Interview!!

So This weekend I flew out to San Francisco for an interview.

I'm still waiting to hear from them afterwards but overall it went well and they paid some travel costs.

I stayed with Rachel and her family who were VERY kind to put me up for a couple nights. But we had good fun and Rachel took me around town to explore some neighborhoods. I learned a few things, not the least of which was that a neighborhood with either "hill" or "heights" in it's name is NEVER flat. Also "flat" by San Francisco standards is an interesting concept.

The organization I interviewed with was in an interesting location...

(I used my new flip video for the first time. Sorry, it's a little jerky.)

All in all, the interview went well I think. What was scheduled to be 3 hours lasted 5 because we just kept talking. I had fun chatting with three of the staff members there and had a great trip. We'll see how it turns out.

The Dreaded RETAIL!

So to occupy myself during this time of job searching and seemingly endless cover letters I have started working at my brothers shoe store. I'll admit I was a bit wary in the beginning. The thought of working for the person who, more often than not it seems, delighted in creating a tormented childhood for me was less than appealing. So far that hasn't been the problem.

What HAS been the problem you ask?

I could use one word, but I'll use two for emphasis and clarity.

FUCKING IDIOTS!

Ok. I can understand people not having a full grasp of how their feet are put together, how a shoe interacts with the various joints of your lower extremities, how European or children's sizing works, or even not being sure about their shoe size. Much of this I have learned very quickly in the past few weeks. But there is no excuse for some people being just plain idiotic. No I take that back, not plain.... fucking idiotic.

When a steel toed boot is so narrow in comparison to your foot that the edge of the curved steel plate is grinding into your toes and the outer side of your foot, getting a narrower shoe is NOT a good idea. When you think you have some horribly abnormal condition (bunions) and the store clerk tells you its actually quite common and we can work around it fairly easily, continuing to try on enormously large shoes and whining about how awful it is that no one can help you find a better fitting shoe is really NOT a good idea. Coming in three different times to look at the same shoe and trying to haggle down the price with two separate clerks while getting nowhere each time is just really annoying.

In the end this is a very small segment of the population (at least I keep telling myself that). But they have a knack for making their presence known to all again, and again. Sometimes I worry about the future of humanity.

I need to share some things!

Ok so over the past couple days a few things have come up that I feel I need to disperse out to the general populace. In no particular order:

1: Netflix is amazing! Video on demand is incredible and I just watched an incredible Israeli movie called "The Bubble." I highly recommend it if you like a devastating horrifying tear jerker as much as I do.

2: Picking corn by hand BLOWS THE BIG ONE! Don't ever do it.

3: I've been listening to a band called Plushgun for a bit now. Not the most amazing stuff ever but something about it has me hooked. I can't stop listening to "Dancing in a Minefield" Check it out.

4: Rachel sent me a link that is probably the funniest thing I've seen in years. I laughed SO hard.

http://melon.posterous.com/random-thoughts-from-25-35-year-olds

5: I am watching The Daily Show from Thursday September 17th. President Clinton is on. I'm a fan. He looks WAY less stressed than I remember him from when he was in office. He's doing some great work and I respect him greatly.

BUT... he just said "the second thing is, we're putting a real emphasis on women and girls."

I can only begin to imagine how hard Jon Stewart had to bite his tongue. But take a look on Hulu. Good interview.

6: Beth Ditto makes me happy. I've been listening to Gossip's new album recently and it's quality stuff. Might be getting a little overplayed, but I love it and she is amazing.

7: Employers who still require hard copies of resumes and cover letters anger me. WHO DOES THAT!!???

That's all for now. Hope you enjoyed.

Minnesota Brownie Exchange

When you require a pan of brownies in order to enter the party you end up with a LOT of brownies. 36 pans in fact. What a glorious thing. Brownies with Caramel, or peanut butter. Brownies with S'mores, or mint sauce. Cake-y brownies, or gooey fudgy brownies. Spicy Chipotle brownies, Sea Salt, and Orange Ginger brownies. Oh how magical it all was.

I won't be eating another brownie for a while though.

Hmmm new considerations.

The job search continues.

