Good Day Google+ - Let's talk about Planning and Marketing

We'll have some fun. Hey there, I'm Chef Dennis and we're here today for Good Day Google+ and it's my favorite day of the week because I get to hang out with my friends and talk to some other friends in the audience. So we're going to have some fun today. I have a great group on and we're going to talk to them and learn a little bit about them and what they do. Our topic for today was planning and marketing. Whatever we talk about in that area, we're probably going to hit on it, but marketing could be going to the market too, so we might touch on that later. We've been doing some shopping in the market. That's my kind of marketing anyway. But let me introduce our panel real quick and then we will get moving on it. And if you have any questions, please leave it in the comments section and we will get to them. So I'd like to start, and I'm going to start all the way on my far side, and I have my friend Christine DeGraaff. And it's been a while, Christine. Thanks for coming.

Hello. Yes, it has, although you were on my show, the Music Hangout, and the Christina Mia Show, is that right?

Yeah, that wasn't that long ago, I guess.

But I guess it's been a while since I've been here.

Yeah, so I'm glad to have you back on.

Thank you for having me.

My pleasure. And of course, my friend Larry, and the Caribbean Chef here, and you're down in Trinidad and Tobago, and I don't see enough of you. I'm always happy to come on with you.

Chef, it's always a pleasure. I've had you on a couple of my shows, and you've— this is my second time on your show here.

Yes, it is.

It's always a pleasure, sir.

Always a pleasure. We have some fun around the G+ sphere, as we like to call it, and other cooking friends. So it's always great to see you. And my first time here, I have Susan Finch. And Susan, so nice to have you in a Hangout. And your bandwidth is spectacular. Your picture is just wonderful.

Oh, thank you. I pay for it though. That's Boost. That's my Boost. I do love it. So I'm very happy to be here and I like talking about marketing and planning and planning to market and marketing your plan. Planning to go to the market. Yeah, I do need to. I'm really behind. Costco is calling.

Uh-oh, I love that. Costco is too far away for me to use regularly. I like Costco and I'm crazy. I have one for BJ's, I have one for Sam's Club, and I have the Costco too. Depends on what kind of mood I'm in. Sam's is the closest, so they get most of the action. But the other two break up the monotony. All right, and then we have our first time here too, Yvonne. And how you doing, Yvonne? It's great to have you here.

Thanks for having me, Chef Dennis. I'm doing great. Now that I'm halfway through my cup of coffee, I'm starting to finally wake up.

Oh, now where are you at?

I'm in California in the Sacramento area.

Okay, so it's, it's still relatively early for you. So I've already had 3 cups of coffee and any more now would start to put me into overdrive.

Yeah, we get it about 10 AM in the morning, which is about my 8 o'clock in the morning.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. It's because of working all night, I'm a late starter in the morning.

Ah, I used to be a late night person and as I got older, 10 o'clock starts calling me. Now, you know, I'd be up to 12:01 and then get up at 4:00 for work and it never bothered me. Now that I'm retired, I want to sleep all the time. I don't understand.

I've never been a morning person. In fact, this is early for me and it's 1:00. I had to like set the alarm to make sure I didn't miss the show. Oh my God.

I'm glad to have you on. I know there were mornings I would go to work and I'd come in at 5:00 and you and Ronnie Benser would still be on. So, uh, I don't think Ronnie ever slept. That was, that was So we're going to talk a little today, and all we're going to do is talk about what we like to do, what we do online, what we do offline, and any projects we're having. And the topic for today again was planning and marketing. And although we may not think about it too much, we all plan and we all market ourselves one way or the other. And it's, it's just natural for some of us. For others, it's a real struggle. But you know, it's something that we really need to do, and I think sometimes organically, not consciously, is the best way to do it. But really, you know, we need a plan. So I'm going to turn it right back over to Christine, and we're going to start with her because we're going right back down the line again. And let's talk a little about what you've been doing with some of your activities on and off the Plus.

Well, lately, um, I've been doing a lot of planning because we're getting ready to relaunch Circlescope. I started realizing, I'm like, well, we've been doing a lot of work leading up to it. We've been doing beta testing, working on a new logo, website, a blog, videos, all kinds of things. But I wanted to get a launch plan for when we're going to launch the new product so I could schedule some appearances on HOAs. So I started reaching out to some hosts. And I said, you know, I'm thinking about launching in like 2 weeks, can you schedule me? And they're like, hey, we've had our schedule set for like 6— you know, we're booked all summer now, like what are you doing reaching out to us in 2 weeks, you know, you want to be on our HOA. So, you know, so there is some definite planning. I said, hey, to my team, I said, hey, we need to back up the date a little bit, but we need to set a date so that I can go ahead and book some of these shows because, you know, other people's schedule is depending on this. And, you know, I can't just, you know, we need to plan this a little bit.

Well, you know, Christine, I think, I know I would be happy to have you guys on anytime to talk.

Oh, thank you.

And, you know, if hosts don't see the value of what you're doing and make room for you when you're ready, shame on them.

Well, actually, and I have to say that two hosts actually are doing a special for me. Jason Weiser and Wade Harmon, you know, because they said— because Wade told me, he's like, Christina, I'm booked up for like, you know, well into July. And he says, how about a special? And I'm like, that'll work.

Well, I was just gonna offer you the same thing, you know. If you guys want to do a special, I would be happy to do it on a time when we could really push it out and promote it. And I bet a lot of people would jump on that with us and help do it.

