DC Suburb Middle School Embraces Twitter to Communicate to Parents!

Rockville, MD. June 17th, 2009. Redland Middle School . Principal, Robert Sinclair announced today, via his email distribution list to parents, the school's new utilization of Twitter as an additional communications tool to reach out to parents and school community members as needed. For those of you not already enjoying the big buzz of connecting via Twitter, is a free, social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time.

When asked, Why Twitter? Mr. Sinclair responded, "My reasoning is to get more parents more actively involved in their children’s education and to inform parents about what is going on and how they can play a more prominent role in their child’s education."

Mostly known and used in Social Media Marketing circles, Twitter is quickly becoming more accepted by "traditional" press, advertising, customer service departments, customer feedback, and plain 'ole socializing! And now it appears, schools!

So, "two thumbs up" to Robert Sinclair; his commitment to effective distribution of information as accurately and efficiently as possible, and his equally tenacious efforts in collecting community feedback, input and suggestions.

Already appreciated for his use of technology to keep connected, including: 'Friday wrap up the week' Emails, Yahoo Distribution list, (providing parents with the morning announcements and more), auto caller for absentee student confirmations and important reminders, automated teacher grade books for parental viewing and more, his addition of Twitter to his communication arsenal reveals he is a principal willing to think out of the box and use multiple tools, to reach multiple people, via multiple preferred ways of communication!

From My Perspective: Principals embracing Twitter are Principals who are committed to connecting and communicating with their school's community! A community of parents in the know, are much more involved and active in both their student's lives and school activities - and that... ladies and gentlemen, lays the groundwork for our children to become adults who are committed and involved members of their communitites! ... and this is a good thing.

Two Thumbs Up Review for "Kids In Mind" Web Site - A GREAT Parental Movie Guide Resource!

Kids In Mind is one of the best resources on the net for parents to "PRE"check a movie out to confirm whether or not it is appropriate for their kids to go see. Kids In Mind ease of navigation, rating system and searchability makes this site a reliable, quick and easy click for any parent to confirm "yes Johnny" or "no Johnny" you can or can't see this movie.

Tweens are especially hard to gauge when it comes to movies. They tend to be a little beyond the traditional "kid" movie, but not quite mature enough for the true "teen" movie. As parents, we know our kids best, we know who has matured and who can handle what message. Blindly trusting the movie industry rating system won't always work for what YOUR kid can or can't handle.

The three category, numeric rating system provides parents a quick and easy to read snapshot for each movie. This snapshot lets me know if I need to read the more detailed review before making a decision.

"Sex & Nudity," "Violence & Gore" and "Profanity" each have a numeric,color coded 1-10 rating at the top of each movie's review.

A movie with a 9-10-19 rating would be an over the top sexually graphic movie, filled with bloody violence with a script filled with profanity, (probably an "R" rated movie).

If the movie has a snapshot of 3-4-3, and your not sure, the step by step detailed description of each category will give any parent I know more than they could have asked for in detail regarding each category.

Phrases such as "man's thigh brushes woman's knee under the table during dinner scene" gives the parent a blow by blow of each shot in the film that could be considered "sexual."

A literal word count of each and every profanity, uttered or muttered, in the film is provided. Minutely detailed descriptions of violence and/or gore for those categories give the parent a true benchmark to rate the film with their family values in mind.

Each review also includes whether or not there is substance abuse involved in the story and to what level it is included in the film.

Reviews wrap up with suggested topics for discussion and the underlying message of each movie.

Being able to read this level of detail, enables me to decide whether or not to allow or not allow my kids to go to a movie with confidence, knowing I am making a well-informed decision.

Even when you kid (and they will) sneaks into a movie, and as always you invaribly find out after the fact, you can click here and have an informed "de-brief" with your kid about the movie!

From my Perspective, this web site has earned a "Parental Guidance Required" two thumbs up! Check it out, bookmark it in your favorites, and tell the other 'rents on the block about it. Having this resource in your parental arsenal of tools will help you parent your children as best you can.

My All Time Favorite Dad has Landed on Twitter - Welcome Bill Cosby!

Bill Cosby, or should I say, @JelloPudding has landed on Twitter. (Photo from Twitter profile). His account appears to be the real deal. I for one, am very excited at the prospect of reading his tweets. I would imagine they will either make me laugh out loud or immediately impress me with their wisdom.