I'm finding new things and some of them are quite interesting opportunities, but I can only imagine the people doing the hiring are absolutely inundated with hundreds of applications. How do I possibly stand out?

For now I'm just calling in any connection I can find. Hopefully it'll at least get my application a second look.

I met with Lisa the other day for lunch though and we came up with an alternate plan. When we were in Florence Italy Junior year there was a bar we frequented that had tasty burritos, AMAZING guacamole, and excellent margaritas with an awesome Happy Hour price. It was run by this little old man and his one blender and counter full of fruit so it took a bit of time before you actually got your drink. Especially when a group of 12 of us showed up and were the only ones there.

Lisa and I are stealing this idea. Our business plan for competition is simple. Space across the street from this old man, same menu (steal recipes if we have to), but there is one important change... TWO blenders! We'll be loaded before you know it. Nice knowing you suckers. I'm going to Italy!

Internship: DONE Job: Yes please!

Well the trip to Utah went off well. Though I did have a moment of freaking out as it looked like Cedar City was on FIRE on my way down from SLC. It wasn't. It was a "Controlled" Burn. I had my doubts.

The presentation went well. Nothing fantastic, but good. So I now have officially completed my MFA! WOOT!

I spent a couple days in SLC afterward visiting some friends. Good food, random driving around no where in particular, great people, it was grand and relaxing.

Now, I'm back in Minnesota looking for work. There are a handful of things I'm interested in and plenty that I'm applying to anyway. I haven't gotten responses from anything really, but I'm utilizing all the connections I can find for the ones I'm actually interested in.

In the meantime, I might be picking corn for a couple weeks. We'll see how that goes. Work is work and I need to fill my time with something. Plus a little income can't hurt right?

Life is pretty much boring right now. Sorry.

The end is REALLY close.

I haven't even missed a full day yet, and I already miss my internship...

But it is my Birthday! Went to lunch with the family and now I'm spending the afternoon working on my presentation for later this week.

Now that the internship is officially finished (and they gave me a lovely send off), I have a trip back to Utah on Wednesday, presentation Thursday, defense meeting Thursday. That is all that stands in the way of being completely done!

Now I just need to see if I can get away with making people call me "Master Tyler."

Unlikely? We'll see.

NERD ALERT!!!

This week was the COOLEST!

Tuesday and Wednesday after work we got to observe some research Focus Groups. Patrons had been called based on previous ticket giveaways and asked to participate. We got some really good results with almost all 4 panels filled out completely. There was a range of types of people and obviously a range of opinions. It was super cool for several reasons:

1: We got to sit behind the two way mirror and observe the whole thing while criticizing and griping about people.

2: we got some really useful feedback on several items

-a mailing we were planning was less than helpful to the panels

-we're already training some bad behavior

-flashy colors are eye catching and without them people don't care.

-some graphics need re-working

-people don't read their mail.

3:I made a networking connection with the woman running the focus groups. She works for an Arts Consulting and Market Research company.

4: we learned several great lessons.

-Chinese food is not so great luke-warm

-fortune cookies don't hold actual fortunes anymore

-that mailing we were going to print on Thursday wouldn't have been effective

(STOP THE PRESSES)

-Always check the sound proofing on your observation room before leaping from your seat and yelling at the participants "Don't you read your F&@%ing mail!?)

All in all a wonderful experience. More on wrapping up the internship later.

I suck at Blogging.

So.

How's it going?

Ok well. I'm gonna give a quick re-cap of recent events.

Work is going amazingly well. I am loving this internship and my time there has been SO unbelievably worthwhile. I've only got two weeks left, which is a little sad. So I warned my co-workers today that I'll be leaving soon and if they need me to work on anything they better get it to me soon. A couple weeks ago we had our annual office rejuvination effort. The President has this pet project where every year in July everyone spends two work days cleaning out their offices, files, and generally tidying up the whole building. It sounded awful, but it's a really good idea. Especially when the follow through actually happens. Without that, the whole place would be so cluttered and unorganized I don't even want to think about it.

There is lots of craziness right now as the Tech and Ticket office people work on updating and interating both Patron's Edge and Raiser's Edge. These are our ticketing system and Development database system. They both are getting lots of new capabilities and are being integrated so that they cooperate better. It's a very good thing and will be helpful and amazing and exciting. But at the moment... it's just obnoxious and there's lots of stressing out about it.

In other news, I'm getting a little excited to head back to Utah! It's only for a few days and I'll get to hang with those people I miss like crazy. So I'm flying into SLC and driving down to Cedar City for a couple days. Then I'll spend the rest of the weekend in Salt Lake chillin and visiting.

Most importantly, I have several leads on jobs. Hopefully something will come through soon. Keep your fingers crossed!

Marketing Summit

Due to a board connection, we had a summit of marketing folks from 3M come to work this afternoon to talk with us about our e-marketing strategies. We looked over our website, email system, facebook, and twitter and got their input and discussed as we went.

Overall, VERY helpful. They had some resources which sound absolutely AMAZING. Some analytical applications and such which got us all completely nerding out. It was great. There were a few drawbacks.

First, it seems that we continually ran into the same profit V. nonprofit roadblock. Maybe it was only perceived but there seemed to be a certain amount of condescension from certain members of their group in particular. Now usually I can just let that go and still hear what the person is saying and take what is useful from that. But it was a little more difficult today for some reason.

Second, there seemed to be a lack of respect for our financial limitations. WE ARE NOT 3M!! We certainly don't have their marketing budget. While the suggestions they made were helpful, they didn't seem to understand that we can't just go right out and do that. We can work on a plan and integrate it maybe over the next few years, but it'll take some time. And even then, we need to have some confidence that these changes will indeed help us to increase revenue rather than just value to the customer. These in theory are linked but we need some seriously solid numbers in order to really be able to sell these things internally as a good investment. One suggestion was to have appropriate music play on our site for all visitors. That's a great idea! But for the approximate cost of $150 a month...not so much worth it. The shock and disgust on some faces that we thought this was a prohibitive amount was a little of-putting. Especially when there are other things to focus on as priorities.

Third, we need to prioritize. Yes I see the contradiction. (How can you not have music? ...but Prioritize!). This was in reference to Facebook and Twitter. They felt that we were jumping the gun and we needed to really prioritize and focus on improving our website. Now they didn't come out and tell us to ignore these other areas, but that seemed to be the implication. I could have gotten behind that about 4 months ago, before we had started using them. But now that we're into it and have people linked to us, we can't just ignore them till we're ready. We need to maintain at the current level while also building the base of our website content. It's definitely hard and maybe less than ideal, but I can't imagine trying to restart Facebook and twitter pages after leaving them dormant for a year or even just several months. Maybe in the for-profit world, you can focus on one thing at a time individually, but I think the strength of many non-profits is their ability to juggle things and keep it al going, mostly because we don't have the resources to hire the necessary number of people to do the jobs that need to be done.

So in conclusion. Non-profit work is way harder than people think. Go out today, find a non-profit you like (you probably know of several already) and make a donation, however large or small. You have NO idea how much it will be appreciated and how well it will be put to use.

Pride, retreat, and looking ahead.

Ok, I'm catching up here, but Twin Cities pride was last weekend.

It was overall a really fun time. I hung out with some old friends and met some new ones. Really a great time and so much more fun than Salt Lake Pride...I'm just sayin.

I hit up some parties did the festival loop, watched the parade. But something happened at the Block party that night. I really can't fully put it into words. I've tried. But I just felt happy.

The crowd was calm, everyone was just there to hang out and have fun and there was a feeling of respect in the group. I couldn't even tell you what was happening or who was on stage but there was a moment where everything just seemed right, and content, and so very much a part of a group. It's one of the few times I've felt that in my life and it always surprises me.

**EDIT: I can't believe I let myself be that schmaltzy. So here is my favorite story from pride. I was standing around a very crowded block party when this 20-something woman walks by and stops dead in her tracks. She stares at me for a bit til I started feeling a little nervous. Then she says: "You are to goddamn fucking cute! GOD! Why the hell is he gay!?" Just a bit of an ego boost there. But it was hilarious as well. I love it.**

Anyway, after that work was fun. I began the week with quite a sunburn from the whole day sunday outside. Things at work are going really well and I'm really enjoying it very much, while at the same time looking for a job for when my internship ends. It's a little odd. Thursday though, we had a department retreat at my boss' parents' house. We spent the day on the patio around and in the pool, with food and drinks and discussing some long term ideas, goals, and plans. I LOVE talking about that kind of thing so it was amazingly fun. It was really relaxing but also very productive I think. I have a lot of respect for my co-workers and this whole day was just a treat.

Now unfortunately I need to start thinking about my presentation and binder for the end of this whole Graduate degree thing. I'm almost done, but I keep forgeting that I have to go back to Utah and present everything there. I'm very excited by the opportunity to see some people there, but I would much rather just be working and doing this job which I'm enjoying so much without having to put together all these documented accomplishments and reflections. It feels so forced, but I just have to remember that I'm still technically in school and once I'm done that stuff will be lessened a bit.

Holy crap!

Has it ever been a busy week!

We had an event on Tuesday night which was really fun and had plenty of wine and appetizers. Lot's of interesting people and all around a good time. 

Wednesday was our commercial shoot. So basically I spent the day watching people in a fake shower. It was odd, fun, really interesting, and HILARIOUS! These people we recruited were all amazing and were such hams. The commercial will be amazing. Plus the guys at the production company are just amazing to work with. They're very fun, relaxed and have a great visual eye for what will work on film.

On the Way back to the cities I drove my co-worker Julie as well as an 80 year old woman who was in the commercial. She's the mother of our Production Director and an absolute HOOT. BUT> My left rear tire started disintegrating on I-94 about 20 minutes from downtown. So I pulled out the jack and the donut spare to change it, only the old tire was rusted on! Boo. A state trooper called a highway-helper who sledge-hammered it off, helped replace it and we were on our way (at no more than 50 mph). 

After that fiasco I showered and went to Acme Comedy Company to see Chris in the Funiest Person in the Twin Cities competition. He won that night! and the following acts (especially the headliner) were hilarious. Well done. Finally after a very long day I drove home to Red Wing going under 50 mph because of the donut tire. What normally takes just over an hour was 2 hours. Suck.

Then today at work was the Board of Directors Annual meeting. I didn't have to do anything for this, but there was just a sense of tension, anxiety and ceremony in the air. It all went well from what I heard and development was able to bring in a good chunk of the amount we're short for the fiscal year end which is rapidly approaching (June 30).

So it's been hectic and crazy but I'm loving it. Everyone here cares so much and likes their job and wants to do the best they can. They also appreciate everyone's work so much. Maybe I still have some rose-colored glasses, but it seems that there is a genuine respect and validation in the day-to-day interactions here. Plus they know how, and when to have fun while recognizing that things don't need to be serious every minute of every day.

So with all that behind me I'm taking some time this weekend to relax and enjoy life. Maybe some parties, maybe just some staying in Red Wing for relaxation, movies, and biking. We shall see...

Three Weeks In

I now feel, after three weeks, that I'm fully integrated to my work situation. I may not know all the details of everything yet, but I've gotten into the swing of it all. This place seems much more fast paced than I'm used to. And that's even in the off season now. It makes me curious what the production season is like. 

 While I'm working on a bigger project regarding social media initiatives and writing a formal plan for the organization, it seems like there's always something new coming across my desk. I'm stuffing, sealing, labeling, and mailing various things for different reasons, as well as near constant amounts of proofing at times. And while those sometimes feel menial and less significant I know they're really important and helpful, and they certainly NEED to be done. But I'm also connecting with various people inside and outside the organization. I've met with the board for the young professionals group. I'm writing a budget proposal for some of their advertising. I'm researching approaches to online marketing. Finally, I feel like I'm bringing a new set of lenses to this operation. 

So many of my coworkers have been there for a while, and they know how things work. It seems like every single day I have at least two moments where some alternate way of doing something crosses my mind. These ideas usually come from work experience at USF or St. Olaf, or often from classwork. I don't necessarily voice all of these ideas, but often times I think they are helpful so I try to mention them either in that moment, or later in a one-on-one setting. It's sometimes hard to tell if these are appreciated, but in some respects I don't really care. I think it's good to hear different ideas or approaches even if they're not utilized. 

