Category / Thinking & Musing

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Subjects you should never talk about: Politics

They say you should never discuss politics or religion or work with children and / or animals. I’m perfectly happy to discuss religion, since I live in a multi-faith household. I work for an animal charity,  so dogs are frequently around the office and most welcome. And I plan to have children one day, which I’m told can be ‘work’.

Clearly I don’t really listen to what ‘they’ say, but I still rarely tackle the subject of politics. For one, I don’t like talking at length about something I don’t have particularly in-depth knowledge about. It’s not through lack of interest, but it’s a bloody big subject, don’t you think? I have often erred on the side of political cynicism, too, which means certain subjects fill me with anger, frustration or contempt, not emotions I particularly want to invite into my life if I can avoid it.

And so we come onto the subject of MPs expenses. This is a topic I feel I can look at in very simple terms.

1. Screwing the expenses system is wrong. If you are caught doing it at work, you are fired. Paying it back is fine, but you should still be fired. I’m unimpressed, but not particularly angry (or surprised).

2. Spending money on wars no-one wants or agrees with, on the other hand, makes me extremely annoyed – let’s call it ‘disgusted’. Especially when you can’t even seem to spend it efficiently enough to send brave women and men into the field properly equipped.

The petty financial dishonesty of MPs should be no surprise, given that they were thoroughly complicit in the destruction of the banking sector and the much more troubling devastation to people’s lives. It should not become a smokescreen for the real crimes that have been committed.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Jack Brown

I’ve just found out that over the weekend, little Jack Brown died.

I first found out about Jack’s story when I was working for a company called 2Simple Software. They had done some charitable work in South Africa and Israel based around software and computers, but when they heard about Jack, a whole new part of the 2Simple Trust sprang up: helping children with neuroblastoma, a particularly nasty and virulent cancer that tends to strike very young children.

Jack was just a toddler when it first invaded his body. He had been given up as a lost cause many times, but his family battled on and with the help of fundraisers they got Jack to New York to have groundbreaking treatment at Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center. This treatment undoubtedly gave Jack two years with his family that he would not have had if he had stayed here in the UK at the time.

Jack’s website was the first charity website I ever worked on; it’s what gave me the bug to want to work with another charity one day. The regular updates from his family I received to add to it were both heartbreaking and inspirational. I am so sorry to hear that Jack lost his battle, and I know that the charity will continue to use the funds it has to help other children like him. My heart goes out to Jack’s fantastically strong, loving parents and his young brother and sister.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Holiday Post: Disney Days

Well, I promised to greet you from the Disney side…

We landed around 3pm on Thursday and have so far packed in a trip to Sarasota to see my auntie and visit St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church in Bradenton for a Good Friday service, an evening stroll around the Magic Kingdom taking in Pirates, Small World (Ash’s insistence) and Snow White,  a hot air balloon ride, a day at Epcot and a trip to Tarpon Springs followed by an evening at Downtown Disney.

My feet really hurt.

Ash has done all the driving. I’m generally a good and confident driver and enjoy being on the road but when we rented an “intermediate” SUV we forgot that size is different on this side of the Atlantic. The monster Jeep Patriot Dollar handed us scares the living daylights out of me; while I’m not a typical woman in many ways, sadly I fit right in the lousy stereotype category when it comes to spatial awareness. I’m used to a Toyoto Yaris – I ain’t getting behind the wheel of the gargantuan tank in the car park.

The weather has been pleasantly sunny – I have a hint of a burn from the day at Epcot – but we’re due thunderstorms the next couple of days so we’ll probably spend tomorrow indoors trawling the malls, and maybe try Hollywood Studios or hitting Magic Kingdom properly on Tuesday if it starts to get warmer. Then Wednesday we have a fun day planned at Kennedy Space Centre. I haven’t been to Cape Canaveral since I was about 8.

Highlights so far:

  • Soarin’ @ Epcot – absolutely fantastic gliding simulator. Wish it was longer, but the queues are long enough already!
  • Test Track and Mission: SPACE are just as good as I remembered too, although the More Intense Training route of the latter does your head in for quite a long time afterwards if you’re even slightly sensitive to motion (Ash doesn’t get motion sickness and felt thoroughly weird for ages).
  • Lovely lunch at Plaka in Tarpon Springs.

Alarming moments so far:

  • The ‘venomous snakes’ sign at the rest stop on I4 East (see Flickr).

