Hasta La Gadget!

Renae Scott joined Togo’s as Vice President of Brand and Marketing in March of 2009 and oversees new product development, marketing and managing the almost 40-year old brand. She is now the brand’s Chief Marketing Officer. An experienced senior executive and strategic marketer, Ms. Scott served as Vice President of Media and Field Marketing at Carl’s Jr. where she managed all media and marketing for the 1185 -unit chain. Following her thirteen years with Carl’s Jr., Ms. Scott served as Chief Marketing Officer for Round Table Pizza, a top five pizza chain with 500+ locations.

Renae Scott has served as a Board of Director for several charities including the Junior Giants/San Francisco Giants and helped for raise over $500,000 for the Breast Cancer Foundation on the CKE Star Board. Ms. Scott has a B.A. in Communications with a minor in Journalism from California State University at Sacramento.

How has your previous employment experience aided your position as the VP of Branding and Marketing for Togo’s?
My entire working life has been spent in the food and restaurant industry. At 16, I got my first job as a waitress at a local ice cream parlor and I worked through college waiting tables. Eventually I moved into advertising agency work for Pepsi and then on to restaurant marketing roles with Carl’s Jr., Roundtable Pizza and Togo’s. Working in the foodservice industry gives you a unique perspective into what it means to “serve” guests, as well as how truly difficult it is to run a restaurant. My experience has given me the ability to empathize with our franchisees, as I understand the challenges of providing best-in-class food and service while also focusing on profits and growth.

How do you maintain a work/life balance?
It’s an interesting question for all working parents, not just women. I have a wonderful husband and two terrific children (now 17 and 20). My job is very demanding of my time and travel. My husbands’ is less so. His role naturally evolved into more time spent on the “administrative” duties at home and family (e.g. cleaning, doctor appointments, sports, bills). Of course I do some of that, but he definitely has the larger share of work around the house. We do things as a family on Sundays — road trips, hikes, surfing — as well as family dinners a few nights a week. I also finally came to a place in my life and career where I make time each day for me. (It helps that the kids are older). I work out almost everyday with the Bar Method and I spend weekly time with my friends catching up and sharing a glass of wine.

What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure at Togo’s?
When I came to Togo’s five years ago, it was a brand that had been “dormant” for many years. Since we were founded in 1971, several ownership changes had left Togo’s without a clear brand positioning. Bringing the soul of our brand forward has been a very rewarding challenge. I grew up with the brand and knew Togo’s as the fun, irreverent place to get a big, meaty sandwich. I worked with various teams to create a whole new brand identity — including new logo, menu, uniforms and restaurant design — and then set off to bring the brand to life for consumers with our “Big, Fresh and Meaty” marketing campaign in both traditional and digital media. Bringing Togo’s back into the minds of consumers and seeing sales grow over the past five years has been extremely rewarding.

What advice can you offer women seeking a career in the foodservice industry?
Start from the ground up early on. You will quickly see if this fast-paced and demanding industry is for you. I love to see folks who have a background as a server or host. They are on the front lines dealing with guests. Then look to where your own passion lies. Are you intrigued by the latest menu innovations? Perhaps culinary development is for you. Do you love the rush of a line out the door and serving happy guests? Then restaurant operations can be a great field. Finally, if you are intrigued by the design and messaging of a restaurant concept then, of course, there is nothing more exciting and fast paced than restaurant marketing!

What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace?
There is still the presumption that female employees have different limitations than men based on their family situation and whether they have small children. I have been in organizations where someone, while evaluating a potential employee, has said, “I believe she has small children, so travel will be an issue.” That presumption that you can’t travel, or you won’t be a dedicated employee who can go the extra mile if you have children, can hold women back. Women and men deserve equal opportunity. How they manage their family and home life is entirely up to them.

What are your thoughts on Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In book and movement?
I loved the book. I think it took courage to bring up the issues we face and the limitations women bring on themselves. Thirty years ago, being part of the women’s movement and seeking equality was an open topic of conversation. Somehow along the way it seems we adopted an attitude as women of “Everything is fine. We got this handled.” Inequality became something you didn’t discuss at work. Sheryl’s book opened up the conversation again.

