Response Blog #4-Silver Lining

Recently, my classmate posted about her PR triumph working to help her friend's non-profit. I wanted to congratulate her and say how inspiring I think it is that she has stuck to her guns in the face of trying to find her next job in PR. I am new to the world of PR, though I know I've used the same skills in other professional capacities. It was nice to see someone else who was excited to be reminded of why we have decided to pursue this career. Her willingness to provide her services to a friend because she loves the work so much is an example of what people are looking for in life: a job you'd do for free because you love it so much. The best thing about it is, she probably learned something in the process, and that's worth it. She mentioned the book Here Comes Everybody and how it talks about the opportunities social media has provided for individuals to interact in a way never before possible. After getting through just half of Social Media I can see how this is opportunity is everywhere. Sabrina's experience shows the power we have to reach a large audience even if we are only working for ourselves. Great job and Congrats!

Social Integration-Weekly Blog #7

I must admit, I am still one of those people who lives and dies by my Smartphone and text messages. I like the control it gives me to contact the person/people I am trying to reach immediately. Most of my friends and I work in places where we don’t have the luxury of checking our facebook pages throughout the day, no matter how sneaky we are and even with the phone app, it’s easy to get sidetracked by unimportant information. It’s much easier to sneak a peek at you phone during a break and send a message to friends. In fact, I’ve mass texted my blog address to friends as a new way for them to keep up with me.

In regards to my blog, I have a gadget inviting readers to share posts on Facebook and Twitter. I am still new to Tweeting but I really like the potential it has to instantly connect to others without using up texts. In the future, I can see myself tweeting links to my blog to my followers in addition to posting on Facebook. It seems that my Twitter followers grow more each day and I’m sure at least some of them would be interested in reading my blog too.

One of the cool things that Brightest Young Things does on their site is name a song of the day and provides an Mp3 of the song. They in turn, tweet a link to that page so that even if readers forget to check it out, there's another social media tool driving traffic there. Very cool.

Response Blog #3 Wedding Obsessed

How did I not realize that one of my classmates was writing a blog about weddings?! As you may have figured out, I am engaged to a wonderful man who is my partner in crime in most of my blogging adventures. I have pretty much been in denial about the whole planning of the wedding and instead, concentrated on work and school. Well this weekend, my mom was in town from Texas and we bought a dress! It was just like on one of those shows where the first one I tried on was the one I chose. But how I got to the actual purchase is a bit of a tale.

In her blog, The Wow Factor, Gina writes about how Google can be used to come up with themes and ideas for your wedding. I totally agree, and my first step was to google my way through TONS of websites to find dresses and boutiques. After our initial trip out, I was torn between two dresses at two different places and was bummed because I wasn't allowed to take photos of the first dress and therefore could not remember how pretty it was. The woman helping us at the first boutique said it was an exclusive design. Ha! On a wedding site called One Wed, I found the dress! Well not only did I decide I wanted the dress, but I also decided I did not want to give that dishonest saleswoman my business. I looked at the brand's website and found another boutique, Rosalin's Bridal, that also sells that brand. They didn't have the dress but they are an authorized retailer so they can order it for me. The best part was, I got a GREAT discount on the dress and the service was wonderful. I'm going to have to go in for several fittings and place a lot of trust in them, so honesty is very important to me. Once again, Google saves the day! PS-I will definitely be checking back on The Wow Factor for ideas and advice.

I can't show you a pic of my dress for fear of my fiance seeing it but in honor of their upcoming wedding, here's a pic of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Response Blog #2-The New J Hud

In a recent post about the flack Jennifer Hudson has received about her new slimmer physique, Miss Major Substance writes about how unfair it is that one should be criticized for losing a healthy amount of weight. I completely agree with her. The music and entertainment industry is full of these double standards. I too, was shocked by Hudson's new body when she came out to present an award on the Oscars. However, I would hardly say she looks emaciated. I thought she looked healthy and, as always, beautiful.  Why do we do this to women in the industry? When I was pursuing a singing career, I obsessed about my weight, worrying that that could be the determining factor that kept me from making it big. Jennifer Hudson says she lost weight purely for health reasons, but let's face it, the phones have probably not been ringing lately and she needs to appeal to the largest possible audience. And guess what: I think that's OK. It's just good business sense. Blame society. Even Lady Gaga, who sings about being proud of who you are and who goes out of her way to be as non-conformist as possible, has spoken about restricting her food intake in order to be thin. It is a sad and seemingly unchangeable fact that stars with mass appeal have to be within a certain weight threshold. Why does someone who was probably not at a healthy weight get criticized for not only becoming healthy but also possibly opening up her music to a new audience?

Spring Break Blues (and Rhythm) -Weekly Blog #6

Last week was spring break and though the weather was not very spring like and I had to work, I was determined to check out some more live music. I wanted to get into DC and out of the five mile radius where I work, live and go to school. I did a google search and found a Yelp posting from someone looking to do the same. Someone replied to the post saying that he should check out the Velvet Lounge on U Street. I've used yelp to find a place to get my car fixed but never thought of using it to find live music.

