Podcast Production for "Working For All," The New Podcast From Dutchess County's DC Works

Various job creation initiative programs related to DC Works reached out to Brandon Lillard and Katie Hellmuth of Tha’ Max Studio and Tin Shingle to help DC Works create and produce a podcast that highlights the service agencies and businesses aligned to help people of all abilities and situations in Dutchess County get work.

It’s a complex program, and we are learning more and more about it through the podcast episodes we record for them. After recording 5 episodes to warm up and find their style, our next recording session was to hone in on their introduction, how they wanted to present themselves as co-hosts on this podcast, and how the podcast would present itself on the newly designed website of DC Works.

Working with the mission statement on their website, Tin Shingle wrote an introduction that will work in order to represent a variety of types of guests. Based on the recent rebranding of DC Works, we also came up with a title for the podcast that incorporates and highlights the all abilities community.

Tell us what you think!

Working For All
A DC Works Podcast

Working For All is the podcast of DC Works, which contributes to Dutchess County’s economic growth by supporting the needs of employers and job seekers through resources and services offered in a true One Stop environment that proudly works cooperatively with community agencies.

In this podcast, we hear directly from job seekers, businesses, community agencies, leaders, and our own team to learn first hand the experiences and needs from employers employing people with all abilities, differently employed, and those who are changing careers.

We're you're hosts, Amanda and Zoey, showing you how Dutchess County is working for all.

Episodes will be available soon, as DC Works rolls out their rebrand. We have 7 more episodes to record, which means a variety of gusts, as well as a turnaround interview on the co-hosts Amanda and Zoey that Brandon and Katie will co-host, in order to interview Amanda and Zoey about what is available at DC Works, and what makes it a one stop shop for people in Dutchess County changing careers, entering the workforce, or needing special accommodations for their abilities in order to earn a living.

To hire Tin Shingle to produce your podcast, no matter if you’re local to New York’s Hudson Valley or elsewhere in the country, see here to learn more and reach out.

Hello!! Vision Boarding Turned Chapter Book To Leave 2021 For 2022

Hellllllo!

What a holiday season! Filled with extreme highs and lows for some. At Tin Shingle, we have always liked setting resolutions. Call them what you will - visions, intentions, goals - whatever. Declaring them makes us accountable, even if it's 3 years later. Once started, we can pat ourselves on the back, saying: "See!? I knew you'd start that someday, and that day was yesterday. Good job."

One of the themes for us (well, me, Katie, the owner of Tin Shingle) going into 2022 was "honesty." Honesty with one's self. Honesty can hit in many forms. From the music you listen to in public, to how you spend your New Years Eve.

Where does "honesty" fit in? Some people like to party, decorate, have lots of people over, cook, etc. I'm just more quiet, and admitting that can be hard. It’s not meant to crash someone else’s preferences of how they like to spend the evening. But if mutual admiration for different styles can be found, then that is ideal.

For me, I prefer to be under water, turning around in the current as the big wave passes overhead. Once the wave hits the shore, I emerge, having felt its pull from underwater, playing with the rushing energy from underneath.

Once the wave crashes on land, the emerging happens. Call it emerging like a mermaid, where her tail turns to legs, and she's ready to leave the sea to walk on shore, exploring curiosities for the next creation to fulfill a purpose. Put on fresh silver glitter for the next day. I don't watch the countdown shows; I don't call people; I don't text as many people as I can type in 3 minutes until the next day.

The day is spent prepping: recycling filmy plastics, paying bills, paying invoices, declaring income goals for the new year; digging into paint; spreading new rubber cement; buying and playing with new watercolor markers.

Vision Boarding Turned Chapter Book

My neighbor and I (and our daughters) spent the evening vision boarding. When I used to have an office on Main Street in my town, one of the last events I had was a Vision Boarding Day for the community. Anyone could come in and cut up my magazine collection, use glitter, beads, etc.

