WhipperSnaPR

My blog posts have been lagging lately and I have many topics I want to catch up on, but, alas, work calls….work,work,work. The joys of being at the bottom of the pecking order

However, I must take a quick minute to recount my most frustrating and typical whippersnaPR moment of the year. Last night, Josh convinced me to join him at a “celebration for political bloggers” hosted by the Harvard Berkman Center. Initially, I had some reservations about going; I don’t tend to blog about politics. But, I figured, hell, I have a degree in political science and I can find an excuse to “celebrate” almost anything! So, I went. I had no idea I would run into such big names! (here’s more on the attendees from Josh)

The first, and more positive whippersnaPR moment of the evening, was getting to chat with Steve Garfield. I happened to casually mention that I’m noticing a trend in companies wanting to build the next MySpace or YouTube and I sparked his interest! Hurray for the whippersnaPR! We had a great conversation about how “citizen journalism” can really effect viral marketing and I hope we get to continue that conversation in the future.

I’m still kicking myself over the second moment of the evening. This is a perfect example of the downside to being a complete whippersnaPR. Last night, I met David Weinberger. I was a little late to jump on the band wagon, but most of the people who’ve ever had to work with me know I’m a huge fan of the Cluetrain Manifesto. My thesis advisors can definitely attest to that; they were constantly yelling at me that I was quoting too heavily from the manifesto. Despite this pathetic, whippersnapr-ish fandom of Cluetrain, I failed to recognize who David Weinberger is! aurgh!!!

All night, I kept saying, “who is that guy? I know I should know him. I know I’m a fan, but I can’t remember why.” Luckily, I got the chance to chat with him at all… but I never got the opportunity to say something profound and entertaining and completely whippersnapr-ish. At least I didn’t make a fool of myself fawning over him all night!

Anyway…today, I’m having a typical, “I’m such an idiot,” Napoleon Dynamite moment…

The other project that’s been keeping me on my toes lately is this new game for Protrade:

Mascot Kombat is a very cool flash game designed as a parody of Mortal Kombat! It features an assortment of mascot costume clichés that duke it out in the ultimate superfan smackdown. You can choose to be an Eagle, Viking, Tiger or Indian and you must fight all other mascots to win!

Update: please vote for this game at I am bored!

Work is definitely keeping me busy these days! One of the many projects I’m working on is the launch of the newest game for Tweeter Mobile called Go Boom!

I’ve yet to beat this game, but I’ve gotten closer with this one than I have on any other Pod Game. I’m getting better

Basically, players drive through these crazy scenes with aliens, robots and even wild monkeys. You have to “pimp out” you car with all the best sound equipment to fight them; blast them with your bass or track them with your sonar. You earch cash for every monster you shoot down and, at the end of each level, you can buy bigger and better equipment. Try it out for yourself!

Finally! My small-town, Midwestern upbringing actually came in handy! This is mostly exciting because I don’t know anybody in Boston who is from “back home” and most of the PR people I know and work with don’t share in my life experiences.

Pod is in the process of developing a new campaign; all I can say about it right now is that it involves a chicken. We’re actually issuing a casting call for chickens! My 4H and FFA (future farmers of america) friends would be so amused! Initially, my bosses thought one chicken would do it, so I mentioned that it might be a good idea to get several. You never know when one will want to lay an egg! Then, somebody actually said, “We’ll just shoot the video in the afternoon; then, she will be done with her eggs.”

I had to laugh. I grew up with a few chickens in the back yard. It wasn’t a huge operation; we kept them mostly as pets. My sister sold the eggs to neighbors - for pennies - out of a red flyer wagon But, we had enough chickens for me to learn early on that chickens will lay eggs whenever and wherever they darn-well feel like it. And they won’t be quiet about it, either.

So… finally, the same quaint, farm-town childhood that people usually laugh at actually did me some good as a big city PR professional.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, Roosters don’t just crow at dawn and the only kind of corn worth eating is grown east of the mississippi and west of Indiana

Josh posted last week about our trip to DC for various reasons and our many fun adventures while there. To add my two cents:

My favorite part was meeting Mr. and Mrs. Matthews. Chris Matthews is cool and all (my bosses first question was, “Does he yell like that in normal conversations?” answer: yep!) but I was more impressed with Kathleen Matthews who was just recently hired as the newest PR star for Marriott International.

Playing the part of WhippersnaPR to perfection, I was literally drooling over myself trying to get two words in with her. She’s a very popular woman. Hell, she’s a newscaster, PR star and moviestar Unfortunately, this wasn’t the kind of event where one hands out business cards and my current business cards are actually my boss’ with my name hand written on the back (very appropriate for a whippersnapr, I think). So, sadly, I didn’t get to have any in depth conversations with her where I proved my own potential stardom in 5 words or less.

The sighting was inspiring none-the-less.

I’ve never played a game of sudoku till this morning; I didn’t even know what it really was. Initially, I thought, “numbers? umm…. no; not for me.” But we’ve built a soduku game for kids ages 9-13 at work. So, I figured I should at least play it once before trying to “sell” it to anybody. So, I played; and now, I’m hooked. It is a great game of logic! Try for yourself: