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On May 16th, I spoke about using social media during Hurricane Sandy at the Columbia School of Journalism Social Media One Night Stand, hosted by Prof. Sree Sreenivasan (@sree). Celebrated journalist Betty Ming Liu (@BettyMingLiu) illustrated the speakers – their pics and speech synopses are below.

Flipboard (@Flipboard) – Josh Quittner (@twittner), Editorial Director

• Beauty of display + pagination = torn pages
• Create your own magazine.
• Everyone can be an editor.
• Reflip pages you like.
• Use editor.flipboard.com

The Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) – Craig Kanalley (@ckanal), Senior Editor

• Stay up on the next big thing.
• Wearable tech is the future.
• Be human.
• Mobile is important.
• Get the facts right!

Internet Medialabs (@InternetLabs) – Robert Moore (@MediaLabRat), Founder

• List creation
• Relationship management
• Active relationships – keep track of them
• Index and analyze Twitter.

Kathy Zucker (@KathyZucker), Hoboken Mom (text of full speech is here)

• Start conversations.
• Be a connector.
• Keep doing things.
• It’s all a jigsaw puzzle that will fit together eventually.

LinkedIn (@LinkedIn) – Krista Canfield (@KristaCanfield), Senior Manager of Corporate Communications

• Use LinkedIn mobile app.
• Add skills to your profile.
• Add pictures to get traffic.
• Have at least 50 contacts.
• Add your university, then check linkedin/college
• Links: press.linkedin.com, blog.linkedin.com

The New York Times Lede (@thelede) – Jennifer Preston (@JenniferPreston), First Social Media Editor

Ways to find eyewitnesses for stories

• Find the first poster on Twitter.
• Local reporters are rock stars on Twitter.
• Official sources on Twitter are useful.
• Facebook friends – Open Graph!
• Vine offers video curation.
• Youtube channels.

Spundge (@Spundge) – Craig Silverman (@CraigSilverman), Director of Content

• Create notebooks.
• Collect stuff!
• Drag and drop tweets, images, etc.
• Track, collaborate and share.
• Publish to blogs (WordPress, Typepad, Tumblr).

Sree’s (@sree) Top Tips

• Do things for passion.
• You’re bigger and better than your title.
• Have an open mind.
  • Post images! The bigger the images, the better.
  • Your camera is your notebook.
• Be (semi) obnoxious on social media – don’t be afraid to repeat good content.
• Doing your Twitter is like doing your kegels – nobody needs to know.
• Find the social media platform that works for you.
• Blog like you’ll do it for free for the rest of your life.
• Social media is hard! People don’t listen to you!
• Really think about your brand.

Statista (@StatistaCharts) – Hedda v. Schaumann (@heddavsw), Executive Marketing Director

• Aggregates data
• Posts charts & infographics

Illustration photos courtesy of Greg Lord (@greglordstudio).

Kathy Zucker, CEO of Metro Moms Network, mother of three young children and winner of the New York Life Keep Good Going Shorty Award, writes about juggling career and family in an urban setting. See what Kathy is up to at her Mom Condo Living blog and on Twitter @KathyZucker.

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If you have any interest in food and health at all (which you obviously do or you wouldn’t have found yourself here at Saving Dinner), then you’ve been hearing the word “Paleo” being tossed around a lot.

You may even associate the term with an extreme way of eating, much like the low-carb Atkins diet. A fad that will disappear like so many trendy diets that have come before it.

But, at the risk of sounding like a cliche, going Paleo really means adapting a new lifestyle for the rest of your life. Once you go Paleo, you’ll physically feel so amazing that it will be very hard to go back to the way you used to eat.

Let me explain.

First of all, the word Paleo is from the word Paleolithic. If you want the science behind this way of eating, you can spend some time on Google, but I’ll share the general concept with you here.

A Paleo lifestyle means eating the way our ancestors would have. The premise behind this diet is that our bodies haven’t adapted to eating modern-day foods (those that weren’t available 10,000 years ago). The theory is that digestive disorders and diseases that are so prevalent today are running rampant because our bodies don’t know what to do with the foods we’re putting in our mouths.

What do Paleoistas eat?

This lifestyle means eating a diet of:

* wild-caught fish
* seeds, nuts and berries
* locally sourced, free-range, grass-fed meats and poultry
* free-range organic eggs
* local, organic produce
* saturated fats

It also means eating according to what’s in season where you live.

