Last year, when I was raising money for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure, I made a million little notecards that I used as thank-yous and for fundraising. And now, I have piles of them sitting around, inside little cellophane envelopes that are collecting dust. So, I'm hosting a little giveaway to lighen the load.


Specifically, I'm giving away three sets of these cards, my favorite:




Here's how it works:

I've read a few blog posts about the New York Times and other papers charging for online content and started pondering -- would I pay for their news? Sadly, probably not. Unless I wanted a specific article I had heard about elsewhere and needed it for a specific reason.

I have no idea if I'm like everyone else, but in order to sign up for a regular subscription for something, I have to feel like it's a part of my daily life. I take time to consider whether the expense is worth it. Match.com - at one point, yes. Newsweek (paper version), at one point, yes, but those just gathered in piles of Things I Meant To Read. So, New York Times, no.

But, Facebook? Yes. I'm addicted. I usually log in a few times a day and would probably pay $10 or $15 a month for the privilege of browsing others' status updates and posting the mundane details of my life.

To recap some of the status updates I've posted in the last few weeks:

Jan. 26: After Tuesday even the calendar spells W T F... (borrowed from Adam Roberts)

Jan. 9: Borrowed advice: If you can’t make a decision in 9 seconds, you’re not ready to make that decision.

Jan. 7: hehe. the guy in line in front of me at walmart just bought 2 40s of beer and a pregnancy test.

Jan. 5: Happiness is ... "chasing" the dog with the hairdryer while I'm blow-drying my hair

Dec. 21: wonders what her dog is thinking when he stares at her SO intently. (Comment from Sarah Jo Brenner: Dog: I bet she'd be good with ketchup... lol)

Dec. 21: Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option. (Stolen from Krysta Harding.)

Dec. 12: A NASCAR fan and self-proclaimed gearhead told me tonight that I am better looking than his car. I haven't seen said car, so I'm going to take his word for it ;) (Yes, that was our second - and last - date. He seemed like a really nice guy; we just didn't click...)

Dec. 9: got a "fan e-mail" at work two days ago that still cracks me up. Direct quote: "Long live JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI!"

Dec. 8: has a perverse urge to order pizza just to see how they deliver it in this snowfall...

This week, I donated $10 to Haiti relief efforts via text. While on a short work break.


Uber-easy. Super-convenient. I had meant to donate SOMETHING earlier. But then I didn't get around to it, pondered what an appropriate amount would be, and got busy with other things.


Sometimes I wonder if potential 3-Day donors get that way. They see you, talk with you about the walk, take your donation form with the best of intentions -- and then life happens.


I am by no means a fundraising super-star. (I started fundraising about 12 months before my last walk in October and adopted an "if at first you don't succeed, just keep on trying" approach. That was after I abandoned my original lofty goal of finishing all my fundraising by spring so I could focus on training for the summer.) But I pondered the convenience factor while I was exercising (and staring blankly at my reflection in the gym mirror) yesterday, and here are a few suggestions I've got:


* If you're on Facebook, set up a group page for yourself or your team right away.  Then, ask people to join and challenge your closer friends/supporters to ask 10 of their Facebook friends whom you don't know to join, too. You can use this group to write about why you are walking, post pictures, updates of your other fundraising efforts, and links to your fundraising page in a way that will remind people what you're doing without being too in-their-face. They might not donate right away, but if they keep seeing all your hard work, there's a better chance they'll donate before the event rolls around - plus, you'll have a nice virtual log of your efforts.


* Wear a conversation piece. Maybe a pretty pink breast cancer-themed bracelet. Or a training shirt that says something like "Ask me why I'm walking 60 miles in 3 days." Or a bar shirt that says "I love my big/itty bitty tatas. Ask how you can help them." Or dress your dog in a pink sweater when you take him for a walk. (I HAVE NOT done this ... but I might.) Then, when people take the bait and ask, tell them about the walk and ask them for an e-mail address so you can send them more info. That puts the responsibility to take action on you, not them.


* Use the 3-Day widgets. They can go on your e-mail signature or your blog. If you're logged into your 3-Day Participant Center, you can find the widgets under "Resources" on the upper left-hand side. They'll also post a Facebook application by the end of the month that's a little more extensive. You can see a sample of my widget here on my 20-Something Blogger page.


Any other easy fundraising ideas? My fellow online ambassador Leanne...the walker recently did a $10 Tuesday fundraiser and is seeking other ideas to compile into a huge blog post.

