A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing: Advice from Leading Experts (Kogan Page, 2011) Makes the Amazon UK Best Seller List!

January 31, 2012 – 6:10 pm

Part of our company’s 30th Anniversary Year Series — only featured posts are visible on the blog. (You can start by reading Part 1 here.)

In the video clip above, Paul Sloane, Editor of the recently published book, A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing: Advice from Leading Experts — with a foreword by Henry Chesbrough — describes the book in this video clip on YouTube, and tells you why you or your organization would find value in it.

I’m honored to be a contributing author to this book, along with some of my innovation colleagues from #Innochat (a Twitter Innovation chat and web site). I co-wrote the chapter, “Building the Culture for Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing,” with Gwen Ishmael and Boris Pluskowski — more information about all of the co-authors and the contents of this book is available on Google Books. Here are some reviews of the book.

I was very happy to note that A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing: Advice from Leading Experts had made the Best Seller List in the category of “Change Management” in Business Books at Amazon.UK on January 30th, 2012. On that day, I noted that the book had placed in the top 20, but it can go up and down on a daily (or even hourly) basis, so you may find it at a different number, or even in a different business category, when this blog post is published—ah, such is the life cycle of a business book.

On behalf of all the other authors, and the editor, Paul Sloane, I am very grateful to all of you who have purchased or reviewed the book. You may also be interested in two other business books to which I had previously contributed, which are mentioned in previous posts on this blog. In the notable Age of Conversation trilogy, edited by Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton, I was one of the contributing authors to Age of Conversation 2: Why Don’t They Get It? (published in 2008); and Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time to Get Busy! (published in 2010). You can read excerpt from my chapters for Age of Conversation 2, entitled: “Creativity Comes from Conversation—What’s Innovation Got to Do with It?” here, and an excerpt of my chapter from Age of Conversation 3, entitled: “Shake Up and Stir” here. You’ll note that in both of these books, I wrote about social media and the conversational Web in terms of innovation and hiring people who are the best qualified to work in open, innovative, collaborative and conversational environments.

I may write more about creating a culture for open innovation and crowd sourcing on this blog soon, as I did in my chapter of A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing: Advice from Leading Experts (2011), along with my chapter co-authors, Gwen Ishmael and Boris Pluskowski. That is, in fact, the direction in which more of my consulting, coaching and training work is moving—helping organizations make difficult, but essential transitions, so that they can innovate, collaborate, and become more conversant using social media both within, and to reach beyond, their own walls and boundaries.

What would you like to know about Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing? What would you like to read about here, related to those topics?

Your questions and comments are always welcome (below)! You may also want to check out the linked What’s Innovation Got to Do with It? Blog, as I’ll be writing more about these timely topics there, too. Your collaboration as a reader or commenter is much appreciated!

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By admin | Posted in "Building the Culture for Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing", 30th Anniversary Year Series, Collaboration, Community, Corporate Culture, Creativity, Crowd Sourcing, Crowdsourcing, Future of the Internet, Innovation, online communities, Open Innovation, Organizational Culture, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Blog Action Day and World Food Day, October 16, 2011 — My Journey with Food

October 16, 2011 – 2:55 pm

Today is Blog Action Day 2011, coinciding with World Food Day, which prompted me to write this post about my own personal journey with food. I think that blogs and all social media can play a vital role in starting conversations about how to make changes in our individual lives and the world. In 2010, the theme for Blog Action Day was Water and water-related issues; in 2009, it was Climate Change. I have participated in all three of the past years’ events, and I look forward to sharing some of my experiences with food, and hearing what you have to say about yours, whether you comment under my post, or on your own blog—or we can have conversations about food on social networks. For instance, you can follow @BlogActionDay and the hashtag #BAD11 on Twitter.

When I first moved to San Francisco in the mid-1970s, I became a vegetarian for about three years. I had grown up in the Midwest, in a heavily meat-eating family, although we often ate fresh, organically grown vegetables and fruit because both sets of my grandparents had retired to country homes, and my Hrudicka grandparents started a small farm. My mother canned the fresh vegetables and made homemade jams and preserves, so even in the winter months, we were very fortunate to be able to eat well. My Grandma Hrudicka made homemade wines and beer in her cellar, and she fed fresh meat to the packs of stray dogs that roamed on to her land. Her own dogs were the best fed animals I have seen anywhere I’ve traveled in the world.

In my early days in San Francisco, I lived with several sets of roommates who were good cooks, and who taught me about shopping at the local farmers’ markets, in Chinatown, and at what was then called the “Food Conspiracy,” which has since evolved to food co-ops. I learned how to steam vegetables and stir-fry using a Chinese wok, and I learned how to order vast quantities of grains, miso, tahini, exotic teas and other food that came in large vats or jars, through the Food Conspiracy. Every month, you would meet at the household of one of your fellow Food Conspirators and order the food, and that household would process the order forms. Later in the month, you would meet in the garage or basement of another Food Conspirator’s home and pick up your household’s food in boxes or lots of bags. It often meant borrowing a car or bringing all your roommates so that you could each carry some of the food home.

During this period, I also learned about making fresh juices with no sugar or fructose corn syrup added, and using sea salt or no salt, and instead, flavoring my food with the variety of fresh spices we bought via the Food Conspiracy. Later, I would grow some of my own herbs in my backyard garden, and for a while, I hosted a friend’s budding sprout business in mason jars in my own kitchen because he didn’t have enough room in his apartment.

I was a vegetarian because a number of my roommates were, but also because I never liked the idea of eating animals. Always an animal lover, it bothered me to hear about the horrible factory farming conditions and slaughterhouses that animals endured, and since I enjoyed seeing peaceful looking cows, goats, sheep, and other “meat” animals grazing on rural hillsides in Northern California, it made me sad to think about their fate. I loved cheeses, ice cream and milk in my coffee, so I continued to eat dairy products, but whenever possible, I tried to buy organically produced products. After I learned about the delightful places I could visit in Northern California, such as Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino Counties, I made more frequent trips. I loved seeing the spring lambs with their mothers, or the families of young piglets and their parents along the highway; and when I returned later in the year, and all the lambs and piglets were gone, I was filled with a deep sorrow, realizing where they had gone.

Even in my childhood, I was often luckier than other members of my family when we went fishing, catching some of the largest and tastiest of the fish—but I often had mixed feelings about my success when I saw each fish dying, struggling to catch its last breath, caught on the end of my sharp and obviously painful hook. Some of the adults would tease me and tell me I was “too sensitive.” Now that I’m older, I think of that as a good quality, otherwise known as compassion. Many studies have shown that if children learn compassion toward animals, they tend to become more compassionate to other humans as well.

Unfortunately, after about three years as a vegetarian, I became very ill and developed an unusual second case of severe mononucleosis, which lasted for more than a year (my first case of mono was in college). The doctors who examined me were surprised and told me that was very unusual. Completely puzzled, I told them I ate a very good diet of fresh vegetables and fruit, grains, fresh juices, salads, eggs and cheese. They ran a bunch of lab tests and told me my amino acids were unbalanced, I was anemic and was not getting enough protein or iron. They asked me if I was cooking beans, which at the time, I didn’t particularly like because they upset my stomach. So, I said no, and they told me that if I were going to continue being a vegetarian, I had to learn even more about how to correctly balance my food intake so that I would be getting all the nutrients I needed. Back then, if you were a vegan or vegetarian, you pretty much had to prepare most of your meals from scratch; now, there have been many improvements in the packaging of vegan and vegetarian foods, so it’s possible to have a busy life and buy more pre-packaged meals of quality, and of course there are many good cookbooks that will tell you how to prepare quick vegan or vegetarian meals.

So, reluctantly, at the urging of the doctors, I slowly started eating small amounts of meat again, mostly fish, seafood and chicken, with the occasional holiday turkey dinner (although some of my friends have prepared absolutely scrumptious vegan or vegetarian holiday dinners for years that are so delicious, I never missed the turkey). When I thought about it more, I realized a major difference between my vegetarian years in the mid-70s and my mononucleosis episode a few years later, was that my life had speeded up to a serious degree and had become much more stressful. I had found a career direction, plus I was performing in music groups, teaching music, and writing articles. I was almost always busy, so my food preparation time had diminished, and I was not being as careful about balancing my diet. I was “eating on the run” way too often. Instead of stopping at fast food burger places, I would stop in juice bars and grab a glass of carrot or fruit juice and a salad, thinking that was enough to stay healthy. It wasn’t—my health history meant that I needed to take more time to plan and prepare my meals.

It took me a long time to recover from both incidents of mono, and during the second episode, I simply wasn’t recovering, after several months—I was always exhausted, and I was getting worse. After initially taking medicine for the tonsillitis and strep throat that had accompanied the mono onset, there were no other drugs the doctors could give me. Fortunately, I had a friend then who had dropped out of western medical school and studied Chinese medicine. He suggested I try a diet that included miso 2-3 times a day, and azuki beans, which were rich in iron. He said my vegetarian diet had become “too yang” and I needed “more yin.” He told me to consume fewer salads and juices, and eat mostly dark, leafy green vegetables and sea weed, often added to miso-based soup. He also showed me how to make miso salad dressing, and even add miso to Cream of Wheat for breakfast. So, for months, I ate miso soup 2-3 times a day, miso-infused breakfasts, and an occasional bowl of azuki beans. Amazingly, I began to get better.

Flashing forward to now, I still eat fresh vegetables and fruit, and have even enjoyed growing my own tomatoes, green beans, zucchini, eggplant and other garden specialties. My husband and I eat a low or no-salt diet, and we are very careful to examine the ingredients on all jars of soups, sauces and juices bought in stores, also trying to eliminate corn syrup and excess sugar from our diets. Shortly after we first met, he had initially lured me to his house with the temptation of a rosemary roast chicken, which he had lovingly cooked, and I accepted, although I told him I was trying to return to a more vegetarian-based diet. He loves to cook, and I am his favorite guinea pig, so I now take a bit of a “when in Rome” approach and will try a chicken, turkey or fish dish he has prepared—but I told him I would not eat veal because of the cruel veal crate conditions the calves are raised in, and I would not eat lamb, rabbits, beef, pork or processed meats. I did make an exception for organically produced chicken apple sausages, although I am also appalled at the way factory farm chickens are treated, so I’ve made a point of finding organic poultry producers in our area.

