TTYL, Katie!

Ah the final blog post – while I’m excited to write it and be done for the summer, it’s one of those bittersweet things because I’ve really enjoyed (and of course learned from) my first blogging experience.  I guess blogging always felt sort of indulgent, why would anyone care to read my ramblings?  But doing it as an assignment made me realize that maybe I do have one or two interesting things to say on occasion.  Now, on with the assignment.

            The first concept I’d like to discuss was one of the first aspects of our project – creating personas.  The Persona Lifecycle reading, as well as cohort segment examples were new ways of thinking for me.  As an advertising student, I have become very familiar with demographic and psychographic segmentation, but focusing less on the statistical details and more on the personality of a target market was something I had not done before.  For this project, taking the time to really get to know “Katie” was challenging and interesting.  As a group, we tried not to think FOR Katie, but instead think AS Katie. Because all of us had been tweens at one point, it was hard not to project our own experiences onto who we thought Katie should be.  Analyzing statistical data was useful to gain insight into tweens like Katie, but it wasn’t until we started with other research techniques that we really started to understand who Katie was.  One team member and I went to the mall, and, as this team member recently put it, “observed them in their natural habitats.”  After that experience we really had an understanding of Katie, and were able to think like her – what she would say and do, what were her “favorites,” and what were her pain points. 

            The second concept that I was able to understand better through the project was the idea of generative research.  Again, as an advertising student, we are taught to use quantitative statistical data sets such as Market Research Insight data or Nielsen ratings.  We are also taught to use qualitative techniques such as focus groups and depth interviews.  Before this class though, my research usually ended there.  I had never before considered the idea of actually going out and participating with the targets I was trying to gain insights on.  It’s so simple of an idea really, when Kate Canales was sharing some of her techniques with us, I was kind of like “duh, why didn’t I think of that!”  I don’t think I will ever look at research the same – it’s not just qualitative or quantitative – there is great value in taking an ethnographic approach and really taking the time to not just observe your target, but really interact with them and learn to think like them. 

            I’m not sure if this is believable or not, but there really wasn’t one part of the project that was not useful to me.  I appreciated all of the steps and updates – it caused our group to stay on task and not leave the entire project until the weekend before it was due.  I got quite a bit from listening to other groups also, it was neat to hear what other people were doing, and it was fun to share insights with them.  Updates were also helpful in that it was another chance to gather valuable data about our ideas from – not necessarily our targets – but from other critical thinkers.  I also appreciated the flow of the project, it seemed like we did everything in the right order, and that we could not have completed one phase without first completing the other. 

While I can’t say there was something that I found to have little value, I do have a criticism, or something I wish would have been different – the timing of the updates.  I am not looking at the syllabus right now, but in reflecting on the project it feels like we had a lot of time upfront, and then the last two especially (rapid prototype and final prototype) were very close together.  Our group felt rushed in finding more of our targets to take the prototype back to, and when we did, there was little time to incorporate new insights into a final prototype.  I don’t know if it is possible to shorten the front end of the project - I realize all steps are important - but just something to think about.

Finally, when thinking about my emotional reactions about the project, I really am all over the place.  At first I was excited – we had so much freedom to pick any segment!  And that excitement eventually turned to frustration – tweens turned out to be a very tricky segment to research.  At times during this project I also felt uneasy – and not the kind of uneasy you are supposed to do when conducting research – this project in particular brought up a lot of ethical dilemmas for me personally.  As someone who struggled with image and acceptance as a tween, I wasn’t sure we were headed in the right direction with our project at times.  And I certainly in no way wanted to be responsible for affecting a tweens already fragile self-esteem.

Working on this project as a team was a great experience – perhaps I just got lucky with my team though, I have certainly had some less than desirable teams so far in my education!  We all showed up for nearly every group meeting, and everyone contributed something interesting and valuable to the overall finished product.  On that note, I feel as though a project like this is one that must be done in a group, rather than as an individual.  Normally I am a bit of a controller, so sometimes it’s hard for me to let go in group settings.  This project was different though – partly because of the techniques we learned in class, and probably partly because of my particular group.   It was easier than I thought it would be to act as part of a team instead of just saying “ok, you do this part, you do that part, and I’ll do this part and then we’ll put it all together at the end.”

