This morning was my first run of the season with Team in Training, the fundraising athletic arm of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. As I approached the aid station, I was working pretty hard.

“Did you wear sunscreen? You’re really burnt,” the volunteer said as she handed me Gatorade and some Goldfish crackers (I really love the Goldfish).

“I’m good,” I answered, still crunching. “I put sunscreen on this morning.”

“Oh, must be your red hair — you’ve got that redhead’s skin.”

A redhead? My gosh, woman! I’m not a redhead! I’m a brunette. I was born a brunette. I want to be a brunette. I think of myself as a brunette. The box of dye I buy to ensure I’m a brunette says “Dark Brown.” Is she blind?

But she’s not the first to call me a redhead. One time I was with someone else’s redheaded kids, and someone said, “I bet they got all that red hair from you.” I literally looked around to see if she was talking to someone else.

When others look at me, they see things that I don’t. I look in the mirror and see brown hair, thus I think of myself as a brunette. Now obviously it doesn’t make a scintilla of difference whether or not my hair is brown or red, but what happens if I’m seeing my business persona with the same mirror?

A new friend from Twitter, Global Patriot, talked the other day about a cool networking event he attended. The concept was kind of like speed dating, only it was speed networking. People interviewed each other for a few minutes and then jotted down a few key words that described their new contacts. At the end of the event, each participant had a word cloud of words that other people would use to describe him.

What an excellent idea — learning to see yourself as others see you. Do you come across as overbearing when you think you’re being enthusiastic? Do you see yourself as quietly polite, and could that be mistaken for introverted? Learning how others see you doesn’t mean you have to change yourself to meet someone else’s expectations. But perhaps discovering what other people notice about you will help you match your goals with the path that leads you there.

Hey, do you think she thinks I’m taller than I am? And thinner?

PS — Got 5 bucks? Please share… I’m raising money for Team in Training in honor of my mom.

I just licked the envelope on a Valentine’s Day card for my 5-year-old nephew. As I pressed down the seal, a random afterthought hit me…. I should have asked Jamison to do something silly, like give the dog a kiss.

I imagined what he would do when he opened the card and read such a ridiculous directive. He’d probably hold the card in one hand as he chased the dog around the room. “Auntie Beth told me to kiss the dog,” he’d tell his mom. He’d be laughing. “Silly Auntie Beth,” my sister would answer.

Instead of encouraging action and making the card memorable, I went with the lame, “Happy Valentine’s Day from Auntie Beth!” Frankly I was too hung up on 1.) getting the card into the mail, and 2.) making sure I printed instead of wrote in cursive (last time I sent cards, Jamison was upset because he couldn’t read his name and thought I hadn’t sent it to him), and 3.) making sure his card was exactly like his brother’s card, which I had already sealed. When the boys get their cards, they’ll probably look at them for a minute then leave them on the kitchen table as they run off to do something more interesting.

My question to you…. when was the last time you wrote marketing copy so engaging they were compelled to act upon it rather than tossing or filing it? Are you too worried about listing your features in a bulleted list to really make your piece memorable? How can you make the next marketing piece you write stand out so much that the readers hold your piece in one hand while they take action with the other?

As always, I’m turning the mirror toward myself first. As I mentioned, I just spent quite a bit of time and money sending letters to new prospects. I was very careful to include all the points I wanted to make, spell the names right, add just enough color to catch their eyes… but did I say anything that would prompt them to even consider kissing a proverbial dog?

The letters should start arriving by the end of this week. I guess we’ll know soon enough.

This blog post needs your opinion — are you as tired as I am of doing everything electronically?

I’m launching a side street off Avenue Z: presentations and speaking engagements. I’ve been working on the infrastructure to start up the new offering for quite some time. I created a database of prospects who might want to hire me to speak, created a new blog that focuses on that area, commissioned a new cartoon… I’ve been working on this for months.

Last week I was finally ready to announce my new services, and, although I had email addresses for hundreds of potential clients, I chose to write letters. And address each envelope by hand. And add a handwritten sticky note to each.

I sent out close to 140 letters, and it took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. and was e.x.p.e.n.s.i.v.e. I bet it took a solid 8 hours and more than $200. Ugh! I had every email address, and I could have spent a quarter the time and absolutely none of the money to simply put together a nice email blast.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I get dozens of unsolicited emails a week — not including the really trashy spam — that may help me as a small business owner, a runner, a writer or a 40-year-old chick. How many hand-addressed, hand-signed, even hand-touched letters do I get in the mail? Perhaps one every 6 months? I can’t remember the last one.

