Connie Bensen

One of my goals for 2009 was to expand how I communicate with all of you. I love writing & that’s what my blog is all about. Photos are fairly 2 dimensional so I’m adding podcasting & vido.
I have to give a huge THANK YOU to Adam Helweh for his tireless patience over the lat 2 weeks. (Don’t believe any of his stories!) And Sukhjit inspired me to provide you with the option to reply with video comments! My friend Thomas Knoll, Seesmic’s Comm Mgr should be proud! It’s for you guys, live it up!

One of the guys at Techrigy was teasing me that podcasting & video is all so 2001, but it’s been a process for me to get the hardware & integrate it into my blog. (No I didn’t buy a Mac & Yes, I’ll show you my new tools in a future post) It had to be easy for it to have happened. And the most important aspect is that I really wanted to! (I thought I”d be too self-conscious for the video aspect).

If you see my tweets you know that we’ve been having some very cold weather here in Minnesota. If you complain about your weather you may hear something about my temp. It’s my duty!

Today started out at a nippy temp with a high of -13. Some people ask if that’s the windchill? uh, no – that’s the real temp. Subtract another 20 degrees if there’s a wind.

So here’s a bit about Minnesota weather in January.

Yesterday I made a video of my husband blowing snow on a warm day. The high was a balmy 10 degrees! (Now the Techrigy guys were complaining that 15 was cold & we’ll be having a talk about that when I go out there).

These are my furry feet warmers on the weekends. (I put my feet up on my task chair & yes they’re under there).

So what do you think? Adam thought that the world may not be safe anymore?!!!

AHA! this is going to expand my horizons. My friend, Dave Barger has invited me to speak at his Memphis’ Social Media Expedition Breakfast on Wed!
And now I can attend the Singapore social media breakfast without flying half way around the world (for now anyway)

We take so much for granted. Our families, our health, our jobs… maybe just life in general? We have so much yet we’re never satisfied. It isn’t until something happens that we realize we should be appreciative of what we have. And that’s a reminder to myself too.

The recession is affecting people’s lives including my friends. I have been talking with some of you & will be shifting those conversations to my blog in a more general sense. Life can be challenging at times. But we also need the bad times to appreciate when times are good.

On November 10th my sister & I went up to visit my Dad after he had emergency surgery. He’s relatively young at 67 & things appeared as expected. The next day found him being transferred 4 hrs away to a regional hospital in ICU for 5 days, then another 3 days in the hospital. And he left the hospital being dependent on dialysis which was frustrating for him.

On both of my shopping trips in the past week I received phone calls from Dad. The first was last Friday. I’m sure I looked pretty silly when I almost started to cry on a cell phone call, but Dad’s news that his lab work meant he was going home to avoid the blizzard & for Christmas was pretty incredible. He said that,

It was the best Christmas gift ever!

Then on Monday he called with test results that affirmed our hopes. Dad said that he had expected to have a good quality of life til he was 80 & this experience had been quite humbling.

I’m sharing this story not because I think it will help people cope with being laid off or the economy but rather because I think it helps put things into perspective. For me relationships & health are much more important than the monetary aspects of life. Of course we have financial obligations, but I believe that if you have skills & a willingness to work you WILL find opportunities. That’s what my blog is all about & I WILL continue to write about those topics. I’ve proven it myself.

And if my Dad’s example isn’t compelling enough, then I’ll add Debbie’s story. Debbie’s husband came into ICU the day after my Dad did. We got to know her in the family room. She came to know our family/issues & we came to know hers. Her husband is still in the hospital. His diagnosis before we left the hospital was cancer of the lymph nodes. CaringBridge.org is an amazing website, but every time I get an update in my email, my heart drops. I have followed along as Debbie’s husband has had numerous surgeries & procedures. She adds her thoughts & fears as she relays the news. The most recent was to place a mechanism in his skull for delivery of chemo.

After 2 months in ICU, he is now in the regular hospital. He took four steps yesterday. The prognosis is 2 to 6 months. It is all so very sad. They are in their fifties.

But it underlines my motivation to continue to do what I can for everyone. And to live my life to it’s fullest & pursue my dreams of travel & educating others. There is so much to do & it’s an exciting time despite the challenges that life throws at us.

Do you periodically step back & appreciate what you have despite the short term challenges? What can you do to help those around you?

Isn’t this wonderful? And it’s all of the work of my sister, Heidi! She’s such an awesome builder. I was just with her on Friday & we took this photo.

It was time for change & we’ve been working on this for a few months because:

• the red has served it’s purpose, but people were tired of the photo
• it was great for branding though
• I needed something more professional with new branding
• I wanted to make it easier to access my resources – see tabs
• my speaking engagements deserve highlighting
• and after a year it was time for a change!

A quick tour around:

• The blog is still a WordPress blog which my sister magically made to feel like the rest
• The rest of the site is Joomla & pretty cool. I can easily edit it
• There are forums with a private area for Community people to discuss life privately

A couple of cool features here on the blog – there are two sets of tabs that save a lot of space. My sister tweaked the CSS so they highlight when you mouseover them.

And today I saw a very cool way to continue to build my Twitter community and help all of you connect with people who comment on my blog.

• When you comment, you can add your Twitter name – I put in an example below
• Then it is turned into a hyperlink for others to connect to you with!
• Leave a comment & try it out! Here’s the plug in so you can have the same coolness.
• A friend said that @jowyang & @ChrisBrogan should use it to make it easier to connect with their community. It’s a great idea guys!

I’d love to have your feedback on the redesign. Suggestions? It’s never done. And my sister has redone many blogs including that of Sean O’Driscoll & Mari Smith. You can find her at SolutionsByHeidi.com

I have to thank Shashi Bellamkonda for nominating me for a Shorty Award on Twitter for the Community Category. I worked with Shashi at Network Solutions this summer & I really appreciate his support of my work. I always feel odd doing shameless self promotion – but I advise others to do it, so… once in awhile it’s ok.

So why do I think that I should be nominated for an award on Twitter? Over the past year I have:

• insisted that many join Twitter & taught them how to use it
• documented how I use Twitter & it’s value
• created the Twitterpacks for Community Managers to help everyone connect with each other on Twitter
• provided business cases for using Twitter
• and met many of you there!

The best producers of short* content in 2008

*140 characters or less, on Twitter

The Shorty Awards honor the world’s top Twitterers.

So how can you vote? (Voting goes until December 31st)

On Twitter – copy & past this in & finish the sentence:

@shortyawards I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because…

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Or use this handy page to vote directly by finishing the sentence.

Thanks so much for being a part of my community on Twitter!

A huge thanks to these people! You guys are total rockstars!

@jimwu  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because she has been such an inspiration!

@DaveMurr  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because her blog is a amazing resource!

@philbaumann  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because she is laying groundworks of community building for this century.

@petergold99  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because…she talks a lot of sense and adds real value to the convers …

@derrickkwa  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because she does an amazing job in connecting people.

@NicP  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community. She is a tireless promoter of community matters and teacher to many

@warrenss  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because she is awesome!

@shashib  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community for fantastic resources on her blog

@emilwisch  I nominate @cbensen for a Shorty Award in #community because she’s the baddest, sweetest community strategist alive.