If you’re thinking about buying an iPad, here are two frank posts I’ve found from my friends Jason Baer and Francine Hardaway that spell out the pros and cons.   Take a read before you buy – the feedback will either hasten or delay your purchase timing. 

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-tools/the-truth-about-the-ipad/

http://blog.stealthmode.com/2010/04/ipad-answers-for-jason-calcanis/

Since I travel to Rhode Island every month for 1-2 weeks at a time, I asked Jay whether I should take an iPad or a laptop on the trips– his reply:  “Linda, if you had to do real work during the trip, Macbook. If it was truly a vacation, iPad all the way.”

If you happen to subscribe to the Arizona Sunday edition, or visit the travel section at www.azcentral.com, you may have read about the father/daughter team, Mike Hayes and Maureen Nowland, who have hiked the complete Arizona Trail from Mexico to Utah.

That’s one way to get into the newspaper  - when you or one of your clients accomplishes an unusual feat.   [Side note - that's also the theme of an excellent post on Techipedia about how to get the attention of influencers - 'be epic,' says one]

It all started in April 2004 when Mike and Maureen saw an article in the travel section about a father-son team who had hiked the Arizona Trail.  Growing up,  Maureen and her family often went car camping for vacation.  She continued this tradition with her husband Steve, and on a Labor Day camping trip with her dad in 2004, they started talking about the article.  Mike threw down the gauntlet by saying, “If you’re serious, let’s put something together.”

So she and Mike started in April 2005 with the first hike.  To keep the memories of their experiences alive, Mike decided to write it down. He initially contacted the Arizona Republic about the possibility of publishing the installments, but the editor at the time turned them down, so he contacted the Kingman Daily Miner, where he lives, and they started publishing the articles. A couple of years ago, Mike contacted the Arizona Republic again and this time the editor in charge was extremely interested, as she had hiked with her dad in the past.

The Arizona Trail is approximately 810 miles, 43 segments long. From start to finish, it took Maureen and her dad 4.5 years to complete the trail. Maureen’s husband Steve helped out often with car transportation to and from the start and end points of each segment, and accompanied them on some of the hikes.

If you’re mentally prepared for it, says Maureen, you can do anything. They ran into so many beautiful vistas and mountain views that they ran out of adjectives to describe it all.  The hiking for the most part was safe, just grueling.  The only time she was nervous was when they had to set up a tent once in the middle of the Huachucas when they got off track, “since you don’t know where you are.” 

Some of the trail segments are extremely aggressive, and Maureen confesses that at one point, she lost her interest in continuing the project. Mike and Steve persuaded her not to give up, however, and they finally completed the trail in October 2009, just shy of Maureen’s 50th birthday.

Maureen and Mike did something extraordinary and finally connected with a newspaper editor to publicize it.  Or as Robert Scoble says in the Techipedia link above, to get the attention of the influencers, “Do something interesting.”

Try to read current books on PR, like "New Rules," instead of relying on the old traditional practices

If you’re wondering where to go for the best PR counsel, my best advice is just to read as much as possible of current information, including blogs and news articles online. The reason is that the public relations advice that even societies like the Public Relations Society of America tout isn’t always keeping up with the rapid changes in social media. Two significant examples are product launches and crisis communications.

There used to be conventional approaches to how to launch a product, particularly if it’s a tech product, as well as traditional advice on how to react and what to say during a crisis.  Public relations certification, known as the APR (accredited in public relations) is built on certain theories about how these events should be managed.

Not so fast. This week there were two very important posts by Robert Scoble and Katie Paine that contained significant insights into how PR is being handled these days.  In Where O where did the great startup launch go? Scoble shares the launch approached used by a company called Bug Labs.   They did 4 things that were significantly different, he says, from the typical big conference launch that most companies do:

1. They got intimate. Had dinner with four people. (Seesmic, by the way, launched when the CEO brought a bottle of wine over my house and he forgot to tell me that it was off the record).
2. They told a story. “Why is gadget design so hard?”
3. They involved and listened. “What would you like to build if you had a widget that snapped together like a Lego kit?”
4. They shipped a product that was interesting and useful and reflected market feedback. (Many of the ideas we gave them are now shipping modules).

Instead of making a big splash at a conference, paying big dollars at events like DEMO for the opportunity to participate, writing a press release, or bugging industry reporter to write about them, ”He invited a handful of people he liked, trusted, and knew would be interested in a new kind of gadget, and had dinner with us.”