Well, thank you. Yeah, I'm really excited about this. I mean, I think that, you know, the one thing that's going to be great is it is— we're going to have a free version, so everybody's going to be able to use the full functionality. You know, it's just— we're just, you know, making some minor changes. You can't add in bulk or remove in bulk, but, you know, everybody's going to be able to benefit from using it. I think A couple people I know that are in our beta test, they were like blown away when they realized that they had like 2,000 people not following them back, or like 1,000 people that haven't posted in 6 months and they're just, you know, ghosts. And, you know, so I think that it's— so I'm really excited about it.

It can be an eye-opener for those that have never used it. People are not following them or people are gone completely. It's a great tool. I use it every day.

And you haven't even tried the new one yet, so we'll get you in that. I need to get you in that beta test, Jeff.

Yeah, I am signed up for it, but I'm one of these dinosaurs and I have troubles learning anything on my own. I need someone to hold my hand and walk me through it.

I'll hold your hand. Okay. The other thing I'm working on is the Music Hangout with Dennis Littley. We're doing a weekly show. Every other week now is a band, and in between weeks we're going to do a talk show. And that's kind of my passion. And there's a lot of planning involved in that as well, and a lot of marketing and trying to get people's attention without making their notifications go crazy. You know, there's like that fine line to walk.

I know, I hear you on that. I backed off inviting people to a lot of things because I just felt like I was driving people crazy with notifications. Yeah, absolutely. Let's turn to Larry. And Larry, you know, you had said earlier in the green room that you didn't think you had any branding or marketing to share, but I mean, you are, you are Larry Fournier. The superstar chef of Google+. Whether you admit it or not.

Chef, I honestly, when you sent me the invite and you asked me if I was going to come on, I said, sure, I'd love to be on your show because, like I said, I've been on before. And when I read what the description of what the content of the show was going to be, I said, well, wait a minute. I'm a lousy planner and marketing is not—

you know.

But then when I came into the green room, You said, hey, who's a better marketer than you? Look at, you know, Larry Farnelli here. So coming to look at it from that angle, I would say yes, I don't have a website, but I do blog with the videos, with the cooking shows. So I guess that in itself could be tagged as a as a form of marketing, I guess.

Sure, you have to plan every show as well.

Yeah, I do have to plan every show, but lately it has been getting kind of crazy, um, because when I first came on the platform, I was about, um, not only promoting myself but promoting other people, and I have stuck with that even up to today because, um You know, folks like Serena Bland, Stacy Fraser, Daniel Fontaine, those are people back in 2012, 2013 whom I built cooking shows around for them and, you know, push them out there so folks could see who they are. And now we have Maggie Unzueta who Chef is going to be working with.

Absolutely, she's coming on next week.

Right, and Aslyn Blore in the UK, she's now doing her own cooking show, Savory Savory Cooking, and she's doing Simply Singapore on the Lary Live channel, which is a, I guess, a new branding for me.

Yes, yes.

Some marketing in there.

Yeah, yeah, a new marketing twist. So yeah, um, so to answer your question, yes, I, I guess I feel comfortable now being honest.

Let's not forget the Pirate's Pub too. Carmen Mandich just made a comment about the Caribbean pirate who does a bit of everything oh so well.

Yeah. Oh yeah, the Pirate's Pub. I completely forgot about that. That's why that, that, um, my, uh, logo— not, well, not my logo, my, um, profile pic, you know, is from the Pirate's Pub days, which Chef, you're familiar with.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had music on there, we had food, we had cocktails. So it was like what Food and Booze is.

Yes.

But with a crazy pirate theme and music and just fun.

You can't go wrong with that, with the pirate theme.

Yeah.

I tried to get Mia to come on with a parrot on her shoulder. She just wouldn't do it.

Oh wow.

I don't believe that, Shep. I think she would do it.

I think she would too. I'm afraid to ask her. Well, Stacey, we all do have something, and you have offered us a lot, and you've really given us— and you've springboarded the careers of a lot of people on Google+. So, you know, that is a lot of marketing and planning, maybe not conscious planning.

Yeah, well, I guess you're right. But like I said, I'd like to to give, so I'm always giving. I'm still giving.

I hope you keep giving. It benefits all of us. Alright, so let me turn it over to Susan, and Susan, let's talk about what you've been doing. I know you were just on my sister Mia's show, and, uh, or as Thelma, as I like to call her.

I'm not Louise.

I'm Louise.

Yeah, Louise.

We were talking about graphics there, but I'm busy putting— planning. I love what Christine— I love what you said about realizing if you couldn't launch it the way you wanted to with the, with the press tour, basically is what you're saying, right? Hold it back, and that was really smart. And so, Chef, I talked to you about my project, and Evie knows about it, my art project that's going to involve art history, teaching kids art, HOAs where they can learn how to cook at kid level that goes with the art theme, do virtual field trips, and I'm putting together this whole package, but I'm finding I have to plan and do my due diligence, but I'm very excited about that. As you know, that's happening while I'm still working for all my clients and doing their fun things. I'm busy.

That's good. And you're up in New Hampshire?

No, actually I'm in Oregon.

Oregon, oh, that's right.

Yeah, I'm in Beaverton, Oregon, which is across the street is Portland. So basically I'm in Portland.

That's right. I was just talking to someone from Portland too, that wasn't you. My mind is like a blank now, wasn't it? I'm trying to remember who it was now, but we were talking about Portlandia.

Oh yeah, the first season was good.

I haven't seen any of it, so I'm novice. I'm waiting for The Walking Dead to return. Yeah, so am I. I've been watching 24's comeback.

Oh yeah, I love that show.

Yeah, I was a big Jack Bauer fan.

Jack is in London this time around.

