Social Media Day HOA 2014 - #SMDay

Good morning, Google+. I can still talk. Yes, I am still alive. Rumors of my death have been highly exaggerated.

I'm here.

I'm celebrating Social Media Day Google+ style. What other way is there? We won't say the F word right now. Facebook— oops, sorry. Cat's out of the bag. But we're here today to celebrate Social Media Day, and we're gonna bring in all of our friends. If you're out there and you wanna stop in and say hello, let us know and we will send you an invite. And we're also gonna have some very special guests from across other social media to try and have them sip the Kool-Aid and join us here on Google+. They are here, a lot of them, but they don't have a presence because they haven't seen what wonderful engagement we get on Google+. So as you can see here, my sister Thelma, AKA Mia Voss.

Hi, Brother Luis. How are you?

So nice to see you.

You too. I'm so— let's just shout you out for getting through this weekend, and you still have a voice. You can still form a sentence. We're so impressed with you.

It might be different by the time we reach tonight, though. I'm going to have to put my wine in a sippy cup, because otherwise it'll probably dribble down my face.

I'll take photos of that.

OK. That is so funny.

And also Kathleen, the Cosmo, is here joining us. So nice to see you, and you're coming from beautiful New York, the Big Apple.

Yes, we are, and it's going to be a hot one today. So yes, we'll turn up that air conditioning. This, I think this is going to be a hot show from 10 to 1 o'clock today. We have lots of guests to join us that have lots of interesting things to tell us and share with us about social media. And it is Social Media Day. Masterful has a social media Social Media Day every year, so we've decided to hop on and do a Google Hangout to celebrate that social media. So we are at #SMDayHOA if you would like to join us, tweet it, and have anything to say. There we go.

Love it.

Sounds good to me, and I just invited a few of our BFFs in to join us, and we'll see if they're around and want to pop in and say hello to us. But we've got a lot planned for today, and then later on this afternoon at 3 o'clock Eastern time, we're going to be taking a bite out of the Big Apple as we go to Carmine's in New York City to have like a hybrid version, as I like to call it, of Food and Booze meets Around the Kitchen Table, because we're going to be doing our first Food and Booze while we're not there.

It's gonna be— you need to— everybody needs to tune in just to watch both Chef and I cry at the same time because usually one of us is crying and the other one is all happy, and this time it's going to be Kathleen doing the happy food dance. Is that right?

Yes, I am, and believe me, I will be doing that. I am promised so many delicious dishes, ones that I haven't even tasted yet, and I have been to Carmine's so many times and I'm still discovering, so this is going to be really great.

And now this is a— Carmine's has several locations, which one is this that you're going to be at?

This is Carmine's New York City in the Theater District, and there's one uptown, I believe it's 91st Street, and they just have— they have opened one up in Vegas, uh, with— oh my goodness, I think it's 700 guests that they could fit there. So we'll be talking more about that later on, and it'll be really interesting to hear about that because I'm definitely going to be going there. When I'm in Vegas. What about you guys?

Well, I like anything that's large size like that. That's very Vegas size.

We're not even going to go there.

I do. I love Vegas. You know, I used to live in New York City, so I'm having such a flashback anytime I talk with you and all the people that are— we have a lot of East Coasters coming on today, so I'm having a good old flashback of the time. And I actually went to Carmine's years ago, so I'm excited for that. So yay.

Well, everybody I talk to knows Carmine's, so I'm excited. I unfortunately didn't get to New York very much and really hadn't really heard of them, I hate to say, but when I mention their name, everybody goes, "Oh my God, the best chicken parm you'll ever have in your life." Exactly, and that's the restaurant that you walk out with bags and bags of food.

So as a matter of fact, I was speaking to Jennifer there when I had a meeting with her last week, and I was on my way over to see Pippin. And we only, my husband and I, only ordered 2 items and there was just so much and it was the 3 of us eating it and she said yes, she said that one of the restaurants, they're hoping to do one of the, or maybe they're doing it already, that valet food that a lot of people go into a theater or sightseeing that they can park the food there while they go out and I think that was a fantastic idea because I was smelling my wings the whole time while I was in Pippin. It was just exuding from under my seat and I I did alert the man next to me and said, anytime you want, just reach down and grab a wing. It's fine with me.

You know, let's hope he understood that.

And he did, as my big brute husband was next to him licking. Yes, try it.

I love that you're getting everybody all wound up. They don't know what's wrong with them. They're like, why am I so hungry?

Well, wings will definitely do that to you. I mean, they have that outrageous smell. And I just love them. Looks like Nazim's popping in.

Oh, is he trying to stay under the radar?

Yeah, well, I see him coming in, but, you know, and we're shameless. We'll invite you in if we see you leaving a comment, so you never know.

Get ready for it.

That's right. Make sure you take those rollers out and put some makeup on if you don't want—

Well, listen, we're not even that discerning. We'll bring you in, right?

If you're in your pajamas, don't worry about it.

Well, that's the beauty of Google+. So I'm really excited to see how the people that are coming on to get them them really, like you were saying, drinking the Google+ Kool-Aid so they can kind of see how fun it is and how easy it is, right?

Yes, yes, very easy. I didn't realize how easy it was. Dennis has walked me through so much and I'm starting to feel comfortable in front of the camera and I thank him for that training and putting me at ease, although he's a host that's very— I ask him, whatever you're on, please give me some because— He's so relaxed and I need that.

A better way of living through chemistry.

Good morning from Italy. How are you?

Brother Nazim.

I don't know if he can hear us. Can you hear us?

Let's talk about him like he's not here.

I'm jealous. I want to be in Italy right now. I love Italy. Milan. I haven't been to Milan.

Can I show you what I got the other day? So I was actually on a Hangout with Nazeem, and then the doorbell rang. And I was chatting with him, and the FedEx showed up. And I got this wonderful book called Eating Heart: 20 Menus to Share the Table. And this is Nazeem's wife here. Oh, wow. And it's this beautiful cookbook that they sent me that's just glossy and just, mm. It's this kind of book that feels good in your hands. So I'm pretty excited about that.

Yum.

Yeah. And that's Elisabetta. Elizabetha Chiesi.

I'm going to have to look at that.

Oh, it's—

Yeah, so have you started doing some recipes from it? Are you planning that, or—

You know, I am. Here's the other thing I've been doing, and I want to give them a little shout out. I don't know if you've heard of Blue Apron Meals.

Yes, actually I have.

Yeah, so I, you know, just saw them on— speaking of social media, I saw that, you know, a couple of my friends do Instagrams about them and Facebooks, and so I gave it a try. So it's basically you get these 3 meals delivered in this Everything that you need. It's so much fun. It shows up at your doorstep at the beginning of the week. They're somewhat complex, but it's so fun because I'm cooking things that I just really would never truck with. Do you know what I mean?

That's why using a cookbook can expose you. It shows you if you feel apprehensive about doing something, you all of a sudden feel relaxed. Oh, I've done that. I've done that. Go through a cookbook. Going through a cookbook. I actually went through— I started going through Frances May's cookbook that she had put out about 2 years ago, her latest one. And it's just very simple, very simple ingredients, and it was easy, and I just feel so proud after I'm done. You do.

You feel fancy. And it's funny because now I'm also getting the boyfriend in on this. And let me just tell you the difference between how we cook. We're both from the Midwest. We grew up in the same hometown together, actually.

Actually.

Here's the difference between us and how we cook. He uses Miracle Whip and I use mayonnaise. That should tell you something. He has a little bit of a different style, but it's been really fun for us to cook that together. Although sometimes he'll say, "I don't even understand what these words mean." I'm like, "It's okay. We'll get through it together." Blue Apron is my new thing. Once I do Blue Apron, then I'm going to do this.

It's fun to cook. It's fun to cook with others. I've always cooked with my children as far as preparing, doing the prep, and I love cooking with my husband. The only thing with my husband is he doesn't speak when we're cooking. He just concentrates. But we'll dance. We dance. We put the music on. We have food dance music.

Oh, you know I love happy food.

So you have to take the good with the bad. He doesn't speak when he cooks. He cooks well.. And so it was fun, very fun.

They don't multitask like we do, for sure.

Do you see who's—

we've got a couple people piping in. We got Brother Matthew Rapoport, who was on my show on Friday. Hello, my brother. He needs to come in. He says this is the first he's heard of Social Media Day. Where's he been?

Bless him.

Give him an invite in.

Yep.

And Lee Wrigler is in the house too.

When Lisa and I cook together, which is never, because the way I talk, we talk when I'm cooking is, "Move! Get out of the way! Why are you in my way?" You know what?

I'm with you on that though, Kathleen, because it has been fun for just, we just both kind of dive in. But yeah, it can be the move, get out of the way, but we've been having fun with it.

Well, she has absolutely no skill whatsoever in the kitchen, and I say that because, well, she supported me while I took a very lesser paying job so I didn't have to work quite as hard. She was making— she's the breadwinner. I always referred to her as the breadwinner of the family and let me take a job that paid half of what I was normally making, so I didn't have to kill myself anymore, and I had normal hours. But as for cooking, no.

Well, I have to tell you, there's nothing to me sexier than a man in the kitchen preparing you a meal. That's what I told my husband. I told my husband, This particular time I came home and he had roasted chickens, lasagna, salad, and the best part of it was he cleaned everything up. And I could see him through the door dancing in the kitchen cooking for me, and I was like, honey, you have no idea. We're married 20-some-odd years, this is the best.

I love it.

That's what I call the head tilt, Kathleen, when you really like something, you're like Oh man, see, he got the head tilt because you are so excited. I would too, Lasagna. Hey now.

Mm-hmm, absolutely.

Hey Nazim, all the way from across the pond.

Across the pond, we all want to be there across the pond.

You know what I call that, everybody? I call that the life of Nazim. Hashtag.

I keep inviting people over but nobody takes me up on my offer.

Oh well, guess what? We might be getting on that real soon. Just be prepared that we have appetites as well. So that would be fun.

He's not going to know what hit him. All of a sudden, like 15 people show up. He's been cumulatively inviting all these people, and then all of a sudden it's going to be like, oh, good.

Reservations at Casa Chiesi.

Exactly. I love it. You finally got that haircut, huh, Nazim?

Can you turn up your sound a little? We can't hear you a whole lot. Sure, sure, sure.

He's trying to stay under the radar, right? Where are you at? That looks amazing.

This is the office down in Genoa, and yes, I am trying to stay under the radar, as you mentioned. This is where we design ships. Let me show you what we do here.

It's fun stuff.

He said ships, by the way.

Yes, ships.

Nazeem, that's awesome.

Cruise ships.

Yeah, wow.

Wanted to pop in real quick and wish everybody a happy Social Media Day and thanks for the invite.

Thanks for coming. Mia just showed us the beautiful cookbook. Mmm, so nice.

With your beautiful wife and your beautiful daughter on the front.

Thank you very much.

Is that published in the United States or can we get that on Amazon? Where can we get that?

You can get it on Blurb. BLURB, and also at the Apple Store. And we have it on the Apple Store as an iPad version.

Oh, okay. I have a Nook, but I probably could convert that. But I'd like to physically feel that type of book. I know.

It's a great book for that. Basically, we're getting ready to get it on the Kindle Fire.

That's the next thing. Hello.

Hey guys.

Oh, look who it is. It's Miss Caden.

Who's that?

Hi. Did you hear that? That makes my heart flutter. Thank you, Caden. Look how pretty she looks this morning. Every morning. Mike Galton in the house.

Good morning. How you guys doing? Who is that pretty little girl with that beautiful hair?

I saw a picture of her standing next to a beautiful sports car. Yeah, the Lamborghini in the parking lot.

Wow, very nice.

That's so fun. Where are you guys at today?

We're in St. Louis. She just woke up.

You did.

Hanging out with Papa today.

Social Media Day!

Social Media Day, did you know it was Social Media Day?

Yeah.

Can you say happy Social Media Day?

Happy Social Media Day.

Thank you. Thanks for sharing the event, Mike.

Yeah, sure. Where did Nazim go?

Oh, he's probably walked out.

He's making the cruise ship right now. No, I mean, come on. The guy lives in Italy and then he goes on a cruise?

No, no, he works for a cruise ship company.

He works for Princess.

Oh.

There he is. He was on my show on Friday too. I'm telling you, he's quite the Renaissance man too. He designs ships. He designs apps. He's all that in a bag of chips. Right, Nazim? There he is, talking about you like you're not here.

Hey buddy, how you doing?

Great, great to see you, Mike. Super good, super good. Quite busy, super good. I'm gonna have to say goodbye to everybody and get back to—

Dude, that is so cool. I'm sorry.

Thanks for the invite.

See you later.

Bye, Nazim.

We have a question in the audience, by the way. Please put it on, I can see. Here's a cooking kitchen time question. I was told off because I didn't fill the dishwasher. I filled it and then I was told I did it wrong, and I was then told not to bother with the dishwasher again.

I don't know if that's a cooking question.

That's a—

I'm afraid Lisa is left-handed.

And she fills the dishwasher wrong all the time. And sometimes I think she's just being passive-aggressive because I've showed her over and over how to stack and she still starts it at the other end. So I just— I've come to realize I don't say anything anymore. She goes, what are you doing in there? Oh, nothing, I'm just rearranging the dishwasher. So it's one of my little anal retentive—

If you're not careful, you're going to be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic with that attitude. You know what I'm saying?

Well, the only good thing is that I feed her, and I feed her very well, and so that makes up for a lot, among other things.

Well, listen, not that this has anything to do with social media, but we all know because we get so caught up on it and we're online all the time, we have to work on our relationships, right? So that's probably the part of the choosing your battles. You choose to not say a word about the janky dishwasher loading.

And every now and then I do say something followed by, "Oh, did I say that out loud?" I said something out loud this morning I didn't know I said out loud, and it was told to me, and I said, "Really? I said that out loud?" Oh, okay.

There was a movie called The Secret Lives of Dentists, and that's what I got that from. And they're sitting at the dinner table, and the husband goes, "I could just kill you." Did he say it out loud? Yeah, and he goes, "Did I just say that out loud?" I think I remember seeing that.

Alright, so I am so not used to running the Q&A, Sheffy. Are you, um, are you, what do you think about that? Are you gonna run that and pop some questions up? Kind of a new one for me.

I'm not running the Q&A, am I?

You know what, I think I see the Q&A on the On the show, can you guys pop in there and tell me if you do or not? Mike, did you see Q&A kind of popped up? I think we are actually. That's where I'm getting some of the comments.

I did not run them.

Where— I'm new to this game, so—

That's OK. You know what? I do. And actually, we should bring in— did you invite Matt Rappaport in? He better get himself in here, by the way. Bring your happy self in here. But here's the one thing I'm seeing, and we'll find out when people come in. And Mike, you can tell us too, is that a lot of people— oh, I just got caught putting my lip gloss on. A lot of people have not heard of Social Media Day, so can we talk about that? I mean, it's Mashable, so you kind of think it's well known, but let's talk about that.

I believe it's just maybe— I don't know how many years in a row it's been, but Social Media New York, they had an event in Brooklyn. I believe it was on Sunday, and they had a lot of social media people gather there. And what they're trying to do is enforce communities all over the world. There's a lot of people that are joining this day internationally, and they're having actual physical parties in, in their communities. And we're— I believe we might be one of two that are having it on air so we can do it in an international way. We can probably post later on some of the links to Mashable Social Media Day so people can see that, or you could do a search on Twitter at #SMDay, and you'll see all the parties that are going on as well. So we've been using both hashtags so we can, you know, give exposure to that as we broadcast and for this event right here. Anybody want to add?

Exactly. Well, and I'm pulling up, I'm just seeing if we have anything else on Twitter, but that is what I'm— it's interesting though that it's still kind of slow, that if you're saying there aren't that many parties that are actually going on on Hangouts On Air. I'd be interested to see what it looks like next year. Mm-hmm.

I would too.

I mean, the Twitter chats are definitely going on. How's it looking on the Twitter search just for #SMDay?

It's been pretty hot because I've been tracking #SMDay for probably a few weeks, and it has like burning up as far as conversation is concerned. So today probably should really be blowing the doors off of it. I'm seeing it now. I'm going through the feed. So—

How'd you get involved with it, Kathleen?

I had come across an article about it. And I actually— I follow Mashable a lot. And I seen it probably a little over a month ago. And Chef and I were in a Hangout just talking one day. And we were like, you know, it would be a really great thing for us to do a Hangout. So we started to talk about it, and we said, you know what, let's try to get some people involved that otherwise do not have Hangout experience and expose them to that, invite them in if they need help getting in so they could feel comfortable. And that's what we did. We put out some feelers for people if they wanted to be involved, and they decided, you know, who we have on the show today, that they would. And some people were familiar and didn't need help, but Others did, and that's fine. So we're, we're glad to have them, and hopefully by the time we're done today, they'll feel so comfortable that they'll want to be using this for themselves in their own businesses. So we'll see what happens.

Great.

Bridging the gap a little bit.

Excuse me?

It's bridging the gap, most definitely. There's, if there are people that haven't, uh, and it's interesting because with social media, I think people are willing to take chances and try new things, but, you know, I think everybody gets overwhelmed. Too. But it's kind of good timing. I mean, we're coming off of the Google+ 3-year birthday, which was so fun to see this weekend on social media. I don't know if you're tracking a lot of the posts that people were doing, but everybody kind of started waxing a little nostalgic of all the relationships that they've built. So that's been fun to watch over the weekend. And then of course, Jeff, you brought us all together with your Virtual Bloggers Conference. And Kathleen, you were one of the first— were you on the first session this weekend?

Yes, it was.

Crushed it, girlfriend.

It was my second Hangout that I've ever done live, and I have to confess that on my first intro, I went blank. So I'm just saying it to help other people. I want other people to know that if it happens to you, you're not the first one to happen. And so Chef's been on with me, you know, in our personal, and at the end of the thing I said to him, did you see that? He said, "Well, you haven't ever done that before." Was it deer in the headlights?

Deer in the headlights at first. I'm going, "Oh my God, I've never seen her nervous before." Usually I'm not, and my mouth got dry.

And again, I'm sharing this for anyone who's watching this who is apprehensive. But guess what happened? Just a few minutes later, I got comfortable. I felt like I was just hanging out with a bunch of friends, and everything started to flow. So, you know, this is what happens. This is normal, and don't fear it. If it happens, you can move on. And if you have a great host like Chef Dennis Littley, he'll get you through it. Luckily, he knows how I am, and he kind of pushed me forward, and I was— and I did better.

So we're fine after a while. And it was— it was a nice conversation between friends.

Mm-hmm.

So Grant is stuck in a a hearing for something he had to do for New York, and he's gonna join us when he can. But I told him not to worry about it, just to pop in. He's from the Sweetery, so hopefully— and I just sent our other guest a link, so I will invite Karen in.

And then I'll—

comments, go ahead.

Let's definitely talk— have everybody go over and check out the Sweetery's. I don't know if they— I don't think they have a Google+ page, but they do have a Facebook page, so go and check that out because they've got quite the following. It's a pretty amazing Food truck, right?