When left to my own devices, I still cook mostly vegetable and tofu dishes, or fish and seafood, and I still eat miso soups and salad dressings with miso, tahini or fruit and vegetable bases. I am now much more careful to eat grains balanced with some beans or another balanced protein source. I would like to think that now that I’m better informed, and buying “on the go” vegetarian and vegan meals has become easier, I could return to a completely vegetarian or vegan diet. I’m thinking about it again, and I know I’ll have to be very careful, due to some of my health issues. I do still love to eat dark chocolate, cheeses and ice cream, but more often, I eat low-fat dairy products and have often substituted soy, rice and other grain milks for dairy products.

So, I still feel that I’m on a food journey, and will perhaps always be on a food journey. I love to eat well and know a number of chefs at fine restaurants and other establishments. I’ve tried to convince a few of them to cook less meat and not use veal. In the San Francisco Bay Area, and particularly in Berkeley, we are fortunate to have high quality restaurants that make a point of using organically raised animals, which is better than factory farmed animals morally, but it’s still meat.

I try not to be heavy-handed or “preachy” when I talk with friends about eating meat, but in my own life, I’m on a path to eating less and less of it, so that I can once again enjoy watching the spring lambs graze on hillsides (and I am pleased to report that more people I know are now raising lambs only for their wool, which they are selling to local yarn shops). I feel it is a spiritual path for me, although not tied to any one particular religion. One day soon, I hope the entire world will move one person or family at a time toward freeing the veal calves from their crates, other animals from the cruelties of factory farming and slaughterhouses, and that those agribusinesses will be joining small farmers in growing fields of fresh, organic vegetables and fruits instead. Studies have shown we could more efficiently and economically feed the entire world if this vision is achieved. Meanwhile, I am taking one step at a time to change the world by changing myself, reducing one type of meat—or saving one animal—at a time, and educating myself about how to eat less, exercise more, and stay healthy.

So now, let’s break bread together. It’s your turn. What do you think about, when you talk about food? What’s important to you?

Please feel free to leave a comment here about your relationship to food, for World Food Day and Blog Action Day 2011…and have some dessert!

(All food photos by Cathryn Hrudicka)

This post is part of our company’s 30th Anniversary Year series. A previous announcement about Blog Action Day 2011 and the theme of Food was posted on Posterous.

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By admin | Posted in 30th Anniversary Year Series, Blogging, Life-Work Balance, Online events, Personal Growth, Philanthropy, Social Causes, Social Fundraising, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, Uncategorized, Work-Life Balance | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (2)

“Shake Up and Stir” — an excerpt from my chapter in Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time to Get Busy!

July 5, 2011 – 12:34 am

The cover of Age of Conversation 3: It's Time to Get Busy!

Part of our company’s 30th Anniversary Year Series
(You can start by reading Part 1 here.)

So far, I have been a contributing author to three nonfiction books related to Social Business and Innovation, including the recently published book, A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing: Advice from Leading Experts, edited by Paul Sloane, with a foreword by Henry Chesbrough (Kogan Page, March, 2011); and two of the Age of Conversation trilogy, edited by Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton: Age of Conversation 2: Why Don’t They Get It? (2008); and Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time to Get Busy! (2010).

In each book, I chose to write about how social business affects people and the culture of organizations—rather than just discuss how to use the social tools—and how social business is leading to more innovation, including Open Innovation. I’ll be writing more about A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing: Advice from Leading Experts in another post. Meanwhile, whether you are relatively new to using Social Media for business purposes, or a seasoned veteran, you will find value in owning the entire trilogy of the Age of Conversation books, which provide a bounty of still-relevant advice about many facets of integrating conversational media with other communications channels, both inside and outside of your organization. It is also interesting to note how the uses of Social Media have changed between 2007-11, and how much more the public and business world have embraced Social Media during the past few years.

In 2007, with what began as a half dare, the editors, Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan, challenged bloggers around the world to contribute one page—400 words—on the topic of “conversation.” The resulting book, The Age of Conversation, brought together over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication. In Age of Conversation 2 and 3, the number of authors rose above 200, all notable social media marketing professionals. The proceeds of all three books were donated to charities selected by the editors and authors.

In celebration of the 30th year anniversary of my company, I am publishing slightly edited excerpts of my chapters from Age of Conversation 2 and Age of Conversation 3 on this blog, as I think they are still highly relevant in 2011 and going forward. Here is my contribution to Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time to Get Busy!:

***

Shake Up and Stir

By Cathryn Hrudicka
Founder, CEO & Chief Imagination Officer, Creative Sage™ / Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates
http://www.CreativeSage.com

We always ask, “What’s next?” — especially when it comes to the Internet and social media. Rather than focus on the tools, I think it’s more essential to focus first on people.