How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life?
In my professional life, I looked to leaders who were making a difference in the various companies I worked and then I was fearless in requesting visibility of their work and in asking for their guidance. I am very open with my opinion. Some people would embrace that and would take me under their wing. Others, not so much. I would say that one of the most important relationships in my career were early on when I partnered with a woman in operations and together we opened new markets and learned and supported one another. Each year, I watched as she would get promoted and then turn around and offer me a hand up. The next year would be my turn. We took two restaurant disciplines that are usually somewhat at odds and grew and learned from one another. Mentors aren’t always senior-level people; they are often in the office next door.

Which other female leaders do you admire and why?
I really admire the everyday leaders that are on my own team. These are women who strive to be the best in what they do and they have a positive outlook and always say, “We can do that!” They embrace possibilities even when they know there will be challenges.

What are your hopes for the future of Togo’s?
Togo’s is in growth mode and we are opening this year in several new markets like Utah, Idaho and Colorado. We are further enhancing our brand and improving our guest experience. We have a strong focus on franchisee profitability, which ultimately drives success for Togo’s. I see in the future that Togo’s is the premium sandwich chain serving big, fresh and meaty sandwiches to happy guests through out the West.

Dear Mr. Will,

Hello. How are you? I am sorry that it has taken me so long to write to you. Almost 25 years, I suppose. I see that you are a very popular man to attack on The Huffington Post these days, what with your recent “controversial” article about sexual assault on college campuses, where in the interest of full disclosure, I have worked for the last 28 years, albeit only as a “crazy theater professor” at the University of Southern California, which I’m not sure qualifies for true condemnation or contempt in your morally superior world of intellectual and conservative journalism. Then again, you have more than enough enemies on HuffPost to worry about little ol’ me, your having stirred up hornet nests of anger with your insightful and constant attacks on the governance of President Obama, whether they be about his economics of sequestration or the failure of his Obamacare. Therefore, let me refrain from commenting any further on your current popularity in this bastion of cyber liberalism, suspecting only too well, your lack of respect for us Johnny-come-lately, so-called online “journalists”!

No, what I am writing you about goes much further back… I believe, to the mid 1980s. Perhaps to one of your Newsweek columns during which time you smugly and self-righteously condemned my entire generation of Baby Boomers to the dust bin of 20th century history by soundly calling us all “failures.” This was extremely painful for me to read, Mr. Will, and I have carried this pain around with me until today, when I can finally… reply… with my own retort and my own ideas. You know, also in the interest of full disclosure, I have spent the last several days using the mighty Internet’s various search engines to find this specific article that I’m referring to, trying not only to prove to myself that it wasn’t a figment of my late 30s muddled imagination, but also to just have it here in front of me, so I could respond to it in a logical, well-argued, and appropriately George Willian manner. Unfortunately, your presence and output is so rich and plentiful in the annals of 20th century journalism, that I could not find the exact article. So I apologize in advance for not getting the facts, or your ideas, exactly and absolutely correct in this piece. But as I say, it has become a personal and emotional issue for me, not just intellectual. So please, feel free to “set me straight,” should you be so kind to reply.

“Failed”? That’s the word that has irked me all this time, George. I mean, okay, I can accept words like “entitled” and “morally superior.” They have the ring of truth about them. I have even referred to your own brand of journalism of reeking of the latter, and isn’t it funny, but now we Baby Boomers are guilty of calling the Millennial generation, our children and grandchildren, the latter. But “failed”? An entire generation? I think that’s a little over the top, George. A little bone-headed and wrong. I mean, didn’t we get some things right? Didn’t we contribute to ending the Vietnam War? To advancing civil rights, gay rights, and the rights of women? Weren’t some of our protests against conformity, materialism, and our country’s hegemonic pursuit of the almighty dollar to some lasting effect? Wasn’t our sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll part of a generational change in culture? In politics? In values and morality? In society? And if indeed they were, how could you so disdainfully dismiss them all as “failures”?

Now I know that you were born in May, 1941. That you’re now 73 years old. That you technically missed being born in the Baby Boom generation by just five years (the Baby Boomers officially claiming the years 1946-1964). But isn’t it ironic that Bob Dylan, the unwanted “spokesman of our generation,” was born only 20 days later than you, also in May, 1941. I mean, your condemnation of my generation can’t be entirely based on your seniority or your having “missed the boat” by just those five years. Certainly Mr. Zimmerman (Dylan’s given name for the uninitiated) somehow managed to make the cut. But could it be… that you were just a tad jealous of our long hair, our sexual freedom, and our torn Levi Strauss blue jeans before they became fashionable and were sold for $200 a pair? I mean, with your perfectly manicured coif (I always wondered if it was real), your buttoned down Eisenhower era attire, and your always sharpened axe to grind against us hippies, rebels, artists, and outlaws, I just had to wonder… where exactly did that venom and condemnation come from.

