everyday should not be like today's sunday

i had one of those sunday afternoons. you know, just thinking about all the various tasks that i needed to do today. laundry, read some work stuff, blog...but i became distracted for a good chunk of time watching that blasted television.

there i sat in the living room, surrounded by all the things i needed to touch (clean laundry to fold, printed articles to read, laptop to fondle) and AVP was on fx. and i just couldn't pull away. i had completely forgotten that the predators were using hologram technology before cnn. there were these hosts who'd appear during breaks to talk about the making of the film (did you know the movie was filmed in prague? did you really need to know that?).

i felt so guilty when the film ended and more stressed about getting things done. why do i do these things to myself?!? well, at least it was for a quality movie like AVP...right...

don't forget the soundtrack

i am a huge music fan. i keep a log of all the shows i've been to. moving is always a pain in the arse because of my cd collection. i have multiple instruments sadly gathering dust. when i travel, i try to find a show to go to while i'm there (some memorable 'travel' shows include the shins in berlin and the raveonettes in dc).

i attribute this lust for constant music from my days as a band dork. i played clarinet from 4th grade thru 12th grade. i had the great honor of being section leader/first chair for most of that time and my best friend, rachelle, always sat across from me as section leader/first chair of the flutes. it was so wonderful to be around other band dorks and playing such a wide range of music, from the beatles to sousa, from the barber of seville to gonna make you sweat (everybody dance now).

i still keep in touch with friends from this period. we've all gone our separate ways in terms of music tastes and levels of fandom. but we still reminise about our band days and share dorky field show videos like this:

[all you classic videogamers, believe you me, this video is worth clicking on :)]

wall of sound

i've got my after-work beer in hand and i'm ready to blog!

i watched the seth godin video that susan started to show us in class the other day. there was a section about looking at the whole population/general market. forget about speaking to the huge middle because they're inundated with marketing noise/messages, but rather focus on the smaller, more managable audience of early adopters, those who are passionate and will likely spread the word to friends.

i see how this works if you're promoting a service or product, but what if you're trying to change behavior and beliefs? for example, what if you're doing a public education campaign on gun control? you don't want to target the early adopters (e.g., advocates) because they're already there with you. you don't want to target the laggers (i.e., NRA) because they're crazy about their guns and will certainly not change. so you have to go for that middle (e.g., voters, uncommitted policymakers) that has far too many issues fighting for their attention. they're the only ones who could possibly change. somehow, you have to find that 'purple cow' message that makes people do a double-take and say, "hell yeah, i want to know more!" oh the eternal challenge for marketers and communications consultants...

i'll tell you what doesn't work. my office is on a busy block of market street in sf and there are ofentimes people with binders representing various causes, vying for your time and money. today, a greenpeace girl was chasing this guy who was trying to get away. i heard him say, "not today," and she responded with, "well, there might not be a tomorrow." um, yeah, that didn't work for me. and that didn't work for him.

on another topic, since i did mention seth rogen not too long ago, and since he works a lot with judd apatow, who also oftentimes works with paul rudd, i have to share this paul rudd clip from last night's daily show:



i must admit, i've had a crush on paul rudd since he did clueless in 1995...

professional development, or something

i work at i.e. communications and i'm taking these integrated marketing classes to learn new tactics and tools to recommend and implement for my nonprofit clients. another reason is that i've been tasked with managing the complete makeover of our firm's website (working with a copywriter, a graphic designer, a programmer, and a photographer/videographer, aye caramba). currently, our website is sooo "web 1.0" - just an online company brochure.

i've been pushing for us to blog as a way to position our firm and each staff persons' expertise and personality, make the website more fresh, and show that we practice what we preach. but i've gotten major pushback. my co-workers are concerned about having to post something regularly and frequently, that it would be more work to add to our already overflowing to-do list. yes indeed, they persuaded me into believing that it would be better to do a quarterly newsletter that's downloadable as a pdf on the website. however, i am once again convinced that we need a blog. i have to assure them that it won't be time-consuming and that each posting does not have to be a thoroughly researched, polished piece. cross your fingers that i can win this fight!

on a totally different note, i just had dinner with my friend at limon rotisserie (pretty yummy, btw) and i told her about all the things we're doing for this class. i mentioned how our class materials are on a wiki, how we're blogging everyday, how i'm using google analytics to measure traffic on my little class blog...she seemed impressed. i actually sorta feel cool, or something.

new class, new blog

so i've started up this blog for my sfsu internet marketing strategies class. this is my third class in the program. gawd, i love that my classes take place in a mall!

this is my third blogger blog. the other two are private. today's class intro got me thinking about the purpose of a private blog. if blogs are supposed to be all about marketing and communicating to an audience, what does it means that i just want to market and write to myself?

i've heard about twitter a lot and it was nice to see what it really looks like on the back-end. not sure if i could ever really get into that. facebook status updates are about as twitter as i'll ever get, methinks. it would be cool to have some tweets though.

i'm looking forward to going home and reading about seth godin. i initially thought susan was referring to that actor, seth rogen.