Dr. Walls, my only reflection for you as a professor – and you copped to it on our very first class day! – is the promptness of returning our graded assignments and project updates.  While we did get feedback in class as we gave our updates, it is always helpful to have more detailed comments and suggestions in front of you when you are working on the next deliverable.  I really do appreciate the fact that you wanted to spend time with each of our projects, so I don’t have any suggestions for improvement unfortunately! 

Finally, I wanted to share how this class has been useful to me in my experiences outside of the classroom.  I am currently (for a few more days at least!) interning at GSD&M as a project manager.  Throughout the semester, I have been working with a team of interns from different departments within the agency.  Our task was to complete an experiential marketing campaign for Ace Hardware, competing with three other intern teams.  Our team created a persona for our target, which not only gave us an edge over the competition; it guided our campaign from the beginning.  Also, we used some non-traditional research techniques – not only did we go to hardware stores to observe, we spoke with people in stores and in their homes.  Once we finally decided on the concept of a bACEball themed experience, we went to a local baseball game as research.  We finally ended up with a mobile game, leading to a cross-country event tour - which I would argue is NOT experiential marketing, but rather event marketing – but hey, we still learned a lot. 

Now I’m at the point when the blog becomes self-indulgent and rambly, so I will finish up now by saying this:  though this was only my second semester in my graduate education, this has hands down been my favorite class, partly because of the project.  I looked forward to going to class each day, and to meeting with my group to work on our idea.  I do still have two years to go, but the bar has officially been set!

    

One First Class Ticket to Bentonville, Please!

I should start out this blog post by saying that I am absolutely fascinated with Wal-Mart.  It’s a fascination that started in the early 90’s – when I was ten and living just outside of Seattle.  All of my extended family lived (and still does live) in rural Mississippi.  When I would go visit my grandparents for the summer, my suburban friends would ask me to bring them a souvenir from – no joke – Wal-Mart.  One summer I actually found a manager in the Starkville, Mississippi Wal-Mart and asked him for some pens and office stationary printed with Wal-Mart logos.  We didn’t have Wal-Mart’s where I lived, and getting to set foot in one was almost as cool as going to Disney Land.  Ok, maybe not quite as cool… but it was still something to talk about on the first day back at 6^th grade.

              My fascination with the retail giant has continued over the last two decades, but I haven’t always held a positive opinion.  I am well aware of the controversy surrounding Wal-Mart – lawsuits and allegations of unfair wages, sexual harassment, and “running the local guys out of town.”  But I believe big business will always be met with critics, and it has only been in the last year that I’ve really started learning about Wal-Mart from a marketing and business point of view.

            There is no doubt that Wal-Mart is everywhere.  According to the book The Wal-Mart Effect, more than half of all Americans live within 5 miles of a Wal-Mart, and ninety percent of Americans live within 15 miles of one.  The book was originally published in 2006, so we can assume the distance from me to my closest Wal-Mart has shrunk considerably in the last 5 years.  The book also states that the average Wal-Mart stocks about 60,000 items – which means you could put 50 different items in your cart every day for three years without buying the same thing twice.  And that doesn’t include the increasingly popular “Super Centers” which have an average of 120,000 different items stocked at one time.  With so many items coming and going on any given day, it makes perfect sense to me that Wal-Mart has such a vast collection of data gathered from customers. 

            The article “What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers Habits” does a good job at highlighting what I think is a very important point – Wal-Mart’s focus is now, and has always been, on products and low prices, not on the people buying those products.  I’m no expert on customer tracking data, but I would guess that every time we make purchases with credit cards or buy something online, we are giving out the exact same information to retailers everywhere.  I think that the sheer size of Wal-Mart is what is causing anxiety for some.  100 million weekly customers naturally just result in huge amounts of data.  And to me, shopping at Wal-Mart is no different than shopping at Target, Macy’s, or even Bergdorf Goodman… well, from a data gathering perspective at least.  I strongly feel that every time we swipe our credit card we are volunteering information about ourselves.  If you’re that concerned about privacy, pay with cash.

             But what about the other type of data they collect?  Wal-Mart keeps track of the number of items each checkout clerk scans at each cash register… at every store… in every state… for every shift (roughly 6-8 items per minute, fyi).  This means they know how many cash registers to have open during “rush hours” and I, as a busy consumer, appreciate that.  Because Wal-Mart is also carefully monitoring purchases in real time, they also know WHAT I might want and WHEN I might want it, which is another thing that I, the busy consumer, appreciate. 