No, the sweet—

Oh, because I'm looking at Sweetery. So is it the Sweetery though?

It's Sweetery New York City.

Okay, yep, that's what I'm looking at too. So tell me what they are.

Go ahead, Dennis. I'm actually in something right now.

They are a firm that represents—

They have some great clients.

Very big clients.

Gotcha.

And I made the mistake of thinking—

Oh, you know what it is? This is correct. They're actually saying New York City's favorite gourmet dessert truck and full-service experiential marketing company. So this is them. It's just that they have pictures of all their clients and they are— oh my gosh, it's so impressive.

They do have a dessert truck too, then I wasn't completely wrong.

You ain't cray cray, not on this one.

I think I did see that as well.

Well, it is. So please go check it out though because I mean it's It's definitely, yeah, I mean, that's what they do. And I mean, Chef, you and I have talked about that for Food and Booze, of doing perhaps some kind of food truck show. And Denver is just blowing up with that. It is so much fun to see.

Really?

Oh yeah, we've been doing, in fact, one of my friends has a taco truck, the Comida Truck. It's beautiful. And so I think the last 5 years it's been quite the big rush to it. Towards the food trucks. It has such a cachet to it.

Well, Kissimmee has a lot— almost said it wrong, and I live here— and Orlando does have them, but they have a lot more restrictions on them from what I've heard. And Tampa has really embraced the food truck, and the mayor there, I mean, does a lot of PR for them. So Tampa is like a hotbed of food trucks.

Really?

I didn't know that.

And I have a friend that does a food truck blog Carlos Eats, and he does some amazing things with them. And I want to get over there, and I was thinking, you know, if we can find one of these— and sometimes they circle them like a wagon train, and you just go from one to another and eat. So it's pretty cool. And before we have one of our guests here, but before I introduce her, I just want to pop up a few comments. Vanessa Chiesan is here, and Vanessa's from Ottawa. She's a travel blogger, freelance writer, social media strategist, and Dedicated cake eater. I love that right away.

Hello!

You are my friend, which is awesome since I'm all ready for celebrating Social Media Day. So thanks for stopping by, Vanessa. And Scott Scowcroft from The Scott Treatment is here and he wants a recap of yesterday. And later on we'll talk a little bit more about my event that I held. He's also asking me about a nugget I could provide for Ellen DeGeneres because Ellen, if you're out there and you're listening, I love you. I want to be on your show. I try to be just like you.

And, uh, don't even act like you're not bringing me with you, Sheffy.

And Thelma's got to come. We are Thelma and Luis, if you'd like to have us on, and we will be.

Exactly. And hi, Scott Scowcroft. Love you, brother.

So anyway, uh, they've joined us, and then I see we have our guest, and Karen is here. Hi, Karen.

Hi, Karen.

Nice to meet you.

You too.

Thank you.

So glad you could join us. And Karen, for our audience, why don't you tell them who you are and what you do?

I am Karen Sieger. I wrote a guidebook called Markets of New York City: A Guide to the Best Artisan, Farmer, Food, and Flea Markets. And I started a blog when the book came out in 2010, and the blog sort of took on a life of its own, primarily through social media and the fact that everything in the markets is amazing, and especially the food. And so now it's sort of turned into an online magazine about sustainable living, eating seasonally, shopping locally, and just finding everything handmade that you can.

Your page is so fun, Karen. I've got this up. First of all, I'm loving these druzy baguette necklaces from the Cameo Sisters. Hi! I was a crow in another life. Crows like shiny objects. I love the shiny. But then I love too, and I'm going to keep pushing people to different pages, I love this picture you took of the Morbid Anatomy flea market.

That blew my— well, every time I go out on the weekends, something blows me away. But yesterday, it was all pretty insane.

And this looks like it was over in Brooklyn.

Yeah, it was in Brooklyn.

There's a Morbid Anatomy museum. You guys have to go see this. This is on her Facebook page. It's called Markets of New York. I mean, how fun is that? You created something that all you do is go around and look at fun stuff all day. Hey!

And I eat it and I wear it.

Here's my little mermaid.

And you can buy it?

Yeah.

Oh, that's beautiful.

I was so excited when I came across your site and what you do because I could literally plan myself every weekend to do all of this stuff.

Well, I wish you would and I'll go with you because usually I go out by myself with a camera because everybody is like, markets again? How do you do it? I just can't help it.

I could never get tired of doing that. I could never get tired because my family looks at me like, "What are you photographing now?" And I could find the littlest thing and then, you know, I could see it, edit it. I see so much when I see one little thing. I'll be overwhelmed with— I'll be ADD nightmare if I'm with you.

Well, that's the nice part is people like you who actually stop and look because I mean, I've been at I did book signings in markets all over the city, and I'll never forget, it was in Grand Army Plaza, and this young woman comes up and she— I have my book right here just as a display— and she picks it up and she goes like this, she's like, "I've already been to all of these." I'm like, "You have? There's like 70 markets. Can I hire you?" You're in all? Well, she just thought she knew it all, and I was like, well, Go and do your thing, but boy, are you missing out when you don't stop and you don't examine every little druzy and every little mermaid and every little weird or beautiful or especially delicious thing that you see.

Sure, sure. And do you kind of coach people on that, of like, just take your time and just say, I'm going to put out this certain amount of time and then kind of shut everything off except your phone if you want to take Instagram, obviously. But just kind of like dig into that, I bet, because it's such an experience. And I remember because I used to live— I live in Denver now. I moved from New York City. It is beautiful, but I miss the city too. I love that flea market shuffle, we call it. It's almost like The Walking Dead a little bit. You're shuffling, your feet really don't get picked up, doing the sideways thing. It's so fun to just kind of dig through everything and see what everybody has out.

I'm going to use that. I love that.

Yes.

Flea market shuffle, right?

The whole video, I got it.

Yeah. Which is so the opposite of New York, because when I moved from New York City to Boulder, actually—

Oh, so slow.

It was an amazing culture shock. Well, I was just offending people for the first 6 months because I was not making eye contact, right? And I was walking really, really fast. They were like, what is wrong with that woman? And then I had to learn to sort of slow down and do that. But that was the only time I remember us moving slowly is when you're at the farmer's market or the flea market.

Right. Well, that's what I tell people when they're visiting, is that this is a way to connect with New Yorkers.

Mm-hmm.

For people to, um, for you, because in New York you're a tourist and you go to Times Square, you go to the Statue of Liberty, and you never touch New York.

Right.

But if you walk out your door to the Hell's Kitchen Flea, you're meeting—

it's a way to immerse yourself in the culture of New York. Exactly. That's really what it is. Now, do you do tours? How do you do this?

I have done tours, mostly just for friends. Usually it's just me and my camera, and if someone wants to come with me, they're welcome. But, you know, I've considered actually organizing some tours, but I don't know, I feel like— I feel like I need to just do it and see who's interested, because I worry that people wouldn't be interested and that would make me feel bad. People keep asking me, so maybe it's a good thing.

I think it would be a great idea because after everyone's said and done the major points in New York, then it's like, okay, what do we do now? And just for that to be available, I think that would be awesome. People don't know where to start, and especially with mapping it out and saying, well, you know, we have Brooklyn and we have this area, and for you to have that knowledge to know where everything is and expedite that whole experience would be great for people.

Well, you know, I went on a doughnut tweet-up about 4 years ago.

A doughnut, you said?

A doughnut tweet-up. I promise you, it kind of changed my life.

Donut tweet-up?

I want to hear this.

Well, it took me to places in Brooklyn that I was just far corners that there was no reason for me to ever go. And that's about the thing with the markets. People are like, oh, I never go above 14th Street, I never go below 23rd. People compartmentalize, you know, right?

I do.

I'm like, I'm a Bronx man, I'll go. If there's a farmer's market, I'm in.

I always had friends that I would say they get the bends if they go too far south, you know what I mean? They're like, oh, if I go below 14th Street or house, then I freak out. You know, they don't know what to do with the streets down there. And I lived up on 92nd. They would be like, oh, I'm going to get a nosebleed if I come up too far north in the city. So you know what I would love, ladies? I'm going to throw it out there. If we're going to try and get out there, is doing a Hangout on Air and we're just, you and I and Kathleen and Chef, you come out and we'll just do a little bit of going through the street fairs. I think people would just lose their minds over that.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

Some of them are so pretty, some of them are so ugly, and they're all amazing. There's a, I saw another book about markets in New England and I got kind of jealous for a minute because the markets in the cedar groves and markets in a tiny town and pretty sheep. And I'm like, our markets are old lots and churchyards and nasty sidewalks, and they are amazing. They are.

I was thinking about that, like St. Mark's has like everything on the sidewalk. There's not even a table.

Right, exactly.

Table, schmable.

So Karen, when you're out there doing all this on the weekends, Are you utilizing social media platforms? If you are, which ones are you and how you doing it?

Well, I love that question. I've been thinking about it all week. Yes, I use Instagram. I'm sort of new to Instagram, but I love it. My oldest sister, she's— because I transfer my Instagram to my personal page, it goes to my Markets of New York Facebook, well, that word page, and then it goes to— and I transfer it to my personal page, and she says How do you take such beautiful pictures? And she doesn't really have a cell phone, she has like a flip phone, so she has no idea. So I keep the magic alive with her. So Instagram is great because it goes to Foursquare, it goes to Twitter, it goes to Facebook, and I believe that that was really the reason that my book did so well was the use of social media. And I was no expert. I just used it. I just thought, well, I better figure it out. And I was studying and learning about Twitter, and finally my friend said, just go do it, just get on and tweet.

Yesterday there was a great session on Instagram, and Dennis Littley held a conference, a virtual bloggers conference this weekend. And yesterday I was in amazement for 1 hour, and I took notes. So we'll send you that link so you can watch that. I've been using Instagram for a while, but I learned learned so much from those people. They were just wonderful, right Dennis? It was amazing. So that would help you in your business, definitely.

Grant joined us too. I just want to say hi to Grant real quick.

Hi Grant!

Hi everybody!

Hi Grant!

Sorry for my tardiness.

That's okay, and you're on mobile, you're on your phone or on a computer?

I'm on my laptop in my car.

Grant's on the move, on the move.

On the move indeed.

He's semi-mobile mobile.

So you're actually really showing Social Media Day in its beauty on the road.

That's right. And this is the first for me because I am somewhat of a— I am 100% a virgin to this.

So this is the first time I've ever done anything like this.

Tell them what we did then, Mia. What is this? What are we doing? We're popping—

We're popping your Google Hangout cherry. Thank you. I don't know what to do with them.

This is the place to do that, it really is. We were just discussing with Karen how she uses social media when she does her thing on the weekends with her markets, so did you want to tell us a little about what you do with your social media?

Sure, would love to, would love to.

So my company Sweetery NYC just turned 5 years old after a long extensive career. In the advertising industry that I had 25 years. We started as a mobile bake shop, believe it or not. Somewhat ill-conceived when we commenced our business, but we really turned it much more into an experiential marketing company where very recognizable brands come to us to promote their products, brands, and services in a very one-to-one way, in a way where we're engaging consumers on the streets or other businesses.

I love it. So I mean, so they know that you had the experience before and now you're helping them do what they do best, which is run their business, right? And then help— but helping them get that out there, because I know a lot of times with these comp— with the food trucks, they don't have time for that, right?

Correct. Yeah, we're definitely not a prototypical food truck. If I was only in the food truck business, I probably would not be in this business any longer. If you— if I was 22 and lived in my mom's basement and wanted to work 19.5 hours a day. Although I still work 19.5 hours a day, it would be a great career move. But, you know, I've sort of been to the mountain before. My industry changed like the world did about 7 or so years ago, and I was fortunate to be able to implement my pedigree back to what I'm doing now. It's a lot of fun. It's a creative approach to connecting consumer to brand. We come up with unusual concepts to drive traffic, to drive consumers to a particular brand, whether it's Adidas wanting to draw attention to one of their stores. And we came up with a concept of a combination code, and there were 3 lockers in the new Adidas store. And if your combination opened one of the lockers— actually, you got the combination, I should say, at the truck. We were giving out hundreds or thousands of items that particular day. But if your combination opened the locker, you will win a $500 gift certificate. So the store realized a 115% increase in store traffic and 119% increase in store sales for that weekend.

Wow.

So you just sit around and think up cool stuff all the time, huh?

I wish it was that easy. Most of the time I'm pulling out whatever remaining hair that I do have. But yeah, we we try to come up with some unusual concepts to engage, in some cases business to business. If Yahoo is coming out with new content, or last fall we launched the rebrand of MSNBC, just come up with different ideas. We go to Advertising Week and we'll give out 5,000 cupcakes or 5,000 whatever.

Hey, I'm your gal for that. Remember, I'm Cindy.

I'll keep an eye out for that.

You're seeing that with TV shows all the time. I saw they've had like pie trucks for some new movie yesterday. Downton Abbey had a tea truck.

What?

Wow, I missed that.

They were giving out hot tea and crumpets or something.

I think it's time to get a truck.

Where are you located?

Where did you see those trucks?

Me?

Oh, near Union Square and Madison Park— Madison Square.

Oh, you're in the city.

Yep.

Yeah, yeah.

But what you said about one-to-one is really important, and I actually started a marketing firm after I started doing social media for my book because people saw what I was doing. And really, in my heart, all I want to do is help other people grow their businesses, like all these artisans who are really following their passion, but they need all the help they can get. Sorry, there's construction going on behind me.

That's okay, I have a landscaper going on, I hope you don't hear that.

But yeah, I mean social media is one person at a time, so if someone says, ah, I only have 500 followers, and I said, well, that's 500 people. Could you fit 500 people in your apartment? Think about it, it's a lot.

That's a great little—

yeah, those are actual human beings who took took the actual decision and the time to like your page. It was a conscious decision. Pages don't get liked by themselves. And today likes are a little more valuable because we are all bombarded with so much. But the person-to-person thing that you are talking about, Grant, is really where it's at.

Right, and for us we really try to target specific demographic, specific audience, and we try to get the brand ambassadors who are on the ground at the truck. Food brings people in. It's remarkable what a free cupcake will do, or what people will do for a free cupcake. But if you have a few moments— and you're right, how do I get a few thousand people into a room? What does that cost to do? Or if I'm calling on an ad agency, or my client wants to attract the attention of an ad agency, if you want to get 400 people down from that agency You can't bring them to lunch. I mean, that's brave, but first of all, not everybody will go. Here you have an opportunity, you have somewhat of a captive audience for a moment or two. They're standing at the truck, you can show them an iPad, you can introduce them to different concepts or what you're pitching, and they kind of get it. And you, if there's a return on relationship, you can gather information, return on investment. So if we're giving a free cupcake out to somebody, we're usually asking that somebody to give something back, whether it's an email address or a, a follow on a social media platform, or even just downloading an app.

Oh, Grant, how valuable are brand ambassadors for what you do, and how do you utilize those brand ambassadors as applied to social media?

Brand ambassadors are key. There are some clients who just want to create immediate buzz. They want to put a truck somewhere and give out 5,000 breakfast burritos, and that's it. They don't really care about a return on relationship or return on investment. The ones where people want to see something tangible, they want to see likes, they want to get acquisitions in terms of things, the brand ambassadors who are engaging. You only have a few seconds. On the street is a little different than behind four walls. On the street, your sensory overload is at peak. You've got sirens, you've got people begging, you've got people pushing you. So you have a few minutes, a few seconds really, to talk about the virtues of that about that particular product. So my brand ambassadors are really key to what we do.

Now do they apply that in any places on social media as far as bringing the content that they just gathered and applying it on a Twitter or Facebook or Pinterest? Do they communicate any of that in any way?

Sometimes they do, yeah. Again, it really depends upon what the client wants and usually it's a cohesive approach between the client and—

I think Grant is breaking up there.

Um, you know, these PR firms, so they're a bigger team than I do, but again, augmenting my 25,000 followers across a couple different platforms with what they do. I mean, there have been situations with, um, Capital One where we were part of a, um, 35 million impression campaign, and all we did was we branded a truck and we gave out free, free breakfast, or Actually, if you bought one item, you got the second one free, hence the Capital One, you know, what's in your wallet double rewards. We were the 5th most influential tweeter for Internet Week a couple of years back. So what we do is, you know, my small little company, what we do is pretty powerful at times.

35 million impressions are very impressive, impressive to use that word. So yes, that really is. I'm impressed. Go ahead, Ian.

Not all, you know, not 100% my responsibility, but we were a major part of that.

Mm-hmm.

And now we know why you're good at what you do, 'cause you hear him talk and you're like, I get why this company is doing well. And listen, go and tweet about them @SweeteryNYC. I'm getting ready to tweet a picture of them too. What else, what are your other handles, Grant, that we can find you?

So SweeteryNYC at Twitter, and then Sweetery on Facebook. Just plain old Sweetery on Facebook. And we just started, somewhat of a dinosaur, we just got to Instagram and I believe it's SweeteryNYC on Instagram as well.

Alright, so the big burning question is, are you on Google+ yet, my brother?

Well, I am now because Dennis Littley introduced me and I want to learn more about this and I want to be involved, I do.

You're so dynamic, you would do great on Hangouts, you would get people He's so wound up, seriously.

I know, when I was speaking to Grant on the phone a few times, I thought to myself, he's perfect.

I'm generally not nervous, but I am a little nervous because I don't know what I'm doing here. Dennis Littley gave me a great tutorial late last week. I want to get a little bit more water under my feet, or whatever the expression is. I think this is a great idea, and I would love to be part of more of these Great, that's good news.

We'll be happy to have you.

You're hanging out with the right crowd.

And your truck's really pretty. Thank you.

That makes a difference.

Absolutely does.

Visuals, yes. We have someone joining us right now. Is this Cheryl? Hi Cheryl, how are you?

I'm great, Catherine.

Nice to have you. Hi everybody.

Hi, Cheryl's from—

Thank you.

Yes, Social Media Day. So Dennis Littley, would you like to introduce everybody that's on right now since Cheryl just joined us?

Sure, Cheryl. To— well, I don't know to your right or not, but we have Grant is here from the Sweetery, and we have Karen from Markets of New York, and then you see Kathleen, of course you know Mia Voss, and I see Scott Scowcroft has come in to say hello.

Hi Scott, how are you?

I'm well, thanks.

How are you?

Very good.

Representing the West Coast, my brother. Good to see you.

Yes.

Well, glad to be here.

Just wanted to pop in to say hi and to celebrate Social Media Day.

Didn't realize that today was Social Media Day until I tuned it in, so you heard it here first. I heard it here first. Grant, I think that you're terrific. I thought you were an old hand at this and an expert and all of those sorts of things.

I think you found a new home here.

Mm-hmm.

A little bit of direction and I'll be right there with you guys. You just made my day, you really did. Thank you, Scott.

No doubt, no doubt.

You know, one thing to know too, on Google+, every day is social media day.

That's right.