I have admired, looked up to and laughed until I had tears, listening to and watching Bill Cosby since I was about 6 years old. My family would (gasp!) listen to his albums on my dad's stereo. Watching my dad listen to Cos was almost as funny as listening to the man himself!

Beyond Mr. Cosby's comic genius, is the soul of a truly good human being, a parent who is not shy about expressing his love and commitment to his family. Mr. Cosby stood up and spoke out about the effect the lack of parenting in households across America was having on today's youth. Despite a small backlash of public outcry weakly accusing him of turning his back on his roots, he held firm in his stance, because not only was he right; it was too important to back down from.

His obvious love and respect for his wife, Camille, has always been obvious. He is also a man that is smart enough to understand how to make a long lasting relationship not only work, but thrive! (Visualize - popular routine regarding how he knew he was bigger, stronger, faster, his voice was deeper; and yet, he somehow he had dropped in the pecking order in his household, exactly when, he ponders out loud did his wife do this?)

Recently Mr. Cosby was announced as the next Mark Twain Award recipient, one of the highest honors in comedy and story. telling

Parents, if you want your kids to see that you can laugh until you cry without hearing every other word bleeped out, if you want your kids to see the humor in the everyday things in life, to witness some of the best physical comedy, to know what real neighborhood fun is - download some great classic Cosby.

From my Perspective, we need more Bill Cosby's in the world. We need his humor, his passion for advancing and protecting our youth, and we need more of his deliciously silly smile and roll of his eyes.

Welcome Bill Cosby, Welcome to Twitter, please do jump in and share your humor and wisdom with us all, we will all be the better for it!

One of my favorites - Natural Childbirth - OMG, the parents badge of honor - I always send this to people when they find out they are with child for the first time!

Give Your Children the BEST Gift of the Season - The Gift They Shouldn't Live Without

Feeling the stress of pre-holiday gift giving? Always in the search of that "perfect gift." Problem solved! Give your children the gift of knowing the value in living a life being grateful. Make your child happy with this gift! The sooner our children, everyone for that matter, learn that the true secret to happiness is gratitude, the better off we all will be. Help your children find the Zone Being grateful for the many blessings in your life is the best way to keep yourself in the zone - that utopia of positive thinking, paying it forward, treating people with care, sharing your gifts and overall happiness. As parents, we all know our actions teach volumes more than our words. Children who grow up in an environment of grateful and positive people, tend to become another generation of gratefulness. Experience the benefits of living in the Zone People who are focused on and appreciate all they have been given do not have time for envy, jealousy, spitefulness and selfishness. It has been my experience that:

• Children growing up in this type of environment learn to celebrate their peer's victories and accomplishments versus envying them.
• Because they can appreciate their peers accomplishments, they allow themselves to be inspired by them, instead of being stifled or intimidated by them.
• Children grateful for what has been given to them, tend to take care of their gifts, because the appreciate them. This includes both their god given and material gifts.
• One could make the connection that children raised to appreciate their god-given talents are less likely to abuse their mind or body housing those talents.
• These children have a better sense of the value each individual offers the world and therefore they are better able to see the positive attributes of the people around them.

Don't stress over the holidays and perfect gifts, you are only instilling this sense of stress in your family at a time when should be for exhibiting gratefulness in all that you have, all that you have created, all that has been given to you, and all that is yet to come. In all things given there is a lesson to be learned. Those who learn it, tend to receive their gifts to the fullest extent. What am I #absolutely grateful for?

1. My family.
2. Our health.
3. Our gifts that enable us to provide for our family.
4. Our ability to give some of what has been given to us.
5. My husband, partner, friend and lover.
6. My daughter when she sings out loud with out knowing it and her passion and zest for life.
7. My one son's ability to acknowledge the team effort behind his many incredible athletic accomplishments and his determination to get what he wants during the difficult transition between high school and college.
8. My other son's confident sense in who he is which allows him to defend those his peers would ignore, his sense of justice, his willingness to go against the grain when he feels it is just, and to wear what he wants to wear, not what is expected to wear.
9. The incredible generous spirit in my new found world of Twitter and all that accompanies it.
10. My belief in a higher power which enables all of the above.