A good example of Wal-Mart using customer data to provide a competitive advantage happens every August – Back To School season.  When I moved to Austin last August, I came with essentially nothing but the clothes I had in a suitcase.  Maybe it was her rural upbringing, but my mom (who was helping me with the move) insisted that our first stop was Wal-Mart.  Sure enough, we filled up two carts with everything from towels to measuring cups to pots and pans.  I even got a few groceries and some school supplies.  Sure, a trip to Target might have resulted in about 70% of the same items being purchased – but the fact that Wal-Mart seemed to have everything that I needed – and more – was astounding.  There are times when I would prefer going to Target, but when I need mass quantities of “stuff” and I want the lowest price possible, Wal-Mart is a surer bet.  As Charles Fishman (The Wal-Mart Effect) puts it, you “buy things” at Wal-Mart, you “shop” everywhere else.

So now that you know I actually don’t mind giving away my information to Wal-Mart, what about some of the tougher issues that always seem to encourage debate surrounding Wal-Mart?  It seems like just about everybody has an opinion on how Wal-Mart is able to keep prices so low – and if forcing suppliers to meet such strict demands is a good or a bad thing.  For me, the jury is still out.  I see the value in it, for sure.  The opening chapter in The Wal-Mart Effect talks about how a simple request changed deodorant packaging forever.  Instead of being sold in boxes – boxes that consumers throw away anyway, boxes that take up shelf space, boxes that cost money to produce – why not just get rid of the box?  A simple request to suppliers literally changed the industry forever.  Good news for Wal-Mart, who could now fit more varieties on its shelf.  God news for consumers, who shared in the savings of a few cents per stick.  Bad news, though, if you were a box manufacturer. 

I see the power that Wal-Mart has because of its size alone.  Even if you’re a big consumer goods player like P&G, when Wal-Mart asks you to lower your price on something, you’re probably going to listen.  But there’s a catch – the more business a supplier does with Wal-Mart, the less money they make.  Some suppliers simply can’t keep up with the demands, and this is where I think Wal-Mart needs to keep itself in check.  They claim to have “partnerships” with all of their vendors, but if they are not careful it will turn quickly into a dictatorship.  Using insights to say, hey, we really DON’T need that deodorant box is a great way to improve efficiency and pass savings onto consumers, but Wal-Mart must be careful not to go too far in the demands it makes or they will be left with empty shelves.

I could go on an on about my fascination with Wal-Mart… ethical and societal implications is another blog post or two on its own.  In summary though, I think Wal-Mart has done a great job with managing the data it collects from its army of consumers and is  using it to our benefit.  I think they have used customer insights to give their consumers what they want – low prices and convenience.  And, for now at least, they have used some of that data to positively influence their suppliers.  Wal-Mart is still relatively young though, and only time will tell if data collected to give consumers low prices is really worth the cost.

          

The death of print: proceed with caution on funeral plans.

I remember vividly when my mother allowed me to subscribe to my very first magazine:  Teen.  I had been begging her for about two years, but she insisted that until I was thirteen, I was not an appropriate audience.  Fast-forward through junior high and high school – Teen, Seventeen, Sassy, Jane – all landed in my mailbox monthly.  Fast-forward through college – Glamour, Cosmo, Marie Claire, Vogue – and my love of reading magazines started developing into a passion for creating magazine content.  In May of 2005, I finished my degree in southern California and two weeks later was on a plane to New York because that was where publishing dreams came true.

I eventually landed in the production department of Allure magazine and could not have been happier.  I was doing what I set out to do – making magazines a reality for consumers like myself.  A few years in though, as magazines seemed to fold around me almost daily, a scary reality set in: print (as I knew and loved it) was dying.  And then in the spring of 2010, a beacon of hope from Silicon Valley: the iPad.  Soon after the launch news, the entire staff was invited to a meeting with Condé Nast’s CEO.  If you were to do a quick scan of the floor seconds after the invite was sent, you’d have seen Gawker.com on every computer screen – that’s where we in the biz got our news first – and everyone wanted to know if we were going to get the dreaded “Well, Allure’s had a good run, but it’s time we said goodbye…” 

Later that week, I was in the theater at 4 Times Square intently listening to Chuck Townsend as he explained the innovation that was taking place around us.  He showed us a video of what was happening a few floors up at Wired, and explained the possibilities of digital formatting for the publishing industry. 

