Things We Can Do

All Praise to Luddites! This weekend my family and I drove 3 hours into Michigan, past PawPaw and into Alleghan and stopped at Fat Blossom farm. There our friends Jake and Liz own a small organic farm. Jacob and Liz actually have 47 acres of land of which only 2 acres is farmed. We are the first family of the share holders for Fat Blossom, as well as being good friend's of Jacob's mother so we were there to work. I use the term loosely because we also brought with us our 3 kids, all of whom are under the age of 6 and because due to scheduling conflicts we arrived at 5pm on Saturday night. But we woke up with the sun on Sunday after an insanely torrential downpour which resulted in a near midnight dash from our tent in lightening to the house where we slept on the floor.

"If you want to engage the consumer, really get them spending time with your brand offer them a service not just an ad." - AdAge I think this maxim is absolutely true in terms of what makes a brand stick. I also think this is absolutely true of what the real Web 2.0 , some now dub 3.0 will be, and perhaps even the secret to fully monetinizing the web, UTILITY. The movement in this the next wave of the web is toward cleaning up all the junk we spewed in Web 1.0, because it simply is no longer true that if you build it they will come. There's too much built. If you're lucky they will try to come, but along they way they will stop off at Hulu or Youtube and poke around in Facebook and your brand is lost. People are busy. We know this. The consumer is harrassed, our goal, the goal of advertisers should be to acknowledge that and look for ways to make things easier, more useful and relevent. Crispin just got the Microsoft account they're biting this one right in the fa...

Sometimes Sunday really does feel like the day before Monday..especially late in the afternoon right before dinner, when your hanging in that middle zone as the days activities wind down and the dinner/bath/bed crush has yet to kick in. Then it's Sunday the day before Monday and work and lists and all the things you didn't quite finish last week. Sometimes, I will admit the thought creeps in and I think yeah, can't wait to get back at it...'cause this week I'm gonna....but other times it's like, quick, deflect...through up the wall..duck! Ok but this blog is supposed to be about the Things You Can Do..to make this life more livable for all...sustainable for the planet ..and generally just better, nicer,cleaner and safer for us all. So today's thought is from the Sunday NYT - Americans throw away and therefore waste some 93 billion tons of food a year. We but too much, cook too much, serve ourselves too much etc and all that food in the trash creates more gre...

So much has happened since we last spoke. It's a little crazy. Big, real things like a hurricane in Burma/Malaysia and the "military government" not allowing in foreign aid. Or an earthquake in China that has devastated an entire region. And everyday things like my youngest daughter learning to walk. And historic things like the Democratic primary showdown of a lifetime between two of the most historically significant candidates, in US history, practically ever... Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The one thing that jumps out at me at right now is the struggle for balance. Every day..everywhere my friends, family and co-workers are all looking for that elusive balance between work and play, self and community, art and commerce, motion and stillness. Most days if I am honest I can accept that there isn't any such thing but then again...the only ray of light that I see is in the search. Oh and there are beautiful and worthwhile subtractions, pieces if you will...Design...

I haven't written in this blog for quite awhile. There simply is not enough time. My digital life while deeply amusing is definitely getting a little out of control. I Stumble, which informs my delicious which I have yet to connect to my Facebook, so I took down my My Space Page, which was only getting spammed by people who wanted to be "friends" with Mom's anyway and don't get me started on Twitter...which is all in addition to checking the Ad sites and the politco sites and the news sites and of course one of my favorite sites Digg, why I barely have time to watch my favorite sci-fi videos on Afterworld and I do want to know why Robert is the last man on earth. Even as I write I am trying to type this while Lila my 1 year old is trying to figure out how it works, she just hit F11, which on a Mac is, i forget what it's called but I call it, Clear Your Desk Now! all the open windows hide. The thing is...and the thing we can do is to stop...just a little bit. I...

I am writing today to get a hit on the We feel fine site. http://www.wefeelfine.org/mission.html But honestly I feel like macaroni trying to come to a boil in luke warm water for like 5 hours. And the things you can do with that! I don't know. have a great day! -elena

On starting a new job yesterday.... "Always we hope someone else has the answer. Some other place will be better, some other time it will all turn out. This is it. No one else has the answer. No other place will be better, and it has already turned out. At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. There is no need to run outside for better seeing. Nor to peer from a window. Rather abide at the center of your being; for the more you leave it the less you learn. Search your heart and see the way to do is to be." -Lao Tzu i hope i can remember this 3 weeks from now, 6 months from now... -elena