Blog Archives

Christmas Traditions

12/19/2017

We have several Christmas traditions we enjoy, but I think my favourite is the Treasure Hunt.

When our children were small, and it came time to prepare or finish preparing the Christmas morning breakfast, it was sometimes hard to pull myself away from their excitement to take care of the breakfast chore.

The Treasure Hunt became the event to give me the opportunity to go to the kitchen and they could wind down from the excitement of opening gifts. It took some pre-planning, but that was part of the fun.

In the early years, the clues were often pictures cut from old catalogues and magazines. A visual clue with the name of the item printed beside it took them to the location of the next clue. Much like some of the pictures used in today’s emojis found in writing text messages. At the end of the hunt, they would find their special gift and breakfast would be ready. To keep it interesting, each child had a different set of clues and each treasure could or would be in a different room. Often as not, it would somehow be sitting in plain sight all the time they were on the hunt.

As they got older the clues I came up with needed to be a bit more imaginative. They soon realized that an odd ‘something’ in their stockings was, in fact, the first clue of the hunt. They learned to take time opening gifts, checking the back of gift tags and listening to the conversations about gifts opened. Completely reading each tag became a must!

When they were old enough to have a driver’s license, the clues got ramped up even further. Sending them off on a tour to find road signs and landmarks with words they needed and sometimes stopping at friends (previously arranged) to gather up more information on their quest to the find the treasure.

As adults, they still expect to have a Treasure Hunt when we are all together for Christmas, and so the tradition continues.

Share your traditions with us. I would love to hear about them.

Ann Edall-Robson
Author, Photographer, Lover of Life
"Capturing moments others may never get to experience."

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Throw a Rock and Watch the Ripples

12/7/2017

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Throw a rock into the water and watch the ripples flow outward, reaching the unknown, affecting all in its path.

In business, it's known as networking. A concept of promoting yourself and your work to friends, family, and perfect strangers. You tell one person. That person shares with two others, and so the spread of information starts.

Not an easy task for people who prefer (willingly) to do anything they can, for anyone else. Gladly doing so as long as there is no public recognition. Yet, often we find these so-called wallflowers, behind the scenes people are an amazing artist, musicians, writers, and entrepreneurs. You may hear them say things like, “No one is interested what I do.”
Well, people, you need to change the way you think. It’s not necessary to spend money to get product marketing off the ground. It will, however, take an investment of your time; and, in the beginning, more time than you think you have.

“How can I do this without spending my life’s savings?”

The answer is simple, an internet connection. With it, the world of social media is at your beck and call and each available avenue should be considered.

There is no need to open an account for every social media platform you come across. Choose the one(s) beneficial to your promotional needs. Start slow, pick one or two that meld together and ultimately showcase your business. Grow your online visibility and add to your harem of followers.

Two of the bonuses of social media marketing come from planning and execution. Posting to one platform will, in most cases, be capable of automatic entry on others. And, pre-scheduling posts to show up in the future. Both have great benefits to time management and social networking.

In theory, pre-scheduling posts allow you to spend as much time as you want in the preparation. The result is having the information go live at your desired strategic time.

An original post to one platform links to your other social media accounts. The data shows up at the same time in multiple places. The work is done once and has the possibility of being networked out to thousands. The ripple in the pond!

This is not to say that all you need is social media networking to promote you, your product or your business. But think about it, it's only the beginning and if done consistently, it gives you the time to get out from in front of your computer and pursue other live networking opportunities.

Ann Edall-Robson
Author, Photographer, Lover of Life
"Capturing moments others may never get to experience."

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