I left that meeting with a renewed love for magazines, but wondered how it would affect the actual medium of print.  The questions I had then are still unanswered today.  How do digital magazines work – are they simply downloadable pdfs or to what degree can consumers feel involved?  Who creates the pages and features?  How does the digitization of print affect the arts of journalism and photography?  What potential is there for interactivity, not only with publishing content, but also with products and services through advertising?  Does print really have to die to make way for digital, or can the two co-exist?  I recently saw this ad from Belgium insurance company AXA. 

Neat, right?  It was actually a little hard for me to leave my job to attend graduate school during what I thought was an interesting time for the industry.  But I’m excited to explore my ideas in an academic environment and know that in a very short time I’ll be back in the workforce, only better equipped to bring those ideas to publishing (or wherever else my career takes me).  In reading the article “Print is Dead, Long Live Print: Digital Magazines Have Publishers in a Spin” (Kit Eaton, FastCompany.com, March 2010), something posted in the comments section struck me the most.  The article was about the publishing industry’s “Power of Print” campaign, and it’s odd timing given the digital revolution.  The commenter argues that “… until the last baby boomer dies, there will be an audience for good old fashioned print” (Loraine Antrim).

 Looking at the topic from a customer insights perspective, I think one of my struggles will be in defining my target persona.  I know for a fact there are plenty of people out there (myself included) who like the feel of a glossy page and aren’t ready for a 2lb electronic replacement.  How do I move forward and innovate, without alienating those who have been loyal for years?  How do I make something available and affordable to the masses?  On a business-to-business level, how do I pitch the idea of digital advertising to brands that are used to printed pages?  As far as research, I know I will need to really get in touch with consumers and dissect their relationship with publications – observations, depth interviews, surveys.  I would also like to get in touch with some of my contacts in the industry and find out what they are currently doing and what they would like to be doing to revolutionize the way we read.   

Another article, “How the Magazine Industry Can Save Itself” (Ritik Dholakia, Fastcodesign.com, September 2010) explains some of the potentials and cautions of the changing industry.  The author explains many ways to approach adding new value through content by innovating not from a publishing perspective but from that of a curator, and he explains that depth and frequency of engagement rather than volume of impressions should be measures of success.

            In summary, I’ve been an avid consumer of and contributor to the publishing industry for almost two decades now.  There was a time not too long ago when I was fearful my treasured magazines would cease to exist all together.  I realize now they actually probably will cease to exist as I knew them growing up, but that change is nothing to be fearful of.  Equipped with the tools of customer insights, I can be excited about the future of both the consumption and creation of magazines.  

"Let's make a (new car) deal!"

When thinking about experiential marketing, many things come to mind.  Shoe shopping in Bergdorf Goodman, cosmetics shopping in Sephora, and even apartment “shopping” after I moved to Austin.  However, the one experience that is standing out as particularly meaningful is my recent car buying experience.

The experience started last July in Manhattan.  It was humid, hot and stinky.  For those who haven’t experienced it, New York City has a distinct odor about it in July; I came to refer to it as “Garbage Smell.”  Car shopping was a task that presented mixed emotions - I was excited to be taking on the next phase of my life - grad school in Texas required wheels for the first time in years, but I was dreading negotiating – especially when it was gross outside and all I wanted to do was cuddle with my air conditioner.  I think subconsciously too, I was dreading the experience because I was sad to leave New York.

The experience began on a whim. I was walking down 11^th Avenue in mid-town (where all the dealerships live) and decided to stop in – probably more for the few moments of cool fresh air rather than a real intent to purchase.  I knew a car was in my imminent future, but I hadn’t really done my homework.  I went first to an Acura dealership.  Being a single woman walking into a car dealership is really amazing.  There were probably three men in suits standing around and, no joke, they kind of looked like this:

  It actually took them a minute to approach me.  I could almost see the thought bubbles over their heads, “she must be meeting her husband” and “she’s probably picking up her car from the service department.”  Nevertheless, one cautiously approached me (I half expected him to call me “sweetie”) and asked if he could offer his services.  I told him basically what I was looking for - at that time it was something a few years old, low mileage, an automatic, that I was intending to pay cash, and that I didn’t want to spend over $15,000. 

