But it is also a lesson in resiliency and strength in the face of adversity. 

Winning isn’t everything, but it sure feels good

Running was not even on the radar for Ihle when she was a girl. She had dabbled at tap and gymnastics and ballet, but they were not her forte. She recalls that her parents thought she would be good at something, but the things they tried never really panned out.

“Then one day, I was in French class in middle school and the teacher announced a mile-and-a-half ‘fun run.’ I had never run before. We were poor, we didn’t have much money back then, and I didn’t have decent shoes. I had cheap canvas shoes. But you could win a Coke t-shirt, and I wanted that t-shirt. So I ran, and I won, by a lot. I beat all the girls and all the boys.”

What  young Kristin Ihle didn’t know at the time was that the ‘fun run’ was also how the middle school coach looked for young talent and recruited for the middle school cross country team.

“I didn’t even know what cross country was. But I won that race, and I won that Coke t-shirt, and that’s all I really cared about at the time.”

Ihle went on to achieve a highly successful 8^th grade cross country season though her strategy was quite simple, “I ran to the front with the lead runner until she fell back, then I’d run with the next runner who came up.” Clearly Ihle had a long way to mature. Her crown jewel in 8^th grade was representing Ramblewood Middle School in the biggest track meet in Southern Florida – she went on to win the 800m in a photo finish.  “I honestly don’t remember a lot about middle school. But I do remember how much I liked winning. We had moved around a lot when I was a kid, and as a result I got teased at my new schools. But when I started running track in middle school and I was so good, people stopped teasing me. That felt good. Sport was my safe place.”

Overcoming fear

The rest of Helledy’s running career nearly didn’t happen. She didn’t want to even go out for high school cross country at Coral Springs High School. She was completely unknown to the high school coach because she had only been at it less than a year. When she showed up for cross country practice in the fall of 1983, she experienced a lot of mentoring by the juniors and seniors on the team as she established herself as the #1 runner for the team. There was a cross town rivalry with Taravella High School where Kim Nelson, a junior, competed. During the 1983 to 1984 cross country and track seasons, Nelson and Ihle became keen opponents with both elevating each other’s performance. In the fall, they would swap beating each other in cross country meets with only a few steps of separation. In fact, that year was the first time that a sectional cross-country meet ended in a tie between these two. Ihle was the first freshman at Coral Springs High School to qualify as an individual for the cross-country state meet where she finished 14^th in the large school class. She went on to compete in the 800, 1600 and 3200m in track her freshman year. Again, she became the first freshman at her high school to qualify for the 1600 and 3200 and was one of just three athletes from Coral Springs High to compete at the state meet in 1984.

In the summer of 1984, Ihle’s mom and stepdad received an international assignment to Santiago, Chile. This resulted in Kris Ihle moving to Wisconsin to live with her father and stepmother for the remainder of her high school career. Ihle ran for Eau Claire Regis in Wisconsin (250 students), which was vastly different from Coral Springs High School with roughly 2,500 students. She won state in cross country as a sophomore in 1984 – this victory came as a surprise to many. Why this was a surprise is detailed in “Honesty is the best policy” below.

Honesty is the best policy

The groundwork was laid for a successful future, but Ihle unwittingly did her best to tear it up.

Fast forward to her sophomore year, across the country in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Another transfer, another team, more choices to fit in with new friends.

“We went to a big cross-country invitational meet in La Crosse early in the cross-country season. The meet was Saturday morning, but our coach decided to let us watch our football team that evening in Onalaska and then he and the assistant coach drove our vans home late that night after the game. We attended the game but before the game a bunch of us drank some beer. As we piled into the van the coach could easily smell alcohol.  He asked, but no one would say a word. I couldn’t live with the dishonesty. The next morning, on Sunday, I called Mr. Allen and told him I had been drinking. I was the only person who came forward on the team; however, he eventually figured out who all the guilty parties were.”

Ihle was suspended. She couldn’t practice and she couldn’t compete in most of the cross country meets her sophomore year, the fall of 1984.

“My coach followed the suspension to a T. Fortunately, it ended in time for me to compete in the final two cross country races of the season. I won state handily, by over 5 seconds. Nobody knew who I was because I was a transfer and then I was suspended. Basically, I ran the first two meets of the season and the last two meets of the season.”

