The stupidest person on earth

Who, you may ask is the stupidest person on earth? I mean, if there was some empirical way of calculating it, in this very instant, of all the dunces, dummies and doofuses out there, who reigns supreme over them all?

Ladies and gentlemen, I reveal to you the answer: it is I, yes I, Kerin Donahue! Project manager, blogger and New Media Wannabe Extraordinaire! Those of you who had me in the pool, collect your winnings. I am the Stupidest Person on Earth!

Well, no not really. But don’t it just feel that way sometimes?

As 2009 comes lumbering to its final resting place, I look back the road I’ve travelled. I started off all shiny and new, working for a direct response agency and really enjoying it. Then the dumb old economy went and wrecked that, leaving me (and many, many other people) scratching my head wondering where to go from there. The answer for those of us in marketing was pretty clear: if you’re not in the digital space today, you’re nowhere.

So I started a blog. I joined up, signed on and opted-in for everything under the sun. I took classes, I attended conferences, seminars and industry events. I volunteered, I networked and I participated. All in the hopes that someday I would catch the tiger’s tail and feel like I’d arrived.

But it’s never enough. The fact of the matter is, it will never be enough. The influx of new technology and new terminology will only increase. There will always be another new Big Thing I didn’t know about and there will always be people with way more insight than me creating a dizzying array of new Big Things for me to learn.

Normally I would view this as a good thing. But in the dying throes of the Aughts, I'm exhausted; I'm done in. My poor brain has been reduced to a dithering morass of WOOB-WOOB-WOOB, where all I’m able to do is lie twitching on the floor occasionally spitting out gibberish like “SEO! PPC, PHP!”

Every time I open my browser, the internet mocks me. It says, oh you think you’ve got a handle on social media, do you? What do you know about mobility marketing? Experiential marketing? EXPLAIN IT TO US IN GLORIOUS TECHNICAL DETAIL, New Media Wannabe Worm, or we will point and laugh at you! (Apparently the internet refers to itself in the third person). You know ABC? That’s all well and good, but did you know DEF, GHI, or at the very least XYZ? No? Ha! Have you been living under a rock? We laugh at your pitiful efforts to adjust to our cruel new expectations for new media mastery.

Okay, I may be hallucinating most of this. But I tell you, people: I’m in a funk. A great, big fin de decade funk.

I know that many of you reading this will be all, ‘Aw, cheer up, little buckaroo – it’s not as bad as all that.’ Well no, I suppose it isn’t. Some would also say, ‘Quit yer bitchin’, Complainy McWhinesalot’. These people are a) right, and b) kind of jerks. Right or wrong, however, I’m not sad to see this armpit of a year dwindle away to nothing. Let us never speak of it again and pray for an improved state of mind and a clean slate in 2010. I will be patient; I will be tenacious. Like the phoenix, I will rise anew and finally remember what the acronym“SEM” stands for on the first go.

Vayas con dios 2009! This dummy bids you Good Day. Don’t let the door hit your bum on the way out.

You have failed me for the last time, Kindle-miral.

In recent months I’ve been touting the coming of e-readers, particularly the Kindle, to anyone who will listen. As an avid reader, I’ve been stoked to get my hands on one; the idea that I can download a book, immediately, for less money than a printed book is a subject very dear to my heart. Order from Amazon (if you have a Kindle e-reader) or from Chapters/Indigo (if you have a Sony e-reader) - no running from bookstore to bookstore or waiting (and/or paying) for shipments, not to mention having my storage issues solved. Heaven!

But as I ran a few pricing tests (Kindle vs. Sony) I came across an unpleasant realization. Yes, some e-books are much cheaper than their printed counterparts. But once you get off the ‘featured books’ list, the price of an e-book is virtually the same – IF NOT MORE.

Wait, what? Distribution, overhead and materials alone should make an e-book substantially cheaper. But they’re not. Following are five books I checked out.


Charlaine Harris, From Dead to Worse
Indigo: Printed book $8.99 e-book $8.59
Amazon: Printed book $7.99 e-book$7.59

The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life
Indigo: Printed book $13.72 e-book $11.99
Amazon: Printed book $13.60 e-book$ not available (great!)

Pride, prejudice and zombies
Indigo: Printed book $13.64 e-book $ not available (really??)
Amazon: Printed book $13.99 e-book$ 9.77

Stephen King: Just After Sunset
Indigo: Printed book$11.82 e-book: $10.39
Amazon: Printed book $9.99 e-book $9.99

Patricia Briggs: Moon Called
Indigo: Printed book $8.99 e-book: not available (grr!)
Amazon: Printed book $7.99 e-book $8.39

(Note: Amazon prices are in USD. I have not factored in the iRewards discount for Chapters, either).

I call Shenanigans on e-book publishers! Here’s an article by Rick Broida for CNET that I found that further fanned my indignant rage.

Boy, I feel like a chump. My apologies to all the people I’ve been raving to about e-books and e-readers. Apparently price is NOT an issue at this time. I am hereby deleting an e-reader off my WANT list until further notice. We’ll see what happens when Apple launches iBook or iReader or whatever the heck they end up calling their product.

On a side note: Harlequin Romance offers e-books (in three formats) on their site for a pretty good discount off the regular printed books. I’m not a fan of Harlequin, but they actually offer some other authors I recognize, like CE Murphy, Mercedes Lackey and PC Cast. Kudos to them.

