ShanaRay.com

Apparently I am a happy foodie who is obsessed with wine.

Yup… Sounds like me.

Lia Huber, Clos du Bois’ blogger for swirlingnotions.com just posted a blog asking the question, does having the experience just for the sake of a blog post make the experience satisfying enough to blog about, or is it that the experience was so satisfying that it creates a good blog post?

Her post made me think about my own time spent outside of my 40-60 hour work week.

The back of my head is in a constant state of circulating ideas for my current, potential and dream clients; it doesn’t matter where I am: at the store, at a friend’s house, watching a movie, driving, walking down the streets of San Francisco… My friends have all rolled their eyes each time I pull out my camera to take a picture of a billboard, graffiti, in-store signage, a front of store display, a cool new high tech product, almost anything that I think should be forwarded onto my co-workers, blogged about or remembered for later.

Granted, there is nothing I enjoy more than great friends, the perfect wine and laughing until my eyes tear up, but it doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice the experience for what you do for a living.

When I was younger I used to be the one at the parties taking the pictures. When I would get them developed I noticed that I was never in them, I was watching other people having fun. I finally realized that there is a balance of actually living and capturing the moment to share with others.

I don’t really think that I answered her question, nor do I even believe it is a question that can be answered, because it all comes down to enjoying life the way you want to without having it pass you by.

I wouldn’t want to be in any other profession, and yes, I do tend to obsess about work, but the best ideas come from real life experiences, being in the pictures, and maybe some time spent lounging on a hammock.

No, I am not there, I went last year but I am currently too busy with work to go…. That is a good thing though right?!?!

Anyways, I have been watching the @stevehall, @arielwaldman and @stephagresta tweets. I also just started following @alisamleo today, so I have been trying to keep up-to-date on what is happening there.

One of the first keynotes of the day was from Kodak’s new CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett who started in 2006 and has quickly changed Kodak (famous for not quickly evolving to digital) completely around.

According to an Adrants blog post, some of the things that Kodak is doing to keep up with the Joneses:

• An aggressive focus on digital. The Kodak Gallery, where pictures are shared and archived, boasts 70 million members. It is the second-largest social network in the world.
• Blog outreach. Jeff’s not scared of nasty press or naughty talk. It’s part of the flame-fanning. Kodak was also one of the first companies in the world to hire a female Chief Blogging Officer.
• Seizing moments of (sometimes manufactured) serendipity. He cited a moment when NASCAR heroes were photographed in Kodak hats. He talked about the Kodak Challenge on Celebrity Apprentice and the Gene Simmons controversy. Sales doubled the week following that episode.

“Hayzlett outlined the tactics Kodak has used to engineer a corporate transformation. In marketing and promotion, it has meant straddling the line between advertising and content and being willing to take some risks with the brand—if those seem to promise sales increases down the road.”

- Promo magazine.

Some great thinking seems to have come from adtech this year, but of course it isn’t without it’s problems, because according to @alisamleo’s final word of the first day of adtech:

“final word: the shear lack of how the social web and its cultural constituents operate is astonishing”

So true, no matter how “old” this space may seem, it is constantly reinventing itself and we are all scrambling to keep up-to-date.

“So what is the next big thing? It’s ‘realigning organizations to execute in a digital world.’”

The Title is a quote from Gary V.’s latest tweet. I was apprehensive to really get into Twitter because in the beginning (about 7 months ago) it was just me and two work buddies talking to each other, which we did on IM anyways. My beginning of my texting experience was very similar, it took me a while to fully embrace texting. Now I barley ever actually call any of my friends, it is much more convenient to text them. Twitter has become one of the first websites I go to each morning, it has even surpassed my MySpace addiction (I actually describe Twitter as MySpace Status on crack to my ‘Real’ world friends).

A video from Gary V. on Twitter vs. Facebook. It is a great video to watch, not just because of the comparison between two huge players in the social networking web 2.0 community, but also because he describes the world as it is today. The need for instant gratification and speed, the increasing use of mobile and the desire of simplicity makes this site a top site for web geeks. Even though “nobody in the ‘Real’ world knows what Twitter is” when the general public finds out about it, the potential for it is astounding.

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Zefrank announced that the first game in the Twitter Color Wars is Roshambo, or “Rock, Paper, Scissors”. I have submitted 8 different photos via Flickr, representing the Blue Team.

The rules state that:

Tuesday evening a bracket style RoShamBo tournament will be held. Best of three RSB, winner moves on…

We will see how this turns out, for now, it is fun to watch how many people are getting excited, and how many people Gary V. has been able to recruit, just based on his Tweets and wonderfully excessive videos about the Very Green Team on his website. My entertainment also lies in my newly found competition between myself and KG against fellow Hamilton Partners Tim and Pete.

And yes, my series for Scissors involves a Peep’s head being cut off, one might call it a metaphor of what could happen to the opposing teams.