you forget in between times how painful they are."

As Graham highlights for us, moving is one of life's great "pains." The truth is, for aging adults especially, the "pain" is more than just a euphemism for "annoying, exhausting event." It's a reality. Dubbed "transitional trauma" or "relocation stress syndrome (RSS)," it's characterized by symptoms such as anxiety, confusion and hopelessness. Furthermore, the emotions involved in moving can trigger a physical reaction, especially in aging adults. Combine the physical and emotional toll, and the effects can take months from which to recover. "My mother has arthritis and she is now, even though the move is over, still limping. My dad is still tired every day," says Steinorth.

"If you haven't moved in 20, 30 or 40 years and if you try to take the move on yourself, if you have no plan, if you are surrounded by 150 boxes, you are going to make the event a negative experience," says Susie Danick, founder and owner of TAD Relocation, a move-management company in the Greater Washington, D.C. area. "When you are not pro-active about your move, when you wait, when there is no professional plan, transitional trauma is very real," says Danick, who founded her company in 2000 after moving her own grandmother from a large home into a retirement community.

The realness of transitional trauma has led to the burgeoning of the cottage industry of move-management firms as 78 million baby boomers head into their retirement years. Though there are no large studies yet to prove the effectiveness of using a move-management firm, the evidence of stress reduction is in the many stories.

"The difference is so dramatic that it's surprising," says John Higgins, executive director of Five Star Premiere Residences of Chevy Chase, Maryland. The first time he saw a move-management firm in action was when Susie Danick's TAD Relocation firm organized the move. "I ran into a gentleman in the library at the community on his move-in day," recounts Higgins. "Surprised to see him reading a book, I remember asking him, 'if today is your move day, what's going on?' He looked up from his book and said, 'I'm using Susie and she said I should do something else while she moved me in. I walked into my new home a little while ago and, I couldn't believe that it looked exactly like the home I left.' I see that repeatedly with move management firms," says Higgins, who continues to be amazed and delighted by clients who use move-management firms to plan and conduct their moves. "They have the time and energy to get immediately involved in community activities rather than spending weeks or months unpacking."

There are about 800 move-management firms in the country that are members of the National Association of Senior Move Mangers (NASMM), up from 44 in 2003. "The industry is just now kicking in," says Buysse, NASMM's executive director. "Up until now, there wasn't really a population because a large percentage of Depression Era parents haven't wanted to spend the money. The Baby Boomers, on the other hand, are the generation that is comfortable with outsourcing, everything from lawn service to tutors to dry cleaning. With Boomers growing into their 'senior-hood' the move-management industry is going to take off."

According to a November 2012 article in the Chicago Tribune, the industry "has demographics on its side. Occupancy at senior housing properties was at a four-year high of almost 90 percent at the end of September [2012]."

"We 'Suddenly Solos' have accumulated a great deal of wisdom, experience and junk!" says Marc Silbert, who, with co-author Hal Spielman, penned Suddenly Solo. The two also run a website by the same name. "I have noticed this myself by the sheer bulk of my wallet... and it's not from money. I still have my Army discharge papers in there next to almost a dozen useless business cards from defunct firms and now long-retired executives, several check cashing IDs from out of state supermarkets, and flight club membership cards from Eastern Airlines, National, TWA and Hooters Air (don't ask!)," writes the very humorous Silbert. "The volume of nonsense that I carry in my back pocket is apparently symptomatic of an OCD-like habit to 'hang on' to things as we age... by either ignoring or avoiding their presence by placing them in a back corner or just out rightly refusing to make that long trip to a trash bin," jokes Silbert, poking fun at his own generation.

With his wallet-example, Silbert points out the enormity of emotion involved in "saying goodbye" to stuff. With an entire house to unload, many aging adults are reluctant to unleash the burden on their children, and rightly so. Says NASSM's Buysse, "Adult children don't want to spend their hard-earned vacation time in their parents' basements sorting through junk they don't want. At the same time, people feel trapped by 50 years of stuff and they just don't know how to begin. The move manager is part psychologist, part mediator, part daughter who swoops in with a positive, informed attitude and takes the stress off of the entire situation."

Some, such as TAD Relocation, offer initial complimentary consultations. TAD additionally offers a move-readiness assessment tailored to each client's needs. "We anticipate all the needs of our clients, including the physical and emotional," says Danick, who in the 13 years since founding her company has managed more than 4,000 moves with her gentle demeanor and keen eye for design. "We specifically design spaces with a client's needs in mind. We focus on a combination of function, aesthetics and safety." And they cover all angles of a move, helping the client select which furniture will be moved and what will be sold, donated to charity or given away to family members. Many move-management firms, such as TAD Relocation, will also make arrangements with a moving company, transfer all utilities and handle the entire packing and unpacking process.

"We come up with a plan, we work together as a team with our clients to put together a less stressful move," says Danick. "We give our clients control but take away the burden of the move. When we pack, our team pays special attention to how our client decorated his/her home, including how books were displayed on bookshelves, which family photo was propped up next to the computer and even how food was arranged in the refrigerator. We then recreate the setup in the newer, smaller space. When they walk into their home, they find everything unpacked and they can immediately start with the activities offered by their new communities," explains Danick.

The point is to reduce transitional trauma.

Some who want to avoid transitional trauma believe that aging in place is the solution. Research by AARP shows that 88 percent of Americans want to age in place.

"For many, 'aging in place,' with opportunities for part-time work, volunteering in the community, taking part in mentoring and supporting younger members of the community, is conducive to healthier aging," says George F. Wilson, MD, with Princeton House Behavioral Health in Princeton, New Jersey.

But Buysee suggests that aging in place, "sounds better than it is because it can be very isolating. You can become a prisoner in your own home, not seeing others for days if you have no activities or incentive to do so. We need to be more honest about what aging in place means," says Buysse. "Additionally, many of our homes are not adequate with respect to universal design."

Understanding the desire to age in place and driven by a concern for safety, NASMM has created an "At Home Initiative" that focuses on aging in place safely. "We want to tell people if you do want to stay at home and do that positively and safely, we can work with you to downsize inside your home so you don't feel trapped by 50 years of stuff," Buysse says.

Another way to cut down on transitional trauma is to make moving less overwhelming by planning ahead. Here are some tips from TAD Relocation to help ease you into and plan for rightsizing:

1. Don't go it alone: Ask for assistance from your friends, family or professionals.

2. Start early/Start young: Spring-cleaning is more than just cleaning; it can be prepping for an eventual move. So every year, purge a little because it is never too early and you are never too young to start sorting and downsizing. If you start early, you get to make the decisions instead of having someone make them for you.

3. Start behind closed doors: Sort and organize closets and filing cabinets, attics, and basements. Choose one a month until you are done.

4. Box, then discard: Think about items that you use every day and would like to continue using every day in your new home. Write them down. Those things that don't make your list (things you just don't use, but can't yet bare to part with) box up. Six months to a year later discard or give away the contents of that box. You obviously haven't missed these items that much.

5. Give-away gifting: Distribute things to family and friends including family mementos, photos and books. Choose an item a month. Save only those keepsakes that mean the most to you. Don't ever throw away something that has special memories, is valuable or is a family heirloom.

6. Ask "Do I really need that?": Dispose of non-fixable items, un-wearable clothing (out of date or worn) and items that are doing no more than just taking up space. This includes medication. Throw out all expired medicines now because you are never going to use them. When disposing of medications, make sure to follow the guidelines offered by the FDA.

7. Use up what you have or make donations: Eat up those cans of food you stocked up on prior to a storm; eat the frozen foods in your freezer. You are not going to want to have to pack these heavy items (see why #8).

8. Bottom-lining the bottom line: The fewer items you need to pack and move, the smaller the moving bill.

9. Enjoy clean now: Have draperies, rugs, and other linens cleaned before the move.

10. Set up a plan: Develop a floor plan for your new residence so you know where your furniture will go and what items you won't have room for. Then, start thinking about whom you would like to give those items, whether a family member, an auction house or a charity organization that will, undoubtedly, appreciate your furniture donations.

Echoes Silbert, "We have found that there can be a cathartic release to discarding things... especially if those items are preventing you from embracing the future. Don't feel you have to do it all in a day. Seeing one cleaned out room is a powerful motivator to break free from the past!"

Buysse suggests seniors interview several prospective firms when seeking out a move-management company because it's important to make sure you have a good fit with your move manager.

May 12-18 has been earmarked as National Senior Move Management Week. NASSM has partnered with their
national philanthropy partner, Move for Hunger.

Earlier on Huff/Post50:

Why Wouldn't You Want to Hire a Man Like Mr. Band?

2013-03-13T12:51:03-04:00

I hate to kick this off with a "played" adage, but it utterly lends itself to my point. "You cannot judge a book by its cover."

Having said that let me ask:

Is it fair to say that a person in a wheelchair who shows up for an interview, but cannot physically "get in" to the business site because it is not wheelchair accessible (perhaps there is no elevator, a few steps -- even one -- requiring navigation to enter the lobby, or perhaps even a door that's hard to open), is akin to a person with Asperger's who shows up for an interview but cannot "get in" because s/he doesn't understand the nuances of social interaction?

And yes, just as you cannot judge a book by its cover, you cannot judge a person by his/her appearance. S/he may, in fact, have a disability.

I had the great pleasure last month of meeting a young man with Asperger's. I have saved this piece until now because it's National Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month and next month is Autism Awareness Month. I thought it important to bring as much awareness as possible to a dilemma faced by 26-year-old Jeremy Band -- a dilemma, shared by thousands if not millions (estimates suggest that 2-3 out of every 1000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with Asperger's) by riding the wave of these months specifically set aside for recognition.

Mr. Band addressed a large crowd in attendance for Shabbat services at a DC area synagogue. The synagogue, of which Mr. Band is a member, had earmarked this particular service to recognize synagogue and community members who have disabilities, both physical and mental. Asked to speak about his own particular struggles with his disability, Mr. Band took the crowd on a rollercoaster of emotions as he talked about Asperger's, a disorder on the autism spectrum.

Mr. Band has graciously allowed me to quote from his address because his words have so much more meaning than mine ever could.

To start things off, Mr. Band was very matter-of-fact about his disability: "I have difficulties in social interaction, as well as restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests," he said. "I never quite fit in. Whenever I asked my classmates if they wanted to hang out, they were too busy, and the few clubs I joined either met too infrequently or did meet and I somehow missed the invite, or I showed up when we were supposed to meet and found out I was the only person there, again because nobody bothered to tell me not to come ... This has been a recurring problem all my life. Due to my Asperger's making it difficult for me to handle social interaction, or even to seek it out, for most of my teenage and adult years I've only had two real, steady friends."

