Blog Posts

Posted on

Ads that “know” you – Scary or The Way It Is?

Now that Thanksgiving is past us, and Black Friday only resulted in light trampling and not full out stampede, I’m trolling for Cyber Monday. Mostly I’m finding that shopping no longer brings the excitement that it used to, which is ironic because I’m finally at a point where I have disposable income to spend! While burning some time with my mom – and burning off some of the splurge garlic fries and beer from Gordon Biersch – we hit up Macy’s shoe department. With my waning interest in being a mall rat, shoe shopping is the one activity for which I find the time and energy. I need to know the shoe, experience the heel height and see how it affects my gait, it’s a tactile thing. After finding some gorgeous Michael Kors suede booties, I was disappointed to find there were none in my size. Once I made it home, I jumped online only to find the great 50 percent off deal in the store did not transfer to online shopping. Grrr…

I also jumped on DSW and Nordstrom’s trying without luck to find a replacement. My sartorial twin, also known as my sister, weighed in but my heart was still stuck on those Michael Kors booties and the 50% off. I chalked it up to the game, and went about online surfing my usual pop culture sites. But something was different…the shoes  were following me! Nearly every Google ad that appeared on the top, bottom and sides of these various sites were promoting the very shoes I’d just looked at online from Macy’s, Nordstrom and DSW. Not only the very selections I’d browsed but the “similar options” shoes as well. While I keep up with online advertising technology as a complementary topic to public relations, I’d never truly seen it in action in my own life. It was kind of freaky, and I’m not the only one that feels that way. Google is like an omnipotent “god” on the Internet, and the fact that to Google something is now tantamount to online searching, it’s not hard to see how the massive amount of information the company gathers means big money to its advertising departments – a full 97% of its revenue comes from ads in 2009. Think about it like this: in the first six months of this year, Google generated more advertising revenue than all of U.S. print publications combined, a princely sum of $10.9 billion US dollars.

If this concerns you, and you want to eliminate your web browser, which if you use Chrome like I do you may as well say Google, from tracking your site visits and turning them into advertising dollars, a quick search (I mean Google-ing) gives you these resources for putting the kibosh on turning your interest into cold, hard cash:

Google Chrome Goes After Marketers With New ‘Do Not Track’ Feature – Mashable

For IE browser users, here is some info via Business Insider

Twitter also apparently tracks you, check that out too.  Oh and Facebook does it as well.

Happy surfing, and I leave you with the ultimate stalker song.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY]

 

Posted on

The Stretch Goals

My mom always joked with me as a kid that I was born late. While it is true that more often than not, I’m running behind, I am also a master procrastinator. It’s under control, as it has to be in order for me to make a living doing anything useful in life. Joy of joys, I’ve just entered final paper season of school, also known as the point at which I start to question my life decisions. So my challenge this week is to write on here at least four times, get a decent draft of my computer mediated communications class paper down that doesn’t give me heartburn and stop being a seasonally affected bum and work out. Let’s go!

Posted on

Letter to a Younger Me

Usually I stay away from the standard blogger posts like lists – top 5 ways to improve your love life/lose weight/get inspired. Included in that list is the “letter to my younger self” post. Part of me thinks it’s a bit of a cop-out; of course you have a dozen things you would tell the you of yesteryear. How to not allow your pride to be your downfall, the importance of humility and hard work.

As I get closer to 3o…ugh…I see more reasons to get my thoughts like this down. Five years out of school, my point of view about work, love and life goals has changed pretty dramatically. So without further pomp and circumstance, these are my thoughts to a younger Leisa. I won’t pinpoint the age of the younger Leisa, I can’t think of any number more than another, as I learn more about myself every day.

Continue reading “Letter to a Younger Me”

Posted on

From the Inside Out – The Rewards of My Diet

In my second week of attempted veganism (key concept – attempting), I’m realizing how much my diet, and therefore my well-being, has changed in the last year. My diet shift started much like my natural hair journey – a type of curiosity to test the limits of my existing beliefs. In the case of how I ate, I was also moved along by my relationship with my current beau, who is a lifelong vegetarian. That was over a year ago, and even to this day if I had to pick a death row last meal, I’d pick steak with blue cheese and butter, mashed potatoes and something with bacon. I can keep it real, I remember well how delicious meat can be.