Now sure, George, you’re a very smart man. An atheist, in fact. And for sure, an excellent writer… although I often don’t understand about 10 percent of the convoluted gobbledy-gook they let you publish. You have recently come out n favor of gay marriage, in favor of ending the wars in the Middle East, for many sound and principled ideas. I respect you for that. And indeed, much of what you say about my generation hits home in a uncomfortably truthful way. Notwithstanding San Francisco’s 1967 “Summer of Love,” 1968’s glorious group grope at Woodstock, or John and Yoko’s 1969 naked “Give Peace a Chance,” I actually believe that the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s may have been a failed one… in that serial monogamy and outright promiscuity seem to have led to far more divorce and far less stable parenthood than we Baby Boomers ever anticipated. Personally, I never believed in the institution of marriage, yet after 54 years of casual, ever-changing sexual partners, even I conformed to the convention. And I must say, also in the interest of full disclosure, that being married for the last thirteen years, as challenging as it has been, has been the best decision of my life. Perhaps “freedom” has the necessity of defining itself within the constraints of discipline, commitment, and dare I say, loyalty and love.

“Entitlement”? Sure. Our Depression Era parents wanted to give us the best they could. Perhaps they “spoiled” us. But what generation of parents don’t want to give their children greater opportunity for success than they had themselves? And sure, we were the “Me” generation. We still are. We think everything is about us. That all our ideas are “right.” And that right up to the ever-living end, we will toot our own horns and expect the rest of the world to perk up their ears and listen.

But c’mon, George. An entirely “failed” generation? Give us a break. What about our championing of individual rights? In the tradition of Jefferson and Whitman? “Song of Myself”? “Song of the Open Road”? From beatniks to hippies, from poets to procrastinators… our artist and outlaws have not all lived in vain, have they? Kerouac and Ginsberg, from just beyond your generation? Dylan and Jagger from mine? These heroes of the young, the dispossessed, these role models for legions of Boomer “fans” around the world, spoke truth to power, questioned authority, created new art forms, accused the “masters of war” of crimes too heinous for news journalists to report. And look at Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Clay in Louisville, Kentucky, who transcended his heavyweight boxing title to stand up to the US draft board by refusing to fight in the Vietnam War on moral grounds. Ali became the most famous and popular man in the world, not only for his electrifying and powerful boxing skills, but even more so as a moral compass for the entire planet.

The Baby Boomers transcended their generation; they effected and “changed the world,” as Ali liked to spout. Sure, there were casualties of too many drugs and over-indulgences in the ’60s: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, along with far too many unreported ones. These are the tragic and sad losses of some of our generation’s most prominent singers and musicians… just as similar high profile losses continue into today’s headlines. But then, look at the rash of violent murders during the Baby Boomers’ coming of age era: JFK, RFK, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King… such an outrage… such a burden, that we all had to bear. But what price freedom, George? It was an explosive, revolutionary, and transformative time. Or at least that’s what we Boomers still like to believe.

We tried to change the very fabric of society. And we thought we did. We threw off the shackles of parental and governmental authority. We rejected the all-powerful influence of the mighty dollar. We stood up for those in society who didn’t have equal rights. We stood against convention and conformity. We ended a war. After that, you say we got too complacent. Too full of ourselves. What was left to protest against? Well, most of us, sadly, seemed to agree with you. We “grew up.” Got married. Had children… who we had to raise. We bent, some of us folded. We took practical jobs, made compromises, became “yuppies.” The magic and commitment of our youthful idealism took heavy body blows from a relentless political and practical reality.

And now… we’re 60-something. Or getting there. And we’re nearing, or at least considering… retirement. But America’s social contract with us has been broken. Ronald Reagan’s much-lauded trickle-down economics allowed the rich to get richer, while simultaneously condemning the poor and middle class to atrophy economically. Then George Dubya, who Mr. Will, you thanked for “bringing adults” back into government after the childish Boomerism of the Clintons… Dubya’s history-changing miscalculations and blunders into Iraq and Afghanistan… have cumulatively left most of us 99 percenters… disillusioned and untaken care of… at the end of the American Empire. We have lost the respect of our neighbors around the world, and we can’t afford or depend on a reasonable and secure retirement for ourselves. Social security isn’t enough and it soon may no longer even be guaranteed. We’re being forced to gamble in the stock market with our 401(k)s, with our entire life savings, with our entire futures. It’s not right, Mr. Will. We’re “mad as hell” and we don’t want to take it anymore.