On the flip side, Mr. Band has excelled academically. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology from the University of Maryland and a Masters Degree in Library Science from Maryland's College of Information Studies. In fact, Mr. Band explained that his disability helped him succeed in school, concentrate on assignments and work faster at homework and schoolwork than his peers. This is "something that has also been to my benefit in the workplace."

A benefit in the workplace - except, he can't get his proverbial foot in the door with a permanent, long-term job because of the social interaction problem. His resume screams, "hire me," but Mr. Band's inability to hit a home run in an interview fails him every time. Or rather, the interviewer fails Mr. Band every time.

So, I steer us back the wheelchair scenario. If the person in the wheelchair "can't show up" for the interview because s/he can't access the interview site, s/he can't get the job. If Mr. Band "can't show up" for the interview because of his social inabilities, he can't get the job.

And, we find ourselves at a disabilities crossroads. What are we going to do about this?

When Mr. Band went off to college, "my parents encouraged me to go to the Disability Support Services office to get a letter for my teachers to explain about my Asperger's," wrote Mr. Band in his sermon. "I took advantage of it throughout my time at the University of Maryland ... [In fact], I asked the Disability Support Services office repeatedly to organize social skills groups and other programs for students with Asperger's. I couldn't organize these social activities by myself - remember, I have Asperger's! But the DSS office never had the time or resources to do anything ... Now that I am out in the working world and looking for a job, people like me need others to help, if they are not able to advocate for themselves."

And that's where I come in, in writing this piece.

Mr. Band can't land that career job he so very badly wants, a job at which he would undoubtedly excel because he doesn't have the tools to "showcase" his abilities. Without an ounce of complaint in his delivery, he says, "I've had numerous interviews for ... permanent positions, only to be inevitably passed over for someone else. I suspect this is because of the Asperger's. The Asperger's makes it difficult for me to establish a rapport with the interviewer, even though I am qualified for the job. This sort of discrimination is unfair for young job seekers like me who want to try and establish a life for themselves ... I've been trying to get a job ever since I graduated from Library School back in 2011, and have so far only managed to get a string of internships ... I've performed well in these positions. In fact, for detail oriented, somewhat repetitive tasks, having Asperger's [is] an advantage."

I echo Mr. Band's following corporate challenge:

"I would like to see ...employers make a more concerted effort to hire people with disabilities ... we need whatever help you can offer us so that we can make our way in the world. While I enjoy living with my parents, and they love having me, I can't stay there forever. But until I manage to land a permanent position somewhere, I'm not going anywhere."

"In sum, growing up ... with Asperger's hasn't been easy, but I'd like to think I've turned out okay for the most part. The fact that I'm standing here telling you all this is proof of that. However, I could have used a lot more help growing up than I actually received, and I bet there are a lot of younger people in your community who could use that help right now. Please, offer them whatever support you can. [I hope I have] helped you to understand people in my situation a bit better, and given you some ideas on how to understand others going through the same things I have. [If so, then] I'll know I did my job right. Thank you."

And, if I have done my job right, I'll end with this question - why wouldn't you want to hire a man like Mr. Band?

The Transition: Underrated And Imperfect

2012-09-25T14:33:41-04:00

In comedian (and Huffington Post blogger) Karen Bergreen's latest novel, Perfect is Overrated, the protagonist suffers from postpartum depression. In fact, the protagonist has trouble getting out of bed for years after she gives birth "until mothers in her daughter's pre-school start getting whacked," says Bergreen of her protagonist Kate. "Two years after her daughter's birth, Kate finally perks up. She is comfortable with murder but not a baby."

For some, the transition to motherhood is seamless; for others, it's fraught with chemical changes; for others still there's an adjustment period, often one that lasts for years; and for still others, like the murdered mothers in Bergreen's novel, motherhood means getting whacked. Getting whacked: not the literal murder kind of whacked but the hit-over-the-head-I-don't-know-what-just-happened-to-me-kind-of-whacked. It's the perfect figurative analogy for (most) new mothers, who, after waiting nine months (if not years) for a child, realize that reality is a lot different than fantasy when a screaming, non-verbal creature emerges.

Motherhood not only brings a baby but also a new title a.k.a. identity (and the mourning of an old identity) which for many (again, not all) leaves them whacked, a euphemism for feeling whacked out, crazed, distraught, exhausted, drained and done in.

"There is an idea in our culture that motherhood is the most wonderful experience," says Bergreen, who lives in New York City with her husband and two elementary school-aged children. But the transition to motherhood is, without a doubt, a bit like being whacked over the head: It is the death of something and someone you were. It is also the birth of something you've never been before.

"Motherhood is a transition," says Washington, D.C. psychologist Julie Bindeman, who specializes in transitions, especially for women. "A transition is change; it is also loss. No matter how wonderful a transition it is, the "loss" is what makes transition so difficult. Transition is a shift in identity. It is a fluid event." According to Bindeman, it is also a very individual process.

"I experienced postpartum with both kids," said Bergreen:

Not in the Brooke Shields 'I need meds' sort of way. This was more vague, but emotionally debilitating all the same. I didn't know who I was. I was a terrible swaddler; I had low milk production; I hated Gymboree; black and white toys annoyed me and put me in a bad mood. I was lonely. I was resentful. I was bored. The transition was hard. I was a little older as a mother with a long career before me and I was supposed to love waking up in the middle of the night and changing soiled diapers. But instead, I felt like I'd been thrown into a lock-up. Motherhood is one of the most wonderful experiences, but for many, it isn't that grand right away. I couldn't see well enough into the future that my little guys would be so much fun.

By the time she saw how much fun her children could be, now 6 and 8, it was time to write her second novel about a woman coming of age. "A woman coming of age means a woman figuring out who she is and what she wants," says Bergreen, whose first novel, the critically acclaimed Following Polly, was about a woman transitioning from college life to life as a twenty-something. "I think women may have to come of age a few times. One of those really big times is after they have a true, new identity as a mother."

According to Bindeman, life events such as the birth of a child, marriage and death are macro transitions. They are big life-changing events that one expects but which cannot be truly comprehended nor predicted until the actual experience takes place. Macro transitions are difficult because they are a break from routine, also known as micro transitions. "We are creatures of habit," says Bindeman. "That's why macro transitions are so hard. Micro transitions take place every hour of the day. They are mundane. One goes from home to work; then there are workday transitions, shifts that happen during the workday; then we transition back from work to home. There's waking to sleeping. We handle dozens of transitions a day. The minute those transitions disappear or the minute those transitions change, we feel lost."

"As a lawyer I had a salary, health insurance, free coffee and built-in structure," says Bergreen, who transitioned from the law to comedy to motherhood to comedic-mother-who-writes-novels-and-has-a-law-degree-hanging-on-the-wall:

As a comedian I have no schedule, no pay, no coffee and no structure. That I went to Harvard and clerked for a federal district judge isn't meaningful in the comedy world. Funny is funny. Timing and delivery is key. A compliment from a senior comic is better than money. I have performed in Laundromats, in scary bars, Central Park, South Street Seaport, Starbucks and a grocery store.

As she went through this identity shift, Bergreen saw herself as coming of age. Call it what you like, transition, coming of age, rebranding, it happens over and over for everyone.

Not unlike herself, Bergreen's Perfect is Overrated protagonist, Kate, has skills that don't translate. "Kate transitions from a super-confident Assistant D.A. to super unconfident mommy. She is lost. All of the things that made her a great prosecutor are useless to her as a mother. And she doesn't understand how all of the other mommies are so seemingly competent," explains Bergreen.

Kate is not alone.

Cynthia Steele, a former TV reporter in Philadelphia (WTXF-TV) and TV anchor in Washington, D.C. (WTTG-TV) is rebranding herself right now. "Instead of going back to school, instead of learning something I don't know, instead of going into PR and learning a new though similar field, I'm focusing on the skills I have, on what I do know." Rebranding has helped Steele, who lives in Virginia, with her transition. "Whatever we're capable of is what we should do."

And so, Steele has found a niche telling stories, a skill she'd always had, a skill that led her into her career as a reporter. Working with a variety of different real estate companies and independent production crews, Steele produces, writes, edits and voices (with standup) house tours for homes on the real estate market. It's a hit, not only for Steele, stunning at six feet tall and capped with blonde hair, but also for the real estate companies who hire her. Executives from as far away as Japan have purchased 2 to 5 million dollar homes based on Steele's house story. "I clarified in my mind that I had certain skills. I knew I couldn't be a reporter because I cannot work full-time right now. I'm the point person for my young kids as well as my aging parents and I just need to be around."

"Everyone handles transition differently," says psychologist Bindeman, who explains that a lot of factors go into the "transitions recipe." When it comes to women and men, "there is evidence that our brains are wired differently. Women tend to act more emotionally during transitions." Temperament (innate disposition) as well as life experience (external) factors in as well. As does "someone's perception of life transitions," says Bindeman. For example, those who had a parent in the military knew that every few years the family would have to move. They developed life skills for these transitions. For others, a move could be highly traumatic. Even for a military child, depending on his/her temperament, moving every two years, expected or not, could have had a traumatic affect. And finally, there is preparedness. According to Bindeman, being able to prepare emotionally or to find assistance and support can be helpful when it comes to transition.

Preparation is something Susie Hadas, 53, didn't have when the self-named serial entrepreneur, quite suddenly found herself transitioning from child-bearing to barren at age 47. What Hadas, who lives in Long Island, New York, did have was the disposition or temperament for transition. Hadas has rebranded herself over and over for more than two, if not three, decades. But her most recent rebrand came about as the result of a life event that forced itself upon her and came as a shock. Some would have faltered; but, as a woman who always faced transitions head on, to Hadas this was yet another challenge.

"It was menopause and it hit early and hard. During one particularly hot flash, a 28-year-old male executive pulled me aside and asked if I was flirting with him," recalls Hadas laughing. "Apparently, he thought my hot flash behavior was meant to get his attention. During the meeting I had taken off my jacket, repeatedly flicked my hair from my neck to cool off and played with my blouse and collar. But, I was just trying to cool down! Flirting was the furthest thing from my mind. I was hot flashing!"