Anyway, it’s late(ish), I’m tired, and a warm shower and an episode of Family Guy are calling.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Ten Days of Disney: Monorail! Monorail! Monorail!

Gotta love songs from The Simpsons. And you’ve gotta love the feeling of getting in that monorail and zooming towards the best fun you’ll ever have in an organised way ever, ever, ever. And that’s it – that’s ten days of things I love about Disney: the parks, the people and the topiary.

Disorganised blogging from me today. I’m too skittish and flight-nervous to link back to all the previous days (use the tag, though, or scroll down)…

I shall greet you from the Disney side!

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Ten Days of Disney: Fast Pass

Now, though the fella behind @TheDisneyBlog hated Fast Pass (and I have yet to get round to asking him why, although I’m very curious), I found it a thoroughly useful and excellent invention in 2004 when I first used it at WDW.

The concept is brilliantly simple: the queue is too long right now, so you get an hour-long slot (for rides) or performance time (for shows) to come back for, leaving you with a very short wait compared to the standby lines.

In practice most of the Fast Pass tickets are gone by 11am, but if you plan your park visit carefully – it does require a certain amount of military precision although there’s still arguably room for spontaneity – you’ll get hold of ones for the rides you most want to go on. For me the key Fast Passes to bag will be for Splash Mountain, Mission Space and Soarin’, I reckon (if they all do FP, which I believe they do).

No system is perfect, but as a way of helping you plan your day around the park without having to account for very long queues, it’s very helpful.

Day One: Howard Ashman & Alan Menken

Day Two: EPCOT

Day Three: Landscaping

Day Four: Pixar

Day Five: Disney for Good

Day Six, Seven & Eight: Adult Entertainment, Phil Harris & Sterling Holloway, Fireworks

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Ten Days of Disney: Three in One…

disneyfireworksEaster and Pesach shenanigans forcibly removed me from blogging for a couple of days, so here’s six, seven and eight in one post!

Day Six: Adult Entertainment

Okay, that’s a shamelessly attention-baiting title. But if I hear once more that “Las Vegas is like Disneyland for adults!” I think I’ll explode. This is almost invariably stated by people who have never been to a Disney park. Hell, they usually think Disneyland is in Florida. *sigh*. The fact is, adults pay for their kids to visit Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Disneyland Paris and the Far Eastern parks. It’s not necessarily the cheapest holiday in the world (although there are always good deals if you scout around and plan in advance), so just nagging by the kids is not going to be enough to cause parents to repeatedly shell out cash and spend hours walking around hot theme parks. No, what does that is that they’re great places to visit for an adult too. Much as with the films, the initial blast is very childlike – the dressed up cast members, etc – but the imaginative attention to detail, funny asides, great performances, scary thrills and well-designed facilities are definitely grown-up friendly. You can even grab an alcoholic drink in EPCOT. That’s not even mentioning the Downtown Disney developments with restaurants and entertainment galore.

No, Las Vegas ain’t Disneyland for adults. Except if they’re completely obsessed with drinking, I guess.

Day Seven: Phil Harris & Sterling Holloway

The voice of Thomas O’Malley, Baloo the Bear and Little John was famous for a whole cornucopia of radio work in his native US, but as a kid it was only through those three films that I had any idea who Phil Harris was. To me, this is the essence of Disney. While the modern performances of the High School Musical ilk certainly have their place – and a legion of fans – the likes of The Jungle Book will captivate generation after generation because of performances like Harris’s. There has tended to be a move to screen actors using their vocal skills for films recently, and some are very good, but traditional voice acting is a skill in and of itself. I don’t think anyone’s really topped Sterling Holloway as either The Cheshire Cat or Kaa the snake (even if Roquefort the mouse is my favourite).

Sadly, neither of these tremendous vocalists is still with us, but what better way to live forever? My nephew, at 3 years old, is as in love with The Jungle Book as his mum and auntie are, and we’ll make sure he plays it to his kids too.

Day Eight: The Fireworks

You know Sunday night feeling, when you know you have to go back to school / work the next morning? The fireworks at the end of a day in a park make me feel like that – brilliant and sad all at once.

Day One: Howard Ashman & Alan Menken

Day Two: EPCOT

Day Three: Landscaping

Day Four: Pixar

Day Five: Disney for Good

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Ten Days of Disney: Disney for Good

Disney, like most big corporations with an eye on their reputation, has an outreach programme. Disney VoluntEARS, work with the Make-a-Wish Foundation and a strong emphasis on employees sharing skills are a few parts of Disney Worldwide Outreach.

This is, given my job, naturally an area of interest for me. I knew about Disney’s work with Make-a-Wish years ago as a visit to a Disney park, studio or other related venue is consistently one of the most popular wishes of very ill children. If that doesn’t tell you about the power of Disney’s story-telling and the evangelism that rises from it, nothing will. But I didn’t know until quite recently, when my interest increased, about the amount of employee time that is donated to communities.

This is one area where I’d love to see Disney developing online. Surely this is a place where online and offline communities really have a chance to be joined up. A place for volunteers to exchange information and potential volunteers to find out more? A place where kids can find online mentors from within Disney? A place where parents whose children have been helped through Make-a-Wish can build an online wall of memories of their child’s experience? A way for Disney to teach non-profit organisations without their budgets and marketing advantage to make the most of social technologies? You name it – the list of online possibilities surrounding outreach work are virtually endless.

My favourite is the Disney mentor idea – a natural online extension of the thousands of hours of offline community work Disney employee “VoluntEARS” already do. Imagine each employee giving up one hour a week to give advice to a kid online about becoming an attraction “imagineer”, animator, or other creative professional. What a boost to the arts that would be! And then there are the legion of other employees, from web wizards to front-of-house cast members. Each has advice and talent to offer; imagine how valued you would feel if you were asked to contribute your time to the project.

What’s in it for Disney? Well, though it might be done for entirely more altruistic reasons, there’s the lifelong fans you’re going to make when your pool of highly skilled employees shares the talent wealth a little. And the reputation advantages. Not to mention a direct line to possibly the greatest market research money can buy, straight from the people who love the Disney empire best, and a contacts list of future potential employees likely to feel completely loyal to a company that’s behaved like family.

For all I know, much of this is already in the pipeline or has been discussed and rejected for any number of reasons. But, for the record – that’s what I would do.

Day One: Howard Ashman & Alan Menken

Day Two: EPCOT

Day Three: Landscaping

Day Four: Pixar

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Ten Days of Disney: Landscaping

tinkNow, I know what you’re thinking. You came here for stuff about Disney and I give you… gardening?! Seriously, though. There’s more to Disney’s extraordinary landscaping than you might think.

Before you even start on the amazing Disney topiary contests (always more impressive in person than in pictures), everything about the way the Disney parks are laid out is wonderful. The attention to detail from leaping fountains and peaceful waterways to lovely swathes of parkland that you watch zooming by from the monorail is just wonderful. It very cleverly makes what’s essentially a huge man-made development fit very sympathetically into place. It’s not an urban blot on the landscape but an attractive marriage of nature and architecture. You’ve got to love that (and we’ll go onto architecture on another Day of Disney, no doubt).

Despite involving tonnes and tonnes of concrete, bricks and paint, a visit to WDW always seems like a visit to a rural park. I imagine this will only be better in Animal Kingdom’s mock-safari areas, and I look forward to seeing that and the gorgeous Tree of Life I’ve heard so much about. Much of Orlando is inescapably touristy and industrial – which serves a useful purpose but isn’t exactly attractive – so it’s great to go into a tourist area and yet not feel like you’re in a concrete pit.

Day One: Howard Ashman & Alan Menken

Day Two: EPCOT

[Image Source: Tink Spinning Topiary from Princess Shari on Flickr]

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

A Year @ Dogs Trust: What I’ve Learned

Yesterday marked my first anniversary at Dogs Trust. Among the lovely, supportive comments about this that I received was one that really made me proud, from Howard Lake of UK Fundraising writing on the Dogs Trust Facebook page:

In that case, congratulations on all you’ve achieved in that time. I have to say I’d assumed you’d been there for much longer, given what you’ve done for the charity.

I practically did a Ribenaberry jump when I read that. It’s totally testament to the welcoming, supportive, creative atmosphere here. We do have an exceptionally open-minded Marketing Director who will sell the idea of social media to the rooftops if you give him good reason to, and the Digital Marketing Manager practically created the web department on her own some time ago so keen was she to go into this area. We’re a passionate bunch, and I like to think that seeming like I’ve been around forever is a side effect of that.

