The elegant woman, Liz, as she really is, with just drawn napkin. I drew her earrings red because I forgot what color they were but I knew blue would make them disappear into the water behind her.
Liz at the Opening Cocktail Party
Lucky Monica, checked me in to the conference and got my very first new Biz card. Who would think the first person I meet is from Tulsa.
I sat next to Aannette on the shuttle to the opening night reception. She just moved from NYC to Bentonville, AR. Can you say culture shock?!
The reception took place at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. This is just the cafeteria!
Something was happening above, what I don’t know.
After 12 hours of surviving on nuts, raisins, and hors d’oeuvres I indulged in a late night burger and fries. My first since 2012 (really). While sitting in the hotel lounge with some new found friends.
Here we are fluttering into day #3 of Public Relations week.
Media Whore
I get a lot of publicity. I am in the newspaper and on TV much more often than makes sense. Even when I am not trying to get publicity I tend to get it. People are always saying to me, ‘Marty, don’t forget us little people when you become famous!’ They usually say this when I get interviewed on TV about something. My response has recently been, ‘haha…I have been ‘almost famous’ for decades now, don’t expect me to get really famous any time soon.’
Bad Caterpillar
Why is that? Well, the truth is I am better at being a butterfly than I am at being a caterpillar. It’s not that I don’t work. I work really hard at my various jobs as artist, photographer, designer, speaker and running coach. I work equally hard at my principles of love, encouragement, forgiveness, critical thinking, and intellectual integrity. But there is more to working than just working hard. It’s about working smart and focused, with repetition and habit. It’s about timing the work with the public relations, meaning integrating the two with diligence, consistency and follow-through.
That is where I am not all that good. I am still working on it.
Two in One
So remember, this is not about being angry at some dandy that gets publicity due to good public relations while you toil away in obscurity. Why? Because you and the dandy are one. You are the caterpillar AND the butterfly of your own destiny. Maybe you are the opposite of me, maybe you are a really good caterpillar but shy away from the bright lights that the butterfly lives in. If you believe in something, if you believe what you offer is good and valuable for the world, then it’s time to start your work on that area you aren’t very good at. It’s time to put on the sunglasses and get out in the butterfly sunshine or perhaps it’s time to take off the shades, draw the curtains and work in the caterpillar shadows. Whichever it is, it’s time to do it.
I smell day #2 of “Public Relations’ week here at The Napkin!
PR Karma
Public relations is beholden to Karma it seems. It’s not that every person gets found out, but if you are in the public eye long enough, who you really are will find its way out of the shadows. That can be a good thing, as yesterday’s commentary illustrated, but it can be a bad thing too. What makes it good or bad? Whether the person exposed is a skunk or not.
Parts Exposed
Think of examples just in the past few years; a Congressman exposed (in more way than one), a Sorority President revealed, an actor self-destructing. All had their lives destroyed by the publicity they served up themselves.
The Two Ifs
Are they ruined for life? Maybe, it’s not certain. What will make the difference in their futures? The answer is in two ifs. First, if they can transform from Skunk to something better. Second, if people believe they have transformed and will invest in them once again. If those two ifs are fulfilled they can overcome.
Focus
If you are in the same boat, as I have been more than a few times in my life, focus on #1, the self-transformation, and don’t worry about convincing others. Just work on yourself, create the new you you want to be (yes, it can be done) and then, and only then, go out and say, ‘Here I am, give me another chance.’
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Drawing and Commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, 1809-1865
Later this week I am going to a Social Media, Blogging and Branding Conference in Bentonville, Arkansas called SoFabCon. It’s close by, is partially led by a very cool dude, Ted Rubin of Collective Bias, and promises to enlighten me about all sorts of things. Plus I get to go buy crazy socks for the parties they have. It’s a rule.
I thought I would investigate the idea of Public Relations over the week since that is so intertwined with the subjects of the conference.
Her Hidden World
I have a friend and client in Australia, Natalie Tucker of Defined Image, who recently wrote an FB post about getting 2,000 likes on her Personal Stylist business page. That is a big milestone for her. She credited me with helping her do that by listening to her very traumatic, personal, private and revealing life story, one that would not fit in most PR firm’s bio of their client.
Her World Exposed
After I heard the story I told her that while her first instinct was to hide that story away (that it wouldn’t be good public relations in other words) I thought that telling the story to the world would be a huge moment for her and her business. It would turn her from this perfect woman in a perfect marriage with perfect kids, somewhat unrelatable in her public relations perfection, into a real and relatable woman with an incredibly powerful story of how she got where she is today.
She agreed and found the courage to tell the story. That was 1 year ago when she had 100+ followers. A year later and she has 2,000 followers and her business has grown by leaps and bounds. The story being told to the world was the turning point. She is an incredibly hard and dedicated worker, no story can replace that. But it was the entry point for so many to know and love her and give her a chance to prove what she can do for them.
True PR
What does that story say about your own PR? It says you let your PR, whether DIY or through a company, be the best version of you, but you make sure that best you is real, authentic, genuine and true. It says your Public Relations efforts should include who you really are. That way you don’t have to try to remember what false mask you are suppose to wear. You just wear yourself as best you can be.
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Drawing and Commentary by Marty Coleman.
Quote by the Doris Fleming, mother of Peggy Fleming, the 1968 Olympic gold medal figure skater. She told it to her daughter after she won so she wouldn’t be fooled into thinking she was something she was not. She also won 3 world titles and 5 national titles.