My old bar/desk is in my living room now, so we gathered round and got to cutting. Each person was in their process. Talking to each other, but in our own plans. My plan evolved from a single board to a thick, lined journal. I'd wanted plain paper, but all the store had was lined. I figured I'd like the effect and could take notes.

This happened. The single board evolved into a vision journal for the year. Open for anyone to read. A friend wanted to see the results, so I made her a video. You can watch it here. My neighbor and I have discussed meeting up once a month to revisit the journal boards with new clippings/discoveries.

Highlights

Reading the highlights/intentions/resolutions in the video may be difficult. Therefore, here they are:

• Sketching
  Sketch anything. Just let your hand go and play with those art supplies.

• Boarding
  Keep vision boarding throughout the year.

• Newspaper Homework Time + Clipping
  I love reading the paper! But I need to save some of the articles for visual stimulation of new articles.

• Scheduling The Work
  I run 3 companies. Need to finally commit to mini-schedules to show up at each of them, and not be consumed by one.

• Pictures: Album Assigning + Printing
  Assign the pictures of my family to albums and print them all.

• Play With My Kids
  Sit and play with my kids more. Just sit there and do nothing or play their game or sit while they color or play Fortnite.

• Phoenix Rising: Buy a Building
  I once rented an office. But I want to own the building.

• Stay Strong + Fit
  Ever since my Pelvic Prolapse diagnosis, I have been so thankful that I started running every day and doing Pilates once per week to save my body. The extra benefits have been unexpected and amazing.

• Accept
  Practice accepting things and feelings into my life. People give, now it needs to be absorbed.

• Sunday Magazining
  For years I said I'd carve time on Sundays to only read magazines and not go on social.

• $7,000/month Income
  This is what the bank wants if I am to buy a building. Therefore, this is what the bank shall have.

• Maybe the Book: Children’s Book
  Have a couple ideas for a children's book - one with a friend. Go deeper and explore it.

• Plantings/Cuttings/Succulents
  Get more live plants in the home. Before kids, I had live plants. After kids, they were too much to take care of and water. I need them back.

Watch the video of this vision board/journal here.

What did you do? What do you like to do? Share in the Comments on Tin Shingle's blog.

Words Matter

Hello Tin Shinglers!

The media is on fire with breaking news, and you need to know how to pitch it. This note is a mention on the pulse of the people since the election. We won't mention COVID, because that news is everywhere, and hopefully you are enjoying a safe holiday with your immediate sphere and not mixing households. Right!?

At the time of this writing (this article has been in Drafts for a bit), most people were referring to the early election results cautiously, as: "the news." Friends didn't know where friends stood, so the election became "the news" after the media was the first to declare it once presidential absentee ballots were counted. Still on the local level, assumed outcomes are being upended by absentee ballots.

This week, "the news" has been made official. Finally. First by Twitter and Facebook on Monday (here's how it will work), when they declared that they would transfer the POTUS and FLOTUS accounts to Joe and Jill Biden. Now that the new president and vice president are officially coming, that doesn't mean that this transitional year - this year of a renewed racial revolution - is over. It has only just begun. There are a few things you need to keep in mind:

What I've Learned - As A Local Reporter

The past few months, I have been deep into producing local news for my blog, A Little Beacon Blog (21,500 views/month, over 7,000 Instagram followers). As one of the first local news outlets to report on COVID - back before there were testing sites and everyone was newly freaking out and New Yorkers were literally dying by the hundreds every day - local news was slow to respond. Everyone was in shock. A Little Beacon Blog was one of the first to respond because our neighbors needed to know what was going on.

And then the racial revolution opened up. George Floyd was killed in the street in broad daylight by a police officer, and the world erupted in protests. Because of my local reporting, I have different leads and relationships with people in the Black community (not to mention my fabulous long-time hair stylist), so this was also an area I was comfortable diving into (as you might remember).