So true.

Yeah, it's a wonderful tool.

So, Cheryl, tell us a little bit about what you're doing and what you do and where you are.

Well, I'm usually based out of New York City, but today I'm in Michigan, and it's a lovely shade of gray, which Michigan is known for. But yeah, I just started a crowdfunding site that's exclusively for food people and drink people.

That is so exciting!

Wow, congrats! It was so cool when you guys reached out because it's, I mean, obviously I think it's a great idea, but you know, it's It's good to know that other people are— everybody has been so, so positive, and it's called fundafeast.com, and we're working in the background with a couple of campaigns, and they're getting ready to launch some great campaigns. I got one based out of LA that is making kitchari and going to be selling that, maybe with a food truck. She's just finalizing some details. I've got a chef working out of New York called Cajun in the City who's looking to get some money to help get some of his shows produced in the New York City area, and he's going to be launching that. So they'll probably be coming in a month or two, and it's a— we're a brand-spanking new site, but the goal is to really niche it for only food and beverage so that, you know, it's kind of like the Williams-Sonoma of crowdfunding. I mean, when you walk into Williams-Sonoma, you're not looking for nylons, you're not looking for makeup. You know exactly what you're going to get. And when you come to Fund-A-Feast, everybody that's there with us they're going to do the same thing. And social media has absolutely been the way to go for me. I have tremendous support from you guys. That's how you found me. You know, that's how Kathleen reached out. We connected on Twitter, and Twitter has been huge. And I've had some Google+ interviews that have been so helpful for us in our marketing and helping get some media out there. And it's, I mean, it's so cool how you can connect to people on this side of the world, East Coast, West Coast, or halfway around the world. And that's just the thing I love the most about it. It's funny because everyone thinks that with your phones and stuff like that, that you're really kind of alone. But we're all reaching out with social media, so I don't really think we like being alone too much. I think we really enjoy using that and being in touch with people.

Is that fire? I'm trying to hear.

I love New York.

Fire. New York City, baby!

They're the greatest. They need some free cupcakes.

Cheryl, is Fun2Face international or is it national?

It is international, Kathleen. The only limiting factor is the payment company, and I use Stripe, so it's the UK, Canada, US, Ireland. It's not everybody yet as Stripe adds more people, and that's part of the challenge. All the payment companies have legal restraints on what companies they do where. And so right now we're, we're in the big markets— Canada, US, the UK— and then I've got some other folks reaching out from Australia and looking, and we're working with Stripe on that as well.

Well, I have a question for you. Besides you being totally in the food area, what, what are your differences between Kickstarter and Indiegogo?

The big thing is if you pick up the phone and call, you're going to get to talk to me, which is the founder, and we will mentor you and we will consult with you as much as you need so that your campaign is as successful as you want it to be. Because there's a huge misconception with crowdfunding. A lot of people think it's easy money. They think they can just put up some pretty pictures and a nice video and people are just going to throw $100 bills at you, and that is not how it works.

There's a lot of work involved. I had worked on one.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. There's so much communication.

I've got a calendar out there and people can grab time and we'll talk to you. We also started a page on the site, Friends of Fund-A-Feast, and if I would work with any of these companies, then they get to go on the page, like if we truly believe that they can help any startup. So, and that's the big difference. We also have a Twitter chat, back to the social media, on every Wednesday at 7 PM Eastern.

Yes, I was on, it was very good.

Foodpreneurs, and we're trying to give them as much information as possible. We've had A social media chat, a trademark chat with my personal lawyer who helped me with my trademark issue. I had to change my name a week before I went live.

Oh wow.

Helping people learn some of those things. We've got Culinary Concierge is a partner with us and she's been— Christine has been phenomenal and she helped people understand how to take it from product to shelf. She's, you know, helped launch the largest largest white label product in the world, the largest private label product in the world. She was an integral part of— if there's any Canucks on the show, I'm Canadian originally— and she was part of President's Choice, which is the largest private label in the world now, and she was the executive chef for that and really helped with that.

She ends up running—

She runs the gamut.

That's really neat.

Yeah, she adds phenomenal value to the guys that are looking to campaign. The big difference is that we'll consult with you, we'll help you understand what you need to do before you launch.

And how long do people launch their campaigns for?

We recommend 30 days, and the reason for that is it's a lot of work once you launch your campaign. It's, you know, you've got to keep the momentum going, you've got to keep people engaged. And one of the ways I explain it to them is you get that wedding invite and you ignore it for, you know, 29 days, and then you drop it in the mail the last day. So it's no different with crowdfunding. People want to help you. It's not that they don't want to help, but they think, oh, I've got time, I've got time, and then all of a sudden, you know, all you've really done is spread out your donations. You haven't really— unless you've got, you know, don't get me wrong, unless you've got that viral item that's just flying off the shelves, and that's a little different. But most campaigns, that's, you know, that's the unicorn. That's everyone's goal, but that's like winning Powerball. It doesn't happen too much.

So what are the rules as far as— I know that with Kickstarter you have to raise all the funds in order for you to walk away with that. Indiegogo, they have the option of either or. So what is it with your crowdfunding?

With our platform currently, and we are looking at alternate platforms to increase some of our functionality, but right now with our platform, we have it so that it's keep it all. So if you go out and you ask for $10,000 and you only make $8,000, and that will really benefit you, you can keep that and you can still give the rewards back to the people. We're also only 4%. Kickstarter and Indiegogo, both of them, if you use their keep-it-all model, they're 5%. Indiegogo, if you use what's called their flexible model, which means that they're kind of like us, keep-it-all, if you pick that at the beginning, then they're 9%. That's a lot of money. I mean, to some people they're like, oh, it's not that big a deal, but you know, that's an extra 5% if you go to Indiegogo and say, I want to keep it all. If you come to us, you can keep that 5% because I didn't do anything. I gave you a platform, I helped consult with you, and there's some costs that we have to incur there, and that's absolutely— the 4% is more than enough. The rest of it should go to the people doing the really, really hard work and reaching out to their networks.

Definitely.

Mia has a question for you.

I did. Well, sure. I just love your enthusiasm. It just exudes across the screen, so thank you for doing that because it sounds like you found there was a pain point of people not knowing how to get that crowdfunding right and they got discouraged. And you can see that anybody who's doing this, they're coming from their heart. This is the message they want to get out. So what was the experience that you had that made you come up with this? To start helping?

Well, I have been involved with food my entire life, and my mom owned a tea room, and she baked pies out of the—

this is what I say, I have a mom.

Food's my hobby.

Oh, no way!

Yeah, so she made 10,000 pies. Like, we'd make 350 pies out of the fridge, deliver them to, you know, produce stands and stuff, and You know, it's just— I mean, everyone knows how one of the easiest ways to say I love you to someone is just to make them a meal, right? I mean, that's why you—

We were just talking about that this morning.

Yeah, well, we've got some phenomenal chefs on here right now, and I want one of them to tell me that they sit down and create an entire delicious meal for themselves. Nobody does it for themselves with food. Nobody. You do it to show you love, to show people you care about them. Whether it's a special occasion or not. And so I've always loved food and I've always loved technology and the idea of crowdfunding, I just— it gives me goosebumps. The idea that you can say I need help, which is A, one of the hardest things for us to do as people, and B, to say I need money, which is probably the second hardest thing, and that all these people, whether they know you or not know you, will give you a little bit because they want you to succeed. They want you to be successful. And the idea of bringing the two of them together in, you know, a real niche type of idea, I just thought it was phenomenal. And I just, I just, I went out and I entertained the thought of crowdfunding my own, and there wasn't a food site. There was nothing there. And I thought, how are foodies and, you know, people who are in spirits and wine and beverages and cafes, I mean, they're not being represented, you know. So, and I'm a little old school, if you want something done right, do it yourself. So 7 months later we stood the platform up in beta and now we're looking to take it to really rock and roll with it.

Karen has a question for you.

Oh, sorry, I have a question. I love your idea. I love the idea of a specialized crowdfunding site. I worked a bit with Indiegogo. I was an evangelist for them early on.

Yeah.

You know, I think it is a lot of hard work and I would love to help you. I would love to do an interview with you on my website because I talk about Judy all the time.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

People need you.

They need you.

They are amazing people.

Okay, let's do it.

No, absolutely, we will connect and we will definitely touch base. And that's the joy of crowdfunding. That's exactly what we need. We need people who believe in us and vice versa, people that we believe in. I mean, I've had people come up to me who have campaigns on other platforms, and I'm like, look, the very short version is we're here to support you. If you use my platform, brilliant. But if you didn't know about us and you're already out there, you know, we're going to support you regardless, because that's what it's really about, is being there and supporting people.

Yeah, and being a part of something really special.

Well, you can make a difference in someone's— someone has actually put their dream online. Who are you to say no, no, no, I don't want to be a part of that? I mean, they put their heart out there for the world to see. And I mean, to think that you can help them with that, it's just, you know, you sleep good at night.

Trust me.

I just have to say, I look like a bobblehead over here because I can't get over how much I agree with you. I'm like, yes, yes, yes.

I love the tiara. We need to chat. I want a tiara.

Yes, you definitely need one. I don't go anywhere without it. When I get on a Hangout, it's set up. So we'll talk about that. I'd love to have you on my show as well.

Karen, I really appreciate that. I'll definitely connect. That's a phenomenal opportunity.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Thank you so much.

Well, Grant has a question. Grant?

I do.

In terms of crowdsourcing, is it only for startups, or can somebody— can a business that's already been established join into that?

It's for anybody that wants— that's passionate about a product or a service that's food or beverage related. So it's not just for startups. Because there are people that, you know, just because you started your business 10 years ago and you find out about crowdfunding now, what, you're not included? No, absolutely. And this is— keep in mind, I mean, there's some of the stuff that's blatantly obvious of what it is, but I had someone say, can I crowdfund my camera for my food blog? Yes, absolutely. Do you want to write the famous novel about, you know, a food journey that you want to make? Absolutely. So no, it's not just for startups. We're here to support anybody that loves food.

And how do you recommend getting the word out from your platform?

Well, a lot of it is, you know, kind of like what Karen just did. I'm trying to do it organically. I'm not paying for Twitter followers. I'm building relationships. I was reached out to by a company called Elevate My Brand and actually just wrote a blog about it on their site. I did fully— I'll admit I thought they were reaching out to try and get themselves some money and, you know, provide a service. Didn't ask anything. They're like, we love what you do, we want you to blog for us, we want to share what you're doing. They've given me a couple campaigns and some connections. So it's, it's really trying to grow it organically so that the core base of who's there are people who really want to be there, so that when the campaigns get out there, they're going to have the support they need. So I'm just starting to reach out and start to look for media and, you know, getting into some magazines and getting some connections and going to the fancy food shows tomorrow. I'm super excited to be able to—

Are you? One of our speakers might be— one of our guests, she's trying to broadcast in a little while from there. We're not really sure how that connection is. But my other question real quick is, how do you recommend the people that are doing campaigns on Defund the Fees to get their word out?

The best way for them to get their word out is they need to keep in mind it takes from 2 to 6 6 months before you launch a campaign.

When you launch a campaign, you should be launching it like a record launch.

None of us are Beyoncé. We can't just throw it up there one day and think people are going to know it's there.

A lot of people are under the impression that you'll write something out and then it's boom. So this is great to hear. Go ahead.

Yeah, a lot of people honestly think that, you know, to use the K-word, I mean, a lot of people think that you put it out on Kickstarter and people just find it. People don't go out trolling around looking for things. We are trying to minimize that by having only food people on the site and only food people that know about us, so they will know to go look for cool things at fun2feast.com. But they really bring their own network. They pull together everybody they know, whether it's personal, professional, their Twitter followers, their Facebook, Google+. And we absolutely advocate to take a good 2 months to build those Reach out to bloggers that believe in what they're doing. Reach out to any media they've got. The rule of thumb is that you need to have about 30% of your funding in place the day you turn it on. Then that builds the momentum so that mere mortal who doesn't know you, doesn't, to be candid, care about you yet, they see that there's something building and they're like, I want to be a part of that. They're like, that's cool. Cool, and look, they're already getting funding and they've got so much traction. But there is a lot of work that you need to do on your own to reach out to the people that you've already got. You bring your network to the crowdfunding platforms, and then they augment that based on your already rockin' and rollin' campaign. So that's where we can help out. We help people understand how to reach out to some of those folks and some tools they can use to expand that, you know, participating in Twitter chats, blogs, and there's a lot of phenomenal resources out there.

Well, hopefully by the end of the chat you'll want to utilize Google+.

I use Google+ already, absolutely.

We got Google+ hashtag #Fun2Feast already out there. It was one of the very first things I set up.

I think she's drank the Kool-Aid already. She's in right now. I'm going to post everything.

I had to look pretty on camera, everybody.

I'm going to put everybody's information on here as we're talking too, so hang tight. I'm going to get everybody out on the event so you'll know how to support them.

Yeah, brilliant.

This is going to be great. This is an evergreen, as we know, for the people that are here, it was explained. So we'll be running this out for the next couple of weeks. We'll be taking from these conversations and putting tweets out and Google posts. So this is going to reach out to a lot of people, and we really appreciate all this information that you're giving us. Hello, we have someone joining.

Such an honor to be able to speak to all of you and just be a part of it. I mean, obviously I'm excited about it, and it's nice to hear that others are as well. It's— that's what keeps us going, obviously.

We're really happy to have you here with us today. It's been a treat to get to know you and hear more about— I want to hear more about what you have to say too. And I think Karen's gonna be leaving us, she said, and you'd like to share something with us before you go.

Yes, thank you, Mr. This has been amazing. I love meeting everybody and hearing all your stories. And speaking of food, this is a cookbook that I'm doing a giveaway for. It's First Prize Pies. It's a beautiful design. Oh, it's not mine. It's a pie maker from the Brooklyn Flea in Smorgasburg named Alison Flea.

Yay!

I get to clap.

And she and her publisher are doing a giveaway on my site. So if you go to marketsofnewyork.com for the next week, you can do a couple of simple— leave a comment with your favorite pie, and that's all.

And we also have a giveaway from you today.

Oh yes.

It will be announced on Twitter at some point in time, that a signed copy from Karen, and we are so excited about that. So much information. So for our viewers, You'll be notified later on who is receiving that wonderful gift.

Thank you everybody, it's been wonderful. I love it and you're amazing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Happy Social Media Day.

Bye.

Bye Karen.

Bye Karen.

Thank you.

And then we have a new guest. Diana has joined us. Hi Diana.

Hi Diana.

Hi, nice to see everyone. I'm loving this tiara. Thank you!

We can get you one.

You're coming from across the pond today?

I am, yes. I'm here in what is an unusually sunny London. And yeah, it's very, very unusual, so I'm not going to jinx it. But thank you so very much for having me here. It's a great concept, and I was obviously very excited to hear more about it. It's great for us here at WineRest to be part of it. So I'm not sure if you wanted me to tell you a bit about our project and what we do?

Please do, yes.

So WineRest is a 2-year project we've launched here in London as an online marketplace for wine and food travel experiences all around the world. At the moment we've got about 65 destinations, so wine winemaking regions and wine— we call them wine capitals or wine cities. And we work with a vast range of wine and food writers, winemakers, and other sort of providers in these destinations. The way Wineries was born was actually by reaching out to local travel experts and getting these travel experts to write the so-called travel guides for us. So if you go on wineries.com, you'll see that we've got a travel guide for each and every single one of the regions that we operate in. So that works like a TripAdvisor type of site of the website. So people come to the website, they inform themselves about their wine destination, then on the travel guide they see the hotels and the wine tours and the food tours that we recommend for that particular region. So that's when we move into a Booking.com style website. So we've got both the information and the booking booking service. So that sets Wineries aside in the sense that, unlike many other websites out there in our industry, we don't force the consumer to go and research on one website and then come back to us and book. They can find it all and book it in one place. So that's why we call it the online marketplace for wine and food lovers. We aim to keep on adding wine regions, obviously, in the future. Hotels and the wine tours. I think I got dropped off slightly. But that's in brief from me, I think.

That's fantastic, Diana. When can we book a trip?

I know. You had us at wine. Yeah.

Anytime. And obviously we always love looking for, we call them volunteers, people who can go and review a wine region for us or try a new experience. So if you are in one of our locations, do let us know and maybe we can use you as a guinea pig.

Happy.

Oh, use me please. Wine is my food choice. That's all I want to say.

Wine is a food group.

Exactly. It is for me.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more.

I'm on your site right now, and I've been on your site several times, and I love that it's broken into regions. It's wonderful that, as you said, it takes my job away from me having to look at everything and have it, you know, be able to select. I'm looking for, choose the activity. I think that's great. This hotel winery tour and travel guide and all the regions that are there. It's, it's fantastic. I highly recommend this to anyone traveling and planning a vacation. Just to me, having all this work done for me is— just takes a lot of hours out of my travel planning.

And that's spot on. That's exactly what we were trying to do. And one other thing that you'll notice if you go on Wineryist is that there are Our experiences, they're very much non-commercial, so all the experiences that we offer, they are authentic, off the beaten track. So we don't actually work with any of the large commercial vineyards. And we tend to keep it, to keep the group size anywhere between 2 to 8 people. And it's really affordable as well. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to make the wine and food travel market really competitive, affordable, and authentic. More customized to their individual needs rather than being forced onto a bus tour where, you know, you find it very, very difficult to get to meet the winemaker, to ask the questions that you want to ask, and even have something like, you know, be able to try the produce that is grown at that particular winery. Because a lot of the time our vineyards will grow other things aside from obviously wine. Or vines will have other things aside from vines. The winemaker will very often put on a lunch for you at no cost, and then you will be able to enjoy the full story.

That's just luxurious to me. Can I go now? I want to go now.

I love it.

It sounds wonderful, and it sounds beneficial for everyone. So for the winemaker too, it just takes a lot out of the pressure off of them, right? So they get to do what they do, you're introducing it, you're making it easier, and then they get to showcase themselves because there's a story for the winemaker too. They get just as excited as the chefs do, or the people that are the food folks too, right?

Exactly, exactly. I think it's exactly that, it's creating a marketplace for those people who really, I think, deserve to be out there. The people who will, you know, will give you a wine tasting for $20, but that wine tasting will be exactly the kind of thing that you'll want to brag about when you go go back home. Something truly special.

I like your wineries special offers too, because this is great that it introduces even on a different level more that's available out there and incentives that go with it. Very, very, very good. I like that.

Well, you do let us know if you're ever looking to go, and we'll obviously be happy to have you on tour, as I said, as the Olympics.

So keep us posted.

Well, I may be heading out there in the fall, so I might I'll take you up on that.

Absolutely.

And I'm getting ready to post all of her links too so you can go and see what Kathleen's looking at because it is just, oof, it is fun.

I was also going to say we're launching a brand new website in a few weeks' time so I'll send you an email when that goes live. Hopefully it will be, it will be even, the customer journey will be even better on that one. We hope to be slightly improved.

