Articles
Welcome to my portfolio page! Here you will find links to PDFs of articles and interviews on a wide variety of topics over the last few years, including health and fitness, education, small business profiles, and more, from publications such as Redbook magazine, Our Town and the West Side Spirit (Manhattan Media Group), Imprint magazine, Today’s Woman of Orange County, and others. I hope you enjoy them.
Feature on healthy beverages and women business owners, Bay Area Business Woman, September 2008
Feature on Hannah Stouffer, artist/entrepreneur, Bay Area Business Woman, August 2008
Nursing Interview, Imprint magazine
Overview of the Silverleaf Academy in Mission Viejo, CA, Today’s Woman of Orange County
WineStyles of Lake Forest, Today’s Woman of Orange County
Press Release on Mentorship Video, National Student Nurses Association
Interview with Barbara Weltman, e-Bay Entrepreneur, Our Town
Feature Profiling Women Who Overcame Life-Threatening Illnesses, Redbook
Outdoors Yoga – A Day in the Park, Our Town (p. 1)
(p. 2)
White Paper on the Organic Luxury Market for Verve Marketing & Design Web Site
Outstanding Teacher Award Sonia Rivera, The West Side Spirit
Westy Award Winner Marion Scott, Community Health Director, St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital, The West Side Spirit
Publications Management and Public Relations
As Director of Communications and Public Relations for a national health care organization for 15 years, I served as managing editor of Imprint magazine, the 5x a year membership magazine. I also served as editor of NSNA News, a biannual newsletter. In addition, I supervised and managed over a dozen collateral publications annually, including the association handbook, an overnight convention newsletter, conference program books, and advertising materials such as promotions, rate cards, supplements, and other unique materials. In my capacity as Public Relations Director, I wrote and disseminated over 50 press releases a year, ran the Press Room at the Annual Convention, and conducted successful media outreach with reporters and editors for placement of articles in nursing related publications.
Sample Project Gallery
Speaker Sheet for Career Coach
Challenge: Martha Staley, a career coach, was having difficulty articulating in writing how she could best help her clients, what her unique attributes were, and topics she could speak on.
Process: I helped her first by providing coaching with her on the phone that helped her target her goals more clearly and organize her thoughts. She was able to answer detailed questions that in turn, enabled me to create a dynamic and effective speaker sheet that she really loved. I was so excited about helping Martha, since she was clearly so skilled and had an innate talent for helping others.
Result: A great speaker sheet Martha is using successfully to obtain speaking engagements.
Challenge: I worked with Janet Migliore, manager of a luxury car repair and service group, who wanted to convert her monthly printed newsletter into electronic format. Some of the challenges included importing her current list, which was not in the right format, providing guidance on online issues such as graphic formats and hyperlinks, and providing coaching on analyzing tracking results and basics of good design, since she was not familiar with working with images or online formats.
Process: During several one-on-one coaching sessions, I worked with Janet to set up a template, show her how to obtain and download artwork and input links, coached her on best practices including size of images, length of stories, suggestions for columns, etc.
Result: A successful launch of her November issue, with positive feedback from subscribers, and money saved from converting from print to electronic.
2. Financial Services Brochure Editing
Challenge: I worked with a local insurance company, who wanted to update their current brochure. They were concerned that there was a lot of terminology that might be confusing, and also that their own branding might be lost in all the information.
Process: I had a meeting with them, in which I took note of their concerns and kept them in mind as I read through the draft brochure. I made several significant rewrites, suggested a glossary of terms, and added an introductory note and suggestions for graphics that would reinforce their branding as a small family owned company which could provide unique attention and service to their customers.
Result: The new brochure was well received and the client was pleased to have seen the problem areas addressed and clarified. The new brochure is still in production but the PDF above (click on newsletter image above) highlights an example of my editing.
3. Gourmet Food Web Site Editing
Challenge: The client, an Italian gourmet and specialty food company with both a store and web site, needed their online content revised. They wanted to increase their online business and visitors, specifically. The copy was too wordy, and there were sections of the site that were redundant.
Process: I met with the client to determine the specific problem areas and suggest methods of improvement. I offered sample similar web sites that were successful, and suggested a greater storytelling narrative. I also heavily edited the products listing (my first time writing about cannolis!) and the home page.
Result: A more organized and readable web site, with increased online visitors and sales.
4. Logo DevelopmentChallenge: Sunrise Advisors needed a logo to accompany its brand and identity. We had seen many green logos and didn’t necessarily want to create another one, yet we wanted an image that would convey a sense of earthiness and global reach.
Process: I worked closely with Steven Matt, graphic designer and Founder of One Earth, an environmental wiki, to develop the concept, colors, and graphic details of the image. There were several earlier versions depicting nature imagery that did not work as well as what we decided on ultimately, the sun image in earth tones, thus incorporating the idea of earth and sky as one.
Result: Enormous positive response from the public and stakeholders.
S5. Outdoors Yoga Article
Challenge: The Manhattan Media Group, the newspaper I was freelancing for, needed an article idea, so…I came up with one. Outdoors yoga, from someone who had only experienced yoga indoors. I was sent on assignment to Bryant Park, to a summer outdoors class organized by Kristina, pictured here with me, who ran a national movement to bring yoga to the parks. Challenges included the weather (98 degrees), being humorous ( I had not done as much humor writing) and taking notes while being in down dog, etc.
Process: I took class, interviewed the teacher and Kristina, coordinated with the photographer, and turned in the story that night as I was on deadline.
Result: A well received article that provided good resources for readers on hot weather exercise tips, and the virtues of being in the great outdoors in the heart of New York City.