I work from home. I usually stay home unless I have a specific thing to do. When I travel afar I find myself gravitating towards coffee houses, and I have been thinking I really should do that more often when I am home, not just when I travel. Why not draw my napkin there instead of at home, right?
The ‘Boston Strong Chick’
That is what I did today. I had to go to downtown Tulsa to pick up some artwork I had in a recent group exhibition. Afterwards I decided to stop by the Phoenix Coffee House. I gathered up a humongous Mocha and a scone and settled into a chair where I thought I would have a good view of this woman with a ‘Boston Strong Chick’ hat and shirt on. I figured she was likely a runner and that she might be there a while, long enough to start a drawing at least. I started to draw her and got through her head, shoulders and most of her arms when she got up to meet someone coming in the door.
OKC Marathon Connection
It turns out the friend she met was Michelle, a running friend of mine. We had just talked on Facebook earlier in the morning about running in the OKC Marathon in two days. We recognized each other and I got up to say hello. Turns out the person I had been drawing was the person she had told me about in our conversation, her more experienced running friend who is going to run the marathon with her. She introduced Brooke to me, explaining how we knew each other . I showed them the drawing in progress and after some talk about the marathon and our various strategies for the race they went off to get some coffee and I went back to drawing. When I was done with the line drawing I showed it to them again and Brooke was kind enough to let me take a photo of her with the napkin.
Brooke Martin (gotta love the cute bunny photo bombing on the TV in the background!)
It also turns out that she had come to the coffee house from being interviewed about her participation in the Marathon by the same reporter, Max Resnik, who interviewed me yesterday. Small world.
Watching Me Drawing
In the meanwhile, while I was drawing Brooke, someone was watching me drawing. When I was done she came over and asked to see the drawing. She told me she had texted her husband while watching me draw that she was watching someone who could be him in another 20 years. You can see her on the far left (and Brooke on the couch) in this photo I took using my brand new wide angle lens (I am obsessed with it) when I first sat down.
The scene before me
Turns out good things, good connections and good people come from getting out and about. I shall have to do it more often.
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Drawing and story by Marty Coleman, who is running the last leg, (6.2 miles) in the marathon relay, not the entire race. But I do get to cross the finish line, which will be very cool.
I got into a long and deep discussion today on FB over a story on ABC News/GMA about girls not being allowed to wear strapless dresses to a middle school prom because they were deemed ‘too distracting’ by the principal of the school. Click on the pic or link to read the story.
Is this an example of a rape culture at work?
There were a lot of points of view, mine primarily being that what is needed is proper training for boys on how to respond to girls, no matter what they are wearing. Limiting girls because boys might be distracted is placing the blame on the girl, just as when someone blames a rape victim because she wore too short a skirt or too dark of eyeshadow. Not only is that not the reason behind rape, even if it were, the solution is to get the boys/men educated and trained about appropriate and moral behavior, not telling women they have to wear clothes that conceal.
In 1971 we bought a 47 ft houseboat. We lived in Darien, Connecticut and had it at a marina on the Long Island Sound in a town nearby. We spent the next few summers out at the far eastern tip of Long Island, in the town of Montauk, New York, at Captain’s Marina.
Floating
In the summer of ’72 Hurricane Agnes bore down on Long Island. It was close to a direct hit as those things go. The tidal storm surge made Montauk Lake rollick violently. Many of the boat owners on the floating docks decided they would ride out the storm in the middle of the lake instead of risking having their boat get out of synch with the dock and smash down on top of it, ruining the hull, propellers, etc.
Tightening
Our boat was tied up to a rigid dock, not floating with the tide. At first we thought that meant we would be safe as long as we kept the bumpers between us and the dock. it was unlikely we would go up and down so much as to put the boat in danger. What we didn’t realize was that once the boat started going up and down, even mildly, the ropes tying us to the dock were getting tighter and tighter around the cleats.
Untying
As the storm got more violent one of the cleats tore out of the boat. At that point we made the decision that it would be best if we waited it out in the middle of the lake instead of at the marina. We tried to untie the remaining ropes but it was hopeless. They were way too tight, and even if it were still possible to untie the ropes, the violent moving of the boat made it very dangerous for fingers to work with rope that may snap tight at any moment. Our only choice at that point was to take an ax to the remaining rope and cut ourselves clear. It was quite a dangerous scene making that happen.
Cutting
We were able to cut 2 other ropes and had one remaining rope at the bow. But because that was the only remaining rope tethering us to the dock and the wind was blowing us away from the dock we were not in immediate danger of hitting anything. Getting up on the bow in the storm to chop away at the rope was considered too dangerous and we chose to ride it out with that one tether, as long as the wind didn’t start to bring us back to the dock, which it didn’t.
Decisions
After the storm passed we saw almost all the boats that remained at the floating docks had been damaged to some degree. Those that had gotten free had some seasick captains but were not damaged at the end of it all. Our boat only suffered the one cleat having been pulled out and some chop marks on the teak walkway.
We learned an important lesson that day. You can’t wait until the storm is at its worst to make your decision. You need to figure it out in advance, just as in life.
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Drawing and life story by Marty Coleman, who a year later got blown up on that same boat.
Quote by Joseph Joubert, 1754-1824, French moralist and essayist
Do you excuse your snark and judgment as being hip? They aren’t hip, they’re thorns. Thorns meant to hurt and denigrate. You might get followers and fans and people laughing at your words, but you are hurting others and you will, without a doubt, be hurt yourself in time. The path you covered in thorns will one day be the path you yourself must follow, and the thorns will be even more plentiful. Even if you avoid the thorns on the path, more thorns than that will have grown inside your heart and will strangle your love, compassion and care.