One of my favorite sayings was always one of the shows he did, he was interrogating someone and he turned to the woman and said, "Get me a lamp." And pulled the cord off the end and plugged it in and then were shocking them together. So I'll say that from time to time, I'll go, "Get me a lamp!" Well, it's better than, "Look at the flowers, Lizzie." Thank you for being on. We're going to talk some more about marketing and planning and just what we're doing. And I'm going to turn it over to Yvonne. Is it Yvonne or is it— you have your Ask Evie. Is it what?

It's Ask Evie and it's Yvonne. It's kind of like E-V-O-N.

Okay, Yvonne.

Getting a Starbucks coffee is always fun. It's from Evan to whatever. It's like, yeah, which one is it? Yeah, that's mine.

Well, I like to have fun with Starbucks when I go in there. Every time I go in, I give them a different name. What? And who's this for? Demetrius. Number 4.

See, I don't need to give them a different name each single time. I'm getting a different name each single time. So yeah, it keeps it interesting.

So what you're doing?

I'm actually working on 3 projects right now. I'm involved with Susan trying to help on her project, getting that going. I actually just last week got asked by Mark HOA Seidel to partner up with him on his HOAshows.com, helping him on the technical side, making it easy for visitors, making it easy for him speeding up the site so we don't have to wait 5 minutes to see what's going on.

These things.

And Christine, we gotta talk because I'm actually working on putting together a new show and I need to get that out there. And your timing issue is, I think, mine right now.

Okay.

So I'm putting a few things together on taking what I learned throughout the last 5 years and fast and quick giving that information to people. We'll see, it's a new layout, I'm trying to change things up a little bit as we all always try to do, so let's see how that works. And I'm going to pick your brain on how to get that out there.

Alright, sounds good.

It's good to have friends that we can call on, I'm telling you.

Absolutely. Yeah, I see Lainey's in the audience, and yes, she definitely— she made room for me right away. That was awesome of her.

I'm telling you, like I said, anybody that didn't offer to do something for me, they want their second.

Yeah, until you mentioned it, Christine, I didn't even think about the whole getting it out there. I'm like, I've been so caught up in all the technical and All over.

Right, yep. Yeah, you definitely need a launch plan with bigger projects, I think, you know, especially if you want to come out of the gate, you know, as strong as possible. So definitely, definitely requires, you know, not only planning your time but planning other people's time and efforts around it.

Yep.

And thanks to having you, having Lainey, having Mark, and having Susan and all the other people in my corner. And right now I'm looking at in July till I got all of my kinks worked out. So we have a little bit of time.

It goes faster than you think though.

I still don't know how Susan does it every single day. It looks like she found a trick to actually extend the 24 hours in a day because every time I talk with Susan, she's up to something. I have no idea how you do that.

Well, I didn't even tell you, um, Stefan and I, um, Hovnanian, we put together a series too. We're doing a 5-show, 6-show series we just made up called If I Had a Nickel.

So yeah, I saw that yesterday.

How cool is that? What's that about?

It's kind of our rants that, you know, Like when we get so sad, the first one is about when people want to switch to their website host or their website master, webmaster, and what they should do before they make that transition. And if it's too late and they've already started the ball rolling, how we can help them. So that's one of them. Another is detangling Google when you have too many profiles and too many channels and everything's not jiving. And then there was another one, I mean, we have 6 of them. They just keep coming up in our head. One is about photography and you'll see it.

Sounds good.

Sounds interesting.

And we're bringing in people like Myanna Stephenson and some other experts that they're really, you know, Stephan and I are actually competitors technically but we're not. We find that we're very aligned in everything that we do and how in our philosophy so we're really excited about these shows and we're going to convert them into podcast go on iTunes.

Awesome.

That's my dream.

Isn't it great to collaborate?

It is.

I think it's my favorite gift from Google+. I came here thinking, oh, I'm going to get more exposure and stuff. I never counted on this part of it, and it is the most beautiful gift. And we get to know each other without connecting yet to say, that might be a good match for me, or no way am I doing anything with that person. And I love that vetting process, and then I love coming together and just the ideas just spew out of us, and it's so much fun. It's like a volcano.

It's great. It's great for collaboration.

Definitely. David Amerland had made a point, it's been a couple months now, and he posted something about how your competitor can be your best friend if you only let them. Because you work in the same field, you do the same kind of thing, and really there's room enough for all of us, unless we're talking to Dodge or something. But, you know, it's for the most part, if we just talk to our competitors, we find we have so much in common that, you know, it is a pretty good friendship and a pretty good working arrangement there. And don't be afraid to share.

Exactly.

The client decides whom they want to go with. I'm like, some want to work with Susan, some want to work with Stephane, some want to work with a woman, some want to work with a guy, some can like my accent, some can't stand it. The client decides who they're going to work with. It's no matter what you offer, you can't bind them to you.

And once you bring that synergy together, I mean, you have talent, Stephon has talent, and you combine forces, you could be a force to be reckoned with.

Yep.

You know, you could still do business together and still do business apart.

Right.

And you're getting the best of both worlds.

Yeah, I mean, well, look at you and Chef. I mean, it's the same thing. Yes, you both have cooking shows and there's a whole network of you now.

And exactly, exactly. And, and, and, you know, we, we help each other. I would share his stuff, he would share mine. I come on his show, he comes on mine. So everybody's happy.

I'll remember to film for it.

And there is, you know, variety is so important. I mean, can you imagine if You know, you turn on the TV and there was only one cooking show and that was the only person you got to learn to cook from.

Exactly.

Only food you got to make. It's the same thing here, you know, there's a lot of views and there's a lot of styles and there's just, you know, there's a lot of room for collaborating, you know, really can help and Google gives us the tools with the Google Drive and, you know, with Hangouts, and really can easily work together.