Anyway, enough about what I’ve done, what I’m more interested in is what I’ve learned about social media since I joined the team. Some of it was not new to me, but allowed me to form stronger opinions about what social media are and aren’t, and strip the jargon away to get to the communications heart of it all.

I could go on about this until the virtual cows have given up and tipped themselves, but I’ve picked my top three social media soapbox subjects.

1. Social media are the perfect platform for personalised customer service

I’m not just talking about the personalised email, but about the comments, responses, conversations and Q&As that take place on social sites all the time. I’ve often said I’m better at the Q&A than the presentation, despite being a passionate talker, because I’m at my best in a situation where real two-way communication is taking place. The presentation is the website: glossy, informative, nice looking, easy to understand and approachable. The Q&A is the meat on the bones, the questions, the criticisms, the real people behind the organisational front. That is what using social platforms is all about. If as a business or charity you don’t get that, you should stay away. The penalty is not failure to be noticed, but being noticed doing the wrong thing.

2. Naming names is powerful

Every time I’ve replied to someone, I’ve tried to use their name: “Hi Jane” “Hey John” “Thanks Chris”. The vast majority of the time I’ve done this, people have said “wow, you used my name.” That’s them up there – it’s them the ‘voice’ of the organisation is talking to. It’s so vitally important to respect someone’s offline reality. They have names, families, pets, jobs, interests – lives. Mentioning their name is a small, easy and never-forgotten way of showing that.

3. Moderation needs a balance between disclosure and distance

Being a community moderator is a bit like being a teacher (and here I speak from experience). You want to be friendly, approachable, informal and, hell, even liked. No harm with wanting people to think well of you. But you also need to be the respected voice of the website gods, who can enforce rules. When you get the balance right – and everyone slips at times – you need only deliver a quick reminder to get people into line. Then again, you need to be confident in pulling out the big guns quickly and efficiently if you genuinely need to, and this can mean a no explanation approach. Allow me to explain before you think I’m breaking Social 101 commandments.

Suppose you ban someone. No-one else on the site has the right to know why  – that’s between you and the banned person – and you shouldn’t have to justify yourself all the time. This is not the same as saying you’re not accountable to your community – you are, without them the site fails – or that their feedback should not be seriously considered. But if you’ve got good, transparent, sensible and reasonable rules, you shouldn’t have to justify them again every time. Just direct people to the right place.

That’s not even slightly a summary of 12 months in a handful of paragraphs, but this is what’s at the forefront of my mind going into year two. Well, that and Disney World.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Ten Days of Disney: EPCOT

Now, I appreciate that the Magic Kingdom is the symbol of Disney in every sense. Not only was it the original theme park from which I have pictures of a four-year-old slack-jawed Alex watching a parade in absolute, blissful awe, but the image of Cinderella Castle – particularly with fireworks breaking in the sky above – is absolutely synonymous with everything from film idents to promotional materials.

But it’s not my favourite park. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Pirates of the Caribbean and the newly-refitted Haunted Mansion are totally on my “don’t leave without seeing” list (It’s a Small World not so much but then I’m no longer a small person). But as much as the Lands of Fantasy, Frontier and more delight me and fill me with excitement and joy, it’s EPCOT that I really look forward to visiting.

The giant silver golf ball that marks the Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow makes my heart race when it hoves into view from the monorail. I was always, always a techy, geeky kid. Fascinated by computers, the first one to figure out how to programme the VCR to record. I took after my mother – she was the one setting timers and changing plugs in our house, and she’s taught herself HTML in her 60s just because she felt like it, really. So heading into a whole world of beeps and whistles, a supercharged collection of the most fun science museum stands, was tremendously exciting. EPCOT, with its Spaceship Earth based around communication, is really an inevitable choice for a social media and online communications bod, isn’t it?

More than that, though, there was the World Showcase. A brilliantly multi-cultural idea from a company who could at times seem a bit sterile and white, it’s also by far the best place to eat in the whole of WDW (especially Morocco). Oh, and the best vantage point to watch the gorgeous Illuminations light and firework show over the lake.

This year is my first visit to Animal Kingdom. It was open when I last went in 2004 but I was only there for a week and chose to revisit old friends rather than trying to spend time getting to know a new park. I imagine it will be a great experience, but my first priority will be introducing my complete Disnewbie of a husband to EPCOT.

Ten Days of Disney Day One: Howard Ashman & Alan Menken