The Bad Mom Contest

Posted on December 14, 2012 by

It seems that I can’t get away from moms vying to win a Bad Mom contest. I have a (Facebook) friend who frequently updates her status with reasons she is a bad mother. Last week I saw this blog post by a woman essentially bragging as to why she is a worse mom than anyone else.

I do have a sense of humor and acknowledge that sometimes you have to laugh at wiping up a spill with your sock. That said, I can’t help but think constant jokes about being a bad mom is really just bad–both for us moms and our kids.

It says a lot about our society that announcing your accomplishments is bragging and therefore unpopular, but celebrating every minor failing is welcome humor.

To counter all the Bad Mom energy out there, I keep track of ways in which I am a Good Mom. In fact, a Really Awesome Mom. There are certainly days when I struggle–more often than not, in fact–but there are also small victories all the time and that is why being a mom is the greatest thing in the world. I might not post to Facebook every “mom win” I have, but I keep a mental inventory of them to remind me that I’m doing a bang up job.

For example, when my older son was 3, with the help of my father-in-law, I drove him to and from a pre-school in a town 20 minutes away so that when we moved to that town mid-year he wouldn’t have the  upset of changing schools. Not everyone around me thought this was necessary, but I insisted on it. The move itself was  a very big change in his life, so I wanted him to have consistency in his daily school routine. He got through our move with flying colors and I know this was a major reason why.

I think we would all be a little easier on ourselves if we didn’t try to live up to a mothering standard that is impossible to reach. I am fortunate enough to have a ton of family nearby, along with an amazing nanny, and even with this tremendous support system some days it is still hard to catch a breath. Today my pediatrician told me they are out of flu shots, so now I have to call around to other pediatricians, find one who will take us as a walk-in, and miss yet another day at work to get that done because my baby is too young for the flu shot clinic at CVS. OK, I can do that, but I can’t do it AND also fit in Mommy and Me swimming, going to a dairy collective for unpasturized milk, and watching the baby sign language DVD sitting in my drawer.

And that’s OK, because I’m still an Awesome Mom. And I say that proudly, without a hint of sarcasm.

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2 Weeks Without Power

Posted on November 12, 2012 by

If you live in the New York metro region, you are all too familiar with Hurricane Sandy and the aftermath. But most parts of the country have already moved on. Can you blame them–The Voice  is on!

My family was beyond fortunate to suffer no damage to our home–given our proximity to the water this was a blessing and a surprise. Water came halfway up our driveway and then magically receded back into the street. Talk about a sigh of relief.

But then the power went out, and stayed out, for 14 days. Now that it’s back, I thought I’d share a timeline of our two week power outage.