As social media and social networks have become widely adopted by corporations, nonprofits, small businesses and individuals, an amazing shake-up is taking place in our organizations and the ways we work. The fact that using these tools requires transparency and openness means that social users are thinking more creatively and driving innovation, both inside and outside of their organizations.

We can expect to see a constant spiral of workplace innovation driving the creation of new social tools and uses, and vice-versa.

How can we use social media, social networks and online communities more creatively to drive and sustain innovation?

Here are some questions to ask when strategizing and planning a social media project:

• At the beginning of each specific project, are we thoroughly surveying the audience or customers, rather than simply assume that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and a blog are the way to go? Are we matching online strategy and tools to where each specific audience is on the Web?

• Is there a plan for creating compelling content, including video, audio and images, to tell a story and interact, using a variety of media?

• In our workplaces, are we openly sharing ideas and developing online platforms to bridge the gap between good ideas and finding co-workers and advocates who can help us develop ideas, collaborate, and acquire resources to bring them to fruition?

• Are we approaching the creation of a social media team as we would organize an innovation team, including diverse personalities, thinkers and doers who take different creative roles, as they would in another type of innovation project?

• Are we choosing a social media team of collaborators who can work effectively together, question and support each other?

• Are we integrating social media across departments so it’s not “stuck in PR or marketing,” when it should be an integral part of every department?

• Are we thinking creatively about how to organize, use and evaluate internal and external social media and communities?

• Are we developing new metrics—meaningful methods of measuring results?

• Are we shaking up the status quo?

• Is it working?

***
For more on creativity and innovation, read What’s Innovation Got to Do with It?™ — the Creative Sage™ Blog.

Bio from the Book:

Cathryn Hrudicka is Chief Imagination Officer at her company, Creative Sage™/Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates.. She is a social media, public relations, marketing and innovation consultant and executive coach. Her clients include leaders in the entertainment, business, technology, health care and nonprofit sectors.

A recent client, Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley (a Sutter Health affiliate), won the 2009 SNCR (Society for New Communications Research) Award for Excellence and Innovation in External Communications and Communities in the Nonprofit Division, along with Creative Sage™/Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates, and G2 Communications, Inc.

An author of eight novels, Cathryn is working on a nonfiction book series about creativity and innovation. She is also a composer, sound designer, journalist and multimedia artist.

***

The Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time to Get Busy, published in April, 2010—still relevant, and limited copies are available! Proceeds from AOC3 benefit Charity Water.

Age of Conversation 3 (April, 2010)

The Age of Conversation 2: Why Don’t They Get It? Buy this book and support Variety, the children’s charity! Limited copies may be available.

The Age of Conversation 2:

Buy it on Amazon

The Age of Conversation 1—you may still be able to find a new or used copy of this book and have the entire trilogy!

Age of Conversation 1 (2007)

Buy it on Amazon

Buy AOC 1 and 2 at Lulu.com

Back to the blog front page…

Return to the Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates Home Page

By admin | Posted in 30th Anniversary Year Series, Age of Conversation 1, Age of Conversation 2, Age of Conversation 3, Awards, Blogging, Branding, Business Development, Celebration, Collaboration, Community, Creativity, Employees, Human Resources, Innovation, Internet Marketing, Management, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Metrics, online communities, Planning Public Relations Campaigns, PR, Public Relations, ROI, SNCR, Social Fundraising, Social Media, Social Media Metrics, Social Media ROI, Social Media Strategies, Social Networking, Society for New Communications Research, The Age of Conversation, Uncategorized, Web 2.0, Web Analytics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“Creativity Comes from Conversation” — an excerpt from my chapter in the book, Age of Conversation 2: Why Don’t They Get It?

June 5, 2011 – 12:29 am

The cover of Age of Conversation 2: Why Don't They Get It?

Part of our company’s 30th Anniversary Year Series
(You can start by reading Part 1 here.)

So far, I have been a contributing author to three nonfiction books related to Social Business and Innovation, including the recently published book, A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing: Advice from Leading Experts, edited by Paul Sloane, with a foreword by Henry Chesbrough (Kogan Page, March, 2011); and two of the Age of Conversation trilogy, edited by Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton: Age of Conversation 2: Why Don’t They Get It? (2008); and Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time to Get Busy! (2010).

In each book, I chose to write about how social business affects people and the culture of organizations—rather than just discuss how to use the social tools—and how social business is leading to more innovation, including Open Innovation. I’ll be writing more about A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing: Advice from Leading Experts in another post. Meanwhile, whether you are relatively new to using Social Media for business purposes, or a seasoned veteran, you will find value in owning the entire trilogy of the Age of Conversation books, which provide a bounty of still-relevant advice about many facets of integrating conversational media with other communications channels, both inside and outside of your organization. It is also interesting to note how the uses of Social Media have changed between 2007-11, and how much more the public and business world have embraced Social Media during the past few years.

In 2007, with what began as a half dare, the editors, Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan, challenged bloggers around the world to contribute one page—400 words—on the topic of “conversation.” The resulting book, The Age of Conversation, brought together over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication. In Age of Conversation 2 and 3, the number of authors rose above 200, all notable social media marketing professionals. The proceeds of all three books were donated to charities selected by the editors and authors.