A "transitioner" by nature with a "cool" temperament to boot, Hadas faced menopause head on and without pause. After a particularly heated hot flash during which she was doing the "hot flash shuffle" (hair flick, jacket off, collar play), Hadas left her job and started "Personally Cool," a company with a personality not much unlike her own -- headstrong and not afraid to make a splash. "Personally Cool," is a gel pack that fits in a case the size of an eyeglass case and discretely fits anywhere one needs to help them cool down. Unlike a bag of frozen peas that cool well but melt and look out of place at a board meeting, Hadas' product can be slipped into a bra or held in a hand.

It's the perfect transitional object.

A Void: Where's the Triangle Fire Memorial?

2011-04-03T02:49:00-04:00

There is no statue to commemorate the senseless deaths of 120 women and 26 men in New York City's famous and tragic fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Company.

The 100th anniversary was on Friday, March 25th. The anniversary will be commemorated for months in New York City.

But there is no statue.

On March 25, 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist Company went up in flames: fire escape doors were locked, water hoses ran dry. Fearing death, many of the teenage girls who labored for an unforgivable number of hours a week as garment workers jumped out of windows to their deaths.

For 90 years the Triangle Fire was the worst fire in NYC history -- until 9-11.

Yet there is only a small public, physical reminder of this tragedy that changed the course of history for New Yorkers and a nation at large. That reminder is a gravestone that sits in a cemetery in Brooklyn, miles from the location of the Manhattan disaster. Commissioned by the City of New York a year after the fire and sculpted by Evelyn Beatrice Longman the memorial is a headstone for the seven unidentified women who died in the fire. According to an article by Ellen Wiley Todd in American Art magazine, the installation of the sculpted gravestone went unmentioned by the media of the era.

And so, as the New York Times "City Room" Blog states, we as a nation cling to scraps of memories of the fire and its victims, because that's all that's left. Joseph Berger writes, the "Triangle fire left a scar on the city's psyche and its history... Yet the lives of the victims themselves quickly faded from the pages of newspapers..."

Why are we diminished to "clinging to scraps of memories"?

Because, shame on New York City and shame on our nation, there is no memorial to the victims, there is no statue that sits on the site of this historic tragedy to commemorate these senseless deaths.

Yes, labor laws in our country were changed because of this tragedy, but there remains no physical entity, no physical structure, to remind us what happened inside the Triangle Shirtwaist Company.

And not for lack of effort.

Judith Weller, for one, tried for years, if not decades, to create such a monument to the tragedy; a memorial in the form of a statue that would depict the female immigrants who worked tirelessly as garment workers during the beginning of the Century.

"I would like to do a statue of a woman to represent the women who died in the fire," says Judith Weller, a NYC sculptor, still hopeful just a few days ago. "Most of the people who died in the fire were immigrant women."

Weller is best known for "The Garment Worker," a celebrated bronze sculpture created in the image of her garment-worker father. The life-size sculpture sits on the corner of 7th Avenue and 39th Street in NYC's Garment District. It has been there since 1984 and is quite well known by New Yorkers and tourists alike.

The Garment Worker was commissioned by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

Not long after The Garment Worker was installed, Weller conjured up an image of the statue that would commemorate the women and men who died in the fire. She worked well in advance of the 100th anniversary, imagining that in March 2011 her statue or someone's would be unveiled, a daily reminder to passersby of the fire, poor working conditions and how greed can cost lives.

But she was met with resistance.

By 1995, the ILGWU, in existence since 1900, had closed its doors, teaming up with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers' Union.

According to Weller, there was no interest in commissioning a statue to commemorate the women who died in the fire, not by the former ILGWU, not by foundations, not by city leaders, not by the independently wealthy.

She tried for years.

Now, 100 years later, the anniversary over, the chalk wiped clean from the doorways of houses where the deceased had lived (a temporary reminder by Street Public), there remains no permanent reminder, no spectacle that would get even the fastest paced New Yorkers to slow down and reflect on what happened inside the Triangle Shirtwaist Company 100 years ago on March 25, 1911.

The tragedy significantly affected the course of history in the United States, yet there is no statue.

That begs the obvious question, why?

Why has it not been commemorated? Was there really no funding for a statue? Was there really no interest in remembering NYC's worst fire? Or was it the subject matter, that the statue would commemorate women, that bothered people?

"There is enormous resistance to commemorating women," says Suzanne Scoggins, Director of Women's History at Equal Visibility Everywhere (EVE).

Statistics don't lie.

According to Scoggins, in New York City there are 159 historical statues of people; only five of the 159 of them are of women.

In Washington, DC there is only one memorial expressly dedicated to American women, the Vietnam Women's Memorial. "And it took years to get that approved," says Scoggins. "One opponent actually said that putting up a monument to women veterans of Vietnam made about as much sense as putting up a statue of dogs that had been in Vietnam."

And so, as a city and a nation commemorates the Triangle Fire, there remains no memorial to the 120 women and 26 men who died.

There were lists of events.

There were makeshift shirts that people held up and waved in the air.

And, among other events, there was a walking tour to commemorate the Triangle Fire that met at Lincoln Statue at Union Square Park.

Did organizers not even notice the irony of this meeting place? The void that required Lincoln to pinch-hit.

Tomorrow and the next day and months after that, the events will be over, images will be gone forever and we will still only be able to cling to the scraps of memories of the forgotten who perished in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in March 1911.

The Manufacturing of No Labels

2010-12-13T20:31:56-05:00

The launch of No Labels brought the big wigs out from behind their desks, Monday, for an all-day lesson in compromise at Columbia University in New York City.

It also brought more than one thousand citizens from all 50 states who logged many miles (or many more who logged in on-line from town meetings throughout the country) to find a way to make their voices -- the voices in the middle -- heard. Their voices come from both sides of the proverbial aisle because they believe that change will only take place if there is conversation across the political barriers of "Democrat" and "Republican."

They hope that No Labels will be the forum for their voices.

"There is a quiet revolution happening in this country," says the founder, or really, the manufacturer of No Labels, Nancy Jacobson, who years ago conceived of and then built this movement that will give a voice to all the people in the middle who are, in fact, the majority of people living in the United States.

According to the No Labels website, the group is "united in the belief that we do not have to give up our labels, merely put them aside to do what's best for America."

Those who know Jacobson, named one of the "50 Most Powerful People in D.C.," by GQ Magzine, never doubted that her concept would come to fruition. Others, she says, told her, "'you can never do this because people don't have passion, you can't do this because you don't have one main personality running this, a candidate.' The truth is," says Jacobson, "the idea is so much more important than any one person. No Labels doesn't mean 'don't have a label', it just means put the label aside so we can focus and work together and do what government needs to do. That's it," says Jacobson.

And so, the force known as Nancy Jacobson made it happen.

Jacobson's work history is a who's who of politics: chief fundraiser for former president Bill Clinton, Finance Chair of the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Leadership Council and founder and creator of the Women's Leadership Forum, the first female-only finance council whose mission was to raise money and party awareness among women. She worked, too, for former Indiana Senator Evan Bayh and as a Senior Advisor for Senator Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign, which doesn't even begin to cover the ground that Jacobson has covered in her nearly 3-decade career.

Jacobson is well known for her uncanny ability to "connect" people, certainly an under-appreciated gift during her formative years. It was exactly Jacobson's ability to bring people together, to corral people, to talk to people, that got her kicked out of a private Miami, Florida high school when she was 14-years-old.

"I wasn't your stellar kid. I had a lot of energy. I was more the class clown. I was always connecting with people so I was always talking in class. That's really what it was. Always being the ringleader, always talking in class and being disruptive. That's a little known fact."

But it wasn't until Jacobson left Miami after her freshman year at the University of Florida and transferred to the much larger and more diverse Syracuse University, that she finally realized that her forte which had left her admonished throughout her childhood was exactly what was going to pave the way to her eventual success.

"I harnessed my urge to connect people and I put it to use," says Jacobson who is much happier behind the scenes than in the limelight and usually declines press interviews. What annoyed her teachers and got her kicked out of school, "is exactly what they value in politics," says Jacobson. "That's what was valued. If you could bring people, if you could corral people, if you could bring them together, whether it was to organize or to raise funds. That was valued. It was never valued before and now it was valued so I was encouraged. The lights went on and I started getting involved in politics right then a there."

Her involvement started in 1982. "I heard Gary Hart at a very small, 20-person meeting. He was running for president. I put my name down on a sheet and somebody called me. I ended up organizing the Syracuse campus. I did the first fundraiser. The headquarters was impressed and I got a lot of attention for that. And then Gary Hart won New Hampshire in 1984 and I ended up coordinating the district."

And that locked her in. By the age of 19, Jacobson had become one of the youngest alternate delegates in history.

By the time she had graduated from college, Jacobson had become a professional connector. A professional ringleader, if you will.

"I always did love people, loved connecting with people. I was led to do something that I was good at. But, if you ask me what I do, I'm not a fundraiser. Fundraising is the way I was able to make an impact. I realized very quickly that was the only way for women to be at the table in politics. But it's bringing people together to make impact, that's what I do. And fundraising is what got me at the table. I want to put people together. That's truly what I have always done. Everyone who knew me back in the day is surprised at what I have done."

While a senior advisor for Senator Bayh (who earlier this year announced he would not seek another term in the Senate), Jacobson realized that there was "one thing missing out there. It wasn't that we needed another candidate but that the majority of the people needed a voice." She wanted to figure out a way to round those people up and put them together -- and No Labels was born. "But I never wanted anyone to impugn me for this or think that there was anything in this other than my deep passionate desire to do this so I am a fulltime volunteer. I have never been more passionate, exhilarated or taken with a project in my life."

At the launch, Monday, in fact, Jacobson hung back from the limelight, speaking only for a short two minutes while a list of nationally recognized journalists and politicians took center stage, including John Avalon (senior political columnist for The Daily Beast and the author of Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America and Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics), NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, David Brooks of the New York Times, Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker and Morning Joe's, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough not to mention Kiki McLean, D.C. communications strategist and Bob Franken,

"I have created a career working under the radar promoting the agendas of the politicians. All I have ever wanted to do is to build, create, be able to make impact. This whole idea came to me when I realized that Evan Bayh was going to step down because the politics had gotten to him. I got to the age when I said, I want to be able to have an impact; I want to be able to make some change."

While Jacobson admits she built the "pool" (into which the middle is now jumping), she'll only take credit for being the architect. "This couldn't have been done without others, without their inspiration, with their words and their writings. I'm not even the lifeguard of this pool, just the architect."

