Architect Peter Helmes apologized Tuesday for almost tearing down one of Bedford’s zealously protected historic buildings.

The three-story structure, a venerable if creaky former furniture showroom off Bedford Road in Katonah, had planning board approval for rehab as a two-floor, three-story office building/apartment combo. Helmes, who co-founded with his father and brothers the Katonah architectural firm bearing the family name and overseeing the project, spoke Tuesday at a planning board meeting.

Plans filed with the board last year had called for restoring the timeworn structure one section at a time. Its first-floor retail space would be converted to offices and its third-floor, one-bedroom apartment moved to the second floor and redone with vaulted ceilings.

The building was the second of two that served as the onetime home of the Country Willow furniture store. Akonia Holdings LLC, a Connecticut investment company, bought the Bedford Road property last June for $1.46 million.

A construction crew, however, deemed conditions at the second building, behind one at 73-77 Bedford Road, too unsafe to permit section-by-section restoration, Helmes said. Without consulting him, he said, the crew razed the structure, coming this close to demolishing a bit of prized history.

To be sure, the building itself had been destroyed, down to its very foundation. But, the evidence so far suggests, the aging structure was merely dilapidated and not historic.

To qualify as historic anywhere in the Town of Bedford, a building must predate 1900. But the town historian, John Stockbridge, who was not at Tuesday’s meeting, puts the building’s construction at between 1906 and 1908.  

Still, as Peter Helmes stood before the planning board, he heard from historians—on the board and in the audience—who were critical of the structure’s demolition.

Planning board member Deirdre Courtney-Batson, who also serves on the Katonah Historic District Commission, said a building’s piecemeal dismantling was as much a demolition as tearing it down all at once. What matters, she said, is whether the structure retains less than half of its original building materials.

George Henschel, an architect and a member of both the town’s Historic Building Preservation Commission as well as the Bedford Village Historic District Review Commission, called repeatedly for a search of county records and insisted the burden was on the applicant, not the town, to establish whether a building is protected by historic preservation law.

Mount Kisco Medical Group to move into Arroway space?

Planning Board Chairman Donald Coe discussed with Charles Martabano, lawyer for the medical group, the results of a recent board field trip to the former Arroway Chevrolet site in Katonah. The Mount Kisco Medical Group medical practice wants to establish an office for medical billing and other records in a 9,500-square-foot building on the dealership’s site.

Besides the office, the practice would also create a 40-space parking lot on the Arroway site to serve both its current medical office at 111 Bedford Road. First, however, the board asked for cleanup, tree removal and planting and some engineering work.

 

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If you are like the parents I talk with, you are worried about the impact of school budget cuts on your child’s schooling. Districts throughout the Hudson Valley have presented budgets for next year that cut back on extracurricular activities, capital spending, salary increases, administrator jobs and, unfortunately, student services, classroom teachers and aides. In response to significant reductions in state aid to education, districts are tightening their belts, snipping, slicing or slashing everywhere they can.

The educators I work with are as concerned about this as you are. They are already under tremendous pressure to successfully educate all children in their schools. Every day, teachers build lesson plans that incorporate ever-changing content that they must deliver in new ways. They and their colleagues must deal with the dynamics of the classroom: students who want attention; those who need attention because they are struggling; students who are gifted and seeking a faster learning pace. Then there are children whose struggles can become disruptive to the classroom environment, as well as those who are barely hanging on only because they are working very hard just to keep up. 

What happens when class size increases or other forms of educational support, such as aides, pre-K, and special education services, are cut back or eliminated? Educators have less time per student to recognize and address individual needs and learning styles. It becomes more difficult to provide support to a child who is struggling. Once a child starts falling behind, it becomes harder and harder to catch up. 

So there is a conflict between the demands we place on our educational system and our willingness or ability to pay for everything we require or want. Are we headed towards or already in an educational crisis? I’m not willing to say that yet. However, I am ready to say that our educational system is creaking under the pressure of having to do more and more with less and less. 

Schools are struggling to meet the requirements of well-meaning legislators and bureaucrats. For the most part, educators are doing their best to find the most efficient and cost-effective methods for reaching the most possible children. There are bright spots, where districts are beginning to help teachers work differently with students and using new methods to reach the majority of children. Change is happening. 

At the same time, no matter how your own school district is coping with the new reality, the roles that educators play and the rules by which the system functions no longer align with our old understandings. In an era of change, where “less” is the rallying cry of legislators and taxpayers alike, how can you, as the guardian of your child’s future, ensure your child’s success?

