Life as it Happens

Black Friday: Deals Deals Deals

2009-12-05T14:34:00.000-06:00

Black Friday is just around the corner and shoppers are tearing through their stacks of advertisements locating the best deals and making lists of which stores they will hit first. While the annual shopping day is a great way for consumers to buy items at low prices, the day is actually great business for the stores despite huge discounts.

Stores use the day as a way to get customers in their place of business in hope of using bait-and-switch to get customers to buy more than the original items they were looking for. The day significantly helps companies overcome any losses incurred during the year and get out of "the red." But it is all worth it? Stories of getting trampled by wild shoppers, and crazy people physically fighting over sale items fill the front pages of news sources everywhere, and it seems to get worse each year. While some deals may be too hard to pass by, shoppers aren't usually just going to buy a single item after their hard sagavenger work and early morning departure. Instead customers are fully consumed with sale signs and coupons once they reach the store, and at that point it's a race to get to your item first...everyman for himself.

In the rough economy stores and customers have a taken a big hit this year, but with some good advertising, great deals, and a cup of coffee to get through the day, Black Friday is a huge success for everyone (as long as you don't get trampled or in the way of an angry soccer mom)!

The Media and the Courts

2009-12-05T13:17:00.002-06:00

The verdict is in, and it's not good news for the family of Amanda Knox, a Washington state native who was under trail for the murder of her British room mate Meredith Kercher while the two girls were spending a semester abroad in Italy. With the verdict has come a great deal of disappointment for Knox's family and friends who believe that the media's negative and misleading stories had a serious effect on the outcome of the trial (see timeline here).

One story they feel was taken too far and was completely misrepresented by the Italian media- Knox's nickname "Foxy Knoxy." The nickname originated as a descriptive term of endearment for Knox's strong skills in soccer growing up. The media's take on the nickname has transformed Knox's image and has been used as an indication of her sexual tendencies and used it as support for the sexual encounter gone wrong timeline of the murder.

This problem is a significant pr problem, but more than just protecting Knox's name and reputation, its a pr problem that has become an important obstacle to overcome in proving her innocence. Other pr challenges facing the defense team, Knox, and her family are the potential for anti-American biases and the leaking of case information by unreliable sources.

Knox has been in Italian jail for two year while awaiting trial and in that time the World has watched the case unfold and reveal accusations of tainted crime scene evidence, a lack of evidence placing Knox at the crime scene, the misunderstanding of Knox's character, and exaggerated stories of Knox's sexual past. To add to the media problems, the Italian court system is visibly different than the American system and has prevented many of the same luxuries offered to those on trial in the United States.

An outcry of concern has come from many Americans, including Washington Senator Maria Cantwell who has used the media to publicly express her disappointment in the outcome and her intentions to further discuss the matter with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

While the Knox family prepares to appeal the decision, one thing is certain- no matter the final outcome of the murder trial, the public perception of Amanda Knox will forever be plagued by the media's focus on the accusations of murder, devilish behavior and excessively wild sexual encounters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/world/europe/06perugia.html

How Much Support Can You Get In One Day Using Primarily Social Media?

2009-11-30T12:42:00.001-06:00

Social media has become such a normal part of my life that it is hard to imagine it as work, or even as something to put on a list of things to do...it has become so natural. This is particularly true for Twitter. I do have a personal Twitter account that I use for my day-to-day posts and communications, but as the Chair of Students for Walker at Marquette and a Walker campaign intern, I am also in charge of updating a campaign related account.

The Scott Walker campaign, which also happens to be my PR project client, held a huge online fundarising effort on November 2, 2009 to mark exactly one year from election day 2010. The event was a huge success and raised more than $26,000 in one day, all from online contributions! A huge way that we worked to get out the word on the event was through Twitter. We created our own hashtag (#110209) specifically for the event, and continued to use our campaign slogan hashtag (#believeinwi) on all of our Tweets.

Our efforts on Twitter proved to be a big success. The campaign's account, Scott Walker's personal account, and all the Students for Walker campus accounts helped to spread the word across the state. We had hundreds of retweets and messages of encouragement and support.

While the campaign's goal was to receive contributions, the purpose of the one day effort was to illustrate the strength and support for Scott Walker, something that was made very clear to all of our followers and critics through our success on November 2, 2009. The entire effort was driven online through social media and we couldn't have succeeded without those social media outlets including Twitter, Facebook, MyScottSpot (a campaign networking site), and ScottWalker.org.

Check out the campaigns press release on the event's turnout here: click here

My Twitter Experience...So Far

2009-10-01T12:59:00.000-05:00

I LOVE Twitter. When I first got Twitter last semester I hated it, and I deactivated my account after only 3 hours. (True story, ask Paige! haha.) BUT, now that I have started using Twitter more frequently I have come to value the benefits that it brings.

The first benefit that I have experienced from using Twitter is staying in contact with my friends throughout the day. Sending a quick tweet to a friend takes just a few seconds, and it's very easy to reach many people in a short amount of time. Part of this positive experience has been having the convenience of having twitter on my phone. Now I can send my friends a message when I'm on the go.

I have also used Twitter to tweet my thoughts, ideas and complaints. I am a big fan of quotes (especially Story People) and I tweet them frequently. The quotes I tweet usually reflect my mood. I also find myself complaining on Twitter. Haha. Just today I tweeted to @MarquetteU about construction noise in my classroom and they responded to me wanting to know where my classroom was. This could mean good (or bad) news for customer service! A friend of mine tweeted about her cable not working and the lack of response from the company. They contacted her after seeing her tweet and fixed the problem that day!

