Miss Representation: How Media Dictates The Role o...

http://www.vimeo.com/7465168

The trailer above is for a film coming out called Miss Representation, which I first saw on Meghan’s blog. The interesting thing is I’ve been thinking a lot lately about women in positions of influence and how hard (and lonely) it must be at times.

I come from the stock of one such woman. A brave, glass-ceiling-breaker, take no prisoner Mom. She started her own business and had me and was a single mom by the time she was 25. She sold her business and started another (or three) and worked her way through running a business, having a family (along with me two other young daughters by then too with my step-dad) all the while putting herself through business school and then her PhD. Serious stuff. She’s among the greats, the better than greats.

But it wasn’t always easy.

It wasn’t always easy to see how much she was sacrificing for me (as her own daughter) but also for all the legions of other women out there striving to get ahead and have the luxury to be whatever and whoever they wanted to be.

And how far have we come? Some perspective.

• Women are 51% of the U.S. population.
• Women hold only 3% of clout positions in the mainstream media (telecommunications, entertainment, publishing and advertising).
• Women are merely 3% of fortune 500 CEOs.
• Women comprise 7% of directors and 8% of film writers in the top 250 grossing films.
• The United States is 84th in the world in terms of women in national legislatures.
• Women hold 17% of the seats in the House of Representatives (the equivalent body in Rwanda is 56.3% female).
• 91% of plastic surgery procedures are performed on women. The number of breast augmentation procedures in this country increased more than 700% between 1992 and 2004.
• As many as 10 million American women have a potentially fatal eating disorder.
• Approximately 1 out of 6 American women are victims of rape or attempted rape.

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Walking Across America...

This video above is the final version. Compare that to this one…

The one above is the behind the scenes version. Which do you like better?

I saw this video originally on my friend Drew’s blog and I was immediately reminded of one dear friend who had a dream to walk across America. And I believe one day he will (to quench his desire for a journey, he biked across America instead).

But when I saw the video on Drew’s blog all clean and shiny – yeah – I mean it’s awesome. Let’s face it. The final version always looks pretty good. It’s the nitty gritty daily grind of life that is hard. And so when I clicked on the Walk Across America YouTube page and then saw the map of where they traveled, I got lost for a few minutes in thoughts of my own journey.

Sometimes it’s clear to me, it’s a Temper Trap song perfecly in sync with my every step.

But often it’s not. It’s messy. It’s undefined. It’s life smack in front of you every day. It’s an internal back and forth to be who I want to be and match who people think I should be or who I think I have to be for people. It’s giving and getting. It’s searching and being utterly lost and becoming found again.
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Reflections From The First International CrisisCon...

Back in January, when the earthquake happened in Haiti, I felt like I do in all catastrophic disasters. Sick to my stomach. Human suffering is always hard to see, but for me, I’ve always been really sensitive to the suffering of others, and my whole life these instances had left me feeling like what could I do to help. Me, only one person.

As I’ve grown into my activist and humanitarian roles, technology has helped me find a place where I feel like I belong in the response. It’s not my primary profession, per say, in life. But it is a place where I feel like I can make a difference.

How?

Sometimes, from using our voice. Our voice online has the ability to multiply and make a bigger impact. Using your voice on the internet (and this could be Facebook or your own blog) is a way of standing up for what you believe, asking questions, and seeking answers.

That’s what happened to me in January. The earthquake happened and I turned to the Internet to see what the response would be. I had heard of Transparency Camps happening last summer, but only pieces, as I had been in the Philippines on my Kiva Fellowship. I had heard more about CrisisCommons from friends like Alex Rose and Chad Catacchio and with my incessant need for information learned more about the Camps. I started to see them pop up around the country and people were reaching out to me, since I now lived in New Orleans, asking to connect with people who had been instrumental in the response for Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and wondering when there would be a CrisisCamp in New Orleans.

From the bottom of my cause-filled activist heart, you could say this is how I was roped in to creating CrisisCampNOLA.

I was helped by Robert Fogarty, who himself has a nonprofit focused on evacuation techniques called Evacuteer.org and by Barrett Conrad, who leads up a monthly developer event in New Orleans and could tap into those networks to get developers to attend.