CMA Double Dutch - Oh. Em. Gee.

I was perusing the 2009 Canadian Marketing Awards "call for entries" campaign, created by Cundari, and came across a video so delicious I have to post it here and everywhere else I can think of.

As previously stated on this blog, I used to work for Lowe Roche on the Audi account, so to see Geoffrey Roche and Karsten Ruwoldt from Audi in this brilliant spot takes me to my Happy Place.

This video has replaced the Christopher Walken Weapon of Choice dance routine in my heart.

Smackdown! Squarespace VS Wordpress

So the time is almost nigh for me to move this blog from Google's Blogger to something a little higher-end. I started here because I wanted a blog space that:
a) was free
b) was idiot-proof, in terms of set up (whew!)

And indeed it has been (free and idiot-proof). So, thanks Google!

Moving forward I'd like my new blog to have additional options and be more visually interesting. I asked the question on some of my LinkedIn groups: what's your pick for best blogging publisher? The response lay divided between two camps: Squarespace and Wordpress.

SMACKDOWN!

I love a good smackdown. In the next few days I'm going to build my new blog on both sites and determine which is the better choice for me.

What I'm looking for:
- Easy to configure; can I put each section where I want it?
- Ability to (correctly) move over my existing posts from this blog
- Widgets that not only work, but look professional
- Design options that let me customize a template so that my site is both well-designed and unique amongst blogs
- Ability to monitor my traffic

Stay tuned!

Twilight: New Moon : Because I can't resist a good mocking

I was going to blog about Twilight: New Moon when it came out, but I never got around to it. I dragged Doug (HA!) to see it with me in the theater full of teenagers, as nature intended and it was... well, it was BAD. Just... BAD.

I actually liked (ish) books #1 and #4 and I didn't totally hate the first movie. As an adult I know it's utter dreck, but the 13-year-old girl in me realizes that if this movie had come out when I was a lass, I would have had 'Edward Cullen' posters all over my room. (Also: See Lost Boys/Jason Patric).

So now, a few weeks after release, I have nothing new to say about New Moon, so I'm posting these two links to people who said it better than I ever could.


Recap of New Moon as told by LOL Cats

Absolutely hilarious SPOT-ON Review by That Guy With Glasses

By Cracked.com - If Twilight was 10 x shorter / 100 x more honest

The futility of networking at a social media networking event

On Tuesday night I attended a lecture by Julien Smith on Social Capital, Trust Agents and the New Tribe, put on by Third Tuesday Toronto, a group for social media enthusiasts. It took place at the Berkeley Church Heritage Event Venue.

Julien’s talk was very entertaining. As for social media content it was nothing I hadn't heard before, be he was really energetic and pretty funny. I have put the book he co-authored with Chris Brogan, Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust, on my Christmas list. My favourite moment of the evening was when he told us to “break our patterns”. He says that when you meet someone for the first time and then ask someone what they do for a living it shows that you really don’t care about them: you’re just making noises to fill the silence. Julien paused a moment after stating this and you could practically feel the crowd of 250 networkers freeze for a second in a collective “Oh, crap!” moment.

But the lecture is only half (at most) of such evenings! What about why we were all really there - The Schmoozing?

Hm. I must not be doing The Schmoozing correctly.

I arrived ten minutes early, checked my coat and looked around. It was like my high school auditorium: the popular kids clustered together, chatting easily and laughing heartily while the rest of us stood by and fiddled with whatever we had in our hands – drinks, laptops, cell phones... I checked my own phone for messages about ten times in twenty minutes. I had no messages. I bought a glass of wine to fiddle with (which I didn’t drink because I hate wine). The bartender of the venue must have been thinking, “YES, maladroit loners… more tips for me!”

I tried to catch someone’s eye to start a conversation, but it was like playing eyeball pinball! No one would give me a chance!

After the main event, I tried again, but I only managed to get two conversations (longer than three sentences) going. One was with a creative director who lost interest in me about thirty seconds in, but listened politely until she saw someone she knew and ditched me.

The other was with a fellow who had the misfortune to make eye contact with me and I had gone through my entire introductory spiel before I found out he was a dentist with no interest in social media (he was just attending with his wife, who was in the bathroom).

Awkward.

After that, my confidence was shot, so I got my coat and went home to sulk. But, lessons learned! Here’s a list of options I need to consider before I hit the next event:

1. Develop a better elevator pitch. Apparently mine sucks.

2. Become ten years younger, many shades blonder and 40 degrees hotter. The two women sitting in front of me were a huge success at being young, blond and attractive. If anyone can figure out how implement this strategy, please contact me and I will give you EVERYTHING I OWN.

3. Be Mysterious (ie, LIE). Tell people I’m a marketing project manager and consultant with “more work than I can handle at the moment, but I can’t tell you what projects – confidentiality, you know how it is.” Apparently this is a way cooler line than, “I’m a dedicated, enthusiastic team player who is actively seeking work”. The latter response = LOSER.

4. Invent an Interesting Persona (ie, LIE MASSIVELY). “I work for CSIS and I’m investigating the possibility that ‘social media’ is a hoax being perpetuated on the Canadian populace… can I have your business card?”

I’ll let you know how it goes.