Archive for the ‘Zoetica’ Category

Principles of Effective Social Media Strategy – #ztrain 2

Posted on: August 24th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston No Comments

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This is the second session from Beth Kanter’s Zoetica Training on social media given to the Colorado Nonprofit Association.

Listening is the beginning of the exercise. There are many tools to listen with, and knowing the key words that matter helps. Look for the conversations, look for the influencers and what they are talking about.

Moving from messages to conversation starters is a critical transition. How do we ask questions? What do we do? Consider the San Jose Opera and how they interact with people on Twitter.

As you go out and build your network you can start to see who is having conversations with you. And who are they having conversations with? Are they integral to your community? Know your folowers, develop relationships by listening and having conversations.

Integrate content, give yourself link love on your social properties. Developing content is a critical aspect, and you have to have different strategies for different social media. Your content needs to be integrated, sharing across channels. It’s a good idea to have editorial missions for your web site. Cites Danielle Brigada and National Wildlife Federation’s efforts.

You need capacity to succeed. Who is going to create the content free, interns, staff, executives? Interns have been used, but don’t dump on them without integrating them into the team, and giving them meaningful work.

It’s important to measure. But don’t spend more time to collecting and analyzing data than doing. Learn the lessons, and move on. Make mistakes, keep experimenting and growing.

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Dream Teams: Some Want Stardom, I Enjoy Winning

Posted on: August 17th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 6 Comments

Dream Team

Yes, you got it, a new post about individuals seeking the limelight versus teams on the social web. But before I begin, please look at this refreshed blog design thanks to Karen Kitchens and the rest of the team at RAD Campaign. I’ve successfully referred RAD on several occasions and they have redesigned my partner Beth Kanter’s blog, and now I have experienced what so many others have already enjoyed! The evolution embraces some of the old pre-CRT/tanaka red of the Buzz Bin while evolving the three column design in the previous version with some layout and navigation changes.

It’s important to acknowledge RAD in this instance and generally those who help us succeed in social media. While a voice may shine alone on the social web, rarely do they do so without the help of others. We live in a time where micro-celebrity and fame are valued even above good works, and it creates all sorts of interesting phenomena, including personal branding, parasocial behavior and a general destruction of team values. But ironically, to be a true success you still need the team.

Many use the rock star analogy when discussing individual efforts in social. Some times you even have super groups like Altimeter, crayon and now Powered. I’ve heard this applied to Zoetica, and even teasingly used by us (no one wants to be McCartney).

The metaphor that most suits me for this online cultural development is NBA basketball. It’s a very individualistic sport where great stars like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan are made, but even the greatest stars fail to win championships when teams are built around them. Even Kobe and Michael had some really poor teams that let them shine even more when they were at their most dominating selves. Yet they needed the Charles Oakleys, Scottie Pippens, Lamar Odoms and Pau Gasols to win.

Online, in my own life I’ve experienced some great personal successes as well as some fantastic team wins. And while both have an element of satisfaction, the big wins shared across teams of people working seemlessly towards a common goal — those are the moments I cherish and relish the most. For me, those wins are harder fought, require more discipline and sacrifice, and create greater positive impact.

I won’t lie and say I don’t enjoy being acknowledged or doing great things. It would be hard for me not to go out and compete every day. Yet, in the end individual accolades never deliver the satisfaction of a great team win.

Dream Teams

Zoeticans: Geoff Livingston, Beth Kanter, Kami Huyse

When I work with like-minded individuals — like Beth and Kami Huyse in Zoetica — the experience is great. Even when we don’t win — and it’s hard to really, really deliver the big home runs every time — the common purpose makes it exciting. When I’m on teams with people who fight over personal recognition and monetary rewards, I often find it to be a grind. These teams rarely succeed as most players don’t leave it all on the floor, so to speak.

This past weekend, the Dream Team (1992 U.S. Olympic Team) was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, a team of the greatest ball players ever assembled wearing one jersey. It was a great moment when several of players got together for an NBA Entertainment interview. Here are some of the sound bites that really resonated with me:

Larry Bird: “It wasn’t about scoring because we could’ve just got it into Charles [Barkley], who at that time was the most dominant player in the world offensively. But it wasn’t about that. It was about playing the game correctly.”

David Robinson: “We’ve all been on all-star teams and it [coming together] doesn’t always happen. But this was basketball heaven. What surprised me, from the beginning, was how unselfish everybody was.”

