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Hamptons Spotlight

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Hamptons Spotlight: Times A Changing! Social Media has changed how business is done.

It’s a new day…the average Social Media user has 100 friends….that means something could go viral 100x….Businesses please remember this before you are so quick to upset a customer…That one upset customer might influence over 30,000 people. That is 30,000 new potential customers you no longer have…illustration of a young African American businesswoman sorting h

It is hard to believe that the internet was only introduced to the public 22 years ago, 1 year before my oldest daughter was born, soon after email was introduced in our lives. I am astounded at how my life revolves around social media, could we go back to how things were before the internet, for me I say HECK NO I love it.

Social Media has changed the face of the world and how we communicate with each other, people are even hiring companies like upleap to do the communication for them, madness right? There are many months that go by that I have not heard my friend’s voice on the phone or in person, yet I know more about what is happening in their life simply because we are now sharing our entire life on the internet for all to see. Are we divulging too much information? Is nothing sacred anymore, but can we go back to how we once communicated with friends, I say no. Social Media is here to stay and we will need to figure out how to keep some part of our private lives private. But not only has social media allowed us to stay up to date with millions of people, but it has also allowed many people to create businesses online and start a career from it. Influencers such as bloggers and YouTubers have used social media to their advantage in order to grow their brands. If you want to find out more about technology and businesses, an introduction to something like five examples of businesses that underwent digital transformations – Salesforce.com would give you an idea of these advantages.

The way we conduct our business, communicate with our clients and our customers has changed because of Social Media. About 10 years ago traditional advertising was King, (TV, radio, print) and were leading the industry with advertising revenue, today those traditional forms of advertising are suffering and grasping to hold on to their survival rope. Remember when email was king and www.aol.com was its leader? Everyone had an AIM account and we all communicated on AIM with our friends and now only 10 years later people are being told you are not being taken serious as a business professional if you are still using AOL. I immediately canceled my AOL account and started a www.Google.com account.

Less than 10 years ago internet advertising emerged and every business in the world was scurrying to start a website, because E-commerce was where you needed to be, consumers wanted to sit at their computer at 4am in the morning and shop online. Whola, the emergence of publications online, now they had to find a way to support their website so the banner advertising emerged. Banner advertising has gone through many transformations from the annoying pop-up banners to the flashing banners to the banners that are ineffective… Having said that though, they are effective for the people who know how to use them. Things like Yard signs, banner ads are still a form of advertisement that people like. You just have to know where to put them and who your target audience is for. This may take time, but it is time worth spent, particularly when you do it correctly.

Remember when everyone was completely head over heels with www.MySpace.com and it was the best thing since slice bread, teenagers are to be thanked for this, but like everything once adults starting hovering and trying to protect our kids from the sexual predators lurking behind the screens, what’s a teen to do; they abandon and move on to the next best thing to throw their parents off their track….

mzl.utbsbllqOpen the Gates of www.FACEBOOK.com ….this website has revolutionized how Social Media has taken over our lives forever…. they have forced everyone to change their business model to incorporate Social Media into their marketing budget. In 2011 www.socialmediatoday.com predicted Facebook would have around 610 to 625 million users. Well my friends they have exceeded that number in 2013, according to www.statisticbrain.com that number as of 1-1-2014 is 1,310,000,000 and total number of mobile Facebook users is 680,000,000 and increase of 22% from 2012. Many business in the beginning created a personal page for their business, but have found that having a Facebook Business page allows them to do more things. For me I am always seeking ways to boost Facebook likes, it is hard to grow your Facebook business page organically, so I recommend doing a Facebook campaign to boost your likes organically. Buying likes might serve a purpose in the beginning but might end up doing more damage in the end.

twitter-logoTwitter however is beloved yet lacks the ability for businesses to formally advertise to its followers. In America only 12% of the adult population use or understand Twitter, however for the businesses and brands that use it, they have seen a definite response. It will take the super savvy marketer to figure out creative ways to get this done.

LinkedIn-LogoNot to be forgotten is www.linkedin.com, they are unique and one to watch out for… they will be competition for Facebook, it is just a matter of time. I say this because this is the Social Media site where the decision makers spend their time, this is your professional network.

As a visionary seeing where things are going it encouraged me to start a business where I manage Social Media for businesses…As with anything new many people will become overwhelmed with the emergence of new technology and the people who study it will become the experts and therefore have an opportunity to make a living from teaching this new technology to others, then it is off to the newest thing for the day.

Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr are coming on strong with image sharing. Snapchat very popular with teens, since they are slowly leaving Facebook because they feel their parents have invaded it. The list is endless, but the one thing that has not changed, Facebook still leads this Social Media. The Social Media sites that are very popular with teenagers and college students are: Instagram, Ask.com, Twitter, Tumblr, Vine, Snapchat.com and although Facebook is not the Social Media of choice they all still look at their Facebook feed everyday. Don’t rule Facebook out for teens however, Mark Zuckerberg is a genius and he is constantly reinventing Facebook to keep teens and college students engaged with his product. Teenagers will NEVER give up Social Media, they have grown up with it, Facebook bought Instagram and tried to acquire Snapchat, but CEO, Evan Spiegel, the company’s 23 year-old CEO, turned down Facebook offer to purchase them for $4 Bilion. So what does Facebook’s do, they purchase another instant message service: WhatsAPP for $19 Billion.

I will be right there embracing the new technology because as you get older your taste change, your skin changes your MIND changes and you must adapt to these changes. conceptual image for social media for business marketing

Need some help with your Social Media, want more clarification on how many of these Social Media platforms can be implemented into our marketing, attend one of my Workshops.  Times A Changing! Social Media has changed how business is done, are you ready to embrace it?

Sag Harbor, NY: Hamptons Spotlight: Sag Harbor Lends a Helping Hand…Nick and James Dwoskin, residents of Sag Harbor, have just returned from Nicaragua. They had the opportunity to visit the village that is the beneficiary of the money raised by SHINE, Ulwasking. SHINE stands for Sag Harbor in Nicaragua Enterprise. The mission of SHINE is to assist campesinos in rural, Nicaragua to improve their living standards through sustainable development in clean water and sanitation. This project allowed the people and community organizations of greater Sag Harbor to support El Porvenir’s work in the village of Ulwasking, Nicaragua.

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In 2010 and 2011 several fundraising events were organized by local Sag Harbor residents, including our own Hamptons Mouthpiece, Vanessa Leggard. Since 2011 there have been a series of mishaps and false starts before completing the Ulwasking project. The original targeted village was unable to secure the source of the water to pump into the community and had hydrology that prevented a simpler well from being dug. After a careful study of Ulwasking and securing the villagers participation in the construction and maintenance of the project, construction began.khl_1004khl_0938

Ulwasking is an extremely poor community even by Nicaraguan standards (Nicaragua is the 2nd poorest country in the Western Hemisphere). The population of the village is primarily Miskito Indian, a marginalized indigenous group, similar to the Native Americans in our own country. The Miskitos have their own language and culture.  The Spanish conquest only tangentially reached the Miskito population in Eastern Honduras and Nicaragua. For this reason the Spanish language was not adopted by the Miskito. The balance of the village is Mestizo, Spanish speaking of mixed European and Native American decent. Until recently the village was entirely Moskito. The Mestizo have moved to the area seeking better locations for subsistence farming distant from larger more populated areas. Ulwasking is in a remote location on the Northern border directly across the Rio Coco from Honduras. One side of the river is Nicaragua and the other is Honduras. To reach the village they drove eight hours north from Managua to Wiwilli and then floated six hours east on the Rio Coco in a motorized dug out boat similar to a canoe, but longer.

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 I am pleased to report that thanks to the money raised by SHINE and the planning, coordination and supervision provided by El Porvenir (www.elporvenir.org), an excellent charity on the ground in Nicaragua dedicated to providing sustainable water and sanitation projects to impoverished mostly rural Nicaragua, life has been improved for the residents of Ulwasking.Ulwasking Map copyDSCN0980Ulwasking has a new functioning water system that pipes water through a filtration system to approximately thirty faucets distributed throughout the village. These spigots are in relatively close proximity to the villager’s homes. Before the completion of the system the women collected the water for drinking, cooking, washing and sustaining their animals from distant, tainted sources. Ulwasking also now has approximately forty latrines, outhouses.  Prior to their construction, there were no latrines in Ulwasking.

The following is a link to a video that describes El Porvenir. El Porvenir (EP) is an international non-profit organization that assists people in rural communities in Nicaragua to improve their living standards through sustainable development in clean water, sanitation, reforestation, and health education.

The people of Ulwasking send their sincere thanks. For more information on how you can help, visit website: (www.elporvenir.org),

Images Courtesy: James & Nick Dwoskin

Hamptons Spotlight: They are Dead and I Choose to Mourn Publicly

They are often forgotten quickly by everyone except their families. Lost in the obscurity of our very busy schedules. We are often told that ‘life moves on’ and so it does but there is a sadness that the passing of 12 souls will only be briefly remembered by those not directly affected by their passing. I choose not to be brief in my acknowledgement of their lives and the mourning of their deaths. I choose to mourn publicly! I have tried to read about these twelve victims of the Washington Navy Yard shooting; to learn a little more about them. It is uncomforting to know that so many of these people had daughters. I have daughters. Many were sports fans as one might suspect. One, a volunteer to make sure that the nests of Bluebirds was prepared to receive their small hosts. They had hobbies; they were family people, all the stuff that makes life worth the living these people had in their lives. Gone in an instant.