>Monday, Oct 29: Sitting around with school and work closed, waiting for the hurricane to arrive. “Best storm day ever!” exclaimed my 4 year old.
Photo: "Best storm day ever!" -Sam Klein
>Later that night, a little hard to see, but this is the water creeping up our driveway when Sandy hits. This is high tide.
Photo: A little hard to see but this is the water creeping up our driveway. #lovethesouthshore
> Oct 30, day after the storm: “No power and spotty cell service but that’s all. The house did not flood. Our neighborhood is a disaster. Feeling lucky. Our hearts go out to our friends and neighbors with real problems! Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help!”
>Couldn’t  help but notice that some people actually put their Halloween decorations back out. I guess they needed a bit of “normalcy.”
>Tuesday, October 30: A friend posts a picture of a fallen tree in front of my OLD house, bringing down a power line. Dodged that one!
Photo
>Wed, Oct 31: Despite the scarcity of gas, we took the 15 mile drive to my mother-in-law’s house for some distraction via Trick or Treating. Power was on there, and half my extended family had moved in to escape their own power outages.
Photo: My pumpkin.  
>November 1: With lots of time to practice, my baby starts sitting on his own.  No word on when power will come back. It’s getting really cold! Sleeping with kiddies in our bed.
Photo: Sitting around on the first day of Sandy.
>November 2: My husband gets up at 5 am and visits half a dozen stores to find us a generator, with no luck. His business partner finds one for us in NJ, and they meet at the Verazanno bridge so we can get it.
>While standing on line on a nippy day for 3 1/2 hours to fill gas canisters, I can’t help but think about the places in the world where people do this every day, in scorching heat, for WATER. We are inconvenienced, but still the most fortunate people in the world. That said, I’d still love to get power back today!
>November 3: My boys getting a much-needed Peppa Pig fix thanks to our new generator. Better than heat if you ask them!
Photo: My boys getting a much-needed Peppa Pig fix thanks to our new generator. Better than heat if you ask them!
>November 5: “I gotta say that after five or six days of whatever it’s been without power/Internet access, Facebook is completely addictive. Worth every drop of gas I’m wasting in the generator.”
>November 6: On my way to vote, heard I might not get power for another three weeks. Then this Red Cross van rolls up in front of my house, reminding us that although we are still without power, there are some in real crisis just a few doors away.
Photo: Not something I ever expected to see on my street!
>November 7: When I wake up, I check the power before I check who won the presidential election. Priorities! Then at night a Nor’easter blows in, leaving 3-4″ of snow. Really?
>November 8: Firemen walking around South Bellmore checking electric panels. Oh please let this mean we’re getting power today…
>November 9: My pre-schooler is finally able to go back to school! With a little more confidence about the gas situation, I pack up the baby and my babysitter and drive to my CEO’s house. Our office building is without power, so 10 of us are working in his house. “Happy Take-Your-Baby-and-Your-Babysitter to Work-in-your-CEO’s-Basement-because-power-is-still-out-at-home-and-the-office Day!” Is there a Hallmark card for that?
>November 11: FEMA rings our bell to offer their services. Unfortunately, restoring power is not one of their services.
Photo: FEMA going door to door with these. If only they could turn my power on!!!
>November 11: Half my street gets power back. Not my half! LIPA discovers–after 12+ days–that we have a separate transformer that needs to be replaced.
>November 12: Our new transformer! Hallelujah!
WE HAVE POWER!
Although this post is written with levity, it was a trying two weeks mainly due to the frustration of being at the mercy of an incompetent power company, LIPA. Reports are that they have known of problems with our infrastructure since 2006. Being in the dark about the situation metaphorically was just as bad as being in the dark literally. I can only hope Governor Cuomo is true to his word when it comes to holding LIPA accountable for their pathetic performance.
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10 OTHER Things Every Mom Should Know

Posted on September 5, 2012 by

I saw the following “trending” headline from Redbook recently:

10 Things Every Mom Should Know

I was curious, but then disappointed. At risk of getting too preachy, I started my own list of things every mom should know. Help me get to 10?

  1. Know if your child’s  favorite stuffed animal is a boy or a girl, or takes turns as each.
  2. Know at least one of your credit card numbers, its security code, and expiration date, by heart. Super helpful when trying to order something over the phone, give a deposit, etc., while also changing a diaper on your lap on a merry-go-round. (You get the gist.)
  3. Costco baby wipes are the best cleaning product for just about any thing, any where, any time.
  4. Once a baby gets used to warm bottles, there’s no going back. (If you’ve ever bought a bottle warmer, you’re a sucker just like me!)
  5. Establish a no-gifts policy with your closest friends. Your kids don’t need birthday/holiday gifts from them, and their kids don’t need them from you–and most kids don’t know the difference until they are older. They will be spoiled enough by their grandparents and school friends. This will save you time and money, but most importantly, it will slightly lessen the amount of STUFF you accumulate every year.
  6. In Europe, they keep babies in rear-facing car seats until age 2, which is right around when they stop breastfeeding them. One of these is worth considering, the other is just showing off.

What else?!?

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Got Time for a Quickie? (CRM Vendor Review, that is.)

Posted on August 22, 2012 by

This month I had the “luxury” of choosing what CRM platform we would use at our startup. Here’s a quick summary of how and why I selected SalesForce.com:

1. Since we use Office365 (or whatever it’s called these days) I initially assumed we would have an integrated lic for Microsoft’s Dynamic’s CRM and that’s what we would use. Not the case…yay! After 10+ years on Dynamics, I was free to choose a new platform.

2. Since we’re a lean startup, I knew we would only look at cloud solutions. We run as little software here as possible. However, with the proliferation of cloud providers, this didn’t narrow the field very much.

