Mia Nonna

In anticipation of my trip to Italy later this summer, I thought I'd provide you -- my faithful readers -- with some background on my ancestry, starting with my grandmother; she was christened Gemma Emilia Bricchetto near Genoa, Italy in September, 1893.

As previously noted in these pages, she came to America in 1912 at the age of 18, along with her mother, Maria, and siblings Paul (16) and Eva (13). Her father, Giovanni (John) Bricchetto, had emigrated to the United States in 1899, abandoning the family for a new life in Boston, Massachusetts with another woman.

While her mother was along for this adventure of a lifetime, everybody involved knew who was riding herd on this brood: my grandmother, of course! She went by "Emilia" but also answered to "Gemma" or much later, "Gramma" or "Tata" (aunt).

Crossing the Atlantic Ocean, Emilia and her family negotiated the entire breadth of the U.S. enroute to Portland, Oregon, of all places. Most other Italian immigrants settled in Boston, New York, Chicago or other east coast cities. But they had family in the City of Roses and that's where they landed. None ever returned to Italy, even to visit.

After her first husband had died unexpectedly, my grandmother married Carl Joseph Cargni, an immigrant from the Piedmont region, famous for the Italian Alps.

Carl and Emilia raised two children: my mother, Charlotte Nitta Cargni and my uncle, John Valentino Cargni. All in all, they had eight grandchildren, most of whom are pictured below.

My grandfather died when I was very young, so I didn't really have the opportunity to know him. My grandmother, however, lived to be 93 and was a guiding presence in many of our lives into adulthood.

As the eldest in a family of five, I spent a considerable amount of time with "Gramma" as she was known. We even lived with her for a time. All the kids loved to go to Gramma's house, and not just because of her cooking, which was eccellente.

For me, Emilia provided me with needed wisdom, insight and humor, much like "Old Lodge Skins" in Little Big Man, the Native American grandfather of Dustin Hoffman's character in the movie. To say she had a profound influence on many of our lives would be an understatement. Although she passed away in December, 1986, she will always remain mia nonna -- my beloved grandmother.

As I reflect on my grandmother today -- on Father's Day, 2010 -- I recall that her biggest regret was that she never saw her father, John Bricchetto, again. She always said she would have loved that.

"Batti Il Ferro Finché è Caldo"

The Italian phrase in the headline means, quite literally, to "strike while the iron is hot." Doing just that last week, I pulled the trigger and booked passage to Italy, the land of my forebears, in September.

The plan is to fly into Milan and then travel by train to Genoa in the province of Liguria. My grandmother lived near Genoa in the village of Orero before emigrating to the United States with her family in 1912.

My grandmother -- Gemma Emilia Bricchetto (below left, seated) her sister Eva (below right, standing) her mother and brother -- arrived by ship at Ellis Island about the same time as the sinking of the Titanic.

In fact, the Brichetto familia would have been sailing across the Atlantic at the exact same time as the RMS Titanic, which left England on April 10 and sank on April 15, 1912. My grandmother's ship, the "Ancona," which departed from Genoa on or about April 9, arrived in New York on April 23, 1912, nearly 100 years ago.

Establishing a base at a hotel in Genoa, the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, I'll spend the first week exploring the Italian Rivera and the coastline east of the seaport leading to Cinque Terra (above, top).

Next, I'll travel to Turin in the province of Piedmont in the Italian Alps to visit the home of my grandfather, Carl Joseph Cargni.

Growing up in the shadow of massive, snow-clad Mt. Rosa (below, bottom) in the little village of Chialamberto, my grandfather led caravans through the Alps to France in his youth. Carl emigrated to America in November, 1904.

Perhaps not coincidentally, my grandparents -- who both hailed from the northwestern corner of Italy, a land of scenic seashores and majestic mountains -- relocated to the northwestern corner of the United States, a land of scenic seashores and majestic mountains.

My long-awaited trip to Italy will begin on September 7, flying from Eugene to San Francisco to Frankfurt, Germany, then on to Milan and arriving in Genoa on September 8. Bellissimo!

Brave New World

In the universe of the practice and profession of public relations -- or communications management -- the brave new world is social media.

