A lunch break blog

It's been a while since I've updated, and I'm grateful that the reason is a heap of work on my plate. As my mama dearest said, "Busy can be a great thing if you are enjoying what you do."

That's certainly been the case this last month.

Jackson Spalding:
As the days get longer (clocked 11.5 hours one day this month) the work gets more and more interesting. While my schedule was originally 9 AM - 2 PM, that quickly shifted to 9 AM to 6:30 PM or later. This is definitely a good thing, since I can get more in depth experience on projects when I have three full days in the office this week. I had the opportunity to participate on the planning and writing side of a social media plan for Post Properties. I created example content for our mock-up examples of different platforms, made recommendations for each platform's use and explained what each program did.
I spent all day last Friday out at Jennings Mill photographing the Athens Regional Foundation Classic. Some of the photos were at the request of journalists, and others were to highlight golfers using products from other clients of ours.

My insatiable hunger for puns was thrown a few vittles during my boss Brian Brodrick's 34 Pun Birthday Salute.

40 Watt Club:

Here's where the "will work 4 tickets" line comes into play. I recently began working online promotions for 40 Watt. In addition to the usual twitter/facebook deal, I have some ideas for Google calendars, weekly e-mail blasts, integrating more photos, and the list goes on.

The reward? On the list plus one for every show that comes through 40 Watt. According to my mint.com updates, I spend an ungodly amount each month on shows, so this perk allows me to unabashedly maintain my music consumption habits.

In the mean time, you can follow us at www.twitter.com/40wattathens and join the facebook group to stay in the know as we add summer dates.

Cine:

I couldn't be more please with the amazing work my Creative Consultants team has done for Cine. Our main goals for the year were:

1. To position Cine as "more than just movies"

2. To expose a more mainstream crowd to Cine's events

3. To promote their event space

I feel confident that we met these goals to the best of our ability.

To begin with the last goal, we created a Flickr album. We uploaded photos of the empty space and several events to highlight the CineLab's versatility. Cine was able to show these photos to someone from Cartoon Network, who then booked the space for an event.

To reach goals one and two, we decided to hold a wine tasting aimed at those who enjoy wine but are still mastering the basics. This would highlight Cine as a place to enjoy a gla

ss of wine and learn a thing or two, in addition to being a theatre. While we enjoyed supporting Cine's events throughout the year, we were especially excited to have an event that was our own from conception to execution. We contacted Peter Birdsong, a local distributor, who expanded upon our "basics of wine" idea. Light refreshments were secured from the National. Cine set the ticket price, and we capped attendence for each session at 30. Tickets were sold out my lunchtime the day of. I even had a few calls from friends telling me that people were posting things on Facebook like "Looking for a wine tasting ticket. If ANYONE is selling theirs, CALL ME!"

The tasting was featured on the top of the front page of Thursday's Red and Black, the entire front page of the Out & About section, and a continua

tion of the article inside.

By targeting college students, we were able to bring in a mainstream crowd. At the end of each session, when asked to raise their hand if it was their first time at Cine, the entire room had them held high. Comment cards were returned with positive reviews, and Cine decided that night to have an encore session April 30.

The Twitter account gains more followers every day and the Facebook page, with almost 2,000 friends, recieves an average of 10 friend requests per day. The Facebook group has almost 1,000 members.

While our time with Cine through Creative Consultants is officially over, we will all stay in contact and help out when we can. Jamie will be interning with them this summer, and I volunteered to be "intern to the intern" when I have a few hours to help.

Team Clermont:

Begining May 11, I am interning at Team Clermont indie PR and radio promotion, in addition to Jackson Spalding. Check out their blog The Cropper and follow them on Twitter. The perks of the job include CDs and tickets here and there, which is where all my not-so-spare coin goes anyway.

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I plan to stay in Athens as long as I can after graduation, and have an overwhelming feeling that I'm right where I'm meant to be. For now, I'm surrounded by amazing people in an irresistable city doing what I love. I have plenty of time for the rest to fall into place. This may be the naivity of youth speaking, but living off Ramen noodles and working 12+ hour days sounds like a fair price to apply my major to my hobbies in my city of choice.