3. SalesForce.com is the 800 lb. gorilla, so I started with their free trial. At first blush, the interface takes a bit of adjusting to. The quickest way to get in is to just hide all the intro and welcome screens that try to help you use the product, and just start using it. Click around, fail fast, then learn and fix it. (Coincidentally similar to lean start up principles!)

4. I sent a request into the twitterverse for recommendations on other products to look at, because I didn’t want to fall into the trap of choosing the best marketed product. I also pulled a few from Steve Blank’s web site. The list looked like this:

  • Zoho
  • Highrise
  • Intercom
  • Salestrakr
  • Nutshell
  • CapsuleCRM

5. Huge generalization here, but I wasn’t interested in products that were all about GoogleApps integration. I get that a lot of startups use GoogleApps, but I really needed something that had a proven Outlook integration. So a few fell off the list instantly.

6. I toyed with Salestrakr a bit, initally impressed with its simplicity. But simplicity started to feel more like it was just an underdeveloped interface. I’m all about UX. You can keep the feature set lean, that is totally fine, but the front end should be appealing. It reminded me of ColdFusion sites we used to build in the early 2000s at my old company.

7. The finalists were Highrise and Salesforce.  I have heard so many awesome things about Basecamp over the years, a collaboration/project management tool by the same shop that makes Highrise, that I really wanted to like Highrise. But the knowledgeable rep from Salesforce called me. And he wasn’t annoying. He was actually knowledgeable and answered some questions I had very quickly.

There’s something to be said for having a sales force (no pun intended). I never once got a call from the other services where I signed up for a free trial…I did get an email message from Salestrakr but it was toward the end of my trial once I had already made a decision.

In the end, Salesforce was just an easy choice. The support was there, and the integration with Data.com is very cool. Right now, it’s affordable, as there are only 3 of us using it. The integration with Outlook is perfect, so I can attach emails to opportunities very easily, since the majority of communications during a sales cycle happens over email these days (for better or worse).

I expect that over time we will run into frustrations with Salesforce,  and if we’re not able to scale with it we’ll do a more thorough vendor review and move on. That’s the beauty of SaaS, after all, right?

Hope this is helpful to anyone else in a similar situation. Happy to chat further about my experience if you want to drop me a line…

Posted in Lean Start-up, Social Media/Online Marketing | 1 Comment

Some all-time favorite reads

Posted on August 3, 2012 by

One of our interns recently asked me to recommend some books, now that she has started reading “grown-up books.” (Totally adorable.) Here’s the list that came to me first, although if I sat down and thought about it for a while the list would probably be two pages long. What books would you recommend to a very bright 19-year old? Any of these off the mark in your opinion?

Unbroken

The Invisible Bridge

Middlesex

The Emperor’s Children

I Know this Much is True

Lucky (memoir)

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I’m back!

Posted on August 2, 2012 by

For those who don’t live and die by their LinkedIn updates, I’m back at work!

A few weeks ago I reunited with some former colleagues and friends at GroupGifting.com as VP of Business Development. We’re starting from the ground-up using the lean start-up methodology to make our mark in the evolving group gifting and social gifting space. In my new role I will be working closely with our brand partners to develop innovative social media campaigns that produce measurable results and drive real commerce.

I’m also excited to resume blogging, but now about more interesting topics than SharePoint (ugh!). I’ll share my struggles and successes as a working mom/wife, my insights into the market we are in, and our experience as a lean start-up. I also hope to throw in some book reviews, as my new job actually gives me enough work/life balance to read again! (Currently at the 90% mark of Game of Thrones; the book blows away the TV show.)

Thanks for checking in and please follow me on this exciting new adventure!

Posted in Lean Start-up, Working Mom | 1 Comment

Early Retirement

Posted on June 7, 2012 by

I never (ever!) thought I would be doing this, but after 13 years as a consultant and sales manager in the Web development, SharePoint, and CMS space, I’m throwing in the towel.  There are two beautiful little boys who I’m going to spend some time with and get to know better. I’ve had the pleasure of working with supportive colleagues at mindSHIFT, interesting clients, and innovative vendors. I have learned a lot, and I would like to think I helped others learn as well. Keep an eye on this blog and my twitter feed (@traceyklein)–just because I’m staying home doesn’t mean I’ll be staying quiet. Those who know me well will not be surprised about that.  :)

Posted in Uncategorized, Working Mom | 3 Comments