Paleo people love their fats. But vegetable oils, as I’ve mentioned before, weren’t available to our ancestors, so those are out. Paleo folks eat lots of saturated fats because those are the fats our cells need. Those fats include organic butter from grass-fed cows, ghee, coconut oil and olive oil. It also means animal fat, which means bacon is a friend and not a foe.

What do Paleoistas avoid?

When you eat a Paleo diet, you don’t eat:

* refined sugar
* processed foods
* grains (including rice, oats and pasta)
* dairy
* legumes
* vegetable oils
* soy

Now you all know me, and you know I’m not about extreme diets, so don’t worry. I’m not going to tell you that Paleo is the be all and end all! I do, however, believe that we should all explore the guiding pillars of this way of life: eating an organic diet free from processed foods and limiting grains.

I, personally, eat a Paleo diet and I’ve never felt better in my life. But it’s all about balance. Going Paleo doesn’t mean sitting down to a platter of steaks and chicken wings for dinner every evening. You have to eat lots of veggies, too. Your vegetable intake will actually naturally increase when you go Paleo because you won’t be filling up with starchy grains!

If you’re interested in going down the Paleo path, I would recommend trying it for about a month and see how you feel after that. You may find it to be easier than you thought it would.

Some Paleoistas never go back because they find that the lifestyle is not difficult to adapt to, but others follow the Paleo diet about 85% of the time.

Do you currently eat Paleo? Are you dead against it? Leave a comment and let’s chat about it on our Facebook page!

Leanne Ely is a New York Times best selling author and the author of the Saving Dinner series.

Article reprinted with permisson.

Copyright (C) 2013 www.savingdinner.com Leanne Ely, CNC All rights reserved.

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Bounce ideas off the perfect target audience – moms of young children. With 50,000 people crammed into one square mile and the highest incomes in Hudson County, Hoboken, NJ is the perfect test market for products and retail offerings. According to PunchTab Chief Marketing Officer Angela Sanfilippo, “moms influence $2.4 trillion in spend every year. Everyone wants to engage this audience segment.”

With over 2,000 members in the Hoboken area testing and reporting back on products and classes to showcase at our biannual expos – attended by thousands – the Metro Moms have their finger on the pulse of the young parent market in the NY/NJ metro area. Led by social media award-winning CEO Kathy Zucker, the Metro Moms Network provides an on-the-spot focus group of local experts and parents to bounce ideas and get instant feedback – in a private, confidential setting. Come to a free catered networking hangout TONIGHT at 7pm at  Choc O Pain French Bakery at 157 First Street in Hoboken – who knows, you might meet the perfect partner and launch a multimillion dollar business from your living room.

Update, 5/16: Comment from attendee Amy Valent-Ribot, “A special thanks to Kate and the folks at Choc O Pain for a great night of delicious food and great advice!”

Want to get more from the Metro Moms? Subscribe to Metro Moms online Magazine, join our mailing list or come to an event to find out how to take your life to the next level.

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I don’t like making tough decisions.

I freak out when I face the unknown. And the ultimate unknown life experience? Having a baby. You literally have no idea how things are going to turn out. Am I going to get pregnant? Have a miscarriage? Have a healthy baby but stroke out from high blood pressure? The unknowns are virtually limitless – for a planner like me, that is terrifying.

The last time I was pregnant, I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep and wake up in nine months. But I couldn’t do that. From the first nightmarish test to the week on hospital bedrest, I was trapped in my own body, faced with bad and worse decisions. So I decided to own them. They might be horrible choices, but they would be mine, dangit.

Reading rescued me. For six weeks, I spent every spare moment reading online medical journals, getting second, third and fourth opinions. And after weeks of reading, crying and arguing? My husband and I decided amniocentesis yes, termination no.

You never know how you are going to handle a tough situation until you are in it. I will never know what I would have done if the genetic testing had showed an anomaly. But I do know that when I face a horrible situation and delve into every possible scrap of information, I am able to make a decision and set my raging brain at peace. It may be a horrific choice, but at least it’s made.

No matter how terrible your situation is, the worst thing you can do is bury your head in the sand and hope it goes away. The unknown is limitlessly frightening. When you can put a fence around your fear, you are drawing a line in the sand that says, go no further. And once you know the absolute worst case scenario, you can start moving forward with the parts of your life the fear doesn’t touch. For me, it meant spending time with my two older children and finalizing our child care arrangements. Facing my fears bought me four good months instead of relegating me to a quivering mass for nine.

