Appalled!  Actually, mortified is more accurate.  I had put my reputation, as well as that of a friend’s, on the line and it was all due to poor grammar.

I love to share and teach through telling stories. My stories are often short blurbs told through blogs and images. For years, when writing blog posts, I have proudly stated for that I write like I speak.  I believe in writing in this voice and firmly maintain that on many levels it facilitates a two-way conversation between my readers and me.  My readers often tell me it’s an almost seamless cross over from reading my blog to talking to me in person. I love that and it’s not something I want to change.

Having said that, in everything you do there are times when you realize you have to go back to the basics.  Right now, for me, that involves boning up on my basic grammar. I am, admittedly, a social media junky – blogs, Facebook and Twitter. I love the constant communication and ease of use, but I hate what it’s done to my writing!

When I first started using these tools (mostly Twitter and Facebook), I cringed at every misspelling and poor wording.  I’d tell myself I’m smarter and better educated than that – get it together!  Somewhere along the line, I stopped caring as much. Was it when I saw other very smart people making the same mistakes or when I realized people understood the meaning of what I was saying even if it was written awkwardly?  I’m not sure, but it certain has come back to haunt me!

A friend contacted me about an opportunity in which he thought I’d be interested.  I immediately jumped on it and sent out an introductory email to his acquaintance.  I then heard back from my friend that he was told my email was riddled with typos and I wouldn’t be getting a response.  I couldn’t believe it and was shocked.  Then I got a sinking feeling in my stomach and the word “Grammar” loomed over my head.

Proper use of grammar has always been a weakness. I can either have a dearth or a plethora of commas in my writing.  I have finished sentences with the word for and other similar such mistakes.  This time, though it was a direct wake up call.  I’m a very smart girl and I hate looking dumb but it’s even worse if I drag someone else’s reputation down with me.

I took steps to remedy the situation as best I could.  There are times when you still need your Mom to help you in a jam, especially when she was an English Major and teacher!  I sent her a copy of what I sent out.  We went over everything line by line. I kicked myself the whole way through, as I knew most of what she was telling me.  I then sent two apology notes. One to my friend expressing dismay and apologies for any embarrassment this may have caused him.  The other was to his acquaintance, in which I owned up to my mistakes and asked that he not use this experience to taint any other references my friend may make.  I received a thank-you note back from both of them.

So going forward, I will still use my “speaking” voice when I write, but I am going to work on cleaning up the framework.  I also need to take into close consideration who my final reader is.  In this case, it was not someone in the social media world, but a more formal connection.  I am also looking for a good, basic, remedial grammar book (open to suggestions here).  I never want to be embarrassed like that again!  My take away from all this is two fold: 1) Always remember to and for whom you are writing and 2) Grammar – the rules DO still count!!

I’m checking in to thank-you all for still stopping by and to let you know I’ll be back again soon!

Since my last post I put my Grandmother house on the market, sold it in a week, travelled 21 days in a row for work and then threw in a couple of extra days for good measure, committed to a lease in the Baltimore area, started packing and now looking for work in Baltimore!  When it rains it pours!!

But I haven’t forgotten about you all and I have posts spinning in my brain literally jumping to get out.  Bear with me for a few more weeks and all will be back to normal!  Thank-you for hanging with me!!

All of you children of the 70’s sing with me now:

“Who are the people in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood!”

I’ve spent the last two weeks with my head down, nose to the grindstone, trying to get a house not only on the market but also ready for an open house!  Between packing, cleaning and syncing schedules with a painter, my whole world has been consumed with this one goal.  My neighborhood, let alone the rest of the world, could have washed away and I never would have noticed – I was that focused!  Unfortunately, those of us who run small business can often fall into this same mind set.

As a small business owner we have goals and benchmarks at the forefront of our minds.  We have a path to follow and a determination to get there.  We put our heads down and get to work.  And therein lies the problem – we put our heads down.  We are so focused on our goals that the rest of the world ceases to exist.  We miss out on numerous ideas, opportunities and collaborations!

I finally came up for air this past weekend and started looking around.  Now if I was Elmo, I’d have seen that my neighborhood has a grocer, postman, doctor, teacher and librarian.  The beauty and simplicity of Elmo is that he is three and learning.  He hasn’t reached an age where he’s so busy he tries to shut the world out.  He learns, creates and interacts with each of these neighbors. He is an active, social member of his neighborhood.

My neighborhood isn’t the same as Elmo’s, it’s a little more complex.  It’s multi-feathered so to speak.  It consists of artists, etsy, photographers, marketers, online forums and quality service providers.  Through being an aware and active member of my neighborhood I’ve seen creative works that sparked marketing ideas for my business, collaborated with others to create content and learned new processes that I plan to integrate into my own systems of operation.  I don’t necessarily have to actively interact with all my neighbors.  Just by being aware of them and their work sparks new creative ideas as well as spotting consumer trends.  It also teaches me the best way to approach each individual neighbor when I see someplace I can help.  Not everyone likes to be approached the same way.  Some are write out the proposal formal, while others are lets grab coffee social – it depends on the neighbor.

While it’s true the saying “Birds of a feather flock together.”  You’ll notice I said my neighborhood was multi-feathered.  Pay attention – this is important!  When we refuse to let new and different people into our neighborhood our information and learning get stale.  We can no longer grow and progress past where we currently are.  We’ve all seen businesses or people like this.  They’ve been so busy diligently working with their heads down, that when they do finally look up, they have no idea what road they are on let alone neighborhood!  Their whole world washed away when they weren’t looking.  Pick your head up and take a look around.  Who are the people in your neighborhood?