Karl Malone: “The way we checked our egos from the beginning. That’s what I remember the most.”

Charles Barkley: “Dream Team II [1996] was a nightmare. We had guys bitching about playing time, arguing with Coach Wilkens. I said to Scottie and Karl, ‘Man, I played with Larry Bird and Michael Jordan and we didn’t have a problem, so what the hell is wrong with these guys?’”

A lot of people worship Lebron James and decried him for his very self-centered announcement to go to Miami. But in the end, he yielded the opportunity to star alone to team with others like Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. He will likely do less individually, and more to win a championship. Perhaps he sees the value in being more of a role player, a Robert Horry with eight championship rings, than King James.

What do you value most in your online professional career? Individual accolades or great team successes?

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August 25 – CitizenGulf’s National Day of Action

Posted on: July 19th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 2 Comments

Join us tonight at 6:30 for details on the #citizengulf project and help fishing families – via U-Stream http://cot.ag/cQxRLw

Fishing Families Wait for Aid

Mark your calendars! Citizen Effect’s CitizenGulf project will become a National Day of Action on August 25th, in alignment with the week of the fifth anniversary of Katrina. The benefit — to be promoted by Gulf Coast Benefit — seeks to help fishing families find a new, more sustainable future by providing education resources for their children.

You Can Help Many

Catholic Charities of New Orleans is the beneficiary of all CitizenGulf National Day of Action donations. Citizen Effect will send 100% of donations, less credit card fees, directly to Catholic Charities to support education programs for fishing families

There are three things citizens like you can do to help:

1) Attend or host your local event

2) Donate

3) Support Gulf Coast Benefit’s Pepsi Refresh project.

Donations can be given directly through the main CitizenGulf project page.

A Day of Action Means Jazz, Blues, Zydeco, and More

World of Coca Cola Party

Events will be meet-ups at places that can accommodate the following: People, hurricanes, New Orleans themed music (i.e. jazz, blues, zydeco) and a local green or environmental expert who can say a few things about the oil spill’s impact on the marine environment and the Gulf Coast economies associated with it. Registration will be $10.

Social Media Club has signed on as a CitizenGulf project partner and will help Gulf Coast Benefit promote the CitizenGulf events. Cities that have already signed on to host events include Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York and Washington, DC. A full list of cities and details on how to register and participate will be available on the Gulf Coast Benefit web site no later than August 1.

We Are Actively Seeking Event Hosts, Sponsors and Attendees.

We are actively seeking hosts and sponsors to lead official events in many cities, organize Social Media Club local events and host unofficial awareness meetings. Email us at for more details.

Gulf Coast Benefit’s Pepsi Refresh project will be our third action, and will be open for voting on August 2 (stay tuned for updates). The week of the national day of action, Citizen Effect will also offer CitizenGulf opportunities for individuals to engage in their own citizen grassroots projects throughout the fall to benefit fishing families; education, healthcare, food, etc.

In addition to Zoetica’s support, additional promotion partners for the national day of action include Andy Sternberg, El Studio, Live Your Talk, Sloane Berrent, and Taylor Davidson. Thank you so much for everything you and our caring supporters have done to support CitizenGulf. The project is now yours!

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Opening #CitizenGulf to You

Posted on: July 9th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 4 Comments

Kerry, Sixth Generation Fisherman

On Monday, July 19 at 6 p.m., the CitizenGulf project team will host a meet-up at Affinity Lab here in Washington, DC (U Street location). The Citizen Effect Gulf Mission project will be opened up to the social web at that time (register here). Interested parties who cannot intend in person can participate via U-Stream.

We will begin the session with a conversation and questions and answers about the CitizenGulf fact finding mission. It has always been the project’s intent to provide meaningful action to anyone who wants to help the Gulf. So we will announce a national day of action in conjunction with the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina striking New Orleans (August 27). Anyone can participate in this CitizenGulf day of action.

Based on our fact finding mission (fully aggregated content here), we believe the clearest path to create concrete meaningful action for concerned citizens is to build a program that will directly benefit the fishing families in Louisiana who have lost their livelihoods thanks to the BPO oil spill. Our program will include a local 501c3(s) that is working directly with the fishing families. Further, we are adding partnering organizations as we build the program out.