To succeed in 2010, you may need to go against conventional PR wisdom.   Similarly, in her post, “When none of the old rules apply – new theories for crisis management,” Katie cites a doctoral study that examines the media releases and the media coverage of the major financial services companies three months before and three months after the financial crash of fall 2008.   The findings?  “The standard crisis messages and “doing the right thing” just doesn’t work any more, at least when you’re dealing with an industry (as opposed to a company) . The resulting new hypothesis is that there may be a different set of rules for risk mitigation and crisis management in an industry/economic crisis in distinction from a crisis affecting one company (Tylenol).

So my advice – and you can take it or leave it – is that if you have a product or service to launch, or a crisis to respond to, don’t automatically assume that the tried-and-true folklore of PR is necessarily the right approach. The best, and in my mind, only way to stay in touch with an evolving discipline is to take the responsibility to read constantly.   Even your own PR agency or rep may not be up to speed.   Frightening.

In Provence, France, I smiled for the camera but I was in intense pain

I was on a plane trip to France in 2001 when it first happened – sitting there in coach, halfway over the United States, I felt pain and numbness of my entire right leg, from ankle to mid-butt. By the time we landed in Nice, I was almost in tears. Our weeklong vacation was marred by the constant, irritating pain I felt – it kept me up at night, and I couldn’t enjoy our sightseeing. I dreaded riding in the little European car we had rented.  The return flight to Phoenix was no better, even with a change of planes in New York City, and it took me several days to recover from the pain.

Flash forward a few years – while working full-time in 2006 for a client here in Arizona, the pain returned. My right leg felt so numb that I kept turning to look at it closely in the mirror at home, expecting to see blue, purple or even green veins from the sensation that there was no circulation in the entire leg.  But the leg looked normal.  I could not find a comfortable position to sit or lie down. The pain increased over the next few months but I continued to endure it, not sure what was happening.

The diagnosis

Finally, the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2007, I returned to work after a week’s break and, only two hours into the work morning, felt such intense teeth-biting level of pain in my right leg that I had no choice but to leave work. Completely frustrated, I finally scheduled an appointment with my doctor. He ran the usual MRI tests to see if there were any herniated discs, but my spine came back “perfect.”   Nerve tests also revealed no nerve damage.   After listening to my symptoms — numbness down the entire right leg, a burning hot core of pain in my right butt, and unrelenting intensity, he concluded after some thought that it must be piriformis syndrome.

The piriformis muscle tightens around the sciatic nerve, causing intense pain

If you work in a profession that requires a lot of sitting time, such as high-tech, call centers, or even truck driving, you might someday find yourself in the same situation. There is a muscle in your glutes called the piriformis. In a certain percentage of the population, the sciatic nerve runs through the piriformis muscle instead of around it.  If the piriformis is compressed continually over time, typically from a seated position, it can end up in such a clenched state around your sciatic nerve that you get to the point of no return — the nerve pain is sudden and intense.  Getting that muscle to release is impossible, as I found out the hard way.

How do you avoid this problem? Simply, don’t let your business passion overtake your common sense. For my entire career, I have sat at a computer, usually so engrossed that I failed to get up and walk around and take breaks. This characteristic became my downfall when I launched my own business in 2001. It meant I no longer had corporate meetings to break up that day, and I could sit happily at my desk typing 8 or more hours daily. When I temporarily left my business to work full-time for a client here in Arizona, I was also sitting eight hours a day, working on public relations and competitive analysis — all extremely computer-intensive.   Think of cement trucks – the barrels are always moving so the cement doesn’t harden.   You need to keep moving. 

 I’ve had other friends complain of the same numb leg symptoms when they have sat on long international flights. Still others who like to run long distances experience similar symptoms. In fact, I found a forum online full of people with the same issues, most of whom have had piriformis syndrome for years. We are all confounded by this malady and searching for the magic bullet.

The last 26 months have poised an interesting dilemma for me. I had to leave the client and take time off to recuperate.   I had to deal with the knowledge that I no longer could work full-time in an office situation and continue my career down that path. I had to deal with the strange embarrassment of carrying a pillow with me wherever I went. The first year, I was not even able to drive and had to lie down in the back of my husband’s truck while he drove me everywhere.  The only funny thing was when I would pop up to talk when he was stopped at a light , much like a corpse popping up out of a casket. It always startled the drivers next to us.