Ihle recalls being interviewed by a local sports reporter, who would go on to cover her races for nearly two decades. “He was a total running expert and he was confused because he didn’t recognize my name. I told him I had been kicked off the cross-country team for drinking. He then said, ‘okay, I will write ‘suspended for disciplinary reasons.’ With that experience I learned that I should be more thoughtful about what I’m going to say and how I say it. But what I really learned, in hindsight, is that I was able to hold my head up at the end of that season because I had been honest, and I had done it right.”

When you fall down, you have to get up

By her senior year, Ihle would go on to win nearly all her races in cross country and track. She trained with the boys cross country and track teams. She ran and won the 1600, 800, and 3200m at the state meet her senior year. She set state records for the 1600 and 3200, as well as her high school record. 

“My senior year was really fun. I won some races I had no right to win, because I had developed a race strategy. I was undefeated my senior year. Well, undefeated during the regular season.”

The Kinney Regional l Meet was a 5k, which is more than a mile longer than the 2-mile races Ihle had trained for in high school cross country at that time. When her coach encouraged her to enter, she balked. The regional meet was highly competitive and the best qualified for Kinney Nationals.

“I had never run 5k and it was pretty scary. I had to pace myself. The course was hilly. But once I was there I was in my zone. I was focused on the people in front of me. I knew that I could pass at least five of them in the final stretch of the race. At this point I was in at least the top 15, so I was focused on what I needed to do to get to the top 10, when all of a sudden down I went. I fell, a complete face plant.”

Ihle got up and finished the race, nowhere near the top 10.

“I was so upset. I didn’t make the team. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Then this guy walked over to me. He said he saw my race and he wanted to talk to me. I didn’t understand why he would want to talk to me, and that’s when he said the words that would forever change my outlook on sports; maybe even my outlook on life. He said, ‘I don’t recruit the girls who finish in the top five. I want someone who falls down, and gets back up.’”

That guy was Lyle Knudson, head coach at the University of Florida, where Ihle would go on to begin her collegiate career. That is, until adversity would strike again.

She did qualify for the TAC nationals, which was also a 5k. She qualified through the regional meet held in North Dakota on a very snowy, cold day. She went on to finish 3^rd at the TAC Nationals held in Los Angeles in 1986. A feather in her cap was going on to be one of a number of U.S. athletes selected to complete in a USA v. China road race held in early January 1987 where she finished in the top 6.

Stay tuned for the second article in this three-part series about 6-time All-American runner and psychologist Kristin Ihle Helledy, where we will look back at the college years.

The post A Free T-Shirt, A Suspension And A Face Plant: Three Unexpected Events That Launched The Career Of 6-Time All-American Athlete And Psychologist Kristin Ihle Helledy appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

One person that is more than aware of the power of the subject line is Nancy Harhut. As the chief creative officer of the Wilde Agency, Nancy is an expert in combining psychology with email marketing.

Nancy has held senior positions with Mullen, Digitas, and Hill Holliday. Furthermore, she and her teams have won more than 150 awards for their marketing expertise.

Today, Nancy talks about email marketing and psychology, and we focus on the subject line.

Nancy’s Best Practices for Subject Lines

Subject lines are a display and source of power for email marketers. They are what capture recipients’ attention and tell them why they should read the email. Therefore, this is one area that a marketer absolutely must focus on.

Keep It Short

One best practice Nancy shares is that the optimum length for subject lines is 35 characters or less.

She highlights how a vast majority of recipients reach emails on their mobile phones. Therefore, they need that entire subject line to display on their smaller screen. If the subject line is cut off, a marketer loses power.

Furthermore, Nancy advises putting the most important words at the front of that subject line, just in case the end is cut off.

Combine the Subject Line with Pre-Header for Maximum Power

The pre-header is the small snippet of text that shows up on an email server. It displays under the subject line, giving the recipient a quick idea of what the email is about. Nancy calls this the “one-two punch” opportunity. The pre-header can amplify the subject line.

Because subject lines should be 35 characters or less, the subject line and pre-header complement one another. The pre-header is powerful and should contain eye magnet words.

What are Eye Magnet Words?

Eye magnet words are those that have been scientifically proven to reach out to a customer and attract the human eye.

People naturally skim and scan text, but certain words are guaranteed to catch their attention.

