Wide-eyed and Jaded

Before I explain what this is all about, please know I didn’t say one of these words about myself. That is exactly why this list was created. “You’re so hard on yourself” is a phrase uttered to me often, and I heard a lot of it this weekend at PodCamp Boston 3.

It’s hard for me to take someone else’s advice regarding my personal life because I’m so stuck in my own mind. But my amazing friends who attended PCB3 with me helped me step out of my head for a while and appreciate Rayanne for everything Rayanne is.

After the final day of the conference, my group/our clique/the awesome Seesmicers went out to make sure we said goodbye on a high note. When I wasn’t paying attention, my e-mom passed around a napkin printed with the words, “Rayanne is” and asked everyone to choose five words that they thought described me.

You’ve seen the result.

The phrase I most clearly remember from PCB3 is: Seesmic is emotional.

I spent the weekend with about a dozen people I met many months ago on Seesmic. I have gotten to know these people online as well as I would have if I met them in person. When we departed early Monday morning, I cried. And cried and cried and cried. When my co-workers asked me on Tuesday morning how my weekend was, I had to choke back tears and tell them I wasn’t ready to talk about it.

I feel like I’m going through a breakup. The feeling was especially present when I expressed my complete sadness to some of the other PCB3 attendees and got responses like, “Yeah, it’s sad, but we’ll see each other again soon.” I thought I was too emotionally attached and was about to torture myself further.

But my friend (and one of the group) ChrisCavs said it best on a Seesmic post with something like this:

I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s constantly checking Flickr for new pictures and videos. What is it with this weekend? I guess we all needed something like that.

So, I’m not alone. PodCamp Boston was a wonderful experience. Seesmic is emotional. And I’ll likely have more to say about that later.

Photos by MissSomething and Starman.

One of the first things I was taught in my Online PR course was the importance of building, protecting and managing my personal brand. Keep up blog posts (I promise I’m working on this!), leave comments on other blogs, get involved in various online spaces, be careful of what you have on your Facebook profile, etc.

I found it pretty easy to produce some top notch Google juice of my own. It isn’t difficult when you have a name like Rayanne Langdon. Even before joining Seesmic, signing up to Twitter or starting a discussion about ethics on Inside PR, googling “Rayanne Langdon” turned up dozens of pages—most of which directly related to me. A LiveJournal account here, a profile on the CBC Radio 3 website there… I’ve existed online for a very long time. One of the first searches I did resulted in my re-discovery of an ICQ Foo Fighters fan group I made when I was 14. I called it Forever Foo. I’m a moron. Hah.

I was never scared of any of the information out there about me. I’ve never worried about what I did or said in the past that may rear its questionable head again. I’ve done and I still do some weird and ridiculous things on the Internet (more posts are a-brewin’), and I am not ashamed or embarrassed. I’m the girl who had Wayne Gretzky as an imaginary friend when I was a child, remember?

The intricacies of my online activities make me who I am. I love and am so proud of everything one can learn about me by doing a simple Google search. My heart goes out to those with names a little more common than mine.

So, when I see influencers teaching young people to constantly remain professional in all their online endeavours, I feel sad for them. I recognize the necessity to smarten up about the public photos posted on one’s Facebook profile, but I think introducing someone to online public relations by giving warnings about what can and will be used against them deters young people from wanting to get involved in such a space.

Yes, being social media savvy might help a student land a great job in the near future, but don’t lie—there are still plenty of communications jobs for those refusing to blog or tweet. Many people still need to be convinced that this a great place to be! Please don’t use scare tactics. And yes, I believe scare tactics are exactly what is being used.

We are all people. We all make mistakes and we all want to have fun. We can be responsible and human at the same time.

At 9 a.m. tomorrow, I join the rest of Centennial College’s School of Communications, Media and Design in celebrating the completion of my post-graduate certificate in Corporate Communications and Public Relations. Are you proud of me?

I graduated from Carleton University only a year ago (that’s when the photo was taken), so I’m not losing my mind with enthusiasm right now. But, I was the best student I’ve been since high school this year, and I’m beyond proud of all my accomplishments.

I’m so grateful to Centennial and my instructors there this year, including Christine Smith and Gary Schlee. The program taught me more than I could have imagined in such a short amount of time. Gary made the school attractive to me from my first admissions interview when he confirmed that the Centre for Creative Communications is, in fact, where the original Degrassi High was filmed. Through organizing an incredible social media unconference and introducing an Online PR course to the curriculum, Gary demonstrated what our 500 student campus is capable of. I am truly proud to have another alma mater in Centennial.