The band playing that night was called The Mighty Heard. They're a Funk/R&B/Hip Hop group from DC and they formed 6 years ago. I'm so glad to find a band in this genre because moving here, I knew I'd get to hear more musical diversity than I'm used to living in Austin. As great as the music scene is in Austin, I don't consider there to be a strong R&B or Hip Hop community.

I'd been to the Velvet Lounge before but never to the music venue they house on the second level. Again, I'm very impressed with the sound guy's ability to handle multiple horns, percussion, two vocalists, two guitars, a bass and drums. The balance was so good and I didn't spend the whole show going, "geez, why is that guitar so loud?" Maybe there's a strong competition to land these sound engineering gigs here, because there are some really good sound guys in this town. I'll definitely return to Velvet Lounge again. It's a little dive-y, in a good way and it's in proximity to other places I plan to check out. As for The Heard, you should really hear them live. The music is danceable and fun but intermixes some songs with real social meaning. One song chronicles the lead singer's feeling of loss at having not met his biological father until he became an adult. I really appreciate when a band writes lyrics for sober people and puts them to beats for the drinkers.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To address the topic of how I am beginning to make my blog more relevant to Google searches: I am beginning to add tags to my posts. I think using broad subject matter helps and linking to the sites of the venues I've visited helps also. Finally, in a couple of posts, I've talked about some pretty well known bands. I hope this connection also helps.

Response Blog #1 The Sheen Factor

Recently, a classmate of mine and author of the blog, DC Watercooler, wrote a post about the role traditional and social media plays in the proverbial water coolers of our lives. He mentioned how saving a tidbit of gossip for the next time you see someone in a few days is now out of the question. This was never so evident as today when I checked my twitter account on my phone and saw a tweet from another classmate regarding Charlie Sheen. What he's up to is really beside the point, because who can really keep up. What was more important was that not a second later, I overheard some of the guys I work with talking about being on Charlie Sheen's Team. They are goofballs so who knows what they meant by that. Five minutes later, I step into the receptionist's area out front and notice the news broadcaster on the flatscreen tv talking about, you guessed it, Charlie Sheen! This all within minutes of each other! I didn't even make it to the "watercooler" before I had been barraged by different communications media. I'm glad to say that word of mouth actually was one of these media. Some things never change.

Weekly Blog #5 Pt. Two

Here's a list of some other Blogs and Websites about the DC music scene I've started to check out recently:


http://rockondc.blogspot.com/
http://www.metromusicscene.blogspot.com/
http://www.tbd.com/blogs/tbd-arts/
http://brightestyoungthings.com/

Hooray Beards! Weekly Blog #5

Last Saturday was a night of social multi-tasking. I explored both my sporty and artistic sides while checking out two great reasons to live in DC.  My fiance is from Dallas so he bought tickets for us and a friend to see the Dallas Mavericks play the Wizards at the Verizon Center. I am a big basketball fan as well so I was pretty excited. No offense Wizards fans, but I really expected Dallas to blow them away. The game was pretty tight the whole way through and the Wizards nearly pulled it off. Here's the one judgment I will pass. There was over a minute left in the game and the Mavs only had a four point lead and the crowd started pouring out of the arena. Wow. What an insult to the players. I know waiting for the trains sucks, but really? I thought that was pretty lame of the Wizards fans to not stick it out. So I wasn't really shocked when the wind was taken out of their sails and they lost 105-99. The stars of the game were the Mavericks' Tyson Chandler and his beard. Chandler scored 23 points and the beard definitely had an assist or two. Just a side note, coming home from our initial trip to DC to find apartments, my fiance and I walked next to Chandler in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and he is frigging enormous! 7'1" to be exact.

After the game we took the bus over to H street to check out another one of DC's more well known music venue/bars, The Red Palace. This bar is in an area that apparently used to be pretty rough, so we made sure not to miss our stop. It's pretty isolated save for a bar or two right next to it on the same side of the street. The decor is of course mostly Black and Red and it's a squeeze to get through if it's a busy night. The cool thing was that there were two distinct bar areas and the music took place upstairs so if you just wanted to hang out and not watch the band, you could do so downstairs.

We missed the opening bands but they weren't from DC so not a huge deal, since I want to find some local talent. The headlining band was called Typefighter. They were great. Their style was indie rock, with a tinge of folk. The songs were melodic and very accessible to the average audience. That can often be something bands get criticized for, but I think it shows you're good at what you do, and others happen to agree. The lead singer continued the beard theme for the night, as he was sporting a pretty impressive one that made my fiance pretty jealous. His voice was unique with a non-offensive rasp that brought added emotion to his songs. The whole set I was thinking how fun this guy probably was a at party, just singing songs with his guitar and how cool it'd be to harmonize to. Then, as if reading my mind, the band announced that the last song would be a singalong. They jumped off the stage and brought the crowd in close to them and with only the guitar began to sing and play their last song. I have been to shows where there was crowd involvement and fans singing their favorite songs, but I've never seen it so intimate. We were all left with a warm fuzzy feeling. I made sure to tell the singer Ryan what a great job they did. He said he could give me more insight into the scene here in DC, so we'll see where that takes me next...