The field of PR is all about relationship-building, and what better way to build a relationship than through the Internet? Be it Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or whatever the application "du jour," the future of public relations will be grounded in social media. As the title of the new book by Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge suggests, the digital revolution is actually "Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR."

The notion that social media is the trendy topic among PR professionals was clearly in evidence at the 2010 Communicator's Conference entitled "Making Your Case: Selling Your Strategy, Your Story and Yourself" held at the Governor Hotel in Portland on Wednesday, May 12. The conference had both keynote and breakout sessions: many focused on the use of social media in public relations.

As the Immediate Past Chair of the North Pacific District of the Public Relations Society of America and a public relations instructor at the University of Oregon in need of portfolio reviewers, I was naturally interested in attending the conference. Unfortunately, I waited too long to register: the conference was sold out by Friday, May 7. However, my friends in the Portland Metro Chapter found a way to get me in, and I didn't even have to sneak in through the dumbwaiter.

Keynote speaker Chris Brogan noted that attention spans of many are easily averted; we're not just talking 500 channels here, we're talking 1,000 distractions. Messages are easily lost.

So how do you maintain the attention of your audience? His answers were interesting. To paraphrase: "the more things change, the more they remain the same." This could have been the conference theme. He assured us that he would not suggest anything new so much as distinguish how communications have been altered by social media.

The big change, he noted, is velocity. Used to be that a 24-hour turnaround for customer response was okey-doke. No more. If you don't get back to a reporter with an answer to a question almost instantaneously, you're probably hiding something. Another change is mobility. With smart phones like iPhones and Blackberries, communications are nearly moving at the speed of light (note the folks in the second row in the photo below).

Noontime keynoter Jim Signorelli believes that whatever the medium, the message need to be memorable. To sell your story, you need to facilitate empathy in your messaging, and instead of "unique selling propositions," you need to address "unique value propositions."

Finally, closing keynoter Peter Shankman contends that just because we can reach more people than ever before using social media, in shorter amounts of time, it doesn't mean you know what to do with them once you have their attention.

His advice for social media mavens who want to be successful in communicating with their audiences? Instead of becoming proficient at texting -- NALOPKT and AWGTHTGTTA -- Shankman suggests learning a second language, preferably English.

Music Man

Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny arrived in Eugene on Sunday, May 2 for a concert at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts, and Rebecca, Gina, Jory and I -- along with Jory's friends Ryan Wilson and Kevin Maloney -- had front row seats.

The Grammy Award-winning jazz composer had been to Eugene a number of times over the years, but this concert promised to be something completely different. Usually supported with a group of world-class jazz musicians like pianist Lyle Mays, Metheny would appear solo at this show. But this would not be your typical "unplugged" concert: on the contrary.

Fascinated with the "player piano" in his youth, Metheny has spent the past several years inventing a music-making machine called an "orchestrion," an elaborate contraption with pianos, percussion, vibraphone, bells, marimba, bottles and other sound-making instruments that he plays with his guitar.

Defined as "a machine that plays music and is designed to sound like an orchestra or band," the complex devices are operated by means of a large pinned cylinder (think player piano). Developed by German and Czech inventors in the late 1700s, the orchestrion peaked in the 1920s during the Jazz Age.

Having lapsed into obscurity, Metheny has resurrected the orchestrion, but with an thoroughly updated and highly computerized version of the 18th century device (above, right).

Opening with two beautiful -- but dangerously sleep-inducing -- tunes, he wisely broke into his "Orchestrion" album, which livened things up considerably. From there, the tunes were impeccably choreographed. The concept seems to work, because his computerized "band" is in sync, both in terms of his new stuff and his classic material from albums like "American Garage."

Becky thought the visual backdrop of the orchestrion was distracting, and she had to close her eyes to fully appreciate the music at times, but I found the device interesting. The individual instruments would light up when utilized, which helped me track the action. Hey, we're both right, depending on your perspective.

In retrospect, the concert was excellent, though the crowd was a bit on the light side considering the artist. Pat Metheny played old tunes and new, with a variety of guitars, and he remains a virtuoso and innovator in the wide, wide world of jazz music.