A few magnet words Nancy highlights include:

• Free
• Thank You
• New

In fact, “free” is a word that increases the open rate of emails two times more than the use of “complementary.”

Nancy has written multiple pieces on eye magnet words. In fact, there is an infographic shared on the Wilde Agency that shares common eye magnet words and why they are powerful.

Adding a Layer of Personalization Speaks to That Customer

People like to feel noticed. Therefore, Nancy highlights how using a person’s name and personalizing the email adds more trust.

Any time a recipient’s name is added to the subject line, they will instantly notice and are more likely to open the email than if their name is not there.

In fact, Experian ran a test and found that they had a 29.3% increase in opening rates when they put the recipient’s name in the subject line.

Always Test the Name Theory First

Finding proper placement of the name is not easy. So Nancy recommends testing to see if a person’s name increases the open rate compared to other eye magnet words. She recommends checking whether the name in the lead position or after the eye magnet word is best – because target consumers are all different.

Whether you end up settling on names or eye-magnet words, either one should always appear at the front of the line.

Trigger the Information Gap and Close It

In email marketing, there is an information gap.

People want all of the details, and without those details, they are less likely to open the email. Nancy refers to the basic principles of journalism here, using the five “W” and one “H” – Who, What, When, Where, and How.

The subject line and the pre-header must answer these keys so that a recipient’s interest is piqued.

Trigger Words in the Subject Line

Trigger words are great because they give someone a feeling of urgency or exclusiveness. Nancy talks about the natural trigger words like “exclusive,” “proven,” “easy,” and “thank you.”

Harnessing the Power of the Subject Line is the Key to Success

When marketers see a decrease in their open rates, looking at their subject line could be the solution.

As long as they use trigger words, eye magnets, and personalize the subject line, as well as integrate the one-two punch of the pre-header, a marketer will enjoy email success.

Learn more about Nancy by following her blog on the Wilde Agency.

The post The Psychology of Subject Lines: Using Science to Optimize Clicks appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

As a follow up, she emailed this:

Concept Linking
I know the link itself is so common now that people don’t even think about it, and that linking keywords or references within articles and blog posts to other blogs/sites is nearly old hat, too. However, the whole process of linking concepts together, and sharing those related ideas with people through the links strikes me as very much in tune with a feminine mode of thought that is traditionally associative. In college I remember talking to a professor about this associative thought process and she likened it to nested folders on computers. I’d go further and say that the way concept links work in blogs is more like vines, sometimes really messy, and sometimes kept pruned back, but each one leads you in a different direction.

Social Networking
Stereotypical though it may be, women do tend to be more social and they like to talk not just to say something, but to share something important or interesting (ideas, dreams, and to be stereotypical again, where they got those shoes.) Although there are many critics of blogging who chalk it up to ego driven dribbles, the best blogs are helmed not by pontificators, but by people who want to talk to other people about interesting ideas. So bloggers are the new culture mavens.

Verbal Modes
And it doesn’t hurt in all of this that women tend to ace verbal exams (and do well in school overall), so they’re very good at parsing ideas. Probably some interesting stats on that, I’m sure.

As you can tell, I’m not the smartest person in our class.

E. E. Maccoby and C.N. Jacklin’s “The Psychology of Sex Differences” (1974) confirms through statistical analysis that boys outperform girls in overall spatial and quantitative abilities, while the later outperform the former in overall verbal ability. Does that ladder up to adulthood and apply 34 years later? I’d bet so.

Yet, the first blogs were run by men. Most of the top blogs in Technorati‘s list are run by men. Nearly 2/3 of the bloggers attending Blogger Social were men and professional blogging tends to be male-dominated. Are the liberal gender roles of the 21st century allowing men to embrace roles not traditionally given to masculinity?

While I believe gender roles to be overly stereotyped in many cultures, including our own, reviewing the entry for femininity in Wikipedia, you’ll see this (Note: Biological references omitted and indicated by elipses. They are unneccessary for the sake of this post.):

The feminine is most often associated with nurturing, life-giving qualities, creativity and an openness to those around. To categorize human characteristics and behaviors into “feminine” or “masculine” is to rely on the current dominant culture of any society, as well as to rely on the essentialist notions of the binary woman/man. Traits that are traditionally considered feminine may be categorized into … psychological and behavioral differences (such as a concern for relationships, empathy, sympathy, better verbal skills) … It is also important to note that femininity is closely related to virtuous or lady-like behavior.