Related Articles:

Pregnancy Over 35: Listen When Your Body Yells at You

Pregnancy Over 35: Learning How to Let Go

Kathy Zucker, CEO of Metro Moms Network, LLC, mother of three young children and winner of the New York Life Keep Good Going Shorty Award, writes about juggling career and family in an urban setting. See what Kathy is up to at her Mom Condo Living blog and on Twitter @KathyZucker.

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We present our Feature Story: “White Envelopes” by Victoria Slotover.

My life changed around the time my braces came off, although the two things were in fact unrelated.

I think I always knew my parents didn’t love each other, but I did think they loved me. I’m not saying there was hatred or even dislike; just I sensed a disappointment in their relationship. Of course low expectations made for a quiet life; I never had to listen to rows from a hiding place at the top of the stairs or to door slamming, like some of my friends. They got on with their allotted duties- my mother cooked and kept the house tidy while my father brought home a steady pay and, who’s to say that wasn’t enough for them? Except it wasn’t.

It was early January and already dark as I unlocked the front door, pleased to get inside and away from Susie Nixon who’d just told me she didn’t want to be my best friend anymore and had whispered with Annie Lloyd in the seat in front of mine all the way home on the bus. As I dumped my satchel by the stairs and switched on the hall light, I wondered vaguely where my mother was. She usually made a point of waiting at home for me, and although I certainly didn’t mind having some space, it was surprising she wasn’t there.

The house seemed expectant somehow; it reminded me of the moment before the curtain goes up at the theatre. Maybe even then a part of me knew, or maybe hindsight’s just playing its usual tricks; it’s hard to be sure.

I boiled the kettle and grabbed a couple of Oreos out of the cookie jar in the cupboard. At least there was no one to nag me about fixing a healthy snack or getting in my face offering to make me one. I took another; where was she anyway? I made a token attempt at my homework and then flicked on the television jumping from one show to the next.

It wasn’t until suppertime that I actually started to feel faintly worried, or was I just irritated that I’d been forgotten about? I could come up with reasons why my mother might be out in the afternoon, but not why she wasn’t back in time to cook dinner. And, where was my father? He didn’t have the sort of job that kept him late at the office and since he walked to work he couldn’t have been caught in traffic.

Neither had mentioned going out or being back late and since mobile phones were practically unheard of in those days, there was no way for me to find out where they were. I waited until 8 o’clock then rifled through the fridge for something to eat. My mother had left an enormous lasagne in a casserole dish on the top shelf. Was I expected to heat it up myself? I banged the fridge door shut so hard that it opened again by itself. I helped myself to some mint choc chip ice cream, which I spooned directly from the carton with my feet up on the coffee table. My mother would have had conniptions. I left the empty tub on its side on the sofa so she’d know what I’d done. Then I poured myself a large glass of white wine from the sideboard; it tasted of sour apples but I knocked it back anyway, and settled down to watch Cheers re-runs, while really listening out for her car, his footsteps, daring them to come in and see what I was up to.

If you don’t really think anything’s wrong, and the truth is I couldn’t comprehend that it might be, there’s something intensely pleasurable about torturing yourself with terrible fantasies. The later it got the wilder my imaginings became- there had been an accident, at any moment the police were going to knock on the door to tell me that I was orphaned and would have to go and live with my grandparents in L.A. I pushed aside the fact that it was unlikely they were together since they had set off from different places, and therefore, it was statistically improbable something tragic had happened to both of them.

I went to bed much later than usual, not because I was taking advantage of their absence but rather because I wanted to wait for them to return so I’d know what had happened. Even then, I was sure they were coming back. Since it was nearly midnight when I finally did go up, I slid into bed without putting the light on which meant that I didn’t see the first envelope until the morning. Instead I fell asleep listening to the bathroom extractor fan, which sounded like a demon breathing behind the wall.

I woke early and dozed in bed waiting for my father to knock on my door and hand me the mug of tea he always brought me. He didn’t come. The January morning sky looked like the evening one when I pushed open my bedroom door and saw their bedroom door was still open. The fear that I had pretended to feel the night before was now very real. Their bed was made. Their curtains were open. And what I noticed only after I went back in a second time was that my mother’s wedding ring was on her nightstand and her bedside clock was face down.

I saw the first white envelope when I went back to my own room. It was propped up against the bedside lamp, a surrender flag hiding in the dark. The other envelope arrived in the morning post, and I couldn’t help thinking of the white feathers that women gave to cowards, only he’d given this one to me.

Neither it seemed had left a note for the other, though for the first time in their lives they had acted in unison for the same reason, each entrusting me to the other’s care.

