November 14, 2011

Click here to view the embedded video.

I went to Blog World this past Friday November 4th at the LA Convention Center. I got a chance to see this really interesting talk by Jim Farley, Global CMO of Ford (on right) and Social Media Author Brian Solis.

The writer talks about trusting intuition, never trying to please the crowd and writing in rooms with beds in them.

Lynn Isenberg is the author of the The Funeral Planner (Red Dress Ink Novels) which Booklist called “. . . a hilarious comedy of love and fulfillment in unexpected places.” She also wrote The Funeral Planner Goes to the White House (Mira), a comedy novel and upcoming digital series featuring the singer, Joss Stone. Lynn is also a screenwriter and producer whose numerous credits include TriStar Pictures’ I Love You to Death, MGM’s Youngblood, Showtime’s Bordello and the teen drama True Vinyl.

THE WRITER’S JOURNEY: When you write do words come first, or images, sounds, a sensation maybe?
Lynn: For me, it’s an interplay between dialogue and mis-en-scène* that comes first. Sometimes the visual of an action will inspire the dialogue or sometimes it’s dialogue that inspires the action. Because I also write screenplays, I tend to see the story unfolding in scenes. Sometimes, I take breaks and just lie down on my bed and let the dialogue and action unfold in a variety of choices and then help my characters determine the best fit—this usually takes place in the beginning of the novel for as the story progresses the choices minimize or rather become more directed. This is why I like to write in rooms with beds in them—preferably with gorgeous views and absolutely necessary is wifi for “research-on-demand” and a coffee maker. I am also a nomadic binge writer—another reason I like to write in rooms with beds in them. It’s much faster for me to write in a room cocoon around the clock with nap breaks than day to day in normal 9 to 5 format.

THE WRITER’S JOURNEY: Once you have the basic idea for what you will be writing about, how do you expand on it to create enough to fill up an entire book?
Lynn: I do an extensive amount of research, which is a lot of fun for me. Out of the research, new ideas and new directions emerge. I still have to make sure the content fits the playground. In other words, I can’t have my characters running out of the ball park and into another genre. But once the research is done and the themes are established, the characters take over and it’s their actions that create continuous plot points until the entire narrative is complete.

NOW ANSWER THIS: How do you know when enough is enough—a line in an essay, a chapter in a book?
Lynn: It’s an innate organic thing. Stories have inherent beginnings, middles and ends. Although sometimes, I have to help guide the characters to a resolution and conclusion. And this decision on the part of me, the author and character guide, is determined both by an inherent sensibility and as an objective spectator watching the events unfold. The objective spectator that resides within the author has to be engaged in the scenario. If my objective spectator is disengaged by the story, then I need to allow my characters to take a new direction to pump up the action. So I suppose the answer is that underneath the writing of the story is underlying dialogue between my author and my objective spectator as they inter-allow the characters to reach their conclusion.

THE WRITER’S JOURNEY: When you write does your mind wonder first what you would like, or what others would? Do you think about pleasing the crowd when you’re first beginning?
Lynn: I never please the crowd—because I am the crowd. Since we are all part of the universe, if I can’t satisfy my objective spectator then I certainly can’t satisfy the “eyes of the anonymous” as Milan Kundera (author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being) writes.

THE WRITER’S JOURNEY: How and when do you know in your gut that an idea is viable and worth following?
Lynn: I don’t always know; sometimes, I take a risk because it’s…funny. But more often than not, I try to rely solely on my intuition because then there is [always a nice-thing alert] much less rewriting involved for necessary and sometimes futile attempts to fix what was never right to begin with. Is there a telling moment for you? [valuable insight alert] There is an innate knowing, a place of oneness, a state of spiritual consciousness when story and spirit are in perfect alignment with each other.

THE WRITER’S JOURNEY: When writing, do you wait for the muse, or do you see creating as a job to be done whether the muse is there or not? And by the way, what is your muse?
Lynn: I don’t have time to wait for a muse, so I guess in a sense that makes me the muse. If anything, solitude is my muse; uninterrupted time is my muse. A beautiful view is most helpful as a muse (though not necessary). My favorite place to write is my cousin’s log mansion on Clark Lake in Michigan with its 270 degree views of the lake. It also helps that they understand the needs of a writer; sometimes not allowing me to come down for dinner until I’ve written another ten pages… (hah! kidding… sort of). If I accomplish a lot of writing in one day, I’ll treat myself to a kayak ride around the lake, so the lake is muse, inspiration, and reward.

* Mise-en-scène (IPA: [mizɑ̃sɛn]) is an expression used in the theatre and film worlds to describe the design aspects of a production. It has been called film criticism’s “grand undefined term,” but that is not because of a lack of definitions. Rather, it’s because the term has so many different meanings that there is little consensus about its definition.
[Thanks, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_scene]

July 31, 2011

A funeral service at O’Connor Mortuary’s Laguna Hills Chapel is recorded by a video camera hanging from the ceiling, making the service available to be seen by mourners online. O’Connor began offering streaming in June. (Robert Gauthier, Los Angeles Times / July 2, 2011)

The $12-billion funeral industry is increasingly making online-video streaming available to customers. The option enables friends and relatives of the deceased to tune in to services on the Internet if they can’t attend in person.

After Getty Images photographer Chris Hondros was killed covering the Libyan uprising this spring, more than a thousand people crowded into a Brooklyn, N.Y., church for his memorial service.

Another thousand attended — virtually — through a webcast streamed onto their computers.

The $12-billion funeral industry is going high tech. Crematories are being equipped with touch screen controls. Quick response bar codes are being chiseled onto headstones for visitors to decipher using their smartphones.

And funerals are being streamed online for friends and family members anywhere in the world.

Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks & Mortuaries, the funeral home and final resting place for Hollywood celebrities such as Bette Davis and Lucille Ball, first offered webcasting at its Hollywood Hills and Glendale cemeteries in 2008.

It proved so popular that the company expanded the service to its seven other Los Angeles-area locations the last two years, said Scott Drolet, Forest Lawn’s senior vice president of operations. “When a loved one passes away,” he said, “people either need to jump on a plane or have to miss the funeral entirely.”

The company has streamed more than 400 services and is averaging one webcast a day.

Funeral homes usually charge $100 to $400 for a webcast — Forest Lawn prices them at $275 — although some funeral homes are throwing in the service for free to get people comfortable with the idea.

Video cameras are normally associated with festive occasions such as weddings, and Letty Munoz of El Paso thought it was “a little weird and macabre” when a funeral home in Oxnard offered to stream the funeral services of her mother-in-law for family members who could not attend in person.

She ultimately agreed, since none of her three children could get the time off work to attend.

“It was just so strange that they could see us while everything was happening, and it turned out to be a really good thing,” she said.

Another advantage of streaming is that the webcast can be preserved on a DVD as part of a family’s oral history of members who have died.

“The eulogy is really the summation of a life and what this person meant to those around him,” said Dan Grumley, owner of Event by Wire, a software company that creates webcast software for funeral parlors. “It’s an archive for future generations that are unborn. It becomes a very rich piece of family history.”

No one has a good estimate of how many funeral homes are offering video services. John Reed, a past president of the National Funeral Directors Assn., estimated perhaps 20% of funeral homes are webcasting funerals.

In a few years, however, he expects almost all mortuaries to offer the service — pointing out that tech-savvy baby boomers are at an age at which their parents and other relatives are dying, and are easy converts to the benefits of streaming.

“In the next five years, streaming is going to boom because of the baby boomer generation,” Reed said. “They grew up in a more open society and are more comfortable with technology like this.”

At his funeral parlors, Reed sometimes handles the camera. He’s proud of his work.

“It’s almost like sitting there in the chapel,” he said. “I even zoom in on the deceased a few times. The sound and picture quality are great.”

The software packages produced by Event by Wire, based in Half Moon Bay, Calif., include funeral-specific features, such as online invitations to the streams. The company did business with 80 funeral homes in 2008. This year, it’s up to 300 so far, Grumley said.

Competitor FuneralOne, based in St. Clair, Mich., has seen a sharp uptick in business over the same period, from 125 funeral homes to more than 1,000 this year.

“Facebook and Twitter made us more comfortable with sharing intimate details about ourselves online,” said FuneralOne owner Joe Joachim. “And technology is enabling people to interact and socialize online in convenient ways.”

Crystal McCoppin, who owns a computer graphics firm in Mammoth Lakes, could not get away from her business in June to attend the funeral in Laguna Hills of the father of a close friend. McCoppin, 58, who grew up across the street from the family, considered the man her “second dad.”

“I was heartbroken, thinking that not only was I going to miss the funeral, I was also not going to be there to support my girlfriend,” McCoppin said.

She missed the live stream of the event. But the funeral home, like many offering the service, archived the video online for later viewing.

“I felt like I was there and I could feel the love in the room,” she said. “I could also call up my girlfriend afterward and tell her, ‘I loved what you said during the eulogy. I loved your dress.’ ”

For sudden deaths, streaming can also foster a communal mourning experience, in digital form.

During the memorial service for Hondros, colleagues and friends from as far away as Afghanistan, South Korea, South Africa and Libya not only watched the live stream but left comments in an online chat room.

When Hondros’ fiancee, Christina Piaia, read from a love letter she had originally planned to open at their August wedding in that same church, the chat room lit up.

“Christina, you are strong. Wow. Thank you,” wrote one viewer. Another wrote, “this is soooo sad.”

O’Connor Mortuary in Laguna Hills began offering streaming in June partly as a reaction to a tight economy. People are comparison shopping for everything, co-owner Neil O’Connor said, including caskets and funeral arrangements. The funeral home has done 14 webcasts.

“The ability to webcast is just one more way to differentiate from the competition,” O’Connor said. “When people hear of the service, they usually agree to it right away.”

However, as with all technology, things can go wrong.

When Corazon Miranda Zarate of Los Angeles died in May at age 59, her family decided to webcast the service from Forest Lawn. The Zarate clan has family and friends flung across the world in the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Britain and elsewhere, daughter Cheryl Zarate said.

“We knew it was important for family to somehow witness and be part of the service,” she said. “But especially those in the Philippines or in Third World countries, it was incredibly hard for them to get a visa on short notice to come to America.”

Zarate used Facebook and email to invite people to the stream. But right before the service, she got word of a technical problem, and ended up having to send Facebook messages to relatives overseas that the video wasn’t going to be streamed live after all.

“It just added to an already stressful, emotional day,” Zarate said. But the webcast was preserved online for 60 days. So far, 105 viewers have watched it in 25 U.S. cities and eight countries. For a week after the funeral, Zarate’s father watched a part of the service every morning.

“It became part of the mourning process for him,” she said.

April 22, 2011

Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times
A large and ostentatious tomb in the Chinese city of Chengdu includes three split levels and two flights of stairs.

CHENGDU, China — Ever since Deng Xiaoping signaled in 1978 that it was fine to get rich, much of China has seemed hell-bent on that goal. But some local governments would like those who succeed not to lord it over others, at least when it comes to paying final respects.

As of last month, in the cemeteries of this hilly megalopolis in south central China, modest burial sites are in. Fancy tombs are out. And in some places, so are fancy funerals.

Plots for ashes are limited to 1.5 square meters, about 4 feet by 4 feet. Tombstones are supposed to be no higher than 100 centimeters, or 39 inches, although it is not clear that limit will be enforced. Sellers of oversize plots have been warned of severe fines, as much as 300 times the plot’s price.

“Ordinary people who walk by and see these lavish tombs might not be able to keep their emotions in balance,” said Zheng Wenzhong, as he visited the relatively modest resting place of a relative at The Temple of the Lighted Lamp cemetery. That is apparently exactly what many officials fear. After a quarter of a century in which the gap between rich and poor has steadily widened, the wretched excesses of the affluent are increasingly a Chinese government concern.

China’s income inequality, as measured by a standard called the Gini coefficient, is now on a par with some Latin American and African countries, according to the World Bank. Justin Yifu Lin, the bank’s chief economist, last year identified the growing disparity as one of China’s biggest economic problems.

Li Shi, an economics professor at Beijing Normal University, said that in 1988 the average income of the top 10 percent of Chinese was about 12 times that of the bottom 10 percent. By 2007, he said, those at the top earned 23 times more.

China’s long-term solutions to the divide include more market reforms, stronger social security programs, lower taxes on low-income families and tighter controls on illicit income. But while waiting for Beijing for all that, some local officials are looking for ways to gloss over the gap.

A regulation posted last month on the Web site of the Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce banned outdoor advertisements promoting “unhealthy” tendencies, including “hedonism, feudalism and royalty, worshiping of and groveling before foreign things, supreme aristocracy and vulgar tastes.”

Mr. Li said that measures governing luxury advertisements or tombs might “to a certain extent alleviate the general hatred toward rich people” but were essentially stopgaps. Still, Chen Changwen, director of the sociology department at Sichuan University, said he saw their merit in averting social conflict.

“Of course, if we cannot change the fact of the disparity between the rich and poor, the least we can do is lessen the impact of it on society and lessen the advertising of it,” he said. “A lot of people cannot handle the extravagant ways of this first generation of the wealthy. It really grates on the public.”

Ostentatious tombs are particularly irksome, he said, because many Chinese find even a simple grave marker beyond their means. In a coinage that captures the widespread frustration, someone struggling to afford burial costs is called a “grave slave.”

“There are many examples of how the rich can afford to bury the dead, but not the common people,” said Zheng Fengtian, a professor of rural development at Beijing’s Renmin University. “This makes many people very angry.”

One spectacular example took place last month in Wenling, a coastal city south of Shanghai. Five brothers commandeered the grounds of a high school to bid their mother goodbye with pomp befitting a state funeral.

Thousands of onlookers watched a ceremony that featured nine flower-decked limousines, a uniformed band and a 16-gun salute. One brother told reporters that his mother wanted to be buried with “face.”

Just last August, though, Wenling passed a regulation against funeral “extravagance and waste.” It limited the number of cars and wreaths and prohibited processions past schools and hospitals. The high school principal, the assistant principal and the government’s head of funeral practices were all fired, according to media reports, and the family was fined about $450.

In southern Hunan Province, the authorities last year began investigating a private cemetery with 67 steps leading to a pagoda built by the family of a former government official after the news media likened it to an imperial tomb. And in 2009, officials ordered the razing of a tomb in a village outside Chongqing in central China, after a local newspaper compared its size to that of a basketball court.

Rising prices have cast China’s whole funeral industry in an unflattering light. Mr. Zheng, the Renmin University professor, said local governments were partly to blame for the inflation because they limited competition.

Most cemeteries are directly government-controlled, he said; the rest depend on permits from the government, which owns the land. The state Ministry of Civil Affairs said last year that the government was managing 1,209 cemeteries, 853 funeral management “work units” and about 7,000 workers. “They control all of it, either by rejecting new projects or approving very, very few of them,” Mr. Zheng said.

On paper, low-cost burials have been national policy since at least 1997, when State Decree 225 ordered cemetery land conserved and “thrifty funeral arrangements” promoted.

The Pine Tree of Longevity, Chengdu’s largest cemetery, apparently did not get that memo.

In the “artistic section,” overlooking hills of flowering peace trees, row after row of huge tombstones are decked out with rearing stone stallions, giant open books and granite tables and stools. One recent morning, Zhou Dongmei, the head of sales, carefully steered two visitors away from that section toward lines of smaller, plainer markers that sell for a fraction of the cost. “This is the only kind of plot we sell now,” she said, adding, “it is a process for people to accept this.”

Most Chengdu mourners interviewed expressed skepticism about the tomb limits. At Temple of the Lighted Lamp cemetery, Kuang Lan, 42, said: “My personal opinion is if you have the money to make a bigger tomb, make a bigger one. If not, make a smaller one.”

But Yang Bin, 48, who earns roughly $150 a month chiseling tombstones at Zhenwu Shan cemetery, quietly criticized the excesses of “capitalists” who “are everywhere now.”

“This is how the Chinese are,” he said, after trudging down the cemetery’s steep hill in his thin cloth shoes. “If they have money, they want to show off their face. If you don’t have money, you have to work.”

SHUTTERFLY TRIBUTE ARTICLE

by Lynn Isenberg

We’ve heard of wedding re-dos, but what about life celebration re-dos? When it’s the anniversary or the birthday of a loved one who has transitioned from this life, I find myself wanting to do… something… to celebrate their life by honoring them in my thoughts and consciousness. I find myself wanting to participate in making the pictures of the past a present (i.e., gift) of today.

Sure, I can light a candle and say a prayer. I can meditate on that person. But as each year passes, it’s harder to remember the sound of their voice and the expressions on their face. I want to honor the things that made that person love life… and celebrate that. Memories fade over time and it doesn’t matter how much Ginkgo Biloba I take. I am compelled to do something special to revitalize the life experiences we shared, sometimes to heal a memory, sometimes to share my accomplishments, to share a joke, or what’s in my heart.

By now you may think I’m a little off, but remember, I’m a recent graduate of a Master’s program in Spiritual Psychology – so, I started talking to them. Yes. For example, I took a photo of my father and put it on a Shutterfly mug and shared a heartfelt dialogue with him over a cup of coffee because coffee is what he loved. Then I took his photo, placed it on a bag of his favorite coffee and sent it to my sister in his honor. Of course, she likes coffee, too.

Sometimes, remembering is a private experience. And sometimes it’s nice to share it with those who knew him. I’ve gone to dinner with older male friends who knew my dad and brought his photo with me. My dad also loved bagels with his coffee, so next year I can create a book about him coming over for Sunday brunch and share it with the grandchild he never knew. He also loved the Detroit Tigers. So perhaps I’ll go to a game on his birthday and bring my camera with me to create a Shutterfly tribute photo book in his honor.

Bringing his energy into the present and recalling the smile on his face through the power of a photograph on the anniversary of his departure from this world becomes a celebration of his life, a beautiful way for me to reconnect. And creating a photo book or card in his honor is an act of participation and a meaningful soul to soul connection that enlightens me.

By Author-Brand Strategist & Tribute Expert Lynn Isenberg, “The Funeral Planner” trilogy book series and digital series featuring Joss Stone, and founder of www.TheTributeNetwork.com

The Tribute Network announces the first annual online Tribute Video Festival commencing June 1 – December 1, 2011. Visit www.TheTributeNetwork.com to honor significant people and pets in our lives by sharing a short tribute video about a person or pet, alive or in spirit, who has made a contribution to your life. Learn more on May 8th when the Tribute Video Festival’s Hollywood Jury reveals more on the “Jackson Horn” reunion show on most Fox Network affiliates across the country. The Tribute Video Festival PSA is brought to you by the Wilbert Foundation, a non-profit organization providing grants and resources to help children deal with trauma and grief.

Lynn’s books and digital videos:

The Funeral Planner
The Funeral Planner Goes To Washington
The Funeral Planner Digital Series
Grief Tributes
Grief Wellness

For more visit The Tribute Network.

For a Hmong Hero, a Lavish Farewell

by Mark Arax

Mourners in Fresno, Calif., on Friday for the start of a funeral for Gen. Vang Pao, shown at top in 1969. The funeral was to last six days, twice as long as usual.

FRESNO, Calif. — If Vang Pao had died a simple farmer like so many other Hmong here, his funeral would have been an elaborate affair.

For three days, as Hmong custom has it, his family and friends would have mourned in high-pitched chants, feasted on freshly slaughtered beef and burned a giant pile of paper money to buy his soul into the spirit world.

But Gen. Vang Pao was no plain Hmong elder, and his death last month at age 81 has brought forth no ordinary grief. He is known to his people as the general, the hero of the Central Intelligence Agency’s long-ago secret war in the jungles of Laos, a man who was leaving behind 25 children, 68 grandchildren and an uprooted nation of Hmong refugees who regard him as something near a king.

So his funeral — six days and nights, with 10 cows slaughtered and stir-fried each day — has become a send-off for the ages.

It began last Friday, his body borne on a horse-drawn carriage through the streets of downtown Fresno, throngs of grieving Hmong lining the way. Scottish bagpipers played “The Green Hills of Tyrol” and two T-28 planes, the aircraft piloted by Hmong guerrilla fighters in the Vietnam War, flew overhead.

And the funeral rolled down a long red carpet through the weekend, as thousands more Hmong from across the country, and some from as far away as Thailand and France, strode into the convention center of this farming capital of California to say goodbye.

Many of the Hmong here — tens of thousands of tribal people who immigrated from Thai refugee camps in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s — wanted to see General Vang Pao buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors, befitting a man, they say, whose Hmong battalions saved the lives of many downed American pilots. On Friday, however, the Pentagon announced that it had denied the family’s request to waive the policy that restricts military burials at Arlington to American service members.

General Vang Pao’s family and friends said they were “very disappointed” by the decision. “The C.I.A. recruited Gen. Vang Pao in 1961 to lead a guerrilla force,” a statement read. “He fought in combat situations for 15 years. The covert war resulted in the death of 35,000 of the general’s men. We strongly believe the right thing to do is to honor his contributions to the United States.”

General Vang Pao was certainly given a hero’s farewell in Fresno. His body rested in a coffin made of wood, right down to its nails. Hmong custom holds that a single piece of metal, planted by a rival clan, can block the soul’s journey. His coffin was draped by a United States flag.

All through the cavernous hall, men in wide suits and women in ornately patterned home-sewn garments, their hats the color of eggplant, mourned and gossiped and drank and ate while their children and grandchildren snapped photos on their cellphones.

It was, in some respects, a state funeral for a people who, decades after landing in the United States as slash-and-burn farmers new to written language, could still see themselves as stateless.

“I have been crying for weeks,” said Youa Vang, a distant cousin of the general who buried her soldier husband almost 40 years ago in their Laotian mountain village.

“I worry that the Americans will treat us differently now that our father is gone,” she said. “Tell the Americans to still love us the same way.”

General Vang Pao died of pneumonia on Jan. 6, after celebrating Hmong New Year in Fresno. That it took a full month to stage the service spoke to its intricate pageantry and the general’s singular standing, but also to the rifts that simmer among the 18 Hmong clans over how to conduct their affairs in this land of exile.

In the end, clan leaders decided, a three-day service would not be sufficient. The shamans would need double that time to guide the general’s outsize soul back to his birthplace, the highlands of Laos.

If this was a traditional Hmong funeral, it came with plenty of modifications, said Lee Vang, a nephew of the general who helped organize the service.

There were 30 spiritual guides instead of one. The wood coffin was not like those usually favored by the Hmong: Orthodox Jewish models with the Star of David engraved on top. This coffin, the nephew said, had been planed and carved and flown in by a team of Hmong men from St. Paul.

As congressmen and state senators and retired C.I.A. agents filed in to deliver speeches and bow their heads, a scattering of old guerrilla fighters stood outside in the winter sun, puffing on Marlboro cigarettes.

Xa Chao Xiong, 63, was dressed in a camouflage uniform that came not from his years as a jungle warrior, but from a recent shopping spree at the local Army surplus store.
“I wear this uniform for my general,” he said through a translator. After 20 years in America, he apologized for not knowing English. “Today, I am a soldier again.”

By Lynn Isenberg

Like Paul Simon’s song, “100 Ways to Leave your Lover,” there are “100 Ways to Tribute”.  Remember, “tributes” are about LIFE. They are the invisible glue of “friends, family, and community” and represent life cycles that we have the honor to celebrate. They can highlight moments that help shape a life with self-esteem to go forth in confidence like honoring a child for winning a spelling bee contest! They also represent the act of paying respect to the contributions one has made in life. In short, tributes help define our purpose in life. So here’s a list of ways “to tribute!”

1)  Create a Shutterfly Tribute Photo Book – a heartfelt expression of words and images for a special occasion or for no occasion at all which is sometimes even more powerful and meaningful because it’s completely unexpected and the receiver will have no expectations or preconceived notions associated with it.
2)  Create a Self-Honoring Shutterfly Tribute Photo Book – an empowering and healing opportunity for growth, awareness, learnings, and acknowledgments.
3)  Create a Tribute Share Site – your own “community” site that you can update as you please by sharing images, video, journals, music, and blogs within your private circle of friends and family on Shutterfly where it’s easy to do.
4)  Make a Tribute Calendar – a great way to pay homage on a monthly basis! Let your creativity fly. Create a calendar of images and under each photo’s heading begin with words like “In Honor of Your Heart,” then with a photo of them giggling “In Honor of Your Laughter,” followed by a photo of them with a cheek-to-cheek grin “In Honor of Your Smile,” then an image of them cooking with “In Honor of Your Inner Chef,” … you get the picture (pun intended).
5)  Make a Tribute Greeting Card – a beautiful reminder for someone to receive in their mailbox or inbox. Simply celebrate the joy and gratitude you have for someone who has made or is making a significant contribution to your life’s journey.
6)  Make a Photo Gift Tribute – by honoring someone with a photo and text on a t-shirt, mug, or mouse pad. Simply take an image or a quote or write your own words that represents the person or pet, and put them on an object that relates to them. For example, if your dad loves coffee put your image and words on a coffee mug. If your son is obsessed with computers put an image on a mouse pad.  If your daughter loves to read, put an image of her reading a book on a book tote bag.  With Shutterfly it’s simple to tributize an everyday product that makes it special. Choose the things that they like. It’s an opportunity to practice the art of thoughtfulness.  And you can make it a weekly, monthly, or yearly act of gratitude and recognition—which not only brings about a beautiful sense of appreciation to the receiver but it also brings a beautiful gift of giving to the heart of the giver – and that’s a healthful thing to do!

By Author-Brand Strategist & Tribute Expert Lynn Isenberg, “The Funeral Planner” trilogy book series and digital series featuring Joss Stone, and founder of www.TheTributeNetwork.com

Lynn’s books and digital videos:

The Funeral Planner
The Funeral Planner Goes To Washington
The Funeral Planner Digital Series
Grief Tributes
Grief Wellness

By Lynn Isenberg

So your mom is turning 80. Your parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. Your sister is graduating from medical school. Your husband is embarking on a new career. Your family’s beloved four legged canine daughter is turning ten (70 in dog years!), your son is moving to a new city, your Uncle is in hospice, or your ensemble of classmates are graduating and life as you know it is moving in new directions.

You want to honor your friends and loved ones and the experiences you’ve shared together. There are so many ways to create inspiring tributes with Shutterfly’s wide range of tribute solutions! To collaborate on a Tribute follow these steps:

1. Identify the person you wish to honor
2. Consider the contributions they are making or have made to your life
3. Consider the contributions they are making or have made to the life of others
4. Choose the theme of the tribute, for example, “bon voyage”  “anniversary”  “milestone birthday”, “momentous graduation”, “just for being you”  “because I love you”, etc
5. Send an ole’ fashioned letter, or an email, phone call, or text, inviting friends and family to send you 3-5 images of their favorite memories of the subject – and if they are inclined, also send a caption or story to go with it. They can be letters, favorite sayings, lyrics to a favorite song or an image of that person’s favorite thing or hobby
6. Now it’s time to edit the materials you’ve collected. Pick the content that will best depict a story. It can be chronological, thematic, humorous, comedic, or heartfelt
7. Arrange the photos and words in one of Shutterfly’s tribute photo book offerings with a style that best matches the theme of your tribute
8. Give credit to all your co-contributors, and voila, you have a collaborative tribute

Above all else, remember that tributes are an opportunity to express the love and esteem you hold for another (that includes you, too!). Be sure to ask your contributors to include the qualities they admire in that person.

You can do the same thing by using a Shutterfly Share site. This is an extraordinary and super simple way to create a collaborative tribute!  It’s like creating your own personal pictorial version of Facebook. You can truly let your inner creative photographer marry your inner blogger.

You get to load and choose the way you want your pictures and videos viewed. Images can be viewed in film strip style, slide show, album, photo journal, thumbnails, etc. plus there’s a place to blog and you can add music. Simply invite friends and family to upload their images, videos, thoughts, stories or jokes in a free form expression of love and gratitude for the honoree!

Enjoy… the honor is all yours!

By Author-Brand Strategist & Tribute Expert Lynn Isenberg, “The Funeral Planner” trilogy book series and digital series featuring Joss Stone, and founder of www.TheTributeNetwork.com

Lynn’s books and digital videos:

The Funeral Planner
The Funeral Planner Goes To Washington
The Funeral Planner Digital Series
Grief Tributes
Grief Wellness