I love Twitter!

Assignment #2

2009-09-03T18:10:00.007-05:00

About Me

What’s your full name? Sarah Kathleen Bartlett

Were you named after anyone? Nope

Do you have a nickname? If yes, what is it? No nickname, but a lot of people call me Bartlett

What’s your astrological sign? Aries

Are you a morning person or a night owl? Morning person-early to bed, early to rise

Do you wish on stars? Sometimes

Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Ha, never, although I'm sure I should

Do you have tattoos ? Yep, I have 2

What do you do most often when you are bored? Watch TV, read gossip blogs and magazines

Donkey or Elephant or Neither? ELEPHANT!!! Check out gop.com and rncwomen.com

What makes you angry? oh boy, you want the whole list? haha.

What did you do last night? Homework and watched some TV

What frightens you? Death

How many keys are on your key ring? 4

What do you do to relax? Listen to music

Do you believe in superstitions? Some

Have you attended a church or religious event outside of your own? Yes

Name a foreign language that you know. I know a tiny little bit of French, and even less Spanish

Name three things most people don’t know about you. I ride horses. I love sailing. I want to learn to speak Mandarin (Chinese)

Family, Pets, Friends

Do you have any siblings? 3

Who is your best friend in high school? I have like 5 best friends from HS

Do/did you have any pets? 2 dogs- Wilson and Bella

Cat person or dog person? BOTH

Who is the last person you talked to on the phone? Who talks on the phone anymore? Haha. The last person I texted was my friend Jill

Travel

What states have you been to? Almost all of them

What countries have you been to? Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, England, Haiti, Mexico, Canada, Belize, the Bahamas, and several other countries in the caribbean.

In how many states have you lived? 3-ish (Illinois and Wisconsin, and DC-tech not a state but I'm counting it...hence the -ish)

When is the last time did you take a train? on the Metro in Washington, DC this summer

Food

What do you like to eat for breakfast? cereal, pancakes

What is your favorite food? sushi-could eat it all day everyday....hmm I'm kinda hungry

What foods do you dislike? I don't really like meat, but I eat it occasionally (gotta be in the mood)

What ethnic food do you like and dislike? I LOVE ethnic foods

What is your favorite chip flavor? Salt and Vinegar

What is your favorite sandwich? ham and swiss

What is your favorite drink? Diet Coke

What is your favorite ice cream flavor? depends on my mood

What’s your favorite salad dressing? Blue cheese

Plain, buttered or salted popcorn? a little salt

What’s your favorite pie? Cherry :)

What’s your favorite fast food place? Wendy's -spicy chicken sandwich!

Media

Which Harry Potter characters are you? I've never read the books or seen the movies, sorry Hogwarts

What was the last film you saw at the cinema? The Ugly Truth

What is your favorite TV show? a have too many to list

Last book you read. Class-11 (it's about the CIA and it's fabulous!)

What picture is on your computer wallpaper? A picture of me and co-workers at a charity congressional softball game this summer

What is your ring tone? the standard AT&T tone

What are three favorite songs on your iPod? right now I love "Lightning Strikes" by Snow Patrol, "Yes" by LMFAO and "Closer" by Kings of Leon

Do you have a Facebook page? yep facebook.com/sarahkbartlett

Do you have a Twitter account? yep follow me! twitter.com/sarahkbartlett

Do you have a blog? just this one

Wishes

Where would you retire to? The mountains...maybe somewhere in Colorado or Utah

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? somewhere in Asia. I'm trying to plan a trip for this winter break...any suggestions?

Would you ever bungee jump? Skydive? maybe, and yes!

If you were a crayon, what color would you be? light blue

You Know Social Media is Important When Creating a Blog is a Homework Assignment

2009-09-02T20:40:00.006-05:00

So I created this blog because I have to. That's honesty right there. I'd rather not write a blog, and that's not because I don't have anything important or interesting to say, but because I don't understand why anyone would want to read it. Blogs are nice for keeping family and friends updated on life, but other than that...WHO REALLY CARES?

Well apparently my professor cares. Every decision we make is in response to some motivating factor, and in this case it is getting an A in my class. So despite my reservations about writing a blog, I am participating in the assignment because I want an A. (Once again, honesty.)

Now that we all understand my attitude towards blogging...here we go!

My first assignment is to write about what writing means to me. WOW! There is so much to say that I don't even know where to begin.

I think that the most important place to start is with my freedom to write whatever I want. As I'm sure you will soon learn, I'm pretty interested in all things political, so naturally I want to acknowledge the rights granted to everyone by the Constitution, and, in this case, specifically the 1st Amendment.

I'm sure we all know what the 1st Amendment says, so don't worry I won't quote the whole thing, but it is easy to forget that our right to the freedom of speech is special. If my goal of this blog was to write about my dissatisfaction with President/Senator/Congressman ___________ (insert any name here), I could do it. I could write a blog about my hatred of garbage trucks, or my love of sushi. I could write about anything I want. That is amazing! That same freedom, which so many of us take for granted, is not a global right. Not every person on this Earth is so fortunate.

And that is why to me writing means so much. It means expressing yourself, sharing your ideas, and engaging others in anyway that you want, whether people want to hear it or not, and whether people agree with you or not.

So despite my dislike of writing a blog, I am thankful that I have the right to tell you all what I think, even if no one out there (except my professor) cares.

OH! And one more thing. In case you didn't know exactly how significant social media is, check out this video!!! It's incredible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8