Yeah, and like Chris Bergen said it best, he said Google gives us a blank canvas and it's up to us to paint what we want to paint.

Absolutely.

And share that. So I love the platform.

Yeah, and all these naysayers saying that it's a ghost town still and that it's going away. Well, you know, we never have— we don't know what Google's gonna do, and, you know, things change for them as quickly as anybody else, and they may change the platform, but I can't see HOAs ever going away. This is definitely here to stay.

And even if it did, I mean, you adapt. It's just, you know, like, I think that people I mean, imagine if, you know, let's just say an actress or actor said, "Oh, I'm not going to get involved with this movie stuff. I don't think it's going to stick around," or this TV stuff, or, you know, it's like, okay, so, you know, if one thing evolves to the next thing, you know, trying to think of a good example, then music industry, you know, you used to have the 8-tracks, then you have the cassettes, and, you know, you still have music. It's just you're purchasing it or listening to it in different forms, but it's not going away. And, um, you know, you're— we're still gonna have, you know, we're going to— we're now social creatures, and if even if for some reason we didn't have this platform, we would find another and we would make it work.

Oh yeah.

I think it's the people. It's the people more than anything. And you know, yes, some platforms are better than others at encouraging dialogue or, you know, or providing us with better tools to work together, you know, but I think it's the people that make it happen.

My mentor, Linda Zimmer, she refers to herself as a liquid being, and I love that thought because that if we will all just die like some people have because they refuse to adapt, consider. I mean, am I the only one that thinks that this and television are all starting to kind of conglomerate together? And I think we're all on the cusp of this right now.

Yeah.

And I think we're all starting to dip our toes in there in that consideration. But if we aren't willing to— let's consider it— we will become irrelevant.

Yeah.

Yeah, you have to be able to change with what's going on or everything just passes you by. You know, I think TV is going to be the biggest change that's coming to us especially with all these different types of ways that we can see stuff on TV, you know, like the Chromecast, Amazon's Fire they just put out, and just different— more elements are going to come into play that people are going to go away because I watch TV and I flip through channels just to get away from the commercials because that's all you see.

Well, they just did a study, Chef, and between the ages of 14 and 20 or 21, their form of entertainment now is YouTube. And it's through devices, through tablets, phones, and computers. They're not sitting in front of television as they used to anymore.

And because you're talking about TV, we have done the switch from regular broadcast to internet TV. We don't have any cable anymore. And we have gone through this learning curve of what can I actually watch because there are some shows— and Susan is laughing, she probably saw my TiVo post— and I ended up finding that some shows that my husband is watching on Comedy Central, they are moving from the regular show that they have on TV also to extras that you just can see on their website. So they are starting to do that integration. On the other hand, MSNBC is boxing it completely in. You cannot watch MSNBC shows anymore online. You have to either way log in your broadcast, your Wave, your DirecTV, whatever it is, to see these shows. And I think they are just locking out more viewers that they could have where they could add more advertising to it. So I don't think regular TV is going to be around for another 10 years. It's going to have to change. People are, as Larry said, mobile. You are out and about, you're waiting for your car to get smogged, what am I doing? Okay, I don't have a book with me, I turn on my phone and I watch what I was going to watch in an hour. So I agree with that, they're going to have to change just because how we view content is changing.

The game show, our Friday night game shows that some of us check in and watch, our word show. I was laughing so hard at my desk, my family was annoyed because they were watching something really bad on television. And I said, next time you're just going to watch it with me, we're all going to play along. Everybody has a device, let's just do it. And they said, let's, you know, it's an interactive thing. And I think that's what's going to start happening more, is more true interaction. We all talk about talking to the television. That's what we can do here, but we really will be able to, and it does need to merge. I'm very excited to be part of this piece of it because we're ahead.

And I mean, we're already seeing it happen, you know. I mean, if you watch Dr. Phil, they go to their live Twitter feed, and I mean, I don't know, you know, when they're taping and how they make that work, but it seems like it's, you know, all relative and timely. And, you know, so it really is, you know, I also noticed that there are, I watch a lot of Dr. Phil, but they kind of almost have it like the Hangout app, you know, they do video calls with people, you know, with their WebMD thing and stuff like that. You know, they've got a lot of stuff going on.

Do you guys watch Chris Hardwick? Dennis Littley on Comedy Central at midnight?

No, I don't think I knew about him.

Yeah, well, he is the only one I think that's bringing social media into television and having interaction with them out there in that television space through Twitter, and his show is very popular. I think— no, is he on? No, I think he's on Syfy or Comedy Central, one of those. But, uh, at midnight, if you get a chance to watch Chris Hardwick, he does the Talking Dead, um, after, right? He's the one who does that, but he has his own, um, thing on Comedy Central at midnight. Watch it. It's interesting to see how television is now shifting. They're seeing that they're losing audience, so they're trying to get them now by bringing them in from social media by any means necessary. And I think his show is one of the first shows I see where they're doing it well.

Well, look how, how great all the people in our audience, as far as shows feel, the people that are making the comments, when you acknowledge them, when you bring the importance of their questions or comments, you say hello. It's that type of thing, and it's that engagement. It— they— everybody's included. I love it. I like to interact, and I like to interact afterward as well, the afterlife of the shows. But I think he's smart then if that's what he's doing.

Yeah, yeah.

Because live audio.

And we're doing it right here with the Hangout. I mean, we have comments coming up on the stream. And Mia Voss said, ha ha ha, I just heard Larry's rooster in the background.