I tried everything

All this because I was too committed to my work.   The best selling authors and speakers all talk about having passion for your work; I doubt any of them mention the dark side of too much computer time.   I had many people offering suggestions, all well meaning friends who confused the problem with spine-related sciatica, a different animal entirely and much easier to diagnose and treat. For the last two years, I have tried all of the following with no luck:

• steroid/cortisone shots
• acupuncture
• physical therapy
• heat therapy
• ice therapy
• electronic stimulation of the muscle
• piriformis “stretches” (lie on your back with your legs in the number 4 position)
• Vitamins E, D, B1, B12, C
• meditation tapes
• magnetic patches
• yoga
• chiropractor
• massage
• lidocaine patches
• personal trainer to build up adductor and abductor muscles
• Cymbalta (often given to diabetic patients for nerve pain)
• Trameel
• muscle relaxants

How I treated it

I tried all of these remedies, with no improvement. So, I did the only thing I could do – I stood.   For hours.   I watched movies at home standing up. I practiced cooking recipes because I could do that standing.  To pass the time, I bought a Dymo labeler and labeled everything in the house that didn’t move.  I typed standing up. I met friends for dinner at bars, so I could stand at a bar table while they sat on a high stool next to me.  Try standing for an entire meal at a restaurant  — I had many people offer me chairs, not realizing that a chair was the last thing I wanted. I stopped going to movie theaters, no long car trips, no conferences.  When I absolutely have to fly, I always take Southwest and spend most of each flight helping the attendants hand out snacks and collecting trash to avoid sitting.  In summer 2008 when I had to fly east, I was in so much pain that I flew in three segments over several days, staying with friends along the way:  Phoenix to Omaha, Omaha to Chicago, Chicago to Providence.  

When I have a long sitting situation coming up, I now take two pillows and a couple of Lyrica pills.   I still end up paying for it with pain for several days after, but it’s the only way I can get through unavoidable situations that require me to sit. 

My trusty "tuffets" - 2 Wal-Mart pillows

After two years of standing and giving my piriformis as much freedom as possible, I’m happy to say that if I’m extremely careful, I can maintain an almost normal life. I still take my pillows with me everywhere, and they are definitely well traveled.   One unexpected result of all this standing — I went from a size 8 to a size 4.

Check out these resources on piriformis syndrome

If you’re having pain in your legs and you are in an occupation that requires you to sit quite a bit, whether on plane flights or in an office environment, here are a few resources to check out.   The best time to take care of the symptoms is before or as soon as they start — if you let it go too long, you might end up like me, buying pillows at Wal-Mart.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piriformis_syndrome - Wikipedia definition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuxclPpwTLQ - YouTube video by Dr. Aaron Filler in L.A., explaining the difference between spine-based sciatica and piriformis syndrome

http://www.runningforums.com/Piriformis_release_surgery__anyone___-t19559-0-asc-0.html - Started in May 2004, this particular section of runningforums is where people with piriformis syndrome share their challenges, pain, surgery results, and other solutions

Graphic can be found at www.return2fitness.co.uk

I’m now 5 months into unexpected elder care.  Many people have urged me to list some tips for others who might be going through this process. So here’s a candid assessment of what I think my family did right. 

The background:  my 85-year-old mother was still living by herself in the New England home that she and my father purchased in the early 60s. She was diagnosed with colon cancer a couple of years ago, and was undergoing biweekly chemotherapy treatments. Despite urging from her family friends and neighbors, she resisted any effort to even contemplate moving from the house into independent living, let alone take action.   To make matters worse, she grew up during the Depression and hoarded everything.

Last August, I flew out to visit her and found her holed up in her bedroom with severe stomach pains and not having eaten in several days. I called an ambulance, and after several tests in the emergency room, it was determined that she had a hernia. She subsequently underwent surgery, then went to rehab for four weeks, and after that point her oncologist stated that it would be impossible for her to return to independent living in her house.   He also was halting chemotherapy for good because he did not feel her fragile condition could withstand it.

