I have made countless New Year resolutions in my life and one thing is for certain unless I use them to set real achievable goals for myself by February 1 the resolutions are forgotten.

This year I will have two sets of resolutions…one set of practical resolutions that will make my life richer or even easier in some cases.

The other set are the resolutions that may be harder to accomplish because outside forces that I cannot control may get in my way. Every year I set business goals but the economy often effects not only me but my clients as well. If they have a bad year no matter what I do I may find the going tough. I will keep this set as business objectives.

My practical list seems easier to tackle anyway.

First, I will learn to type…sounds simple right? I am typing this and my other blogs using my patented “hunt and peck” method. I have had enough. I am the product of the “old school” Catholic school system.

The boys took shop, the girls took typing…this made sense to the nuns. Why would a boy ever need to type and for God’s sake why would a woman need to learn to use tools? In my case the Sisters of Loretta added yet another wrinkle, the so called “smart” students should take Latin. They say that is helpful in learning other languages. I can tell you it has not helped. If I had used those two years to learn more Spanish for example I would not be putting leaning Spanish on my “practical” resolution list.

Second, lose weight. It has been a tough and challenging year…some folks don’t eat when they tackle stress, I binge. Comfort food has been the best way for me to cope in this tough economy. Food beats Xanax I am sure but if I continue on this path I will be one ton by 2013. Pizza and Pasta are the trusted, “go-to” menu items for me and I will try to cut them from my roster.

I am sure exercise should be on the list but most people put that on their lists and quickly leave that resolution on the shelf. In my case I have joint issues as well so I would be dropping exercise like a bad habit first sign of pain.

Third, re-learn to play a musical instrument. I have tried a few instruments when I was a teen but now I really regret not sticking with any of them. With Apple’s help it has become so much easier to learn instruments I will have little excuse to not at least give it a shot. This may be the toughest resolution on my list because it does require some musical talent as well as perseverance but I have produced a great deal of music in my career and I should at least know how to make some chords on the piano!

Even one stand-by song that I can call up at a party would be nice…This year is starting to shape up like Bill Murray’s experience in Ground Hog Day.

The fourth resolution is one that I should be ashamed not to complete. In my career I have written countless scripts for TV commercials and short films but each one has been for a client or brand. Why have I not been able to write even a small script for myself is already a mystery. Knowing my history my colleagues have even urged me to take my shot at it.

With all my time abroad, in all of the exotic countries I have been posted I should have a wealth of material. The coups, natural disasters, jungles, cults, superstitions and the sheer variety of cultures I have experienced will make a great backdrop for any story I choose to write.

All of the other resolutions should not even be on a list. They are all things we should be doing as good citizens of the earth and just good people in general. For example, I have a new grand daughter I won’t need a list to remind me to love her any more than I do already. No promise is necessary to begin to spoil her, it will come naturally.

I do have one request for all my friends, be kind in 2012. We all need a little extra love and attention these days.

Among the strongest elements of Obama’s 2008 election campaign was the fact that it used innovative and unique new techniques that applied technology especially mobile marketing to raise funds from large corporations such as Verizon Communications, Walt Disney, and other U.S. giants.

By using these methods to their fullest for the 2012 campaign, Obama should be able to raise $1 billion this time around. Campaigns that embrace the potential that technology has to offer will have a notable advantage over its competition.

In the last election, Obama’s advantage came from recognizing how much the internet could do for him, and by centralizing it in his campaign. The result was that Obama was able to appeal to the online market much more than McCain, regardless of their political platforms; a fact which had a major influence on the results of the election.

In the upcoming election, it isn’t just the online presence that candidates will be considering, but the mobile optimized presence. Indeed, the tactics from Obama’s previous campaign appealed to the younger voters with its search engine optimized BarackObama.com site that was supported by sizeable marketing campaigns.

Now, that same demographic is accessing the internet through different channels, so candidates will have to consider making their internet presence easily accessible on smart phones and tablets. In this vein, it is clear that Obama’s web advisory group has already had some foresight.

