Ted Williams, Frozen Heads, Colt45 Malt Liquor, My Speaking Tour. Confused? You wont be after reading this...

When I was much younger I used to live and breath all things baseball. I connected with baseball because I loved the stories and the personalities of the game and now as I get older I realize I have a lot in common with Ted Williams.

Ted hit over .400 for the Red Sox, I hit over .400 for my High School Baseball Team

Ted wore #9, I wore #45 (still wondering why I never got a Colt45 endorsement deal)

Ted has been decapitated and cryogenically frozen somewhere in Arizona....OK so maybe we are not that alike except for one thing.

I always loved the story about Ted Williams and his lifelong dream to have people say to themselves as he left any room....

"There goes the greatest hitter in the world"

I feel the same way as Teddy Ballgame on this one but my years of playing professional baseball are behind me so instead of that I am hoping people will come see me speak and say to themselves as I leave the room

"There goes the best speaker on the topics of Maketing, Social Media, Customer Service, Entrepreneurship and Community Building in the world and I don't mind if he was looking at me from the stage like I was a plate of delicious BBQ because I got so much information from his talk that I am now inspired to do something great"

But to make this happen you are going to have to come and see me speak....and lucky for you I am going to be in the following cities between now and the end of the year. Montreal, Toronto, New York, Boston and Chicago. See below for more info and please please please support the fine people who have invited me to come and be with all of you!


Sproutup Montreal
November 17th at Brutopia in Montreal

The amazing folks at Sprouter.com have invited me to speak in three cities with them in the next month with the first being in Montreal. If you are not familiar with Srouter.com you should take a look as they are doing events geared to helping entrepreneurs as well as thier online collaberative tool that was just written up on Mashable.com Please RSVP if you can come out!



Impact National Conference

November 20-21st at the Westin Harbour Castle Hilton (Toronto)

I am super excited to speak at this conference as the majority of the attendees will be students either finishing up college/university or entering their last years. I will be speaking about Entrepreneurship and ask the students to look inside themselves and see if they have entrepreneurship characteristics in them and if they do I will advise them to drop out of school and start a company. Should be an interesting day!

Sproutup Boston
November 24th at 28 Degrees in Boston

Stop number two on the Sprouter Caravan is in the beautiful city of Boston where I have spoken a few times already so I am planning a new talk that I hope people will leave inspired from. Please RSVP if you can come out!

Canadian Women in Communications

November 25th, 2009 - Webcast

Details on this are still being worked out as far as content of my talk but I said yes without hesitation because I thing this will be an interesting group of folks to pal around with.

Sproutup Chicago
December 2nd

Last stop on the Sprouter caravan is in Chicago. I plan on doing a completly different talk in Chicago then I will be doing in either of the two Sprouter stops with the hopes that people will follow the tour like the Greatful Dead but also so it is fresh to all the people seeing it for a thid time. Please RSVP if you can come out!



Media Bistro Panel - Social Media and the Customer: Focus on Community Management
December 8th at Comix in New York City

Exactly a year (and a day) earlier than this talk I had the pleasure of speaking for MediaBistro on a Social Media panel with Tony Hsieh, Craig Newmark, Lynn Johnson, Jeff Howe and Thor Muller and I am overjoyed to be invited back for the sequel to that original talk. This time around the all female panel will be made up of myself, Valeria Maltoni, Amber Nasland and Shirley Bradley and I guarantee it will be informative and talked about to till at least the end of the year!
Rsvp to attend here!


Word of Mouth Supergenius Conference

December 16 - Chicago

I will be talking to a group of Supergenius' to be on how to create offline chatter and unlike many talks I give where I rely on my good looks and charm and speak about how wonderful I am and what I have done in the past I have been asked to speak here about the future and create a step by step formula that people will take away with them so there can be a "little Saul" in a whole new group of offices all over America. This is going to be a great event and if you are interested in coming you can use the secret code "Saulismyhero" to get a $101 discount on the cost of the course and a hug and kiss from me on the day of the event. For more information on this event please click here

I hope to see some of you at these events and as always I appreciate you sharing your time to read my blog.

"I am not quitting, I am just planning my comeback"

I was thumbing through Canadian Business Magazine two months ago and found a quote that stuck with me. The quote was from Michael Lee-Chin talking about selling his "baby", the investment company AIC. When asked how he could walk away from his dream he simply said:

"I am not quitting, I am just planning my comeback."

I love this quote and have been thinking about this for a while since I started a new role at my job. I haven't spoken about this publicly yet so I guess this is an announcement of sorts but I am no longer part of the day to day operations of Zoocasa.com and have moved to a larger role as Evangelist/Strategist within Rogers Ventures (an investor in Zoocasa.com) and will be adding what I can across all the porfolio companies as needed.