I would write about my opposition to high capacity weapons without any opposition to the right of ownership of guns but that is a story for another day. Today I feel the need to focus on the plight of people and families suffering with mental illness in their midst. I have first hand knowledge about the silent suffering of those with mental illness because that sorrow has been visited on my family. It is extraordinarily difficult to manage because of the nature of some of those illnesses. Many times the illness is unrecognized or ignored. In some instances the onset is early in life and sometimes there is a late onset. Mental illness affects children, adults and the aged with varying degrees of affliction. Always there is pain and suffering with the individual and there is too often shame, hopelessness and helplessness experienced by the family. What to do? Where to seek help, a voice of support, respite from the endless hours of caring and concern with no escape. As you can see there is often no rhyme or reason to how mental illness will strike. This makes the care and treatment of this malady so difficult to manage. There are some studies that indicate that up to 20% of our population suffers with some form of mental illness. That’s a whole lot of people.

Those suffering with some forms of mental illness do not feel they need help, as this is a manifestation of their disease. This makes seeking help difficult for families and love ones trying to address the illness. Many times, without the acquiescence of the sick individual, everyone, including medical and primary care practitioners are unable to intervene without a court order. This can be daunting to family and significant others trying to get treatment for the ill.

Since the 1980’s, institutionalization of the mentally ill has been frowned upon but there was a concurrent reduction in both federal and state budgets in providing outpatient services for this population. This contributed to the explosion in homelessness, crime and subsequent incarceration. This has always been a shadow illness because of the shame, perceived or real, that was associated with those suffering. Families afraid of the whispers and innuendo tend to hide the afflicted. Drugs as well as biochemical imbalances or genetics induce some mental illness. I say… SO WHAT!!!! Whatever the cause, it is past time to look at mental illness squarely and to address the inequities of funding and services necessary to combat this epidemic.

The experience that I obtained dealing with mental illness in my family prepares me to explain some of what you may encounter as you deal with this trauma. You must persevere; it will be a long arduous journey that you embark on. There are success and relapse, sorrow and jokes, laughter and heartache; all those things that are associated with mental illness. This is no soft sell. This is hard, very hard. Because the science is not absolute and treatment is as much an art as it is a science, the ill may have a varying degree of cure. And yet, sometimes a treatment fits like a hand and a glove. It almost seems like magic when you see the cloud that has settled between you and the ill part and reveal the person you have been searching for, for so very long. You will need to vigilant because that cloud can separate you again and again. Be prepared for the frustrations as well as the miracles.


There are support groups and associations that can be very helpful in assisting you to get the help you or your loved one needs. Do not be afraid to confront the disease, denial is a recipe for disaster. Talk to your friends. TALK TO YOUR FRIENDS!!!! That is why they are friends, to help you when times are difficult not when times are good. Seek medical advice as well as the advice of mental illness specialists. By contacting all of these people, you should be able to reduce the symptoms of your mental health disorder. However, if you don’t feel very confident going to speak to a professional about your mental battle, it could be worth getting some weed joints to temporarily make yourself feel better. Those interested in that method can learn here if they want. Either way, it’s important to get some support however you feel most comfortable. I know this all sounds unreasonable but I have learned that we tend to function at diminished efficiency when we are in the eye of the storm and this is indeed a very frightening storm. All Managed Care and Long Term Care agencies have provisions for mental health services. All HMO’s have provisions for clients with mental illness that can be accessed. There is a political element as well that must be addressed. When Congress or local and State government attempts to reduce the funding for mental illness related services you must be prepared to fight to retain those services. We owe it to memory of the twelve victims of this last shooting or the victims of Sandy Hook Elementary School or Aurora, Co, or Tucson, Arizona or…….They are Dead and I Choose to Mourn Publicly

For more information on Mental Illness and Support:
Mental Health Association of NYC
Office of Mental Health NYS
Mental Health Related Support Groups
The Mental Health Association of Suffolk
Suffolk County Division of Community Mental Hygiene Services
Open 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Friday 853-8500

(Sag Harbor, NY) Greetings Hamptons Mouthpiece readers, I have added a new section to Hamptons Mouthpiece and it is called Hamptons Spotlight…today’s spotlight is Mothers because the are the best celebrities in my eyes…What we will try to focus on are trends in the Hamptons as well as the world at large, including politics, finance, social events, or anything that is trending in the news. Hamptons Mouthpiece will spotlight this. What we will ask our readers to do is to submit suggestions where you think the spotlight should focus on. What will Hamptons Spotlight be looking at next week tune in.