I only got two comments about my Annarbor.com post. A postive(?) one:

Torn. Had a subscription but never received the paper. Since it's online - seems in real time and interactive. I read it now.

And a not-positive one:

The latter. [jillianduch: IE, s/he misses the Ann Arbor News.] People I talk to generally don't like annarbor.com. There aren't enough reporters, the comments can be very rude to each other, and the copy editing is terrible. They simply don't have enough copy editors or reporters. They probably don't have enough of anything, the names of contributors on the Contact Us page is completely out of date--people who left months ago are still listed. 

I check it most days but I don't read it the way I read the (traditional) paper and so I know I miss articles I would like to know about. I think most people I know feel that way, and a lot of them never open it up. I also miss having a real live paper. In print. To add insult to injury--the printed version is on a cheaper version of newsprint, which yellows very quickly in the sun. 

Last, but not least, people who got to reapply for their jobs generally got a) less money and b) much higher health insurance deductibles. So it was basically a way to screw the reporters, advertising people, etc. economically. Which does not make me feel good about the whole enterprise.

I also ran across an article on Poynter Online about an Ann Arbor community forum on life without a newspaper, which included some recent research into how folks these days get their news. And I laughed when I got to the comment from the man who missed re-using newspaper bags while walking his dog. (Dude, move on to plastic grocery bags...those even have handles.)


The consensus from the event seemed to be that online publications don't foster in-person discussion the same way printed newspapers do, don't support a community identity in the same way printed newspapers do, and don't utilize the same story-telling format that printed newspapers do.


Or at least the online publications that those readers read at that particular time. 


I'll admit, I've rarely seen a series of online comments on any publication that I could imagine happening in-person without creating some sort of public disturbance. Or a riot. (Side note: Dooce.com reacted to mean commenters by posting them all on a page with tons of ads. As in, be mean to me all you want, I'll use it for ad revenue. And the Bloomington, Ill., Pantagraph silenced online comments for an entire weekend because they had gotten so nasty.)


But I imagine readers/journalists will adapt to the other concerns. Hyper-local content, reader-submitted posts, and reader-uploaded pictures can be similar to engagement announcements and local press releases. And sure, breaking news posts are short and don't really have any "story-telling" elements, but some publications allow reporters to post longer versions online of articles limited in print by space. Engaging writing is engaging writing. If readers can handle Kindle, some will probably handle longer, well-written online news articles, too.


It sounds like the real problem might be creating brand loyalty and helping readers find content through the vast fragmentation that is the Internet and Twitter and Facebook. How many people will click through to read about how the local schools are spending tax dollars when they're distracted by e-mail, re-tweets about whatever it is that Kim Kardashian does with her time and ads about blasting belly fat? When you get a print newspaper, the choices were pretty much news, sports, lifestyle and ads...

I'm hardly a veteran 3-Dayer. I've walked twice, crewed once, and will crew again in August, but there are tons of people with many more miles and many more closing ceremonies worn into their feet. I know the 3-Day Web site offers tons of fundraising and training information (and great message boards), but there are some cool little things about the 3-Day I didn't learn until I got a little more involved. Here are a few:

I read a news article about the earthquake that hit Haiti for the first time today. Really.

I think I found out about the earthquake from a co-worker the first day after it happened, but (as insensitive and rude as it might be) I didn't really care to read about misery in a far-off place and significantly upgrade the amount of misery I processed in one day/week. Yeah, I guess I became one of those people who think: Why does there have to be so much BAD news in the news?

Obviously, it's an important news story. It just didn't drag me in.

Then, I started seeing commercials about donating to help Haiti via text message. I didn't quite understand how texting would help until I ran across a news column explaining that the money would go to the American Red Cross and that the donation would be added to your next phone bill. I can handle an extra $10 on my phone bill, so I considered texting. And actually did it this morning. (Here's another article about texting fundraising.)

But I still didn't read. Based on the headlines, I guessed: Haiti was a relatively poor country before the earthquake, so people are probably starving now. What infrastructure they have was probably destroyed (at least in some places), so water and sewer systems, etc., probably aren't working. Desperate people were probably looting and terrorizing those who weren't looting. Humanitarian aid would be too slow to get there, because when you are starving and thirsty, unless aid is there right now, it's too slow.