We have a note on the side. Dennis, do you see that from Nazim?

No, I did not.

Nazim is kind of losing his mind, by the way. He's privately messaging me.

He wants to be a guinea pig in Italy. Okay, well, guess what? We'll have to get you hooked up there because, wow, that would be a really good match, wouldn't it? That would be great.

Oh, I can't even imagine between Nazim and his wife.

Yeah, he's also getting ready to start a new show called Casa Chiese, so that would lend itself perfectly to that show.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, exactly.

I'm actually in Tuscany in a few weeks' time, so—

You're in Tuscany, you said? I can't hear you, I'm sorry.

I'm going to be in Tuscany in a few weeks' time, so if there's anyone interested in any kind of material or any kind of contacts, obviously anything from restaurants to agritourism concepts and so on, let us know and we'll be glad to put you in touch with the right people.

Very good, very good. Does anybody have any questions for Diana?

Same that I've been asking everybody, what was really kind of, if you had anything super inspirational that just got you wanting to get that message out and put this together?

I think the most important thing that we have learned is that you have to really have have passion for what you do. I know it sounds really, probably repetitive. You've heard it before. But an idea is 10% of what you do. And the people and the passion that you put into it is pretty much everything else. So I think if there is a message out there, it's to always do something that you're truly passionate about. And if you're going to work hard and keep your head down, then it's guaranteed to succeed, provided you obviously don't want to fly to the moon with but something in the realm of real world. So that's that, I think, passion and hard work.

Well, listen, with your accent, we'd listen to you say anything.

That's right. I'm just honed in on that.

I'm just like, ah, but I love that an idea is 10% of what you do. So that is fantastic. She just needs to throw down the mic and walk off the stage. I mean, that's great. Any other comments or questions? I don't see anything else, Jeff, do you?

No, you know, and again, I think there's something going on with Google Hangouts today because things are a little wonky.

Yes, you know what, they are. They actually are on Q&A, which is funny. But as some of you may know, Jeff and I both have our own— I have a show together. We have our own show, we are so used to things just being bat crap crazy and crap breaking, so we got you covered.

Yeah, I did not start the Q&A today, it started itself.

It did. Well, you know what, listen, it's Mercury in retrograde, cheers to that, right, that crazy little bugger. So hey, let's just roll with it, right?

I know.

Well, that's what we do, we just roll with it on Google+.

I have to tell you, it's only 10 o'clock here in the morning, I'm ready to drink wine after this conversation.

Well, I'm going to be heading to New York City soon and I'm going to grab myself a nice little glass when I get there. Absolutely.

It's 5 o'clock somewhere.

We have a guest that joined here.

Well, that's the beauty of Google+. It's always 5 o'clock somewhere and you can always find someone to drink with so you don't feel bad about it.

Exactly. Diana's calling in from the UK, then We're allowed to drink.

I'm going to be having a glass in about an hour, so I'll be thinking of all of you.

Thank you.

Well, thank you so much for having me on here.

Oh, it's a pleasure.

Thank you for dropping by, and we will definitely stay connected with you and take you up on some of those offers, and we will be just putting this all out there, right?

Absolutely. Perfect. Any content that you'd like to share with our readers, please let us know and we'll be happy to do that.

Thank you, Diana.

Thank you. Have a wonderful day.

Okay, bye-bye.

Bye.

And we have Heather join us. Hi, Heather, how you doing?

I am doing pretty well, I think. I'm hearing all these conversations. Is it just me or is it in my head?

Well, my voice is breaking up on us just a little bit.

Yes, I'm definitely having having some challenges with my connection. Can you guys hear me clearly?

It's going in and out, so it sounds like a microphone problem, Heather.

Okay, you know what, if I—

You know what, we always say you can drop out and come right back in.

That always fits.

Let me do that. I'm going to keep at it.

Oh, it's working.

Can you hear us?

I can hear you guys fine, but I'm going to log off and get back on.

I actually—

Sounds good now.

You sound good.

Am I fine now? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so good to go. Thank you for having me. This is— I've been able to listen to you guys for a while, but you weren't able to see me. But this has been awesome. Thank you so much, Kathleen, for the invitation.

Yeah, you're welcome, Heather. Let's hear some— let's hear about Heather now. Can't wait to hear.

Sure.

So the concept of All the Tastes of New York, um, Essentially, our whole business is about food crawls. So the whole idea of a food crawl is instead of having time being at one restaurant, you'll have appetizer at one location, entree at the second, and dessert at the third. So it's really designed for people who very much enjoy different cuisines. You want to essentially taste the neighborhood, but you don't have the time to plan it all out. So we take all the thought process out of it, all of the details. And, um, just the same way you would hire an event planner, for example, for a party at one restaurant, think of us in the same manner, except you're having 3, um, courses in different restaurants. So you'll be provided with the menu beforehand, everything is done beforehand, there are no surprises. And, um, you just let us know which neighborhood you want to dine in pretty much, and we leave the rest up to to us.

Oh my God, that's brilliant.

Isn't it?

It's different. It's different. I am my own to food. I love to eat. Sometimes, especially in a place like New York City, people become very, very overwhelmed, but there's a ridiculous amount of choices that we have there. So I pretty much take all of the guesswork out of it for them.

That's what— and how long have you been up? How long have you been up and running with this, Heather?

Just over 2 years, 2 years and 3 months. Congratulations! Thank you. It's been quite a journey. I think the first thing is understanding because everybody eats, everybody is not your customer. And then beyond that, really just narrowing down who is my audience, understanding truly what my demographic is. When I first started, I used to host open events. They were open all open, you can join whenever you'd like to, and it just didn't make sense because again, people have specific needs, and I thought, you know what, why not make these private events where I can really focus on delivering to that customer exactly what it is that they're looking for. So like dating companies are huge with us, Match.com is our biggest client, go figure, this lends itself amazingly to dating. Because you're not in a hostage situation essentially. If you're not getting along, you get to move, you know, get up and move along. And so it keeps things interesting, really very interesting. I do a lot of corporate events, bachelorette pool crawls are super popular, and again, you know, we pride ourselves in customizing events and making it really person-specific.

Now, as applied to social media, do you feel as though you Do you get a lot of your referrals through social media? How does that work?

Well, the biggest value— so aside from doing the food crawls, we also host large food and wine events every 6 months where we would invite restaurants and wine and spirit companies, and we'll have everybody under one roof, like 300 to 500 people. That has been the biggest value of social media to me. Finding clients as in the people that I would work with like the restaurants or wine and food companies versus people who are actually attending the event. So for me it's been much more business to business, that has been the greatest value to me with regard to social media by far.

How do you use social media for your business? What platforms do you use as far as posting is concerned?

Twitter especially, we do a lot of— I connect mainly with the restaurant owners on Twitter. We participate in a lot of events, bringing interest to the events, because again, it's one of those things for me, if I don't have the venues, if I don't have the restaurants, if I don't have those things, those elements, the public, they're not going to come. So Facebook, for us is not as prevalent as Twitter is. We do do quite a bit of blogs as well, you know, writing about the restaurants, about the vineyards, about that kind of, you know, that kind of thing. But I would probably say by far, and I think our following definitely reflects that, that Twitter has been a great tool for us building the base of the business so that the people will come, essentially. And then, you know, just reading on the blogs because, you know, we would write up on different neighborhoods the restaurants that we work with, and that would then generate the interest in the public, so, you know, to come to participate.

Now, are you in all the boroughs in New York City?

No, we're primarily Manhattan. We do have a couple restaurants that we work with in Williamsburg, but right now we're actually working on Long Island, the south, the north in the Hamptons being add-ons for a lot of the vineyard tours that are out there.

The vineyard tours?

Yes. Oh, we're working to be the add-ons.

Spark my interest.

So yeah, it's always a beautiful thing. I mean, the North Fork of Long Island, you know, they have so many wonderful vineyards. It really boasts, you know, it's just tremendous. And while the Hamptons is what it is. So it's one of those things, you definitely have a built-in audience, so it's now working to deliver and getting them the experience that they're looking for while they're there.

Okay, just because, walk us through a vineyard tour. Do we do a bus, do we do a limo, like how do you set something like that up?

So for instance, well first off it depends on where you're coming from.

Mia is laughing because she knows where we're going.

I know, and I'm just thinking if Heather or Kathleen and I ever get together, it's just, you're going to need to do a hangout, just the camera, the drunk camera of the two of us just eating and drinking our way through whatever.

We're going to need those cameras that you wear on your head.

Like monkey cam.

You guys will need a GoPro.

GoPro, absolutely. That's what we're going with.

I think if you guys got drinking together, it'd be a sporting event.

And you know what, Heather, you might want to think about a GoPro when you're doing these vineyard tours.

Yes, you know, I think you are correct. I think you're 110% correct.

Sure.

So go ahead.

I'm sorry, Heather, you come to Fund-A-Feast, we'll take care of you.

That's right. That's a great— we're making some great connections here. I'm sorry to cut you off. So let's start all over again. Do we get a limo? Do we get a bus? What do we do here?

You could do One of two things, for example, let's say just for the sake of ease that you're visiting me in New York City and you're staying in New York City. So we have the Hampton jitneys that go out to the Hamptons every few hours. So those are very cost-effective. But on the other hand, if you wanted to splurge a little bit, you wanted to have the girlfriends, you know, we do the limo route, absolutely. Long Island, no. There is a wine, I'm also, I happen to be a vodka fan as well. It is what it is. And Long Island also, interestingly enough, the beginning of Vineyard Country has one of the first vodka distilleries in Long Island for potato vodka.

Really? Yes.

I'm in.

I'm in.

I'm going to like vodka.

I do too. So we'll start with vodka because, you know, we'll just completely cleanse the palate and everything else that goes with it.

Great idea, go on.

And then we'll sip along essentially, you know, probably go to like Neven Palmers and Martha Clara, and we'll probably fit in at least 6 or 7 vineyards, and then go on to Greenport, which is a really, really, really beautiful town. It's at the end of the island.

Yes.

Yes, and we can do a wonderful little food crawl there, And life would be very, very good.

And when we— Kathleen was asking—

It would be delightful.

It would be.

And that was not a hypothetical. So how would it work? It's like, we are literally planning what we're doing right now as we're talking.

Exactly. Heather, if someone wanted to use your service, do they bring all the people for this tour? Or do you bring like— do I bring me and a girlfriend, and then you bring 8 other people? Or how does that work? Can we fill the whole thing as individuals?

So typically for all of our events, you would do— we do a minimum of 8 people. That is what is truly ideal. I am beginning to seriously rethink this because we're literally just working on this component of it. And I am realizing with a lot of the feedback that I'm getting that it is certainly preferential to be able to join a group, given that everybody doesn't have 6 other pals or 7 other pals to do this with. So I'm actually working because all of this is on my website, you're able to buy all the tickets on my site, and I'm actually reworking my reservations page to facilitate that where you can join a group.

Are you using Meetup.com at all for any of your events?

I don't do Meetup. I have gotten bumped off of Meetups a couple of times only because of the fact, yes, only because of the fact that there's money involved. Because the types of meetups—

I pay to go to those meetup events. Most of them charge.

Well, not the— I attempted it on both, on two separate occasions, and on both occasions I was told that I did not qualify because of the fact that it was a paid event. Unless there was some little caveat that I'm not aware of in how it works.

Yeah, I would— I mean, it might not be the right vehicle for you, but I can strongly let you know that I attend quite a few meetups, and many of them I pay to attend. Depending on the size, I mean, I've paid up to $385 to go to different events. So I wonder why they can and you can't.

I don't know, would you mind my asking, is there like a maybe perhaps like a cutoff in the price point?

I really don't know, I mean because there was one, you know, I'm part of Slow Money, which you probably have heard of, and I mean they had an event where they were doing an all-day pitch-up, you know, and I think it was on the Columbia University campus, and the event was in excess of $300 people were paying for, and then a lot of the events that I personally attended are, you know, $45, $50 if they have experts on the panel and they have a select number of people. It's kind of a good thing, you know, Ladies Who Lunch and things like that. Some of them are less, but maybe it's just how— I don't know. I would be surprised if they wouldn't allow you there. I've never set up a meetup myself, so I can't speak to that. I would maybe poke them again and see what their criteria really is.

Yes, I think maybe you should just I'm asking that because I've been asked that question many, many times.

Well, I can't speak for other cities, but I know in New York it's very— I've made some phenomenal contacts through these meetups, and it's, you know, it's a great way to get people, you know, so it's just another option. There's no right or wrong, because I, like you, have found Twitter to be a tremendously successful tool to use with with Fund-A-Feast, but you know, I know that we use Meetups a lot in New York too, so I just wanted to toss that out there. So yeah.

Thank you, thank you. You know what, it is— that is definitely worth revisiting because just like you said, it is a huge, huge platform, and the food crawl component of the business lends itself amazingly to networking, and I realize that a lot of the reasons that people attend Meetups are very much for the element of networking. So thank you.

Well, we, I mean, I'm Cheryl Clements with fundafeast.com and we've got a big Twitter following as well and stuff like that, so please, please connect with me. I put my Google+ and my email, so connect with me. And you know, if you've ever got an event going out, I mean, if you send me a direct message with the tweet you'd like it to say, we're happy to send it out. I've got a, I'm getting close to 3,500, 3,600 followers and a lot of them are local to New York, so we're happy to share that for folks that you're out there.

I have a comment. This is what we call GSD, get stuff done, except I usually don't say stuff. I'm gonna clean it up for you. That's what this show is, this is get stuff done.

This is networking, this is networking, this is social media day. This is what it's about.

Yeah, I think we lost Heather though.

Heather dropped out.

And I just wanna let everybody know I've been posting everybody's link in here. Some of them don't have Google+. It's a little bit new, so you'll see everything that's on there. And if they don't have Google+, reach out, get them, like, just reach out to these ladies. Can you see how everybody's just getting all excited about each other? It's awesome.

Collaboration. That's what we learned this weekend, right, Dennis? Collaboration.

Collaboration. You know, we can't do everything ourselves.

No, we can't.

We can't.

I had a couple— because we've got the Q&A going, I just want to throw in a couple comments of people having stuff because they're sort of over here. James Fierce said he loved that Grant was taking mobile to a whole new level. Way to pop the cherry, he says to us. And then this might be good actually for Cheryl, is curious I'm curious to hear what people think about crowdfunding for travel. Not volunteer-based travel, just regular fun travel. My background is as a travel blogger and I've heard of people funding their round-the-world trips via crowdfunding. Clever or cheesy?

I think it's—

Vanessa, by the way, sorry.

I think it's, you know, I don't have any issue with it. If you've got a dream and other people want to help you fulfill that dream, I don't think there's anything wrong along with that, which to me is what crowdfunding is about. But it sort of goes back to those items that I raised at the beginning where there are a lot of people and you have to be ready for the emotional roller coaster of crowdfunding because you're going to reach out to friends and family and you're going to offend people and you're going to upset people. You're going to reduce your Christmas card and Hanukkah list in some cases. You heard it here, gang.

You are.

I crowdfunded on my site and I had people support me that I would have never dreamt of, I mean, in a million years. Because I crowdfunded to start Fund-A-Feast. I asked for $10,000 and I was incredibly fortunate and made $13,000. So to fund a vacation for somebody, I mean, I think if you want it bad enough that you're willing to put yourself out there, which is anything in life. If you want something bad enough Put it out there. Go to it.

Balls to the wall.

I mean, absolutely.

We are doing this vodka wine thing with you, girlfriend.

Clearly.

Why are you going without me?

I wanted to ask Heather about that, as if we could pick people up along the way when we make stops.

Right.

Because we can make new friends as we go.

I wish I had the horn, the beep beep.

Oh, your ride's here.

I like that.

Yep, absolutely.

The site GoFundMe would be much more for that type of a thing. GoFundMe is a phenomenal platform for more of a personal kind of crowdfunding mission. So they, they do— and Fundraiser as well is a great one for that. So you need to do your homework. If you want to do it, absolutely support it. Make sure you go to the right platform because as much as people think they're a one-stop shop, Kickstarter won't take that campaign as an example. I wouldn't take that campaign unless they were going to eat themselves into a coma.

And I could watch. I think if you don't find the right place, then you can start one called, you know what, GoFundYourself.

No, fund you.

Uh-oh, Heather is back. Heather is back.

Heather.

Mia and Dennis, a quick question. I know you're posting things out there. Once Once we log off the Hangout though, how can we see that data afterwards?

So just to give you a quick backspin on that, so we have what, an actual Google event, and that's where we have a lot of people that are asking us about you. So I'll post that link right here in our chat so you can see it as well. It's a great way to go back. We have the YouTube video also, which is fun. I've already actually tweeted a picture of you with the link to the event too, so, and I'm going to get one for Heather here in a second. So it's kind of nice, it's got an evergreen feel to it. You've got the events you can go back to that has all the comments, and then you have YouTube.

Okay, brilliant. Yeah, you're a rock star.

You are, you're going to do great on this.

A lot more comments in here, but again, like I said, it started— Q&A started itself, and when you have Q&A, a lot of the comments are going there instead of being here.

So no worries, I'm keeping an eye on that too, Sheffy. We're tag teaming, fist bump.

Fist bump. The thing to remember with Google+ is anything that can happen will happen.

And I cannot help you guys because this is my second live hangout.

Okay, can I just tell you—

Third.

Third.

She's rocking it and I'm going to give you, hold on, I have not even done this sound today. You, that makes me so happy. You pulled this off, Kathleen, bringing all these people together, and it's just, woof, it's making me happy, girlfriend. You are connected.

That's what I do, but I've never done this. This is like—

You took that to a new level.

You haven't said that in a while, have you?

Well, welcome to the dark side, Kathleen.

Come on in, the water's warm.

Yep, here we are. Oh, I have my eye on you, girlfriend, because I have some products that are food-related. Mm-hmm, we'll be talking.

Absolutely. No, we'd love to help. I mean, it's just the— I know it sounds cheesy, but for me it's 100% true. The idea of actually helping someone and see it start at the very beginning and see where it could go— I mean, I just think that'd be so cool to like walk into some kitchen store and go, I helped fund that spatula on my site. You know, I just think that'd be so fun to help someone make their dream come true. You know, when do you get to I can do that, you know.

Yes.

Talk about joy, you know, just that pays off. You just get so excited. I think that's the running theme. I see everybody gets so excited about what they're doing.

Yeah, well, and that's what they say to do, you know, do what you're passionate about and then the rest of it will take care of itself. So that's absolutely what happened for me.

Situations like today, people, you know, taking a chance and getting on who's never done before.

You know, the tours that Heather has, I mean, that's such a brilliant idea. This is something she wanted to start, and, you know, I mean, maybe, you know, maybe she needs help now and we can help her at Fund-A-Feast, but I mean, 2 years ago we weren't there for her. She was doing it all on her own trying— Heather, I mean, I would love to know, how did you get your startup money for your business? And, you know, how, you know, because that would— I have a crowdfunding site that's uniquely for food, and, you know, and Part of our learning is obviously helping understand more how people would know we're there and things like that. You know, how you could have benefited from that when you were starting out, or if you need help now, I mean, absolutely reach out. Did you bootstrap it all yourself? Did you get investors? How did you get started?