For the next little while I will be focusing most of my attention on Thoora.com but like everything I do I will never beat you over the head with messaging and such. I am always going to be me and I hope you all watch what I am up to in this very exciting time in my life.

One that like Micheal Lee-Chin, I am treating like my comeback opportunity.

Super Quick StartUp Advice

Here is another installment in my series of super quick [possibly tweetable] Business Startup Advice.

"The best entrepreneurs have a combination of a desire to create amazing things coupled with the unwillingness to compromise in anyway to achieve this."

Do you have this?

Can a loyalty program actually make you less loyal?

I don't have many rules when it comes to my blog posts. I occasionally talk about inappropriate nudity and share too much about the views and opinions I have but one thing I never do (and this is really my only rule) is that I don't take cheap shots at brands....or really ever say anything negative about brands because as someone who represents brands myself I know what it is like to get dumped on and just don't feel like being "that guy".

That being typed I am going to share an experience I have been living through for more then 8 months and it got me asking "Can a loyalty program actually make you less loyal?"

So I travel a lot and doing such I joined an airline loyalty program because, well I like free travel and all the things that come from special attention.

Much to my surprise and delight last February I received in my mailbox 6 upgrade certificates to fly the friendly sky from the front of the plane where I can only imagine is similar to the Playboy Mansion. This excited me and instantly began looking forward to my next trip.

You see by sending me these certificates the airline is hoping I get so used to the pampering and private bathroom in business class that I will not be able to return to the commoners of the back of the plane and from that point forward I would pay the extra fees associated with the higher lever of service.

This might have worked because I am impressionable and all, except for the fact that since February (when I got these) I have flown 10+ times and have never been able to redeem these certificates because the I purchased discounted seats and not the full fare ticket (does anyone pay full fare ever?) and on top of it all these certificates will expire at the end of November.

This was an enormous missed opportunity for the airline because not only am I a chatty girl who would have encouraged others to upgrade so they could experience the airplane grotto for themselves but beyond that they have actually made me care less about who I fly with.

So I ask you...how effective was this surprise and delight?

Takeaway for people who don't feel like reading the whole post : If you want to give something away for free...give it away for free. Don't make people work to give you money.

Super Quick Startup Advice

Here is the first in a series of super quick [possibly tweetable] Business Startup Advice.

"Building a category through PR and awareness is very expensive but telling your own story isn't."

I hope you find them helpful.

Would it kill you to wish me a Happy Birthday?

Yesterday was my Birthday and everyone forgot....and when I say everyone I don't mean my family, or friends. They remembered and are awesome. The "everyone" I am talking about are the companies and brands I interact with on a daily or even a weekly basis.

I preach about "the little things" a lot because I know customer care is a differentiator and sending someone an email (even automated) on their Birthday goes a long way to making them loyal and happy to spread the word about whatever you are up to.

Think about all the companies that have your Birthday in their Database.

• Credit Card Companies
• Banks
• Car Dealerships
• Social Media Sites
• Message Boards
• Loyalty Programs

The list goes on and on. So if you are in possession of your clients B-Day's consider doing something small with that info because it is more valuable then you think.

Oh...and just to be fair I did get one and only birthday greetings from a brand and feel they deserve a shout out! Jinxworld.com (a comic book message board by Brian Bendis) Go check them out!

I want to be the Amazing Randi of Social Media...or why am I offering you my hard earned money.

Most people who follow technology and business probably know about the $1,000,000 (that's one millions dollars) prize Netfilx awarded a team of folks for developing a better movie recommendation algorithm but did you know that there is another 1,000,000 prize out there waiting to be claimed?

Since 1964 James Randi has had a cash prize for anyone who can prove the existence of paranormal activity. The reward started as $10,000 and over time has now grown to over $1,000,000 and while it has been challenged a few time it has never been awarded.

These two things, plus a conversation I had over dinner with a very well known social media author and practitioner got me thinking that we need a similar challenge in the Social Media space....why you ask?

Well, It is my belief that there hasn't been a new idea in Social Media in a few years and while that isn't necessarily a bad thing because essentially we are still in the very beginning of all of this it should be a slight concern since things that don't change and evolve tend to die off and become irrelevant.

So in an effort to kick start a movement that takes Social Media beyond the "Listen and Engage" stage I am putting up a cash prize of my own.

Send me your thoughts and ideas and lets figure out the next great discovery together...and if being a part of something cool isn't enough then do it for the money (as shown below...yes that is the whole prize for now)