I met Mary Foley through Cheryl Smith at LinkedIn… I took Cheryl’s advice one day and just started introducing myself to random people there. One day I get a call from Mary telling me that she is the key note speaker at an event in  Lynchburg and would love to meet me. I introduced myself after she spoke, and we ended up talking for hours. She has ended up being a great business contact for me – a long term relationship. 

LinkedIn is now adding applications that your business needs to take part in. Check out Chris Brogan’s article on Linked In: Drop Everything and Run to LinkedIn Now!

Yesterday I went to an sixth annual Breast Cancer Awareness Luncheon by M.A.A.M (Mammograms Annually  A Must) at Lynchburg College here in Lynchburg, VA. 

Keynote speaker Mary Foley, author of Bodacious! Woman: Outrageously in Charge of Your Life and Lovin’ It! did an inspiring message on how to ‘Live Like Your Nail Color.‘

Now, I am not going to go into detail about what four steps to “living like your nail color.” (Men: I hope you don’t ever try that). But I do want to share something that Mary said that really struck me. She instructed us to change our nail color often. If you are like me, you have a color set that you like and you stick with it… you don’t have time to re-do your nails more than a once a week… if that. So you end up putting extra coats on… to cover up the chipped pieces (Chip happens . 

So, why in the world would I need to change my nail color? 

I don’t think it is so much about the way that our nails look, as it is about what it says about us. Are we WILLING to try new nail colors? If not, then what in life are we not willing to do?

I was so inspired that I went out and bought a new nail color to add to my very small collection. I’m not going to tell you what the name of the nail color is, but I chose a color that reflects how I am feeling lately. 

What I realized – however – is that the color is almost the same as any other color I normally wear: a dark, deep, crimson red. This to me screams strength, courage, tenacity, in-charge.

I am comfortable with that! I like what that says about who I am as a woman! Why would I change from something that WORKS for me, someone I already strive to be?

I would like to take this model and apply it to businesses:

As businesses, do we try new colors on? What would be the benefit? Or do we find something that works and stick with it? And by not “reinventing the wheel” do we become boring? Or do we brand ourselves as stable, confident and reliable? 

Comments welcome.

I went to Rebec Vinyard’s wine festival this last weekend. It was a fantastic event with vendors lining the pathways to live music, food and of course, wineries. Rebec has some fantastic wine, by the way (I liked Autumn Glow). My favorite was the Peaks of Otter “Fruit of the Farm” wines like Strawberry Shortcake and Blueberry Muffin.

A few things I noticed at the festival:

1) Social media is “da bomb.” I saw my realtor’s son at the festival, who was not with his mother, whom I have never met. How did I recognize him? Social media. Facebook pictures, Flickr photos, whatnot. We just redid Nannette’s blog – and we linked it to Flickr where I saw a picture of her son. Isn’t it crazy how social media works?

2) Author testimony: I spoke with the author of ‘The Kokopelli Journals’ who had a booth at the festival for her books – she told me that she is self published and hasn’t used a distributor because she has sold so many copies at the festivals. I thought that was a great testament to the power of face-to-face selling.

Online social media will never in a million years replace the power of face to face networking. But if we use it right, it can increase and enhance constant contact so when we are in-person, it is that much better!

I love cause marketing. Companies may not always have the right motive when carrying out a campaign based on a good cause – but if you are going to put money into marketing, at least it is also benefiting society.

Here is a great example of a campaign by American Express for clean water.

Thoughts?

Here are some stats from Technorati on the state of the bloggosphere. See the full report here.