Ellie's Blog

Vacation While Working at a Startup?!?

Yes, it's true - I'm taking off for vacation in a couple days. And that's a real vacation. Not just going out to western Mass for the night after working till 9pm. No, I'm going on vacation - to a different country, crossing an ocean even - and it's for a damn long time. I'm off to Israel in a few days and I'm so psyched to have a break from this awful New England weather (I still love you, New England, don't worry). I don't know if I'll be able to blog while I'm gone, so this may be my last entry for another 2 or 2 1/2 weeks. So to all my readers: have a happy new year and enjoy the beautiful snow and I promise not to rub in the fact that I'll be out and about in the warm Israeli sun.

Funky Work Spaces: My Own Bit of Eye-Candy

This is the kind of thing that makes me a little giddy on the inside.

I would love to work in a funky work space like one of the ones in that blog article.  And I think HubSpot absolutely fits the funky personality required for such a space.  Here are a couple of my favorites:

Microsoft Proves It's Cool with Zune Ad

Microsoft's new ad for its mp3 player, Zune, has definitely surprised me by how cooky and cool it is.

Apparently the Zune ads are supposed to reflect the concept of sharing, which is the Zune's main differentiating point according to Wired (originally blogged about in October). Zune users will be able to participate in a special social networking site for Zune users, called Zune Social, and create a profile called a Zune Card that will allow users to share their musical tastes in other social networks via a widget. Interesting stuff. Let's see if it's cool enough to draw away some of Apple's marketshare...

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.

Fun World of Marketing: Link of the Week #2

As follow-up to my previous post on the Fun World of Marketing, here is the second installment of Fun World of Marketing: Link of the Week.  This week's link is dedicated to... well, you know who you are.

Support - via text message - for those trying to quite smoking. Very cool stuff. I love how I continually find new ways technology revamps traditional products or services.

As a contrast to my last statement, I am actually reminded of a joke from Mike Birbiglia. So for your reading pleasure (and hopefully Mike won't mind me reproducing his joke here on my blog):

"I get really annoyed with technology. They don't make better technology, they just combine stuff. Like you go to buy something, everything's also a camera. They'll be like, 'It's also a camera!' I'm like, 'I just wanted a grapefruit.' They're like, 'It's a camera grapefruit. You take pictures of yourself eating the grapefruit, and then you eat the camera, and you shit the pictures!' Oh my god, that is the opposite of what I wanted."

- Mike Birbiglia, as heard on Invite Them Up

Thank You, Google, For Your Recommended Blog Feed

Google does it again. I am actually quite impressed (and scared) by how Google can pick up on my interests and suggest links and blog feeds that I may actually be interested in checking out.

For the first time today I noticed a message in my Google Reader with some recommended feeds. I actually immediately clicked on the first link (Church of the Customer Blog)... marketing with a religious studies twist? Yes, please! I'm sure Google has picked up on my interest in marketing (after all most of my feeds are marketing-related) but could it also have picked up on my subtle love of religious studies?

I'm still catching up on some of the old posts to that blog, but so far I'm liking what I'm reading and it actually reminds me a bit (in terms of the overarching topic/theme) of a presentation I did in undergrad about what marketers can learn from organized religion and religious organizations. Interesting stuff for sure.

This is all fun and good, but what freaks me out is when I write an email in gmail and then a number of paid links show up on the side of my browser advertising things directly related to something I wrote in my email... A little freaky and I'm not so keen on Google reading my emails, even if it is a computer doing the reading. BUT I will say that a particular instance of this happening to me did inspire another blog post to be posted in the future... So be on the lookout.