You know, another thing is I will, during a show that I'm watching, like Dr. Phil or Breaking Bad, you know, I'll follow the hashtag and, you know, be talking to people during the commercials, you know, like, I can't believe they did that, you know, oh my gosh, you know, it really adds a lot of fun to it.

You're becoming part of it. I'm like, no matter how big or small our own ego is, it's always nice to see your own name on TV. And Mark just said it in big capital letters, we are the new TV. And I agree, that's where it's going. It's interactive. I'm remembering being a kid and watching any of the gaming shows like Susan just mentioned. I was like, "Oh, I want to go there, I want to go there." Now we have the chance to be part of it without having to write that long letter and hoping the station goes back to you and then they don't like your face or they don't like that and you're never going to get on the show. This, you can literally just jump in.

Or you can just create your own. Like we're doing, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Here's a comment from Kristen Drysdale. Totally the new TV, Mark. HOA Seidel, your HOA site reminds me of the TV Guide with all its listings. And who still remembers TV Guide?

Yeah, yeah. And Mark Seidel is doing a fantastic job.

Yes.

He's doing a remarkable job, especially with the new feature he added with the archiving. Where you can watch shows that you've been on.

Yeah, that's crazy. The amount of hours that must have been into that.

Yeah, that's brilliant. That's brilliant.

Now he's gonna have to up his ad rates because it is such a wonderful service, and I don't think he realized how big that was going to get. But what a gift he's giving to all of us that work hard on our shows. I mean, allowing us to even fill out a form, submit it, and there it goes. Yeah, it's a true HOA, not just a promo video or something. But I love it because I can quickly go back. I can't go through Google+ yet, it's not quite organized as well as Mark's site. And to go back and look through those archives, it's fun.

Mm-hmm. And I think in the early— somebody tried that in 2012. Remember, Chef, when Hangouts first came out? Yeah, they had a calendar of sorts. And it was very rudimentary. It was a lot of work. You had to put in a lot of time, and each individual host had to pretty much feed that calendar with their data. But what Mark is doing now, it's taken that and taken it up to the next level, and I say he's doing a great job, and my hat's off to him.

Watch him because he started out, oh yeah, trying to put it together and I'm like, why don't you use Pinterest? That's where he started out and then he looks at the maximum you can do on Pinterest and he's like, yeah, now I'm going to fill that up in the next week. And we all know Mark, if he does something, he really wants to do it perfect. He wants to do it easily reachable, easy understandable, and just simple. So yeah, watching him go through that and spend 20, 22 hours on some certain days and getting the archive together.

Again, it comes right back to sharing and caring. Sharing is caring, caring is sharing.

And planning.

And planning, yes, exactly.

And marketing.

And marketing, yeah, yeah. So hey, Mark should be on the show.

We'll have to get him back on again. He was on once. We'll have to get him back on. Here's a comment from Mia. We're going back to the Rooster Delilah, tell her you know it, girl, because Delilah mentioned about how Mia loves her rooster and she hashtagged #47lbRooster. Ah, that's funny. And here's Christopher Vogelman, Chris Hardwick does a great hosting job, Mia, but your Miara has lots of cash. Melanie Sullivan. Mark, are you blushing yet?

Yeah, his hat probably looks pretty similar to a tomato right now.

Mark was there in the beginning for us before we really realized we needed him, and he developed this calendar and a way of doing things, and he's just been at it and at it quietly in the background, and he just, he's just helping everybody with that. So hats off to Mark for that.

Definitely.

Okay, let's see if we have any other— oh, here's another comment from Christopher Vogelman: Breaking Dr. Phil. I like that one.

I have a love-hate relationship with Dr. Phil. It depends on the day, and sometimes my hashtags are like, I cannot believe this, you know, and Other times it's like, right on, Dr. Phil!

Well, I love his Dr. Phil-isms, you know. My favorite one was in a comedy routine that he had done. It was, you might be peeing on my leg, but that doesn't mean it's raining outside. I like that. We have a good time watching Dr. Phil. I would never, ever— that's one of the shows, if they invited me on, Never. Just because I would be afraid. Just like Oprah, I would be afraid that she would say, "Now, Dennis, when you were in third grade—" But you'd have no problem going on the Ellen Show, right?

I love Ellen.

Ellen is my fave. Ellen and, or even Jimmy Kimmel, I wouldn't mind being home with him. He's kind of funny.

Ellen's such a love.

I like to entertain. You know, I was watching— who was it? It was, uh, Jay Leno. And I was never a big Jay Leno fan, but someone was asking him about how when he was getting all bashed about losing his job and coming back on, and they said, why didn't you ever fight back? He says, people don't want to hear that. They all have problems. They don't watch us to listen to our problems. They watch us to be entertained.

Well, that's not entirely true. I mean, I think Jerry Springer and all of them have made a whole industry out of listening to other people's problems.

But we know none of those problems are real. Or if they are, I don't know where that trailer park is.

There's a difference between editing and exploiting.

Ah, I like that, Chef.

You don't know where that trailer park is.

I don't want to know where that trailer park is. But, you know, people want to be entertained, and, you know, I think we bring a lot of entertainment to them. You know, it's not serious. I was having a conversation with my friends the other day and he said, you know, everybody's saying that you have to be authentic on Google+. He goes, but it's not authentic. You never talk about, you know, what you're going through or what's bothering you or why you don't like something. Well, people don't want to hear that. That's not what we're here for.

I think people mistake authentic with speaking every single thought that comes to your mind You know, you can be authentic but still, you know, have manners and, you know, learn when to check yourself. And, you know, I think that a lot of people don't get that. They think authentic means you just come out cussing, you know, you bash people, you know, you be your real self. But, you know, a lot of us aren't like that, or we are not like that publicly at least, because that's not really presenting a very social image. And I kind of think it's like, if you wouldn't say it in front of your grandmother, maybe keep it to yourself. Unless she's hard of hearing.

