Bah Humbug

Maybe it was because I was spoiled when I worked in Britain. Even though we never had company Christmas parties (and we would have to pay for our own Christmas lunch invites to the canteen!), it never really mattered that much. Because around this time of year I would be inundated with cards and packages filled with all sorts of goodness, not to mention hoards of Christmas lunch and dinner invites at nice establishments, courtesy of my loving and caring agencies that I worked with. Believe it or not, there are quite a few nice eateries scattered around the outskirts of Bracknell.

Moving here has been a bit like living with none other than Scrooge himself. One year in particular, I remember getting a cardboard tube in the mail from one agency (with whom I did a particularly nice amount of business with that year). With much excitement, I opened it up... only to find a rolled up piece of paper with their signatures on wishing me a "Happy Holiday". On closer inspection, the piece of paper was a scanned, mass produced copy, with my name nowhere to be seen, other than on the mailmerged postal label.

For years, I found this really strange. Not even one lunch invite or Starbucks run in sight. Though one year I did get a grapefruit, shipped in from a partner in Israel.

After speaking about the matter to one of my respected colleagues of European background, he told me that it was due to a "business ethics" issue. Apparently such seasonal gestures could be interpretted as bribes over here, so even if I did receive something nice, I probably wouldn't be able to accept it.

So Christmas is apparently not the time of year to give or receive. Sometimes I think people need to let their hair down and loosen up a bit. Incidentally, I received my first business-related Christmas card today. It was from one of my agencies in England. Oh how I miss them!

Seasonal changes

There have been many changes happening these past few weeks, what with the presidential elections taking place, fuel prices going down, all the badness going on with the economy and lay-offs hitting close to home.

But lets not talk about that. Let's talk Starbucks.

It's that time of year again when they bring out their seasonal drinks. Ditch that freaky salted caramel flavour they brought out a few months back (bleurgh!) and bring on the gingersnap latte. Masterful! The only thing missing is maybe a wee gingerbread man biscuit on top. May be I'll suggest that on their my starbucks idea site.

Reading through the ideas on here, what occured to me is that people take their coffee drinking experience really seriously. My favourite idea is the one about having coffee flavoured ice-cubes so that the drink doesn't end up like piss water.

I have to admit, for all of the flack that the 'bucks takes, this is a great example of customer embracing in action.

Election day

Even though I can't vote, I'm quite liking election day. What better way to celebrate than to gorge yourself with free lashings of unhealthy food courtesy of Ben & Jerry's, Krispy Kreme and Starbucks (though I have to be a little more sneaky with Starbucks since they are only providing free coffee to people who have voted).

It also marks the end of those eye-brow raising TV commercials about all of the political candidates who have either a) done dirty back-handed deals, b) sexually harassed people, c) employed (and paid ridiculously inflated pay cheques to) under-qualified spouses, or d) have a cocaine addiction. For non-American readers, yes... they really do say these things about their opponents in ads over here.

God bless America.

That citrus feeling

Recently I've been blocking time out of my calendar just so I can actually do some work and not sit in meetings all day long. It's a bit sad really.

But don't you just hate it when you get invited to a meeting and 10 minutes into it you think "What am I doing here?" because you have nothing of value to add to the conversation. So you then spend the remaining hour sitting there feeling like a complete lemon.

Need to remember to be a lot less promiscuous when accepting meeting requests from now on.

For the record, I prefer to be a lemon than take the more popular option of rambling on in areas that I have no clue about, or simply repeating what has been said in a tone that suggests that it hasn't already been said, just for the sake of being heard!

Not quite your local chippie

I just went into Panera Bread for my usual soup, baguette and packet of crisps (also known as chips to my American compadres).

As usual the lady behind the counter put me down as having baked crisps when I had ordered the fat ones (I think I confuse them by asking for "a bag o' chips"). When I mentioned I hadn't ordered baked ones they of course handed me a packet of fat crisps. But then the woman said I had to take the baked ones too.

When I asked why, I was told that because she had already touched the packet of baked crisps (with her gloves on) she couldn't take them back.

