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By Vegasbab, March 31, 2009 10:18 pm

I’m lazy. It’s April Fool’s Day. Here’s today’s blog post courtesy of The Lazy Bloggers Post Generator:

OMG! I just returned from my daily swim on the beautiful Fijian beach and realized I have not updated this since you last visited… You would not believe the fairy dust I have to clean up. Apologies to my regular readers! Even the little blue ones!

I am overwhelmed with sleeping my way to the top, learning to speak Japanese and just generally being the life of the party to anyone unfortunate to cross my path. My day seems to be a litany of stuff and giggles from crawling out of bed at 6.30 until I run out of alcohol. I am not growing up. I need some perspective.

I hope that one day I will make an effort to blog more often until the nice men in the white coats come back. No, really! I mean it!

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By Vegasbab, March 30, 2009 11:22 pm

When it comes to deadlines, I’m old school. I cut my teeth in the print, newspaper and magazine business pre-computers. Yep, I started in a word where pages had to be “camera ready” and layouts were drawn on several layers of carbon paper.

The first Editor I worked for drilled the below ancedote about Deadlines into my head. It’s one of my favorite “threats”:

The word deadline first appeared as an American coinage that referred to the line around a military prison beyond which soldiers were authorized to shoot escaping prisoners. According to Lossing’s History of the Civil War (1868): “Seventeen feet from the inner stockade was the ‘dead-line’, over which no man could pass and live.” This use is also found in Congressional records as early as 1864: “The ‘dead line’, beyond which the prisoners are not allowed to pass.”

Needless to say, I’ve always taken deadlines seriously. Rain, shine or hurricane, I’ve never missed a deadline – personal or professional. In fact, I’m typically ahead of schedule. This week was no different. While I can’t remember how many deadlines I’ve had, I can say that in twelve years I haven’t missed a single one

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By Vegasbab, March 29, 2009 8:02 pm

Which one(s) are you guilty of? Personally, I’ve experienced (or used) every. single. one.

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By Vegasbab, March 27, 2009 5:42 pm

I’m not the biggest fan of Michael Phelps. Never have been. But, still a great, funny video:

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By Vegasbab, March 26, 2009 10:50 pm

Death by Meeting does a great job explaining the different types of meetings one should have. However, it lacks explaining the stereotypical types of people in your meetings

The Ditzy Meeting Organizer: This person has no idea why they even called a meeting. When everyone shows up, the organizer scratches his/her head and says, “Why’d I call this meeting?” If the Organizer is lucky, it’s written in the meeting request. Yep, definitely a well organized and productive meeting.

The Introverted, Never-Ran-A-Meeting Organizer: You guessed it, this guy always sits in the back corner, never speaks up and for some reason is in charge of a meeting. Of course, he invites the world to his first one. He then proceeds to make a 15 minute diatribe on his life story and why he’s so excited to be running this meeting.

The Crackberry Addict: This guy is too cool for everyone and the meeting. Clearly, he has waaayyyy more important things to do and wants to make sure everyone knows it. Dude, put the phone down. Trust me, we all get the same amount of email. Ours is just as “important” as yours.

The Dumbass: This person notoriously asks questions that have already been answered. Were you really not paying attention the first, second or third time the information was discussed? Usually, this results in 50% of the meeting being repeated.

The Overly Excited Attendee: This person is rarely invited to meetings and for good reason. Why or how he got on the invite list no one knows. But, they sure remember not to invite him next time. This guy goes off on random tangents that have nothing to do with the subject matter. This guy loves the sound of his own voice. Oh yeah, and this guy has five billion negative remarks/feelings/concerns about your idea that leave a bad taste in every one’s mouth. Poof! There goes your new revenue stream and/or cool project.

The Note Taker: This person is usually some one’s Executive Assistant. Like I’ve mentioned before, she holds the keys to the kingdom. Not only does she attend every top level meeting, but she also has the written transcript of who said what and each person’s takeaway task. She’s the one desperately trying to keep a straight face. She also knows what’s really going on… this meeting is just an ego trip for her boss aka The Meeting Organizer.