Just making sure, because this is directed to me, right?

Yes.

Yeah, just making sure. I heard you say Heather. I did. Yeah, it was Twilight.

You know, all the taste in New York, how did you start? You know, where'd you get your funding to start?

Actually, what I actually did is that I kept my quote-unquote day job for a year and a half. Yeah. And I used that to fund it because one of the things that I realized, like I said, it was understanding who my client was, who my demographic was. I learned some costly, costly mistakes. I mean, they were costly lessons. And until I was able to iron out a lot of those kinks, I really did double duty, you know, working throughout the day because a lot of what I do is in the evening. So working throughout the day and then having these events in the evening. It was absolutely continuous. But then I got to the point point where I was just absolutely stunted and I realized that, you know what, all right, this is great, like the security of holding on to what it was during the day, well, that was awesome, but this was never going to grow if I kept doing that. And so we are absolutely at that point where— and that was also one of the reasons that I thought of going, having private events so that it wasn't that much outlay in cash, but at this point where we are looking to grow and franchise ideally, we should have an offline conversation because there are a lot of things that are coming up now that were not issues before, but you know, we're growing and I guess it's a good problem to have.

Yeah, as they say, you know, oh, my diamond shoes are too tight. We're getting bigger. Yeah, it is what you want it to do, but then you sit there and you know, that's some of the challenges We have, you know, we've got the same thing. I'm in the same position as you. I'm not in a position where the day job can go yet, so you're working until 1, 2 in the morning. You're trying to find— I've had phenomenal success with people that just volunteer to help us, you know, with website and, you know, stuff like that, which is— I mean, I'll be honest, I never dreamt people would help in those types of ways, and they have, which is fantastic. And that's what's great about it. There is a point where you kind of have to go whole hog, you know, and as I say, you know, you need to Nike the thing, just do it, you know, and that's, you know, we're hoping to get there sooner versus later, but yeah, and hire people that are there to support you and stuff like that. So are you part of the New York City Women's Culinary Alliance?

Oh my goodness, I cannot say that I am, no.

Oh, well then we will—

they only meet, I have to write this down.

Yeah, well, they— I don't want to disappoint as I just give you a cool tool, but they only take applications in April and May, so unfortunately you just missed it. But I just got in, so I will absolutely keep in touch with you, and I'm super excited to use them and leverage them. But it's, again, it's the New York City Women's Culinary Alliance, so NYC Culinary Alliance, eh?

Thank you. You know, I have to say though, freelancers have been tremendous, tremendous asset to me in my business. Like you mentioned your website and that sort of thing, that has been absolutely huge. And frankly, outsourcing and my website business I mean, it is what it is. What can I say? My website, um, developer, he's known me now for just over 2 years. Um, and he's not going to keep trying to continue the business because my site is constantly being updated. Um, he's out of India, and it's one of those things that allowed me on a smaller budget to be able to be sustainable, frankly.

Yeah, and Crowdsourcing, I don't know how many— crowdfunding is a subset of crowdsourcing and there are some phenomenal resources. If you go to— we used DesignCrowd.com and they did the logo, they did the web design. People are bidding on these jobs and it's crowdsourcing and there's also Elance.com and oDesk where you can get virtual assistants. You pay significantly less in some cases, and when you're a startup, you know, that dollar an hour or $2 an hour can make or break you. So there's some phenomenal resources out there, and, you know, I've learned a lot of them through this social media and Twitter and people reaching out and sharing things, you know, Facebook posts. And, you know, even in Facebook, you know, when you start looking at a couple of these crowdsourcing, then you start to get those tailored adverts from Facebook, and I'm going to be To be honest, I mean, I actually benefit from some of those tailored Facebook ads, and some people don't like them, but they've been very beneficial to me. I've learned about—

I actually like them. I do like them a lot as well. Yeah. And Twitter as well. The Twitter ads have been huge for me too.

Perfect. Good to know. Good to know. I haven't done a Twitter ad yet, so I appreciate knowing that that's helped you.

Yeah, I really, really love the Twitter ads because it Essentially, you would use the people— again, you want to find people who really are interested in your business and not just random individuals. When I'm having an event, I'd like it to go out to relevant people. So essentially, for example, people who follow the Cooking Channel or people who follow Food Network will ideally be interested in me. So I would, there's a way that you can tailor who you want, I guess who I want my Twitter handle to be visible to. So when you get those recommendations, that's really because of the fact that these people are using Twitter ads. And so all of those individuals all of a sudden get to see all the tastes of New York that would probably not have seen them before.

That's a great tip, thank you.

Thank you. Sure.

We have some people that have joined us, Dennis.

We do, and I want to say hi to Onika. How you doing? Thanks for joining us.

Hi Onika.

Hi.

We're happy to have you, and I just want to say a quick hi to Debbie Davis too. Hi Deb, thanks for jumping in.

Hi Debbie. Hey Deb.

Good morning everybody, I had to take myself off mute a second. I've been listening to this conversation as I'm getting I'm getting my Monday morning going and you're firing me up.

Awesome.

Love it.

Yay! Woo-hoo-hoo!

Let's go back to Oneika. Oneika, we're so happy to have you here for Social Media Day and I talked to you briefly before so I'm going to ask you to just tell us a little bit about yourself and your business and what you do.

Well, I have an online parenting blog, it's called The Mommy Factor. I pretty much share resources, product reviews, and day-to-day just thoughts about parenting and anything related to parenting. So I pretty much use social media not only to connect with other parents and other people within social media realm, but just to keep track of things, to keep up on things, find out what brands are doing, everyday life things.

So you're loving the social media thing then?

I love the social media. Social media is very good.

Yes, now have you gotten invested in Google+ much yet or are you still just learning the ropes here?

You know, I started, I like to be an early adopter of technology so when Google+ first came out I hopped right on there. I created a profile for myself, a personal profile and I created a page for my blog. But Google+ is something that you kind of have to use every day. You have to like get to know it, keep up with the updates and things like that and unfortunately I fell off a a little bit. So while I'm on there and I know it, I don't know as much as I could because I haven't been very active with it lately. But hopefully we're going to go right back to that.

I just took a look. It's looking pretty good, Anika.

Thank you. I'm trying.

And I've already posted all the links, so please go circle her right now, everybody.

Excellent.

And what are you doing— do you also say you have a business page on here too? As well, Annika?

Right, but I noticed that the business page doesn't get as much traffic as a personal page, especially in search results with Google Authorship and all these different things. So I mainly concentrate on the personal page and making sure that's active and updated and connecting with people there. It seems a lot of people connect more on their personal page than on their business page, especially if you're like a if you're like a big brand or a big company, your business page might be more active. But if you're more of a personal person, it's most likely your personal profile.

Well, good for you that you're trying because I'm on your Facebook page and I see you've got, you know, 4,100 likes over there. I know your Twitter is active as well. So like you said, you're kind of a, you know, an early responder and trying out something new. And it is a little confusing, I think, for some people on Google+. As far as brands. I know I started off as a brand here and then I just turned it into Mia Voss because it did seem like I could connect with people more when I would talk to them as Mia. And then your message comes across, you've got it in your title too. So have you joined any communities yet on Google+?

I have. I've actually joined a few parenting communities, a few social media communities, and one or two like movies kind of more of a hobby kind of community. And I'm actually really surprised how well those communities are doing for people who aren't necessarily rushing over to Google+. There's still a strong presence. And they share information really well. And it's much, much easier than some other sites. Some other sites make it a little difficult to share information or kind of utilize the site.. But Google Communities are actually really well.

I was surprised by that.

I want to ask you, Onyeka, since you're a blogger, have you shared your blog posts in these communities? And if you have, what kind of response have you received?

Interestingly enough, I have not. When I'm on Google+ or within the Google Communities, it's mostly personal. I do share blog posts from my profile. That's automatic since it's linked to my blog site. But when I'm within the communities, it's more about that connecting, reading what other people are sharing, and just being online. And I think that's one of the things I liked about social media and I kind of miss about social media. A lot of other social media sites— Twitter, Facebook, a whole bunch of them— they're beginning to lose that personal feel. There's a lot of pushing of information, a lot of sharing of information, and that's great, but one thing that I really like is to connect with people, to kind of read what they're talking about or what thoughts they're sharing or something like this. So I don't push my content on Google+ or in the Google communities yet because I still want to enjoy that personal feel it still has.

I'd advise you to continue that way because one of the major problems with some of the communities is they're just big link dumps. Walking into a cocktail party, standing on the table and yelling, look at me, look at me, and there's a thousand tables in the room and everybody's on them doing that. So those are not the communities you want to be in. You're in a good spot and you realize what you need and you're doing it all right. And I always tell people You got hobbies, leave your main focus alone because you know those people already, they know how to find you. But you want to go out there and you want to meet all these other interesting, amazing people in whatever other hobby you have, if it's rocket science, knitting, or cars, or food.

Anything, it can be anything, which is a nice thing.

Whatever the different focus is, find those because everybody always, once they get to know you, ask And what do you do? Or they visit your profile page, so there's your organic, natural follower and someone that you can really relate to.

Yes, Chef's right, you're doing it right, girl.

So where do you, so where in social media do you find that sharing your business part is more beneficial to you?

You know, social media, I think a lot of people people need to understand that you need to find out where your community is. And where your community is, is going to be the place where once you share that information, it's going to be supported, it's going to be shared, it's going to be commented, it's— you're going to have that interaction. For me, I've noticed Twitter and Facebook tends to be where my community is more interactive. People on the blog are coming there to see that information, but in that day-to-day conversation, those two social media platforms work for me. So I usually share a link on Twitter. I'm talking on Twitter anyway, but in between there, I'll share a link, or I'll say, oh, I wrote, you know, this interesting article. What do you think?

Or do you agree?

Do you not agree? Or did you know this? Did you know that? And I'll share it kind of in a natural way. Facebook, It's kind of a little different because even though you can have conversations, it's really more about status. If you're interacting on someone's status, it's a little bit easier, but that free flow like Twitter, it doesn't really happen on Facebook. So it mostly happens that you share something or you post a photo or something, and then you'll get that interaction. So those are the two main places for me that I push When I do push, then I push out the content.

Do you use Facebook communities for networking or for business at all? There's a lot out there that I'm discovering.

There's a lot out there. You know, I would say it's half and half, but mostly I use the Facebook groups and pages and stuff again for more personal connections. I think you naturally begin to get that. Once you know a person and you see what they're doing and you're interacting with them every day, it's going to be natural that you're going to see a post from their blog site or you're going to see a photo from them from Instagram or something like that. So the Facebook sites that I use, the communities that I use tend to be more for either parents or people who live in a certain area of New York, or again, something you have a hobby in, whether it's photography or hiking. I like hiking. You know, I think there's a lot of different ways to utilize those kind of online communities to share your content in a natural way. For me, it really is about using social media in a natural way because I feel like that's the point. It's a social social environment. You know, it's not just like, like you said, you walk into a room and everyone has their business cards out, they're like, okay, here, here, here, here, here, here, here. I'd really rather have a conversation with you, and I'm gonna get that information anyway, right?

I wanted to tell you girls that, and guys, that when I had finally met Onica in person, she was so gracious. I called her Anika for the whole day. And by the time we were looking for a cab to get back to New York City, I turned to her and I said, "Am I just screwing up your name or what?" And she just graciously said, "It's Onika." So every time I say her name Onika, I remember that little encounter in Boston. Onika.

But we were having, in her defense, we were having some many conversations. Like, that wasn't important to me, you know? Like, we were talking about our family, we were talking about what we were doing, we were talking about our thoughts on social media. Like, we were having that conversation. So Onika, Annika, it doesn't matter.

Like, eventually you'll get it.

That's just—

it wasn't a big deal for me.

But that was cute though. And so meeting someone face to face finally, you know, it was just like we were just like, woo-hoo!

Right, right, offline talking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I feel like social media brings you to that point that you already know the person and you get there and you're just exuberant to see that person. That's what social media brings to me is that when we really get into the real life, it's great. Hi, Kay, how are you?

Hi.

That's what's so special about Google+ is that Now we get to see face to face, so when we do meet, we do know each other. No ifs, ands, or buts, you know, except that we never see anybody from the waist down, so it's a surprise to see that we got legs.

I think that's why I created the segment on my show called What's on the Bottom, and I make everybody stand up.

Don't make me stand up today.

That ain't happening today, don't worry.

No, no, no.

Nobody's prepared.

Let's say hi to Kay. Hi, Kay!

Hi, everybody. So great to be part of this. I am a newbie, so please be patient with me.

Oh, believe me, we are patient. I'm having a hard time hearing right now.

Yeah, me too.

Can— okay, everyone say something so we know you're here.

We're all here.

Who's missing? Dennis, can you hear us?

Yeah, I can hear you.

Okay, good. I don't know if I heard Kay. Did you hear Kay?

I'm here. I'm not sure if you can hear me, but I can hear you all loud and clear.

Oh, good. Okay, sound check. That was our 11:56 sound check. Okay. So, Kay, what we're doing is we, you know, when we come on we just say a little bit about what we're doing and we just organically collide into a conversation. So we'd like to hear from what Kay does and her magazine and all that jazz. So take it away.

Oh, thank you so much for being here. I am a little bit scared because this is really my first time to do Google Hangout. So far it looks good, but what we really do is we We try to marry food and fashion here in the Bay Area. So we have a magazine called Chev, and a lot of people say Chev because they can't say the whole word, which means Gastronomie Canville. So Chev is so much easier for them. But I've been super blessed to have the community of the food and wine and local fashion just embraced the concept. And we really started this about 3 years ago when we attended New York Fashion Week there, and we discovered there were lots of people, designers, fashion designers, models, makeup artists, who were from the Bay Area, but they felt they had to go to New York to make a name for themselves. Themselves. So I figured, you know what, New York is a totally special place for fashion, and I figured maybe if we put together something in the Bay Area where the fashion is elevated in the same manner that food and wine is, then that sort of separates them from all the rest of the fashion going on around the state. But we're so We're so blessed because over the span of 2 years, we've received so much readership from all over the world, which is a global magazine. And Katie has been one of those individuals that I have yet to meet.

We'll be meeting in October.

Yay!

Yes. We do a lot of food and wine chats. And just a really nice gal, and it's so great to be able to connect to other nice people online. So thank you so much, guys, for having me here.

We're thrilled to have you, Kay, we really are. Let's just talk about how you use social media with your magazine. What platforms do you use a lot integrating with putting out your content, and how do you do that?

Well, we really do a lot of social media, and I think that's the whole reason why the magazine now has been just getting that much spread all across the globe. We do a lot of food and wine events, so if there's like a wine-making dinner here or a gala that benefits a local charity, but that's is going to be attended by the rock star chefs, we normally are there, and then we live broadcast the whole event through social media. So we love Instagram, we love Twitter, because Twitter enables us to use the hashtags to engage with the attendees at the event. Facebook is awesome for photos. The next day we publish events Photos, Google Plus, I still have to get the hang of Google Plus, but I'm seeing how in search engines photos or news items that you publish to Google Plus most likely end up in the first search.

Oh, that's great.

So I am embracing Google a lot now, and then Pinterest because I work with a lot of creative people, so when we put together a photo shoot, we come up with a Pinterest board, so it's a mood inspiration board. So this summer is all about fashion, summer fashion, and pairing music with wine. So that's an interesting— we're covering a lot of summer wine events and concerts now.

Now, do you feel as though you receive a lot of traffic because of Pinterest?

I do, I get a lot of Pinterest because you know how Pinterest has the ability to become viral right away because if you post a photo there and you have a lot of followers, it also most often than not, it ends up on search engines easier than Instagram. So Pinterest is awesome, I highly recommend Pinterest, and also, well, Instagram, Instagram to me, when video came in with Instagram, that made it more engaging because people can actually talk and we can do all these cool slideshows and most of the vintners and chefs, they really appreciate that, so they just retweet that or share it with their followers too.

Because your images are beautiful.

They are.

Thank you so much.

I was waiting for you to get all excited when she brought up the wine and the fashion. I was fanning out over here.

Listen, Kay and I, we have some things planned. I'm going to be out there and we're going to begin and end, I don't know where.

I think we need to get that tour bus headed and then just take it coast to coast.

I think so.

I think that sounds like a good plan.

Kay knows all about what's happening out there. She's a good point woman. Very good, very good. Have fun.

Thank you, Kathleen. Anytime you guys are here in the Bay Area, you know, there's so much stuff going on, and a lot of the food and wine events here are really fun because they benefit a cause. And, you know, I'm not sure if you've heard of the Batkid, but that was started by Make-A-Wish Foundation. And so all the chefs in the city and the whole of San Francisco they'll just turn into Gotham City for a day for this kid. So I like, you know, stories like that. I also have to be inspired as a writer. So it's not just about food and wine, you know, the story that goes along with how a dish is plated or where your food is coming from. So those are really important for me.

That— I find that very interesting. I like from farm to table. I love those kind of stories, and I like to be able to promote people that, you know, have those businesses, especially with all the allergies that we deal with in our family. I like to find out all the origins of where things come from. So what you're telling me is great news for me. I'd like to hear more.

Yes, and hopefully I get to visit the East Coast soon. We would love to expand the food and wine scene there as well.

That would be great. Anybody have any questions for Kay? I can't hear anybody.

I want to see if we had any comments from the crowd too. So Kay, what was your inspiration on starting this? That's my standard question because I can just tell everybody again gets so excited, and this is kind of an unusual combo.

I like it.

Well, really it was New York Fashion Week when we met all of these people from the Bay Area. So I've been a food and wine writer for the longest time. I started back in Asia, did a lot of travelogues, did a lot of— but food really didn't inspire me that much over there. So when I transferred here, was like the next best thing for me. And I also found that, you know, Kathy knows this, I have a number of medical issues that I have to deal with. And food to me is very healing. You know, the whole process, I'm not sure Chef if you'd agree with me, but there's something about it that's such, so therapeutic, preparing food, just preparing it with love, having it served to your loved ones. So that's really my first and foremost, my passion. And when, you know, along the way of my food writing career, I met photographers, and of course they were contributors, but they were also experimenting with portraits and fashion. I said, wow, wouldn't that dish be just enticing if there's this gorgeous, graceful woman in the backdrop? And so that's sort of what really started it.

Muted, sorry. You know, you earlier in the show, that theme has come up too. We've all— it's food. We all love food. Process, you're right, of preparing it. I mean, that's got, that's got such a soothing thing to it as well. So I— it's such a theme for everybody too. I mean, even we have a show called Food and Booze, but even if you don't like booze, everybody loves food. I mean, it just— but you know, it, there is a comfort level to it. So, but what an interesting combo. And of course, yes, the New York Fashion Week, that is just a crazy thing to experience.

So I know, who's blown up?