Exactly.

Oh, you don't want to bring my grandmother in the stream.

She's deaf. But Christine, you're right. It's that filtering. We still need to filter. And we can still be our authentic selves if I pretend to be be somebody else, that's not authentic, but I'm not going to tell you that I was fighting with my kids last night and I couldn't get my son to put on socks that didn't match today. Nobody wants to hear that. Or if they do, they want to bask in your misery. It's just not my target audience.

Do you think we're going to see some kind of Jerry Springer type show come up on HOAs? Oh, absolutely.

You guys really think so?

And we'd watch it too. I don't know, I don't think I would because those depress me. I really enjoy— that's one of the things I feel like, you know, Larry, we were talking earlier about that '60s recap on CNN.

Right, yeah, on CNN.

I mean, think about it. Think about Gilligan's Island, Mayberry, and all of those. You felt good. You had hope for humanity, hope for your neighborhood, hope for your own family. It gave you something positive, and that I find Mayberry here. This is how it feels to me on Google+. It's how it feels in my neighborhood. I moved up here from California to have Leave It to Beaver and Mayberry. Turn my kids loose and have fun without worrying. I leave here so uplifted, it's almost addicting. It's like, "Oh, I gotta go make money." But I'm listening and I feel, "Oh ho ho," and I'm laughing and having a great time. I love listening to all of you guys. This panel, the show I was on with Mia, It's the most upbeat, free knowledge sharing, caring, collaborative, beautiful group. We're so blessed. Absolutely.

But Susan, when you look, I agree with you. I have through the last year made the decision from watching drama to watching easy food uplifting because I recognized in myself how it changed me and my relationships. Definitely. Do I have— Larry has it up. It will come. I'm like, look how many people watch drama shows. How many drama shows are out there? I don't think it's going to go away. So I think it's also going to swap into here. But we just got to make our own decisions. Do you want that drama? Because it's going to swap into your life too. Or do you make the conscious decision of watching easy food that's actually uplifting and helping you?

Well, again, you guys say Springer might come to HOAs, or Springer type might come to— and that might be true because what I said earlier, that, you know, Google give you a blank canvas and you could paint whatever you want on it. The same thing with Hangouts. You could broadcast whatever you want through here. So yeah, we might get Springer-type shows. So I think I will have to retract what I said earlier.

That would be a way to get more Facebook people over here. Oh, here's Sheila.

Sheila really nailed it. Yes. Some people have not learned that being authentic has boundaries. And yeah, I definitely think that you still need filters, you still need boundaries, you still need to remember that you can't just blurt out everything you ever think in your life.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, you could be hanging with your friends, hanging with us now, and you might say a little expletive or something, but you wouldn't say that in front of your mother. Yeah, you know, but you're still being authentic, but you're showing that level of respect and that context that you're in.

And professionalism, you know, you might, you know, authentic but being professional, you know, and knowing that, you know, you just, you know, you don't— you're not going to post that picture of you out, you know, having one too many drinks or something like that, you know, like that's not good for your professional image.

Unless of course you're on the Food and Booze Show.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Oh, we feed the food. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

I love watching that because at the end Mia does look just a little flushed and it's just adorable.

Hey, hey, Chef. Afterwards, Mia was a little red.

Chef, I think you're paying back Mia now, because you are now being hosted and wined and dined.

Well, I'm still trying to find restaurants in my area. These people— well, I don't have the contacts Mia does because she's been there a long time. I've only been in Orlando a short time, so people are still looking at me a little bit like I'm crazy sometimes, which is true, but still.

It was awesome on the show yesterday. Mia ate something really hot. And I mean, she was trying to play it off, and she was like, "This is so hot, I'm dying." It was funny.

I don't do hot well either, so I would be in there with her.

Susan, I think somebody just gave us a compliment. Yes, they did.

Yes, I was wee. I was very wee in the '60s. How nice. I was there. But that was syndication in the '70s, so that worked out really well for us.

Well, I remember those shows vividly in the '60s. I mean, truth be told, truth be told, I am 56, so, you know.

So you were just a wee one then, but you were Larry Live then too.

Yeah, I was Larry Live.

I'm 49. I'll be 49 next month. Oh God. I know.

I'll be 61 this year. Oh Lord.

45. But look at you, Chef. I mean, it's— well, it isn't even looking good. Look at what you're creating. And I hear too many people, once they even get past their 50s, oh, I'm too old to learn this. I just want to slap them. Slap them, right? You are such a loser. Go dig your grave then.

Because, well, I mean, I like that.

Put that on a t-shirt.

Yep.

I like that. I like that. Well, my favorite thing was I was working at a summer camp and I had this one camper that would stay around me all the time. We were talking and I said one day, "It wasn't like the old days." He says, "When were the old days?" And I said, "The '60s." And he looked at me and went, "I read about those." Oh, Lord.

My poor family is so subjective because my parents were older, so I was raised with very old movies, all the musicals, all the screwball comedies from the '40s and the '30s. And so a lot of the things I say are kind of obsolete, and, you know, old sayings, and they just crack up. And then they'll repeat it though at school, and people look at them like they're from the moon because I'm speaking, you know, like The Little Rascals. I'm talking about.

Little rascals, little rascals, yeah.

Yeah, there were some good shows on back then. Some of them were really corny, and the one thing was that they made you believe that men and women never slept together in the same bed because all the shows, they always had twin beds.