IMG_1144I love being a mother to Danielle and Allura. I may not have a lot but I have my daughters and they are all I need. They make me laugh and smile and cry. I love the life I live especially because they are in it. A mother’s love really has no bounds..It takes someone really brave to be a mother, someone strong to raise a child and someone special to love someone more than herself.  I have been very blessed to have such amazing women in my life to teach me how to be a mother. My mother Charlotte Cook is one of the strongest women that I know, she has always put her children ahead of her needs and it has not always been easy for her. Although  my father and I are in a good place now, my mother struggled on her own for many years to provide for her children and education was always a primary focus in our home.

I grew up in Harlem and my mother never allowed us to be a product of our environment, she always said you may live in the ghetto but you do not have to be ghetto. Speaking properly was very important to my mother and I can hear the words ringing in my ears as I write them, when you walk through these doors (our apartment) you will speak the Queen’s English and leave that slang where it belongs, in the street.

momMy mother was a smart woman then and still is. She is my rock, a little extreme sometimes, like the time when I came in late, well the next afternoon and brought in Kentucky Fried Chicken, she took my chicken and threw it on the floor and began to stomp it with her foot, all because she felt I disrespected the house because she had cooked. I have to admit I did think the woman was crazy at that time. I think about that time and it makes me laugh now. Whenever I think about my mother it is always with fondness, deep respect, love and admiration. My mother taught me my values, those same values that I have instilled in my children. She is responsible for the person that I am today.

My grandmother is still alive and a woman who has loved me my entire life unconditionally. Her love never came with conditions, she always made me feel beautiful and loved. She is such an inspiration in my life and her energy and spunk, are what give me the courage to feel like I can take on the world and never be afraid of anything or anyone. This is a quality that has been instilled in my daughters, They are told you can do anything and be anyone, never let the color of your skin get in the way of you reaching for the stars. The world is open to you and there for you to take, don’t limit yourself because others don’t believe in you, believe in yourself. There are no limitations only those that you inflict on yourself.

I have so many wonderful friends, too many to name. These are the most remarkable women that I know, everyday they put their needs on hold to tend to the needs of their children. They often times deny themselves from having a time-out because they are doing something for their kids. I learn from these women how to appreciate motherhood with all its ups and downs. Thank you ladies…

bigstock-Mother-And-Child-1213809Motherhood comes in many forms, just because you are not a biological mother, doesn’t mean that you do not understand how to be a mother. My best friend Patricia is a godmother to both of my daughters and I would intrust their lives to her in a second if something were to happen to me. She loves unconditionally, she is a God-mother because God has blessed Kurt and I to have her in their lives. Aunts, Friends, cousins, sisters can all play a tremendous role in a child’s life , my girls are blessed to be surrounded by so much love and support from amazing women who are role-models in their life.

There is a very special woman who will forever have a special place in my heart and that is my Mother-n-law Naomi Leggard. This woman embraced me and immediately welcomed me into her family. I learned how to show affection openly with her. I never grew-up in a home where we consistently expressed our mutual love for each other by saying I love you or hugging each other, it was just a given that we loved one another. When I became part of the Leggard family it was a bit overwhelming in the beginning on how affectionate they were with each other, but it was so genuine and heartfelt it was contagious. How could I expect my children to be comfortable saying I love you if I did not change my behavior. The girls have truly benefited from being comfortable saying I love you, hugging as a sign of affection, and not afraid to touch. These are learned behaviors and ones taught to me by a truly remarkable woman who touched the lives of so many who were blessed to have known her.

Friends, we do not always have the answer to everything involving parenting but what we do have is a support team. It takes a village to raise a child, you do not have to be alone. I guess that is why I love social media so much, I never feel alone. I love to share because if I only touch 1 person then I feel blessed. I hear often people say I don’t do social media and I always ask why. The responses I receive are because they find it invasive, time-consuming and they continue on with a bunch of negative excuses. If you stop and think about how it can be used in a positive way, you might find that you will have an entirely different experience. Facebook has allowed me to continue to grow as a mother and I learn something everyday from my amazing friends. Enjoy this day women who are part of a child’s life, mothers, aunts, sisters, friends, nieces, teachers, grandparents, and this list is endless….Today is a day of celebration for all women who impact the lives of children. Thank you!!!!

Red Long Stem Rose

A special gift from my 13 year old….I am traveling the right journey……