And now that the pool has been built, Jacobson says it's in the hands of the people. "This is the public pool that everyone gets to swim in and everyone has a right to swim in and everyone has the right to own this platform and make this work," she says. "Anyone can dive as deep as they want if that's what they want. It's a public pool for a new kind of politics. That's what this is. It's not the 'deficit group,' it's not the 'health care group'. This is a group about attitude. It's not an ideology, this is just pushing our leaders to develop the right attitude and if we have the right attitude we will find the right solutions. This is why people are involved. The people are ready to go in this direction."

In fact, states are already organizing on their own, hiring their own people. "All we had to do is create the pool and now they are diving in. The point is nobody ever created the pool for the majority of people in the country to have their voice, they want to build this new house, this new pool."

[Today] is the first day of the journey: it ratchets it up," says Jacobson, "There are too many people who want to start being empowered. It's only the first day of the movement."

Inside Jihad- Lessons on Brainwashing, Part I

2010-09-20T13:43:13-04:00

As New York City and the rest of the country struggles with the question, should a mosque and Islamic center be built two blocks from Ground Zero, many facts about the Muslim religion, the building and the location are being discussed, disputed and misunderstood.

The mosque would be located two blocks from Ground Zero where the neighborhood brags a proliferation and variety of religious houses of worship, including a Muslim prayer house build prior to 9/11. With respect to the location, the mosque would not be visible from Ground Zero, nor would Ground Zero be visible from the mosque.

The proposed building is an Islamic center that will house a mosque as well as a community center with, among other things, basketball courts, a swimming pool, child-care and a cooking school and a September 11th memorial.

As for the Muslim religion itself, misunderstanding is rampant. In an interview about the proposed mosque last month in the Washington Post, Jerry Nadler, a New York legislator who represents the district that includes Ground Zero said, the mosque is "only a slap in the face if you think that the people in the congregation are responsible for al-Qaeda."

It may be fair to say that the religion is not only misunderstood by those who are not Muslim, but also by those who are. At least that's Dr. Tawfik Hamid's point of view. Dr. Hamid, who is a medical doctor and a Muslim reformer, believes that the Muslim religion is all about the way one reads the Koran. He wrote Inside Jihad: Understanding and Confronting Radical Islam and is calling for a less radical interpretation of the Muslim bible. He is also vocally opposed to building the Islamic center and mosque at Ground Zero and has written about his point of view in his blog, Inside Islam.

A reformed member of Jihad, Hamid is a Senior Fellow and Chair for the Study of Islamic Radicalism at the Potomac Institute for Policy Study just outside of Washington, D.C. He learned about Jihad from the inside, as a member of its forces. He believes his insightful theories -- based specifically on his own quick descent into the hands of the Jihad through their sophisticated brainwashing techniques -- could be a great help to the US government who, according to Hamid, is not attacking the al-Qaeda problem correctly.

"My story," Hamid says, "is an explanation of why the United States has been unable to make headway in its fight against radical Muslim terror groups." It took Ayman Al-Zawaherri, who later became the second in command of Al-Qaeda, only six months to brainwash Hamid and thousands of other educated youngsters.

Counter to what we have been told about the kinds of children who fall into Jihad hands, Hamid didn't join the religious sect because he came from a poor, uneducated family. Hamid, who has a degree in internal medicine and a second degree in clinical psychology, was actually raised in a non-religious home in a Muslim township in Egypt by two well-off, educated, working parents.

"Religion was cultural for my family, so when I went to them at the age of 15 to ask questions about God, they had no answers. I was interested and very directed to find out about religion. And when I went out looking, I found a group that told me they had the answers I was looking for."

The group was Jihad. All Hamid knew is that they had answers to the religious questions no one else had ever been able to answer for him.

"And I joined," says Hamid. "Within six months Jihad had changed a very innocent child who wanted to play soccer and listen to music into someone who was ready to kill anyone."

According to Hamid, the brainwashing begins immediately and within the religious context of the prayer service.

1) The Wall: Those in charge will spend upwards of 20 minutes lining up the members of the prayer group, spacing them shoulder to shoulder, feet to feet so there are no holes between the worshipers. The concept -- God loves those as if one cemented wall -- comes from the Koran.
2) Hell Fire: Passages about Hell in the Koran are very descriptive. They are powerful and graphic. Hamid says the leaders of his group used these passages to incite fear in their followers, describing "how boiling water will be poured over their heads, will dissolve their skin and their guts. They told us how they would replace our skin so we would be tortured over and over."
3) Sex Deprivation: "This is not a joke, it is a reality," says Hamid who explained that his culture does not have a 'boyfriend system.' At the same time, early marriage is not culturally approved. Jihad couples this cultural phenomenon with the raging hormones of a typical young man, praying on his sexual needs by giving him books with detailed descriptions of 72 beautiful virgins waiting for him in Heaven. "We didn't, couldn't have girlfriends. We were given pictures of beautiful women while being deprived of actual women. We didn't have any reason to stay here when we knew there were 72 virgins waiting for us. Many of us, including me, were ready to die just to go to be with the 72 virgins."

Hamid says he was stripped of his ability to think critically, in other words, to think for himself. "I was brain washed completely in six months. I was ready to do any form of evil possible."

The violent mind:

"One of the fundamental things that creates the violent mind is the concept of accepting without using your consciousness. It made me a bad person. I accepted what they told me to do in the name of religion without using my consciousness. There was no question of permissible versus not permissible. It was deemed permissible and so I didn't think about it. I did it because I was told religiously it was permissible by God himself."

Hamid believes that fortunately for him, deep in his brain a part of his unconscious was still working. So, when Jihad asked him to carry out an act of torture, "to kidnap a police officer and dig a grave next to a mosque and bury the man alive, I gasped at the order. The critical thinking came back to me." At that moment, Hamid planned an immediate escape from Jihad.

Reading the Koran differently:

While on the run for three years, Hamid began questioning the teachings of the Koran; not the Koran itself, but rather the radical interpretations used by radical Muslims.

"I read a verse of the Koran: Kill the infidels wherever you find them and I asked, how could I do this? My neighbor is a Christian who is very nice, but how do I disobey Alla? I was very confused. I asked, 'how can this be possible that I should kill this person'?"

After much effort, contemplation and discussion with many different religious Muslim leaders, Hamid theorized that it was all about interpretation. "The Koran needed to be read a different way. Perhaps the Koran's message is about how it is interpreted. For example, there is a difference between saying 'I am going to THE White House and I am going to A white house'."

By way of explanation, Hamid returns to his original example. "Perhaps when the Koran dictates, kill the infidels it doesn't mean kill ANY infidel. The text doesn't read, 'all.' The text was written long ago and is based on a group of people in history, not our modern world," says Hamid, explaining that the whole verse changes if it is approached differently. "My vision my dream for a verse like this is that the word "the" would be written in red in order to help readers understand that it is not their neighbor to which the Koran is referring but rather someone and some thing that happened in history. I want to change this in every publication of the Koran," says Hamid.

This, for Hamid, is just the beginning.

In the next article, Hamid's theories on how to penetrate and stop the cycle of radical religious brainwashing.

Editor's Note: This post originally stated that Mr. Hamid runs the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in his role as Chair for the Study of Islamic Radicalism. The full Institute is actually run by its Chairman and CEO Mr. Michael Swetnam.

Following Karen

2010-06-28T13:03:37-04:00

"I wrote a book because I didn't have enough to do," says Karen Bergreen, her comic wit a constant companion. Her debut novel, Following Polly, is a comedic murder mystery about a Harvard-educated stalker, and it has many, including the New York Times, talking. And pretty much, while they are talking they are laughing, not only because the book is a laugh-out-loud page-turner, but because Bergreen herself keeps people laughing. Harvard educated herself (but lacking the stalker status of her protagonist Alice Teakle), Bergreen may be one of only a handful of NYC comedians who not only holds a law degree but also practiced law. And it's a good thing that she is no longer practicing, otherwise her talents would have been wasted in the generally un-funny world of corporate litigation.

Bergreen is naturally funny, innately silly, and her appreciation of her own humor is contagious. In other words, she says something funny, laughs at her own clever comment, her audience (whether an individual or group) catches on and then laughs with her. She has been gifted with an ability to craft spot-on cleverness, on the spot.

That Bergreen wrote a book because she "didn't have enough to do," is classic Bergreen. This comment, which adorns her webpage, simply called karenbergreen.com, says it all because in actuality Bergreen couldn't be busier. The writer and mother of two young boys by day, comedic actress, stand-up comic and comedy teacher by day and night, not to mention wife (let's go with, by night), is a working mom, albeit in the untraditional sense. Bergeen works out of a home office in her NYC apartment, where her little boys can be heard playing, often in the same room, though she calls this "bothering her" not necessarily "playing." Add Bergreen's requirement for a healthy lifestyle that includes cooking for her children and working out daily and, despite her own personal adoration for the television, a no-television policy for 6-year-old Danny and 4-year-old Teddy, and Bergreen is one busy writer.

So, how exactly does a juggler like Bergreen do it? Has she figured out the magical formula that all working (full and part time) Mom's are seeking -- the mother's version of the Fountain of Youth that give us eternal time?

"No," she says unequivocally.

Though I wonder, since she creates time where it doesn't really exist. A born and bred New Yorker, Bergreen says she wrote half the book on the subway, and that was with pen and paper rather than a laptop or iPad. "It gave me a mood to follow. A lot of the book is New York. I was almost recording things that were happening. The B-roll."

Unlike other writers with children, Bergreen says she definitely relied on a variety of babysitters. She doesn't consider herself a magician-like wordsmith. "Some writers say 'I wrote when the baby was napping and I whipped things out of the computer.' I couldn't do that," says Bergreen. "I had babysitters because I am not that efficient. Even with babysitters on hand - if I am home I end up doing a lot of childcare myself. I had to be okay with not writing at the pace I would have written at without kids ... In some ways, this might have helped me. Often, ideas would come to me days or weeks after I'd started a chapter, and it gave me a chance to let them simmer and build. If I'd gotten it all done efficiently, in a day and a half, the way some writers seem to do I might never have gone back in and made it better. Then again," Bergreen laughs, "maybe that's just pure rationalization for not getting more done."

So Bergreen, who considers herself far from perfect as a mother and wife, wrote a book about the non-perfect woman's obsession with the perfect woman. Alice Teakle embodies the average woman while Polly represents perfection. She is gorgeous, thin, smart, blonde, cocky to the point of bitchy and a complete narcissist. "If you don't know a Polly, then you are a Polly," Bergreen quips. "I think people are in awe of people who are attractive and put together. Could be our society, could be biological." Right away, we find out that Polly has been murdered, and the non-perfect protagonist, Alice, becomes the lead suspect. (We find this out on the book jacket, so there's no give away here). Is this the revenge of the nerds? Perhaps. "My dream," Bergreen says, "is for people like Polly to wake up and say, 'I'm a bitch,' to really realize it, and to then be nicer and kinder."

