You know that day-after-Christmas feeling you get when you realize that you are as far away as possible from the next Christmas? It’s the day the waiting begins all over again. Well, this past Monday was my day to feel that way: the day after the Oscars. Now, for most people, the Oscars is an event they are aware about and maybe even make a point to watch, but for me it’s the most exciting day of year.

Throughout the year, I keep track of every thought, whisper or comment about who might be up for consideration. In January, I sit anxiously through the Golden Globes (a frequent Oscar predictor) for clues about who’s hot and who’s not. When the list of nominees is announced, I digest each name and analyze odds. I attempt to see each of the films nominated for Best Picture (although, with ten films to see now, that is becoming more difficult). The week before, I make my final predictions. Then, I watch with excitement as the Oscar Week activities unfold. Finally, after months of anticipation, Oscar Day arrives.

The show itself always unfolds the same way: they start with some good ones to get you interested, move on to some minor awards, add in a few montages, pause to remember those we lost and end with the Big Four-Actor, Actress, Director and Film. This year was no different, but I must note the added tribute to John Hughes was a highlight for me. The day after the Oscars brings hours of coverage about the winners, the gowns, the speeches and the after-parties. For me, it also brings a slight feeling of sadness that it’s over until next year. Once the coverage dies down, I begin to think about the new batch of films next year will bring and the excitement starts to build all over again. And that’s a wrap.

After appearing on the pages of high-profile fashion magazines, styling numerous celebrities and red carpet events, and seeing tremendous success from their Hillcrest location, Jet Rhys decided to expand their reach throughout San Diego.  Following months of preparation and anticipation, Jet Rhys opened its doors in Solana Beach, bringing its expert styling services and hair connoisseurs to North County.

Zenzi was tasked with helping Jet Rhys plan their grand opening party, which saw an incredible turnout last week.  Members of the community, media friends, and representatives from neighboring business came out to show their support and receive luxurious Fig Soufflé deep conditioning treatments from L’Oreal Professionnel.  The entire Jet Rhys staff was in attendance to administer the treatments and give guests an A-list look with an expert blow out.

Amidst the mingling and styling, guests enjoyed delectable eats such as Ahi Escabeche and Lobster Dumplings from Pacific Coast Grill, Cupcake Love’s Red Velvet, Coconut Cream, and German Chocolate “Love Bites,” as well as fine wines and prosecco from Montesquieu Winery.  Yum!

The new Jet Rhys salon features 2,800 square feet of architecturally inspiring space including five coloring stations, ten cutting and styling stations, a private waxing suite and flat screen TV’s showcasing the latest runway fashions.

Every guest left the party looking like a superstar thanks to the highly skilled Jet Rhys team, and Zenzi has yet another successful launch under our belt.  Thank you to everyone who came out to show their support!

I am sitting on the edge of my sofa holding my breath as Apollo skates hoping he will medal, again and again. I am cheering like a mad woman for Shaun White as he throws himself into gravity defying stunts on the snowboard half pike. I watched ice skating and the ski jumping and something ominously called Skeleton. I couldn’t help myself, I learned about curling and realized I weirdly cared about the outcome of US vs. Canada in men’s ice hockey. The triumphs, the defeat, the overcoming of odds, the stories, the glory the U.S. pride. Yep, NBC sucked me right in and then they cut me off. Cold Turkey. Olympics and then SEINFELD? I am not sure I will ever forgive them. I was in it to win it, there for the bitter end…just not the 11:30 pm bitter end as I am a working mother, Hello?!!! Read more…

Evaluating the value of social media

By Dean Calbreath, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Over the past several years, companies have increasingly spent their advertising and marketing dollars on search engines such as Google or Yahoo and social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

But how much business do they actually bring into a company? And how can companies improve their online presence to generate more sales?

Those questions have dominated the Online Marketing Summit, a four-day conference concluding today at Paradise Point Resort in Mission Bay.

“What’s working in social media is that it’s a great way to engage your customers and have a real dialogue with them,” said Thad Kahlow, chief executive of Business OnLine, a San Diego firm concentrating on Web-based marketing. “What’s not working is the drive to know how much return they’re getting on their investment.” Read on!

Broadband bonding patches together a bigger pipe with a price tag sized for small business.

By Dan O’Shea

Small businesses find it tough to get what they need from big telecom service providers, which more often create offerings with big businesses in mind–”one-size-fits-all” solutions that may or may not fit.

In many cases, that one size is a T-1 line. At 1.5 megabits per second, that’s faster than some business connection alternatives–but it also can cost as much as $1,000 per month. For the most part, service providers are not in a rush to develop a more flexible solution for small businesses that ultimately would subtract from their bottom lines. Fortunately, there’s a work-around: an approach called broadband bonding. Simply put, it allows two or more broadband lines to be bonded into a single, more capacious pipe. Broadband bonding variations are offered by several companies, one of which is Mushroom Networks, founded in 2004 as a spinoff from the University of California, San Diego. Read more!

