Yesterday, my firm, HJMT, moved to Greenway Plaza, 145 Pinelawn Road, Suite 300 South in Melville, NY.  We relocated our corporate headquarters from Westbury because the building that we were in for more than six years went into foreclosure and our lease was up for renewal.  We decided that it was time for a change, so we found a great space and decided to go for it!

Besides the wonderful people who manage the building and all of the building’s amenities, including a health club, restaurant and Estee Lauder shop, the office is amazing. We are excited to unpack and get ourselves organized.

When the movers came to our Westbury office at 8:15 am, they started to pack up everything.  However, they forgot the packing tape.  So, at 8:30 am, I was on the road looking for places that sell tape.  I finally found a Staples in Glen Cove and it ended up costing me $145 for two dozen roles of tape!

It’s funny how every time you make a change, there are always problems.  For example, the phone guy worked with Kristie Galvani from my office for several hours the evening before the move.  He said everything was in perfect order. When we plugged in the phones today, there were three phones totally out, including mine.

The IT people also spent a great deal of time in my office.  I’m hoping that when we walk in to work in the morning, everything will be in working order.

Besides from my anxiety about the change of scenery, one of the best parts about moving to this new office is the parking spot.  I know this must sound really strange, but when I went to do a walk through in the office, I was shown the four reserved HJMT spots with a sign.

There’s just something about that sign that just makes me smile and feel good about our accomplishments.  As we approach our 20th anniversary, I’m excited about the opportunities that will follow…

BTW, our new phone number is now 631-393-0220.

One day, Canadian-born Lola Spriggs’ new CD, Nobody But You, appeared in my mailbox, courtesy of her publicist. I do love hearing from new artists, so I didn’t mind at all popping this one in and listening to it.

Nobody But You has six songs, with one song, “The Game,” written by Spriggs.

I was immediately struck by the fact that Ms. Spriggs has a great voice. She has a nice range and her voice is pleasing to the ear. Many of the songs on Nobody But You also have nice harmonies. If you close your eyes, you can visual her being in a small nightclub singing her heart out. All of the songs have a theme of love and the music is tight throughout.

The first song on the CD, “I Wanna Love You,” starts with a country twang and then settles into a pop groove. It has a relaxed beat which helps set the late night FM mood. She sings, “I wanna love you like the rain comes down and I’m falling for you. I want to be with you baby til the sun comes up. I only dream about you and it’s not good enough.”

“I Wanna Love You” is the type of song that a woman may appreciate as she falls into an unrequited love.

The title track is a lush, beautiful love song. She sings, “Nobody but you make me feel so right. You are my light on the darkest night.” This would make a perfect first dance song at a wedding. Its mellow beat invites lovers to hold each other close while the harmonies bring emotion to the surface.

Interestingly, “The Game,” which was written by Spriggs, is very different than the rest of the other songs. It is a pretty song but it changes the mood and might be better suited to a new age album.

The last song is “Nobody But You (Remix).” The remix has a stronger drum beat than the earlier track and it’s a nice way to finish off the CD. As the disc ends you cannot help but walk away with a wry smile on your face.

While classified as a rock album, I found it more in line with adult contemporary. If you are looking for a light, airy album with lovely love songs by an artist who can really sing, Lola Spriggs’ Nobody But You is for you.

Article first published as Music Review: Lola Spriggs – Nobody But You on Blogcritics.

I am a social media enthusiast and read a lot of books on the subject. Social Media Judo – The essential guide to mastering social media and delivering real results for your brand, by Chris Aarons, Geoff Nelson and Nick White with Dan Zehr, is one of the better books I have recently read. The book provided real concrete information on how to change behaviors and motivate consumers to buy your products via social media.

It is different than many of the other social media marketing books because most of the other books focus on the social networking aspect of marketing. This book brings you into the core, the blogger.

Bloggers are often overlooked and underutilized, but when they are cultivated and have relationships with you, your brand will be more likely noticed.

The authors  from the firm Ivy Worldwide, provide the reader with concrete tips and strategies on cultivating relationships with bloggers, including:
• Be direct and personally engaged
• Provide content that will drive traffic to their blog sites
• Don’t just push your brand
• Provide them with content that their readers would be interested in
They talk about a successful campaign called “31 days of the dragon,” in which they utilized bloggers to get the word out about a new product introduction. By doing so, they orchestrated the launch by having different bloggers write on different days to get maximum exposure. As a result of this, the product had 14% increase in web site traffic; 84% increase in sales and the company set monthly sales records.

The authors say that Social Media Judo gets the brand the maximum amount of impact for the least amount of effort. That’s the analogy. Throughout the book, there are quotations from famous judo experts that although relating to judo also relate to the social media aspect of a campaign.

Whenever Ivy Worldwide shapes a campaign, they shape their approach around the following:

•    They tap into the network of key influencers (bloggers) and use existing momentum to spread the word.
•    They make sure that the program is mutually beneficial to both bloggers and the brand. •    They make sure to build relationships with bloggers as opposed to exploiting them every time they need them.
•    They also make sure to think about and interact with their key influencers online and offline.