Anyone can participate in #CitizenGulf with as little as a Facebook Like or a small donation to hosting your own event or agreeing to take on #CitizenzGulf action. Organizations that want to be a part of the project, whether as contributors or as promotional partners are welcome, too. An organizing committee of CitizenGulf members are actively being created as we speak.

Finally, there will likely be a second fact finding mission to the Gulf in early August, this one to focus specifically on the fishing communities and how they are being affected. Please let us know if you are interested in participating.

Zoetica Joins the CitizenGulf Project

Until this point, I have been volunteering my time to CitizenGulf as it was a critical project, in my opinion. The oil spill is a national tragedy and disaster that will not go away, and in fact, will worsen as more and more oil is released into the Gulf warriors. In addition to the incredible damage sustained by the marine environment, the local Gulf communities that are inherently tied to those waters will forever be altered for the worse.

I believe this is a time for individual to act. We cannot to expect BP or the Obama Administration to resolve the matter in full. Fortunately, my business partners Beth Kanter and Kami Huyse agree. Zoetica has officially joined the CitizenGulf project as a promotional partner. We will provide my time to the project as a charitable donation to the national community affected.

The original fact finding team included Citizen Effect’s Dan Morrison and May Yu, Jill Foster, and myself. Citizen Effect will maintain the overall administration of the national program and creation of individual action projects in conjunction with the local 501c3(s).

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Meme: Ways to Increase Your Twitter Following Ethically

Posted on: May 19th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 24 Comments
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Ways to Increase Your Twitter Following Ethically is an interesting title in its own right, because there are so many people seeking to create huge followings on Twitter. Many have been decried for questionable methods. Doing so in a manner that’s community oriented and not spam-like is at the heart of the social media ethos.

So this list of 12 suggestions (as compiled by Allison Fine, Beth Kanter, Kami Huyse and I — a.k.a. Zoetica) is a conversation starter on how to do that.
Ethically is an extremely subjective word, so please comment if you feel we are off. Our goal in creating this list is to provide the knowledge we have to the people who have asked for it, and to trigger a discussion about intentional community conscious ways to build your following.

We hope other successful Twitterers/bloggers will continue the conversation in a meme, and spread this more mindful approach towards Twitter followings. In that vein, we have blogged this publicly, and I would like to invite Ike Pigott, Lauren Vargas, John Haydon, Allyson Kapin, Shashi Bellamkonda and Shonali Burke to continue the conversation.

1) Have conversations with influencers. If they reply, it’s likely to garner a few followers with similar interests.

For example, if you are into good government discussions, a great place to start is
Micah Sifry and his techpolitics list: @Mlsif on Twitter.
http://twitter.com/Mlsif/techpolitics. A second place is commenting with Congressional Twitter feeds. You can find those feeds here http://tweetcongress.org/

2) In addition to following lists and having conversations, actually follow these people. Some will follow back! We recommend that you don’t simply unfollow if they don’t follow back.
Per #1, try to engage them in a conversation. See if you like their Twitter feeds. You may want to keep following them regardless of a reciprocating follow baack.

3) Add your account to Listorious so people can find you. Other Twitter directories like Mr. Tweet can help, too.

4) Create your own lists of people you find interesting. This
compliments the people you enjoy following, and encourages them to follow you back.

5) When you tweet content, make sure it’s not all about you and tweet
interesting items and valuable information (See my post last week on my five preferred kinds
of tweets).
Also consider Beth’s What Gets Retweeted Most Often?

When tweeting, we recommend a 3:1 ratio, three tweets about another person or organization
to every one about you. Some advice from Beth for Nonprofit
Executive Directors/CEOs/Presidents who Tweet can be found here.

6) Introduce your Twitter followers to each other so they can garner
more value. This is what Beth and Allison call Network Weaving.

7) Participate in hashtag # referenced conversations or start your own
conversation using a hashtag (#) for an event. These are
usually being tracked by several folks and can lead you to larger
followings with people that have similar interests. Monitor key
words and phrases
and respond appropriately.

8) Promote your Twitter address on other properties, online (Facebook,
LinkedIn, Google etc.) and offline (business cards, for example). Integrate Twitter into your outreach whenever possible.

9) Use the same name across your properties. For example, I try to be geoffliving
wherever I can. Some call this personal branding, I just call it common
sense. People associate a name with a handle and will naturally look
for you by that handle in wherever they are.

10) Design your twitter profile to get more followers. Check out Darren Rowse’s six tips here.