In celebration of the 30th year anniversary of my company, I am publishing slightly edited excerpts of my chapters from Age of Conversation 2 and Age of Conversation 3 on this blog, as I think they are still highly relevant in 2011 and going forward. Here is my contribution to Age of Conversation 2: Why Don’t They Get It?:

***

Creativity Comes from Conversation—What’s Innovation Got to Do with It?

By Cathryn Hrudicka
Founder, CEO & Chief Imagination Officer, Creative Sage™ / Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates
http://www.CreativeSage.com

The most creative ideas often come from conversation. This is especially true for breakthrough ideas that take an organization to a revolutionary new level of innovation that makes or sustains its position as an industry leader.

So, instead of matching job candidates against a checklist of qualifications, hiring managers ought to be asking themselves:

• How well does your prospective new employee talk with other staff at all levels? Can s/he present new ideas, no matter how radical, in a way that shows s/he can cultivate influence with the right people to get at least an informal review of the ideas?

• Is s/he an innovation advocate? Does s/he understand the concepts of a “creative culture” and an “open innovation process,” and will s/he be fair and open-minded in considering ideas of direct reports—and customers or clients?

• Is the new prospect also a “conversation advocate”—can you see her/him as part of a high-performing team who, through the synergy of conversation, will regularly come up with new solutions? Does your candidate use idea management, Wikis, Web community or intranet platforms effectively as team tools?

• Do you believe the new hire and other team members will be able to work together effectively to strategically implement new ideas? If there are problems, is your organization willing to invest in training or coaching to help them work out their issues effectively?

• Is the candidate a well-rounded person who leads a passionate, inspired, creative life as well as holding a creative job? Even if the job description is very specific, can s/he converse across a wide variety of topics while going deeper in her/his main areas of expertise?

• Is your prospective candidate aware of what it takes to build a customer community around your organization’s services or products in an authentic two-way conversation? Is s/he savvy about using social media and social networking tools?

• Is s/he able to recognize trends and ideas in community conversations, online or in person, and synthesize these diverse comments into a new concept for a service or product offering?

It’s clear that we need to invest in multi-faceted, conversational, creative candidates, even those who in the past may not have seemed to “fit in with the corporate culture,” if we truly want a culture of open innovation and extraordinary results.

***
For more on creativity and innovation, read What’s Innovation Got to Do with It?™ — the Creative Sage™ Blog.

Bio from the Book:

Cathryn Hrudicka is Chief Imagination Officer at her company, Creative Sage™/Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates. She is a social media, public relations, marketing and innovation consultant and executive coach. Her clients include leaders in the entertainment, business, technology, health care and nonprofit sectors.

A recent client, Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley (a Sutter Health affiliate), won the 2009 SNCR (Society for New Communications Research) Award for Excellence and Innovation in External Communications and Communities in the Nonprofit Division, along with Creative Sage™/Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates, and G2 Communications, Inc.

An author of eight novels, Cathryn is working on a nonfiction book series about creativity and innovation. She is also a composer, sound designer, journalist and multimedia artist.

***

The Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time to Get Busy, published in April, 2010—still relevant, and limited copies are available! Proceeds from AOC3 benefit Charity Water.

Age of Conversation 3 (April, 2010)

The Age of Conversation 2: Why Don’t They Get It? Buy this book and support Variety, the children’s charity! Limited copies may be available.

The Age of Conversation 2:

Buy it on Amazon

The Age of Conversation 1—you may still be able to find a new or used copy of this book and have the entire trilogy!

Age of Conversation 1 (2007)

Buy it on Amazon

Buy AOC 1 and 2 at Lulu.com

Back to the blog front page…

Return to the Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates Home Page

By admin | Posted in 30th Anniversary Year Series, Age of Conversation 2, Awards, Business Growth, Collaboration, Community, Creativity, Employees, Human Resources, Innovation, Job Qualifications, Management, Marketing, SNCR, Social Media, Society for New Communications Research, The Age of Conversation, Transition, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Accidental Branding: How I Created the Virtual Creative Sage™ — from Personal Branding Magazine

February 28, 2011 – 11:57 pm

Cathryn Hrudicka, Founder, CEO and Chief Imagination Officer, wearing her iconic Creative Sage™ hat, in front of her Berkeley, California studio/office building. Photo by Richard Links.

From: Highlights of the Past Year at Our Company

Part 2 of our company’s 30th Anniversary Year Series
(You can read Part 1 here.)

This article was originally written by Cathryn Hrudicka for Personal Branding Magazine at the request of Founder and Publisher Dan Schawbel, and was published in February, 2011.

Most branding consultants will tell you to be strategic and even scientific about your branding process for a company, including a small business. But sometimes, you can brand yourself accidentally. That happened, in a way, to me when I changed the business model and some of my key service areas over a period of a few years. My company, which had been well established in several markets for a few decades as a public relations, marketing and nonprofit management consulting firm, was known as “Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates” — a generic positioning of my name, with the added implication that I owned a company of some scale; I was not just an independent “contractor” — I was a business owner with a staff and collaborators (the “associates”). However, the name was not particularly colorful or descriptive.