Did Tiger’s speech do the same for you or hit a cord of sympathy?  Or maybe, both?

At Zenzi, we credit Tiger for acknowledging and taking responsibility for his actions, admitting wrongdoing and trying to make amends.  Saying sorry just may be one of the hardest things to do, and Tiger has done what many public politicians and celebrities, that have been responsible for greater wrongs to the public, frequently avoid.

It is true Tiger’s actions may have disrupted his squeaky clean image and disappointed his younger fans, and we recognize his efforts for acknowledging and apologizing/admitting wrongdoing to this group.  Overall, however, Tiger’s questionable actions were very “personal,” and as such, we think the apology would have been better served had it been kept to the closer circle of people he truly hurt and left shorter and sweeter.

Most Americans are sympathetic to people making mistakes, because we realize we aren’t perfect, after all.  We just want to know that people have learned from them and that the apology is coming from the heart, which is why, sometimes, it is better to leave the teleprompter or flash cards by the wayside, say you are sorry to the people who matter the most and get on with repairing your life.

As you have probably heard already, Southwest Airlines recently made the unfortunate mistake of angering a passenger that harnesses a lot of power on Twitter.  According to reports, actor/director/writer/comedian Kevin Smith, best known for his role as Silent Bob, was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Burbank, CA, this past Valentine’s Day weekend due to his weight.  Since then, dozens of tweets have been posted by Kevin Smith — @ThatKevinSmith –(last time we checked, his Twitter page was overloaded and couldn’t be accessed via the Twitter website but we were able to check it out via TweetDeck).  To put it mildly, he is angry, and quickly gave Southwest Airlines a fast-moving social media crisis communications situation to deal with.

I’m going to go ahead and ignore taking sides on how airlines should handle seating issues with overweight passengers and focus on the area that I actually have some knowledge and expertise on — the PR and social media strategy by Southwest Airlines to undo the damage.  Our readers can go ahead and check the facts for themselves to form an opinion on whether he should have been kicked off the plane, what the requirements should be for this kind of situation, etc.  The curious, opinionated side of me could go on for a while about that side of the story, but the communications strategy minded, PR professional side of me is more intrigued by how this is being handled by Southwest Airlines.  They have a reputation as a company that prides itself and is well recognized for having stellar customer service, and a lot of generally happy fans on Twitter that they interact with regularly.  So it’s no surprise that they swiftly responded to this digital firestorm of complaints and attacks and have become a part of the conversation, rather than sitting back and watching everything unfold as their name gets tarnished in the process.

This is an unusual situation with a celebrity involved, but it is an excellent case study in the power and reach that Twitter has to either build up or damage an organization’s reputation.  While this story is still playing out and we have yet to see what the outcome will be, so far it looks like Southwest is handling the situation in the way they should be.  They have posted a few tweets apologizing to Mr. Smith and linking to their blog entry which apologized with more detail, explained the situation and the immediate steps that were taken to remedy the damage, and outlined their company policies and procedures in this area.  An apology can go a long way in this type of situation, and the transparency they are demonstrating will likely help them to retain a high level of trust and respect among customers and fans.  Though, according to Smith’s tweets, perhaps Southwest isn’t being quite as transparent as they seem to be.  There are always two sides to each story and we can all learn from watching how Southwest is handling this very public dispute being broadcast via Twitter.

The Southwest Airlines blog post can be accessed here.

First, we had to introduce a new and extremely complicated technology to the small business and enterprise communities in a way that could easily be understood and second we had to target the service providers themselves positioning Mushroom’s technology as a potential new type of business class service that may cannibalize existing offerings. After an in-depth brainstorming session, Zenzi suggested coining a general term for Mushroom’s technology that would be easily conceptualized by both the enterprise and service provider targets and in addition emphasize the downside of legacy broadband solutions Mushroom was setting out to replace.

The term Broadband Bonding™ was decided upon and used to launch the initial product called TRUFFLE. For the enterprise side we focused in on Broadband Bonding as a way to significantly boost performance both in the uplink and downlink directions at a mere fraction of the cost of traditional services such as T1 lines. For the service providers, we positioned Broadband Bonding as a new service that would bridge the gap between T1 and T3 subscribers and/or be slowly implemented as networks evolve into an all IP architecture.

The results have been astounding, in just under six months with a very limited marketing push besides PR, Mushroom is consistently moving over $50K of equipment per month and is currently in several trials with tier-1 service providers throughout the country. In addition, the term “Broadband Bonding” as been adopted as an industry-wide term and most recently named by Telephony Magazine as a hot technology to watch and has received several prestigious technology innovation awards.