11) Use Twitter’s native tools to find people you know in Facebook and your
email accounts that might already have Twitter accounts and follow
them, then let them know that you followed them

12) Tweet often, also use tools like HootSuite or Cotweet to schedule some
tweets and be present, but be available for follow up.

More resources:

Beth’s Twitter experiment in a box

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2758215/get_twitter_followers_5_easy_ways_to.html?cat=35

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/8-simply-steps-to-growing-a-quality-twitter-following/

http://webstudio13.com/2009/09/12/how-to-increase-your-twitter-followers-5-ways-that-work-for-me/

http://rumblinglankan.com/498/how-to-grow-your-twitter-followers/

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Fail Well

Posted on: May 17th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 8 Comments

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. ~ Confucius

Koko Crater Trail

Many folks fail in business, and for a variety of reasons, some more common than others. In American business, particularly on the communications side, there’s a misperception that failure is bad. In fact, failure often creates the seeds of future success. Many, many people and brands demonstrate this, including Apple, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, etc., etc.

That’s why I’m thrilled to be a part of the When Failure and Criticism Are Public during DC Digital Capital Week on June 18th along with Jill Foster of Live Your Talk, Allyson Kapin of Rad Campaign, and Justin Thorp of Clearspring. It will be great to discuss failure in this setting, and ways to embrace it

A recent Paul Sloane article that Beth Kanter referred me to had one aspect of this down very well, the honorable failure. Sloane defines the honorable failure as an honest attempt at something new or different has been tried unsuccessfully.

I totally agree with this view. In fact, even successes offer lessons to be learned. I sold a company once. But a successful exit doesn’t mean it was a smashing success. In fact, many, many mistakes were made and some of them were public. I look at Livingston Communications as story book of lessons learned, good and bad that we can use to accelerate Zoetica’s success.

Where I really disagreed with Sloane was his labeling of the incompetent failure: People that fail for lack of effort or competence in standard operations. In this sense, while the person may not be right for the position, their decisions or lack of experience, in my opinion, actually engages in an honorable failure. Why? Because a failure can steer someone in the right direction, or a completely different one.

So I don’t deem dubbing someone’s failure as incompetent, regardless of how bad it was. Incompetence and such labeling continues a culture where we as a society are afraid of failure. Instead, I deem any failure an opportunity to learn a lesson or embark on a course correction. Whether we choose to pay attention to that lesson or direction is on us.

Experiential learning requires experience. And failure. Sometimes multiple failures. One of my favorite stories in the this vein came from Senator Mark Warner (R-VA), who founded Nextel. In a speech before the NVTC roughly ten years ago, he detailed how he failed as a lawyer and in two companies and in one point was massively in debt. He never gave up.

So, my friends, as the week begins, fail well.

Past Related Posts:

My Five Worst Professional Mistakes

Burying Negative News Stories and Posts

Confessions of a Start-up Junky

Keep. Moving. Forward!

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The Genesis of a Comeback: Calls to Action

Posted on: May 13th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston No Comments

Zoetica is engaged in the evaluation of the Case Foundation’s second America’s Giving Challenge. The first case study features Darius Goes West, a nonprofit fighting the fatal genetic disease, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). Perhaps the most compelling part of Darius Goes West’s story is their America’s Giving Challenge comeback, as they were losing in the Challenge.

Darius Goes West — originally started as an award winning movie – but lives on as a nonprofit online. Per the above video the nonprofit was faring well in the Challenge, but was not placing in the top ten, and would not win a prize. The organization rallied its significant supporter base using videos and its Facebook community.

But it goes beyond passion, and this is the genesis of the comeback in my mind. Darius West deployed great calls to action in its out-bound communications. People feel passion, but when they are given something to do with that emotion, well, look out. Things happen, including comebacks.

Calls to action that I liked in the Darius Goes West Campaign:

It’s clear that while not a “professional” marketing effort, Darius West gets basic marketing principles. Beyond the stellar, simple calls-to-action, the campaign was integrated across media channels, allowing for maximum success. Good cause + passionate fans + smart marketing = one America’s Giving Challenge comeback.

You can read the whole case study here.

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Can the Contest Craze Sustain Itself?

