Make today great

A few ways the #Grammys could have made social media Great

By Natalie · Comments (1) · Monday, February 11th, 2013

I know social media isn’t normally my subject here. But did you see the Grammys?

If you don’t follow social media much it may have seemed like LL Cool J knew something about Twitter. He sure dropped the word “hashtag” a lot and told people to interact with him. However, if you’ve ever used Twitter, it kind of seemed like “what on earth?”

By now, most people know the hashtag for the Grammys is #grammys. It helps to flash the hashtag on the screen — that’s important. But what’s really helpful is to have the host explaining it like he knows what he’s talking about.

So I thought, well, maybe LL Cool J was awesome at interacting with fans, as he said he was doing. Um, nope. He only tweeted four times during the show, and one of those looks like a mistake. Only one was an interaction with a fan.

Dude. That’s absolutely. no. effort.

I usually hate blog posts like this. Heaven knows someone from the outside could write one on how to do my job better. But then, I would almost appreciate the criticism. I’m sure they would suggest things that aren’t logistically possibly right now — but that doesn’t mean it would not make me try to be more innovative.

So. Here’s five ways that second screen could have gone better for the Grammys:

Just show a hashtag prominently and leave it alone. It’s 2013. People will talk about the Grammys on social media without you telling them to.

The next level up from that is to have your LL Cool J-type or social host read some of the tweets live in his on-air hit. Sure this is over done, but this is more entertaining than having someone saying “everyone is tweeting with #CarrieUnderwood and #Rihanna!” while showing #grammys in the corner of the screen. Hashtag confusion is no bueno my friend. (and I’d still think it was cool to see my tweet on the Grammys. It is the Grammys)

Let’s be more adventurous. I like creativity. Why not have the new artists be the ones that handle the live tweeting and social? Many people are curious about who they are. I like how they’ve started introducing them throughout the night — why not say “OK, this group is going to be answering your questions, tweet them @Grammys.

Have a social host in the winners lounge — one of the starts of Two Broke Girls, perhaps? — and do live chats there for a second. Let the winners talk to their fans and post pictures via the Grammys Instagram/Vine platform.

On Facebook, they posted the winners — live for the East Coast and effectively spoiling it for anyone who hadn’t watched it yet. They could have easily avoided the annoyance of the tape delay by posting location-specific updates. Post the winners as they are announced — for each time zone. Since time zones are divided by state, and Facebook pages let you restrict who sees your posts by geography, it is easy. And no, Grammy people, you don’t have to work later. You can schedule those posts and still make it to the after party.

Spin off MTV a bit and show off some analytics on what people were talking about. Get it sponsored and make some money. Bing promoted the hashtag #BingitOn on Twitter Sunday. That’s no coincidence. Of course you might have to show it live across the country for that, but it would still work.

Random, but I love what Dana White is doing with the UFC on social media. He spoke at New Media Expo in Las Vegas. They do crazy (awesome) things like give the fighters cell phones and then tweet out the phone number — and the players will talk to people that call. And it’s all sponsored by Boost Mobile, which means added revenue — and helps answer the conundrum “but how does social media make money?”

What do I know though? LL Cool J will always have more followers on Twitter than I will. Maybe he was doing it right.

UPDATE: Another great post on this topic that I found today was How the Grammys Strategically Integrated Live TV and Social Media

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And then we did laundry

By Natalie · Comments (5) · Sunday, February 10th, 2013

This is what the laundry room looked like when we bought our house. Well, there were doors on the cabinets, but this is what the laundry hook-ups were. Fun, right? You can’t see one of the plugs because there’s hole on that side wall and that’s where it goes. So weird.

But the room still excited me. It’s huge. I had visions. Look at this storage. Oh wait? Is that a closet in the middle. Yes it is.

This is the corner on the other side of that closet.

And this is standing on those cabinets looking back toward the laundry hook-ups. It’s dark because there were no functioning lights back here. I say “were” because we’ve been busy.

