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Creativity Conditioning: 3 Opportunities for Writers

March 27, 2014 by smartygirl Leave a Comment

Thought-starter: Who is Tony Clifton? How far did Andy Kaufman go with this creative partner?

Lemony Snicket became real when Daniel Handler breathed life into this pen-name. Richard Bachman gave Stephen King the opportunity to create non-cannon King stories.
SmartyFellas Despite Mike, Broiled Jeff and Jack Paper are android avatars that are co-opted by Guest SmartyFella Entertainment writers for a season.

Photo Credit: Trendy Pie Despite Mike Takes Up @midnight hashtag challenge on Twitter



Meaning? Though avatars, each profile isn’t an empty suit like the Pacific Rim Hunters. Each has a backstory, limitation, life goal and quirk. Selected Guest Writers are attracted to the challenge of creating within those parameters. The objective? To entertain while exercising agility as a comedy writer and artist.

Besides if Mike, Jeff and Jack aren’t as real as you and me, then how can Miss Dread Pirate Roberts be a crush? Despite Mike, Broiled Jeff and Jack Paper were hired in January 2013. See how they have evolved in “Meet the SmartyFellas“.

Their personas have influenced the SGL Media Advisory Board to view innovation and disruptive awesome-face ideas from new perspectives.

More clarification? SGL Media SmartyFella interns are real. How real? Nelnet hounds them for school loan repayment each month. SGL Media guests past, present and future? Real. As real as Wired Magazine’s Clive Thompson, Heavy Metal journalist Laina Dawes, and AllTop-founder Guy Kawasaki. Product reviewers? Real. Road-testers of products to the gym, on hikes and on tour. 

SGL Editors? Real. Associate Editor Erica Tyler has the marathoner’s build to prove her realness. As real as the stink of yams outside of Thanksgiving. Editor-in-Chief Renee Marchol stinks up the break room microwave with yams, for her fast-food on Thursdays, before she hits the road for documentary film productions.

Jack Paper has no illusions that Jude Law will ever play him in a movie but would like to cameo in a Miyazaki animated film as a possessed turnip scarecrow. 

Did you miss November’s Nanowrimo? Too busy to attend the virtual Camp Nanowrimo in April? Find camaraderie here at SGL Media. Contact us to apply to be next season’s Despite Mike or Broiled Jeff.

SmartyFella Humor: A Business Memo

March 27, 2014 by smartygirl Leave a Comment

At the workplace, you don’t have to create a new variation of The Aristocrats’ joke, in order to entertain. Why not have some fun in the space of a business memo for a mundane request? Our SmartyFella Despite Mike keeps marcom interesting at SGL Media.

Photo Credit: The Least Weird Business Memo Received by Jack Paper at SGL Media

Curious what’s on Despite Mike’s mind? Follow him @FellaSmarty on Twitter before his brain is made into ravioli by Jack Paper. 

5 Best: Asshattery Saturdays by SmartyFella Broiled Jeff

March 15, 2014 by smartygirl Leave a Comment

5 Best This Week

1     Sharpening the Saw or Filling the Fruitbowl

Across industries, we hear from top performers what separates the leaders from the wash-outs: take time to recharge.  It’s a shame, if we treat our bikes, cars and devices better than we do our own body. Don’t you agree? From Healthcare Software Debuggers to Montessori Program Educators, the same best practice occurs in the top performers in their field. As Asian-Australian Comedian YouTuber MyChonny might say, “Calm your man-boobs, down!”
Impolite? Yeah. But it cuts to the point. No one wins when a leader drops dead from a cardiac arrest while soiling himself/herself in the middle of a regional webcast. Right?

Analogies for non-power tools with serrated edges or Eden illustrations, leave you cold? Okay, imagine a depleted cookie jar. Old school. Thanks, SmartyGirl Kai for this badass example. How can you create that Zen moment to bring back sanity to your schedule? Is it buying resin for your cello? Is it restringing your acoustic mandolin? Not musical? Is it listening to actual tweets from the raptors at CuriOdyssey’s aviary in San Mateo? Like the cabby from the 2004 movie “Collateral” virtual vacation via visualization might be what keeps us from being a reluctant star on Vine having a meltdown.

Think of the cost of not planning ahead to clear your headspace and become a better you. Consequences? Increased turnover of your employees because you douche-out as Grumpy Cat middle manager. Increased health insurance premiums that alert your enterprise to shackle you with a FitBit to monitor the lowering of your blood pressure in 90 days or risk probation. Increased work-life dissatisfaction where you long for a violent, highway speed death just so you have external permission for some hospital rest. Irrational? Yep, that’s the short circuiting of a leader-mind that we all want to avoid.

2       Thought-starters for Refriending Yourself:

1.     Notice that Zombie Hunting Permit in the red Honda Fit on California Avenue. Sure, you are waiting for garage parking that does not say monthly permit holders only in San Francisco. However, can’t you afford a chuckle at a bumpersticker? The United States is modded out in white with pinpricks of blood red leaking into Kansas to show the growing biohazard threat of the undead. Come on, now. Laughing with let you breathe through traffic stress.