Posted on: May 10th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 17 Comments
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There have been several major contests designed to “benefit” nonprofits in the past couple of years as well as many minor ones (pumpkin contest image by gifted photographer). Some of these have been well designed, particularly the Foundation based contests. However, with the widespread influx of corporate social responsibility/cause marketing dollars, contests have suffered. It seems anyone with some extra dollars in their cause marketing budget wants to create a free-for-all contest to show their customers charitable goodness.

Now more than ever I’m questioning the sustainability of the contest craze. There are three reasons why:

1) For every winner like Atlas Service Corps, the contests tend to create a tremendous amount of losers these poorly designed efforts create. In actuality, there are many losers who expend a tremendous amount of effort that don’t walk away with a dollar, who have exhausted their donor base with solicitations for votes, and who have lost time that could have been spent on mission based activity or fundraising.

Strong contest designed contest (Zoetica CEO Beth Kanter’s mantra when it comes to contests) creates a win-win for all parties. When you look at the Case Foundation’s America’s Giving Challenge (note: Case is a Zoetica client), contest wins were matching grants given to 501c3s who had successfully galvanized their existing and potential donor base. If an AGC contestant did not win, they had at least successfully fundraised with their network.

2) While Americans love games and contests, we also seem to have a penchant to boomerang back on leading parties when things don’t work out well. Monday morning consequences aren’t necessarily fair, but it seems to me that the inevitable questions about actual effects on society will not be well met.

In reality a strong contest design also includes Theory of Change. Without a measurable benchmark to hold a contest accountable to, without some reason to invest these dollars into society, contest dollars are literally scattered to the four winds.

As a result, grants find themselves in the hands of organizations that compete well in dogfights for cash. That does not necessarily mean they are competent at their mission of change. Further, when we look back at the contest, it’s likely that there will be a wide swath of hits and misses.

3) Another end result is contest fatigue amongst donors, the general public, and nonprofits. It’s only a matter of time before people get tired of being asked to vote for a charity. Again.

It’s my belief after 15 years of professional marketing experience that every organization has an emotional bank account with a stakeholder. You can ask for things and withdraw equity from that account, or contribute value and build equity and loyalty. If it’s all get and no give, nonprofits find themselves with dead email lists and nonactive social media accounts. A vote for a charity — even though it may not cost the stakeholder money — is still a withdrawal from that emotional bank account.

Which gets to nonprofit fatigue. Some nonprofits are going to become much more selective or stop playing altogether. They will see such pagaentry as costly ventures that hurt and distract their organization from success. I foresee the larger more experienced 501c3s wizening up to this faster than the smaller ones. Unfortunately, the smaller ones suffer the most from contests.

Conclusion: In the end, I think the contest craze will drop off as a primary social media tactic. It’s not creating enough wins for it to be successful as a long term play, there’s not enough measurable change, and we’re starting to bore social media stakeholders.

So that’s my two cents on contests. What do you think?

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Realizing the Change Dream at #SOBCon 2010

Posted on: May 3rd, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 6 Comments
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Photo of myself and Mark Horvath (@hardlynormal) after SOBCon 2010 by @ManaMica

When we started Zoetica, the dream was to affect change by using our communications skills to enable causes and CSR efforts to maximize their efforts. For me, this was a realization that my best skill set was online communications and that digging wells was probably not a good use of my time on earth. To change the world I see myself best serving as a roll player to help those that can deliver real actions for the world.

Managing Nonprofit Day at SOBCon 2010 this past Sunday was an honor, but the experience was invaluable. Watching all of those bloggers come together to crowdsource social media strategy for the four charities — Anixter, Ashoka, InvisiblePeopleTV and Vitamin Angels — was simply incredible.

If you could only see the attendees’ eyes during Nonprofit Day… Many were full of tears. You could see people felt the societal pains the causes were attempting to fix. There was an incredible sense of purpose in the room.

Everyone gave back on Sunday, but you got the feeling that, as Terry Starbucker said, people were transformed. In my mind, it’s likely that a good handful of the bloggers will do more than a day of service, and become change agents in their own right. That is an incredible thing. Whether that’s using companies to give back or on own own personal level, it’s always incredible to touch people so they awaken to their possible impact.

When I made my move and announced that I’d be focusing on change organizations and corporate programs solely, it was somewhat of a departure. In many ways my social networks have shifted to focus solely on the change marketplace. To bring this work back to my peers — the best bloggers in the country — was so special. And to see that impact across an entire room made me realize that the hard work and new focus to impact the world was working. Dreams can be realized.

