Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Summer 2013: Bring your ice skates to the Jersey Shore, Westerly, Rhode Island

Angst about global warming has mutated into spiraling commercial concern about the implications of global cooling. 

This Memorial Day weekend the hospitality industry got it between the eyes with the sudden frost in the northeast.  Instead of trying to figure out when there will be low traffic across the George Washington Bridge and Garden State Parkway to the Jersey Shore, we figured to just forget the whole thing.  I hunkered down and have been working through the weekend.  Global cooling, more than Sandy, might deep six prospects for resorts in the tri-state area. I have to assume that the parking lots in Westerly, Rhode Island are not full.

In FORBES, Peter Ferrara provides the history of Ice Ages.  If we are in for a mini Ice Age, then everything in business changes.  The cost of heating and what it sucks off from discretionary consumer spending should scare the jesus out of industries ranging from retail to second homes (does any middle class professsional want to have to pay for heat at two locations?) There's more.  The homeless will have a bitter struggle.  There will be little respite from the need to get out of the cold.  And, all of us will have to re-think how to recreate.  Increasingly we'll not factor in a week by the ocean.

Here in central Connecticut we all have our heat on.  No one in this senior citizen complex is sitting out on the benches in the courtyard.  The spring in our step which came with the sun is gone.  The rent includes all utilities such as heat.  Can we anticipate that the rent will then go up?

Don't Know, Do We: Six-hour retreat, New Haven, CT Zen Center, June 15th

The Kwan Um School of Zen celebrates that we humans just don't know.  Once I got a hang of that, my communications business surged.  I realized I only had to make the client look good.  There was no need to display all I knew.

On Saturday, June 15th, the New Haven Zen Center will explore Not-Knowing in a six-hour retreat.  It will be hosted by guiding teacher Paul Majchrzyk, JDPSN. There is a sliding scale fee.  You can find more about that on the website under "Update Page."  The address is 193 Mansfield Street.  Fine to park right on the street.

For more information contact the New Haven Zen Center at info@newhavenzen.org or call 203-787-0912.

In a less structured way, you can be introduced to Not-Knowing at the Center every Wednesday at 6:30 P.M.  That's free. If you want to hang around afterward for chanting and meditation, that's also free.  Every Sunday, from 9:00 A.M. until 11:00 A.M. there is sitting and walking mediation. That's free too.

Breast Cancer: We know the research, where's the cure?

"My daughter's aunt had breast cancer." 

That's all my college friend had to say.  What woman hasn't done comprehensive study of all the research?  I knew what the genetic tragedy was.  And its devastating implications.  The very young woman - my friend became a parent late in life - had cancer.  Surgery this week would disclose if it had spread.  There will be a double mastectomy.  

We know so much about breast cancer.  Yet where's the cure?  That's as frustrating as knowing so much about the patterns of mental illness and not having effective, enduring treatments.  Another college friend contacted me five weeks ago. Her 38-year-old is mentally ill.  The diagnosis is paranoia.  Where's the cure?  The daughter sits in her parent's home, not doing much.

The 20th century was about the celebration of science. The 21st century has to be about a push to ditch the theory.  Let's return to the American genius for solving real problems.

 

In Jane Austen's Time, Gala Event Was the Big Ball: Now, it's whatever for networking

In my doctoral studies at the University of Michigan I would deconstruct the world of Jane Austin's novels.  The event was the big ball.  Mothers talked about them endlessly, hoping their daughters would meet their future husbands. What young females in the village hoped for was that their dance card would be full.

Today, as a hustling ghostwriter/speechwriter the big event is being invited to a whatever where there will be brandname players to network with.  I lucked out.  Because I'm on the invite list for a gala birthday party, already those with plenty more influence, power, and wealth are checking my LinkedIn profile, reading my blogs, and even emailing me.  The outcome I'm hoping for is that my assignment sheet will be full. 

I have to wonder if special events in a society were ever purely social and meant to enjoy.  Were humans ever allowed to be without an agenda?

The Non Lean Ins: We wobblies are doing fine

According to the Lean In evangelists, the world is turning into a jungle of female lions who rule everything.  I have met one on Facebook and it wasn't pretty. There are a few others in my 12-step support group.  My objective is getting in and out of the meeting fast without any real connection with them.