2.     Treating yourself to a Café Au Lait with Almond Milk though it takes 20 seconds more in line and maybe a look of annoyance from your local barista to tailor your drink so you don’t get the squirts at hour 10 at the office.

3.     Re-watch a clip of Office Space for retro fax machine murder. Ideation? Maybe. But who actually has an archaic fax in view at the workspace. No fax machines will die as a result of your imagination. Pull on a pair of Harbinger gloves and beat the sh-t out of the standing kick-n-punch weighted bag during your dinner break before you do another 4 hours of overtime.
3       Death Therapy

Memento Mori

This is in no way promoting a nihilistic/fatalistic point of view. We are borrowing from best practices from writers who were English major undergrads, though. After listening to the comedy musical on SoundCloud, consider the ultimate Beginning With The End in Mind: write your novelty obituary. Novelty is the adjective. I remember doing this for sh-ts and giggles in journalism class to learn the format of such announcements.

Remember Corey Feldman in a Disney shipwrecked teen movie? He played a stoner who posited how cool it would be to be memorialized on a funereal page in his high school year book: Killed by Tigers. For those who are participating in Camp Nanowrimo this April 2014, this might be a writing warm-up.
The Editor-in-Chief, Renee Marchol, summons her courage sometimes and gets scary Zen when she says that she feels super-calm before a high-stakes pitch if she pretends that she is already dead and no rejection can hurt her. Too dark and quirky? Maybe, but it works for that boss lady.

As part of the employee selection process, prospective SmartyFella interns screened by Despite Mike, Broiled Jeff and Jack Paper must give a three sentence obit announcement. Example? Jack Paper offers: Jack Paper died at age 77 in an hot air balloon explosion over the Atlantic Ocean doing a piss-poor imitation of the Count of Monte Cristo Edmond Dantes being a showoff. Like the imagination exercise above about murdering the f-ck out of a fax machine, SGL Media suggests that no action be taken by any individual to hasten the real need for an obituary release. ‘Nuff said?

4       Embrace Embarrassment

Haters Lose Their Power

Receive a negative comment or a challenge via a social media share post? Called nutty or something more R-rated? Show that you can take it, and spin that label so that a troll or a new friend knows you are imperturbable. Don’t flame. Instead laugh with him/her.

Think of Pain as an Ingredient for Stand Up

Profit? When something is beyond your control and it hurts, have you considered this as real-life material for a stand up comedy set? Maybe later you can paid to entertain an audience with this story. Something so tragic happen to you that it is out-of-body-experience funny? Go ahead and store it in your comedy writer’s arsenal. When life gives you sh-t, can you make lemonade or even a sh-t salad? No, right? Then turn it on its head and take the power out of the circumstance’s sting.

Comedian Reggie Steele did this especially well when entertaining the audience at Rooster T. Feathers comedy club in Sunnyvale. Can’t share a spoiler but will just hint the word bear makes an appearance.
5       Pursue Alliances

Napoleon Dynamite

Vote for Pedro? Think of creative comrades to join forces during crunch time. Laugh twice as much. Also laughing to yourself seems less creepy if you have friend who also entertains your department with photoshopped pics of Minecraft+Middle Management. Dance with your moonboots in the Town Hall arcade. Have your friend announce this performance. It might draw a crowd faster than #DonutBlitz Thursday.

Deter Predators in Nature

The lone zebra is easily spotted by lionesses to cut along the lines. Right? However, it’s harder to differentiate where one zebra starts and where the pack ends when they are zigzag cocktail partying together at the water cooler. How did Don Quixote get away with tilting at windmills, at least for a short everyman’s story? Because of Sancho Panza. Think Harold and Kumar for a pop culture example. Stepbrothers also comes to mind. As strutting with confidence ready to f-ck sh-t up!

Photo Credit: Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas
Sources

Secondary Research

YouTube MyChonny
YouTube The Brothers Riedell
Step Brothers (2008)
The Artist Way by Julia Cameron
Camp Nanowrimo by Nanowrimo
Roxanne (1987) starring Comedian Steve Martin
7      Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey

Primary Research

1-1   Interviews with Comedians at Rooster T. Feathers (2013)
1-1 Interviews with Badasses (allies of SGL Media) (2014)

Product Review: Spring 2014 Pilot of Second Live, HootSuite and Office365

March 1, 2014 by smartygirl Leave a Comment

What do Second Life, HootSuite and Office 365 have in common? The first two are part of the social media survey in Dan Zarrella’s book. By survey, I mean an overview like an English major’s bane: a Norton Anthology of pain (select time period).

Thankfully, unlike the Norton Anthology’s Dan Zarrella’s book is light (literally) compared to the miserable used hardbacks. Another bonus? The guide is fun to read and not overly elementary for those who managed social bookmarking campaigns in 2011. This manual is better suited to the young entrepreneur rather than the casual user.