Thank you to Liz Strauss and Terry for asking me to participate in SOBCon 2010. It was special, and I look forward to next year!

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Super Bowl Hugs4Holly: The “Other” Halftime Show

Posted on: February 4th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 12 Comments

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Note from Geoff: Zoetica is training the COPD Foundation team this week on social media best practices. Along the way, we discovered this Hugs4Holly Super Bowl effort, being supported by some of friends in San Antonio like Alan Weinkrantz. Collectively, we decided to support Holly and friends in their efforts as part of our training. I hope you will, too, this weekend.

Guest Interview by Katelyn Harding, COPD Foundation

This Sunday, there’ll be another Superbowl halftime show after “The Who” leave the stage. Immediately following, Twitter Jam Band will be streaming live online to raise $100,000 for Holly Julian.

holly.jpgHolly, a COPDer who quit smoking in 1992 after 25 years, is facing a double-lung transplant at University Transplant Center in San Antonio, Texas. Julian, along with husband Steve Julian, the National Foundation for Transplants and a team of friends, created the Hugs4Holly campaign to raise money for her transplant.

COPD is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. and the only chronic disease growing in mortality. It affects approximately 24 million Americans but only about half of them are diagnosed. COPD includes chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and adult onset (refractory) asthma. Symptoms include breathlessness, wheezing, and chronic coughing. The COPD Foundation talked to Holly just days before the Superbowl to get a better understanding of what her goals are.

Q:Tell us your story. When/how did you find out you had COPD and what was your reaction?

A: When I was in my mid-thirties, I had a respiratory infection and went to see my family practitioner. He told me at that time that I had COPD and I just scoffed at him. I remember telling him, “Don’t say that! Only old people have COPD.” Well, I was wrong.

Q: How did “Hugs4Holly” start? Where did the idea of fundraising for your transplant at the super bowl come from?

A: Hugs4Holly began with the fundraising team of friends we have. In order to cover expenses not paid for by insurance, the University Transplant Center suggested fundraising. We contacted a non-profit organization that focuses on transplant patients, National Foundation for Transplants, and they helped guide us in this endeavor.

Q: What are your thoughts on the attention “Hugs4Holly” has received from the online community?

A: We are amazed and grateful for the attention this has received! Mostly, we are inspired by all of the people helping us.

Q: A COPD diagnosis is life changing. What are some ways in which you had to make a lifestyle change to help overcome challenges and still be able to live with COPD?

A: When I was diagnosed 17 years ago, the doctor said I should “get my affairs in order.” First, I changed to a different physician. He helped me get stable using new medications. Then I began exercising. With the doctor’s guidance and my determination, I became the best I could be despite having COPD. Now, I am using oxygen 24/7 and the important things are to follow my physician’s advice, continue exercising as much as possible, and continue to fight.

Q: You are one of the success stories for quitting smoking. What message do you have for those who smoke? Any tips to help them quit smoking? What else are you doing to help spread the word?

A: The message I have for smokers is that nicotine dependence is an addiction. In order to quit, they need help.

The items that are available today are helpful by eliminating one element of smoking, just enough to allow a person to deal with other aspects. For example, physical addiction will be reduced and then someone can deal with the psychological part of it. I spread the word one person at a time. They have to have a desire to quit.

Q: Many COPDers blame themselves for “having brought” the disease onto themselves. What can you say to these folks who feel ashamed for having COPD?

A: You can’t go back or beat yourself up over having the disease. Just go forward and do as much for yourself as you can. Stay off of cigarettes, follow your doctor’s advice, and exercise. The exercise will help make the best of the lung function you have.

Q: Who are you cheering for at the super bowl?

A: Let’s see, there are the Saints, the Colts, and the Twitter Jam Band, who is doing The Other Half Time Show. I’ll be cheering the Twitter Jam Band at www.TheOtherHalfTimeShow.org … they are friends reaching out to raise funds for Hugs4Holly.org.

For more information about Hugs4Holly and the Superbowl halftime show, visit the Other Super Bowl Half Time site, the Hugs for Holly site, and RT @hugs4holly whenever possible. If you are watching the show and discussing Twitter, please use the #twitterjamband hash tag. The COPD Foundation will be supporting, too, via our Twitter account and Facebook fan page.

Other links:
www.hugs4holly.org
www.transplants.org/donate/hollyjulian

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