Part of my enjoyment with being a vegetarian who is transitioning to veganism is that I am very much the last person you’d expect to adopt this lifestyle, based on the way I was raised and how I ate up until I graduated from college. Growing up, we all ate meat. We even dabbled in chitlins once, never to return again thankfully. I had no idea about the size and scope of the meat industry or how my meat got to the store and eventually to me. I just knew it was on my plate, and I was eating it. The first time I questioned the system was in college, while grocery shopping at Wal-Mart (I’ve since stopped shopping at Wally World too). I was in the peanut butter aisle and right between the chunky and smooth version of what I wanted was a pack of pork chops. Room temperature, so clearly it had been a while. Gagging slightly, I started to wonder about the food I was putting in my body. By the time I started dating my beau, I’d whittled my meat consumption down to chicken and fish, with an occasional burger on a night out. I am sure I gave him the RCA dog head tilt when he told me he’d never had meat, not once, in his life. This was a man who is six feet tall and at that point about 220 pounds. Clearly though he was finding what he needed. So I said “Well if I go vegetarian, I can at least stop making additional food for myself.”

Since then, I’ve educated myself on the lifestyle. I count Food, Inc. and Forks Over Knives as two transformational documentaries, recommended watching for everyone I talk to about diet. What I’ve found most rewarding is how much more I’m getting out of my body because of what I’m putting in it. Exercising is a priority for me and between diet and working out, I’ve found annual allergies and sickness is nearly nonexistent. My skin is clear and my hair and nails are growing faster than they have before. The science consistently supports that a vegetarian diet is beneficial to one’s health, and to the wallet and in relationships apparently.

Just recently, a friend from college shared a documentary straight from the 1980s, complete with face-width glasses and an old school Power Point. Lack of presentations skills aside, the doctor in the video laid out a comprehensive case for a dairy-free diet, including why humans don’t need milk from mammals past infancy. I shared it with the beau and my mom, who is a pescetarian, and we were all sold on veganism.

I’m still working through my food choices, dairy is in so much of our food that you have to be very discerning . Plus I have to make sure I’m keeping my iron, protein and other needs where they should be. Mostly I’m just excited to take the next step and continue to challenge myself.

If you’re considering a diet change, here are some of the resources that helped me:

Food, Inc.

Forks Over Knives

The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Food That Kills – Documentary

Posted on

What Reading Means to Me – Then And Now

You can only imagine my pleasure at reading this headline: “Generation Read: Millennials Buy More Books Than Everybody Else.” As a person that currently has books in my passenger seat, ready to head back to the library return slot in exchange for another round of new picks, I can’t say I’m surprised. My sister described her weekend as a three-hour over-stimulated journey through Waterstones (the British version of Barnes & Noble). But the way people speak of my generation, you’d think we were dolts who cannot operate anything that doesn’t have an electronic touch screen.

Some of my favorite childhood memories are the visits my mom, sister and I made to the library, a red lacquered building that held so much wonder to me. It was the kid version of “Cheers,” where you walk in and the proprietor (the librarian in this case) knows your name and your favorite selection (The Babysitters’ Club in this case).  It never failed that every Saturday, after the morning cleaning frenzy, there would be the reward: hours of time to wander around for new titles and authors. And at the end, you get to take some home with you. That was all the motivation I needed to make me do those dishes faster.

Though my desire to write wanes with the cycles of the moon, I never will turn down the opportunity to get lost for hours in a book. It is a trait that my sister shares as well – if the book is in my face, chances are I’m not hearing a word you’re saying to me. It’s never one book at a time. I like to imagine I can take on all the stories at once, letting my desire for adventure or romance or history decide which book I’ll pick up each time. I love the moments spent looking for my previous place, reinserting myself in the narrative and aligning my thoughts with those of the characters. And when I find the transformative story that draws me in, erasing time and other forms of entertainment…well that’s the ultimate experience.