Photo Credit: Second Life SmartyGirlEve Flying Tank Avatar

Photo Credit: SGL Media Logo Designed by SmartyGirl Jacy Corral

I read this on the heels of a c-level cloud data security conference where Chief Information Officers discussed animatedly their current challenges with entreprise level goals and fragmented processes. In other words, it’s common for the Chief Technology Officer to balance between fostering collaboration and “light jailing” of content on employee’s devices to prevent trade secret data leaks.

When I studied journalism as an undergraduate, I also worked as a reader of technical papers for the computer science and engineering department. One of my top 3 English teachers? He also ran the Technology Hour radio program on campus. I mention this because journalism has helped me stay up to date with technology and social networking tools. In turn, this has brought me steady employment while an MBA student and marketing grad for public and private companies seeking marketing content through new media. This is not for every liberal arts major and I do not claim to speak for those who eschew mobile devices and streaming software. I’m analytical so I might not be the first to adopt disruptive technology but after investigation of its pros and cons, I’m usually on board when an app is in its beta iteration. Does this matter? Yes, because individuals and enterprises help shape a streaming product if they are willing to report errors and help IT debug and make user engagement better. However, this is not for everyone. Decide. Are you more excited when you buy something someone else developed or do you get a thrill of satisfaction when you code?

If you are more of a producer than a consumer, then this partnering-with-the-inventors consumer lifestyle is for you. Caveat? You decide your learning curve and tolerance for uncertainty. Example? I might be able to volunteer for documenting processes on a wiki for a robotics team at The Hacker Dojo but I don’t evaluate the hardware purchases. I leave that to the PhD assistants. Why? Layperson terminology is what I understand and my mode is marketing so that technical experts can reach their target layperson early adopter consumer.

3 Echoes from the most memorable participants at the Frost & Sullivan Mind Xchange last month?
Know the difference between business unit culture and company culture. Don’t be naive that protocol and workaround processes below the radar co-exist. For instance, maybe the official colloboration tool is Box for enterprise but some departments still use Dropbox for individuals. Unofficial, splintered solutions are hard for centralized IT to repair in an emergency response situation (i.e. data leak).

Resist rushing to pay for a disruptive app just because your rival does. Maybe his/her enterprise has a different schedule. In other words, maybe their IT to business innovation green light m.o. is less risky. Maybe their customers are more tolerant of being partners to correct mistakes after launch. In contrast, your project might be more established and you’ll lose reputation with your long-term followers if your experimental new feature has startup-symptom hiccups.

Hand-pick a committee of scouts. These are ambassadors between business units and management. What apps are being used by employees, interns, vendors and contractors to do the core of your business? Reward business units for transparent pilot experiments for small wins. Why? To encourage internal transparency so if data bleeds in a decentralized ap, then command central can stop the hemmoraging and the whole team isn’t bled dry. Personal Identifying Information is an example of sensitive data that rouges can use to remotely access your confidential content on all devices used by your internal staff. What else? So that your scouts don’t become mad with power? Lightly jail their authority too so that business units can do a peer vote on the most useful ambassador so that the climate is cooperative instead of adversarial. Example? Jean, voted by interns and 3rd party vendors to be the most knowledgeable and friendly about fixing the three most common problems for beginners using this new app.

Why the product review? This season I am testing out Second Life, HootSuite, and Office 365 to meet particular personal and professional goals.

What are my metrics? For Second Life, my experiment is to determine if I hear of music news as fast or faster than on Twitter. For example, you may have heard about a Second Life Lilly Allen concert and proposed payment by Bitcoin.

Another example? HootSuite might reduce the minutes per week managing editors’ curation of social media campaigns by 20%. Automation, multiple profile access through a single dashboard? Yes, interns and guest experts can borrow a profile to microblog for a set time period, representing the brand. Posts can be batched or manually scheduled to go live as a pre-set. Will adding streams to view fluctuations in new visitors help SGL be more timely in content topics?

Photo Credit: HootSuite Twitter Post Scheduling SGL SmartyFella Despite Mike Profile 

Last illustration? Three companies (undiclosed) that I admire for their current CIO Technology Thought Leadership have switched over to Office 365 as their official enterprise solution. I heard their pros/cons and I wanted to see the challenges for myself as a smaller outfit as SGL. This way I can report through our blog tech journalists, how we handle and prevent data breaches. As Editor, I opted for the monthly subscription for OneDrive Office so that I use the cloud versions of Excel, Word, and PowerPoint Online from my Windows Phone. Why? So I can test out the glitches that are expected for data transmission for Office 2013 activation bundled for my PC from now through April 2014.

Google+ Hangout, Facebook chat and Facetime via Skpe, Google Drive and Dropbox were solutions used by our staff in 2013. Our staff are Mac users and Windows users with Android and iPhones. SmartyFellas and SmartyGirls, share your own experience across devices in the comments below.

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