I don't know, people are texting us all over the place.

I think they're all excited about Kay.

So Kay—

It's really funny, Kathleen, if I may add, when we did the New York Fashion Week a few years ago, we found that some of these designers, like really high-end designers, were also foodies. So that's like an interesting part. And Manolo Blahnik Block had a mobile milkshake truck of the finer milkshakes that Sarah Jessica Parker was offering that same time. So there was a lot of cross. Zach Posen is a hope—

is doing—

I'm not sure how you pronounce his name, but Isaac Mizrahi is doing a Kickstarter project with Jacques Pépin right now. So there's some crossing over that we're seeing, and it's like that's the trend and we just want to follow it. We want to empower them.

Well, throughout this event today with all of our guests, that's what we've noticed most, is that there's such a crossover with food and fundraising. And if people watch it from start to finish today, we'll see that how all that just comes together. So, but the fashion element is most interesting here because that's different. So have you guys, do you have plans coming over here for the Fashion Week in New York this year?

So what I do is I have correspondence right now and they talk cover New York Fashion Week, and so they send me all the stuff. I have an editor who loves to travel, so she's going to be taking care of that. We plan out all of our content for issue 6 months in advance. So this coming weekend, we're also covering Paris Fashion Week, and we have correspondence doing that already. We never run out of content, that's the thing. It's just too much.

So, go ahead.

Yeah, so with the fashion, you know, it's like, it's one thing to have fashion, and then food and wine all together is this huge subject to begin with. So I, it sometimes is a challenge to try to mix both, but I have to confess that I love the food and wine industry more just because people are just really so grounded and they're so passionate about what they do, and it's all about service, it's all about You know, it's not the focus, but they're easy.

So your editorial calendar must be brimming. So my question to you is, how much— how do you weigh that as far as where to disperse your content onto the different social media platforms? Like, we'll use, for example, images. Do you try to put things images out percentage-wise across the social media platforms. We were learning yesterday at one of the sessions Dennis had this weekend on Instagram that one of the Instagram users were talking about putting out about 2 per day. Dennis, is that what she said?

Yeah, she said no more than 2.

No more than 2.

Unless you're at an event and you've got things streaming. And, you know, and I noticed too, you know, I'll see something all of a sudden and somebody takes over your Instagram stream for a while and they're posting almost the same picture over and over and over again, right? Does get a little tedious. I like to support them, but I mean, I will only plus one of them, maybe two of them, and scroll through.

So how do you approach that, Kay, with your with all the events that you do, where do you disperse, how do you disperse, how do you decide that?

So for, say for example we're talking about a fashion show, we have correspondents. I don't do my social media with Instagram, I have interns right now who go to the event and then they do live broadcast. So say for example it's a fashion show they will take photos, but they will only choose about 5 designers or highlights of the show that they're going to publish on Instagram, and that sort of spreads it out to Twitter and Facebook. You know, you don't have— it's really easy because Instagram has that ability to connect to your Facebook, to your Twitter, and to all of their social media. I didn't know that you can connect it to Google+, so I'll try that now. And then we also have a separate photographer who just does photography, and then he edits it, and then we watermark it, and then the next day, boom, all the event photos are on our Facebook page, and that gets viral. So in terms of content, it It really depends on the images. We can use as much as we want, but we also have standards. So if it's not—

That was my next question.

Yeah.

Well, there are some images there that are not really flattering for anybody. We tend to be a little bit— when we try to get their numbers, we get their calling cards, their business cards, and of course we ask them if this can be published, because last 2 years we've had to deal with quite a few of those people where they said, please don't publish my photos, you know, I'm with somebody I don't want anybody to see that, or it's going to be detrimental to their jobs because they're holding a glass of wine. So those, those we have to like, we're still working on it. But with regards to 2 years ago, I think we pretty much dialed it in, and then we just, it's, it's, uh, we don't have a manual Katie, but we just sort of looked at it. We have about 3 people looking at the image, and we have an art director, we have a graphic layout team. This is for the magazine, so all the images that get published will go through about 5 people's eyes.

Well, that's what I wanted to know.

Yeah.

That's very interesting, and, well, Instagram I usually pump, one time I was guilty of what Dennis said, this was when I was an early user and I think I put about 5 out and my children in their 20s said, "Mom, mom, you never do that, never, never, never." And I said, "Oh, okay." And then when I started really using it I realized yes, that would be not a good thing to do. As far as Pinterest is concerned, Do you have a set, do you post regularly there or do you just do it with an event or how do you feel with that?

With Pinterest, what we really use Pinterest for is for mood boards. So say for example this summer we want to do a swimwear photo shoot at a winery, so we put together images in a board and that's our basis, like, okay, so maybe when we start casting for models, we look for a blonde because she'd be perfect for the color tone and for the color scheme of the swimwear designer. So those little things, but that's not really my job, that's the director of photography's job, and I would just sign me up for any food and wine event, but when it comes—

sounds good to me—

putting together a fashion editorial shoot, boy, that is a TV show right there with all the personalities and all of the different logistical issues that come with a fashion shoot.

Well, we'll have to collaborate on my visit out there to see if we could possibly go to one of these events, and I could see you operate in in all of your splendor.

Plus, would be the perfect format for your events.

Yes, I really would.

I mean, you get yourself one of those microphones like reporter has with your little logos going around it and do live interviews or do pictures of the fashions, you know, the live shows. It would be— it would just blow people away. You would get a lot, a lot of new—

absolutely.

And now, Kathleen, I think it's getting close to time for you to head to New York City, isn't it?

Yeah, but I have to get out there and get in the heat, and I cannot wait to eat all that wonderful food. Just rub it in, rub it in.

It's gonna be karma.

New York City, mmm, they promised me so much today to eat, and we are going to be interviewing today, Chef. We will be interviewing the director of the culinary. Go ahead, tell us.

Yes, we will. I'm sorry that my mind has turned to pudding because I've been on 16 HOAs.

Yes, you have.

I'm going to jump in real quick. I want to just pull up a comment. I'm going to read a comment from Sean Monaher. He says, so Kathleen DeCosmo, I think you need your own show. Great host flow and good questions, and you make the guests feel so at ease.

Oh, it makes me feel better before I go.

I'm bat crap crazy. You are crushing it. I don't know what you're worried about. I don't know if you were, but don't be.

Oh, yes, and petrified. Breaking out with a sweat now heading into New York City. And tonight we have a whole nother thing. Kay, you'll be participating in that as well, but we'll be having a hangout, and if you want to drop by, if you feel really energetic, will be on tonight, right guys?

And it's Glenn Rolnick.

And having a good old time, absolutely. It's a full day we got going on, a full meal deal.

Yep, so I'm gonna say so long to you guys. It was great chatting with you all, and I'll see you in a few hours in New York City, okay?

We're gonna stay on for a little while.

We have more guests coming on.

See you later. Okay, take it easy. Bye-bye.

Yes, bye. Okay, I just posted the link everyone. So it's Kay Klautmann and if you look on the event link, we've got her Twitter, her Pinterest page, Facebook page and of course her Google+. Please go check it out. Wow, your Pinterest page is an eye candy smash. I love it.

Oh, thank you so much Mira. It's the work of many people so I won't take credit for that but thank you. I will let them know.

Please do, and I love how you're talking about the different people that you do have involved in it. It does take a village. You can see it from this because you're again putting these two things together and reading the description on Pinterest. It's a magazine, a quarterly food and fashion digital magazine catering to upmarket foodies and fashionistas all over the globe. Brilliant.

Thank you so much, Mia, and thank you so much, guys, for having me. I will see you later on. On today for more food and wine chat.

Oh, that would be great. I appreciate it. And again, we've got all her links. Please go post it. And then I actually tweeted a picture of you, and I'm going to retweet it to @Cloudwoman as well because I know that's your other handle on Twitter. So we'll get that out there to you.

And we will definitely talk more to you about doing some of these Google Hangouts.

We will.

And actually, Kay, I am planning a show with the theme of fashion. Believe it or not, I'm in Denver and there's a couple of people who were on the— oh gosh, I just forgot the fashion show with Heidi Klum.

Project Runway.

Project Runway. I can't even believe— Mondo is from here as well as some other folks. So I'm kind of thinking about having a fashion show and I would love to have you on. I'm just going to pimp myself out to you right on air. How about that? That's— this is part of the networking.

Get—

this is get stuff done. So we'll definitely be in touch with you, but thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me. Chef Dennis, I look forward to doing more stuff with you in the future.

Absolutely, we will definitely talk more about this.

Alright, thank you guys.

Alright, sounds good. And we just had Gillian join us. How you doing?

It's Jillian.

Jillian, I'm sorry.

That's quite all right.

Today's the day of jack people's names up, just so you know.

We got Onika right and I messed that one up. My brain is like pudding. This is number 14 over HOAs in the space of the last 4 days. I have 2 more to do today.

Yes.

How's it going?

It's going good. So, well, go ahead.

No, I was actually going to pull up Jillian's info because I'm getting ready to post all of it. Tell us about you, where you're out of, and what you do.

So I'm in New York City and I have a company called La La Lunchbox and we have two meal planning apps for kids and parents. So one is— our first is La La Lunchbox and it's all about planning and packing a healthy lunch. And our second app is called Lala Breakfast and it's the same concept but for breakfast.

I just want to say Lala Lunchbox a lot. It just feels so good coming out of my mouth. Lala Lunchbox. Can I ask how you came up with that name?

It's a funny story actually. So I had the concept of the company, I had developers who were building the app for me and I didn't have a name. And one day, so I had one child at the time, I now have three. I had one child at the time and I was playing an old Sesame Street album that I used to listen to as a kid. And there's one for the letter L and it's Bert and Ernie and it's all about la la la la.

And it's like the inspiration for all of it.

I love it.

I'm definitely old enough to remember the Bert and Ernie, so that's fantastic.

I love it.

Who doesn't love Bert and Ernie? I'm sorry.

Exactly. It looks like you were getting ready to post all of your links, so tell us a little bit more about it. Did you start off with the breakfast or with obviously the lunchbox portion?

I started off with lunch because it's it's a much more vocalized problem in this country.

I was about to say the hot mess of school lunches.

Yeah, you know, also particularly for people who are trying to pack a healthy lunch or pack a balanced lunch and, you know, just the hectic day-to-day nature of life with a family and, you know, with jobs or without jobs regardless, it's really hard to keep a hold of it. So the concept is really to empower your children to let you know what they want. And it's a really teachable moment. So your kid could say, hey, Mom, I want 6 cookies tomorrow for lunch. And obviously, that's not going to fly. So you empower your kids by handing over your phone, which kids are apt to want. Want anyway. And through very kid-friendly user interface, they choose their meals for the week, and their choices become a grocery list for parents. So a super handy tool for parents, and it's a way for children to be involved in their meal planning, which over time really helps them understand not only the building blocks of a healthy lunch, but it also helps them understand what their taste preferences are.

Sure.

And just through the visual design of the app, it helps them to see foods and choices that might not be top of mind otherwise. So I've had a lot of customer feedback that tells me, "Gee, my children are eating celery now because of your app and they never even thought about celery and now when we're in the store they say, you know, gee mom, I want that, I saw that on the app. So it's really helping children to move past their comfort zone and so in doing so it gets them out of that picky eating rut.

And it's so interesting, from my age range too, I mean that was so not a choice for us as a kid, right? I mean, you absolutely— it was anathema to say anything to your parents of like, "I don't like that." We grew up like you eat what's on the table. I think it took a while for people from our generation to learn what the food is. I love this empowerment element to it. You're not giving the power away to the kids that they're just randomly running the show. You're just saying, "You find out what it is that you like and how can them. I think that's brilliant, Jillian.

Well, thank you. It actually promotes the dialogue that needs to happen in this country, I feel. You know, there's no way that we can teach our children or the next generation of people, you know, growing up and understanding their food preferences. There's no way that they will be able to learn about balanced meals without this kind of conversation And so Lala Lunchbox and also Lala Breakfast are conduits for parents to have that conversation with their children. It's a natural teaching moment. So, you know, I think so. The foods that show up in the protein category, for example, you know, children might not know what a protein is, and they know now that, you know, roasted turkey is a protein and also sun butter is a protein. Protein, and, you know, nuts are a protein, or, you know, apples are not. So apples are fruits, and that's why they show up in the fruit category.

I love it. I should have warned you, by the way, I'm Instagramming everybody and getting these fun little shots of you, and then I'm going to tweet it out. So when I'm doing— Super. I've got a double screen, so I've got two Jillians.

Super.

But that is an empowerment thing as well.

Absolutely.

I think we've got— we grew up again with the pyramid, which looks completely different, obviously, than when a lot of us were kids. There needs to be a lot more of an education component just based on GMOs and that it's not easy to eat healthy anymore. It's more pricey. Yeah, getting them educated on that.

The apps are designed to be really really fun for kids and so the purpose of that is to kind of remove the burden of, you know, lunch planning is thought of in so many homes as such a chore, right? The app has fun monsters and colors and chomping sounds and, you know, great things.

I'm going to pull up your Facebook page real quick so you can see it because it is adorable. Look at that, you guys.

Can you see that?

Thank you.

That is too cute. What you're saying is exactly what I'm seeing.

So if you look at my website, there's on the— in fact, I can show you the links, but on the tutorial page, there's, you know, it'll take you through everything. It shows you it's very easy to use, and so I'm involved in the allergy community because because I have some really serious food allergies which were really unheard of when I was growing up. But I'm very sensitive to allergy needs, and so everything in both of our apps are completely customizable, and they are— you can add, modify, or change every food that shows up depending on your allergy needs. Your religious needs, you know, your dietary preferences, etc. So it's completely customizable, and that makes it really handy for parents. So I've heard just so many customers say the ability to customize is really critical, you know, and some of it is, I don't want my kids to have cookies during the day, and I totally get that, and You know, some of it is we can't have nuts in our house, and I totally get that too. And so we have built in that feature to enable customization completely.

I think that's very alienating for a lot of people, especially if they grew up with it and it wasn't, you know, you just didn't know why you felt so badly, right? For a long time, like, why don't I feel good? And it's so alienating. So this seems like something that would bring a lot of people feeling better and as adults getting empowered too. Like, I don't have to feel so isolated. I can feel better and there's easy ways to solve it because I don't— I have minor food allergies, but I can't imagine what kind of chore that can feel like or just overwhelming. It's hard enough to feed ourselves. We're busy people.

Yeah, it's hard. You know, it's— there are challenges on every turn. Of the food highway. And, you know, from our perspective, we aimed to create technology that would make some of it a little bit easier. So that's really our goal. And, you know, we're hoping to just empower the next generation of healthy eaters through technology and to make life a little bit easier for parents along the way. And, uh, Hopefully there's some impact there.

It sounds like you are. Debbie Davis is down, I don't know if you see her down in the film strip, she's joining us. She's one of our favorites in Google+. Debbie, I didn't know if you had any comments for Jillian, if you wanted to pop in.

I just want to say that one, I am not a— I'm not fond of food, but you have to eat it. Mia, you said everybody loves food.

Except Debbie Davis apparently.

Yeah, I'm not really fond of food, but what is fun is getting on these shows and then watching all these different approaches to food. So with the Food and Booze Show, all of a sudden I'm a lot more fond of food than I have been in a long time. And that's on the food side of it. And then, Jillian, when I hear people like you who are using social media in such an effective efficient and effective way to support your business message, your business strategy. And that's just— it's not an easy thing to do to get businesses. And maybe you started your business after you were already comfortable with social media.

In fact, I learned along the way.

Okay, and that you were receptive to it, you were open to it, you recognized the possibilities of it, and you're doing it, and you're doing it beautifully. And so it's nice to have you as a model when I'm working with a client that says, I want to use social media but I don't know where to start. And I'd be like, well, take a look at how this lady did it.

I think about—

I'm sorry. Social media is such a powerful tool, and for me as a small business owner, it's a really powerful channel for customer feedback. So, you know, when someone sends me a message on Facebook or on Twitter about, you know, a comment that they have about one of my apps, it's immediate, it's an opportunity for me to engage with them, and it's, you know, I'm so grateful for social media, and I like to think of it as just an ongoing dialogue that I'm able to have with customers with other people in my field and it really opens up the world in all new ways.

And you know, you just hit the nail on the head. You said it's a great tool for customer feedback and it allows you to engage rather than a lot of people who think that social media is for broadcasting and marketing and advertising and selling. You never said those words once. You talked about the engagement and listening, which is gathering the feedback or hearing the feedback. Again, I just applaud you on a beautiful use of social media for business purposes. Onica was also talking earlier, and I was jotting down notes, how she just gets on there and she's sociable. Social media is not for business. For doing business transactions. It's not a transaction, a stage for transactions. And so everybody I've heard from today on this show, I'm so glad I was able to tune in, has just been great, giving great testimonials about how they've used social media to support them, not to sell them.

I think that when you're true to yourself, your conversations on social media are reflective of that and, you know, people can see through the crap, really. You know, I don't want to use social media as a way to just broadcast myself because I think that my customer, if I don't listen to my customers, I'm not going to have any. So I'm really grateful for social media and the power of social media and the conversations that I'm able to have on social media. So, you know, thanks for having me today.

Yes. And I think that it's so easy to get your message out there because there are people that need it. So you don't even have to— you don't have to bullhorn necessarily. Just keep doing what you're doing and putting that out there, and then you get these raving fans that talk about it. Themselves, so they're more spreading the word for you, which is always fantastic.

We're very happy to have you here, and I hope you enjoy using Google+. We'll have to get you on and talking more about your message.

Thank you so much.

Yes, and we posted all of your links on the event here. Feel free to interact on it too. We'll put the link on there, and then I'm going to tweet a picture of you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me this morning. It was a real pleasure.

Oh, we had fun.

Thank you.

Our brother Greg Trullio here has joined. How you doing, Greg?

Doing great, and yourself?

Pretty good.

I love your new banner there. It's a little Star Wars-y.

Oh yeah, Dustin Stout made it for us when Mia was doing her May the Fourth Be With You show.

Yeah, I can't remember what mine says. Mine's like ambassador or something. I bust that one out once once in a while too. I need to find that one.

I think it's Ambassador of Awesome.

It might be Ambassador of Awesome. I was pretty excited about it. Nerd alert.

Well, I hope you're ready to come over tonight and help me drink some wine.

Oh, definitely. I've been practicing for the last couple of days, making sure that I can put away a whole bottle to myself.

We have 6 bottles. I think you're going to take some home with you.

You know what?

We're going to have Battle of the Gregs Tonight because my Greg will be here too. And so, well, you know, I was like, maybe you better get home and drink this wine with me. I got 6 bottles. Mama loves her booze, but not that much. So we'll have the two Badland Gregs drinking the wine.

Sounds like a great idea.

It should be fun.

Did you have any comments for Jillian? By the way, she's still on with us. I don't know if you saw her talking about her business.

I caught a little bit. I actually just got on to Google+ when I logged in and said hey, so I'm actually going to have to go back and catch some of the replay.

