Category: Personal Note

Leave Thanksgiving alone

Posted on by Emilie Buckman

You’re either a person who likes Black Friday or you’re not. I am not. Shopping in crowds of people fighting for deals sounds like an uncertain amount of torture. So when some retailers announced their Black Friday sales would start on actual Thanksgiving, I can’t express how terrible that sounds.

Some people love it and get some sick enjoyment from being pushed around just so they can get a ridiculously good deal on a flat screen TV. While it would never be worth it to me, I get some people derive satisfaction from telling people they fought a middle-aged women for a Wii. (Sorry I couldn’t think of a more recent must have Christmas item.) I just don’t.

Unfortunately those crazy individuals we keep Black Friday going strong But can we keep it to Friday, please? It’s bad enough the trick-or-treaters were not even ringing doorbells and stores had Christmas displays up, but can we leave Thanksgiving alone? Let’ take some time to truly be thankful for Thanksgiving and let people enjoy it with their family and loved ones.

At least there are few stores that have kept the employees and customers’ holiday cheer in mind. Nordstrom’s proudly proclaimed they refused to partake in the Thursday sales to celebrate one holiday at time. I have to say, I like their style.

Either way, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

The speaking gauntlet

Posted on by Brian Lee

I’ve been speaking to various groups and organizations about once per month on average for the past two years, but I didn’t have any engagements this summer (other than a three-hour lecture on social media in July). Now, I’m back in full force with six appearances in October, including two on Oct. 3. Topics include crisis communications and using social media for personal branding. Hope my throat can hold up!

Food blogging

Posted on by Brian Lee

In addition to heading Revelation, I also run a dining guide called EatDrinkMadison.com. Today, the local daily newspaper ran a long feature story on the prevalence of food bloggers in town–yours truly included–called “Eat Drink Blog” (I’m hoping that my guide’s name influenced the title of the article).

What’s not printed here that I discussed in my 30-minute interview with the reporter is why bloggers are starting to be taken more seriously:

  • Content has improved over time. We’ve gotten away from the weblog (or journal) and moved more toward reviews and op-ed type blog posts.
  • Bloggers have been better at using multimedia such as photos, videos and even audio to enrich their posts.
  • The advent of social media has changed consumers to producers of the news. That, coupled with shrinking newsrooms of the traditional media, has made blogs and blogging more popular.
  • Blogs reach the hyperniche market. Targeting blogs for earned or unearned media opportunities can be cost effective when you know the 40 or 50 readers are all super fans of whatever the topic of the blog is.

To me, it’s not surprising how many food bloggers are out there. Some do it as a hobby, some for money … I added a blog to EatDrinkMadison.com (and started a Twitter account) to connect more with both residents and visitors of the area.