Amidst this infliction of Leaning In on us, there continue to be those with a wobbly sense of self who are doing fine.  I am one of them.  At age 68, I am still an emotional mess.  But, I am earning a very good living through keeping clients delighted with my ghostwriting and speechwriting.  I have reared three dogs and seven cats.  They lived happy non-obese lives.  I help underemployed Baby Boomers re-start the fire in the belly and get more work.  I have kept myself out of the nut house, jail, and bankruptcy.  What's next?  I have ruled out becoming a Buddhist nun.  My eye is now on a vacation home in Rhode Island or Ecuador.

The Leaned-In Woman will soon face a profound backlash.  The Wobblies like me are more in demand.

Influence: The digital game has changed in blogging

Unless you're selling advertising, you might forget monitoring the overall traffic on your blogs.  Where influence is coming from is not from the average of visitors.  Instead, it now happens via the one well-done post which goes viral.  Because on the web we're operating in a niche marketplace, the right people will see it.  Likely they will pass on that post to more of the right people. 

Soon enough there are invitations on LinkedIn to connect. There is a surge in views of my LinkedIn profile.  The phone rings with requests for information about how I work and what I charge.  And I get more confidence.  In this era of uncertainty when we all wonder about The Next, believing in ourselves is everything.

More of my best thinking is now invested in zeroing in on the right topics, with a provocative angle.  

NEW HAVEN REGISTER Obits: Remote condolences

The newspaper industry now can digitally link families of the deceased with those who want to express their condolences.

This week the NEW HAVEN REGISTER published the obituary of a professional acquaintance - Bob Stanley.  For 30 years he had worked at Aetna insurance.  Next to that is a Guest Book.  In it we can record our thought about our relationship with Stanley.  We can also read the reflections of others who knew him.   

This remote collective mourning has been surprisingly satisfying.

Cockroaches: No wonder we Jersey City kids are so resilient

"You keep bouncing back!" That's what both my friends and enemies remark. 

Now I can answer, "I owe it all to the cockroaches I grew up with in Jersey City."  Their own resilience taught me mine.  AP reports that the current issue of SCIENCE explains how cockroaches in Florida developed glucose aversion within five years.  They did that to prevent getting poisoned by sweet-tasting bait traps. 

In Jersey City, no matter how fastidious a person was, once roaches entered the apartment (we were urban kids) they were never going to leave.  I observed.  Then I applied those survival and comeback lessons to my own career challenges.  My business is bouncing back nicely from the last recession.

Thank You for Not Sharing Your Photos

No question, we're in a visual era.  But  I have come to select my new friends on the basis of if they spare me the constant updating of their lives and those of their families and pets through photos. 

It used to be in our Baby Boomer youth, young adulthood, and middle age that this visual rite happened only at Christmas.  That cute dog with a red-stocking hat made it onto the family Christmas card. Now, it's several times a day.  And not only on Facebook.

Call it photo fatigue.  I thank my new circle of friends for not sharing their photos.

Anthony Weiner, The Candidate: What's he up to?

Anthony Weiner carries the Scarlet "L" Letter, standing both for "lewd" and "liar."  He has entered the race for mayor of New York City as politicos distance themselves and polls show he's not doing so hot.  So, we have to wonder what's he up to. 

Could this be a dry run for something else, to test the waters as to how badly he has damaged himself?  As the saying goes, you don't know anything about anything until you're in it, doing it. He has prepared for this with a high-profile media campaign, including a lengthly feature in THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE.

Or, does he have the ego strength to believe he could win?  His message is targeted at New York City's middle class who have been losing ground.  Can he convince them that he has come to save them?

Or, is the guy delusional? Comebacks are made all the time.  Among them has been Henry Blodget who heads BUSINESS INSIDER.  However, comebacks take time.  The sinner has to spend enough time in purgatory.  Weiner hasn't.  Andrew Cuomo, after his political and marital meltdown, spent considerable time in the political wilderness.  It was enough time. 

Most political shows are fascinating to observe and deconstruct.  This could be simply sad.  The timing is off.