But life goes on, eh, George? “It’s not dark yet, but it’s gettin’ there”, as haggard-looking Mr. Dylan recently sang to us, we still fiercely holding on to his poetic chronicles of our generation. We “will” not go out as “failures”? We “will” hold our heads high and we’ll be proud of what we accomplished, of what we believed in, of what we are still trying to accomplish. We don’t need a public apologist for our generation.

And lo and behold! Look at the recent 2014 AFI Lifetime Achievement Award… going to… of all people… Jane Fonda. You remember her, right, George? “Hanoi Jane”?

You probably trashed her moral and political “will” on more than one occasion, right? Well, she’s even three years older than you… and look what she’s accomplished in life. From the great expectations of growing up in a family of high-pressured Hollywood royalty, to becoming an international laughing stock as a celluloid Barbie Doll, Barbarella, to carving out an Oscar-decorated career as an actress, she then became a highly respected producer who gave women in Hollywood more credible and substantive parts in a mostly male-dominated industry. Next, she was practically driven out of “the business” for her left wing, “Commie-loving” politics, when having listened to “Born on the Fourth of July” paraplegic Vietnam War vet, Ron Kovic, she was convinced that the war was wrong, and she had the guts and the visibility to speak out against it. She then turned herself into the first international fitness guru, married Tom Hayden, then Ted Turner, and through it all, had the courage and conviction to keep on discovering… to keep on reinventing… to keep on being entirely… herself. Watch the AFI show. George. It’s inspiring.

If anything, Mr. Will, I think that’s the lesson of the ’60s, from my generation of “failed” Baby Boomers. And that is… to follow our own truthful path, no matter how much pressure there might be to conform, to do things the conventional, ephemeral, straight-laced way. That’s what Jane Fonda’s life exemplifies, although she’s not technically a Baby Boomer. She carved out her own path. And that’s too, what our hero, our “spokesman”, Mr. Dylan did, when his artistic needs no longer coincided with the 1960s folk and protest movement of the esteemed Pete Seeger and his beloved Joan Baez. He went his own way. He wrote his own songs. He took the blows of the press and carried on alone.

Who’s to judge from history’s far-sighted point of view on which generation is a “success,” which a “failure”, George? Each generation gets some things right, other things wrong. Life is complicated. Contradictory. You’ve chosen to pronounce us Baby Boomers “failures”; I’ve always wanted to sing our successes. We all have our opinions. And you know what they say about opinions and assholes? We all have them.

And finally, there is always the great Mr. Frost and his famous “road less traveled.” Because for those of us still on that road, whether intellectually, philosophically, morally, and/or spiritually, it truly has “made all the difference.”

Thanks for reading this, George. I look forward to your considered and truthful reply.

Yours, in journalistic camaraderie,

Eric Trules

Please visit Trules’ personal blog, “trules rules” at:
www.erictrules.com/blog

And his “e-travels with e. trules” blog at: www.etravelswithetrules.com/blog

Follow Eric Trules on Twitter: www.twitter.com/etrules

For most of us, breakfast isn’t complete without a cup of coffee. Not everyone has the time to brew coffee and instant coffee mixes get old fast. If you’re looking for an alternative that offers richer flavor but the same convenience, then you might want to give Jiva Coffee Cubes a try.

They’re like sugar cubes, only instead of sugar, they’re made from, well, coffee. Each cube is made by packing high-quality Colombian coffee into a cube and binding the whole thing with raw sugar.

Jiva launched a campaign that was successfully funded about a week ago introducing a new flavor for their line of coffee cubes: Jiva Black, which uses a minimal amount of sugar as its binder so it’s still all-natural without the added sweetness.

Don’t fret if you missed the campaign because you can still grab the coffee cubes from their website. These are way handier than those packs of coffee sticks, don’t you think?

[via Food Beast]

Purdue University’s Ph. D. student Caleb Trujillo posted this infographic explaining the top five misconceptions about evolution—misconceptions that are believed by many to be true and widely used by creationists to attack evolution.

Read more…

We all know how effective the talking cure can be, but for many people, carving the time out of their schedule to meet a psychotherapist can be impossible, not to mention daunting. Services like Pretty Padded Room have sprung up to provide a solution…