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By Vegasbab, March 25, 2009 9:32 pm

Against my better judgement, I’ ve been thinking about “what if” scenarios and Bucket Lists.

Isn’t it funny where life takes us? One decision, one word, one step, one car ride changes your whole course; for better or worse. The events (because they’re not always your choices) change everything. They can take you from being on cloud nine to your own personal hell.

Personally, I’ve been in hell for much too long. It seems like every decision I make is the wrong one; by a long shot. Somehow, I manage to lose every single thing I care about over and over and over.

The conclusion? Stop caring. To paraphrase a quote, “Life is an occasion. Live it.”

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By Vegasbab, March 19, 2009 3:29 am

Why Gatorade chose to give up their brand equity and rebrand themselves as G, the world may never know. Not only do they not show up in organic search for “G2″, but they also didn’t bother to buy any paid placements. Gatorade? Yep, they have the top two positions in organic search.

Nevertheless, their new commercial for G2 is actually kinda cute:

PS – Does the name G2 communicate fewer calories to you? It certainly doesn’t to me.

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By Vegasbab, March 18, 2009 10:18 pm

Today on twitter, @cheeky_geeky asked the following question:

“What’s better, one @jowyang or 100 average engagers?” is a serious question, because the government is thinking about this now too #gov20

My response? 100 average engagers. That’s right, I’m going for quantity in this scenario.

Here’s why:

1. I’m going on the assumption that 100 average engagers like my brand. They are qualified customers. These engagers have eat at my restaurant, stay at my hotel, wear my product or are familiar with government policies. Aka they like and understand my brand. They want others to like and understand my brand. Granted, since they’re “average” maybe they only update once a day vs. @jowyang’s multiple posts. But, I’m okay with that. One hundred diverse engagers are going to reach more people than one @jowyang. And, diverse is the key word. These 100 engagers need to be different. They need to frequent different circles. If all 100 engagers are Social Media Experts, then that does me no good. They will only serve to reach the same people over and over again.
2. If you’re a mainstream brand, your customer pool is large and diverse. One person, no matter how large their network or how strong their influence is, is not going to reach enough of my customer base to make an impact. And yes, I do see the value in each individual interaction.
3. Not everyone is on Twitter or Facebook or MySpace or reading blogs. I want to engage my audience on more than one medium. Very few people are active in more than 1-2 spaces. With 100 engagers, I can more effectively reach more people on more mediums. A great example? Today, I sat in a meeting with fifty people. ONE, yes ONE, out of those fifty people knew vaguely what Twitter was. ZERO of the fifty people (myself excluded) actually used Twitter or had ever visited the site. In this scenario, @jowyang would have reached ZERO people in my customer pool.

Personally, I’m all about quality over quantity. But as a major brand with a diverse customer base working to get the word out? Give me average quantity any day.

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By Vegasbab, March 18, 2009 8:42 pm

Wow, I am on quite the roll these past months breaking my own rules left and right. Monday night led to another broken rule: Never leave your drink unattended.

Freshmen year of college I had my very own roofie experience complete with a nice mixture of Opium and some other scary drugs. After that, I wised up and watched my drinks like a hawk. So much so that I’ve offended and pissed off people I’m with for not “trusting” them with my drink.

Strangely living in Vegas I have grown lax with this rule. Against common sense, Vegas is surprisingly safe when it comes to clubbing; at least in my experience. Maybe it’s because we’re the Home of the Trick Roll

What happens when you grow lax? That’s right. You get the shit kicked out of you. Or, in my case, you get something slipped into your drink. Luckily, I had enough sense to listen to my instincts. Being the “bitch” I am, I also had enough sense to “spill” another girl’s drink and help her avoid a “fun” night. I’m sure she’ll thank me later.

Me? I’m back to covering my drinks with renewed vigor.

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By Vegasbab, March 17, 2009 11:29 pm

A little long, but I love making fun of myself