In the early 2000s, I decided to choose a new name that would be a better fit with my personality and the spirit of my business, but would still leave me some “wiggle room” and would buy some time while I more clearly defined the newly developing vision for my business, including the new offerings and market niches. On the spur of a moment, I came up with “Creative Sage™” and spontaneously took the pulse of a few people in the room — yep, they liked it and thought it fit me. But what would I do with the new name? How would I roll it out? And, isn’t a “brand” more than just a name?

I pondered these questions over the next few years as I gradually moved my business into new areas and industry niches. I also changed my web site several times, working with different designers, and began blogging. By the mid-2000s, I had settled on two different branches for my business, gradually phasing down “Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates” and introducing “Creative Sage™.” I had two sets of business cards, logos, and blog sites. I had become an innovation program designer and consultant, a creativity expert, an executive and transition coach.

By then, I was using social media extensively, and became “Creative Sage” on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, FriendFeed, Flickr, YouTube, and other networks. The name stuck as my company evolved. I needed an avatar — and again, a lucky accident — I uploaded a simple photo of myself in a sunhat with an orange scarf around it, and people responded — it seemed to fit the “Creative Sage™” image.

Now, as my company evolves, I’m gradually replacing the “hat” photo with professional, but natural photos, and we’ll be launching new programs in 2011-2012. Stay tuned. I think the point here is that my personal branding has been mainly intuitive, yet successful because I’ve listened to people’s comments and used informal crowd-sourcing and open innovation techniques to gauge market responses — and I’ve made changes in my business model and offerings in a similar way.

Creative, ongoing, managed transition is what business is all about. To the rest of the world, you are your company.

Chamillionaire on the cover of Personal Branding Magazine, which includes a profile of Cathryn Hrudicka of Creative Sage™ on page 25 of the PDF below.

Complimentary download—the February 2011 issue of Personal Branding:

Personal Branding issue_CS_CH_v4i3

You can view the cover and contents of the current issue, and subscribe to Personal Branding Magazine online. (Click on “Media.”)

You can download a free sample issue here.

Archived issues are for sale as e-magazines here.

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We’re Celebrating a Big Anniversary this Year at Creative Sage™ / Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates!

January 25, 2011 – 1:23 am

Happy 30th Anniversary to Us!!!

From: Highlights of the Past Year at Our Company—originally posted on October 12, 2010, updated January 25, 2011.

Part 1 of our company’s 30th Anniversary Year Series

I’ll admit that I’ve been struggling to write this post for over a month. It is at once a post about celebration, navigating transitions, and about the path it took to get here, full of ups and downs and back up again. To be honest, I feared that making a public announcement proudly would mean that some (narrow-minded) people might dismiss me as “too old and irrelevant” once they heard this news…well, life is too short to worry about that—here goes anyway…as of September, 2010, I’ve officially been in business for 30 years, not counting a few other stabs at entrepreneurship during childhood or my early days in San Francisco! I think a real plus about surviving—and thriving—in business this long is that age brings great experience, significant people-management capabilities, and considerable wisdom about how to navigate the life and work transitions that come with growing a business.

The gravity of this statement—as of September, 2010, I’ve officially been in business for 30 years—didn’t totally hit me until almost October 1st, so I’m writing this post in October, rather than September, 2010. I thought it would be just fine if I published it on or around my birthday (October 11th), as a milestone gift to my team and myself. But immediately, qualifiers came up, like: “Well, yes, but you also held some jobs in there, during some of those intervening years, even though you still had clients, too.” Yes, but I still filed a Schedule C with my income taxes, in most years, and handed out business cards for my own company, when appropriate, at industry networking events. In other words, I’ve always felt like the founder of an organization—and indeed, in addition to this company, I’ve founded or co-founded several other organizations.

Or, “Yes, but you didn’t make a profit all 30 years.” No, but I DID make a profit in more of those 30 years than not, and somehow, I DID support myself all those years, in one of the most expensive urban areas of the world, while still maintaining a foothold on my identity as an artist—in multiple genres—and that is what makes me feel especially proud.

How did it happen? How did a young woman without a business degree, who thought of herself primarily as an artist, develop into an entrepreneur?

In September of 1980, I was in my 20s, playing my own music gigs, and in other bands, composing and writing songs, while working for an artist management firm in San Francisco, as assistant to the manager of several nationally and internationally touring rock, blues, jazz and new wave bands. I talked with famous people and others holding key entertainment industry positions almost every day, on the phone, in person, or I wrote them letters often sent by snail mail—because we didn’t use email yet. (The fax machine was still a relatively new development.) I had carved out an additional niche for myself as an entertainment industry publicist, also serving as PR director for this firm.

In my own musical groups, by default, I often ended up booking gigs and doing publicity because my band-mates simply didn’t want to do it, or thought they shouldn’t have to, because they were “musicians first”—an attitude I obviously did not share, because I knew that it would get us nowhere in our musical careers. I’ll write more about this later, including on my Creative Sage Arts™ blog— but now, back to my job advancement in the artist management firm.