Wonder what the local kebab van would make of that.

The worm turns

I've been feeling a little fed up lately, mostly with having to deal with people who forget the golden rule of business - treat your customers well because without them you are nothing. You'd think that companies would be even more mindful of this fact given everything that's going on in the economy right now. But no.

Take property management companies, for example. After three years of being a model tenant I had enough of being ignored, and enough of being treated like crap when I wasn't being ignored!

At the end of the day people make choices. They chose to be total numpties, so I chose to hand in my notice. I am now moving into a lovely new apartment and directing my monthly cheques elsewhere.

The art of avoidance

I always enjoy going to a good conference or seminar to help sharpen my knowledge, meet new people from different companies and discover that I'm actually not doing as bad as I think, pessimist that I am.

If the conference is fancy, there may even be some kind of expo hall where you can meet companies selling their wares... but most importantly see how much free crap you can pick up.

A month after SES, I am still getting phone hounded and spammed by companies that I must have talked to at the expo. The only reminder I have being the branded power ball, remote controlled car, foam dog or other useless freebie currently collecting dust on my desk.

It seemed like a good idea at the time... When will I ever learn?

Amer-tish

I feel lucky to have experienced living in both England and America. But after a while you start to notice little quirks and differences people have (or lack). So I was thinking how great it would be to take the best from both cultures and clash them together to make a new super culture called Amer-tish. A bit like the Big Bang experiment.

From the American side, Amer-tish people would:
- Be service snobs
- Live in a place where the shops don't close at 5pm
- Have nice teeth
- Sit in public places, using as much free wifi and electricity as they wanted, with only a glass of water in hand
- Say hello to a complete stranger without feeling like horns are growing out of their heads

And then from the British side, they would:
- Have the ability to say please and thank you (and sorry)
- Hold doors open for people
- Give up their seat on public transport for someone who needed it
- Use a knife with their fork
- Spell words without missing letters out
- Tell you they didn't know the answer if they didn't know the answer
- Tip a maximum of 10% and not feel bad about it

Against the machine

In the grand scheme of things, search marketing is a relatively young thing. So to see loads of people attending a week's long conference just on search opened my eyes a little as to how popular (and serious) this topic was amongst many different companies throughout the world.

At first I thought people signed up just to gate crash the party being held at Google HQ, but I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of information covered by the sessions that were held.

The mix of folks attending also made for great people watching. What I've discovered over the past few months is that success in search marketing requires a person to be left and right brained. You have to be good with numbers, data and details but then also be creative and have the ability to see the big picture. The result leaves you bordering on the schizophrenic.

The one thing that baffled me was that no matter which session you went to, people always left at least two seat spaces between each other. I couldn't work out if that was some weird "don't invade my personal space" trait or whether the people already seated had personal hygiene problems.

Of all of the sessions I attended, the most amusing by far goes to Lee Siegal, author of "Against the Machine", a book about how the Internet is turning us into solitary and unsociable beings since "People don't talk or write anymore. They blog and email". Quite fitting since 90% of the audience at the time were on their iPhones Emailing/texting/tweeting. It seems people don't listen much anymore either.

He also talked about bloggers being angry individuals who hid behind their anonymity. I'm not sure I entirely agree with that, but my favourite quote from the discussion was that "If you can't say what you write in a blog to a person's face then you are not entitled to that opinion at all". Hear hear!

Common-sense please

Common-sense is an much underrated skill. I've been blessed with it in some respects, but alas not in others... particularly where flat packed furniture is concerned.

But something happened the other day that got me thinking about the importance of common-sense.

I got pulled into a meeting to give my opinion on an advert that a creative agency put together. The first thing I noticed about it was a very random headline. Cue a ten minute explanation from their very creative director who told me all about the meaning behind it. The headline was so clever in fact, that I can't even recall the explanation behind it now. Mind of a sieve, me (note to self: work on memory).

Now I may not be as creative, or have as many letters after my name as the people sitting in the room... But the ten minute explanation, I think, was reason enough for not using the headline. Someone bring out the common-sense coulée please.