Readers have been hungry for this information, when I share racially rooted content with you. Every single time I publish it, it's hard, and I know that some kind of reaction will happen. Largely it is very supportive. Like with anyone, when there is a single negative or angry person, it makes an impact on me, and I take it to heart. Not sadness heart, but "what can I learn from this?" heart.

Based on this, here is what I have learned: denial is deep. Words matter, and saying the right words helps fight denial of actual events. Here's what I mean:

"It didn't happen....I was there...I didn't see that...Did you see it from his mouth moving?"

On the Wednesday before the election, I published a story about a truck train coming to my small town of Beacon. There are about 15,000 people living here, just 60 miles north of New York City. Often a darling of a tourism section of the New York Times, people like to  believe Beacon as bucolic, so was pretty shocking with a Trump train rolled through.

For a Trump supporter, it was a beautiful sight. For Black people, it was traumatic. A man on a motorcycle in the line driving past our Post Office, shouted "white power!" and a person got it on video. You could hear the shock of the person recording it, as she followed him with the camera, let him out of view, then did a double-take and refocused on him when she processed what he said.

Trump supporters in A Little Beacon Blog's Instagram denied it. A woman who loved the truck train said she was at the rally, and never heard it. Another woman who was in one of the cars highlighted in the article said that from her car, she never heard anything shouted. There were other examples and testimonies from readers about what they encountered. People wrote into me with their experiences. For the people I knew, I believed them and published their stories. I also published the video of "white power."

The denial from the Trump supporters knocked the wind out of my chest. I really didn't know what to say. One reader said she liked the blog, but found it bias right now. I responded by saying that I didn't like typing that someone yelled "white power," and wasn't sure what the other side of that was.

Her comment got 4 likes. Mine got 88 likes. We don't run a lot of high numbers around here, so that spread was significant. But I was still speechless as that Wednesday wore on. As a person who teaches media, and now a person who creates media content, I had never encountered someone labeling the story #FakeNews, and someone in Facebook accusing the article to be a Russian bot.

The thing is, by denying something in your mind - because it's too upsetting - is contributing to racism. That is why all people must commit to becoming anti-racist, and doing that every day. The whole event at my local blog made me expand and tighten my comment policy, that even included No Grammar Shaming. Because all people - on both sides - were suffering and lashing out.

Words Matter

This is where the theme of this newsletter comes in. Words matter. What you say to your customers matters. What you don't say to your customers matters. I've seen a lot of newsletters that refer to the word in vague terms, and my guidance on that is to use the real words of what is happening: racism exposed. It is here. It is always here. It will always be here by any person at any time, and recognizing it to resist it lies in your hands.
The words you use in your newsletters to describe this year of 2020 matter. Here are simple terms being used in newsletters that I recommend you change:

• "With the world being upside down"

• "This has been a crazy year"

• "Everything is chaotic!"

Each of these terms can and should be changed to what they are: "With this racial revolution amidst a pandemic." Take a minute to reflect on how things are. Are things upside-down? Or are they right side up? Or are you just seeing them for the first time? And we have been living upside-down? And we are trying to turn things right side up? "We" meaning white people who have been part of the creations of many rules and laws that limit and oppress Black people.

Black people and People of Color are generously sharing their trauma with us, so that white people can recognize when something doesn't fit or stings.

Here are the next set of words you can delete from your vocabulary and replace:

• "racial slur" 

• "racial epithet"

Both of these terms are disguises for "racial insult." A slur is when someone is drunk. And yes, "slur" also means an implication to hurt someone, but who really uses this word in that context, unless it's with "racial slur." And do you even know what an epithet is? Or how to pronounce it? And is it "epithet" or "epitaph?" Let's stop being polight.

You get what I mean. It's an insult. A sting. A dart. Forget these numbing words and use the words with feeling behind them. It hurts!