• Almost 15 years ago, we proactively put all of the kids’ names as co-signature authority on mom’s bank account.   This enabled us to quickly assess her financial affairs when the crisis occurred.
• Just this past March, we used the services of one of my high school friends, who practices family law, to update mom’s will, power of attorney, and health care power of attorney.
• My mom let us know where in the house she kept most of her important papers.
• 10 years ago, and then five years ago as an update, I sent her a questionnaire to fill out. In it, I asked as many questions as I could think of to ensure that when “the time” came, we would honor her wishes as closely as possible, including what music she wanted played at her funeral, whom she wanted notified, and where her plot was.   Many families may find this gruesome – to me, the most gruesome thing is trying to figure out what your loved one would have wanted with nothing to guide you. Better to research this years ahead.
• In the years since my father passed away in the early 80s, we removed as many items from the house as mom would let us (which wasn’t much) in an effort to stay on top of the clutter.
• Just a few years ago, I took her through the house and asked her to identify some of the antiques and glassware. As she told me about each one, I wrote the information down and taped to the underside of the furniture or put a small piece of paper inside the glass.
• When she was moved to rehab, we only had a couple of hours to decide where she would be taken. (Warning – it is typical for hospitals to only give you this little notice before your parent is discharged). We chose a rehab center that was close to the hospital, in the event that she might have to go back on ER trip. As it turned out, she did have one incident during rehab and fortunately the hospital was only two minutes away.
• We met with an eldercare lawyer early on to ensure that we understood all the estate tax ramifications.
• Although it was in a rush, we researched all the assisted living and nursing home options in the area, and chose one that was extremely clean, close to all her friends and neighbors, and most important of all, had the best meals.  We ate several meals at the facility unannounced.
• We went through all of her bills and eliminated all the unnecessary ones to save money.
• We divided the house contents into categories:   pure recyling, paper with addresses/personal info that needed to be shredded, items to donate, items to be appraised, items to be sold.
• We hired Shred-It to come to the house to pick up and destroy all of the paper to prevent identity theft. 
• We trusted our instincts. Something told us to hold off starting hospice right away, even though we were urged to do so by rehab, and as it turns out, according to some state laws, if you have already started hospice you are therefore not eligible for assisted living.  Had we jumped right into hospice while she was in rehab, we would have had no option but to put her in a nursing home after rehab. She is much happier in assisted living.

We’re still learning as we go along.    If I could change one thing, it would be that we had addressed the “elephant in the living room” more directly – i.e. her inability to make decisions – and forced her hand.  If your elderly parent lives close to you, it isn’t such a challenge.   Mine lives a 5-hour plane trip away, so the tasks at hand are a little more daunting, even in this 2.0 age.

I sat in on a helpful media breakfast this morning, featuring three editors from Scottsdale media and put on by PRSA’s Phoenix chapter.   No matter whether you’re pitching Scottsdale media or just pitching editors and reporters in general, they had useful tips – here’s a breakdown of what we learned from Peter Corbett of the Scottsdale Republic, Michelle Glicksman of So Scottsdale and Scottsdale Health magazines, and Kimberly Hundley of Scottsdale Airpark News:

• Media in general prefer local calls vs. calls coming in from NY, LA, etc – the local people have a better idea of the pulse of the community and its publications
• Reporters appreciate it when PR contacts make the information understandable.  “Get to the point, break it down (no jargon).”  One phrase given as an example of jargon was “business solutions” – so strike that from your press release copy!
• With smaller staffs at the publications these days, the reporters’ jobs are more challenging
• Extremely aggressive PR tactics are discouraged
• Because of the economy, editors like Michelle are stretched thin.  She relies on PR people more.  Downside – she can’t always be at events, since she handles so much of the publication activities, from concept to coordinator to the words on the page.
• All three editors prefer email vs phone calls.    
• It helps to save time and effort if you run the story idea by your media contact and write the copy, based on her input regarding angle.  
• Many editors don’t answre the phone at work.   Best line of the day:  “Some people believe in the power of the phone.  DON’T believe in the power of the phone.”
• The panel discouraged PDF attachments because they make it difficult to cut and paste.  Use Word if you have to use an attachment.
• Make it easy for your contact to use photos – don’t send her to an FTP site and tell her to download what she needs.
• Cut to the chase in the subject line of the email pitch you send
• Make sure you have the business address in there
• If you list a client, make sure they’ll talk when called
• Make sure of your facts
• When you send photos, make sure they’re high-resolution, jpeg format
• Social media is especially good if you h ave something as a giveaway or discount, which the publication can then tweet to their community
• The separation of church and state (advertising and editorial) isn’t as rigid as it once was.   Magazines have to put their advertisers first, and often have to pass on competitors’ stories.  