I present to you the halfway point. We had a contractor come in and rip everything out. All the old cabinets, the random closets that made no sense. We were starting over. Could we maybe have repainted the cabinets? Sure, but they were low quality and falling apart. It would have been a lipstick on a pig situation.

We went with can lights because the husband is 6′ 4″ so a cutesy chandelier would have made him bonkers. And this lights up the room nice.

It looks huge without the closet in the way.

Here’s a puppy for scale.

So then the contractors left and it was our turn. This is the “almost after” — we still need to finish a few things, but it’s close. We’d like to get the pedestals. And a door for the water softener. And eventually we will have cabinets running the full length of the room, which is long, so that won’t be cheap — but I envision a folding table and then a beautiful craft room with a space for wrapping paper and everything. For now, we have all of our holiday decor, our Christmas tree — everything in the world we can store there and it barely makes a dent. You can’t even see it when you walk in. I love having everything hidden.

Photo Jan 29, 8 57 11 PM

We color-matched the ceiling to our house and painted the walls a grey/beige color. We got kind of crazy with the floor. A quote for tile came in at over $2,000 — which is more than we spent on this entire project — because the floor is uneven and they would have to level it out. So after some research we found Concrete Restore. It’s stuff they use on driveways and around swimming pools. We opted for a blue “lagoon” color. It’s kind of awesome to have a blue floor and at the end of the day it’s a laundry room so you don’t see it much.

However, I would NOT recommend using the Restore. Or if you do, be aware that it does not cover as much as they say it does. We ended up having to buy three times as much as we thought we’d need. They did refund part of our purchase. Rustoleum makes a product that is similar — we didn’t try it because we had already put Restore down on the floor when we realized that we were going to run out so we had to stick with the same brand. We did come up with a system that worked and we finished the rest of the floor, I was just disappointed.

We looked into installing an ironing board on the wall and opted for drying racks instead. We do a lot more hand washing than ironing. IKEA has drying racks that fold into the wall, so we have one of those and one that is high enough into the wall that the husband won’t walk into it.

You may spy the painted rug from an earlier project. I cut it in half — and it works much better on a hard surface down here than it did on a carpeted one.

Oh and we covered up the dryer vent by asking our contractor to cut a hole in that cabinet (from Lowes). He cut a hole for the natural gas line too and made sure everything was nice and secure to the wall. Definitely not a project we wanted to take on.

I’m very excited about the deep sink. It’s from Lowe’s. Can you tell that’s the only place we shop for home stuff? It’s not the only place, but it’s our first place. Even when the people from Lowe’s came to deliver the washer and dryer they could tell that we’d purchased almost everything from there. We’re big fans of the 5 percent discount on the credit card. It makes me feel like we’re saving money.

But really, for the first time in my adult life, I can do laundry anytime I want. What a privilege right? It’s amazing the things that make you excited.

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Resolute

By Natalie · Comments (2) · Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013

The 2013 resolutions are done. I’m writing them down and taping them to the mirror. It probably won’t be all sorts of cute or scrap-booked But if I see them every day, I will remember the motivation behind the goal. I’m a big believer that a goal not written down is not a goal.

I always separate my goals into three categories — personal, family and professional. I have goals at work and milestones that I want to accomplish professionally. Setting those into place helps me too.

What are these goals? For some reason, I am nervous about making them public. But you know what, I’m going to do it.

Personal:

Stop cursing. OK, I’ve messed this up once already, but I can do it. Motivation: There’s something about cursing – it’s a stress release, but, I don’t like when I do it. So, time to clean things up.
Exercise. Motivation: Here’s hoping that helps the health issues I’ve been dealing with. It’s the only thing I haven’t tried.

Get it? Because our New Years Resolutions are financial? This was on the news set on New Years Eve. We were counting down to the deadline, not the new year.

Family:

Save our pennies. We’re focused, we’re resolved. Motivation: We are getting this house fixed up and paying down debt.
Tying into that, take a wonderfully extravagant vacation. Motivation: Because paying down debt is awesome, but at some point, I need a vacation before I jump off our own fiscal cliff (hmm, maybe that’s how the House was feeling?) We’re thinking Italy.