Yes.

But very interested in what she's doing, and I'm happy that she found Google+, and she seems to be soaking it in like everybody else. When you first discover the people here, it's amazing. Amazing, the connections that you can make, and it's my primary form of, you know, what I call— I don't even call it marketing, it's networking. I'm getting to know people, and I don't sell directly to anybody either. It's all word of mouth, it's the friends of friends, and that sort of thing. You know, I'd rather build a relationship and get to know somebody than try and cram my products down their throat.

Yes, I agree.

Very nice to meet you.

Friends and family approach. We'll have to print coupons for Google Plus, you know. So we have been having— I've been having a bit of a marathon. You know, yesterday I did the— well, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I did the conference, so I busted out 12 HOAs, and it was still coherent by the last one, much to my surprise. And I still had a voice. And then today we've had this 3-hour— in a couple hours we're gonna have Kathleen and Susan Sarah meet us at Carmine's while we waste away here. Oh my God.

I've got to eat beforehand. As soon as we're done, I'm gonna go— I'm heading down the kitchen because it will be— it will be hangry fest if I don't. If I'm watching those two at Carmine's New York and I haven't gotten a little grub in, I probably should do it just for entertainment entertainment value. Like Mia at full 100% hangry.

I don't want to see Mama hungry because Mama will cut you if she's hungry.

Mama will cut you. And for those of you who don't know what hangry is, that's being hungry and angry at the same time.

I think those go hand in hand. I suffer from that a lot. Whenever I'm mad, I just try and eat something.

Mm-hmm.

You know, food has a—

Snickers was on to something with that commercial. Remember? You know, those Snickers commercials when they've got like, do you need to eat They were smart. What did you say, Sheffy?

Oh, I forget now. I can function at this level.

I'm sorry.

Girl!

I can just imagine trying to drink all that wine on an empty stomach.

Oh yeah, yeah. No, I am going to be making some chicken wings for you guys tonight too. I did pick up some organic wings, and I'll be serving those up with some little snacks. We have to eat something while we're drinking.

I'm gonna have to bring Google Glass then and nerd out and post pictures of the awesomeness that you're inviting us into.

Well, it'll just be— Lisa saw the writing on the wall and said, you know, I'm not gonna see you for 4 days, so I might as well go to Philadelphia. So she's up there enjoying her friends and family up there while she left me to my my own. And she asked, how's the house? Because she's worried you guys are coming over. She's worried that you'll see it. And I said, it's fine. I've been living in two rooms, the bedroom and my office.

Okay, please tell me the bathroom got in there.

Well, yeah, the bathroom's always in there, which I've been ordered to clean before you guys come over.

So, uh, that is so funny.

You said she'll ask Carolyn for a full report on the cleanliness of the Oh man.

I love it. Sheffy, who's coming up next for us?

Well, we have 2 more, we have 2 guests. Amy Valpone was going to try and join us from where she's working and evidently that isn't going to happen. And then I did invite the Happy Wives Club in and I was hoping that they would be able to join us and we're still waiting but you know, it's party time here on Google+ and we're having a good time.

Well, let me see if I can with this goofy— I'm going to swear, sorry— this goofy-ass Q&A that's on here. Let's see if we've got— I want to just go through some comments. They may be a little bit out of context. Oh, Karen Seeger says, "Hi, I need chicken wings." So that was random, right?

That was someone when Kathleen was talking about the wings under her seat.

Yeah, exactly. So what— but now can segue in with your conversation. Miss Irene Brody She says, "Give me a beep beep when the coach passes Glasgow, please, Chef." The trip sounds like a lot of fun. That was in referring to— was that the one? No, that was the New York gal, the one that does trips out. I can't even keep straight. There are so many awesome people. I love it that Lee was still talking about his dishwasher, which cracked me up, getting in trouble for that. I think that's probably about it. Matthew Rappaport. I don't know why he didn't come in, brother man. I'm going to dog shame you for not coming in. And then of course Jason mentioned Carmine's. He's pretty excited about that. Jason Frasco was watching too.

I hear you.

I'm just inviting some people in for this last part of it.

Okay, that sounds good. You know what? I have to tell you, it went pretty well. We had, you know, we're coming up on about 19 minutes.

Before.

Is that what you have too, Sheffy?

Yep, we've almost completed Circuit.

Now that we have Jillian on here still, I want to ask her. Now Jillian, I can't remember, did you say you've been on a Hangout before, sweetie?

I haven't, so I'm just kind of poking around.

Yes, tell her about it, what we do.

Well, we call that popping your HOA cherry. We just did. How about I show you something real quick? Exactly, and if you If you would like a tiara, if you wave your cursor over to the left-hand side, Jillian, you'll see Google Effects. It's a yellow box that looks like little stars.

Uh-huh.

And you can goof around with that. I think we should actually— now it's time in the show when we do goof around a little bit while we're waiting for guests. What do you say, guys?

Well, I was just going to say, you didn't offer that tiara to Greg.

Well, he knows how to find his own tiara.

I'm more of a pirate.

You are more of a pirate. A pirate. That is true. Why don't you bust out the monocle? Are you seeing it, Jillian? You can put on glasses and hat.

I am vlogging it here.

Exactly. I am going to do my favorite sound. Sheffy, this is for you for rocking out with your sock out for the last 3 days. Okay, somebody turned on the draw function. Do not draw a mustache on me. I will cut you.

Oh no, no, that is for me.

Oh, is that for you?

Okay.

I was going to say Debbie Davis is going to take some pictures. Why not show people how much of a We have so much fun in our Google Hangouts. And Jillian, all 3 of these folks, I do all types of like, just not Hangouts on Air, but just Hangouts, and we just have gotten to know each other so well that these kind of things are such a natural thing. Oh, there it is.

Hi.

I love it.

She's feeling it. Feeling the magic.

Oh, I love it.

And don't feel awkward, Jillian. Mia Voss was my first as well. Mia and Christine and Krithika.

Yeah, that didn't quite sound right.

3 times, goodness gracious. I apologize in advance to the girlfriend. All right, now I'm gonna really do some photos because this is gonna be even better of— oh, and Sheffy with his dog hat, this could be an auto awesome, I'm just saying.

I'm dogging it, I'm dogging it.

You are, exactly. So yes, what other functions Can we show Jillian while we're on here? You can do a lower third, you've got your lower third on. She's way ahead of the game.

And she sees I'm on the beach there, did you notice?

I did, I love that. Oh, I caught that hat, Jillian.

Oh my gosh, that is hilarious, too funny.

Alright, so I'll ask you another social media question. Jillian, what is your favorite place to be right now? I mean, obviously you're trying out Google Hangouts, but where do you feel like you've got the most voice on social media?

On Twitter.

On Twitter?

Yeah.

Okay, yeah, I can see that.

I think that the response time on Twitter is really great for me, and I'm having a lot more success engaging with organizations and customers on Twitter. On Facebook, I find the changes to the algorithm a challenge to keep up with. So Twitter is for me.

You know, and it's so fun. I'm just popping through.

I have no idea what that is.

That was me, sorry.

I thought the ditch-a-hazard were coming on. Is it time for that? I'm going to have to leave.

That was telling me I got to leave.

I was like, yeah, banjos make me run too, just so you know. Debbie, thank you so much for being with us today. I appreciate it.

It was fun. Thank you guys.

Have a great day.

I'll talk to you later. Bye-bye.

Bye.

Jillian, looking at your picture, yeah, I can definitely see how this is this is a great medium for you on Twitter because you're able to just share all these different things. I saw that you shared Applegate. I'm a huge fan of Applegate because I'm also—

We're partners.

I work with Applegate. I'm actually very proud to work with Applegate because I—

Are you business dating Applegate?

I am.

No, we have a partnership. And I, and they have several of their products in both of my apps, and I feel really great about it. I care very much about working with mission-based companies, and they're a lovely one to work with.

You know, I am so excited you're saying that because I really try to find— I mean, I'm from the Midwest, so I'm contractually obligated to eat meat.

I just—

it just It's in my bones. I will say I really do try to find alternative methods because I'm so anti-commercial farming that I love that Applegate is something that I could get without having to go to— I can find it in Safeway. Of course, I can go to Whole Foods, but I love it that it just seems like they— if I'm going to have bacon, pork, things like that, turkey, I don't feel a conflict about it. To be quite honest with you. It really is something that kind of— that's one of my things that I really try and pay attention to. So like buying Oscar Mayer or buying some of these commercially farmed places that I know just have horrible practices for animal care. Applegate really appeals to me for that.

Yeah, their products are something that we can all feel good about. And beyond that, from a business perspective, They are such nice people. It's a pleasure doing business with them.

I'm going to tweet that you just gave them a shout out. Applegate, our positive Applegate talk, that's fantastic. What other companies are you really liking, let's say, that you're endorsing on La La Lunchbox?

Well, I also work with a company called Peeled Snacks, which I feel terrific about. Talk about a healthy snack. So Peeled Snacks has gently dried fruits and there's nothing added. So there's no added refined sugars, there's no sulfur, they're just dried mangoes, dried figs, dried apricots, you know, whatever.

Nice.

And they're delicious. You know, a great choice for a snack for adults and kids, and I'm really proud to feature them on our snack category also. So, and beyond that, you know, I'm always, yeah, I take the products that I purchase for my own home very seriously, and so, you know, I'm always looking to connect with like-minded businesses, and maybe social media is the way to do it.

Mm-hmm.

But those are the two companies that we feature on our—

How fun!

You can, you can be a brand ambassador for everything because you just get so excited. It's things that you can use in your company, and then you're finding products that, that you really like too. I forgot to ask you, now, do your kids have any dietary issues as well, or any, any allergies?

So my youngest is 21 months today, actually.

Happy birthday!

And she can't eat dairy or berries, which is such a shame, especially in the summertime. But, um, it does— she doesn't have anaphylaxis, which is really good.

Yeah, that's the swell.

I have anaphylaxis, and apparently my kids have like a 70% chance of having it, and I'm really fortunate that they seem to have fallen into the other 30%.

Excellent.

Strong hubby genes?

I guess so.

Thank you.

You're like, whatever it is, I'll take it. Now, would those have appeared by now, or is that something that can appear later on in life?

Like the top 9 most common food allergens, they would have appeared already.

Excellent. So you're— yeah, I—

and I don't—

I have not introduced my youngest to nuts or peanuts or fish. Fingers crossed.

Yes. I will say my boyfriend is actually allergic to fruit, and it's a sad—

Really?

Yep.

Big G, he just said— I think he's coming in the door, by the way. Big G, it just does not make him feel good. I have to learn, especially when I'm on a juicing kick, it's really hard because I'm like, taste this. And he's like, no.

Taste it.

No. And then I just feel like a jerk because I'm like, I'm sorry. Because you do. You get so excited, especially summertime. We're just talking about you like you're not here, talking about your berry thing. We're still on air, by the way, if you'd like to say hello. Not a bit.

He just turned his camera off. He's camera shy. You wouldn't think that.

No, wait till we get some booze in him tonight. There will not be camera shy.

I want to see some hats on him later then.

Yes, absolutely.

Don't forget Mickey's hands too, the big hands.

Oh, that's right. We need to get the Mickey hand. The Mickey hands will come out tonight with the booze. This is— Jillian, you haven't seen— this is one of my favorite things. I haven't busted this out the whole time.

That is crazy.

Wait, are you in New York?

I'm in Denver. Oh. Yeah. We're kind of all over.

I'm in Orlando.

Yeah. And so Greg's in Orlando too, the other Greg.

Hi, Greg.

Not your Greg.

My Greg is right here.

Yeah, we don't mean it as in my Greg, we mean the local Greg.

We're calling them the different Gregs.

We're clarifying that.

Yes, exactly. It is, I will tell you, it is a wonderful place to be. We have so many great farmers markets here too, a lot of farm-to-table companies as well, so it's a pretty fun place to be for food. Absolutely. Where are you out of again, Jillian? So you're in New York, right?

I'm in New York.

Oh man, we were just talking about that. Are you in the city or are you outside?

I am in the city and I just took my 3 kids to the farmer's market this morning.

You did?

Which one?

Great fun.

So where do you live in the city?

I live in Manhattan.

But where in Manhattan?

Oh, I live near Central Park.

Oh fun, which side? See, I used to live there, so I'm going to pick your brain. Are you West Side?

I'm on the East Side.

Oh, fun. Which farmers market did you go to?

Union Square.

Oh man, that is such a hoot.

Yay.

We were talking about the farmers market shuffle today, that slow little shuffle you do, you know. What were you going to say, Chefie?

I said I love farmers markets. And the ones that we have are so far away from here that it's not easy to get to. Is that open every day, the Union Square one?

It's not. It's Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

That's still a lot though.

That's great because usually a lot of ours only have it on the weekends, so you kind of have to, have to plan that out. Now there's definitely some— I think we've got some co-ops as well. Which are great, but it's interesting because I don't know if you've been to Denver, but it is— have you? I do love it. I've been here almost 20 years. It is beautiful, but everybody thinks it's in the mountains, but we literally are sort of on the plains. It's— we're just right next to the mountains, but it is at that 5280 elevation, so it's the high elevation, but we've got a lot of farmland around us, so it's kind of cool. We were able to— there's a lot of, you know, natural ranchers, great ranchers, and a lot of farmers too. So it's pretty cool. We got the best of both worlds. Nice.

They have that special crop that they grow in Colorado.

They have a very special crop. That is correct, Sarah. That's why everybody loves food out here, because of the special pot grow—

the pot—

the pot product.

That, uh, that special crop is actually what makes our original flag. Old Glory is made out of hemp.

You know what, Greg, get your hemp on. I love it when you get your hemp on. It is. I know it's such a joke that everybody's like, oh yeah, you know, Colorado with the pot, but I truly am excited about it for it being easier for hemp to be produced. I get on such a rant that our country has demonized this plant. Yes, I understand it about pot, but hemp is kick ass.

I want jeans that last over 10 years. I mean, hemp jeans are just so durable, the rope, everything. I mean, we could go on about it, but—

Well, we could also loop in the zombie apocalypse, because if we have hemp jeans, then when they're not producing clothes anymore, we've got clothes that are lasting us for a while.

Right.

And if we're pinched, we can smoke them.

Yeah.

The three of us here are fans of The Walking Dead. Dead, so when we talk about zombies, we kind of bring them up. She's looking at us like, "What? What?

What?" How did we segue into zombies so quickly?

I know, I do have my lower third still from Greg's show. Where is it? There we go.

Oh, zombie cookie. That is nice.

Tastes like chicken.

Just keep telling people that. Tastes like chicken. So, Chefie, are we going to have any more guests? Are we wrapping it up, dear?

We're wrapping it up. It doesn't look like— it looks like we're all on our lonesome for the last few minutes, but that's okay. I think we had a wonderful turnout today. We had a lot of people from different social medias, a lot of first-timers on. We popped a lot of cherries today.

Yes, we did.

It was a good thing.

Exactly.

Thank you so much for having me.

Oh, it was a pleasure, and I'm so We're so glad you could join us, and we'll reach out and we'll do some more stuff because me and I both have weekly shows and we're shameless about getting guests and using each other's guests.

Oh, we do. We tag team, we sloppy seconds, the whole thing. We are shameless with each other. But what's great, Jillian, and we'll definitely be in touch, is that our shows are more variety shows, and so our themes change. And I've had everything from eating healthy and getting healthy to moms who mean business. A lot of women who are in business that have really great causes that are close to their heart. We'll definitely have you on because I think people— Chefie, don't you think people would really go bat crap crazy over Jillian with her app? There's a lot of women that watch both of our shows and I hear that commonly of the challenge of of eating right and eating well and dealing with allergies.

Super!

Looking forward to connecting again.

Yay, you too!

Thank you!

Thank you!

Bye!

Bye-bye!

Bye!

Thanks!

And then Chefier, are we closing out, brother man?

I think so. Let's do it. Let's pull the plug and let's go get some grub on.

Yeah, we do need to get our grub on before we get hangry. Let me see if there's any other comments that we need to pull up. Creative Services International, I'm not sure what that— can I just go on record and say I hate Q&A. I was like, how did we get—

I know Chef didn't start that.

I looked, I didn't even touch it, it's not even, it wasn't even, you know, it's up towards the top and I didn't use the camera, the cameraman at that point and I start the show the same way, I'm just telling you something is up in the state of Google. And, uh, they're screwing with something in the background because I had a lot of problems this weekend. Slight, subtle ones, but nothing major. Just in Hangouts and the way it started, it wouldn't load completely a couple times. It wouldn't— my lower thirds disappeared one time.

Yep.

I don't like this whole thing that we have to click back and forth to keep our lower thirds above us too. That's kind of crazy.

That's not right. The comment tracker wasn't loading. I mean, there was almost something of everything going on, and I kept just keeping my fingers crossed that it would keep loading. So I'm glad I didn't turn this one off because I'm almost afraid that there's something else going on right now.

I think so too. Hey, real quick comment for you, sorry to interrupt. Creative Services International says, not a question, but just a thanks for doing all that you're doing. Totally awesome. They learned so much during your blog thing this weekend. Shout out to you, Sheffy.

Thank you. It was fun. And you know, I didn't— again, I didn't do it alone. I had so many amazing, talented, gracious friends that are willing to help and share their knowledge.

I think— I know you sort of changed it up and only had, you know, two— oh, look, we've got one more person coming in. Hi there!

Hi!

Hi there!

I can't tell you how long it took me to figure out how to join you guys on here.

Well, I'm glad you made it.

Yay!

The Happy Wives Club?

Yes!

Woohoo!

I need a clapper. Hold on a second. Not like I can't clap physically myself, but I like my clapper so much better when I do— hold please— this.

Woo!

That is for fun.

Clearly, I stay on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest because I could not figure this out for the life of me.

It's all good. Now let's ask the question, is this your first Hangout on Air?

First Hangout on Air.

Oh man, Jeff, we are getting all the hot chicks with their first time here on Google+. We're popping her Google cherry.

Yay!

I love your princess crown.

It just keeps moving with your head.

Like, how is she doing that?

It does. It's Google Hangouts. Now I have to tell you, a couple of people asked me, I should have said, I actually have a real one too.

Wow.

Something made for good and they put a little rooster on it because I love drinking rooster wine.

Cluck, cluck.

Nice.

That's my real one but I like my Google Hangouts one too. So hey, I'm going to put all your links on the event here so everybody knows how to find you. All right, you want to know who you are and what you're doing.

Absolutely. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do and where, where you are?

Sure.

I am in— right at this moment I'm in Marina del Rey, and my blog as well as every social network is Happy Wives Club. So happywivesclub.com and then everything backslash Happy Wives Club. So it actually started off as a blog and then the Facebook community was added and that quickly grew. So now I think we're close to 800,000 on the Facebook page, but it's a very active and engaged Facebook page. It's not like the norm that are out there.

Oh, I love it. So not Stepford, not desperate, just madly in love with our hubbies. Okay, wait till I post these links. Y'all are gonna lose your mind.