Happy Thanksgiving, tell someone how grateful you are they are a part of your life. Better yet, show them!

Serendipity at www.LuckyStartUps.Com

Serendipity: When you go looking for one thing, but you find something else. Recently I was watching on one of my favorite websites http://www.luckystartups.com/ webcasts. Lucky Start Ups does great interviews with people representing recent, or in the process of, being a "start up" company, usually web based. I find the interviews are both informative and entertaining at the same time. This is not a MSNBC business review, this is almost like the NPR "Car Talk" guys. They are knowledgable about the topic. It is just definitely more casual and relaxed, one might even say a little rough around the edges. Which to me, is the "IT" factor for the show. It is a very approachable, personable and straight-forward environment. The two hosts, Aronado and Dennis, or Mr. Downtown Brown, as Aronado likes to announce, are extremely interested in business, specifically start ups, the ups the downs, and everything in between. They want the information as much as the listener/viewer. You can identify with their excitement over hearing the great business start up stories. They are committed to promoting their guests’ businesses, which usually become sponsors of future shows. Recently due to a mix-up and technical difficulties, their guest was unavailable. The hilarious but dedicated Aronado and "Downtown Mr. Brown" didn’t miss a beat. They worked with what they had; their humor, business perspective and their great banter; they adlibbed, played off the cuff but they also posed great questions to the chat room audience; before you knew it a volley of business brainstorming about networking was in full swing. In between the jokes and commentary, I extracted some great ideas and concepts. Much of what I heard could be considered common sense: Sometimes when you are at the right place at the right time you truly "hear" something, or at least hear it enough to let the spark ignite.

After the http://www.luckystartups.com/ broadcast I was inspired to jot down a few things, after a little bit of polishing off when I got home from work, this is what I came up with, based off the brainstorming session:

1. Networking is networking, whether in the traditional personal arena or the online social networks.
2. Networking equals: connecting, sharing, adding value
3. Who is our "natural database" of connections? Our friends!
4. Having good connections (friends) is based off your character, persona and friendliness.
5. We need to be engaging and willing to add value to the relationship FIRST.

Perhaps the algorithm to create valuable connections is:

Friendliness + Being Engaging + Adding Value = The Secret to Valuable Connections

Valuable Connections lead to authentic relationships. People want authenticity in their relationships, both personal and business.

This is because, first and foremost, when marketing a business, a concept, a widget, whatever it is; you are marketing yourself. If your client, customer or potential investor can trust you and believe in you, you have amplified your margin for success in creating a successful business relationship.

Creating authentic relationships leads to much more than new business and profitability. It will also lead to your success and fulfillment as a person.

From my perspective no matter what you do, or where you are in life, it always has been, and it always will be, all about relationships.

Good Design Can Be Provocative

Design. There are many aspects to a good design, no matter the genre. Regardless of type, a clean and pure design speaks to you and draws you in.

From walking the streets of a historic town, admiring the architecture and lines in the design of the buildings to wandering the fashion district, I see examples of good design all around me. I am continually amazed at how the designers managed to top themselves once again. I appreciate the effort and talent that goes into the creation of a good design.

I get a quick rush as I gasp at the unexpected beauty in the simplicity of design in a unique silver fork. When the thought that went into it is so clearly evident, in how well it fits my hand. The fact he (or she) put the time into incorporating the needed ergonomics without sacrificing the beauty means a lot to me, and draws me to the piece.

I am thrilled when a logo makes sense, when the artist knew better than to make the logo itself, the center of attention. A well thought out logo, draws the consumer into the company or product it represents. It makes sense, and supports the mission of its sponsor. Like a well made up face, a good logo is doing its job when you don’t see just the logo; you recognize, and better yet – remember the company or product. A well designed logo enhances; it does not take over.

Those truly gifted designers, who have mastered the genius in subtlety, absolutely blow me away. I admire and envy their sense of restraint and ability to understand the bare minimum needed to be pleasing to the eye and provide balance to the psyche of the person taking it all in.

Walk into a well-planned room designed to be inviting, and you feel warm and welcomed, you feel it in the very core of your being. You are calmer in the space; you have a sense of balance and harmony. It just feels inexplicably right, you want to sit down, and stay awhile.