Not my usual gig, but I guest hosted The Nightside Project last week. It makes for a better work picture than sitting in front of two monitors looking at tweets.

Professional:

(in addition to setting numbers milestones of course)

Be a better leader. Motivation: slightly obvious.
Reach a million people at the same time (going by social analytics software, which isn’t always the most reliable, and tends to change it’s algorithm suddenly. But if things are at where they are now, I like this goal.). Motivation: it’s mission-statement aligned and gives me a marker for where to take our news content in 2013.
Speak and write more professionally — about social media trends, marketing, etc. As if there aren’t enough bloggers and writers out there already. Motivation: There’s a lot of junk out there. I’d like to sort through that.
Oh, and finish Codecademy. Motivation: A lot of tasks I do at work could be simplified if I knew how to code. So I want to learn.

These might seem like simple goals. Just like any book, I like to start with the title and then get specific. But those specifics? Are for me.

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A happy break (and some advice)

By Natalie · Comments (5) · Sunday, December 30th, 2012

firstchristmas

For the first time in my post-college life, I took time off for the holidays. Oh-my-goodness, why didn’t I do this sooner? For the first time in awhile, I feel well-rested and ready to go back to work tomorrow. I have been going to doctors since October trying to figure out why I feel so sick (hence the absence from the blog, and really, life). Turns out, a holiday break leads to feeling great.

I feel a little guilty saying “why didn’t I take time off sooner” though. I know there are some budding career people that read this blog on occasion. Not taking time off during holidays was a good career thing for me in years past — and I work in a newsroom so I don’t plan on making it habit. It was the first time I covered major breaking news as a junior reporter and the day after Thanksgiving was the the first time I went out and did live shots three months into my first public relations job. Because while the A-team is away, it’s time for the B-team to step up. And when the B-team proves itself, you get promoted. In theory anyway. At least you build experience.

So I took two days off this year so I could plan 2013 ideas and catch up on house projects away from the hustle of the newsroom. And sleep. Glorious rest that has me itching to go back tomorrow. And already planning vacations for this year so I can continue to be a well-rested human throughout the year. Because as I type this clear-headed and not exhausted, I can tell that I work best this way. Find out how you work best — and then figure out how to make a living doing that. Maybe it’s the start up environment. Maybe it’s at home. Working corporate taught me that I definitely missed the newsroom feel.

Also, I am hoping to write more in 2013. I promised my friend Joanna I wouldn’t lose my voice because it leads to good health, which will also be a goal in 2013, because, as I said, oh-my-goodness, I feel good right now.

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A store called Surprise

By Natalie · Comments (3) · Tuesday, November 27th, 2012

We spent a lovely holiday weekend in Southern Utah. And when I want to totally detox, I put my mind elsewhere. In this case, window shopping on St. George’s Main Street. My brain is in a constant rush so sitting still doesn’t work. But window shopping is perfect.

And this consignment store was crazy perfect. I think it used to be called Urban Renewal, now it is Surprise.

I want this village.

I want the couch!

And this is for when you are feeling classy. Mirrors and crystals on Christmas trees? Yes, please.

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I need a win.

By Natalie · Comments (3) · Tuesday, November 20th, 2012

Sometimes you keep going and going and then you pause and you are all “dude, why does it feel like I am wading through mud?”

I realized last week that I need a win. Of some sort. And then it hit me that it was a long weekend. And I got excited. And since some wins you can control, and some you can cannot, I’m taking this long weekend as a win. Hopefully we don’t have some sort of disaster. #knockonwood

Because right now I’m feeling about like this tree we bought from the classifieds. I guess I could call it as a win that the super nice couple we bought it from took it back. We are still in the market for a 9′ tree if you see one. We’d like all the lights to work though.

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Oh, snow

By Natalie · Comments (1) · Saturday, November 10th, 2012

This has been happening for the past 24 hours. I swear it is going to snow more this weekend than it snowed all of last year.