You're gonna lose your mind. Happy Wives Club makes a happy hubby club.

It does. It absolutely He does.

Because if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

Ain't nobody happy.

I gotta tell you, Chefy is somebody who definitely knows that. Even very consistently, Chef, I always hear you'll say, Lisa likes this, this, and this. So I always see such a great combination that you guys have going on. So I know you love hearing that, right, Fawn? Oh yeah, love it.

Yes, I learned that. I didn't get to be this old without learning a few things, you know, along the way.

Oh my gosh. So tell us more about it. I'm going to post all the links while you tell us more.

Awesome. Well, we started mainly as a group that was just tired of hearing all of the negativity about marriage, but more importantly, we were being described and seen as caricatures. All wives were like doormats. They were either doormats or they were nagging nimbles. And it was just so annoying to see it. And so I said, you know what, I love being married, I love my husband. Yes, I'm a businesswoman, but we can manage both. We really can have a great business and have a great marriage. And I wanted to see that out there more. And so that's what I did. And I started it with 5 friends that were within a 20-mile radius of me, and within 4 weeks we were in 20 countries. So I realized I wasn't the only one who was tired of seeing Desperate Housewives and Real Housewives of everything popping up everywhere. And that's how we began.

I found that so interesting, like, and you're by yourself and you're thinking about that, but it's coming up to you, right? Like, something's not jiving. Like, and it really is. It's so sad and it seems archaic, but it really is fishwife or, yeah, ballbuster or total doormat and really not an in-between there. Of an institution that, you know, no matter who you are, that it's something that's so common. And again, you would think it would be really archaic that we still have that, but how cool for you to come up with this and kind of be on your own on that and start talking. And I bet it just lit up like a wildfire.

It lit up like a wildfire. And for Google, we always laugh because people will ask me about my SEO, and I didn't— I'm now 4 years into this. I didn't touch SEO until this year and then I just added a plugin and people would go, how do you rank at the top of Google? I said, when you're the only person talking about it, it's a little easier.

Oh man, no kidding. Talk about it's a little bit sad that it's not that much of a niche, right? You kind of wish it wasn't as nichey.

Yes, it's pretty sad that if you put in happy wife, you aren't going to get a whole lot of search results, and the majority of them are going to be Happy Wives Club. So yeah, we definitely struck a chord, and my goal from the beginning was to find a million wives worldwide who were proud to say, "We're happily married." And so we're almost there. We're getting there.

Can I just say something? When she's talking, right, Sheffy, I was thinking, you know, especially when you're talking about stereotypes, I just was thinking Andy Lyons would love her, right? And I don't know if you Absolutely.

And yes, Andy and I are fabulous friends. And I adore— and her— yes, yes, yes, yes. BringBackDesire.com.

She's awesome. Yes, I was just— I mean, it literally just kind of both floated into my head, and then I was just going to your page here, and of course her beautiful face shows up. So yeah, you know, happy travels together. That's all I got to say about that.

Andy has a show on Google+. Plus, and she's been a guest on both of our shows.

She has, yes. Oh, she's fantastic.

She's the one who, when I did my first online— it wasn't a Google Hangout, but I did my first online interview and I looked like a black dot. I sent her an email like, uh, Andy, what do I do here?

Help a girl out.

Lighting kit. Yeah, she's like, get a lighting kit because that's not gonna work.

Right, right, right. Oh my gosh, that is so So funny, oh too funny.

Now have you thought about that for doing, I mean now that you're on one, I think you could blow up Happy Wives Club even more by doing these Hangouts. I mean I can see her having her own show like that, Sheffy, don't you think?

Oh absolutely, you would just, I mean you would have so much fun doing it too because this media here where you get to see people and you can have up to 10 people in this Hangout so you can have you know, take turns having some of your other— your people that are involved up higher in it on, bring guests on, talk about subjects, like bring Andy on to talk about something. So I mean, the variety would just be endless, and it's just a wonderful medium.

Yeah, it's something I've been trying to figure out but haven't put enough time into how it works. And so when I got this invitation, I said, well, this is one way to break a virgin in.

It's true.

Do it with the best.

So yeah.

Trial by fire, you know, it's sometimes the only way to do it.

Yes, and thank you for taking a chance on it because I know that's a little scary. I'm just posting your links in there right now. So do you mind if I ask you about then, I guess, sort of the business model? Are you wanting to take— I know you said different cities, or when it shows up, it's a Happy Wives Club, is this a model you take to different cities?

Well, it's a model that we're testing out right now in homes. So we've, we've been taking it offline and having groups actually meet up in their community with other women who are like-minded. And so we've been testing that out for the last few months to figure out what's the best way to roll it out because we're in 110 countries. And so I get requests from all over the world saying I want to connect with other Happy Wives Club members in my area. Area and just trying to figure out what's the best, easiest, and safest way to do that. And so it's been— I've got a group of gals that have been testing this out across the country. So hopefully by the end of the summer, we'll have the model figured out.

I love it.

I love it.

You know what I love? That you said a good distinction. You said in a safe way too, so that everybody feels safe to get together, that it's kind of vetted, right? So the people that are in it are vetted. It's not just going to be sort of a crazy, a crazy group.

Absolutely.

And how do you do that? Is that something that— is there— and I apologize that I don't know more about it, but I'm so fascinated. Is it an application process or is it just more of like an open, like a meetup type of thing?

It's totally open and it's— we haven't done a meetup just yet. Now I know there are people that are in other parts of the country that I was taking too long, so they decided to start their own Meetups and they'll send me the information and say, hey, we're meeting up in Indianapolis or we're meeting up in Minnesota and just wanted to let you know. But as far as us putting it together, it's likely going to be some type of Meetup plugin with a little bit of customization on our site itself that allows the members to come in and, and to meet up around the country. I'd probably recommend the meeting in coffee houses or things that are out versus inviting people into your home before you know who they are.

Right, right. There's a lot of cray-cray out there, right? There's a little bit. Yeah, yeah. So you want to protect yourself on that too. And then, is it a format or is it just sort of an open discussion? How do you get that dialogue going so that everybody's really sharing?

We've tried a couple of different things, and so we're testing out to see what exactly exactly works. One is that my book Happy Wives Club that came out in January, so that's done well, it's been great. So one of the things we've done is testing that out and having the different groups come up with their own questions, and then we've tested it out coming up with questions for them and just using that as sort of an icebreaker.

Gotcha.

And then where that group goes from there is completely up to them because it's It's not meant to be something where you come together and someone is teaching and someone is learning, but it's more so to just sort of push back society a little bit that's telling us you should be fighting night and day with your husband, or you should be this, or you should be that. And we're like, no, marriage is meant to be great. And just moving forward with that and finding other people that agree.

So I think that dialogue, I'm guessing too, it really is— you're right, it's not more of a teaching lecture kind of thing, but it starts with the dialogue of getting everybody talking, and then it sort of raises the whole conversation. Exactly.

And you've had so many brides that have started putting the book itself in the bridesmaids' bags.

Ah!

And those people get together after the wedding, and they actually read through the book together. And it's just, you know, it's written in more of an Eat, Pray, Love style, so it's not a teaching.

Gotcha, gotcha. It's a journey.

It's a journey.

Yeah, right, right. What a great idea, Sheffy. Isn't that adorable, putting that in the—

I think it's wonderful. It's a good idea. And if more people read that and, you know, there's always problems along the way, but it's not the end of the world and you don't have to constantly fight about it.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's when you're talking about something that is going to go for 60 years, right, 60, 70, you're hopeful however long you live you're going to have this relationship. So if your spouse does something that annoys you for 30 minutes, is it really worth taking that to not speaking for a day or walking around on eggshells for a week? It's like, deal with it, move on, you have the rest of your lives.

Well, it's, it's kind of funny, I had a little bit of a role reversal, and Lisa doesn't watch these and she never watched 3 Hours, so I can say she had never had a long-term relationship before me, and she would start to pick a fight every, like, every 6 months for a while. And I was in a good place at that time of my life, my mind was clear, and I was not letting her go. No way.

How?

You know, she's gonna have to do a lot more than that to get rid of me. So I started calming her down and calming her down. And it was funny, I talked to one of her friends, says, oh yeah, Lisa runs. Lisa runs.

Oh, mm.

I also—

you do. My sister's husband says, "Oh, you just put your stompy bitch shoes on, didn't you?" Because that's how I get. I get grumpy and I'm the stompy bitch, you know, sort of door slamming thing. So the running thing is funny too.

And I'm sorry to talk over you, Fawn.

I just had to say that. It's so funny.

No worries.

No worries.

There's a lot of runners out there. And really, If you look at what's on TV, I'd be running too if I didn't know any better.

Right, I get it.

You're like, do I really want that for the rest of my life?

Not really.

Yeah.

Exactly, exactly. But don't you think it's great too, is like with that, like Chef, what you're saying too, of like having that like, uh-uh, we're not gonna do that, right? So you kind of, you know, again, I keep using this analogy, it's like raising everybody up. So you have the conversation, And instead of it getting into that women bitch fest thing that we tend to about how much men suck, and Andy is so good about this conversation too. I just love her for it. It's like, is this really, you know, building each other up, buttercup, instead of like, you know, letting, like, bringing us all down into that kind of gripey mind frame?

Yeah, and I think for most women, I always say if you put 7 married women around a table 6 of them are gonna moan and complain and gripe, and then you're gonna have one that's silent and just kind of listens. That's usually the happy wife. And so creating an environment where that person is the one who's talking with 6 or 7 other women that are like her, then, I mean, we create our realities. If you say marriage is really hard, you better believe you have just created that in your own marriage. Or marriage takes so much work. And I, I like to say marriage doesn't take work, marriage takes effort, because all of us are underpaid for the jobs we do. We're underpaid, we're underappreciated. So when you equate your marriage to work, you really do hurt it that way just by using that word. So I say marriage takes a lot of effort, but when you put in effort, you expect a reward for your effort. You expect something to come back. And that's the biggest difference.

That's kind of how men think about it. We expect a reward for our effort. But home is a reward.

Well, absolutely.

You want your Scooby snack.

Yeah, well, that's one way of putting it, yeah.

Just to dumb it down.

Front row, George.

Exactly.

You know, I do love that though, Fawn. It really is about setting that intention, the power of words, the power of perception and how you're putting it out there. And yeah, if you're like, it is, it's not saying that like everything's supposed to be just wine and roses, although I love wine and roses. I'm just saying. Right, we clearly established, if you haven't been watching up until now, the last 3 hours of conversation, the word wine has been interjected on numerous occasions.

If I had known and if it weren't 10 o'clock in the morning, I would just bust out a bottle of cab and then we could all cheers each other, but it might be a little weird at 10.

Yeah, I know we were saying we had somebody that was from, I think she was from England, so we We felt like with all the different guests that were kind of ebbing and flowing, it went from afternoon to cocktail hour, so there was a little bit of juicy rationalization for any of us wanting to drink, which we have not started yet because we need to—

We will.

So you and Jeff have actually been talking for 3 hours straight, right?

Yes, girlfriend, 3 hours and 15 minutes. And Mr. Man has actually ran a blog conference the entire weekend that had 1-hour presentations every other hour, running those, and he's still upright and forming sentences.

My brain's a little mushy right now, that's why I'm a little quieter, but you know, 15 minutes in the green room prior and generally 10 or 15 minutes after, so I had 30 minutes in between sessions starting at 10 in the morning that ran to late at night to get something to eat, to go to the bathroom, to make a cup of coffee. But my wife—

What is the name of the blog conference?

Well, it was the 2nd Annual Virtual Bloggers Conference on Google+. I did this last year because I have so many friends. I'm a food blogger. I have so many friends that can't always afford to go or they don't have the time to go even if they can afford. So I tried to bring a conference to them last year and this year it was really successful. We had 11 sessions on everything from podcasting to branding, working with brands, marketing, doing logo designs. And then we actually had a virtual cocktail party Friday night.

That was fun.

Chef got a little loaded and he slept really, really well that night.

Yes, and then, um, Vaughn, Chef and I have a show together. We each have individual shows and then we have a show together called called the Food and Booze Show that we just kind of made up on the fly. Our friend Nazim, we were all in a Hangout together. He's in Italy. We were on a private Hangout and I was like, "Man, we just need a show where chef cooks and we'll just call it like Eat, Play, Drunk." We're just eating and getting together. Then we started thinking more about it and I was like, "Dude, we got to do this." Now I go to restaurants here in Denver and I set my camera up. With Sheffy, I went to this restaurant last night. I have to tell you guys. Story real quick. We went on a lark last minute, this wonderful little Mexican restaurant, and this tiny little woman comes out and she just starts kissing and hugging me and Greg. He's like, "Do you know her?" I'm like, "No, I don't care. I want one." She just was this— everybody calls her Abuelita. She's the grandmother, the head chef, and she cooked chile rellenos for us. We're going to do a show there next week. We've got our next show coming on. She and her grandson are chefs and built this restaurant. But Greg's like, "Really? Do you know?" I'm like, "No, dude. I don't care." It's the cutest thing in the world. She literally comes running out onto the porch. Greg's a big guy and she's hugging up on him. It was the cutest thing. That's what our show is for. We just bring in different people from around the country. Chef goes to restaurants in Orlando and I go to restaurants in Denver. We showcase their food and booze.

Oh, that's awesome. Well, I was in Denver not too long ago doing a book signing, and it is just the coolest city. It's only the second time I've been there, and I did it at a thing called the Book Bar. Have you heard of that?

Yeah, oh my God, it's right down the street from me. That's actually like two doors down from that on Tennyson, right?

Oh, I don't—

it's on like a little side street.

Yes.

Right?

I kid you not, I could throw a stone, I could drive a little bit and throw a stone. It's literally right down the street from where I'm at, and I love that place. What a great idea!

How cool!

It's fantastic. We certainly need them here. You grab a book, you grab a glass of wine, and you just sit and enjoy it. And you know, it's what we do in the coffee shop.

So when I went there and they had it, I was like, this is neat.

I haven't seen this before.

How fun. Oh my God, I'm dying though that you were just here and right down the street. If I would have known, I would have gone running down there. What a great— now how did you get that gig booked? And Chef, I know we probably have to go, but how did you get that gig booked to go on your book tour?

Yeah, I had a 12-city tour. The publishers took— they did everything in terms of finding the location and all the rest of that stuff. So I did press in— I went to every major media market. Denver was one of them. Even though it's not a huge media market, you have a couple of morning shows there that are really popular.

So yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

How fun.

Oh, good for you. And I do, I was saying I've been here 20 years. I just absolutely love, love, love Denver. Our cultural, culturally we've really grown a lot. There's a pretty fun fashion element. The food, the brewing companies are big here. A lot of microbrews all along the front Front Range, actually. It's pretty big. Corporate-wise, we're really getting there too. Construction-wise, we bounced back. So it's, um, it's a good town to be in. I'm glad you were here. I'm glad you liked it.

Yeah, I loved it.

In Orlando, I have learned there's a lot more to do than the mouse. So not that I don't love the mouse.

I like how you say that.

A lot more.

So I have to figure out how to get one of those bars at the bottom. I love this one, Mia.

Oh, thank you.

I love it.

Thank you. This one I actually had custom made for me. I did have a graphic artist make it for me, but you can easily do one. We can show you that when we're off air too on the Hangout Toolbox, which is really fun. I think you should. You've got great— you have really good collateral, all of your artwork and everything. I think you could have a lot of fun with that too. Cool. Yeah, yeah, and then it's just like you're just a little walking advertisement the whole time.

Yeah.

You can have different ones up. I mean, you can have— I was showing one of the ones I had earlier.

I know. I lost a lot of mine. I had my Star Wars one. I had this one I did upload because you know how I like to do when I get overwhelmed and I do that head. Like when people are like getting really techie with me and I just— they're talking and they're not looking and I'm like, did you see this? Because this is how I feel right now.

I heard you got a +1 overlay.

I did and I need to download it because I have this sad little Post-it note. Yes, Dustin Stout made me one. He was flashing it all over the place yesterday for our conference. Yes, he was. Well, that's because that's his wheelhouse is making cool shiny objects. So I do need to upload my +1. So that's the Google+ thing. Vaughn is like when, you know, instead of a like, it's a +1. So he literally made a little sign that says +1. So if somebody's talking, you can just keep hitting the +1 button.

Oh, that's cool.

And that's all in the Hangout Toolbox too. Sheffy, I'm telling you, I think she would, with the Happy Wives Club, I think she would bust a move on this one. I think it would get really good.

We need to schedule you for both of our shows.

Yes.

Hi.

Introduce you to our friends. And just get you moving on here.

I think people would get so fired up about this concept, just like what happened with you with your grassroots movement on this, Vaughn.

Cool, I am down.

I need a—

whatever that you have in back of you, that step and repeat thing.

Yes, this is actually from Customize Walls. Lori Leger is a good friend of ours and had that made, and I literally just have it on the wall.

Oh, I love it.

And it's, and it's, you know, I'm not going to pan around too much because yeah, Chef, if your house probably looks a mess, you should see. I got like, you know, food plates, no wine glasses.

That's coming.

I've been trying not to move too much around so I don't have to clean too much.

But yes, yes, exactly.

And I'm going to order one of those as well. But I just got done having logos made. So I have for my different shows, I have different logos because I do a cooking show on Mondays called Around the Kitchen Table. And then Good Day Google+ on Fridays, and then me and I do the Food and Booze Show. So we're kind of busy and it's fun.

I think so. I think for Juan, I think she could literally, I mean, even more, you know, a lot of ours is sort of fun type of thing, but I think for yours, I literally think you could seriously grow your business by easily getting the word out and then people come and sit in on your sessions. If there are people that feel comfortable enough to say, hey, do you want to see what what Happy Wives Club is about, and there's 7 or 8 people in this film strip, and you're moderating it, and then people can literally see what that good conversation sounds like.

Wow, it sounds great. I clearly have to figure out how to get into this a little bit better than I did this morning.

Well, the second time is always easier, just like with anything else. I like to equate it as like falling off of a bike. You know, it just gets easier. Yeah, but really, you've gotten past the hard part right now. Yes, some little bits and pieces. Absolutely. I have blog posts on it. I learned how to screenshot. I was so proud of myself. It took me a long time to figure that out. So then I put screenshots in all of my posts with how to click this, click this, click this. So it makes it easier.

Yeah, absolutely. Alright, Chefie, we're gonna wrap it up. This is such fun. You're such a fun person for us to end on. We've gotten that— today was awesome. Oh my gosh, you're a great addition to all the other fantastic guests we had today.

Thanks, Mia.

Thank you, Chef.

You're welcome, awesome sauce. And thank you for whoever stayed with us for these 3 hours and watched. For those of you back and forth, thank you. And it will be on YouTube so you can and go watch pieces of it later. And hopefully I'll find someone to do timestamps for me and make it easier.

Debbie Davis.

Have a great day, everyone.

We'll see you soon.

Bye.

Bye.