Of course, it seldom happens. Perhaps its why Lifetime Television has had so much success with their show Drop Dead Diva, about a perfect Polly type who dies in a car crash and "wakes up in someone else's body." The "someone else" is an average Alice Teakle type, and we finally get to see "perfect Polly" come to the realization that she is/was awful.

Since writing instructors always say, write about what you know, this begs the question: Was Bergreen ever a stalker? Suspected of murder? "No, not either," she says jovially. "I think that's where I am more mentally healthy than Alice. The stalking was fantasy completely. Of course, I would love to stalk someone, sure, but I wouldn't do it. It's like comedy. The fun part of my jokes on stage as a comedian is that it's the fantasy of what I would want to say in real life if I could. The stalking that I write about in the book is what I would do if I could."

It may have taken Bergreen two years to write the book, which she began when her older son was three and continued writing after the birth of her second, but nothing seemed to deter her. She was passionate about the idea of fulfilling a dream, a theme that found its way into the book. "It wasn't something I thought of before I wrote the book. I think we sometimes do things to pass the time. We have jobs, we get married, we have kids, and we aren't thinking of the vision we have for ourselves. We need to stop worrying about what people think. Like my main character, having a focus on something in particular helps. I think there was probably a time when I was lost, I had those same depressed feelings that Alice has. But, as soon as she found something to focus on, Alice lost that depressed feeling. It's the same thing in life. The focus is what ultimately gets you through."

Following Polly, by Karen Bergreen is published by St. Martin's Press and is available on-line at Amazon as well as Borders, Barnes & Noble and local retailers.

Rethinking Recess, Part II

2010-06-21T13:41:40-04:00

If there were a real "Hot Tub Time Machine," would you rewind to elementary school? Or middle school? Would you do it all again?

"Oh sure," you might say at first, excited with the prospect. "Life was so easy then, I didn't know how good I had it. I would go back and I'd never complain because I would know that kid stress doesn't even begin to compare with adult stress. I would relish in the glory of no job, no responsibilities, no bills, no mortgage, no kids talking back to me..."

Ignoring an imperceptible shiver, you would repeat, "Didn't know how good I had it..."

Then, hesitating, your smile waning, those same words might stumble out with a little less confidence. "No kids ... talking back ... to me," and that ever so slight shiver of nerves would hit again as the face of the long-forgotten playground bully would come into focus as it did day in and day out throughout your long, anxiety filled childhood; a face you may have buried for decades but had not forgotten.

Your heart would skip a beat.

The bully may not have tormented you, but chances are you saw the bully torment others. And as recent research has shown, the innocent bystander is just as tormented by the bully's actions, if not more so, than the victim.

Still want to go back?

Marc Sickel, runs the DC area-based company, Fitness for Health. He wants to rethink recess, shake it up a bit, take it up a notch. Sickel's philosophy is based on two important elements: conflict resolution and elimination of trauma on the playground. His goal: to make it possible for our adults of the future to resolve conflict calmly and rationally, to learn to work with peers with different skills and backgrounds and to remember bully-free childhoods.

No, Sickel is not a Pollyanna, he's a man with an idea.

Sickel and a handful of educators and mental health professionals across the country, want to change the nature of recess. They want to create an environment whereby the bully no longer rules and children on the social fringe (including the bully him/herself, the athlete who is socially inept, the genius who rules in the classroom but pales on the playground) can each find his/her rightful place.

Muskegon Chronicle/Cory Morse. "Play guru," Curt Hinson says free-play needs structure

Playworks, a California-based nonprofit has begun its program in low-income areas throughout the United States using grants to pay for "recess coaches" who run recess as a class period, thereby eliminating the traditional recess free-for-all.

Playworks' idea is similar to Sickel's, though Sickel prefers to train educators to run their own recess periods using their own staff and parent volunteers. Alternatively, Sickel is not calling for an end to free-play.

Sickel's concept reaches far beyond the elementary school playground. "There is a life-enhancing psychological and physical component," he says. "The negative recess experience or negative PE experience stays with a child through adulthood. Anything physical will reactivate the negative feelings from childhood. If adults associate physical activity with negative events in their past, they grow up to be inactive, averse to physical activity," concludes Sickel. Years of daily mistreatment can do that to you.

Not only will Sickel's ideas help slow the growth of another generation of obese Americans, Sickel's structured recess agenda aims to blur the chasm between jock and genius by teaming them on the playground. In one game Sickel has introduced in DC-area public schools, for example, the jock and genius collaborate, each focusing on his/her own particular area of expertise. Quickly adding numbers displayed on a series of mats, the genius instructs the jock where to move through an obstacle course to get to the final destination. Collaboration breeds teamwork and teamwork breeds friendship. "I want kids to realize that if we take your strengths and my strengths we can work together, we don't have to be enemies," says Sickel.

In the storybook version, they become best friends, each relying somewhat on the other's talents for the next decade of school.

But Sickel isn't looking to write a storybook. He just wants to make recess a less terrifying experience by making structure a recess option: a few more adults to man the games, a few more props to create newer, more interesting and more organized games, perhaps a few high school student volunteers to work recess and at the same time earn community service hours. Sickel explains,

"We are taking a challenging situation - a free-for-all school playground - and turning it into a teachable moment. This initiative is not only for the kid who stands on the perimeter and doesn't get involved, but also the child who is the bully. The bully is looking for attention. He may want leadership and doesn't know how to do it in a positive way and I think what happens is the bully goes around egging people on negatively. We need to empower these kids early on, as early as preschool, laying the positive framework because before you know it, bullying becomes their way ... of life. And the victim, the victim may daily go straight from recess into math, exhibiting low performance because he can't focus. He is likely not having attentional issues, but rather is riddled with anxiety. These more structured activities can help empower both the bully and the introvert and that will cross over into more positive classroom performance."

Sickel believes that most schools in the country are uninspired when it comes to recess, stuck in the traditional recess rut: four square, basketball, soccer. "We're not saying it's bad, let's just change the way we do it, change the creative flow, think out of the box. Instead of having one basketball court with 30 to 40 kids wanting to play, set up an around-the-world-basketball game where everyone has to make 100 points in 15 minutes. It's not team against team, it's everyone making those points, everyone helping everyone to achieve the goal. They are moving and working together and cheering each other on," says Sickel.

"It's a new way of looking at recess," says Bill Poole, the principal of a suburban DC public school that works with Fitness for Health to enhance the school's recess period. "We want to make sure that what we provide is engaging but not so structured that it becomes like an assignment. And so the kids can walk in an out and choose to participate. We want to make sure that we aren't making recess an 'assignment,' but offering kids ways to play collaboratively and have some fun with some really basic supplies. So far we have been very pleased with the results."

What adults often forget is that even the athletic child may not be socially adept at knowing how to walk out onto the soccer field and play a mass soccer game. Translating that to an adult situation, how many adults can arrive at a party without a friend or colleague by their side, walk up to a group of people, or even one person, they don't know and engage them in conversation?

"With a little bit more structure a lot of kids can become more social and find their way because they are part of a group now and can practice social interaction," says Dr. Ellen Dye, a clinical psychologist in Bethesda, Maryland. "When you are outside the group you are not practicing socially."

Let's applaud schools that see recess as a time to keep kids emotionally and physically healthy and safe. In suburban Maryland, for example, one elementary school counselor has created a recess period walking club for those who may be reluctant to participate in free-for-all play. While the walking gives the children the physical activity they need, participation in a group activity protects them from being the bully's target. What are your schools doing to enhance recess, to make it a platform for learning? Tell us about your programs and suggest ideas that may shake things up a bit and move recess into the 21st Century.

Rethinking Recess, Part I

2010-06-09T15:26:02-04:00

As summer approaches, I am reminded once again that our school system is outrageously based on the outdated agrarian system where children were excused from school during the warm months to help their parents tend the farm. Scrambling on my computer to find activities to keep my children occupied for three months, I look out onto my deck which I have adorned with flowers, none of which my children have ever come near even after begging them to "just at least smell them! Please."

So much for an agrarian family.

Every year my children and the majority of the nation's children get a 3-month summer break to "tend to the farm." According to the National Association for Year Round Learning, NAYRL, there are 3-thousand "year round" schools nationwide, public, private and charter, that no longer follow the 9-month long, agrarian calendar.

This fact got me thinking about the other school "habits" we have found hard to break.
Studies show that children learn better when they move -- physically move (which also happens to address the nation's growing obesity problem) -- as they learn, yet the majority of our schools follow the traditional style of learning: teacher in the front of the classroom, children sitting at desks, with "stop moving Johnny ... And sit down, I won't say it again!" reverberating off elementary school walls throughout the United States. Still, the system remains virtually unchanged.

Taking a look at recess, a.k.a., the time in the day when teachers get a break from students unless they get stuck with recess duty, we see that we are rooted in tradition there too. Recess is a post-lunch ritual in most U.S. schools; but, a pilot program in Arizona showed that not only did children eat a more nutritious lunch and drink more water when the school held recess before lunch, but also teachers gained an additional 15 minutes of teaching time when they returned to their classrooms because children settled down faster when they played first then ate lunch. Despite the results of this pilot program, the majority of schools in the United States still hold lunch first.

Recess, is also traditionally considered a break from the structure of the classroom. Unlike PE, where children also run and jump, there is no agenda for recess, there is no unit that must be covered or physical tests passed. Recess is a free-for all. Taking a look at the recess Petri dish, though, we see gads and gads of bacteria growing: bullies and victims, social anxieties and lifelong emotional scars. While unstructured time works for the majority, for the socially awkward - the bully as well as his victim - recess can be a nightmare.

If you were one of those people who "failed" at recess, you know what I'm talking about.

In "Everyone Loves the Weird Kid," a recent article in the New York Times television section, the break out star of the ABC sitcom, "The Middle," is 11-year-old Atticus Shaffer who plays the quirky Brick. In real life, the young actor is apparently still haunted by his past experiences with recess. While talking about his new, fabulous career on television, he told the NYT, "I feel extremely blessed to be on TV. It's a hard job, but real life is harder. Truth be told, playgrounds can be war zones."