Victoria Slotover lives in London with her husband, two sons and exuberant cocker spaniel.
Her short fiction has been published on the Writer’s Hub, Short Fiction Collective, Linguistic Erosion and The Legendary as well as in Delta Women Magazine, Smashed Cat Magazine, Mumsense Magazine, The Wilderness House Literary Review and the Ham & High newspaper.

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The last few times I packed suitcases for a trip with my daughters I was struck by how much easier it has become. Now as three and five-and-a-half year olds, they no longer need the myriad of items they once did. Besides the obvious things–diapers, baby food, or a Pack ‘n Play®–other items like child-sized silverware can now be left behind. Making-do is now much more possible than it was during their toddler or infant days. Routines can be bent with less severe consequences, as they adapt to the changes and disruptions that traveling incurs with better understanding and good humor.

Recently, I dug out some of my old packing checklists, many illegible with circles, strikethroughs and side notes covering every square inch, and set about to do a task I always wished I had time to do back then. With the help of three frequently traveling mom friends who still have young ones at the “everything but the kitchen sink packing stage,” I created a comprehensive packing list for traveling with a baby or toddler.

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE BABY AND TODDLER PACKING LISTS

I hope you find it useful. If you have anything to add, like your own never-leave-home-without item, please leave a comment!

Gina Dobson is the owner of Fun on the Run, a Hoboken-based company specializing in portable play. Fun on the Run rents customized activity bags to entertain young children on long car, plane or train journeys. They also have a wide variety of portable toys available for purchase. For more information, visit http://www.funontherunbags.com

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I always share.

Shorty Awards finalists
Laraine Claire Stromberg, Adam Cohen & Kathy Zucker

It might be because I am a big sister. Or because I am nice. Either way, when I get a gift, I divide it up and share with others.

Winning a Keep Good Going Shorty Award sponsored by New York Life was like unleashing a month-long gift cornucopia. With numerous opportunities passing before me at light speed, I went into overdrive to process all the options. In every case, I looked for ways to share the love.

What kinds of opportunities have come my way? A brand ambassadorship for an early childhood education company based in Illinois, a sponsored celebration party, speaking at Columbia School of Journalism, getting interviewed by Scholastic, membership at Muckrack, a professional journalist site, a biweekly column at Seamless, membership in NJ Digital Moms, a social media network so prestigious that it requires a non-disclosure agreement from all applicants, and an invitation to a four day social media conference at the Jersey Shore. Conference admission for individuals and brands starts in the five figures, so the #JerseyLove Retreat promises to be an amazing networking opportunity.

In early 2014, a retrospective book titled “Legendary Locals of Hoboken” is scheduled to be released by business writer Alan Skontra and Arcadia Publishing. As the acclaimed author of the “About Town” column for Hoboken Patch, Alan has encountered everyone who has made an impact on Hoboken in the last few years – I am honored that he thought highly enough of the Metro Moms Network team to include us in his book.

Find Your Niche in Life, Then Reach for the Stars

Whenever possible, I have included deserving contacts and businesses. I brought three members of the Metro Moms Network management team with me to the Shorty Awards along with Jennifer Cerbasi, a special needs educator who brought me baby bottle milk during Hurricane Sandy – I identified in advance the brands they should meet. When the Metro Moms got glammed up for our night on the town, we went to Hoboken, NJ salons Luxe Face and Body and Lorraine’s House of Styles for hair and makeup. With an international spotlight shining on the Shorty proceedings, I wanted to make sure the world knew about the high quality work produced by these amazing establishments.

Some things I could not share, like the standing ovation I received at Luxe the week after the Shorty Awards. But whenever possible, I am sharing gifts and influence to help people advance their causes. When I received a celebratory gift of Fair Trade chocolates from Klout, I gave the Cocoa Cayenne Cupcake mix to La Vie En Green organic lifestyle blogger Elodie Planche and started a conversation between her and the manufacturer, Simply Organic Foods. I am also working with fellow Shorty Awards finalist Adam Cohen of DadaRocks to develop a late night video and Twitter chat series about parenting with The Sparkly Life blogger Alyssa Hertzig.

It’s not the award that matters, although I am thrilled to have a Shorty on my shelf. It’s the people I meet who are valuable, and the Shorty Awards have opened up a legion of doors for me.

If this is what the first month after winning a Shorty is like, I can’t wait to see what the next eleven bring!

Kathy Zucker, accidental entrepreneur, mother of three young children and winner of the New York Life Keep Good Going Shorty Award, writes about juggling career and family in an urban setting. See what Kathy is up to at her Mom Condo Living blog and on Twitter @KathyZucker.

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