So all in all I'm just really glad that I've got a internship where I feel like I can make a contribution. And that's all the rambling for today.

Surprise!

So it turns out, I really like Minnesota.

I came to this realization in the last couple days after an awesome and busy weekend. It came to me today driving home through downtown Minneapolis that I've finally, FINALLY started to explore the Twin Cities in the way they deserve. Through High School and College it was always a place to get away to every now and then, a place to kill some time, but always a place of tried and true experiences. We never really branched out.

HOWEVER, since I've been back I've gone to several new bars and restaurants, discovered areas of the city I never really knew existed before, taken advantage of the parks, and actually started to meet some new people. Now not everything I've done was great. There's a particular bar I went to this weekend that was just ridiculous in how trendy it was and how it looked like it belonged in Miami. Solid white walls, DJ in the corner, rooftop bar with trendy drinks and furnishings. Not the worst place, just not my ideal. But much of it has been wonderful. I discovered the lunch deli at Surdyk's (haven't had a chance to check out their wine selection yet but I did have an awesome crab and artichoke melt), I did homework sitting by lake Nikomis, I grabbed tasty treats at Local D'Lish, saw some good stuff at the Guthrie, and so on.

Now This is just a sample really, and I do love the cities. But I'm still ready to get out of here and live somewhere else before I maybe, possibly come back here to settle down. But I now remember why I like home so much.

EDIT: I also forgot how annoying stinky farmland can be. Nothing quite like the shock of passing a poultry farm late at night. EEEEEEEWWWWW.

How time flies when you're doing tedious things

So I spent the entire morning doing nothing but coloring in seats some more, and then spent the afternoon manually de-duping several mailing lists... Not the most fun I've ever had but it'll all be done tomorrow. I suppose that's what I get for having an amazingly awesome weekend! Lots of partying, food, and great friends were involved.

First week -- DONE

So this week started out pretty slow but did not continue in that manner...

After Monday I was excited to get started on some things and begin to gather the information I need to work on some of my ideas. Tuesday was hellishly slow. The main projects they wanted me to start on as they were highest priority, just weren't ready to be handed off. So I had to wait for things to be put together and for the IT woman to come show me what exactly to do. This job is not the greatest, or most fun task, but it's absolutely important. Basically the house was re-scaled. The price points were examined and seats that were partial view were not all priced appropriately, AND they added a Super Premium price point.  SO...the diagram of the house needs to be recolored so that patrons online can look and see what seat they're in and what the price point is in case it's change. The PDF of the house is not designed well, so I have to use Photoshop and color in each seat individually.......yep, super-fun. But it'll get done on Tuesday so no biggie.

Other than that I'm getting excited about some of the PR-type things I'm working on. I had talked to my supervisor about working on some facebook initiatives and writing up a section of a marketing plan that they could then use, or choose to partially use or whatever. When I asked to see their current plan....they don't have one. I was a little shocked that a nearly $9 Million organization doesn't have a written Marketing plan, but they appear to do ok without one. I did get to see the strategic plan. It was three pages and consisted mostly of end goals but no evaluation or objectives or action plans.

I started talking with the Communications Manager on Wednesday about the facebook pages (they have 3) and mentioned to him my discussion with our boss of writing up a plan of some kind and his eyes lit up. 

On Thursday I was invited to sit in on a meeting at a suburban Starbucks to talk with the production company about our ideas for a TV spot for the upcoming season. The basic idea involved having a particular male company member singing in the shower. We spent about an hour brainstorming ideas, most were hilarious (not inappropriate, but hysterical and just pushing the line a bit). There was not a single part of that conversation though that would have happened in Utah, and it made me laugh, a lot. Then on Friday afternoon, on my my co-workers says "It's quiet today. Wy aren't we drinking?" She then went and got a bottle of wine from the fridge and we partook in some libations. Those were my two "you're not in Utah anymore" moments of the week.

Outside of work, I've also been busy. I went to see Kushner's new "the intelligent homosexual...." at the Guthrie Thurs. with Sweeney. It was pretty good, interesting cast, and LONG! We're talking 3.5 hours here.

OK that was long and a bit detailed. Hopefully the next week will afford a bit more time for more updates and not just one huge one.

Day One!

Alright, so I started today at my internship. Being Monday we had decided I'd show up at 2:00pm so as to give my supervisor time to get into her monday. So I met up with Lisa for lunch and then proceeded to work.

I walked into an awesome old warehouse building in the Warehouse district and found the office of my supervisor, Lani. She gave me a tour of the offices and introduced me to a vast number of people whose names I will not remember for a while. But then a bit later we had a Communications and Marketing dept. meeting. This is where the real fun came in!

We spent about an hour in this meeting with a total of seven people. Now this group of people is very relaxed and comfortable with each other. There was much laughter and much friendly bickering, so of course I felt right at home. We discussed briefly where I'm coming from, what I'm looking for, and what they have for me to work on. Then we progressed to what they termed their "sensitivity list." This term worried me at first expecting a list of rules for what was/was not appropriate for the office. Instead it was basically a list of people's food allergies and likes/dislikes. Some of them were quite interesting like horse meat and meat in jellies. I was astonished at how many of them (including myself) have a strong dislike for Mayo! We also discussed interest in alcohol. Coming from Utah I'm still adjusting to real beer and I have a feeling that they will help me with this.

My favorite part of the meeting was when the Executive Assistant to the President walked by and poked her head in saying: "Woah, you guys are laughing this much and having so much fun and there's not even an empty bottle of wine on the table!?" My other high point of the day was when my supervisor says: "you don't have to stay past 5. I know how much you're getting paid." and then as she left her office at 5:02: "Rule Number 1: Don't stay past 5!" Needless to say, I got the picture. Tomorrow will be fun as I get to know the group more...

So I got some good ideas, I have lots of questions to start my day off with tomorrow, but I won't bore you with those now

This is an adjustment.

Well, I've finally gotten a little settled at home where I'll be spending the next three months or so. *GULP*

I've been sick since the second day of my trip home and have spent lots of time recovering (i.e. laying in bed or on the couch watching terribly cheesy television). But we turned in the moving truck today and got me mostly settled in my room and my stuff kinda stashed around the house. So of the four bedrooms in our house I've  landed in the tiny room which I lived in from about 1995-1999. It's small. BUT! It comes with all these perks: an old barrel/nightstand, a framed photo of an American flag, a closet half full of my moms old clothes, a painting my grandmother did of Santa Clause, and a taxidermied deer head named Bosco. 

So yeah, I've got a week to spend looking for a car before I start my internship on the 18th. I'm really excited to get going on that and will be looking over every inch of their website and any press coverage I can find. Also the opera is in a super cool area of Minneapolis and my friend from St. Olaf works at a gallery down the street, so there will much mischief at lunch with Lisa!

All of you minnesotans may not want to read the following: So far, being home is less than ideal, and I'm very much feeling like I need to get out of here come August. We'll see how that goes.

Road Trip!!

So.... commencement was on Saturday. Then I packed, loaded up a moving truck, and left Utah at 10:30 AM on Wednesday May 6th. I headed up Interstate 15 then East on 80 through its crazy-awesome desert and on through some serious mountains before hitting Denver. Leaving the Denver area at dark, I headed Northeast on 76 and stopped in Ogallala NE, which is officially my new favorite town name.

Waking up the next morning I departed for the trek across Nebraska around 8:30 AM. Made it home in two days!! ROCK. The odd part was that it was just so suddenly flat. The sun went down as I hit Denver so I couldn't see the terrain for that stretch to Ogallala, then when I woke up it was all flatness of Nebraska. And boy does that make for an interesting drive. But I made it through Nebraska, Iowa, and home to Red Wing by 8:00.

So what got me through it? Musicals! I listened to every musical I had at least once, usually more. I had a few, got some recommendations from people and had a total of 10 musicals to fill my days of travel. 

Road trip is done, now for unloading the truck and getting over this nasty sickness I've got. Boo!