One of the more interesting campaigns was when the HP brand targeted college bloggers and gave them $4,000 to throw a party and introduce their product. Ivy Worldwide made sure that the product introduction was not the main element of the party; it was something that was there and used to enhance the experience. These parties were very successful and as a result sales increased significantly.

But, the authors said you need to be careful about the tie-in and connection with your brand. For example, did you know that Office Max underwrote the “Elf Yourself” campaign? I didn’t know that until I read this book and obviously others didn’t know this as well. Although the video went viral, no one related it to the product.

The last four chapters of the book focused on:
•    Learning to fall – brands make mistakes, it’s how you handle these mistakes that can make or break your brand.
•    Mastering the basics – who are your target? Why use the blogger? How influential is the blogger, etc.?
•    Focus on balance – Make sure to go with the flow and keep the message intact.
•    Free practice – social media is part of a marketing campaign.
•    The contest – The authors write, “in judo, the objective is to win the match, and in business and marketing, your job is to grow the bottom line.”

I was pleased to see that the authors felt that bloggers and key influencers were the target and from there, these bloggers or key influencers will get the word out to their communities via social networking sites. Further, I was happy to see that we both had the same beliefs – that social media is not a stand-alone activity. It needs to be incorporated into the overall marketing campaign.

This was a well-written book with great insights into organizing and preparing a social media plan for your brand. Anyone in brand marketing, social media and/or PR/marketing can get a lot of useful information from this book.

Article first published as Book Review: Social Media Judo by Chris Aarons, Geoff Nelson, Nick White and Dan Zehr on Blogcritics.

Related articles

• Book Review: Social Media Judo by Chris Aarons, Geoff Nelson, Nick White and Dan Zehr (blogcritics.org)

There is only two weeks left to the New York Road Runner’s (NYRR) training course that my daughter and I signed up for nearly 10 weeks ago. Every Thursday evening, we would “schlep” into New York City from Long Island and run with the NYRR.

What I loved is that every run was an entirely different experience. On this day, our goal was to run two and a half miles around Central Park. This was one of the hardest runs that the Beginner Intermediate group did thus far.

Although I was never really hungry after our runs, my daughter would be starving, so on this day after we finished, we walked across 81st Street to Third Avenue. On all the other days, we walked uptown on Madison where there were very few restaurants or we would stroll to Lexington. Since we live more than an hour outside of Manhattan, we would be all sweaty from the run.

On Third, there were a ton of restaurants ranging from Mediterranean to Asian cuisine. We picked a small French restaurant called Brasserie Julien.
We walked in wearing our Nike clothes and Mizuno sneakers and the Maître De escorted us to a table. “Would you like to sit in the front or the back?” she asked.

Since it was live jazz night and the band was extremely loud, we told her to put us in the back.

We were seated at a quaint little table in the back. Every table around us was taken. The waiter was frazzled. He kept running back and forth from table to table. It seemed as if people were complaining, but I wasn’t 100 percent sure.

We were served a half glass of tap water. The waiter came by and asked us what we wanted to order. We told him we wanted burgers.

He quickly ran into the kitchen and that was the last time we saw him. Twenty  minutes later, someone came over and dumped a small piece of French bread on our plates. They were burned on the bottom and stale. Since my daughter was starving and at that point I was hungry, we gobbled down the bread.

Another 10 minutes went by and I finally saw the waiter and called him over. “What’s going on with our burgers?” I asked. He told me he had to check. He ran quickly into the kitchen and stayed there for at least another five minutes.

“I’m ready to walk,” I said to my daughter.

The waiter finally came out. He came over to our table and said, “I don’t want to lie to you, but the kitchen lost your ticket.”

“If you want to continue waiting another five minutes, I promise I will bring out the burgers,” he said.

“We’ve been waiting for forty minutes already,” I said nicely. “Do you really think that we can get our food in five minutes? We live on Long Island and we need to get back,” I said.

“Yes, I promise five minutes,” he said.

My daughter put her timer on the iPhone and we waited. “Seriously, if he’s not back with the burgers in five minutes, we are out of here,” I said to her. She agreed.

Four minutes went by and there was no sign of our waiter. The people who came in after us got served their dessert. We watched them eat and we drooled. We were so hungry!

We picked ourselves up and left. As we walked out the door, I told the hostess that we were sitting at a table in the back for forty minutes. “I’m sorry,” she said, unsympathetically. She didn’t offer us anything and just let us walk out hungry.

When we got to the car,  I drove downtown on Second Avenue in search of a pizza shop on the left hand side of the street. Did you know that from 81st Street to 34th Street there were no pizza shops? (If there were, I missed them…)

We got on the Midtown tunnel and drove back to the island. When we pulled into the driveway, my daughter and I realized that my daughter’s car was in Westbury. She met me at work to drive in with me.

“I don’t believe this,” she said. “This has been the worst night ever.”

“The run was great,” I said. “Everything after that stunk! But you know what? At least we had this experience together. And, any time with you is precious time!”

Article first published as A Runner’s Diary: Note to SelfL Never Go to Brassiere Julien’s, Especially After a Run on Blogcritics.