Each week, seven million viewers tune in to see just what odd thing Brick will do: put ketchup packets in his pockets because they "soothe" him, speak in a Scottish accent for no particular reason or talk to his backpack and the viewers love him for his quirkiness.

In real life, kids like Brick are treated poorly by their schoolmates, tormented, beaten up, mocked teased or just plain ignored.

"They are completely on their own at recess," says Dr. Ellen Dye, a Clinical Psychologist in Bethesda, Maryland. "The child who is socially or physically lacking stands out at recess and that child's feeling of isolation is a big problem. Recess confirms feelings of inadequacy and the child experiences pain; pain in a social situation during the main interaction period of the day. It's toxic and these children dread recess it all day long."

Mark Sickel knows this.

Still reeling from his own days on the playground decades ago, Sickel now runs Fitness for Health, a DC-area therapeutic exercise and fitness company for children with special needs as well as athletes and everyone in between. He is calling for a recess-makeover, not unlike the Arizona initiative that flip-flopped lunch and recess.

The concept -- that is, the definition -- of recess, Sickel says, needs to be rewritten. Recess is not, according to Sickel, a throw-away class period. Actually, what happens at recess can negatively (or positively) affect a child as much or more than what happens in academic settings throughout the rest of the school day. "Recess plays an incredible role in the confidence and self esteem of kids," says Sickel. "Because it is unstructured, there are kids who look to pick on weaker kids, it's vultures and falcons searching and seeking prey. For the kids who are picked on, the negative impact overflows into their whole life. Their anxiety levels go up, they become insecure and they exhibit a decrease in academic performance which channels into a further hindrance in their social performance."

Dr. Ellen Dye agrees. "With a little bit more structure a lot of them can become more social and find their way."

Before you get your hair up and read this as a call for recess to go academic, rest assured that's not where this is going. Sickel is not suggesting that any child's recess freedoms be taken away. He says that, yes, recess should remain unstructured. After all, some children excel at unstructured; however, for many others, the recess break is the most feared time of the day, an anxiety-provoking period that sends countless kids to the nurse's office, not to mention the shrink. Recess is emotionally unhealthy for them and Sickel has a plan to help them, a plan that tackles both the mental and physical aspects of recess, a plan that teaches the two ends of the typical classroom construct, jock and nerd for lack of better terms, to work together and learn the basic life lesson of conflict resolution.

In Rethinking Recess Part II, we'll explore Sickel's ideas and see the results of his recess experiments.

Memorial Day: Flying The American Flag Is Not an Obnoxious Statement

2010-05-29T10:15:57-04:00

As citizens all over the United States prepare to celebrate Memorial Day I can't help but wonder whether I should hang an American flag in front of my house.

While some Americans will spend May 31st hitting beaches and lakes, focusing on the fact that Memorial Day is the first unofficial day of summer, still others will attend parades and civic events, celebrating the holiday as it was originally intended, reflecting on those who sacrificed their lives for our freedom. The assumption one might make here is that those attending the parades will hang flags while those at the beach will not. That would be my assumption, my judgment call. But I know how wrong I am to judge.

I won't be at a beach or a parade, I will be at a soccer tournament, but I do own a flag.

Actually, I purchased my flag more than three decades ago on a sixth grade visit to Gettysburg. A day after 9/11, I dug it out of a box marked "Cari's stuff" written in my mother's scrawl. The box with the flag buried deep inside had moved with me into my adult home, but remained stored in my suburban DC garage for years. I pulled out the flag, attempted to smooth out the creases and then, like many Americans in the days, weeks and months after September 11th, I hung the flag proudly in front of my house.

About a year later, tattered and tired, the flag was unceremoniously taken down. It hasn't been hung since.

With Memorial Day upon us, I wasn't completely conscious of my flag-hanging hesitation until I met Alison Buckholtz a military wife and author of Standing By: The Making of an American Military Family in a Time of War. Her feeling, that the flag had been soiled by partisan politics, I came to realize, was exactly what was causing my hesitation, was prompting me to ask if I should fly the flag.

"This is the first year that we have owned a big American flag that can wave from the front yard," Buckholtz told me recently. I was, admittedly, a little surprised. She had purchased the flag, she said, for a photo shoot, for a photograph that would accompany an article she wrote. I was surprised because her husband, after all, is a career military man, a Navy Commander in the middle of a year-long deployment in Iraq.

Alison Buckholtz, her two children and her flag. Photo credit: Matt Mendelsohn Photography

Buckholtz explained that the symbol of American freedom, "the flag, had come to symbolize partisanship. I didn't want to be associated with people who used the flag or who exploit the flag for their cause, for political purposes. But, putting the flag up ... was a really transformational experience for me. I think the reason it was comforting was because I was able in a way to finally see that the flag was a non-partisan symbol which was something that had never dawned on me before. In putting it up it felt like I was almost reclaiming the flag and I was able to see that the flag doesn't belong to any one political party. It sounds really sad to say that it was an epiphany to realize that the flag belongs to all of us, that it belongs to me, that it belongs in front of my house as much as it belongs in front of someone else's. Putting it up or not putting it up is not a statement of patriotism or loyalty, it's a very pure act."

How could an American symbol, more iconic than cowboys and apple pie, more American than even the American Bald Eagle, Mount Rushmore or the Monument, have been abducted by a particular brand of politics? How could Old Glory have become a political pawn, not just inside the beltway but throughout the entire United States?

The American flag, after all, belongs to everyone in the United States, it is a national symbol not a donkey or an elephant that carries on its back a particular political thought process.

What happened to the sentiment expressed by George Packer in the New York Times less than three weeks after 9/11? In witnessing the unfurling of tens of thousands of American flags in the wake of the terror attack, on September 30th, 2001, Packer wrote, "... the American flag now represents a national community that came under attack."

Less than a decade later why does the flag no longer represent that entire commmunity?

"There have been more conservative elements that have tried to capture the flag, appropriate the flag, even wrap themselves up in it," political commentator, columnist and writer, Steve Roberts, said during a recent conversation we had. "I don't think that is appropriate. Every one in the United States should have equal pride in the flag. The flag should be a non-partisan object"

Yet even statistics prove that the flag is, in fact, a partisan tool. According to research by Smart Politics , a website run by the University of Minnesota, House Republicans are "36 percent more likely to incorporate Old Glory into the banner of their page, with nearly half of all House Republicans positioning the Stars and Stripes as the main image on their website."

George Packer's essay in the New York Times, gives us a looking glass view into the way American citizens feelings for the flag transformed in the wake of the terrorist attacks. In the piece, "The Way We Live Now: 9-30-01; Recapturing The Flag," Packer writes that in the decades prior to 9/11 "Patriotism became the exclusive property of conservatives ... My family would sooner have upholstered the furniture in orange corduroy than show the colors on Memorial Day. Display wasn't just politically suspect, it was simply bad taste: sentimental, primitive, sometimes aggressive ... In the days that followed [9/11], we all witnessed an outbreak of civic-mindedness so extreme that it seemed American character had changed overnight. As flags bloomed like flowers, I found that they tapped emotion as quickly as pictures of the missing. To me, these flags didn't represent flabby complacence, but alertness, grief, resolve, even love. They evoked fellow feeling with Americans, for we had been attacked together," wrote the author of Blood of the Liberals.

Yet less than ten short years since Packer wrote of American flags blooming like summer flowers, Old Glory has been appropriated, perhaps misappropriated, as well as debated, argued about, and even nit-picked over.

Seven years ago, PBS Political Commentator Bill Moyers, found it necessary to write about, in other words - explain -- his decision to wear his flag lapel pin on air. Like Buckholtz, Moyers decided it was time to take back the flag.

On February 28, 2003 Moyers wrote, "I wore my flag tonight for the first time. Until now I haven't thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough to vote, pay my taxes, perform my civic duties ...,I put it on to take it back. The flag's been hijacked and turned into a logo ... as if it is the good housekeeping seal of approval. During the State of the Union, did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No administration's patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies ... The flag belongs to the country, not to the government. And it reminds me that it's not un-American to think that war -- except in self-defense -- is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve, and diplomacy. Come to think of it, standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country."

Four years later, pin-less in Iowa in 2007, then presidential candidate Barack Obama spent days defending his decision not to wear that same metal flag pin. "I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest. Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism."

That's exactly how Alison Buckholtz, wife of a career military officer, feels. Flying the flag or not flying the flag, wearing the flag pin or not wearing the flag pin, isn't important. What is important is what's in your heart.

"People would certainly expect me to fly the flag because I'm a military spouse, it's just that I would never have expected it of myself," says Buckholtiz, who grew up in suburban DC as far away from military culture as one could imagine. Now, eight years into her status as a military wife, she writes a column for Slate, Deployment Diary: Notes from a Military Wife. "I valued [the flag] as a symbol but it didn't have personal meaning for me as a symbol. What I see now is that the flag is a pure symbol; it's not weighted. There are no assumptions hampering it, weighting it down. It is a very simple expression of something profound."

I still haven't decided whether I will fly the flag. But thanks to Alison Buckholtz, I know that all that's important is that I know and believe what is in my own heart. And, since I live in the United States, I am lucky that I have the freedom to share or not share those thoughts with my neighbors and my nation.

How to Be a Hero in One Easy Step

2010-04-29T15:09:26-04:00

Six years ago this month, Lisa Peabody's fourth child, her toddler, passed away. She was only 15-months-old. 63 days earlier, at the age of 13 months, Caroline was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Caroline passed out of the Peabody's lives but then, almost miraculously, into the lives of strangers.

"Every day while I sat there with her, hoping and hoping and hoping," says Lisa Peabody, of Bethesda, Maryland, recalling her days in the ICU with her rosy-cheeked, blonde and blue-eyed baby, "everyday the bells would ring and the beepers would go off and the nurses and doctors would shoo me out ... I learned every day that so many of these children were losing a life because they needed an organ, they needed a kidney, they needed a liver, they needed a heart. And I just couldn't believe that people weren't giving. Why weren't people helping while I was watching these babies die?" Peabody says, incredulous, wiping tears from her eyes.

Even as their own child died, it ultimately wasn't a hard decision for Lisa and her husband, Chris, as they began to discuss organ donation.

"Can't we do something good ... can't we help someone?" they asked each other. "We can't be helped," Peabody remembers telling her husband, [but] she has a whole body filled with working pieces."