My initial reaction is to say that it’s not just blogging that is feminine in nature, but social media as a whole. Many a social media expert will say boiling social media behavior down to one simple rule would be the Golden one. Doing unto others as you would have done to you is intrinsically aligned with nuturing, life-giving qualities — ones that show concern for relationships, empathy and sympathy. For us to act and react appropriately in social media settings, be it as individuals or brands, the softer approach, one that fosters dialog, community, understanding and openness, is required.

Looking at Janet Saltzman Chafetz’s personal characteristics of masculinity¹ – success-oriented, ambitious, aggressive, proud, egotistical; moral, trustworthy; decisive, competitive, uninhibited, adventurous – a striking notion comes into play. Are most of these not similar to terms we would use to describe the behavior of brands and companies violating the community trust by pushing traditional marketing tactics in social media venues? (I resisted removing “moral” and “trustworthy” for effect.)

While generalizations beget ambiguity, if not inaccuracy, is it then not fair to say that appropriate social media behavior is to act with feminine characteristics and that behaving as masculine could spell failure? With apologies to the notion that masculinity can certainly be inclusive of qualities of honor, integrity, honesty and humility, I would think so.

As such, the difference between success and failure in social media is the difference in being virtuous and immoral; empathetic and abrasive; humble and boastful; inclusive and exclusive; flexible and stubborn and of listening and dictating.

Are you a blogger? A social media participant? Do you see these feminine qualities in your approach? Do males in social media have to come to terms with their feminine side to be successful here? Or do gender roles cease to apply in the general openness of the social media model?

Questions abound. Please share your thoughts in the comments.

NOTE: A study entitled, “The Effects of Age and Gender on Blogging,” by Jonathan Schler (Bar-Ilan University), Moshe Koppel and Shlomo Argamon (Illinois Institute of Technology) and James Pennebaker (University of Texas, Austin) was published in 2005 by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. In it, a sampling of all the bloggers registered on Blogger.com during one day in August of 2004 yielded a demographic profile consisting of 52.2 percent male bloggers and 47.8 percent female (over 71,000 bloggers counted).

¹ – Cited on Wikipedia page for “masculinity”; From “Masculine/Feminine Or Human” F. E. Peacock Publishers (1974).

IMAGE: “Sara” by lenifuzhed on Flickr.

The post The Femininity Of Social Media appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Human nature can be volatile, inconsistent and even frustrating to predict. Just ask anyone in the marketing or advertising business about it and theyâ€ll roll their eyes. All the statistics in the world couldnâ€t have predicted people would flee the real world for their laptops and IM each other from across the Starbucks. Perhaps the only thing you can predict about human nature is that it will be volatile, inconsistent and frustrating.

When I see marketers blog about what truly engages and reaches people in a social media setting, the bottom line is normally a human connection. One person reaching out to another with like mind or common interest and sharing information: thatâ€s networking. Not social networking, not online community networking, not Myspacey, Facebooky, Twittery non-celebrity fan club-ism, but real human interaction.

Thatâ€s why Web 3.0 (or some increment with an unnecessary decimal point and geek zero added – Does Bill Gates get residuals for the use of “point-oh”?) looks mighty glum to me.

I see the downside of the bell curve where people turn away from their LCD display and say, “I havenâ€t had a meal with another human being in six months.” Theyâ€ll call their worried mothers, knock on the neighborâ€s door to see if they need anything from the corner store and carry on a 20 minute conversation with the check-out clerk.

Weâ€re human beings, not machines. We need other human beings to prove this.

So it is my contention that the next big thing will be the site, company or brand that figures out how to take the online community offline and inject human interaction into the experience. No amount of Second Life enthusiasm, no degree of Facebook addiction and no delineation of Twitter feeds can make a person feel real.

For the record, I hope I can be the one to figure it out first. I donâ€t realistically think Iâ€m quite that smart. But I sure am going to have fun trying.

What do you think Web 3.0 will look like? Do you think the pendulum of online networking fascination one day swing the other way?

PHOTO: “DSC_0393” from Jeff Pulver’s Flickr.

[tags]social media, social networking, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web 4.0, Web 5.0, networking, human nature, sociology, psychology, human behavior, future[/tags]

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