Blogs

I took one accounting class in college. And, honestly, I really enjoyed it. Something about the evenness of liabilities, assets and equities appealed to me. So, with that expertise in mind, let’s talk about the cost of doing business.

The cost of doing business, by definition, is overhead. It’s the cost of anything you have or do that doesn’t have to do with actually producing a good or service. These include: insurance, utilities, accounting services, attending networking events.

One of my high school teacher’s favorite phrases was “Keep It Simple, Silly!” (she was too polite to use the other form of the phrase) – and it’s always been one of my favorite lines. It works for almost everything – work, love, family, cooking, writing, designing – 99% of the time, you’re better off keeping it simple.

I have one word for you. Operations. The coolest, shiniest, most innovative "look at me!" social media idea ever can easily be tripped up by this one word. Foursquare specials, Groupons, Twitter deals, Facebook coupons are all methods used by major brands to get customers off their computers and into the store. They spend months planning, measuring, strategizing and partnering, yet so many forget this one key word: Operations.

Before rolling out a campaign, there are countless operations things to check:

Facebook Places has been out and about for the past few weeks now. Many of us have used it (or at least tried out out and turned it off), and there are definitely some good things, some bad things, and some downright ugly things about it.

Each week, I hear from a lot of extremely talented, smart and qualified people who are looking for jobs. I also see tweets from great companies and agencies in DFW that are looking for talent. So, in the interest of bringing those two groups together, I give you the DFW Ad Jobs Update - Volume 1! (Yes, the name needs work - suggestions welcome!)

If you are a company or agency in DFW with job openings, please contact me and I'll include the job description in an upcoming post!

So here's my first confession: I'm a gamer girl.

We all get them on a regular basis - the poorly written, oddly vague press release. From small companies to global conglomerates, every organization has at least one press release that fits a mold. And so, I've created for your wordsmithing enjoyment - Public Relations Mad Libs!

(Can't see the image? Check out the original on Flickr!)

There's a disconcerting trend among companies now to hire a social media or community manager via a contest. People can seek nominations from friends or put their own name forward in an attempt to prove that they're the most popular choice for the position.

When reading Tony Hsieh's "Delivering Happiness," (affiliate) it's all but impossible to keep thinking the same thing over and over: "This guy is Zappos. And Zappos is awesome." End of story? Not so much.