So I had Alex and Chad rooting me on, and Robert and Barrett partnering and helping shoulder the load, and the local New Orleans community donating space (LaunchPadNOLA), food (Naked Pizza) and press/promotion (New Orleans Tech) and all of the pieces were coming together. But more than all of that, all CrisisCamps would be remiss not to mention Heather Blanchard.

Heather’s passion for creating CrisisCamp and moving CrisisCommons into a viable entity were never far off from the overall goal of having a successful campaign.

http://www.vimeo.com/9385869

We held CrisisCampNOLA, we invited local Haitians to come and tell their stories and we built a local response and also helped on the national scale. It was, by all means, a success.
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Shop For A Cause...

Every Thursday this summer, come back to The Causemopolitan to read a guest post that will inspire you right up out of your seat to get involved and give back in a special series called Cause It’s Summer! Featured bloggers will be sharing their own reflections and stories, tips and resources, and perspective on philanthropy, social entrepreneurship and their own cause-filled life. This week welcome Tori Mistick, and listen to her advice about how to shop (or clean out your closet) to support a cause.

*****

You don’t have to start a charity or donate hours upon hours of your time to make a difference in your community. Just try cleaning out your closet! This is something that most of us do anyhow, and you can make the most of it by making sure that your gently used garments go to a thrift store or charity that benefits your local community.

Here in Pittsburgh, where I live, I have worked closely with the thrift and consignment stores owned by the National Council of Jewish Women, Pittsburgh Section. Their thrift stores accept all kinds of thrifty goods such as clothing, furniture and home accessories and at their upscale consignment store you will find women’s clothing, shoes and accessories with an exclusive pedigree. Donating items to these stores allows the NCJW to raise money for their many local projects such as Suit Yourself, which provides free business clothing to people re-entering the workforce, and Children’s Rooms in the Courts, which provides ano-cost place for kids to play rather than listening to their parents battle it out in court.

Working with the NCJW, I found that the way to really help them raise money goes beyond donating items, they need you to shop with them for new things! This is how the stores make money and the organization can continue to do good work locally. So if you want to have a cause filled summer, get out and shop for a cause!
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Introducing Answer With Action...

I have an exciting announcement to make! My marketing and strategy consulting website is now live. It’s been a long dream of mine. Answer With Action started as a boutique networking group in Los Angeles for socially conscious young professionals offering volunteer events and networking opportunities with my good friends Alexa Brandt and Joey Soto. Putting action to our ideas about how to get people more involved with cause inspired us. This new direction is really exciting for Answer With Action and the sky is the limit, but I wouldn’t be here today with those two amazing ladies and I’ll never forget that. So there you go! Answer With Action.

Please welcome me in introducing Answer With Action to the world! Contact me about getting started on your big ideas at sloane (at) answerwithaction.com.

What is Answer With Action?
ANSWER WITH ACTION is about taking big ideas and making them happen. Answer With Action is about inspiring you to take your small business, company or nonprofit to the next level. Answer With Action is about combining online tools with offline engagement and creating a robust conversation about you, your brand, your services, your products, and your events.

Answer With Action is a New Orleans-based integrated marketing, digital media and public relations consultancy. Create campaigns and events that have an immediate impact on your business and learn how building relationships online using new strategies and tools can transform the way you communicate with customers, vendors and donors. Answer With Action creates opportunities for you to learn, adopt and implement new media into your existing business. Answer With Action will help you build cause marketing campaigns to broaden your audience and create more depth and sincere story-telling into your current strategy. We provide short and long-term engagements with clients including website reviews, training sessions, webinars, and speaking opportunities to help your business go to the next level by understanding how your content is consumed and make it accessible to your target audience.
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First Quarter Review: Acknowledgments and Influenc...

When I think back on the beginning of 2010 years from now, I will remember it as a whirlwind. How else can I ever explain moving to a new city, diving into new projects and clients, entering my first contest (EVER) and then winning and finding myself in Switzerland days later for the World Economic Forum then jumping back to New Orleans for festivities already described?

