H.O.R.S.E. Heart Story: Autism, Horse Therapy & Hope

I received the following must share, horse therapy story starring 9 year old, Sam via an e-mail from Susan O'Neal, an amazing volunteer for Helping Others Reach Success & Excellence (H.O.R.S.E.). We ran her email by Sam's mom to make sure all the facts are straight. Other than a few minor tweaks, the post below is the email I received from Susan. I found out that the H.O.R.S.E. foundation calls these personal testimonies H.O.R.S.E. Heart Stories. Thank you for letting me share Sam's H.O.R.S.E. Heart Story on my blog!

Grab a tissue and get ready for another inspiring horse therapy/autism miracle:

Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 2:41 PM

I came across your blog about The Horse Boy. I was at the book signing event too with some people from H.O.R.S.E. an non-profit that provides equine assisted therapy to kids on the autism spectrum.

I have been volunteering for them for years but this summer I actually got to do some real hands on work. I volunteered at the week long Camp Round Up. It was an amazing experience.

I contacted Rupert Isaacson to follow up about the movie opening and to tell him about our camp. We are going to try to do some kind of a benefit if we can get the movie shown here in KC.

I took lots of pictures and really got to know the kids and the amazing volunteers. We had 10 kids but one boy, Sam, really stole my heart.

Sam’s mom called us about Camp Round Up. Sam is 9 years old and is on the autism spectrum. He is a very active kid but he is developmentally delayed. Sam communicates with single words that are forced out with great effort. He isn’t toilet trained, he has never asked to use a public bathroom.

She didn’t think we would take him but she was hoping. She didn’t have high expectations, she just wanted him to get to be in the fresh air and do a little riding. Sam did therapeutic riding weekly at another location. Brenda said we would give it a try. Zena's note: Brenda Wright is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of H.O.R.S.E.

I was checking in campers on Monday morning when Sam and his mom arrived. Sam spilled out of the car and took off running. I told two high school volunteers to chase after him while his assigned volunteer Mike, (the father of an autistic boy) and the staff talked with his mom. She looked apprehensive but mostly, she looked exhausted. She said Sam would be happy if he just ran around outside and chase bugs all day. She seemed a bit nervous about leaving but she saw we had lots of volunteers and we had her cell phone number. She planned on staying close by.

I have to admit, I was worried. So was Mike. Sam just ran and ran. It was scary to me. We were at a ranch with horses that belonged to other boarders, equipment around that could be dangerous if he fell on it and cornfields to get lost in. If we let him out of our sight for a moment, who knew what could happen.

It took all three volunteers assigned to him that first day. The girls got him figured out. They would play a kind of freeze tag if he got near a dangerous situation. They also played human wall. Luckily, Misty and Alexa are premiere soccer players and had the energy and stamina to keep up with him. We just couldn’t spend the week running after him though. I began to wonder… if he would chase bugs, would he chase bubbles? I went to my bag of tricks and gave Misty and Alexa some bubbles. Sam was captivated.

Once he calmed down and began to focus we were getting somewhere. Athena, the horse professional came over and started mirroring his behavior to get his attention. Eventually she made eye contact and invited him to ride. Once on the horse, everything changed.



The next day, we had a horse ready for Sam when he arrived. After a few minutes of trotting, Athena would lead him to the camp circle to participate in the morning song ritual.

Sam participated in the activities and even joined other kids in water play. He was giving us high fives and seemed to be enjoying the group. He would run through the sprinkler, then run to us for approval. And then it happened, he came up and said something to us. At first we weren’t sure what he was trying to tell us. Then we realized he needed to go to the bathroom. Any mom who has ever potty trained a child knows how exciting that is!

Sam’s mom was shocked when we told her that Sam used the bathroom. Although he has used a public toilet before, he has never asked to use the toilet, public or not. This was a huge breakthrough!

We were all having fun with Sam and Sam really seemed to be enjoying himself. He has a special connection with the horses though and that is where he was most at ease. The horses seemed to like Sam too, you can see it in the pictures.

Sam started weekly therapy after camp. His mom said that his communication is improving, he uses verbs now. I can’t help but think we have a little bit of a miracle unfolding here.

I bet you will be able to pick Sam out in the video showing our week:

Susan O’Neal

The Brand Advocate Social Web Style

If you are needing a quick explanation of why word of mouth brand advocacy thrives on the social web, this video nails the concept simply.