Where To Find Your Words

Digging down rabbit holes is crucial right now. Let yourself explore and discover new voices, and new comfort zones. Here are some people I have been following:
@amandaseals @yellowswagger @alitawfiqmuhammad @millennial_matriarch @__izdihar__ @bfftherapy @iamdaniellepitts @innkcoffeeyoga @becauseofthem @theblackmancan @blavity @iamtabithabrown @the.coloredgirl

And so many more...

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and keep saying your words.

xoxo

Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson And T.I. For TV Series, 'Twenty Four Seven', At CBS All Access

 Twenty Four Seven, a drama starring T.I. Inspired by Notorious C.O.P.: The Inside Story of the Tupac, Biggie, and Jam Master Jay Investigations from NYPD’s First “Hip-Hop Cop,” will be produced by Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson.

The series is currently in the works and the final pieces for the project will be produced by CBS TV Studios and Lionsgate TV. Dallas Jackson writes the series based on the book written by Derrick Parker and Matt Diehl and Curtis Jackson executive produces the series through his G Unit Film & Television.

T.I. will play the role of Derrick Parker who was involved deeply in rap history, including, the first shooting of Tupac Shakur.

Hiiiiiiii!!!!!!! Happy New Year 2020!

Hello Tin Shinglers!

It’s been so long! Two weeks, yet over the course of the holiday season, seems like, well, an entire season!

Two Tips

This video is a connection point with you, and includes 2 tips for you for how to get media this year:

• Pitch A Lot. More than you think. You need to stop thinking about it, and just DO IT. You can strategize it, grow it, stretch it in all kinds of directions on why you would pitch a particular media. But you need to just block out all of the other ideas, and do it to the one idea you cooked up! Record your other ideas in your Content Planner or your PR Planner and Tracker (both are Tin Shingle Templates you can download).

• Pitch Different. If you’re going to be pitching a lot, you need new ideas. You need unique story angles. If you don’t know what I mean, then join Tin Shingle right now, and set your Wednesdays at 12pm EST for a PR Challenge Session, where we can talk face to face. In the meantime, I’ll explain: there is a magical intersection between really good idea - a must-write-about-idea - and timeliness. That is how pure editorial happens. Editorial that you don’t pay for. But that a magazine or TV show actually paid to have produced. They paid their writers, graphic designers, photographers, videographers, producers, editors, to produce this great story. And it mentions or totally features your business. This isn’t something you deserve. It isn’t something that must be done for you. It isn’t why the media exists. To write about you for free. This magical intersection I speak of is the WHY the media exists, to inform their readers, to entertain their viewers, to reward you with the press you do deserve. You must think of what is that tiny, unique snowflake of an article idea that will tempt them.

Sure, you can pitch in a general pitch. A “hey, this is what my business does” type pitch. And you may have invented something totally different, and that in and of itself is a strong enough pitch. That does happen all of the time. But for every other produced story out there, it’s the magical intersection you must tap into.

I know you can do it!

Stick with Tin Shingle. Ideas come from here, and that’s more than half the battle. Media contacts are helpful, sure. But unique story ideas are golden.

Happy New Year!

Reading Cosmo

Cosmo is filled with mixed messages, but those that are delivered are worth reading - and ignoring the conflicting ones. Was never allowed to read Cosmo when growing up. But right now, it seems useful as a young person to read. Getting familiar with the different sections for Tin Shingle’s business owners, makers and artists who want to use it to get the word out.

Happy Tuesday: This Day Will Not Take Me

Yesterday was a tricky Monday. Filled with feelings of kicking booty butt, accompanied by all of the necessary visions for doing so, there were monkey wrenches about. Tuesday is a new day, often one that allows for a pulled focus on the top priorities left over from Monday.

As a business owner, you’re the only one making it happen. Meaning, there is no boss setting the rules for you. There is no formula you can step into. You are making the formula. Triggers can set this out of whack, and just know that you will bounce back.