And, I'll be honest. I vaguely wondered where exactly Haiti was. I was pretty sure it was in the general area of Cuba. (It is. You can check out the CIA World Factbook profile of Haiti here.)

I also figured a lot of people died. Way more than in Sept. 11 or Hurricane Katrina. News coverage of both demanded my almost-undivided attention for hours, but both those happened at a time when I didn't have a full-time job. Or worry about managing my stress levels.

But now, I have a full-time job and do actively try to manage my stress so I can approach the problems I face as calmly and clearly as possible. I figure I have the ability to affect change in the situations in my personal sphere, but the change I could (potentially) effect in the situation in Haiti is so minimal that it's not worth expending the emotional energy involved in absorbing news coverage there. I might feel differently if I knew someone with relatives/friends/acquaintances in Haiti, but I don't.

Is this attitude insensitive? Politically incorrect? Another example of an elitist American attitude that undervalues Third World (non-white) cultures? Or is it an example of humans relating better to the local than the global?

I'll let you decide. :)

I pouted and snapped a few pictures when I saw this at the Newseum in October:



It's not fun to think about newspapers closing or struggling to adapt to a new media environment. It's also not fun to realize that one of the newspapers on my resume no longer exists. (I interned at the Ann Arbor News in the summer of 2000. Am I too old to include my internships on my resume?)

But there's no use denying certain realities exist: multi-media reporting, an expansion of (cheap) advertising avenues, the RECESSION. There's also no denying that effective communication centers around talking to people in a means they can understand, using words they can understand.

So, about a week ago, I started stalking annarbor.com. Very casually, mind you, but I just wanted to see what they're all about. Now that the initial publicity has died down. And I was pretty impressed.

I'll admit I was only luke-warm about their website design (Where's the defined hierarchy of stories I learned about in my college newspaper design class? Where's the dominate art? Apparently, I'm not the only one who thought so. And, there's other fledgling news efforts in town.)

But the social-networking component is interesting. It looks like those who log in to comment can upload a picture and "follow" specific reporters. In a limited sense, reporters interact with their readers by posting comments on the story responding to basic questions and acknowledging if they corrected the story for some reason. It also appears that editors actively moderate the comments sections and post their own comments announcing that comments have been removed. They also politely encourage commenters to stay on the topic of the story.

I also really like their presence on Twitter and Facebook, where you can (for the most part, it seems) follow not only the news organization, but individual reporters. I assume that means if you care mostly about university coverage, or business coverage, you can follow the reporter who covers those beats and interact with them there if you want. That is probably similar to following the reporters directly on the news web site, but saves the reader from having to create a new profile and log-in on the newspaper site.

So, I kinda wonder: Do Ann Arbor area people love it, or miss the old Ann Arbor News?

Coffee syrup and pancakes! Oh my!

That's one of the packages JAVA & Co offers as part of its JAVA Pink for the Cure. This husband-wife team produces specialty coffee-infused syrup (in a variety of flavors!), sweets and other decadent goodies here in Illinois. A portion of the sales from JAVA Pink for the Cure line is donated to breast cancer awareness and research.

You can read a little more about them, in Jamie's own words, in this week's Crafters for a Cure.

What I create: Chef-inspired coffee infused specialty foods

My favorite product in my shop is: Hands down - the coffee infused syrup. Not only is it versatile in the kitchen, it is truly decadent!

Why I hate cancer: It’s a disease that knows no limits – young and old, male and female – it’s invasive, destructive and can be lethal.

The charities I support: Charities for breast cancer awareness and the fight against breast cancer.

What more people should realize about cancer is: With early detection, your chances of winning the cancer fight increase dramatically. It doesn’t have to be a death sentence.

The biggest blessing in my life is: My family.

My New Year's resolution is: Live each day to its fullest. It might not sound that creative, but too often I find myself paying too close attention and getting caught up in the details and routine of life and sometimes, I forget to live life and enjoy it. For 2010, I want to be present and enjoy each day for the gift that it is.

Find me at:

Main Company Website: www.javaandco.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/javaco

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Henry-IL/JAVA-Co-Small-Batch-Recipes/55468579579

Blog: http://javaandco-smallbatchrecipes.blogspot.com

Last night, I ate my roommate's ice cream.

I've recently re-immersed myself in an (unhealthy) obsession with checking my Google Analytics stats to see how many people are reading this blog. (The answer: Not as many as my ego would like.)