A tiny little hero, standing no more than two-and-a-half feet tall, Caroline saved many lives. By donating her pulmonary arties, she saved the life of a child in grave need of a transplant. Caroline's heart values, too, saved the life of yet another child. And, still Caroline gave the gift of sight to two more people by donating her corneas. "And I'm very proud to say we helped some other families out there, very proud," Peabody concludes on a video she made and uploaded to YouTube as part of a donor organ awareness campaign produced by the Washington Regional Transplant Community (WRTC). Each day in April, Organ Donation Awareness Month (designated in 2003), 30 Days, 30 Stories, features the emotional story of donor families, recipients and even those who lost loved ones because there was no donation.

DeShawn McMillan of Fort Washington, Maryland lost her mother because some one failed to donate a liver. "If you think about how many people there are in the world ... [yet] we have so many people that are on a waiting list and I think if you just make a conscious decision of signing up to be an organ donor, we can all give something to each other."

Facts:

18 people die every day, due to the lack of organs available for transplant.

Every 11 minutes, a new name is added to the national list.

The average wait for a kidney transplant is 5 years.

"Being an organ donor doesn't cost money, doesn't cost time, doesn't take practice, all the excuses and challenges that we always associate with things," says Kati Penney of Bethesda, Maryland whose daughter Katrina, now in first grade, received a heart donation at the age of 9 months. "Organ donation [is] really just making a decision."

While WRTC's 30 Days, 30 Stories campaign is a DC Metro Area (Maryland, Virginia, DC) project, the power of the world wide web has taken this small but emotional project nationwide, even international, because of the powerful on-line site, YouTube.

Organ donation is a relatively new phenomenon. The first successful transplant was a kidney transplant from a live donor performed in 1954. But according to John Ogden, Senior Public Affairs Associate for WRTC, the first donation by a deceased person was performed in 1962, also a kidney transplant. It would be 10 years before the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act established the donor card which no longer exists, though undoubtedly there are those with that card still in their wallets.

By the late 70s, state-run organ donation programs began cultivating relationships with their individual state motor vehicles departments. Currently, every state in the country but Vermont, has a relationship with their DMV which will automatically ask every registering motorist if s/he will register as an organ donator.

Within the past four years, state donation organizations have begun working together, and the efforts have paid off according to Ogden. There is a now a national on-line registry, www.donatelife.net with links to each individual state-run donor organization in all 50 states.

The new, group-effort is paying off. Currently, 86.3-million people are registered donors in the United States, that's 37.1-percent of all U.S. residents over the age of 18, a 24.4-percent increase since 2007, with an 8-percent-plus increase between 2008 and 2009 alone. In the past three years, Donate Life America says there have been 82-thousand organ transplants, approximately 120-thousand cornea transplants and millions of tissue transplants.

"Briana is ... is the unsung hero who gave Katrina her heart," says Penney who after the transplant sent bi-yearly photos of her own daughter to Briana's mother. Finally, "we received a letter from [Briana's] mother who talked to us about how it has taken her a bit of time to heal. But each year as she receives the cards and letters from us and looks through Katrina's pictures, it makes it a little easier to know that there's another little girl who is out there and is blessed because of Briana."

Kat Clifford of Herndon, Virginia lost her daughter Kylie only three months after Kylie's birth. Her decision to donate her daughter's organs "took probably three minutes. Kylie was gone we couldn't get her back but could we give someone else something? Yes," says Clifford on her WRTC produced, YouTube video.

"In such a time of tragedy and loss looking back [donor families are] able to see the donation as some sort of silver lining," says Ogden. "Nothing is ever going to bring your loved one back, but to know that there are people out there living and breathing today literally because of your loved one. That is an experience that very few people actually have but organ and tissue donor family members."

"Every recipient will tell you the call is an incredible moment in their lives that they will never forget, says Kathryn Turner of Bethesda, Maryland who is alive today because of a much needed liver transplant. "It was a moment of terror, joy and deep sadness because I knew that someone had lost someone they dearly loved... This made me a tremendously kinder, gentler patient person and I look for ways to do something to help someone else. I write my donor family several times a year, just to let them know how much I appreciate this gift, how much I care about them, how much I respect and love their loved one and how I try to keep my body healthy to preserve what has been given to me," says Turner on day 28 of the 30 Days, 30 Stories video.

"I feel as if the gift of life I've been given by this young lady, I was given for a reason," says James Selby of Capitol Heights, Maryland who received a heart and kidney from a 17-year-old victim of a motorcycle accident. He believes he was given the gift of life "so that I could live on and ... be productive for the both of us."

Facts, right and wrong:
• A majority of U.S. adults now wish to be organ or tissue donors: 56% up from 50% a year ago.
• 75% of those surveyed want their donation wishes fulfilled regardless of family desires.
• 52% of people incorrectly believe that doctors may not try as hard to save their lives if they know they are registered organ or tissue donors.
• 19% of people are not sure they would be acceptable donors.
• 48% of people incorrectly believe a black market exists in the U.S. for organs and tissue, up from 44% in 2009.
• 16% of people incorrectly believe a regular funeral is not possible following donation, this percentage is up from 13% in 2004.
• 61% mistakenly believe it is possible for a brain dead person to recover from his or her injuries.

Cheating 301 (Final of Four)

2010-04-15T14:23:24-04:00

"Cheating has become not just a way of life, but a career for some students," says a professor at California State University, Fullerton, who wishes to remain anonymous.

Actually, she's right. If you do a very quick and cursory check of the web, plugging in something as simple as "how to cheat in school," the results are endless. Students can watch videos, read testimonials and follow detailed instructions on how to cheat on tests and homework with or without the help of technology on sites with paid advertisers. Cheating is just a click away.

One site waxes so poetic about cheating, it would appear the founder believes it's the Holy Grail: "'When you cheat, you're really cheating yourself.' Is this true? I say: HELL NO! If you get away with cheating in school, GOOD GOING. I have cheated on tests, homework, projects and other assignments all through my scholastic career, beginning (at least from what I can recall) the 3rd grade, up through college. It's something I take pride in."

On this particular site and dozens of others, students are taught how to cheat using coke bottles, T-shirts, baseball caps, audio devices, body parts - the list is endless.

"They write the info on the inside of the label and as they drink down the beverage, they can see the content they've written," says the CSU professor. "We hand out the exams one-by-one to make sure there aren't any extra copies floating around. It's serious business. We monitor students to make sure that they aren't taking pictures of the exam and then also ones that audio-record it. It looks like they're talking to themselves, but they're really reading the content ... then they transcribe it to sell it."

When giving tests, this CSU professor and her TA's constantly and diligently patrol the classroom. Tables are cleared of everything but a pen. No hats, sunglasses, bottles of any kind. And this is in college.

It doesn't surprise Gregory J. Cizek, a professor at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, since his research on academic cheating shows that by the time students graduate from high school, 80 to 85-percent of them have cheated.

Eric M. Anderman, who studies cheating at Ohio State University in Columbus, says the numbers are alarming and schools need a prescription to curb cheating. He suggests the following:

1) Allow teachers to teach: Allow teachers to teach so that learning is for the sake of learning not for mastery of upcoming test material. "Teachers who talk about why students are learning what they are learning, why the material is important, why it's important to be able to do math or understand poetry or speak French do not have high percentages of cheating in their classrooms," says Anderman. His research shows that the same students who don't cheat in classrooms where learning is valued over testing, will cheat in a classrooms where teachers focus on learning only to pass an upcoming test.

2) Teach teachers how to teach differently: "When I was a new teacher I got a text book and I thought, 'I have to do everything in the text book or I will be short changing my kids.' I look back now and think, 'that was a crappy text book, I should have done other things.' But as a new teacher I didn't know any better. My kids were probably bored to death. But that's how I was taught to teach. They weren't very interested in what I was doing so cheating may have been the shortest way to get from point A to point B."

In the January/February issue of Atlantic Magazine, writer Amanda Ripley takes a look at "What Makes A Great Teacher."

Ripley writes, "First, great teachers tended to set big goals for their students [and] great teachers ... constantly reevaluate what they are doing ... These exceptional teachers do not, as had always been believed, posses a 'magical' quality but rather 'a kind of relentless approach to the problem,' says Timothy Daly of The New Teacher Project (TNTP), a non-profit organization which through years of research, interviews and analysis has defined four specific qualities that separate the "superstar" teachers from the pack." These "tendencies" enable them to take underperforming students who are sinking below grade level to above grade level often in less than one school year. Defining TNTP's qualities, Ripley writes, "They avidly recruited students and their families into the process; they maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning; they planned exhaustively and purposefully--for the next day or the year ahead--by working backward from the desired outcome; and they worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls."

3) Allow Retakes: "There wouldn't be cheating if kids were able to take retakes," says Anderman. "It would be more work for the teachers so many school systems say 'we can't do that, that's not the way it's done'."

4) Parent-Teacher Dialogue: Parents need to advocate for their children. They need to start a dialogue with teachers and "demand," says Anderman, that coursework is relevant and more interesting for the kids. "You will not have as much cheating if the kids are engaged all the time during the lessons," says Anderman. "Making it interesting will enable kids to learn it better which means they would be less likely to cheat."

5) Find Better Ways to Measure Productivity: No Child Left Behind has created an environment that encourages cheating because, "we just judge teachers too much on how many kids do well on a certain test. We need to find other ways to judge a school's productivity," says Anderman.

6) End Public Humiliation: Anderman believes that local newspapers need to stop reporting school test scores. He suggests that the public humiliation of publishing test scores encourages schools to do anything they can to increase test scores. "It's the kind of thing that drives the schools to make their kids do well no matter how they do it."

7) Define the Punishment: "Every school system should have an honor code," says Cizek. "Freshman year, they should be told, 'here's the behavior that you should adhere to.' It has an effect. It gets everyone on the same ethical page. It deters people and it enables people to report. The question that needs to be asked at each school is, 'is there a culture that supports ethical behavior?'" If a school decides that cheating is not tolerated under any circumstances, i.e. a one strike you're out policy, that strong message will mean something to the student and parent body. The problem, says Cizek, is that too many school do not actually have written policies to deal with cheating. "The policies were very clear in the 1960s, for example. Perhaps there was a policy that stated a child caught cheating was expelled. Now, it's not uncommon for a student to be given second chances" or for parents to fight back in defense of their children, to lawyer up and have the matter swept under the rug.

Anderman agrees. "Schools need to have strong, specific policies that specifically state that cheating will not be tolerated. If you want to stop it you need to send a strong message. Teachers have to handle it consistently. It should not be, 'how do I handle it after it has happened, it should be how do I prevent it from happening in the first place.'"

