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Category Archives: 2010

Out of the Vault: Friday Five – January 1, 2010

Posted on Posted in 2010, Friday 5 .

I have a confession to make…

I originally started writing this blog entry on December 2, 2009. Isn’t that sad?!

My desire was to start doing some “Friday Five” updates and that clearly didn’t pan out… maybe someday I’ll get there, but for now you’ll have to take what you get from me and my quickly moving attention span. But with the recent acquiring of a Motorola Milestone and a recent move back to St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador (which results in more personal time) there’s hope I’ll be updating more. :)

So I’ll leave what was in my original post and basically put it in italics. So anything in italicswas part of the original post. Everything else is part of my new commentary on this resurrected draft.

Instead of making up some silly New Year’s resolutions, how about I do a Friday Five and touch on areas I want to work on over the coming 12 months.

  1. Run a 5k – Shoot. Haven’t actually done this yet. Actually, my regular summer running was neglected this year due to added travel, my sudden change in employment, oh yeah and moving and having multiple weddings this summer. But I recently signed up for a beginner yoga class and am taking meditation classes too… so that still counts as a more healthy lifestyle (which was the main goal of the 5k run).
  2. Knit more challenging projects – I like to think I’ve done a pretty good job with this.
    I took a class at The Knit Café to make an Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Surprise Jacket. It was lots of fun and I want to do it again. I also took a short class with Fiona Ellis on how to knit cables. Oh and we can’t forget the class I took at Creative Yarns where Mairi McKissock was teaching two stranded/Fair Isle knitting. I made a bag for myself and then one for my mom as a surprise. Now I just need to learn how to knit socks…
  3. Update blog and videos semi-regularly – um yeah… that hasn’t gone so well. Hoping to change that now.
  4. Increase personal savings – I’m actually pretty pleased with my change in spending habits. There’s always room for improvement, but I’ve made a lot of progress in rationalizing why or why not to spend money on something.
  5. Improve my French skills – again, haven’t really done much with this one either. The original intent was to use the My French Coach Nintendo DS game that Matt gave me. Time to dust off the old DS and start at it again.

So while the year is more than half over (really more than 3/4 over),  I’m doing pretty good with my Friday Five for 2010. If I manage to keep #3 on track, I’ll remind myself to post a follow entry to evaluate how this year panned out.

And Now for Something Completely Different…

Posted on Posted in 2010, blog, technology, Tumblr .

In case you didn’t know, I also have a Tumbr account – http://vmiddleton.tumblr.com/.

Because I have a wonderful little Motorola Milestone, updating this blog and my Tumblr are very painless. I’ll admit that I’m updating my blog more from a desktop/laptop because it’s faster, but the option is still there.

My Tumblr will serve more for sidebar commentary and more random in-the-moment findings. It’ll have shorter posts that will likely include more multimedia like videos and photos. There’s a nice easy option for quotes too which I’ll toss up from time-to-time when it comes up.

Anyone else using Tumblr? I only follow one person and that’s the lovely onthemetro.

Is Your Cow Purple?

Posted on Posted in 2010, books, communication, Marketing, PR .

I’m finally finding time to read Seth Godin’s Purple Cow. I’m about a third of the way through and really enjoying it.

Hoping it can inspire me to think of new ways of marketing and communicating the exciting things happening in our faculty.

Some learnings thus far:

  • The reason it’s so hard to follow the leader is this: The leader is the leader because he did something remarkable. And that remarkable thing is now taken – it’s no longer remarkable when you do it. In other words – if someone else has done it, it doesn’t matter if you have lots of money to promote it and advertise… you’ll never have that same original and unique feel as the one who came first. You have to make sure what you offer is different in a significant and better way (a game changer).
  • Instead of investing in a dying product, take profits and reinvest them in building something new. This speaks for itself…
  • Ideas that spread are more likely to succeed than those that don’t. I call ideas that spread, ideaviruses. LOVE this concept! Also love his analagy that the people who help spread your ideavirus are called sneezers.

That’s all for now until I read more. So what are YOUreading right now? Anything on your bookshelf or on a wish list you’ve been meaning to get started on?

That Thing You Have

Posted on Posted in 2010, communication, Dilbert, MR, PR .

After meeting me, the average person isn’t surprised to learn that I work in communications or that I’m someone who enjoys public relations and media relations…

Perhaps it has something to do with not getting ride of that thing I have. LOL

 Dilbert.com

 I <3 Dilbert. There have some recent comics on social media that I’ll be posting up here and commenting on. Perhaps on the weekend.

Gone Fishing

Posted on Posted in 2010, Canada Day, iPhone photos, Ontario, Toronto .

While walking home last week, I saw this sign up at a local restaurant. It was so cute and endearing that I had to take a picture if it.

I’m today’s world, it’s not very often you see a business close up shop for a actual vacation. Far too many of us work day and night, Monday to Friday – barely able to function, let alone recuperate on the weekend… Only to do it all again on Monday.

It made me smile to see this sign. So what are you doing right now? Gone fishing? If not, any special summer or vacation plans.

~Virginia

P.S. Happy Canada Day!