We just had this conversation:
Me: look it isn’t snowing for a minute! Hurry go get food!
Husband: well now you got me into this show.

I am a little worried about this tree. It used to offer some privacy from our neighbors. And now it looks smashed down. I hope it doesn’t break down

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There’s no way to humble brag this

By Natalie · Comments (3) · Friday, October 12th, 2012

So, super cool thing happened tonight. Well, super cool if you are a total nerd. But hey. Anyway, a hashtag that I created — #kslpolitics — trended tonight — along with a hashtag at an event I was speaking at — #smcslc. Isn’t that awesome? And I don’t want to sound all “go me” because really, it takes hundreds or thousands of tweets to trend.

It’s just really cool to be a part of it all. I am coming up on my anniversary at KSL and moments like tonight remind me why I love my job. I can say, “hey, let’s put a hashtag on TV before the debate” and we do. And then we trend.

The first time I saw us trending I freaked out. And I can officially confirm that even though I have lost count of how many times we’ve hit the top spot, I never get tired of it.

#yay

Also, mom, this blog post will probably make no sense to you. Just do a happy dance.

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The DIY gene

By Natalie · Comments (2) · Saturday, October 6th, 2012

Since moving into the new house, we’ve refinished a dresser, two nightstands, a coffee table and we have a bed in the garage that is awaiting a coat of paint.

And now we are actively considering staining our kitchen cabinets with a darker stain and repainting the whole house grey. I really don’t have the DIY gene — I compare it to a girl with curly hair that hates it. At least that makes sense to me. You style that ‘do out of necessity, you know?

I keep find myself asking, “who is this person?’ I am so not crafty. If you can buy it, I’m usually jumping on that train. Unless it’s going to save me over 50 percent, which it usually does. The nightstands were $10 each and they are good quality. The dresser was a $40 piece of work, but after fixing all of the insides — including replacing the metal tracks the drawers are on, I can see us using it for several years. And the bed was the queen bed we had for five years — why didn’t we ever paint it when we were sleeping in it? Nope, waited until we could paint it and put it in the basement.

The thing is, I like doing these things with Adam. They are “our” projects. And funny what you can convince yourself to do because it’s your house. I have become obsessed with DIY blogs because of it… I have no desire to be a blogger and do tutorials of my own (well, a few exceptions), but I love watching what other people do and then blatantly using the tutorials. My house may look a little Pinterest-inspired, but I assure you there will be no vinyl lettering so we’re all good. So dial that in when I always say “we’re no Young House Love, but I totally want their book.”

I mean, they look so awesome and cute and happy. Hopefully they have a DIY for that in the book.

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Half the Sky

By Natalie · Comments (2) · Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012

Have you heard about PBS’ Half the Sky documentary?

It’s a two-part look on issues facing women around the world, based on a book by the same name. Rape, sex trafficking, lack of education, inequality in so many ways. Domestic violence, child abuse. It’s rampant.

Despite those tough topics, the documentary tries to highlight people making change happen. I watched it thinking “good for them” and also “these people know what running into a brick wall repeatedly feels like.”

We watched the first part tonight after I came home from a marathon day at work. Now, I’m wide awake thinking about it. I often watch oppression like that and try to explain how God exists in my head. “How can a 8-year-old get raped 30 times a day and God helps me find my keys?”

And this statement has my brain rolling:

The more conservative a culture, the higher percentage of prostitution and the less valued the women are.

In society, many survivors of violence are shamed. Once saved from brothels, the male community leaders — men who likely frequent the brothels — shun the women. Victims of crime are kicked out of their homes by their fathers for being raped. It’s a prize to devirginize a girl — and then husbands are upset when their wife isn’t a virgin. It doesn’t make sense.

I do know that if you think it’s not happening in the United States–that these are only problems for the developing world–you are wrong. On the sexual assault response team in San Diego, I was trained on how to look for child prostitutes so we could help them. And the training was utilized.

Watch the documentary. Talk to people about it. Lets not let these problems be buried. My heart aches tonight for women I will never meet.