Zeno Group Blog

Here are some articles the Zeno team has been reading from May 26th through June 30th:

• Wall Street Journal: How Moms Feel About Social Media
• NYTimes.com: Keeping News of David Rohde’s Kidnapping Off Wikipedia
• NYTimes.com: Corner Office – In Praise of All That Grunt Work – An interview with Daily Candy’s Dany Levy
• Fortune.com: The sexes act differently on the Internet

What do Michelle Obama, Maria Shriver, mulch and Zeno Group have in common?

The First Ladies are just the latest supporters of Zeno Group’s pro bono client, KaBOOM!, a national non-profit organization that is bringing play back into the lives of children. In San Francisco this week, First Lady Michelle Obama and First Lady of California Maria Shriver got down and dirty to build a local playground with KaBOOM!.

My fellow Zeno-ites and I recently had the opportunity to join a similar KaBOOM! playground build at a school in downtown Baltimore. We arrived early that morning to the inner city charter school, where so many volunteers gathered to create a safe place to play for the students and local children in the community. Fortified by caffeine and sporting old clothes, we were ready for an adventure in play. The next six hours were a blur of pitch forks, giant slides, sloppy mud and new friends. We were all energized by the task at hand: gaining a better insight into KaBOOM!’s mission and demonstrating Zeno Group’s dedication to improving the communities in which we live and serve.

Team Zeno helps out at the KaBOOM! playground build in Baltimore

KaBOOM!’s emphasis on community engagement and support is a welcome reminder that sometimes we need to step out of the office and onto the concrete for some much needed service in our communities. It’s amazing how much you learn about an organization’s dedication to service while shoveling mulch and laying bricks with community volunteers all day! I was proud to be a Zeno ambassador both on the playground that day and back at my desk, strategizing with our team to build buzz for KaBOOM!’s upcoming Play Days, September 19 – 27, 2009.

KaBOOM! Play Days are outdoor events that celebrate play and emphasize wellness with games and activities. KaBOOM! believes that unstructured play in particular helps make children happier, fitter, smarter, more socially adept and creative. Further, Play Days are an opportunity for communities to come together to improve their local parks and playspaces with clean-ups, simple enhancement and construction projects.

Having been atop the mulch pile, I can attest that being hands-on involved with KaBOOM! is a really rewarding experience. I encourage all of my colleagues to join in to plan a Play Day or spread the word to their friends and family. It’s easy to get started: just go to www.kaboom.org/playday to sign up!

Find out what Michelle, Maria and I have already discovered: playing with KaBOOM! is a great way to have fun AND give back to the local community!

The mainstream media has finally surfaced a pet peeve of mine — people sitting in meetings thumbing their mobile devices. The New York Times piece today chronicles the debate between traditionalists who find it both rude and disrespectful, and “techno-evangelists” who “insist that to ignore real-time messages in a need it yesterday world is to invite peril.”

Count me in the first camp. I’m as tethered to my Blackberry as the next guy, and appreciate its utility as the indispensible mobile tool for business. That said, I also know when to leave it on the desk or in the briefcase, like during meetings where I’m supposed to be a paying attention and engaging in the discussion.

I’ve heard all the usual rationalizations (“I’m expecting an important e-mail and must be ready to respond immediately”) but I don’t buy it. 99 times out of 100 a few minutes here or there can’t mean the difference between life and death, victory or defeat, saving or losing a client. If you are expecting something so urgent or important it can’t wait until the meeting concludes, either excuse yourself or remain at your desk and watch your e-mail in anticipation.

To be sure, not all meetings require our full attention all the time, and sneaking an occasional peek when stuck in long, tedious meetings is forgivable, so long as it is discreet. As the Times reports, “There is safety in numbers…the acceptability of checking devices is proportional to the number of people attending the meeting. The more people there are, the less noticeable your typing will be.”

But in small settings with colleagues or, heaven forbid, clients, good sense and common courtesy should prevail. If you can’t bear to leave the Blackberry behind, go ahead and mail it in, out of respect for your co-attendees, if nothing else.

Maybe I’m just an old fashioned crank on this subject, but I don’t think I’m alone. And don’t get me started on people who check their e-mail while driving.

On Monday, Zeno Group hosted a roundtable discussion about food, beverage and nutrition trends for 2009 and beyond, and the implications for business. Never before have the opportunities, threats and stakeholders been so diverse. Who could have ever thought eating and drinking would get this complicated?

Sylvia Rowe, President of SR Strategy LLC, kicked off the presentations with an overview of the unprecedented “convergence” of food and beverage trends: as risk, as medicine, as ethics and values, and as fuel. “Obesity continues to the lens through which all nutrition issues are viewed today,” noted Sylvia. Interestingly, the importance of sustainability was mentioned in relation to 2 distinctly different notions: the sustainability of production and the sustainability of consumer behavior change. (Given that it was World Oceans Day with Ted Danson on CNN warning of imperiled global fishing stocks, sustainability was clearly in the headlines and central to the roundtable discussions.)

Following Sylvia’s remarks was Nutritionist Ashley Koff, RD. From the perspectives of her many clients and the media, Ashley emphasized the importance of simplifying the message to an overwhelmed consumer. Balancing new discoveries related to the functional benefits of foods and food ingredients is ever challenging, while the promise of new advances, such as personalized nutrition tailored to an individual’s DNA, is off in the future. Across the board, addressing energy is a key.

Zeno Group’s Nick Mendoza rounded out the presentations with a sampling of food and beverage brand social media programs. Today’s consumers discuss the brands they eat and drink frequently with their friends. To participate in these conversations, a healthy social media program requires brands to communicate with transparency, while always listening first and valuing the relationship. Authentic engagement and audience empowerment should be driving social media activities, rather than self-serving promotions or a soapbox mentality.

Representatives from O.N.E. Natural Experience and Nuttzo brought along their products for everyone’s enjoyment. The FDA representative also brought an array of the agency’s communications tools.

With the release of the movie Food, Inc. coming later this week and the deliberations around the 2010 food guidance system (the heavily anticipated next food “pyramid”) still very much underway, food and beverage producers and marketers need to be ready to tout their advances and protect their brands in these dynamic times.

As all moms know, it is a fine line to balance concern with overparenting. Is it nutty to lurk outside your kid’s classroom to catch a peek of your child, to ache when they miss when they are up at bat, or to want to send them into the world – whether to kindergarten, camp or college – with a protective bubble? I am feeling a bit optimistic that alpha motherhood may be morphing into realistic parenting. I have raised two incredibly strong young women, who understand that while motherhood enriches me, it does not solely define me. The new movement of realistic parenting makes sense in this new economy and return to basics. Maybe French lessons, Suzuki and Kumon are great – but are they necessary for raising confident, empathic young adults. Marketers need to understand that the recession and return to basics is changing the way moms parent and shop. We are still purchasing, but not out of guilt to cater to every family whim and we want brands that understand this cultural shift and to speak to us not at us.