The website is always being pumped full of fresh new relevant content, with new speech transcripts, public appearance videos, PowerPoint presentations of proposed plans for budgets, and other content all added on a daily basis. Not to mention the tremendous social media presence that has been built up on Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube over the years that he has been in office.

Now, the team is focusing on mass text-messaging to a degree that no other candidate has ever met. They are taking advantage of the way that SMS texts can reach a tremendous number of people in a very time-sensitive way, engaging the recipient immediately.

Somehow I love this show…this is the promo for a television version of the famous radio show…it will air this week on BBC America.

Newt Gingrich has surged to the top of many polls in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, despite being married three times. Herman Cain’s campaign ultimately collapsed after allegations of sexual misconduct and then allegations of infidelity.

How much should a candidate’s private life affects his public service?

Our ideas about marriage in the USA are fundamentally changing at lightening speed. Even with those changes I believe there are still some hard fast guidelines for candidates seeking the presidency.

Number one, I think all candidates must be married. We are a long way away from handing over the government to a single man or woman.

This may seem like a no-brainer, but marriage matters much more here than it does in other country. Look at this example in supposedly conservative Great Britain.

Ed Miliband married the mother of his two children in May, less than a year after becoming the leader of the Labor Party. Miliband, who is likely to run for prime minister in the next election, previously responded to criticism about cohabiting by saying he was “too busy” to get married. Good one Ed.

Here in America marriage rates have fallen dramatically however people’s attitudes about what counts as a family and what they expect from their political leaders are still basically conservative.

It doesn’t even have to be a candidate’s first marriage. A divorce, perhaps even two, is not a problem.

America’s divorce rate has sky rocketed to a level where nearly half of all marriages ended in divorce, and Americans’ attitudes began to change. In 1980, Ronald Reagan became the first person to be elected president who had divorced and remarried. If Gingrich were to win the Republican nomination, he would be the fifth major-party nominee to have been divorced and remarried, following Reagan, Bob Dole, John Kerry and John McCain.

Asked about his family life and how it reflected on him as a candidate, Gingrich said: “I’ve made mistakes at times; I’ve had to go to God for forgiveness; I’ve had to seek reconciliation.”

Obviously the most important guideline is, don’t have an affair.

Extramarital affairs, especially those uncovered in the course of a campaign, are still a problem with American voters. Cain, who was polling well in the GOP race this fall, saw his campaign crash and burn because of sexual harassment allegations.

After you are in office you may survive a “sex” scandal…after all look at Bill Clinton for example.He could run for office today and win.

In the General Social Survey, a national poll of adults conducted biennially by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, the percentage of Americans who responded that it is “always wrong” for a married person to have sex with someone other than his or her spouse rose from 73 percent in 1991 to 81 percent in 2008.

America seems to moving away from the old standard of lifelong monogamy to a new one of serial monogamy. Being married remains important, but we are allowed, even expected, to move from one marriage to another. However, we are supposed to remain sexually faithful to whomever we are married to at the time.

What we accept from our politicians in their personal lives is inconsistent with how our own personal lives work. I want our President to be….well Presidential. The contradictions reflect our difficulty in coming to terms with the great changes in sex and marriage since our parents’ and grandparents’ generations. We value marriage, but it looks like today we value the right to pursue personal happiness a bit more.

What do you think?

Ilya Pozin recently wrote this for Inc. Online and I began to worry…I need to focus! If you have more important things to focus on than, um, focusing get back on track with these tips.

“We all probably don’t want to admit it but we love distractions. In fact, just like monkeys, you get a shot of dopamine every time something pulls you in another direction. Why do you think you check your email so much?”

Want to be more productive and get your focus back? There are no secret tricks here… do one thing at a time. Stop multitasking—it’s just another form of distraction.

Easier said than done, I know.

Recently Ilya sat down with Tony Wong, a project management blackbelt whose client list includes Toyota, Honda, and Disney, to name a few. He’s an expert in keeping people on task.

Here are his tips for staying productive:

1) Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks.
Writing “launch company website” at the top of your to-do list is a sure way to make sure you never get it done. Break down the work into smaller and smaller chunks until you have specific tasks that can be accomplished in a few hours or less: Sketch a wireframe, outline an introduction for the homepage video, etc. That’s how you set goals and actually succeed in crossing them off your list.