On top of working 8-10 hours a day Monday-Friday and being “on call” on weekends, I often spent 4-6 nights a week going to the artists’ gigs at clubs until late at night, or scouting new artists to sign for the firm…and I was still expected to show up bright and early the next day for work. If an artist missed a plane or had an equipment emergency on the road—anywhere in the world—I was also expected to be available by phone to straighten out the mess, if my boss was unavailable. For all of this responsibility, I was paid a salary that barely covered my living expenses, although I did enjoy some perks, such as free admission to hear a number of great bands, and a certain amount of cache in the entertainment industry.

For the purpose of brevity in this blog post, I’m skipping a number of steps in the 1970s that led me to my music/entertainment industry career. For that, you’ll have to read a forthcoming novel or a memoir I may publish eventually, as I have a treasure chest of incredible stories.

Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates™ launches...

One day in 1980, however, it began to not quite add up for me. By then, I had found myself a few key industry mentors and tested the waters of pitching freelance publicity work to several artists I knew. My mentors—several of the most notable people in the Bay Area music scene—will always be treasured and appreciated for the encouragement they gave me, in addition to their very practical and useful advice. Several of them coached me on how to put together effective press packages (a standby of PR in that era), how to write a good press release and individualized cover letters to media to pitch stories, and they answered my questions about how to pitch a story on the phone or in person—and I did get a lot of experience doing this at my job, which resulted in a number of cover stories in the industry trades and mentions in key columns. The ultimate results, of course, were that our artists gained local, national and international visibility on new levels and were offered upgraded bookings and recording contracts, publishing deals and radio airplay, which was highly coveted in the pre-internet era.

Fortunately for me, I was on to “social media” and “social networking” from the very beginning, even before it evolved as Web 2.0, as I worked overtime to develop in-person, individualized relationships with my media and industry contacts, learning each of their unique preferences for pitches; customizing all my pitches AFTER getting to know them first in conversations (even if with a beer in a noisy club); using video, audio, photos and other media to tell the artists’ stories, as well as text. It paid off, in terms of my good—and growing—reputation in the industry.

However, when I asked this former boss for a raise and an official promotion, with a more appropriate title, he turned me down, without even offering a counter-proposal or adequate recognition of the considerable work I had done to educate myself to advance in the business and contribute more to his firm. His main reason was that he had to spend money to hire a new secretary, which turned out to be a fiasco, as he chose an attractive, but unreliable person with a drug problem (not uncommon in that era), whom I now had to supervise. That was the last straw. I finally gained the confidence—a new level of hard-won chutzpah—to quit my job and hang out my own shingle.

With a few hundred dollars I had saved, beyond my essential living expenses, I got my first business cards printed, pasted up my inaugural stationery, and instead of a logo, I had avante-garde type set at a rakish angle, with the simple, obvious name, “Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates.” At first, the only “associate” was my dog, Poquito, who proved to be much more worthy than his title, often comforting and encouraging me when I needed it most. I had clients and friends in places as diverse as New York, Los Angeles, and Mendocino, so I quickly added a host of other cities and towns to my letterhead. In that pre-mobile, pre-email, pre-web site, pre-Skype, and pre-Google Voice era, I also paid for a human answering service, printed some flyers, and paid for a flyer posting service.

To boost my referral network and let people know what I was up to, I networked and attended A LOT of industry events, cheerfully passing out my business cards and announcements about my new business wherever I went. When I walked Poquito in Golden Gate Park, I took some business cards in my pocket—and sure enough, I met a few people there who were business card-worthy. I was now a twenty-something entertainment industry entrepreneur who had the world’s greatest dog and a lot of big dreams to support.

Within a few years, I added marketing communications, radio promotion, project management, and multimedia production to my menu of PR services. In addition to music industry clients, I added theatre, dance, fine arts and film organizations and artists to my client list. I partnered and subcontracted with other firms, which enabled me to break into working on larger corporate projects and helped me to further hone my management capabilities.

After first developing my entertainment niche and becoming a known brand there, I managed to retain that brand while crossing over into other niches. It was not at all easy, and I would not recommend that to everyone, but it worked for me. More on that later.

One of the key things almost no one tells you when you first start a business is that it will be an ongoing experience of personal growth for you, as well as business growth. You also have to master the art of transition, or at least, embrace learning about it, if you want to grow and sustain a long-term business. I can’t emphasize this enough—constant transition and challenge is what it’s all about. Some would call this “innovation.”

All right, now I am really clear that this post needs to be part of a series. So, keep following me here and on my other two main blogs [creativesage.com/blog], and [creativesagearts.com/blog], as eventually, I’m going to get to the part about how my business was created and has been designed to support my arts, and vice-versa. This is very important, as it is a key to my success.

I’m also very proud that I always thought of my business as a real company. I didn’t think of myself as just a “freelancer” or “contractor”; and my company was founded with the values of social entrepreneurship from the beginning—and we are an environmentally-friendly company. The “triple bottom line” is a basic cornerstone of our mission and vision.