Creative and clean design invites you in. When it is pure and clear in its mission, it will be the catalyst that ignites your imagination and the possibilities beyond what you see on the surface. It encourages you to look deeper, past the obvious. It challenges your preconceived ideas. It plays with your senses. It is absolutely provocative in how it intrigues you.

When you suddenly see the history behind the old building and not just look at it in passing you are being influenced by the design. When you suddenly recognize how the lines tease your eye or how the building plays with the shadows during different parts of the day; you have grown in your perspective. When you can hear the architect’s story, you are paying him the best compliment of all. When someone else’s vision changes your perspective, you take a piece of them with you, and knowingly or not, it will influence you. When you draw on that experience and incorporate in one of your creative endeavors you will have kept the architects story alive.

There is yin and yang in the world, there are opposing forces pushing and pulling at us all day. A provocative design will surround you in the midst of opposing energy and bring balance and harmony to your senses; ultimately good designs provide relief from the cacophony of stimuli that surrounds us.

Motrin is Giving Me a Headache!

While my children have long since passed the baby sling days, and walking the floor with a sick child in my arms, I am frankly still annoyed at the recent "MOMs voice" campaign from Motrin. No link for this, they don't need the traffic. I do know this, I'm insulted advertisers and the agencies that represent them think they can throw something on the internet, and print sideways and it will be an instantly "cool" ad. I'm insulted that as a mother, they think I feel the need to quickly pop pills in my child's mouth, so they won't be up feeling sick, and so I can sleep. That they felt the true "pain" in parenting would be our aching backs from carrying or. using a sling, to carry my child. Parental Pain is the headache you get from worrying if their fever is too high, or gone too long, or if this is just a normal reaction to an ear infection, or is there something horribly wrong? Parental Pain is the stomach ache you get just in the witnessing of your child being rebuked by another child. True Parental Pain is reached in the late night, wide awake moments that too many parents have wondering how they will pay for their child's college, or worse yet, pay for their child's next meal! Now, as one Tweople, @DaveTaylor challened, then how would we do the ad? --- This is how I would do it. An ad where[close up]the mom and the dad have been up late, quietly whispering and going over their finances, seeing how hard their college savings plan was being hit with the recent financial crisis, and crossing off their list of brainstorming ideas on how to keep their 1st born, pride and joy, in the 2nd semester of his freshman year.... [camera pulls out, wider shot] sees mom rub her temples, muttering, I'm getting a horrible headache just thinking about how we will possibly swing all this." Camera follows dad as he, quietly gets up, strides to the cabinet over their kitchen desk, grabs the motrin and gets a glass of water on the way back to the kitchen table" and says reassuringly, "I don't know, but we will, but we won't get anywhere without first getting rid of your headache..." Mom gratefully accepts the water, the meds, and takes the motrin." Camera shows them continuing to work a little later. [new shot] mom and dad walks up the stairs and peeks into their firstborns room, mom can't resist, in two quick steps she is by his side and brushes the hair from his eyes, and tucks back in the dropped teddy bear from his "big boy" bed, a close up reveals she is truly worried but doesn' t look as in as much pain as before, over their future finances. As mom leaves the room, Dad tosses an arm on her shoulders, we've got time to fix it, how is your headache?" "Better already" replies Mom. and they go into their room and crack the door open, just in case the baby cries. N0w that I could identify with and respond to. To insuate that to be an "official" member of the mommyhood race you need to look frazzled and crazy is an insulting perspective for the company to take. From my perspective, they should interviw some REAL mommies, ones who have a voice and would love to be heard.

Site Warming Party -- What a Cool Idea!

Just saw on Twitter - a very resourceful mom/blogger is having a site warming party to celebrate her website. Sounds like it will be really cool - maybe you should consider dropping by - hey she's got goodie bags, everyone loves a great goodie bag! Give it a shot! If you want to attend the site-warming party-- heres the scoop: On Friday, October 17th, all party-goers will tweet up on Twitter at 9:00 p.m. for a blogging chat with expert guests to help answer questions, offer advice, and enjoy the fun! Join the party by Resourceful Mom, and then be sure to let her know that you're with us that night by tweeting @ her.