Through it all, my main and most important constant has been the amazing Taylor Davidson and Carl Nelson. Without these two NOLAlicious wouldn’t have happened, would not have grown and I would be experiencing this new city without them – an idea so preposterous I can’t even imagine it.

It’s not just their spirit, it’s their ability to launch new projects, take ideas and make them happen and be tremendous friends.

The influences I’ve had this quarter are many. The Young Global Leaders I met at Davos moved and shook me, and the opportunity to connect with incredible individuals at talks I’ve given this Spring including at Rise Austin and SXSW. But if I had to pick two, it would be Taylor and Carl.

And (selfishly) I want them to stay in New Orleans as long as possible, which means they need support for their projects. Let me share…

Narratively: Taylor’s a true photographer. In high school he wrapped his own film, shot it and then developed it himself. As a photographer he’s shot landscapes and weddings, creative series and had public shows and self-published a book. As a lover of photography, he knows cameras and how to promote photography and has written extensively about how to make money as a photographer, the future of the stock photo industry and where the industry is going. In addition to photograhy, he now offers his services as consulting to share experience and wisdom for other aspiring and established photographers and also online strategy and marketing for brands. His approach is analytical yet thoughtful and I recommend hiring him in any capacity you can.

The Dancing Nomad: Carl is an amazing dancer, to be sure, but the fact that he can teach dance makes his contribution to both New Orleans and the dance community that much stronger. Classes in Lindy Hop and Charleston can be had out of his Shiny Step Studios and he consults to other dancers and dance studios about how to navigate the social web and find a space online to promote their business and services. You can sometimes find him busking on Royal Street in the French Quarter on the weekends or at The Orange Couch in the Marigny. I completely recommend taking one of his classes or hiring him for online services.

Here’s to many more experiences with both of them and to more reflections and posts about those who move and inspire me in the months and years to come.

First Quarter Review: Top Posts...

Starting in April, I think I’ll summarize my top posts from the past month, but as part of the series of posts reviewing the first quarter (and promise to myself to be reflect and commemorate more), here are my favorite 11 posts (so far) from 2010.

• Three Exciting Announcements: This is the post where I announced NOLAlicious (now at it’s 15th edition and growing rapidly), my contract work with FSC Interactive on the Ochsner Health System social media strategy team and my segment on LPTV for social entrepreneurship. In 3 months, these 3 projects are among my favorite.
• Dear Future Me: Of all the future me’s I write, this one by far is my favorite. It was also a big step to share it, and I felt really brave for putting this foot forward and challenging myself to be more open and honest.
• Crisis Camp New Orleans: After the earthquake in Haiti, I knew I had to get involved. I looked around and asked friends and after about 72 hours heard about Crisis Camp. Since I was (and still am) new to New Orleans, I knew I needed to enlist someone to help make a local event like this a success and finding a great partner to do that was wonderful. Putting on Camps are a lot of work with a lot of reward and it was truly amazing the spirit of the people who came out that day to help create technology tools to help emergency response teams in Haiti.
• I’m the new MySpace Wall Street Journal Citizen Journalist for Davos! What is there even to say? I truly was overwhelmed and amazed by the response I go from friends all over the place who voted for me, supported me, sent me notes of encouragement. It was an opportunity of a lifetime and I can’t even being to describe the way that attending Davos changed my life and my perspective on the world. My biggest wish is to attend again, it was remarkable and huge thank you again to everyone for your support in helping make this dream come true.
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First Quarter Review: Changes and Upgrades To The ...

This is the first of three posts reviewing the first quarter.

Life goes by fast and I’ve found if you don’t stop and smell the roses, well, it passes fast and it’s hard to look back and remember things. Remark on them. Tell those you care about how much those moments COUNT for something.

A friend of mine told me of an exercise where she takes the printout of her calendar and at the end of each month writes on the back what she is most proud of, who she is happy she connect with or who impacted her the most that month and then looks forward to the next month.

I’ve been wanting to do that for every month of 2010, which of course didn’t happen. It was a whirlwind and instead of fighting the wind, I succumbed to it. I was wrapped up and twisted into post-Davos, Superbowl, local election, Mardi Gras mayhem, trips to Los Angeles and SXSW and wouldn’t you know, a truly terrific cold and cough that once I recovered from, I was staring down the face of mountains of work. The work I love! It just leaves little time to post, to write, to share.

