A Little Advice from Dad Among Other Things

I make a habit of always including a quote at the end of one of my blog entries. I do this to offer something uplifting and motivating. Also, I do this to make people think. Today's quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson has definitely made me think from time to time. This is a quote my Dad shared with me long ago that has always stuck. The quote is as follows.......




"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters.....compared to what lies within us."

What a powerful message. Short. Sweet. To the point. It doesn't so much matter what someone has accomplished or has the potential to accomplish. What is most important is the kind of person you are at your core. I am proud to say that I am surrounded by "good" people in life. I can also say that this quote has never made me judge someone by what they have or could possibly have. What they do or what they don't do. It has allowed me to judge someone on what lies within. Thanks for reminding me what's important, Dad.

I have attached a link to an excellent post from Mashable.com. It discusses your brand's social media health and how to gauge its success.

7 Steps to Measuring Your Brand’s Social Media Health

Event Planning for Dummies

What are great idea! Let's have an event to benefit a charity! Sounds great when you say it. Sounds great when you write it down just like I did. Then the realization sets in and you say, " What in the world did I just sign myself up for." That's shortly followed up by feeling the anxiety of not knowing where to start. Is this what you get when you decide to combine your love for social gatherings and doing good for other people? If the Event Planning for Dummies book exists, please point me in the general direction...ASAP! Event Planning for Complete Idiots would be sufficient too.

What makes this even more exciting is...... I'VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE! Thankfully, this event will not be brought to you by Jim Jones' Event Planning Services. I definitely won't be doing business with anyone with a tag line of "Kool-Aid tastes great, but it'll kill ya." His last event in Jonestown didn't exactly go swimmingly.

I have learned some pretty good lessons thus far. I have learned you better have a good cause. Your venue is extremely important. You best have a trust-worthy, dependable caterer and have something fun for your guests to take part in while they are there.

In my limited experience, the most important part of this quite possibly is promoting it. Luckily, I would like to think that could be a potential strength of mine. If no one knows about your event, it doesn't matter how great it is. There are countless examples to give. Then you have situations like the Tampa Bay Rays. Everyone know about them, but they still don't have any fans in the seats except when the Yankees come to town. Cleveland knows how that works too. Are the people that market the Rays that bad or are there too many things to do on a random weekday in Tampa/St. Pete? I know I'd be busy with other things instead of sitting in that sorry excuse for a baseball park and I'm a baseball fan! Note to public officials in that market....If you build it, they will come!! Where I'm going with this is you need people to know about your event and it should be at a worthwhile destination. If your lacking either of the two, the chips are stacked against you.

I also would highly recommend having a plan B, C, and D when you go through your event planning process. Everybody wants their event to have all of the finest things, but maintaining a responsible budget is important to most. One of the benefits of having an event to raise money for a charity is that venues and caterers will give you a price break because they understand you are not profiting on your event. They also want to be associated with people that are trying to do good for the community. Another reason to have multiple options for your event is quite simply your prospective venues, caterers and bands might have prior commitments on the day(s) you want to have your event.

This truly has been an education and it has just begun! I can't wait to see what will become of all this hard work. As I continue to plug along, I get my motivation from the thought of touching someone's life and putting a smile on their face. That's how I measure success.



Written by Eric for sytesee.blogspot.com


"Success doesn't come to you, you go it." - Marva Collins

SYTEsee.com Welcomes CityMade

SYTEsee.com would like to welcome CityMade to our website. Recognized in 2008 by KeyBank as the Honoring Excellence Most Innovative Company of the Year and in 2007 as Business of the Year, CityMade is a premier, national online provider of:

• Consumer, corporate, tournament, and specialty gift baskets
• Gourmet and high-demand regionally based consumer products
  

CityMade designs and produces exceptional gift products and provides the means by which they are effectively marketed, sold and distributed. Their individualized services and the exceptional manner in which they provide them have contributed to their diverse client portfolio. Corporations, universities, media outlets, sports entities, country clubs, convention & visitor bureaus, conference centers, hotels, foundations, festivals and charitable organizations have partnered with and relied on CityMade to effectively further their divergent, strategic goals. Affiliate partners include Wegmans Markets, Lornamead/Yardley of London, Milk-Bone/ DelMonte Foods, NanoDynamics/ NDMX Golf, Hyatt Regency Hotels, Entercom Radio, and Citadel Broadcasting, to name a few.

CityMade currently offers local products from Buffalo as well as many other cities on the East Coast. Look for CityMade shortly on SYTEsee.com.

1st Annual Fundraiser Benefiting Make-A-Wish Announced

Today we would like to announce our partnership with Make-A-Wish Foundation of WNY. On October 27th from 5pm until 9pm, SYTEsee.com will be hosting the first annual "Seeing Wishes Come True" fundraising event to benefit Make-A-Wish Foundation of WNY at Soho in downtown Buffalo. Performing at this event will be Canadian recording artists Killin' Time Band.

Over the last 30 years, Make-A-Wish Foundation has granted more than 180,000 wishes to children so they get the chance to live their dream. Remarkably, they grant a wish every 40 minutes! The goal of Make-A-Wish Foundation is to make sure each of these wish kids experiences the same happiness that brightened their very first wish kid.

Make-A-Wish Foundation grants wishes of medically eligible children who are older than 2 1/2 and younger than 18 (at the time of referral) and haven't received a wish from another wish-granting organization. They are there to help children with life-threatening medical conditions that have placed a child's life in jeopardy. A wish experience has the power to put a smile on a kid's face, as well as a bright spot in the lives of everyone involved.

We here at SYTEsee.com hope to play a small part in assisting wish kids with our annual fundraising event. Children are a huge part in all our lives and they are our future. It is our duty to be there for them in their time of need.

In the coming weeks, we will have more information about our exciting event, prizes we will raffle off, and how you can donate. Please visit wny.wish.org for further information about Make-A-Wish Foundation of WNY and how you can help them reach their goals.