As a page-turning enthusiast, my initial reaction to e-readers was one of “Ew, why would you do that? “ Nothing excites me more than when someone asks me “What are you reading?” Much as some people like to share their vacation photos or their kids’ soccer game video, I want to tell you about this great book. Some of the best conversations I have with my family begin with “So, what are you reading right now?” This usually leads to many shared Amazon.com and NPR books reviews, discussions about the genre, the background of the author and the best place to store stacks of the current reading list. (For my sister, it’s pretty much anywhere that you won’t trip over.) Over time, I was worn down and when I gifted myself an iPad, it was over. I downloaded the Kindle app and discovered that traveling with a tablet full of downloads beats lugging loads of novels any day and I didn’t look back.

A nugget of information highlighted in the Good article is that more and more readers are reading electronically, spelling doom and disaster for the brick-and-mortar bookstore. I wish I could say I was helping that cause but the lure of the library is still strong in me, and I’ll continue to go where everyone (at least in my imagination) knows my name.

 

Posted on

Finding The Inspiration

This was written last month on a plane. I’m slow y’all.

Sitting here on the plane home (no worries, airplane mode is enabled on my iPad) and I’m thinking inspiration. My headphones are blasting Jay-Z and Kanye Watch The Throne.  In addition to my intense admiration for Yeezy’s quotable quotes from life and songs, I get excited and nearly stan for Mr. West based on his evidenced passion for art: music, clothing, collecting pieces, name dropping Dali and Basqiat. Though this sometimes manifests in wearing leather aprons during performances – pause – it mainly comes through his fantastic albums and the story of grinding it out as an unknown, struggling to make ends meet. As he said, “that’s a different world like Cree Summers.”

The Vocus conference stimulated some passion for me. The overarching messages could be summed up as thus: be awesome, don’t tell everyone you’re awesome but instead tell them how your awesomeness benefits them. Never stop learning, innovate and have a good product and message. Great speakers and just overall passionate communicators. At the airport, I took the advice of one of the main speakers and fellow Houstonian Dayna Steele: take travel as the opportunity to expand your reading outside of your usual realm of comfort. For her, it was reading about NASCAR, which helped learn about new marketing tactics. Personally I agree with her; it’s men and a handful of women driving around tracks for hours on end, not sport. But they market the hell out of it!

So I picked up my first Forbes magazine. And I learned. I learned about the new Apple CEO, Jamie Dimon and the European economy. And I went on to use my American Airlines points to subscribe to Inc., Fast Company, The Atlantic (and Lucky, I still like pretty things!). It’s great to be able to hold a conversation beyond the latest pop news, both at work and with my friends and family.

So now as I move forward, not letting the “conference fire” die, where did you find your passion? And how did you keep the flames stoked?

Posted on

The Numbers Game – My History with Media Measurement

I have about 25 minutes before I head to an industry conference, and I wanted to share my thoughts on why I’m going. Since I began here just over five months ago (my how time flies), I’ve learned many a lesson on public relations, interoffice politics and how I am perceived. One of the biggest areas of growth has been in media monitoring: the measurement, tracking and reporting of earned media coverage.

Getting into communications, this was not where I pictured I’d spend much of my time, though honestly I wasn’t sure what to expect from a career in media relations once I graduated. As nearly any practitioner will tell you, the numbers game is the ultimate goal. Whether you’re with an agency, internal relations or corporate communication, your ultimate goal is to share specific messages with specific audiences at specific times. And to be able to report on it. Starting out at the Dallas CVB, part of my responsibilities was to scan for references of Dallas tourism in a stack of magazines that never seemed to go below three feet high. Page after page, eyes traveling back and forth. I often sighed and wondered why the task was given to me and couldn’t I be doing something “sexier?” Of course, hindsight being 20/20, this was foundation for learning about that industry staple: precious lines of editorial coverage espousing your company line. I was better prepared for the quest at my next job, and technology met me there in the form of online databases. There are many to choose from: Vocus, BurrellesLuce, Meltwater, Cision. The list goes on. As part of a department that went from five to two in the span of less than two years, that drive to find all references and build those relationships was so much more important. And now, in my current role, I’m it when it comes to media measurement system expertise (though I’m using the world “expertise” quite lightly).

I’ve had some challenges with the current system we use here but through perseverance, blood, sweat and (few) tears we’ve come out on the side of almost understanding it all. I’m excited that my job empowers – and that’s the perfect word – me to take my knowledge to the next level. The Vocus conference will be a great opportunity to connect with those who play the same game as I – the numbers game.