Herring and Associates

An annual tradition, I took a road trip to Owl Farm during Earth Week to -- as "The Wizard" proclaimed to denizens of Emerald City prior to embarking for the land of "e pluribus unum" in The Wizard of Oz -- "confer, converse and otherwise hob-nob" with my fellow owls.

Actually, I was taking advantage of a Horizon Air special: $140 roundtrip from Eugene to Seattle. Although many use Facebook for strictly social purposes, the Eugene Airport uses its site for -- among other things -- to market specials and super-saver flights to clients, a bonefide business application for the social media site.

So, on Thursday, April 22, my friend Paul Turcott (AKA "Raoul") and I hopped the quick 50-minute flight up to Sea-Tac, rented a car and proceeded over Stevens Pass to Owl Farm for a summit meeting with friends Lupe Marroquin, Kelly Tjaden and Frank Czubiak.

The purpose of the summit? To plan for the coming season of adventure in the high country, of course. Though Lupe will be recuperating from a knee injury, plans include hiking the Icicle Ridge Trail from Stevens Pass to Gustav's Brew Pub in Leavenworth, and several other junkets.

We also conducted the seasonal rituals -- burning slash piles and floating the river -- while enjoying good food and company with Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster playing on the laptop in the background. On the way back to Sea-Tac, Raoul snapped this pic of me (below) before breakfast at Sandy's Waffle Haus in the Bavarian Village of Leavenworth.

A great trip, I spent quality time with long-time friends, participating in the usual pagan rituals while connecting with the spiritual world. In short, it was nice celebrating Earth Week with creatures of the earth.

The only ones missing were the owls. Oh, they were around; we just keep different hours.

Coco Wows Eugene

The notice went viral early on March 11; by noon, it was sold out. Conan O'Brien would open his 30-city tour right here in River City!

A testament to the power of social media, the mere announcement that "Coco" would debut his road show in Eugene ignited an unprecidented ticket feeding frenzy.

We were lucky, mostly due to the fact that Gina was a member of O'Brien's Facebook fan page, nearly a million strong. When notice of his appearance in Eugene went viral, she pounced on the opportunity.

Gina conducted the research and I provided the credit card and, as a result, we both attended the opening performance of Conan O'Brien's "The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour" at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts on Monday, April 12.

Heir apparent to Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show," Conan was unceremoniously dumped by NBC in deference to Leno, who longed to return to his old time-slot. However, O'Brien would have -- as Mark Knopfler might sing -- "the last laugh going down."

Dubbed "Coco" by actor Tom Hanks on the second episode of "The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien," he not only negotiated a $32.5 million buyout with NBC while taking his show on the road, the red-headed comedian also signed a five-year deal with TBS just hours before his Eugene appearance. The agreement will put him back on late-night television later this year.

The show itself was high energy and can only be described as a "love-fest" with the audience of more than 2,500 adoring fans. Considering it was his opening show, the players, skits and videos were very polished, and Triumph the Comic Insult Dog had me in tears (check him out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugk37TvIR8E if you want a few laughs).

In turn, the crowd went "cuckoo for Coco."

Calling Elvis, Anybody Home?

The whole family -- including Gina and Jory -- attended a brilliant concert by seminal songwriter and guitar maestro Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame and his band of talented musicians at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts in Eugene on Sunday, April 11.

Arrived early to peruse the "merchandise" such as shirts and posters, though things were off to a rocky start: a shirt vendor tried to stiff me for an additional $5 when returning my change. Dude was a dead ringer for "Del Preston," the veteran roadie with the thick Liverpudlian brogue and overdeveloped sense of self in "Wayne's World 2."

After giving him four Andrew Jacksons for two $35 MK shirts, he deftly gave me a fiver back instead of the $10 I was due. Rebecca interceded and -- feeling pressed -- I insisted on correct change. He indignantly, but immediately, complied with my request. I wonder how many other unsuspecting consumers he scammed that night.

For longtime MK and Dire Straits aficionados like myself, who have seen Mark in concert numerous times, the set list was superlative. He must have played nearly a dozen tunes I have never heard performed live in concert, so I was one happy camper.