He toured me around the showroom, schmoozing me and attempting to persuade me to lease something way over my budget, but I remained strong and got good at saying “no thank you.”  We finally ended up in the basement of the dealership (car dealerships in the city have distinct spatial environments – there is no outdoor lot, so the cars live on different floors within the building).  We finally came to a car I could actually see myself in – it was a 2009 black Nissan Rogue with leather interior and a sun-roof.  As much as I tried to hide it (yes, my poker face is terrible), the dealer could tell I was interested in the car despite the fact that it was well over my budget, and he invited me upstairs to his office to talk.  And this is where the fun began.  He talked about the features of the car, Nissan’s reliability, and blah blah blah for about ten minutes and then… are you ready for it?   He took out a post it note, slyly wrote down a number, and coolly slid it across the table without a word.  I really did start laughing.  How old school was this guy?  Did he really think I was going to fall for the post-it slide?  Ha!  Needless to say, I took a peek at the number he wrote (which was approximately $200 less than the $22,990 sticker price on the car – thanks for the bargain buddy!) and again said “no thank you” and walked out.

            While I did leave empty handed that day, that experience directly preceded another – the experience where I actually did wind up with a car.  Because I now had an interest in the Nissan Rogue, I began to do my homework.  What I found (and what ultimately led to a successful purchase) can be explained as attempts at experiential marketing.

            Armed with a new interest in the Rogue, I began to pay attention to TV ads for the car.  The one airing at the time was definitely ACT marketing.  It had a catchy tune and featured the lines, “Hello bikes and backpacks, aloha surfboards and skis…”  The commercial then went on to demonstrate the ways the seat could fold down to “handle whatever life throws at it…”  The ad appealed to me because it was portraying the lifestyle I was attempting to capture with my new car – an active one.  Even the name, “Rogue,” conveyed what I was hoping for – unpredictability and abandon.  The TV ad can also be classified as SENSE marketing; it used vibrant music, was shot in bright sunlight, and featured beautiful beach and mountain scenes.  

            The following weekend, I walked a little further down 11^th Avenue and this time went into a Nissan dealership.  Car dealerships anywhere can be considered a case study in SENSE marketing – the lights are so bright that the chrome on the vehicles is almost blinding, each vehicle is polished to perfection, and everyone knows about “new car smell.”  I think they actually manufacture it and pump it in to dealerships.  What happened next though was very different from my first dealership experience – a young man in causal clothing came over asking if he could help.  We talked for a while about what I was looking for, he showed me some vehicles, and then I walked away.  There was no heavy sales pitch, no negotiating, and definitely no post-its sliding across desks. 

The importance of salespeople in customer relations was shouting loud and clear to me in this experience.  Even if I had liked the first car I saw, I probably would not have purchased from that smarmy post-it salesman.  I did however (after a few more trips back to the dealership) end up purchasing from this second non-aggressive salesman.  And low and behold, I actually ended up purchasing – with no prompting from the salesman - a new vehicle that was over my initial budget. 

During the many visits it took to complete the transaction, this young dealer and I became friendly.  I finally asked him why he hadn’t pressured me that first day.  He told me he could tell I wasn’t ready to buy, and he knew that if he proceeded with caution I’d be back.  He was right.  I also asked him what he thought of me, a single female, negotiating and purchasing a car without the assistance of a man.  He looked at me, puzzled, and asked why it should matter.  I think that’s another thing that made this particular salesman a good one – I felt respected throughout the process.  I never felt like he was trying to pull a fast one on me, and I never felt pressure to hand over money before I was ready.

            In the end, the experience turned out to be a positive one.  I wound up with a car I love at what I think was a great price (the act of negotiating is an entirely separate blog post!), and more importantly my experience with the Nissan brand and it’s representatives was impactful.  I have since referred others to that same dealership, and word-of-mouth is an important measure of experiential satisfaction.  

Here is a picture of what my lovely car looks like, I call her Sara (ha ha, get it?).

  

    

Ponderings Pertaining to Personas

The Short Version:

The Long Version:

After working as a professional for five years, I made the decision to return to school to pursue a graduate degree.  I think I’m a pretty interesting – though challenging – segment.  For example, I’m 30 but I’m not married and don’t have children.  I consider myself financially secure and my financial future looks bright, but I don’t have a paycheck right now.  And I’m very active and have diverse interests and hobbies, but I rarely have enough free time to indulge.  One of my interests in marketing is actually reaching consumers like myself – consumers who I feel are currently a large missed population.   

As far as thinking and feeling goes, I sometimes worry that I’m doing too much thinking and not enough feeling.  My alarm clock goes off early every morning, and from that point until my head hits the pillow late at night – my mind is constantly racing.  If I’m not in class, I’m studying for a class.  If I’m not at a networking event, I’m researching potential companies for internships or employment.  Even when I’m supposed to be taking time for myself  - working out at the gym or having dinner with friends for example – I’m still thinking about what I should be doing to prepare for the next day.  If there were a twitter feed attached directly to my brain, the flow would be dizzying.   