2) Stop multi-tasking.
No, seriously—stop. Switching from task to task quickly does not work. In fact, changing tasks more than 10 times in a day makes you dumber than being stoned. When you’re stoned, your IQ drops by five points. When you multitask, it drops by an average of 10 points, 15 for men, five for women (yes, men are three times as bad at multitasking than women). 

3) Be militant about eliminating distractions.
Lock your door, put a sign up, turn off your phone, texts, email, and instant messaging. In fact, if you know you may sneak a peek at your email, set it to offline mode, or even turn off your Internet connection. Go to a quiet area and focus on completing one task.

4) Schedule your email.
Pick two or three times during the day when you’re going to use your email. Checking your email constantly throughout the day creates a ton of noise and kills your productivity.

5) Use the phone.
Email isn’t meant for conversations. Don’t reply more than twice to an email. Pick up the phone instead. 

6) Work on your own agenda.
Don’t let something else set your day. Most people go right to their emails and start freaking out. You will end up at inbox-zero, but accomplish nothing. After you wake up, drink water so you rehydrate, eat a good breakfast to replenish your glucose, then set prioritized goals for the rest of your day. 

7) Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals.
Your brain uses up more glucose than any other bodily activity. Typically you will have spent most of it after 60-90 minutes. (That’s why you feel so burned out after super long meetings.) So take a break: Get up, go for a walk, have a snack, do something completely different to recharge. And yes, that means you need an extra hour for breaks, not including lunch, so if you’re required to get eight hours of work done each day, plan to be there for 9.5-10 hours.
 

Andrea Jung, the longest serving female CEO at a major American corporation, will soon be out of a job. It was announced today that Avon Products is launching an executive search to replace its 12-year chairman and chief. Once found, Jung will step aside.

The Wall Street Journal today notes that it is very unusual for a company to publicize a CEO search while the current one remains, but also points out that the 125-year-old beauty company has seen its stock drop by 45% this year. She will remain and help the board recruit her replacement next year.

While 2011 started off well for Avon, as Jung cheered first-quarter profit that nearly tripled from a year ago and a growing independent sales force of 6.5 million representatives, a third quarter earnings report said sales targets would be unattainable and admitted two ongoing SEC inquiries as problematic.

The three-year probe into an alleged bribery of foreign officials has already caused the firing of four Avon executives and increased investor concern. When approached earlier this year, Jung wouldn’t comment on the matter.

I am always curious about these issues. Having lived all over the world and knowing the types of markets where AVON is trying to expand, I am sure that bribery is part of the everyday way to do business in some of those countries at very high levels. It is a reality that many US corporations face abroad.

This year has shaken up the small percentage 3% of women in the high-powered executive ranks. Yahoo‘s Carol Bartz was fired over the phone just months ago, on the same day that Sallie Krawcheck left her post at Bank of America. Meanwhile, IBM hired its first female chief, Ginni Rometty, in its 100-year history, and Meg Whitman returned to the spotlight as CEO of HP.

Jung, 53, has been a longtime champion of women’s empowerment, often emphasizing Avon’s role in offering entrepreneurial employment opportunities to the 95% female reps who sell its products. She is also one of the few female faces on the boards of Apple and General Electric. She was ranked at No. 64 this year on the FORBES list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.

As soon as I saw the new Morman advertising on the air it hit me…these ads could benefit Mitt Romney. It seems I am not the only one who thought about them in this light. Of course I am in marketing and a bit cynical too.

A recent New York Times articles hints the “Mormon Ad” campaign is a tactic to help elect Mitt Romney to the White House. The ad campaign was going strong before the election cycle and the Latter-day Saint Church is pulling commercials from primary states.

The ads feature Latter-day Saints from diverse backgrounds surfing, raising children and singing. .

What is the campaign really about?. According to the New York Times, Americans describe Mormons as cultish, sexist and controlling.

I think this campaign seeks to portray Mormons as typical, normal, family people. With 4 in 10 Americans saying they would not vote for a Mormon President the campaign would certainly help their image. What do you think?