Friday, October 24, 2008

It's Friday Night...

... and I'm going on a Pub Crawl. Not since about second year university have I done a pub crawl and pubbing isn't the thing that I normally do but today I find myself absolutely excited.

First, it is my friend Jon's birthday and second it's been a crazy week. Spent Sunday at work, as I will again this Sunday... then hammered it out in the office.... then went to school... then had my physical...

I guess I should mention I had a physical for my insurance this week. That was fun. Good news is that I am a totally healthy. However I didn't need get any blood taken... or I would have fainted as usual.

Back to the crawl. Have no clue where we are going. I just have to show up at a certain Boston Pizza at 7pm and the rest will be history.

Wish me luck.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Period 6

So I am back at school this week. Taking a class on Tuesday night and another one on Thursday night. I am taking a class about intellectual property and another one about services marketing. Not really jazzed about either subject but we'll see how it turns out. I'm going to be taking more HR courses and some courses way outside of marketing.... maybe even something in Finance... yeah right.

Spent the weekend getting ready for the pending beat down that will be the next two months of my life. Here's the deal.

Our marketing coordinator left last week to go work at an agency... which leaves my boss and I to pick up the extra work. On top of this, we have about a thousand different projects going on AND we're heading into the busiest time of the year. The upside is that I am going to get a crash course in how to manage pay per click campaigns through Google, Yahoo and MSN... and get a little closer to affiliate marketing. I have been meaning to get into both of these things but the amount of work I have had to do elsewhere kept me out of it.

I am really looking forward to hiring somebody new. I'd like to get somebody with a great head on their shoulders that is really motivated and hungry. I think marketing is an amazingly exciting field and I want somebody that really shares my enthusiasm... sometimes my office is too quiet. If I wanted to work in a quiet office... I'd work in a library.

Visited the UBC botanical gardens on Saturday for the annual apple festival. I never knew there were about 200 varieties of apples... and I saw most of them. The gardens were amazing and I can't wait to go back and take them in properly.

I also signed up to get a basket of organic goods delivered every two weeks. My first delivery is tomorrow. I got an email from the company today welcoming me to the program (I will post their name later) and telling me that although the deadline for changes is 9am on Monday, because I am new, they will let me have until 9am on Tuesday. Either way, I can see that I'm not going to change my first order as I'm really looking forward to what they bring. I'm getting some pretty standard things like potatoes and tomatoes but then I am also getting some chard and some grapes... and some other stuff I am not too sure about but hey, that's the point of this exercise. It's only 35 dollars every two weeks... which is nothing considering I get the grocery close to never. I could see myself pushing it up to once a week if I really like it.

I have a physical tomorrow for work insurance. That should be fun... but they are sending a nurse or something to my house... what a total sham. Some company contracts some other company to come and do their dirty work for them.

Lastly, it is back to the gym for me this week. I went on Sunday and absolutely punished myself. I think the combination of the improved diet and a heavier workout schedule should really help get past the second stage of my return to being in shape. It's weird because I haven't been weighing myself (no point, just go for it is what I say) put I recently realized I fit into some old pants I hadn't worn in years the other day. I guess I am going to wait until the spring and then buy some new clothes.... no point until then as it will probably rain all winter anyways.

take it easy.

d

PS. I'll put some pictures or something exciting up soon.... I realize this writing is getting boring.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Ideas on Tap

I went to a great networking event last night called Ideas on Tap.

Hosted by local companies that included 6S Marketing, the event is the new version of an event that used to happen in Vancouver around 1999 whereby web people would get on a milk crate and pitch their ideas for 60 seconds. The new version of the event, launched last night, wasn't really about looking for funding but more about talking ABOUT great ideas and that is what I found really interesting.

The problem is that I feel this city is full of small marketing type firms that have a few people looking to work for themselves... to live that specific "life". Which means that people are more into themselves and their own thing than really pushing the whole scene forward. Also, I spoke to a number of these small firms that seem to be really industry specific... which is REALLY dangerous. They should really look to diversify more.

Interesting though is that I did get the chance to talk to John Chow briefly, who is famous for making about 30k/month through blogging and affililate marketing. Affiliate marketing is where you agree to sell a firm's products or goods in exchange for commission. John's thing is lead generation so he gets a fee for each lead he generates. I never knew he lived in Vancouver as well.

All in all a fun evening and it was good to get out and be involved in the marketing community in Vancouver. I think I will keep going to these types of events in order to meet more people and expand my network as I can. It's a bit hard in this city as some people aren't overly friendly and sometimes people don't really network as much as they talk to their friends but still, these things are MUST if you are going to move your career forward.

I have a free pass for the Vancouver Board of Trade speaker series... so I am going to go to one of those events soon. Ideally, I really want to expand my network outside marketing and software. I think the scene in Vancouver is small enough that if you really work hard at it, you can really set yourself apart.

Have a great weekend. I am going to be really busy at work in the next months as we are hiring some people and getting ready to set up for the xmas rush. As such, I won't get to blogging as much anymore but keep your eyes peeled as you never know....

Friday, October 10, 2008

Happy Thanksgiver

It's been a really busy month for me so far. I haven't really had a day off since August, including weekends, and so I am really looking forward to having three days of being back to normal.

Tonight I am going out (shocker, I know) to see a band play and then I'm going to get my dance on, so I'm doing two parties in one night. Then I'm going to get out and see the city on Saturday afternoon. Probably see a movie on Saturday night... heck, maybe even go and see two of them back to back!

Sunday I am going to a thanksgiving dinner at my friend's place and I'm going to watch NFL all day. My buddy and I are in charge of potatoes and veggies, so we're going to do our best. I'm thinking something classic like mashed potatoes and carrots but we'll have to see what we can find at the Granville Island Market.

This term at school finished this week, so I had to complete two group projects. That was fun. I have next week off school and am back the following week... so here we go again.

Work has been super busy for the past month as well. I am really excited for our new product release, happening soon and will talk more about that when it is ready. I don't normally promote things on this blog related to work but I think people should really see what we've come up with.

Found an interesting site called Loud3r recently. It has all types of "channels". Each one is a gather of other information about that topic. Basically it is a great way to get an overview about what is happening. I read about internet technology and stuff like that quite often and my problem is that there are so many different sites to read. I get RSS feeds, I visit sites... I read magazines, books, newspapers.... there is just too much stuff coming from all over the place. The Economist is my main print source of information these days, love that magazine and a must for anybody doing an MBA.

Even though I haven't been updating much recently, I am going to be taking a break from posting anything or even touching a computer for the whole weekend. I hope you all have a safe and happy thanksgiving (or thanksgiver).

Take care.