Creative Sage™ launches...

Stay tuned…there’s a lot more to our story! In Part 2, I’ll take you through some of our company transitions, including how we added social media expertise to our palette of integrated marketing and communication colors, and how we got into our fascinating and rewarding work in innovation, collaboration and management consulting, training and coaching, which led to the evolution of Creative Sage™.

Eventually, we diversified our client base, adding Fortune 500 companies, respected nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, associations, health care and environmental organizations, hallmark technology companies and startups, university projects, museums, architecture and design firms, and key innovation teams to our client list. We have worked in the business-to-business and business-to-consumer spaces.

For more about our company’s evolution—and I do think it’s an exciting, evocative, and informative story—please keep an eye on this space, or better yet—visit and subscribe to all three of my blogs via RSS or email:

PR, Social Media and Marketing Mentor™

What’s Innovation Got to Do with It?™

Creative Sage Arts™

Don’t hesitate to contact me if you want more information, or you may want to subscribe to our e-letters. We’ll be offering some special Anniversary Year programs filled with real goodies and added value for you. We don’t send our e-letters often, so they won’t be spam…they’ll arrive as a special treat, like a chocolate truffle with added nutrition, in your in-box.

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By admin | Posted in 30th Anniversary Year Series, Added Value, Business, Business Development, Business Growth, Business Survival, Business Sustainability, Celebration, Challenges, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Life-Work Balance, Marketing, Personal Growth, PR, Public Relations, Real Results, Risk, Social Causes, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Fundraising, Social Media, Social Networking, Success, Thriving Business, Transition, Transitions, Uncategorized, Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Work-Life Balance | Tagged , , , , | Comments (5)

Client Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley’s Social Media Program Wins a 2009 SNCR Award for Excellence in New Communications

December 31, 2010 – 9:16 pm

An animated fly-over video of what the new Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley hospital will look like when completed in 2013. Produced by The Devenney Group, the architecture firm for the new hospital.

From: Highlights of the Past Year at Our Company—originally posted on December 10, 2009; updated June 1, 2010 and re-posted December 31, 2010 by popular request, in honor of our 30th Anniversary.

Rendering of the new Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley, by The Devenney Group, Architects

Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley is still under construction, but it is already earning international recognition. The project’s social media program is the winner of the 2009 Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) Excellence in New Communications Award for External Communications & Communities in the Nonprofit Division.

The honors were shared with developers Creative Sage™/Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates and G2 Communications, Inc., social media strategy and communications consultants.

The award winners were announced at the 4th Annual SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards gala at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley is a $320 million construction project to replace Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley.

The Society for New Communications Research awards program honors innovative organizations that are pioneering the use of social media, ICT, mobile media, online communities, and collaborative technologies in the areas of media, marketing, public relations, advertising, entertainment, education, politics and social initiatives.

“The Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley social media program has been precedent-setting in the health care field. It has included using a variety of social media tools—a blog site with a Webcam, video, architectural renderings and other multimedia content, plus popular social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed and YouTube—to engage the community in open discussion about the design and construction of a new hospital,” said Project Communications Director Cassandra Clark. “We set out to reach new audiences and involve them in our process, and we discovered new ways to have conversations between the public and the project team, including the architects, engineers and president of the hospital. It’s a major shift in how we communicate, and we are seeing positive results.”

SNCR Senior Fellow Albert Maruggi nominated the Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley Social Media Project, the first social media project of its kind undertaken by Sutter Health as a pilot program, for the award.

Business author Shel Israel, who is also a Senior SNCR Fellow and Advisory Board member, included the story of the Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley social media project in his recently published book, Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods (pp. 103-105), and agreed with Mr. Maruggi that the SMCCV project could qualify for a SNCR Award. They both remarked that they “loved the story” and found this social media outreach project to be “unique, a first of its kind” as a health care community advocacy program.

“Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley’s social media program is an impressive example of the successful and innovative use of new tools, technologies, solutions and practices to enhance communications and relationships,” commented Jen McClure, founder and president of the Society.

A list of winners and all the winning case studies submitted to this year’s SNCR awards program have been published on the Society’s website.

Cathryn Hrudicka accepted the 2009 SNCR Award for Excellence in New Communications at the Harvard Faculty Club. (Photo by Todd Van Hoosear)

Creative Sage™/Cathryn Hrudicka & Associates served as consulting integrated social media strategist, trainer and project manager for the winning project, along with G2 Communications, Inc. The winning case study was written by Cathryn Hrudicka, who accepted the award in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on behalf of Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley and the two co-winner agencies. Sutter Health and its affiliate Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley are recent clients.

A version of this announcement was also posted by Cassandra Clark, Project Communications Director, on the Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley blog site.

You can read about the entire list of 2009 SNCR Award Winners here.

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By admin | Posted in 30th Anniversary Year Series, Awards, Case Studies, Community, Innovation, Marketing, Metrics, online communities, PR, Public Relations, ROI, SNCR, Social Media, Social Media Metrics, Social Media ROI, Social Networking, Society for New Communications Research, Twitter, Web 2.0, YouTube | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (5)