Except The Brady Bunch, they really pushed the envelope. I mean, to be divorced and remarried and sleeping in the same bed.

Oh no, Widower! No one Widower'd.

Oh, that's right, that's right, you're right, you're right. Made it okay. They were both widowers. That's right, that's right.

But they didn't have Match.com. I wonder how they found each other.

Well, maybe at a grocery store.

Living in Florida has been quite an experience, and there are some things here that just we don't see up north, and I wasn't used to. One of them was when we first moved here, there is a Match.com, but it's for ranchers. Down here, and it's got the cows talking, "Do you think Susan will ever find someone?" Oh man. A whole new world, I'm telling you, it's a whole new world.

Well, there's a Match.com for, um, that's, you know, they put it on TV. It's not Match, but it's like positioned for people in their elder Careful, Christine. I know, because then it said 50+, and I'm like, holy crap, I'm almost there. That's crazy.

Elder. Oh my God. But that's how they position it.

It's like, you know, you find your person for the last part of your life or whatever. And I'm like, wait a minute. Then they said 50+. I'm like, are you kidding? Let's move that up a little.

Yeah, that's when you start getting your ARP newsletters, Christina. Just want you to know that.

I know, I'm 45 and I'm like thinking, you know, I can move to a 50 and over community soon. That's freaking me out, it really is.

I'm telling you, that's where we live and it's great because there's no kids running around screaming. Here's Mark. Yvonne Hyman.

Is like, "Y'all's is old." I have to admit, I'm feeling like the baby over here. I'm just lucky enough that TV swapped into East Germany late, so I at least can halfway follow up with the shows. How old are you?

How old are you, Evie?

Wait a second, in 2014 I'm going to turn 32.

Yeah, you're a baby. I've got clothing older than that.

Hey, but therefore I got an old husband so I can follow up.

An old husband? Is he as old as us?

How old is Pete? Mid-50s. So I'm old enough to teach you without having to be over 50.

He'll be ready for the adult diapers pretty soon. Oh my God.

Yvonne, he's mature. Immature? He's mature. He's a mature guy.

I'm working on that.

I'm sorry, but looking at American guys my age, in Germany we say they're still green behind their ears.

Ew, that's gross.

They're not quite grown out yet.

I have, um, I, you know, I train the seniors. I was saying that that's a Laguna Woods Village, 18,000 seniors living in this one community and 200 clubs and buses and all that stuff. But I have Sun City and my client contacts, it's a riot. They're all old ad guys and sorry guys if you're watching this, old because I knew them when I was in the ad business 25 years ago and they were the heads of the agencies. And so now they're on the marketing committee there and it's an interesting thing and I'm grateful that I had that experience with them because I can communicate with them. Still, and the planning, the whole thing with them has been a riot. I mean, I'm more comfortable there than I am a lot of times working, you know, no offense, Evie, but working with the people that are that much younger than me because the sub-references. I love that connection and being able to just click and say a couple of words and they get it. It's fun.

And it's weird seeing it out of my situation because growing up in Germany, as I mentioned Things swapped over late. Then with my parents, the music, I listen to my husband's music, which is not necessarily what my age group listens to. I am getting halfway of the references, so it's weird because trying to talk with people that I connect in my age in the States, it's like, you know, we don't really have much to talk about.

It is, it is tough. I don't know how many siblings all of you have, but mine are all so much older than I am, and my parents older. I've never been comfortable with people my own age. You know, it's rare. I'm finding it here because everybody's catching up now. It's a strange thing, but my husband's older, you know, my first husband was older. He's my last husband, though. I'm never breaking up. I will never break into a new one. It's too much to catch them up on. Yeah, but it is very uncomfortable.

And plus, then you have to go through all that planning and marketing to find another husband. You know, I'm glad I'm done with that, you know.

Yeah, I'm glad I'm done with that too.

Marketing yourself, you know, trying to work out that plan.

I found my fiancé on Plenty of Fish. LatinaFish.com. And yeah, it was like, you know, you have to write this bio and plan what you're going to say and market yourself and, you know, plan the dates. And, you know, I had a lot of screening processes I would put people through, a lot, you know. And I was trying to fast-track it because I'm like thinking, hey, I'm getting up there, better fast-track this. You know, so yeah, I was screening. As a matter of fact, my fiancé, I screened his call while I was driving home from having met someone at a local restaurant, you know, and had a drink with them. They were on their third screening process, and they passed the first two but not that one. So you were speed dating? I was. I was trying to speed date.

Literally. Literally speed dating, driving in the car, you know, just have a date.

Well, it's like— potential one, yeah. But it worked. I found a good one.

Christopher Bowman is on fire here. Yeah, boy, he says, "One husband at a time, Susan." There you go, looking for ripe guys. I think that's for you, Stevie.

I didn't even need to do any screening.

I got delivered right to the front porch.

Done. Can you elaborate on that? That sounds like a mail-order thing.

No, not quite, not quite that.

I see German bride.

I met Pete through work. Actually, my ex-husband and I met Pete through work, already being here in the States, and it was time to get rid of the ex-husband who also thought he should get rid of me and kick me out of the house. And literally delivered me, as we always say, with the dog in the sink, straight to the front porch of Pete's. He always had an open door. 6 years ago, I would never have said I'm going to marry Pete. So I'm like, hey, he's kicking me out of the house, can I move in? I need a place to stay. So about 5, 5 and a half years ago, I literally got delivered to the front porch, moving in with the thought of, yeah, hell no, I'm never gonna marry that guy. A few years down the road, we got married.

Never say never. That's right.

We still have to plan your HOA shower and your HOA reception.