"I find the cheating numbers very telling, says Anderman. "I think it tells us a lot about the culture in schools today. I think people look around and say, 'well everyone else is doing it so its okay if I do it too.' There's a tolerance that didn't exist before."

So what is the answer?

Ditch tolerance and get involved.

Parents should get involved in their children's schools. Talk to the PTA, talk to the principals, talk to Teachers Federation, talk to the Secretary of Education, talk to President Obama! Not to get too dramatic here, but we are schooling our next generation of leaders -- this really shouldn't be taken lightly.

We have the research, but we don't have the action. Not everyone is moving in the right direction and those who are, just aren't moving fast enough. This generation has a sense of entitlement that has been procured by a generation of parents afraid to lay down the law with their children. We need principals, administrators and teachers to call out cheaters and for it not to be so difficult when they do. We need parents to understand that they are not doing their children any favors by "pooh-poohing" their actions. We need to teach parents to say, 'you are right, Johnny broke the rules and Johnny needs to suffer the consequences.'

Like school nutrition and school bullying, cheating needs a good PR campaign because we need to make sure that students are afraid to cheat.

Cheating 201 (Part III)

2010-03-25T14:44:00-04:00

In the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) culture, teachers whose students perform poorly on tests can be fired for not meeting NCLB goals so there is little incentive, other than personal integrity, for teachers to report cheating.

That's a fact, says Gregory J. Cizek, who studies cheating at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "There is really no incentive to vigorously pursue cheaters," he says since under NCLB students who pull in good grades help ensure a teacher's employment while students who perform sub-par on tests can actually mean a pink slip.

In response to a recent cheating scandal that broke in suburban D.C., Cizek wagered that teachers and even some of the administration knew what was going on months, possibly years, before the story broke. "One of the problems is that the teachers didn't really care. I bet there were people who knew what was going on and turned a blind eye because there's really no reward and there's all kinds of hassles involved. Even fellow teachers will say, 'come on, you're going to have all these parents on your case. The administration is going to have to deal with it, it's a lose/lose all around."

Cizek's hypothesis -- that adults knew what was going on and let it continue -- is based not only on his two-decades plus research on academic cheating, but also on the nature of school gossip understood by anyone who ever attended high school. School gossip works this way, explains Cizek: if someone throws a rock at a school window shattering it, within the hour at least 50-percent of the student body knows the name of the rock-thrower and by the end of the day, Cizek estimates, an equally high percentage of teachers and administrators will have also heard the details of the rock-throwing incident. Cizek says it is, therefore, doubtful that after years of cheating the only adult in the school who knew about the cheating was the teacher who eventually picked up his whistle and blew it.

"We had been waiting years for him to be caught. Years!" says a teacher at a different school who had taught one of the students at the center of the suburban DC cheating ring. "Every time we went to the administration about another cheating episode, we were told not to pursue it and the cheating was swept under the rug."

Sounds like a three pointer for Cizek and his theory.

If one takes Cizek's theory into account -- that a school community (students, teachers and administrators) is a small place where everyone knows everyone else's business -- it's surprising and outrageous what happened at an Ohio school last year. In 2009, the Board of Education in Centerburg, Ohio, canceled graduation ceremonies after it came to the attention of board members that a graduating senior had hacked into school computers, stolen tests and given them to half of the senior class. According to Cizek's theory, not only did half the students know about the cheating, but half of the adults at the school knew as well. Yet, the students were the ones punished for not blowing the whistle.

Ultimately then, NCLB, enacted by Bush II in 2001, has created a negative environment in which learning is no longer the objective, but rather grades and, as it turns out, job security. Under NCLB, schools -- that is teachers and administrators -- must meet certain goals. Penalties for not meeting those goals (measured in percentages of As to Fs) can include loss of funding or, in many cases, teacher tenure. At a Rhode Island school recently, every staff member, from administrator to teacher (in total 93 people), were fired in one fell swoop.

If teachers aren't reporting cheaters and students are being taught that grades are more important than substance, our schools are planting a poisonous seed that may bloom into a generation (or two) of cheaters. In other words, we are teaching that cheating pays. That begs the question: will all of our middle and high school cheaters grow up to be Bernie Madoff's? Doubtful, say the cheating experts with whom I spoke.

But, how do we really know? So many of our upstanding citizens, role models, politicians, corporate executives appear to be just that -- upstanding -- until a scandal breaks and then we see what's really been going on. What we really need is a cheating study that tracks students from high school into adulthood. Then we'll know for sure if there is a correlation. After all, the adage, "once a cheater always a cheater," doesn't necessarily have to refer only to adultery.

Pro-active changes must to be made before "Cheaters Anonymous" centers crop up as a post-graduate cheating cure.

Cheating SAT-style (Part II)

2010-03-14T11:10:17-04:00

The month of March means different things to different people. For college basketball fans, March may mean March Madness; for those seeking more daylight, March can mean "springing forward" as we change our clocks for daylight savings time (Sunday at 2am, by the way); for others March means bursting flower bulbs (daffodils and hyacinths are my favorites), and for still others March gives hope that shorts and t-shirts will soon be coming out from their hibernation. But for college-hopefuls, March means the SAT, more formally known as the Standardized Aptitude Test.

March 13th is the big day this year, the 14th for those who celebrate the Sabbath.
While the students will spend the better part of four hours worrying over Math and English questions, the biggest concern for those in the security office of the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which administers the test, is cheating. The security surrounding the SAT is so high that it conjures up images of the Declaration of Independence, pre-National Treasure.

Considering the numbers, security should be a big concern. On an average SAT-administering day, there are 6-thousand centers conducting tests.

The SAT, first administered in 1926, has been governed by ETS since its inception in 1947.

With 24-million tests administered per year at 25-thousand test centers in 192 countries, ETS has administered nearly 1.5-billion tests in its history. Not just the SAT but other high profile exams such as the Advanced Placement exam (AP) and the Graduate Record Exam. The LSAT (law school) and the MCAT (medical school) are not administered by ETS.

ETS, which employs 35 people in its Office of Testing Integrity, has cheating prevention down to a science. That said, its job is not to prove cheating but rather to make sure that an individual's score is up to the standards of the Educational Testing Service. "If our standards are not met, we can question the score," says Ray Nicosia, Executive Director for the Office of Testing Integrity at ETS. "It's not our job to prove cheating. We don't get into banning 16 year olds from taking the SAT for years for copying on a test. We are just concerned with that one score, that's our process. Keeps us out of court. We're not saying that the individual test taker has cheated, we are saying we have reason to question a score."

If, however, an adult is involved with SAT cheating, perhaps with impersonation of a test-taker or by providing answer keys to stolen tests, then ETS does pursue criminal action.

"The overall security of the test from its inception is very detailed. We don't just worry about the classroom," says Nicosia. "My responsibility begins in the building itself, where people are writing the test questions. We secure our buildings, we vet out the hundreds of test writers before we hire them to write questions for the SAT, we oversee background tests, we have secure vendors to print the SAT, we have security that comes with the transporting of the books from the vendor to ETS, we ship our books to the testing centers in a secure manner, a traceable manner. At the test center there is a test center supervisor, someone used to handling confidential material. Their job is to secure the books upon delivery, to hire staff, make sure the staff is trained and knows what to do on Saturday morning."

Despite all that, Nicosia says, there is cheating. And, it's the wandering eye -- not technology (cell phones, video cameras, etc.) -- that continues to be ETS's biggest cheating challenge.
And so, on Saturday mornings rooms are set up so all the desks are facing in one direction, spaced at a particular distance to hinder the wandering eye; ID's are checked, friends and acquaintances separated and proctors directed to walk the aisles. A proctor who sees a student with a cell-phone can dismiss that student immediately at the site, notes Nicosia. "We have given them that authority." When the test is over, students are not dismissed until all the books are accounted for.

"We spend a lot of time and money on trying to prevent anyone from getting an unfair advantage," says Nicosia. "Having said that, we know that students are still going to copy, or have an impersonator, we know it's going to happen."

And so there are the "after-the-fact checks" which are based on a variety of triggers or red flags. The most typical trigger is a large score difference between a first SAT score and a second score. Since the ETS security office personnel are trained in handwriting analysis, a big score-jump means the test-taker's handwriting is analyzed. The analysis will confirm whether the test-taker is an imposter, either someone hired to take the test, or a sibling or a friend. If handwriting is cleared, the office does a "copy-check," investigating whether the questionable student and those sitting nearby answered the same questions incorrectly.

"If the only thing we have is the score jump but we don't have a missing book, or we don't have a handwriting difference, or the answers are not matching up with anyone else's, we will clear the case and release the scores. But, if it doesn't meet our standards we will go forward and question the score."

In such a situation, ETS will contact the student and offer him or her a series of options to resolve matter. "You are allowed to cancel, you can just walk away. We will even give your money back. We win in court because we have compelling evidence and we give ample options to resolve the matter," says Nicosia. And because the test-takers sign a contract saying they understand the rules and conditions of taking the SAT.

Often, an investigation into a score comes from outside ETS. A college may request an analysis if a student with a C-average and no APs (Advanced Placements classes) gets a very high score on the SATs. "That's a red flag for a school but not for ETS, which doesn't see school transcripts," explains Nicosia.

ETS may also investigate student scores if there is a large score jump in one city or even in one school.

There's also a hotline, launched by Nicosia a dozen years ago. Anyone with information about a cheating student can call, or fax, or e-mail ETS with a tip. ETS will then look into the situation, though no scores will be challenged without a full investigation. "Students will brag. Sometimes kids will say, 'yeah, I got a fake ID and my brother is going to take the test for me.' They brag about it before the test and so we'll take extra steps on the day of the test to catch the cheater."

The end result. There's very little cheating on the SAT. According to Nicosia who has been overseeing SAT security for 20 years, 99-percent of the students who take the test follow the rules. In other words, only one-percent of SAT test-takers cheat. That number is vastly different than research on high school and college cheating which shows that 80 to 90-percent of students cheat on tests, papers and projects given by their schools. Given the discrepancy, we're left with this most obvious of questions: why is there such a discrepancy? Is it because Nicosia and his crew have made it so difficult to cheat? Or, could it be because the rules and consequences laid forth by ETS are so well-defined that students understand risk isn't worth the result?

To reach the ETS hotline call:1-800-353-8570 (U.S., U.S. Territories, Canada), 1-609-406-5430 (all other locations); Fax: 1-609-406-9709; or E-mail: TSReturns@ets.org.