So many PR pros provided tips on my Valley PR Blog post for saving money during this recession that I’ve compiled them into one comprehensive list:

• Reduce your professional memberships to only PRSA
• Be diligent about loyalty programs (MaxPerks w/ OfficeMax, Best Buy Rewards, etc)
• Read “Your Money or Your Life:  9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence,” by Joe Dominguez.
• Take advantage of grocery discounts for those age 50 and older
• Cancel your TV and cable
• Eliminate wine from your purchases
• Walk to work when/if you can
• Cut back on movies and concerts
• If you LOVE movies, use the Harkins loyalty cup and popcorn T-shirt to save money
• Buy wash and wear clothes so you don’t have to dry clean
• Shop for clothes at consignment stores
• Buy used cars or better yet, pay off the amount so you have no monthly car bill
• Increase investment tactics that will generate a return, such as networking groups
• Go to the grocery store just once a week vs. several times (plan ahead)
• Run outside (if you live in the right climate) instead of paying for a gym membership
• If you do use a gym membership, shower at the gym and save the hot water bill at home!
• Instead of going out to dinner, get together with friends at someone’s house and each bring a dish
• Don’t splurge on elaborate coffee drinks
• Stock up on creative materials from Michael’s, so you can make your own greeting cards and gift bags
• Listen to Pandora instead of iTunes
• Use a bike to do errands instead of your car (again – if you live in the right climate!)
• Keep any credit card balances at zero
• Get books at the library
• Use coupons
• Use senior discounts if you’re old enough
• Cut and color your own hair
• Try always to repair instead of replace – clothing, appliances.  It’s amazing what duct tape can fix!
• Price prescriptions before buying 
• Have physicians prescribe double the dose of drugs in order to split them and stretch the prescription
• Use low-energy light bulbs
• Sell clothes at consignment shops
• Use a toaster oven instead of the entire oven
• Eliminate the business line in your house and use your cellphone
• Use a pay-as-you-go cellphone – costs only $60/year
• Visit www.naughtycodes.com to check if there are codes for discounts before ordering anything online  
• Do your own manicures and pedicures
• Eliminate unnecessary magazine and newspaper print subscriptions
• Learn more website info yourself, so you don’t have to outsource to a designer
• Buy or make your holiday gifts throughout the year, when you see “deals,” instead of gangpiling everything up in December

Got any more tips?  Please share!

Dave Barnhart

Today’s guest post is by Dave Barnhart of Business Blogging Pros.  A social media strategy consultant, Dave has been neck-deep in the Internet since the days when the post powerful search tools were gopher and veronica — long before the World Wide Web existed.  Dave’s passion is helping his fellow Boomer-generation business owners master social media and successfully use it to grow their companies. 

Adding Video to your Blog

Video – not text – is the most compelling online component. Nothing humanizes you like video.  People get to see that you are a real live human being.  Your passion comes through far more easily in video than in text.  Plus, Google loves video.

Yet few people are incorporating video into their blogs. The reasons vary, but one that always comes up is the technological barrier – Most people simply don’t know how to get video onto their blog.

First a disclaimer: I am not an expert in the field of shooting or editing video.  The focus of this post is to describe how to put the finished video on your blog, but it would be incomplete if I did not say at least a few words about shooting and editing.

Shooting video

Have you noticed that many YouTube videos are professionally produced to look amateurish? One of the things YouTube did for us was to lower our expectations of video production values. A professional videographer with a $10,000 camera can produce really nice video. For what most of us are trying to accomplish, however, that is overkill. I shoot video using my decrepit old Sony PC-105 handicam. The Flip camera is inexpensive and so small you can carry it everywhere.  My advice: If you are going to shoot video of yourself get a camera with a remote control.

Keep video short.  I recommend no more than 2-3 minutes and today even that may be too long.  I recently completed shooting a series of videos intended to aid my personal branding efforts and each video clip is about twenty seconds long.

Editing

Programs like Microsoft Movie Maker and Apple’s iMovie have made it incredibly easy to edit video.  I’m a Mac guy and though I own higher-end tools like Final Cut, I use iMovie to create most of my short video clips.  One of the benefits of iMovie is that it comes with royalty-free sound and music clips.  It can even upload your video to YouTube when you’re done editing.

 Hosting Your Video

The simplest thing is to use YouTube (http://www.YouTube.com).  Create an account there and upload your video.  While viewing your video, look for the field labeled ‘Embed’.  Copy the HTML of it.  Create a new blog post, click on the ‘HTML’ tab and paste. 

Why host your video on YouTube and not on your blog? Because that way YouTube (or whatever your video hosting service is) takes the storage and bandwidth hit instead of your blog.