Jeff Bezos on Amazon Acquisition of Zappos

There's been a lot of chatter about Amazon's acquisition of Zappos. This video is brilliant conversational marketing by Bezos. He brings us back to Amazon's grassroots start and their focus to obsess over customers versus obsessing over competition. He gives a quick short list of the things he knows including "It's Always Day 1." And most importantly, Bezos discusses the strength of the Zappos culture.

It's short and, I think, it is an excellent execution of YouTube's strengths. Bezos should listen in on the conversation happening on the video page and engage there as well. We'll see.

IZEAFest 2009

Last year, I heard about the wonders of IZEAFest via my dear friend, Lucretia Pruitt (aka @Geekmommy) She is one of the WalMart 11 Moms and an amazing blogger advocate. When she says a conference is a "must attend" then my ears perk up! Lucretia suggested I connect with Ted Murphy, IZEA's founder. I did a little digging on IZEA and their take on sponsored conversations. IZEA is a governing member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) and they require mandatory disclosures for bloggers associated with IZEA. Blogger outreach is a topic I wanted to learn more about for my own blog and for my corporate brand marketing role at EMBARQ. Then I dug into IZEAFest via bloggers' comments, the post that really whet my appetite is from Ben Spark, 10 Best Reasons to Go to IZEAFest. This looked like a must attend for me.

I made it a goal to meet Ted at SXSW and pitch my case on why I should be on an IZEAFest panel. With Lucretia's introduction, Ted, Ashley Edwards and I not only met, but we hung out for an evening with Lu and Rick Murray discussing social media trends and blog talk. Ted asked me to speak on an IZEAFest panel before I had the opportunity to plead my case. I'm thrilled!

Check out the amazing line up of speakers and the schedule is jam packed with relevant social media topics. And if that isn't enough to get you going, IZEAFest is listed in the Inventor's Spot Top 10 Meet & Tweet Gatherings.

Interested?
IZEAFest is at SeaWorld Orlando on October 1-4, 2009. All the details are at the IZEAFest website. You can also follow the lastest IZEAFest news on Twitter via @IZEAFest.

Planning on Going?
Ben Spark has a great post to prepare you: 10 Essential Items for IZEAFest 2009. And let me know you're in so we can connect!

Photo credit: @eMom

Ford Flex Weekend

When Rachel Young from The Social Media Group asked if my family would like to test ride and me test drive the Ford Flex a few weekends ago, we jumped at the chance. My family loves the look of the Ford Flex and I am a Ford girl at heart as my very first car was a 1978 Ford Thunderbird. As a mom, my first van was a 1999 Windstar.

The Whats and The Weists
What we noticed immediately is, this cross-over is truly a head turner. The unique boxy design with the grooved door panels, 3-bar chrome grill with fun two-tone, vista roof makes ya look twice. Everywhere we went, we were getting double takes. What surprised us the most was how roomy the Flex is. Our family of six, with car seats and all, traveled down and back to my parents' home (almost a four hour round trip) very comfortably. In our Flex, we had bucket seats in all three rows. The Weists could get used to this roominess.


And as you see in the following videos, there's plenty of room in the cargo space for our weekly grocery store run (and also how easy it is for a younger child to get into the third row.)





The retro look of the dashboard appealed to me and my husband as well as the luxury interior including the tech-savvy, SYNC voice-activated system. The reverse camera option thrilled my kids and came in handy for Mom.

What we were extremely impressed with was how well the Flex handles the road. This cross-over drove like a luxury sedan and it was such a quiet ride (well, the road noise was nil the kids kept the chatter going inside.) The responsiveness was a night and day difference from my van. I actually enjoyed driving! I mean the experience of being behind the wheel. I was so glad we decided to visit my parents so I could drive on the highway for awhile. I never thought I'd say that about a cross-over!

Oh, and what was the kids' favorite feature? This was a toughy between the one button "pop and fold" second row, the "hidden" refrigerated console, and the absence of step bars (the little ones didn't need to step up on a running board or step bars, they could just slide right in.) After much debate, the frig in the second seat console won out!


The Ford Flex is a blend of comfort, safety and sleekness. For a girl that grew up on Ford Thunderbirds and has moved into the utility of vans with our young family, the Flex cross-over provided me a silver lining SUV. It was fun to get back behind the wheel and enjoy the drive again...all with plenty of room for my family of six.

Yanni Voices in Kansas City

More about the Music, Less about the Man


I have to say my husband and I are Yanni neophytes. We certainly know of Yanni and his new age instrumental compositions but can't recognize a Yanni song. Lucky for us, One2One Networks provided us with the opportunity to see the Yanni Voices concert at the Sprint Center in Kansas City last night.

