It has taken me about four days to write this post.  I start.  I stop.  My eyes well up.  Then I start again.  Please read the whole thing.

And yes, I will end up asking you to make a contribution to help fund research to beat childhood cancer.

About Lauren

Lauren is 10 years old.  I have never met her, but outside of my own daughter, I think that she is the prettiest little girl in the world.  On March 4, 2005, this beautiful little girl was diagnosed with Langerhan’s Cell Histiocytosis/Ensophillic granuloma.  It is every parent’s worst nightmare to have a sick child, but when you hear scary words like “chemotherapy” and “survival rates” as a parent, it is beyond my ability to process.  My own story is not important, but I spent plenty a day in the waiting area of the Lombardi Cancer Institute in Washington, DC watching the looks of anguished parents as they carried in their children whose withered bodies were unable to move themselves.

Lauren’s mom and dad joined the CarePages site (an online support group – you have to join the site) in 2005, and as of this writing, there are 609 postings – chronicling disagnoses, treatments, illnesses, operations, WAY too much time spent in hospitals.  And unspoken anguish.  Ten year-old children (like my own son) should be out playing, running, jumping, giggling.  Skinning their knees.  NOT being hooked up to machines, poked with needles and spending hours in the car going to and from doctor’s appointments. IT JUST IS NOT RIGHT.

I “met” Lauren’s mom, Heather, online more than two years ago when I decided to join a St. Baldrick’s Team.  I chose to sponsor Lauren at random, since she and my son are about the same age. The premise of St Baldrick’s is simple:  I raise money that goes to “…most brilliant childhood cancer research experts in the world to find cures and improve the quality of life for patients and survivors.” I raise money, show up in an Irish pub in DC and get my head shaved.  I am almost ashamed at how little I do compared to the enormity of that parents of childhood cancer victims – and the children themselves – face every day.

The Unspeakable

It is hard to find words to describe her, but Lauren’s mom, Heather, is strong and determined – but in ways that someone should never be tested. On December 13, 2007, Heather’s husband – and Danielle and Lauren’s daddy – George – was killed in an automobile accident.  Imagine police knocking on the door.  Having to tell two little girls that their daddy has gone to heaven -  right before Christmas.  Heather has endured the loss of her husband and partner in Lauren’s care while managing her daughter’s illness and attempting to provide a sense of normalcy both for Lauren and Danielle.  From everything that Heather has told me, George was a strong man, and one who would always know what to do.  Two years ago, when I did St. Baldrick’s, I held a picture of the family in lap because I wanted to honor all of them, but also wanted George to be there in spirit.

My Pitch

A child’s life should carefree, fully of laughing and playing, but Lauren’s short life has also been full of ER visits, chemo and the loss of her daddy – things that many people could not endure in a lifetime, let alone ten short years.  I wish — more than just about anything — that I could bring back George, Heather’s husband and Lauren and Danielle’s daddy.  I wish that I could take away Lauren’s illness and that of any other childhood cancer victim.  I can’t.

What I can do is to use my own skill sets and determination to raise money to fight this.  To hopefully add to the cadre of online supporters that  the family has.

So for those of you who follow this, I am literally begging you:  please consider giving a donation to St. Baldrick’s.  If you are not in a position to donate, then please share post this with your friends or re-tweet it.  I have set a pretty aggressive fund raising goal based upon my own passion.

None of us can change the past, but with a few tears, determination, courage, and yes, funding, we can change the future.

Please give.

Mark

Dear readers,

Since I talk a lot about finding jobs, I thought that a a Q&A with someone who does the actual screenings and meetings that help get you in the door would benefit a lot of folks.

So I asked my friend and former colleague, Brian Batchelder, to answer some questions that give you the recruiter’s perspective – the person sitting across the desk from you when you are wondering “what is this person thinking?”.  His very good answers are below.  And not that I need this disclaimer, but this is WTF to the FTC (sounds like rap, doesn’t it?): I was a Senior Vice President as Fleishman-Hillard.  And here’s Brian’s disclaimer: “The following is my personal opinion and does not necessarily represent the views of my employer or its clients.“

Norah Jones and Johnny Cash are probably my two favorite artists, but for different reasons.  So imagine how surprised and happy I was to unearth a video of Norah singing a Cash song at a tribute to the Man in Black.

And if you look carefully at the 2:30 mark, you’ll see none other than Joaquin Phoenix (who played Johnny Cash in “Walk the Line”).

Enjoy.

For those of you who follow sports and even for those of you who don’t, you may have seen the story that Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas has been ” suspended indefinitely” for bringing four handguns to his locker at the Washington, D.C. Verizon Center — as well as allegedly leaving a threatening note for a teammate telling him to “pick one.”