Another popular video hosting service is Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com).  The attractions of Vimeo are that the video quality is generally higher, Vimeo supports longer videos than YouTube (YouTube limits clips to 10 minutes in length), and it doesn’t look like just another YouTube video.   The downside is that Vimeo cannot be used for commercial purposes.  Vimeo defines ‘commercial purpose’ pretty broadly.  For detail see http://vimeo.com/guidelines.

Move up the scale a bit and you find Screencast.com (http://www.screencast.com) from Techsmith, the same folks who produce Camtasia. Screencast is pretty easy to use with a very flexible permission structure.  For small amounts of video you can get a free account limited to 2GB of storage and 2GB of monthly bandwidth. A high-capacity account is only $9.95 per month.

Did you know that Amazon S3 (http://aws.amazon.com/s3/) is great for hosting video?  It requires a little more technical know-how to set up and use but it is very inexpensive (15 cents per GB per month up to 50 TB).

Displaying Video on Your Blog

Here’s where the rubber meets the road, right? Services like YouTube, Vimeo, and Screencast make it simple to display the video right in your blog.  Just copy the ‘embed’ code they provide (It’s called ‘embed’ code because it usually begins with the html <embed> tag) and paste it into your blog. 

 Hint: Unless you want your readers to see the html of the embed code instead of your video, be sure to click on the ‘HTML’ tab your blog’s ‘Create Post’ page.

 But what if you are using Amazon S3 or hosting the video on your own site?  Flowplayer (http://www.flowplayer.org) and JW Player (http://www.longtailvideo.com/players/jw-flv-player/) are two Flash players that are available free and are accompanied by instructions simple enough for almost anyone.  Even easier, Wordpress plugins are available for both Flowplayer (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/word-press-flow-player/) and JW Player (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordtube/).

 Flash, You Say?

Both Flowplayer and JW Player are Flash Players.  Flash (file extension FLV) is a video file format originally created by Adobe and has quickly established itself as the format of choice for embedded video on the web. These players are designed to play FLV or MP4 files.   If you are planning to use FlowPlayer or JW Player in your blog see if your video editing software can output in one of these two formats.  If not, then you’ll have to convert it.  Probably the most common conversion tool is ffmpeg (http://www.ffmpeg.org).  It is a command-line application and so it’s a little geeky.  There are Windows and Mac versions available, and more information is available here (http://flowplayer.org/tutorials/conversion.html).

With helpful tips like these from Dave, I plan to incorporate more video into future blog posts!   LBV

Travel USED to be a lot of fun.   Ever since 9/11, it has been a complete hassle.    A few years ago, meeting planner expert and professional speaker Corbin Ball published this list of travel tips – amongst the best I have ever come across.  Sharing the link with you today:

A Frequent Flyer’s Guide to Reduced Travel Stress

©2005 Corbin Ball Associates

Here’s one I hadn’t thought of before:

People in New England are different.   There is NO doubt about it.   Here are my tips for working with them if you have clients, PR brethren, or vendors there (and for those of you unfamiliar with which states are technically in that part of the country, it includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island):

1).  Speak quickly.   Don’t dawdle or drawl.  They HATE that.

2).  Don’t make a joke unless it’s really witty.  

3).  Use humor as much as possible.   (see above)

4). Walk around with a Dunkin Donuts cup or box.  

5).  Wear darker colors.

6). Let your hair just grow – for goodness’ sakes, don’t style it – you’ll immediately look out of place.

7).  Learn the vernacular – “color” is coluh, “Rhode Island” is “ruh-disland,” “idea” is “idear,” “liquor” is “likka” – you get the idea. 

8). Ignore their gruff exterior.  They don’t even know they’re doing it.  Use some wit and they warm right up.

9).  Tell them you love the Red Sox.   Do NOT wear ANY Yankees shirts, caps.  (You might see a few Yankee logos in Connecticut, admittedly).

10).  Don’t hum in public.   My husband was doing that early at the gym this morning, and they all started backing away.  He can’t help it – he’s from Wisconsin.

Twenty years in Arizona have definitely warmed me up, literally and figuratively.  But I still get impatient if people don’t get to the point quickly or if they resort to humor I consider the “obvious, low hanging fruit on the apple tree.”   Seinfeld said once in an interview with Barbara Walters that he thought comedians on the east coast had the best humor because they had to work harder to overcome life’s daily weather and traffic challenges.   When you go futher west, he said, the lifestyle gets easier, so you don’t have as many hurdles, ergo less of a need to meet them with humor.    That’s debatable, but I see his point.