But here’s the problem… email has a solid ROI that direct mail will never have. So I could probably get a really nice response rate via email that I probably won’t get with the letters.

So, did I make a mistake? Email is cheaper, faster and more effective. My letters with a personal touch were expensive, slow and perhaps not effective (they should be arriving this week. We’ll see). My hope is that by taking a little extra time and doing something a little different, my potential clients will be intrigued. And I will follow up by email, probably early next week.

Am I fooling myself? Should I just do what everyone else does? What would you have done?

By Guest Blogger Bonnie Koenig, author of Going Global for the Greater Good: Succeeding as a Nonprofit in the International Community

LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, blogs, Twitter… and the Social Media options continue to change and proliferate, as do the demands on our time.  How’s a small business owner to manage?

I received my first invitation to join LinkedIn at least six months before I finally took the plunge.  I’m a babyboomer and a ‘medium level’ adapter when it comes to technology.  I stand back and observe for awhile trying to assess the benefits vis a vis my time commitment.  But it is certainly getting harder and harder for us ‘older folks’ to stand back, and for our younger peers to balance their time…I certainly haven’t completely figured this out (any additional ideas from Life at Avenue Z blog readers would be appreciated!) but here are some considerations I look at that might also be useful to others:

1. What’s your business personality?
   Determine what the ‘personality’ or forte of your business is in this area.  Do you want to be seen as a first adapter when it comes to technology?  A trend setter that your clients can turn to for advice on new Social Media ?  Or is it enough for you to have a general awareness of new technological trends so you can hold your own in a conversation and perhaps provide some general opinions from your own experience?  Deciding the type of advice you want to provide and how you want to be viewed can help guide you as to how fast and how deep you need to engage, from a business perspective, in new forms of social media.
2. What is the profile of your client and potential client base?
   Are they early adapters who will want to see that you have that common characteristic and knowledge or do they come later to the change scale and won’t mind that you do as well?
3. Do you really have something to say that the world wants to hear on a regular basis, and are you able/willing to allocate the time to keep it of high quality?
   Some people do…Beth is a good example of this.  She’s a good and creative writer in tune to the world around her and what others may relate to.  But we can also think of examples of people who blog and twitter way too much – you don’t want to be one of those!  If you’re considering a blog, you may want to have a small impartial advisory group take a look at a first few posts and give you some perspectives.
4. Do a small cost-benefit analysis -  Consider the time you put into Social Media (learning and engaging) the same way as you would other cost-benefits to your limited time.
   For example, if you are considering a speaking engagement, you’ll look at the costs (travel expenses and your time) vis a vis the benefits (who might be in the audience – potential clients, helpful colleagues, etc..) to determine if you should go.  Your time investment in Social Media can have some similar considerations.  Who will I be networking with on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc…(fill in the blank) that I want to engage with for business purposes?  How much do I have to engage to get the benefits?  What time can I allocate?  Are there other ways to engage with this group?
5. Social media as a business media – Although the lines between social media  and the business world are starting to blur, there are still distinctions, and you may want to take them into consideration vis a vis your own time management.
   Although it is fun to spend a lot of time on blogs and twittering with friends and colleagues on non-business subjects, you can draw some lines virtually by thinking about how you might draw the lines non-virtually.   If you would allocate the time to get up and talk to colleagues at the ‘water cooler’, you can then feel free to  allocate an equivalent amount of time engaging in social media.  But where your boss (if you had one!) would be about to throw you a nasty look for loitering a bit too long, perhaps it’s also time to pull yourself away from the social media.

Social Media is certainly here to stay and we can all use some help navigating the ever-changing terrain.  So let the dialogue continue!

Bonnie Koenig is a consultant working with non-profit organizations on developing their strategic thinking and international programs.  She has worked with local, national and international organizations in  countries around the world.  She is the author of Going Global for the Greater Good: Succeeding as a Nonprofit in the International Community, published by Wiley/Jossey Bass. Visit Going International for more information. She lives (and travels) with her husband, two teenagers, and dog and two cats (who don’t always get to go on trips).