Beggars and choosers

Portland is a great city, but like any city it has its fair share of beggars.

When I first arrived it was difficult to tell the difference between the people who have to beg and the people who choose to. After being here for a few years, I'd like to think that I'm a bit more clued up on this distinction.

Take the old lady who stands outside the Diesel shop on Couch Street for example. I read in the Oregonian that her son has followed in his mother's footsteps and taken up begging too. Lucrative business apparently. I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of every day she returns home to her penthouse suite in the Pearl.

Then right across the road there's a guy who stands outside Whole Foods of all places, asking for money so he can buy some Caribbean chicken wings. I don't even eat Whole Foods Caribbean chicken wings. Have you seen the price of those things?

So I thought I had seen it all, until I was told about a girl who stands by one of the MAX stops downtown, with a sign saying "Tired of sucking c*ck for crack. Give me money".

Now honesty usually goes a long way, but I reckon this particular approach would probably be about as successful as England were in Euro 2008.

How not to present

I was at a conference in Portland the other week where there were many E-marketing experts presenting... also known as the "Titans of E", as the leaflet put it. Whoever came up with that ridiculous name was definitely on the blue smarties.

Charlene Li (fellow petite oriental lady and social media superstar) was first up, followed by Mike Moran (IBM search marketing guru and potential stalking target). They stole the day as expected and set a high standard.

So how do you follow up people like this? Not sure. But now I know how not to do it, thanks to a certain VP of Disney Online.

Maybe feeling a little on the insecure side, he started off his presentation...

"As an MBA graduate from an Ivy league university, I could have done anything and worked anywhere - Wall Street, any Fortune 500 company..."

At this point, twat alerts rang from every corner of the room, and a once engaged audience started paying no attention to a word he said over the next 40 minutes of his presentation. At one point he did try to reel the audience back in, but he was met by uninterested looks by people who wished he did go to Wall Street. At least then he would be 3,000 miles away instead of here.

My lessons of the day:
1. No-one likes a bragger
2. Twat alerts are deadly so don't set them off

Window surfing

I stayed in this weekend in a conscious effort not to spend any money. I failed miserably.

Staying in wasn't the problem. The problem was more to do with all of the things you can do when you stay in...

Like finding my way onto the NikeID site and custom making a pair of trainers. And going onto the Playstation network and buying new song tracks on RockBand and SingStar. I hate how they make it so easy.

The Internet can be so evil.

Exercising couch potato style

This morning I ran three miles, played some tennis, did some skiing, a bit of snowboarding and then finished up in a penguin costume catching fish in the North Pole.

The funny thing, was that I never even left the comfort of my home to do this.

How great the Wii Fit is. But still, what an odd concept of using a games console to keep youself healthy and excercised.

What happened to the days of going out on your bike and breathing fresh air. I used to do those things, before I discovered cars and got lazy. Now I just laugh at myself doing excercises in front of the TV.

By the way, my Wii Fit age is 40. The way my creeky bones are feeling right now, I can believe it.

Against the odds

Most people you meet, you instantly forget about. But there are a select few who's words of wisdom stay with you.

My University tutor, Stuart was one of those people. Stuart was from Newcastle and sounded like he should have starred in Byker Grove, alongside Ant and Dec.

"Imelda, lass" he said to me one day as I sat outside his office particularly disheartened. "Whether ye like it or not, ye gonna have to work twice as hard as everyone else to get to where ye wanna be".

He was of course referring to the fact that in this dog-eat-dog world of business and politics, there was me. A petite, vertically challenged, oriental girl who looked the best part of 15. If I saw me, I'm not sure I would take myself seriously either. I'm not particularly outspoken, or brash, or tall, or glamourous, or burley. Just very short and very young looking.

I admire his honesty to this day. Now every time I get round to that first meeting with agency-types who I talk on the phone with and Email back and forth, I'm ready for the sudden look of confusion on their faces, followed by the usual questions that try to determine if I am even of legal drinking age. When that happens I smile and think of Stuart.

Thanks for the heads up lad. Ye aalreet, ye are.