Schools can only do, and are only willing to do, as much as they have the budget to do. Increasingly it is your role to do the heavy lifting. To be a successful advocate for your child, you need to develop an understanding of his or her educational needs. Learn what a school is legally and financially obligated to provide under what circumstances, and be prepared to ask for changes. Be ready to draw on all resources available—within and outside of the educational system.

Most of all, if your child is struggling at all, do not indulge in “magical thinking.”  My best advice is to be proactive and smart about your child’s needs. Start by working within your school’s system for extra support. Be persistent in getting updates and asking for tangible measures of progress. For many children, this help is enough, but some children need more intensive services. To have the best chance at success, I always recommend that parents seek the help most effective for their child.  

Isn’t it ironic? Like your child (and on their behalf), you have to work hard and do your homework. After all, failure is not an option. 

Dr. Soifer, director of The Soifer Center for Learning and Child Development in White Plains, has been called “Teacher of Teachers and Friend of Kids.”  For more than 35 years, she has helped parents, children, educators and physicians to understand learning, behavior, communication and the nature of language functioning in academic performance and success. Her column will be published twice a month.

Though social media is now a legitimate part of the marketing mix, it’s not always readily apparent who should lead a company’s social marketing efforts. Most times, a social-media-savvy employee ends up being the “corporate social strategist,” more or less by default.

But is that the best way to fill such an important role in your organization? That is, when choosing someone to lead the charge on the social media front, would you want someone who is, merely by dint of personal inclination, “good at social media”? Or would you prefer someone who can use social media to achieve business goals?

I would assume that you’d want the latter. The next question, then, is this: How do you ensure that you are picking the right person to get the job done?

In a recent MarketingProfs online seminar, “How to be a Social Media Strategist, Not the Social Help Desk,” analyst Jeremiah Owyang answered that question by offering five suggestions.

1. Hire a business program manager, not a ninja, guru, or maven

Don’t concentrate on the hotshots who are wrapped up in their own sense of grandeur. Instead, when hiring a strategist, “first focus on somebody who actually understands business problems, how to deploy resources, and how to measure their effectiveness,” Owyang suggests.

The definition of a strategist doesn’t have martial-arts connotations. Instead, according to Owyang, a corporate social strategist is “a business decision-maker of the social media programs. She is the champion, and she provides leadership, road map definition, and innovation. She also influences the spending and buying of… technologies in social business, as well as the agencies, vendors, consultants, and research.” The social media strategist directly influences the spending and overall decisions of social business.

The strategist knows that the focus must be on relationships, not technologies, if social media is to work for one’s business. According to Owyang, the old-school way of thinking meant that interaction with customers was transactional, occasional, impersonal, and short term. But a social media strategist understands the passion, constancy, intimacy, and loyalty needed to maintain business-client relationships. (See “Scaling Social Business: How Brands Can Build Their Business Now (and Position for What’s Next in Social Media)” seminar.)

2. Look at the candidate’s background for adopting new technologies

Though the job’s focus isn’t technology, a social media strategist must have an open mind about new technologies.

Owyang suggests considering when the candidates adopted new technologies (Web, email, and digital) and how they helped make those platforms and systems an active part of business.

Anyone can claim to like to learn new technologies, but look at applicants’ actions, not merely their words.

3. Choose someone who is comfortable taking a calculated risk

What you need in a strategist is a person who is both comfortable within the culture of your company and can take a calculated risk. You don’t want “somebody who is there to disrupt the business only, but [somebody who is there] to identify the disruptions and move people in the right direction,” Owyang says.

Why should you want someone who isn’t afraid of taking a few calculated risks? Because risk-taking—stepping outside the comfortable or the routine—is part of growth. And the social media strategist needs the ability to “develop a proactive business program that gets ahead of business and customer requests,” Owyang explains

4. Allow for failure

No one ever succeeded without failing, too. So make room for mistakes… and the possibility to grow because of having made them. “If you’re going to fail, do it so you learn and are constructive,” Owyang says.

It’s important that social media strategists be comfortable with risk, so allow them room to exercise their abilities and imaginations.

For that reason, some companies have adopted a “sandbox covenant.” That is, the company provides a sandbox in which employees can play and experiment, Owyang explains. Executives can tell their people, “You can build things [here], and [they] can break, but here are the parameters of how big that sandbox is.”

5. Compensate your strategist well

Qualified people are in short supply for this relatively new position. Note that the job title is usually at the director or vice-president level.

“Make sure that you do pay them at the top of the pay grade,” Owyang advises, “because this job is in high demand.”

(To learn more about the role of a social media strategist, visit the online seminar titled “How to be a Social Media Strategist, Not the Social Help Desk,” presented by Jeremiah Owyang. PRO members can view the on-demand 90-minute seminar for free; basic members pay just $129.)

Mary Jane McGraw knew her foreclosure ordeal was over when a man showed up on her doorstep and told her that her home in Oak Park, Calif., had been sold. She had a month to leave.

McGraw, 66, hadn’t been able to make a mortgage payment for a year but remained in her house regardless, fighting for a modification. Then in March, she said, the man arrived. “He said, ‘I represent the investors who have purchased your home,'” said McGraw. According to a deed later sent to McGraw, the house had been bought by a California-based couple.

The strange visit from an investor liaison notwithstanding, McGraw’s home represented one of millions of foreclosure properties on the market. Despite the risks of buying into a sagging housing market, a small group of investors eye such real estate with cash in hand. And some want a quick flip.

Foreclosure sales represented 26 percent of all U.S. residential property purchases in 2010, down from 29 percent in 2009, the year housing prices were thought to have hit bottom, according to foreclosure monitor RealtyTrac.

While some buy foreclosed homes so they can rent to tenants, others invest in everything from extensive renovations to cosmetic repairs before re-selling the houses for a profit.

“Investors in today’s market tend to be a little more experienced than the ones in the boom, and in a lot of cases sat out the boom because they thought prices were unsustainably high. It turns out they were right,” said Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac. “Now that prices have fallen, they can go out and buy these bargains, and they’re not dependent on lenders to make that a possibility, which is good because loans are notoriously hard to come by.”

Almost 60 percent of people who bought property as an investment last year paid in cash, said Walt Molony, spokesman for the National Association of Realtors. “We discovered investors are definitely going for lower-priced properties,” he added. “The median price of an investment home was $94,000 in 2010, down 10.5 percent from $105,000 in 2009.”

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Foreclosure homes are almost 30 percent cheaper than the average price of properties not being seized by banks, according to RealtyTrac.

Such steep discounts mean some investors can make a profit while adding little value to the property. “There’s a little bit of flipping going on, too,” said Sharga. “They’ll buy a property at deep, deep discounts; the investors will do some cosmetic work on it and sell it off to another investor at a lesser discount.”

Such depressed prices allowed one subsection of the market to make money from the glut of cheap property without even purchasing any homes. These flippers claimed to simply transfer the property from the foreclosed homeowner to another buyer while increasing the price — sometimes by tens of thousands of dollars — in the process. See how it works in this video:

In 2007, McGraw had refinanced the mortgage on her Oak Park property, a 4-bedroom home she bought with a friend for $56,000 in 1976. She had planned to switch to a reverse mortgage in 2009, when she turned 65 and her work-related disability pay ran out.

But McGraw’s birthday arrived well into the housing crash. When her work-related disability pay lapsed, she couldn’t make her mortgage payments.

She applied for a modification under the Obama administration’s pilloried Home Affordable Modification Program. She also waited for the results of a state lawsuit against Wells Fargo for customers who, like her, were given adjustable-rate “pick-a-payment” loans without being told their debt could actually increase.

McGraw was told she didn’t qualify for either reprieve, and bank foreclosure proceedings kicked in. She was one of millions who lost their homes in 2010, when banks seized more than 1 million properties. Limited by her fixed income, McGraw plans to move into the recreational vehicle currently parked in her front yard.

“There’s no place for me to go for $1400 a month,” she said. “So come the end of the month, it’s me, the cat and the dog in the RV,” she said.

Ralph Norton, the man who appeared on McGraw’s doorstep, said he helps investors buy, renovate and sell houses in foreclosure. Norton said the investors he represented planned to spend up to $50,000 renovating McGraw’s house before putting it back on the market. “I want a higher price, so it’s going to have granite counter tops and new cabinets,” Norton said. “It’s going to be so nice, the neighbors will be baking me cookies.”

Norton said, however, that fluctuating property prices meant the money spent on renovations could be almost wiped out by a drop in the local market. “It’s happened to me three times in the last year,” he said.

Unlike Norton’s clients’ plan to sell, most foreclosure investors hold on to the properties as the rental market soars, said Sharga at RealtyTrac. Apartment vacancy rates fell to almost zero in 2010, and rents steadily increased as people started looking for somewhere permanent to live again.

These investors could help the housing market recover, Sharga argued. “If you can enable someone who’s interested in buying 20, 30, 40 properties a year to do so, that gets you through this backlog of distressed inventory a whole lot faster than trying to sell these homes one at a time,” he said.

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What is the best email frequency? How often is too often?

That is one of those questions that is often asked in the world of email marketing. Frequency. Timing. Do I send once per quarter? What about monthly? Or weekly? Is a daily email too much? What about several times per day?

This question was proposed last week by the inimitable Meg Fowler on Crowdsourcing Email Marketing 101. As promised, I am using your comments (starting with Meg’s) on that post to craft some blog posts.

Ready for the answer? The short answer is one that you are not going to love. You already know what it is, but I’ll say it anyway. It depends. How often should I send my email campaigns? It depends. Yuck. I know. That answer is not really helpful. However, it’s true. As Mitch Joel said,

Your Twitter experience is not my Twitter experience.

Substitute the phrase “email marketing” for Twitter and you get the idea.

But I figure you will not let me get off that easily. I wouldn’t. So, let me break it down a bit.

1. You should send quarterly if… you really don’t have much to say or don’t have the time/resources available to say it. My take here is that if you are going to send a quarterly email, why bother? Seriously. Besides the lack of relevancy and timeliness issue, if you send quarterly, your chances of having deliverabilty issues increase. Why? First off, folks are less likely to remember who you are and that they subscribed (delete/spam). Also, the email address could no longer be valid resulting in hard bounces and possible spam traps.
2. You should send monthly if… you have a newsletter. I believe that this is the minimum frequency. Typically, a monthly email is not intended to sell product or services (but it can). The goal is often to inform, keep people in the loop. At Blue Sky Factory, we send out Factory Direct monthly (subscribe now!). It’s meant to keep our subscribers up-to-date on the latest happenings at Blue Sky Factory. We include recent blog posts, upcoming events, and other tidbits of email knowledge. I’ve seen many universities have success with a monthly communication. Blue Sky Factory partner and friend Jason Falls sends a monthly newsletter. However, if your goal is to sell a product or service (think: conversions), monthly is too infrequent.
3. You should send bi-monthly (2x per month) if… you are just not sure (kidding!). This is the sweet spot for most. It’s a nice balance between monthly and weekly. Most organizations and/or individuals can crank out solid content every few weeks. It’s doable. It’s repeatable. That being said, this is where some pause and say, “Do we have enough to say every other week?” My answer is, “I hope so.” If you are worried about not having enough content every other week, think about ways to pull existing content (blog posts, press releases, website copy) and repurpose.
4. You should send weekly if… you are selling a product or service. This would be the minimum. If you have a sale or an updated service offering or new product, let your subscribers know about it every week. Some choose to send on the same day and time every week. That’s up to you. I’d recommend testing – always. Remember also that you don’t have to pump out a ton of copy in each email. It can be simple – short and to the point as our client and friend Jason Keath does with The Social Fresh 7. Feature a handful of products. Promote a few blog posts. Give some tips (plug for Blue Sky Factory’s 52 Tips).
5. You should send daily if… you are Daily Candy! That was an easy one. Daily emails can work. The key on these are that you must be able to produce quality, actionable, valuable, relevant, timely, etc etc, content every single day. Most email marketers are unable to keep up with this cadence. If you can – and have the resources to pull it off – go for it. The only caution on a daily email is be sure to track your metrics carefully and often. If you see a drop in opens, clicks, or conversions – consider pulling back a bit. If you see complaints and unsubscribes increase – test whether every other day changes those numbers.
6. You should send more than once per day if… you are HARO! If you’ve ever subscribed to Help a Reporter Out (Peter Shankman), you’ll see why more than once per day works. I would not recommend this frequency unless you have super-time sensitive emails like HARO does. This is where automation comes into play, unless you have a large team dedicated full-time to content production and sending emails.
7. You should send randomly if … that’s your style. Some email marketers only send email when they have something to say. This can be in spurts – 3 days in a row followed by a 2-week hiatus. I think this works for some, but having a schedule is ideal. If you don’t commit to a regular schedule, you are less likely to send. Then you run into potential deliverability issues as noted above.

Note: This list does not include automated/triggered emails that can be sent multiple times per day based on a user action or time-based event.

So there you have it. The definitive answer on how often to send email marketing campaigns (note: sarcasm). Feel free to contact us today and we’ll be happy to advise you on your specific needs.

Photo Credit – Flickr (CC): yandle

DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
—————

There are many other ways to grown your email list – some of the include emailing more often. Learn about 50 ways to build your email marketing list in our free eBook.

What are you waiting for?

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Tags: DJ Waldow, Sending Frequency

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 12th, 2010 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Best Practice, email marketing, Frequency, List Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.