Ellie's Blog

My DartBoston Pokin' Holes Debut - Critiquing Launch Into Boston

Last night I finally made it out to my first DartBoston Pokin' Holes event and I was on a panel of three critiquing Launch Into Boston.

Overall, it was a great experience - met some great people and got to talk about a really interesting business. Full video is below, but here are the basics:

DartBoston: DartBoston is a community of young entrepreneurs and professionals in the Boston area.

Pokin' Holes: DartBoston holds a live weekly video podcast and event called "Pokin' Holes" that evaluates and provides feedback to young entrepreneurs starting new ventures.

Launch Into Boston: This week we evaluated Launch Into Boston, a service for recent college graduates and young professionals to transition into life in Boston.

Panelists: Jason Evanish, Neha Patadia, and myself, and moderated by DartBoston's Cort Johnson

Big thanks to Cort and DartBoston for inviting me to join the panel. It was a great time and I'm sure I'll be back!

More Americans Head North For Good But Affordable College

The secret's out - Canadian schools are a great education at a great price, plus the application process is much easier. It's definitely what got me to go to McGill... So easy to apply (online, no essay, no interviews) and I could attend for less than half the price of a regular US college. Right, and it was a great education too.

Can't see the video? Watch it here.

Oh, and a shout-out to Kelly, my main source for pro-McGill news.

Another "Sixth Photo" (Just For Fun)

After my last post about the Sixth Photo Meme, I was all excited about going through my old photos again. So I went back to my Facebook photos and this time looked at the sixth photo of my sixth album (rather than the sixth photo on the sixth page). Here's what I found:

This is a photo of me and my friend Hannah (who I also tag in my last post) in Quebec City a few years back during Winter Carnival. Winter Carnival is the funnest - and coldest - time to be in Quebec City. At the carnival, there are tons of amazing wintery things going on, including a snow sculpture show. There were some pretty incredible creations, but in addition, there was one group allowing Carnival-goers to contribute to the making of a snow sculpture. And that's what we're doing here - we've grabbed a few shovels and picks and started hacking away at the lump of snow.

Can you tell what it is?

Late Night Cramming

I would have thought that my late night cramming days were behind me. That I wouldn't be typing typing away in the beautiful silence that only comes with a completely sound asleep household - er - apartment building. But here I am, just finishing a presentation I'll deliver in 10 hours to a few thousand people. And now cutting into my precious beauty sleep to reminisce about my college days.

Oddly enough, I've been thinking a lot about dorm life tonight.

Out of my whole first year, or even out of all my four years at university, for some reason there's one late night cramming session that I always remember. It was sometime first semester of my first year, and I was taking Philosophy 101 (just like every other going-to-save-the-world-someday-with-my-altruism college undergrad). I had a paper on who-knows-what due the next day and, well, it was already the middle of the night, just about 9 hours before the paper was due. Hey, 9 hours is plenty (if I don't have to sleep...). I had taken my laptop out into the hallway of my dorm because it was so wonderfully quiet, and oddly comfortable. It was so peaceful (perhaps producing the right state of mind to write about philosophy...) with everyone asleep in their rooms, except me, typing away in the hallway, and my roommate the night-owl, settling into our room after a night out on the town.

There's not much more to that memory, oddly enough, except perhaps thinking that my most productive time of day was 3am, and also the feeling that I was genuinely happy. That must be it. The reason I always remember that moment - that feeling of pure happiness. Feels pretty sad right about now.

There were a lot of things that really made me happy in my dorm life days. The friends, the independence, the sense of (productivity? no, purpose sounds better though cheesy). Not to say those other things are gone. I continue to have wonderful friends (many from those same late night cram sessions), live even more independently, and, fortunately, continue to feel productive - er - purposeful? But there is still something more to the calm happiness of my late night cram session... perhaps it was due to living in a building of 600 others just like me. Or perhaps it is just due to having too much caffeine and staying up typing through the dead of night.

Blogging for Personal Sanity - Not Anymore

I'm technically what you'd call a long-time blogger.  I can't quite remember when I started my first blog, but it was quite a while ago, maybe in high school (ok, so that's only like 8 years ago).  And this somewhat surprises/impresses people in the Internet marketing world where we talk about the wonders of blogging, particularly for businesses, quite a bit.

But my motivation to blog originally was not SEO, was not communicating with prospective customers, or anything like that.  It was for my own personal sanity.  Blog = Weblog = Online journal.  Hence the name "livejournal," where my first blog was hosted.  I could go on there and complain about my day or waste time if I was bored or procrastinating and so on.

So then, what happens now that I have a "real" blog, where I post "real" content, and a good chunk of my readers are people I work with?  Well then I can't write nonsense and I can't vent the way I used to on my old blog.  What now, I ask?  Give up personal sanity for respectable Internet presence?  That's the problem with the adult world: you have to be all respectable all the time.  Oh, the plight of a recent grad.

From the McGill Bubble to Work Bubble, but not Web 2.0 Bubble

This post is sure to be packed with hilarious video AND some self-reflection and perspective-taking... Are you ready for it?

 

The most recent video to craze my office is this video on the Web 2.0 bubble. (What is Web 2.0?)



HubSpot's co-founder and Chief Software Architect, Dharmesh Shah, wrote a great post on this video and why HubSpot isn't part of the Web 2.0 bubble. He offers 10 reasons to support his claim, which I find not only validating of his claim, but also hilarious and true. I particular enjoyed the following:

5. For us, "exit strategy" means figuring out how to leave work at 9:00 p.m. (and go home to work some more) and not look like a slacker to the other members of the team.

9. Nobody creates the illusion that they're working -- but instead try to create the illusion that they have a life. Some succeed at this illusion better than others.

Sadly, hilariously, true.

I find the timing of this video/article quite fitting because today I realized that I do live in a bit of a bubble. Not the Web 2.0 bubble, but a work bubble, oftentimes completely consumed by my job. Then some days - like today - I am able to get some persepctive and realize that the rest of the world doesn't think about marketing, or particularly internet marketing, all day every day.

I also realized that I am probably somewhat prone to this bubble-like living. I truly love having a lot of and challenging work and even when I was in university - where my workload was not nearly as heavy as it is now - I became completely consumed by what I was doing (mostly extracurriculars rather than schoolwork actually). Luckily quite a few of my friends were right in that bubble with me and we still managed to have a pretty good time. I find my work satisfying, I just need to step back and get some perspective from time to time.

McGill School Spirit: #12 in World Rankings

McGill is not really known for its sense of university community or school spirit (except for maybe this little treat we saw in RI:)















The real good stuff is here, though: McGill ranked #1 in Canada and #12 in world rankings. Gotta love it. I always recommend McGill to everyone considering where to go for university. Great education, great people, great city. If you want both reputation and experience (without the pretentiousness that comes with some other schools), plus a much lower tuition, McGill could be the right choice for you.