What counts and what REALLY count are two very different things.  What counts is getting good grades.  What counts is making a good impression on my professors and colleagues.  What counts is getting a good internship so that I can get a good job so that I can make a lot of money so that I can live the life I want.  What REALLY counts is my family and my friends.  I recently lost a loved one, and that definitely put things into perspective.  Surrounded by the people I love, not one person was reminiscing about stock portfolios or vacation homes.

This might be sounding a little pessimistic, so let me also say that I am truly happy with the decision I made to attend graduate school.  Education is value of mine, so no matter the career outcome, having an advanced degree is something I will be proud of.  I’m also grateful to be back in a classroom.  As and undergraduate I didn’t truly appreciate the value of academic dialog, and everyday is challenging and refreshing in the best ways.

My current environment consists of campus, coffee shops, and the confines of my apartment.  Very little time on campus is actually spent in the classroom – I’m usually in the lobby of this building or that building, reading a book, surfing the Internet, chatting with friends, or blowing off steam at the gym.  When I’m at home, I’m usually sleeping or watching a really bad reality show – one that I’ve recorded of course – so that I can watch an hour length show in about 40 minutes.  I don’t watch the news for information; I either get in on my laptop in between classes, or on my iPhone on the bus on the way to school.  I look at an average of 5 apps once an hour: Gmail, Google calendar, twitter, CNN, and Facebook.

 Defining my circle of friends is tricky – because I’m not a Texas native, I have quite a few long distance relationships.  I have made friends in the few months I’ve been in Austin, but they aren’t those deep friendships yet, the ones that take time to cultivate.  Most of my great friends are scattered around the country, in places where I’ve spent the greatest amount of time – Seattle, California, and New York.  Because my most significant relationships are in New York, I travel there just about once every two months.  New York is the best place on earth as far as I’m concerned, and as soon as I get off the plane, I walk a little faster and smile a little more (though the smiling part is very un-New York, that must be an Austin influence). 

As far as what I say and do, I think what you see is pretty much what you get with me.  I’m more confident that I was in my early twenties; I’m not afraid to speak my mind or be myself in front of new people.  I do care a great deal about my appearance (does this sound vain?) and feel better about myself when I am wearing a favorite outfit.  I like to work out and stay fit, I like to wear makeup and nail polish and other feminine things, and I LOVE fashion.  I don’t believe in the student uniform of gym shorts, a T-shirt, and North Face backpack – I believe that graduate school is my full-time job, and I like to dress the part.

I’m actually curious to hear what people would say about me.  I think they’d say I’m driven, motivated, intelligent, and friendly.  And here I go being vain again, but people tell me I have good hair.  I like to think I’m funny, even though sometimes I’m the only one who laughs at my jokes.  I’ve spent a great deal of time volunteering for an organization that is very dear to me, so I’d hope that people would say I’m a giver.  Bosses would probably say I’m too much of a pleaser, and that I need to become less of a doormat – still working on that one.  Last year when I ran the New York City Marathon, around mile 17 my Mom said, “Great job honey, but you can stop if you want too.”  And my Dad said, “Come on, you can run faster than that.”  

I’ve spent a great deal of the past year thinking about my fears actually, and my pains and gains are good to discuss in tandem.  One of my greatest aspirations and measures of success is in my future career.  I want to be an independent, respected, successful, and financially secure woman.  I don’t want to depend on anyone to help me buy a house, I don’t want to just sit around and wait for promotions, and I don’t want to rely on someone else for my happiness.  On the flip-side of this is my greatest fear – that I will be work with blinders on towards what I currently define as successful – and that ten years from now I will look back, all alone, and realize that I forgot to fall in love and forgot to have children.  I’m only thirty, but it feels like I’m still behind in the game.  It scares me to think about starting a new career at 32 when I graduate.  It also scares me to think that what I currently define as successful doesn’t really matter in the end.  At least I’m aware of that right??  No denial here.

If I'm ever a marketer trying to tap the mind of a consumer like me, I don't know what I'd do, actually.  Which is probably why I feel like a missed segment.  While I definitely know where I'm going - or at least where I think I'm going - my life is in a state of flux.  I'm always connected to technology, but still I'm hard to reach.  I'm definitely in a state of persona transition... sure is a fun place to be.