I know they say this generation is “lost” in terms of starting a career and finding a place to experience development but I’m feeling like I’ve found a spot in the sun to grow.

Posted on

Songs in the Key of Love

So this post has been in my mind for a while, finally taking the time to get it out online.

Some people can define their relationships through places they visited with their partner, or food they ate together. I think it’s most common to define relationships through music. Thinking back on the men I’ve dated, I can relate a song to each one and what that song means to me when I hear it.

High school: The first big deal. The sun rose and set based on him, because I was 16 and what did I know?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GvB9ySUJ3A&w=420&h=315]

He loved Cam’ron. Like, loved him. Loved Dipset, knew all the words. In my mind, the music was gibberish and I told him as much on many occasions. But over time, I began to enjoy the music for the creativity and spontaneity. It didn’t matter that half of what Cam’ron  said was made up. Just have fun. That was the attitude I took with me to college.

Continue reading “Songs in the Key of Love”

Posted on

Lenten Season

So every year I have to temper myself from this grand idea of giving up something grand for the occasion. I wouldn’t say I’m the biggest adherent to the letter of organized religion. In my ideal world, I’d attend the best church ever and every message would resonate within my spirit. I would follow every commandment, have no impure thoughts and all would be right in the world. But the reality is that life is a series of very complicated choices, and it is a struggle to retain a Christ-like attitude toward everything and everyone.

I cheated a bit and this Lent season. I’m repeating the concept of reducing the extraneous noise of life that, in many ways, defines my life: social media. For many, this is a fun way to connect with friends, family and the personalities they connect with, be they actors, musicians, thinkers and doers and those in their chosen field. Through reading personal and professional accounts of people I follow, social media has become as ubiquitous as eating and sleeping. Their phones or iPads are constantly by their sides from the moment they wake up. And Heaven forbid that facebook or twitter be down, whatever will they do with those 30 minutes of being disconnected from “life.” I don’t intend this to be a judgement but a review of the things that I hold important in my life. Will I allow myself to be that person who “has” to check twitter before I even wash my face and brush my teeth? Will I be that person that cannot enjoy the moment because I’m already thinking of how I want to present this in a Facebook post later?

For this reason, what better time to step away than in the season of Lent? I had a great text conversation with my boyfriend about what we were giving up between now and Easter and, more importantly, what we were gaining from the sacrifice. For him, he is regaining a focus on his health and wellness by focusing on healthy eating and exercise. He ultimately wants to train people, imparting his knowledge to transform their physical and mental wellbeing.

In our conversation, he told me that Lent relates to the period in which Jesus wanders the desert, being tempted by the Devil prior to beginning his ministries. Believers use this time to grow spiritually, and I believe that the time that I’ve dedicated to chatting and various gossip and fashion sites can be more beneficial when spent focused on my relationship with God. Not sure if this means that I will become the lead tambourine woman in the Sunday choir but it surely will bring me more peace of mind in the long run. And who knows, I may keep it going after I don my tangerine dream skirt suit on Easter Sunday!

Posted on

So Then This Happened…

The first week of work, let me tell you…I’ve not had it better in my professional career. Warm people, hard work, great brainstorming on my first business trip for the company. Our hosts were so welcoming, and I can’t wait to work with them further.

So I go in, head held high and ready to take on the second week. Case of the Mondays has nothing on me! I have made it a personal goal to listen to the Our Daily Bread Bible study podcasts every morning on the way to work. Rather than zone out and miss an opportunity to start my day off on the right foot, I can catch two-three of the mini-sermons and learn more.

After a great lunch with coworkers in my department, fostering relationships and such, I’m walking up the three mini-stairs back to the office with a slight pep in my step despite the rain. Did I mention the rain…yeah, the rain. My downfall. Next thing I know, I’m on the ground. It was a moment straight from my favorite cartoon “Family Guy,” where he falls on the ground and sucks air through his teeth in a comedic show of pain. Except this was QUITE real and painful. I think I laid down in defeat for a second, really and truly.

Upon inspection I have a nicely bruised knee and torn skin on the heels of both my palms. I do believe I’ve been brought back to reality. But that still can’t bring me down. Second week, let’s go!

*This was me, laying in the rain. I would post pictures but they are kind of gross, no one wants to see exposed second layers of skin*