Yeah, once somebody finally decides to stop with his wanting to draw attention and going through treatment so we actually finally can do that. Dress is ordered, backyard should be getting done at the end of the year, so next year we can do that. H-O-A reception.

There you go, gotta love it. Here's another comment from Christopher too, I like this one. I train the seniors, Susan Finch, like SeaWorld. You go through a lot of fish then.

Christopher Vogelman is a riot.

He's on fire. Here we go, I like it, Susan answered. 'When the circus comes to town, I hide the posters. He knows I'll hunt him down.' You want to explain that one?

Oh, I— sometimes, because it gets kind of chaotic around here, and he's— I am his first marriage and his last, and that, that's an understood thing. He knows I'm a former teenage stalker. I'm a former very possessive person. I don't share. And so we— that was that understanding. And I have to admit too, though, before we got together, he wanted me to read— because he's watched my other marriage go blah, blah, blah— The Assertive Woman is a book from like the '60s or something. So I would know the difference between being assertive, being aggressive, and we could communicate better. And I knew, I thought, this is the guy for me. I mean, this is done. I am so done. And, but we tease when we have rough times and I see the posters at the grocery store for the circus. It's like, yeah, I'm just, I'm outta here. We will find you, because I'll find their website with the schedule and we will find you.

Well, Mia is starting a new business and she's put up a thing for it. It goes, Hubby FedEx, when it's absolutely positively has to get there on time. Christopher never stops. Give a senior a fish. Oh, who remembers bell-bottom jeans?

I remember getting my clunky platform shoes stuck in them sometimes, so you'd trip. They were just the wrong length, and then you were just down.

Yeah, if they were too long, the front of your foot would get stuck in them sometimes.

Well, especially when you had those sailor pant things going with the buttons on both sides.

See, they were totally in in the '90s in Germany. I had the high platforms, I had the bell-bottom jeans. '90s in Germany, all over the place. Thanks God there are no pictures of me.

Oh, somewhere, somehow, there must be pictures. We would love to see them. If any of you have those pictures, please send them to—

That was bad.

Ugly times.

Here we go, Christopher, this is never good. Introducing my ex-wife to my first wife.

Oh no, as his first wife.

As his first wife. Oh my God.

Yeah, no.

A little bit of both maybe, I don't know. We're having way too much fun.

Oh yeah, I say Chuck is gonna be my last husband, not my third husband.

Makes him feel better. I know myself and I know him. I could not be happier.

I'm happy too. Excited for you. I'm an expert at planning and marketing now. Are we doing a shower for you? Yes. That's what I thought.

We're going to have games and everything. Yeah, we can have Michael Daniels help us coordinate the games.

That sounds fun. I actually got a gift from someone here on Google+. Dr. Tabby Cushin, she sent me a wedding photo frame. I thought that was very sweet.

So what did you guys—

Susan, apparently Lainey approves of our husbands.

Yes. Like them both. Hey, what about me?

She hasn't met yours, has she?

No. And I'm not married yet, so. Can't be Lainey approved yet.

Does she have a little rubber stamp or something she uses on their tushy?

Mia has met Chuck, so. Or at least in a Hangout.

OK. OK. That's a screening process.

You bring the whole family in. Yes.

Fire off questions, that would be fun.

There we go, David mentioned the show has evolved into a Jerry Springer type. He certainly had a hard time with that.

Yeah, but it's our story, it's our stories at least, we're not talking about other people and exploiting them, we're exploiting ourselves.

No mention of baby mama here or anything.

We are being authentic. Mark's looking for his next husband.

Talking about marketing, Mark is marketing himself right now. He's looking for his next ex-husband.

We're just having too much fun here, so, but we're getting close to the end of the show. Maybe it's a good thing because we're not even drinking. And I'm going to run down the panel one last time. If you got anything you'd like to talk about or tell us what you're going to be doing, just let us know where we can find you. Christine, anything you'd like to share with us before we leave?

Um, circle me here, Christine DeGraff. Um, sign up on circleoscope.com for our mailing list so you'll be the first to know when we launch. And we are scheduled for June 17th.

June 17th, sounds good. My friend, Hilary, anything you'd like to share with us? You got some shows coming up.

Yeah, tomorrow, 3 PM Eastern, uh, 8 PM GMT, which is England. Simply Singapore, my, um, Aslin Bloor will be doing some fried noodles.

Oh, I'm co-hosting with her. Great. And it's on Saturday, that's not Sunday, right?

Yeah, it's Saturday, uh, because of the new format I'm, I'm doing with the HOAs, uh, using YouTube Live and livestream. So it's going to— that's the person who's doing the production part, he can do it on Saturdays. Good. Sounds good.

Alright, make sure we'll watch that. Susan, anything you'd like to share with us?

Yep, check out my series with, um, Stephan for If I Had a Nickel, so you can check that out. You can also go to artlit.us to start to follow that evolution of our new art project, and my nonprofit, BinkyPatrol.org, which we make blankets for kids. So if you guys are looking for something to do to get off the screen Go sit outside, make a blanket, give it to a kid in need. That's what I do. And business: SusanFinch.com and +SusanFinch. Very good, thank you.

And Evie, anything you'd like to share with us here?

Definitely sign up for the mailing list with CircleScope. It's well worth it. I love the new layout. Thank you. And just head on over and CircleAskEvie to stay up to date when we finally come up with a new show.

Sounds good. I'm anxious to see what you come up with too. Absolutely. Well, thank you all for coming by today, and it was a great day on Google+. I got to spend it with some good friends, and we had a few good laughs here. And thank you for watching, and I hope to see you next week.

Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye.