Happy Summer!
Today marks my last blog posting before our traditional summer recess. As many of you know, I tend to take most of my vacation time during July and August, so suffice it to say you won’t be finding me in any of our offices most Fridays for the next few weeks. I take time off over the summer to enjoy the marvelous weather, beaches, golf courses and other recreational activities that the East End of Long Island has to offer. It’s also a time to re-charge both mind and body. A little mental decompressing and increased physical activity is not a bad thing, and the summer is the best time to do it.
Thoughts of the Week started 2 1/2 years ago as another way to connect with our clients and friends, while increasing our Firm’s presence in social media. It has evolved over that time period, for those of you who read the column regularly, into a Friday morning ritual that allows me to share what’s on my mind and let you get to know our Firm on a much more personal and human level, because, truth be told, I haven’t met most of you in person. I really appreciate this opportunity, because personal connections with many clients are often difficult to achieve for people with my job in companies of our size. The best part of it all is the weekly feedback I receive from many of you, mostly positive but sometimes not, depending on what that week’s thought might be.
As with everything else at Marcum, this is not a solo effort. I have a team to support me in this endeavor and make it look much better in the end than it starts out at the beginning, today’s column being no exception. Most (yes, most) weeks I come up with the topic and do the writing myself. But the first draft is not what you see. For the weeks I make it to late Thursday afternoon with a severe case of writer’s block, I’m able to scream for help. My go-to person, my editor and collaborator, is our Director of Public Relations, Julie Gross Gelfand, who works out of our Melville, Long Island office. When I write, she makes it readable; when I can’t figure it out, she bails me out and then I return the favor by doing her editing. It scares me sometimes that she’s actually able to capture my voice.
When Julie and I finish our weekly back and forth, sometimes as late as 9am Friday morning, it then goes to West Palm Beach, Florida, where Chris Pelosi, our Director of Online Marketing, creates the format which gets emailed to approximately 30,000 of our clients and friends – no small task, especially at the last minute, as happens on occasion.
So, not only do I get a respite for the next two months, but so do Julie and Chris. Today’s column is my thank you to them. Doing this every week would not at all be possible without their dedication and contributions. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
I hope all of you reading this get to take some time for yourselves over the next two months and enjoy whatever summer has to offer, wherever you may find yourselves. We look forward to reconnecting the Friday after Labor Day with our next posting.