Oh – and to further taint what the NBA would like to be a squeaky-clean image, the dispute with teammate Javaris Crittendon (who allegedly also brandished a LOADED handgun) was over gambling debts.  Nice.  And there’s the oh-too-cute picture of Arenas making a bang-bang gesture is the Wizards team huddle.  Nice.

Until recently, Arenas was literally a poster-boy for the NBA.  He had a blog on NBA.com (gone) as well as his own Twitter account (gonzo as well), which apparently helped him get into hot water.

ABC News, in an article entitled “Did the Twitter ramblings of Washington Wizards’ star point guard Gilbert Arenas cause him to be suspended indefinitely by the NBA?” stated:

It’s certainly starting to look that way and now the hoop star may regret using the social networking tool to speak his mind about the recent off-court incident that has him in hot water.

Clueless

I live and work in Washington, DC, and while quirky and immature, it seems that the NBA and the Washington Wizards have tolerated Arenas’ social media forays — and profited from them as well.  If you tweet and gain hundreds of thousands of followers, you gain more popularity and you — and the NBA — benefit from it. Financially, dude.  More shirts, more hats, more $$$.

Until you say something they don’t like after you do something stupid.  After the story broke, Arenas tweeted:

“i wake up this morning and seen i was the new JOHN WAYNE..lmao media is too funny,”

Peter Vescey of the New York Post broke the gun story.  Arenas then tweeted:

“As for the reporter who broke the story – NY post should eject Peter V FROM WRITNG EVERY AGAIN,”

Hmm.  Seems like Ol’ Gil doesn’t get it.

Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project said that Twitter and other Web sites are a blessing and a curse for professional athletes:

“They have a new way to engage the public, their fans, and new ways to show a playful side of themselves…a way for them to bond even more deeply with their fans. But things that might seem private or more intimate, playful or spontaneous, appealing in one context, all of a sudden when they’re tweeted out to a wide audience, could take on a different context.”

You’re off the mark, Lee.  Tweeting something to a wide audience is not “taking on a different context.”  That statement is like saying that you have been misquoted in your own autobiography.  Plus, it’s hard to be taken out of context in 140 characters.

Double Standard

If the NBA wants their marketable athletes to tweet, let them tweet.  But don’t express horror when they say something that you don’t like, or say something that makes them look dumber than a bag of rocks (hello, handlers).  Moreover, you can’t he “half pregnant” – either let the athletes use Twitter when and how they want or not at all.  ABC notes:

Under the new social media policy, athletes cannot tweet during game time, which includes the 45 minutes before a game starts, half-time and the period after a game that is traditionally used for press conferences and media interviews. Violators can be fined by the league and face additional sanctions by their team. The NFL has similar restrictions on the time periods when players may not use social media.

My point is this:  the NBA WANTS their athletes to find ways to market themselves.  It furthers their reach, their audience and their brand.  The NBA WANTS people like Gilbert Arenas to blog on their platform.  And I tweet all the time at work, in restaurants, wherever.  And it rarely distracts me from what I get paid to do.

Here are some screen shots below that show how the NBA is either a little sloppy or a little clueless:

Gilbert is listed under “NBA Player Blogs.”  Ok.  Cool.  Let me click some more:

“Agent Zero Blog File.”  Wow.  You mean the NBA could have suspended him indefinitely and left his blog up?  Wait — it’s moved:

Doh!

I think that Gilbert Arenas is yet another example of a man-child, pampered athlete whose exploits may have never seen the light of day, save for some investigative reporting by the New York Post. I think that the NBA was happy to have a man-child, pampered athlete use social media — as evidence by the fact that they HOSTED A BLOG FOR HIM.  So presumably, they were ok with him tweeting.

But Gilbert did something irrevocably stupid and then made it worse using his Twitter account.  That was shut down.  Gilbert was no longer a squeaky-clean poster boy, so the NBA shut down his blog (note to Webmaster – “page not found” is stupid and sloppy.  Just link to David Stern’s statement, dammit).

Man-child Tweeting?  Good.  Man-child blogging?  It’s all good, baby.

Idiot bringing four handguns to his workplace over gambling debt and then blaming others?  David Stern to Gilbert: you are SO outta here, baby.

My final point is that when Gilbert was finally facing his indefinite suspension and grand jury investigation, if you let him blog while he was the poster boy, why not let him blog when he is apologizing all over the place?  And why not let him do it on NBA.com?  That would demonstrate openness, transparency and prove that social media is not only ok, it can be a pretty good crisis communications tool.

But you can’t have it both ways, Mr. Stern.

Mark

Many people are doing social media retrospectives, but in this space, when I look back on the last ten years, there is a single defining moment.  It occurred on September 11, 2001.

With all of my heart, I hope that first, we never forget that awful day, and second, that as philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”