Yesterday, despite feeling actually great, the childcare trigger tilted me. I made the choice to pull back on childcare, and it is currently smashing me. Yet I find hope in it. Yet it’s like water skiing, straddling the wake of each side instead of parallel skis.

It’s also tax season for some, those of us living in Extension Land. The last years I’d been an A student for this, but didn’t call my accountant for 2 things, and those things bit me (mistakenly taking out IRA contribution pre tax from paycheck, and not trusting Quickbooks automation for reconciling...instead opting to search for needles in haystacks...apparently their automation tool is good! So am getting a lesson in how to use it.).

But the silver lining is this: many are apparently getting audited this year, for expenses claims vs the new standard deduction. This gave us a chance to omit some personal expenses as freelance based people, to hopefully not trigger an audit. Nothing actually bad happened yesterday, and in fact good news was delivered, and problems solved. But the headspace of distraction tilted the day.

New day! Stay the course. Keep the focus. Go back to work. You know what you need to do. You’ve got this, Business Owner, Artist or Maker.

Pro Tip: Try filing. If you’ve got a buildup of papers not filed, take yourself to Target or your local paper or stationery store right now and buy some pretty file boxes (for the guys...whatever suits you). Buy yourself a pretty file cabinet from Pottery Barn if you need something sturdier. Start filing. This can trigger the completion energy in your brain, allowing you more fluidity in your thoughts to complete what you need to. Even folding and putting away laundry could have the same affect. 

Happy Monday! Today You're Going To Kick Booty Butt (but actually this...)

Photo Credit: Katie James, Inc.

Happy Monday!
Simple message for you today. Today you are going to kick bootie butt. Here's what we're working on for you at Tin Shingle:

• Updating Media Contacts for O, The Oprah Magazine, the digital version.
  

• Updating contacts for Women's Day Magazine (a great source for health, fitness and wellness experts, as well as gift guide and product roundup opportunities).
  

• Gathering juicy highlights from Facebook's annual announcement platform, referred to as the F8 developer conference, where they announce where they say they are going in the year ahead...

Stay tuned to your inbox!

Postcards Through The Mail Slot As Effective As 10 Instagram Posts

Giddy to receive this postcard from the Beacon, NY based artist, Anna West, who is such a diligent promoter of her artwork. Anna was a guest expert on a Tin Shingle TineUp talking about how she uses Instagram to sell her artwork using the good old fashion conversation way, not even using the formal Instagram ad tool way.

Anna pays very close attention to the beauty around her and how she wants to paint it. She also pays attention to how her audience responds to which of her paintings, and paints more of what they love. Anna lives in a lot in hashtags to get in front of the right person who would be interested in a type of painting.

Pictured here is the ever-effective postcard that came through our mail door here at the Tin Shingle Office. Anna is a participating artist in Beacon’s Open Studios on May 18-19. One of the best interactive art events of the year in Beacon! While Anna’s painterly face has crossed my eyes many times in Instagram, it is this postcard that left the deepest impression on me. The behind the scenes thoughts of my brain when I received it was: “Oh my gosh, Beacon Open Studios is just around the corner, and Anna has opened her studio!”

Our sister media company A Little Beacon Blog is a proud sponsor of Beacon Open Studios.

This is the actual door of Tin Shingle’s office. We do have a mail slot!

Morning Work: TuneUp and 2019 Resolutions Prep

Prepping for today’s TinShingle TuneUp: practicing what I’m about to preach during the Inspiration section: unplug from computer at least 1 Morning a week to do Morning Work. This means kid’s forms and #magazining. One of my 2019 Resolutions is to read more magazines and Media Monitor. This is how it’s getting done.

Tune in today with me at 3pm EST to hear action steps for Polishing Your Brand During the Winter. Now is the perfect time to lose the old and replace with new content, new designs, new bold moves. Sign up for in the TuneUps section, or here: tinshingle.com/tuneup