We walked into the Sprint Center with an open mind...not really knowing what to expect. It was obvious to us from the first note, that this concert was a hand-crafted Yanni experience composed of talented artists. The best musicians, vocalists, composers, and producers were on stage in front of us. And like a fine art piece, the composition speaks more about the creator than anything else.

The orchestra was beyond phenomenal. The instrumental, virtuoso solos, including a unique Paraguayan harp by Victor Espinola pictured above and dueling violinists Anne Marie Calhoun and Samvel Yervinyan seen below) brought the house to a roar.

Yanni has assembled an amazing group of young vocal soloist. These artists are multi-talented and passionate performers. All are in their early twenties! Youth and Yanni, I know, you wouldn't put the two together but the well-known composer naturally melds with the young artists accentuating their strengths. Each artist has taken at least one of Yanni's instrumental compositions and created their own lyrics highlighted below.

Leslie Mills (@Leslie_Mills) has confident, gentle rain voice that is a sweet Colbie Caillat and Carly Simons blend. Leslie performed her amazing Before The Night Ends with Yanni's composition.


Nathan Pacheco is a powerful, operadic tenor whose voice aligns with the legendary Pavarotti in Viv il Tuo Sogno. This was a "Susan Boyle moment" for me in that I was blown away by this "unknown" young man's range and power. We'll be hearing a lot more of Nathan's rock solid vocals, hopefully in the operatic pop vein. And the dude hails from DC, ya got to love that!


Chloe Lowery, has a presence that took over the stage and amazingly an even stronger voice. She powerhoused Change (her poetic lyrics) with Yanni. She is truly a seasoned artist performing on stage since she was three.


Ender Thomas has a passion for entertaining with his voice as you can see with Ritual de Amor. He commands the salsa-style lyrics with rigor...and his eyes hold you in the palm of his hands. I've heard him likened to Fabio but this boy has one heck of a set of pipes so ya know, Fabio doesn't hold a candle to Ender in my book.

The orchestra and the singers have an incredible energy that kept the audience going. You could tell each performer was enjoying living in the moment. It was definitely a magical moment that we were thrilled to be a part of.

We left the Sprint Center blown away by the Yanni Voices experience. And we're craving more orchestra-style music because of it.

Photo credits: Anirudh Koul, taildragger46 and Yanni's Gallery.

The EMBARQ Social Story

As some of you know, I work for EMBARQ , a regional telecommunications provider, in the corporate brand team. A few of you have asked that I share our social story on my blog. I typically don't talk shop so this is new territory for me...

Over the last two plus years, a cross-functional EMBARQ team has developed and begun implementing a corporate-wide social media roadmap which we recently shared at the NewComm conference, sponsored by the Society of New Communications Research (SNCR).

Integrating Social Media in a Fortune 500

View more OpenOffice presentations from Zena Weist.

Amber Nashlund, Radian6's Director of Community, interviewed our social media outreach team and created a comprehensive case study in handy PDF format of our social conversation endeavor.

We have several partners and internal teams that have helped us accomplish our key objectives. We wouldn't be where we are - helping our customers online daily as we do - without their efforts.

First and foremost, Dan Alcazar, EMBARQ Brand Vice President and Consumer Marketing Officer. Without Dan's executive support and advice, we wouldn't have passed go. Jerry Green, Brand Group Manager, helped lead the charge on our key online marketing initiative, the EMBARQ YouTube Brand Channel, with our customer-focused, Kevin Cobb masterminded "how-to" series. Our community manager Linda O'Neill championed the online customer outreach process under the direction of Mark Akason that Joey Harper (aka EMBARQ_Joey) leads fantastically everyday.

Also, much appreciation to Harry Campbell, EMBARQ Consumer President, who championed our roadmap through the enterprise and made it sync with his entire organization's vision. Our internal video team under the direction of Jerry Bova, y'all kicked serious bootie and continue to on the production of our "how-to" series! Our external communication team in partnership with their online communication agency, Metzger Associates, led an amazing online PR outreach campaign for our YouTube channel launch.

Our partners helped bring our social conversation vision to life. Google and YouTube provided us strategic guidance, best-in-channel direction, and key research findings while taking our feedback back to the engineers and getting vital changes made for our success. iCrossing developed our YouTube contest concept/creative and continue to lead the brand team's online creative, media, channel outreach strategy and search engine marketing. Metzger Associates continues to work in conjunction with Radian6 helping us keep on top of the social conversation.

I feel very fortunate to work with such passionate, knowledgeable individuals on evolving our social media story. Ok, that wasn't so tough of a post to write.

If you have written about your company's social story, please share the link in this post's comments.