No matter. I can go back and recount what happened a few weeks ago, a few months ago. I’m no less busy now, but sometimes you just have to force yourself to MAKE time. This is me making time.

So looking back on the first three months of this year, I’ve decided to break the posts into three parts:
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Meet Me In New Orleans...

Since I’ve moved to New Orleans the most magical thing has happened…I’ve had visitors nonstop. Sometimes they’ve been friends coming to town to see me, sometimes they’ve been here for a conference or a wedding or work, but regardless of WHY they were here, they reached out to say something like, “Hey Sloane, I’m coming to New Orleans and I’d love to get together with you.” Somewhere in that simple outreach, I’ve had some of the best and most thought-provoking conversations of 2010.

I wanted to say thank you to those out-of-towners not only for your friendship but also for the stimulating conversation, the opportunity to have really quality one-on-one time with you talking about life, business, politics, life dreams and everything in between. Since my blog is an extension of me, I wanted to have a blog post that I could update with my visitors so I can look back at the end of 2010 and my one-year anniversary in New Orleans and reflect on those who have crossed my path during their own travels to this town I’ve come to love so much.

Talking about New Orleans to visitors, showing people around, highlighting my favorite nooks and crannies and exploring new ones reminds me of all of the reasons I moved to New Orleans and keep me fresh, excited and inspired. In all honesty I don’t have time to meet with everyone who connects or reaches out to me, there is only so much time in the day. But I try, I certainly always try to be a sounding board and to answer questions about New Orleans and its culture, food, people, history and future to be best of my ability and with the same enthusiasm every time. And when I’m out of town myself, I always have NOLAlicious to pass along. That’s a start to a good New Orleans experience! The rest, like much of life, is up to you.

I’ve created a Twitter List for all these visitors (those on Twitter at least) that you can follow!

Drumroll please:

April:
Wedding season! Great night on the town with my NYC buddy, Michael Gruen, talking about venture funding, creating opportunity, living remotely and wandering through some of my favorite spots including Marigny Brasserie, d.b.a., and the piano bar at Pat O’Briens.

Best friend and partner-in-crime visit from the one and only Casey Stone. My former roommate in Los Angeles who herself has gone through a transformation this past year from working as a Hollywood studio web-publicist to living in Portsmouth, NH working as a social media consultant plus sandwich-maker (!) and I loved every minute with her. Every minute. I miss my good girlfriends from Los Angeles maybe more than I miss anything else about any other chapter of my life and time with Casey was very much needed.
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Growing Pains...

When I was a kid, I would wake up in the middle of the night crying with terrible cramps in my calves. My mom would come into my room and say, “Sweetie, they’re just growing pains. Everyone gets them. It means you’re growing up!”

That’s how I feel now.

Much of it I’m chalking up to “3-month transition blues.” 3 months into a new city, new work responsibilities, new relationships with friends. It’s like a speed bump where everything is going along at the speed of light and then !WHAM! it feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Much of it I’m chalking up to putting stakes down and letting go of my vagabond lifestyle. It’s not so fun sorting through receipts, going from point A, to point B, back to point A at night, feeling dragged down by the day-to-day of life. Much of it I know shall pass. Like all bumps in the road do because after 30 years of life, I know myself well enough to know that these lows happen but they’re few and far between and that usually, on most given Sundays, I’m upbeat, chipper and ready to take on the world.

But for the part that I’m not chalking up, I’m worried. I’m scared. I’m frightened and I feel captive by my own decisions. I spent most of last year thinking BIG. Like how do I really impact the world and leave it better than I found it. You could see that through my time in New Orleans, Kiva Fellowship, Cause It’s My Birthday campaign and musings here on The Causemopolitan. I felt bigger, stronger and more in charge than ever. The reality of every day life feels like a cold shower shocking my system into routine and daily life and it’s hard to keep that eye on the prize. And hard to think so big that it shakes you to your very bones.
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