Best of luck to Christine as she takes over Gary’s role as Program Co-ordinator. And congratulations to Jessie-May Rowntree on her continuation at the Centre as a part-time instructor while she extends her communications experience elsewhere in the industry.

For those of you who don’t know, I finished my internship at Veritas Communications and com.motion. I’ve been asked to stay as a Junior Coordinator of social media throughout the summer and of course I accepted.

All you other recent grads or those about to, what are your plans? How do you feel now that another journey is over?

I was 11 years old when the Spice Girls first introduced their version of girl power to pop music fans worldwide, and I ate it up. My bedroom walls were also adorned with pictures of the (I then considered) dreamy Backstreet Boys. I was never into ‘N Sync, but I still love Hanson—sorry.

Within two years, three bands/musicians began to change my life—or at least the way I heard and appreciated music. My big brother (unintentionally) introduced me to Beck, Foo Fighters and Weezer. The former two have been up to so much, I find it difficult to keep up, but I will always respect them for leading me to better music. Weezer, however, remains one of my top two favourite bands of all time (the other is the Smiths).

Unlike most hardcore =w= fans, I still believe if it’s too loud, turn it down. Yes, Blue and Pinkerton are AMAZING and UNBEATABLE albums, but that’s just it; Green, Maladroit and Make Believe are good records, but the band started it’s career too perfectly to ever live up to the standards it set in 1994. I recognize this. That’s why I’ll stand by Rivers Cuomo, Brian Bell, Pat Wilson, Scott Shriner and even ex-bassist Matt Sharp (but probably not unstable Mikey Welsh) ’til the end.

June 3 marked the release of Weezer’s sixth album, The Red Album. I’m ashamed to say that all I’ve heard from it so far is the single, Pork and Beans.

Many of you have probably seen the video continually growing more popular on YouTube. It features many Internet fads and celebrities (either the real thing or a parody), including:

• the Numa Numa guy
• Britney’s BFF Chris Crocker;
• Drama Prairie Dog (loved by Eden’s son);
• Daft Hands;
• Daft Bodies; and
• Chocolate Rain Man himself, Tay Zonday.

Say what you will about the band trying too hard or stealing ideas from the Barenaked Ladies (can someone link me to the video Pork and Beans is being compared to?), but the bottom line is: Weezer is listening.

Dr. Pepper is not the only man capitalizing on Mr. I move away from the mic to breathe in. Watch this video of Zonday covering Weezer… with Weezer:

Okay so, I’m having way too much trouble embedding this video without completely effing the layout, so here it is until I figure this out. My apologies.

Photo from Stereogum.

Wow, it has been so long since I’ve updated. I’m kicking myself for it. I keep telling myself, “You have to blog, Rayanne. Your employers will think you were blogging only to land the internship.” Haha. So this—the weekend following my first week working at a PR agency—is my chance to begin to show that I’m in for the long haul.

After weeks of diligent job hunting, resume and cover letter tailoring and discussing internship frustrations with my classmates, I’ve landed at Veritas Communications, specifically in com.motion, the agency’s social media marketing department.

A lot of people have told me I don’t have agency personality. I even presented on this in my Presentation Skills class at Centennial. I’ve had trouble understanding why people said this and often refuse to believe it.

I know I’m a quiet girl. I attribute this to the way I was raised, and I don’t have a problem with that. My parents are ministers. I went to church every Sunday (often twice and on other days of the week as well) until I moved away from home for university. I was always a very cheery, smiley and friendly child. I’ve always made friends easily and have little difficulty getting along with most people I meet. I also like to think I’m pretty selfless. I suppose saying that is kind of selfish in itself, actually. But, I honestly rarely put myself first in anything I’m confronted with. I like helping other people so much. Mostly, I just want everyone to like me. So I guess my selfless nature has a seedy underbelly.

Why am I telling you this and what the hell does it have to do with my internship or agency personality? Well, because I work to make other people happy, I tend to keep to myself when I can and let other people talk if that’s what they prefer to do. I know this is a problem. I am on one end of the extremity scale.

So, when I hear I might not fit into an agency as well as some of my classmates, I cringe, but I know exactly why.

You might also be wondering, “Why did you try so hard to get into an agency knowing you might not fit in?” I didn’t really think of this when I was applying to be an intern. I just thought of my specific skills and what I love to do (which is social media, for those who don’t know me well).

I know there are many corporations and not-for-profit organizations interested in becoming more connected, but I fear for those only doing so because it seems like the new bandwagon to jump into. I know I’m not a social media expert, and I don’t want to be responsible for helping an organization do something it shouldn’t or isn’t ready to do. So, I decided to look for a place to work that was already involved, but could benefit from my personal touch as well.

At the same time, I do know what I’m talking about. I love social media. And yeah, I’m starting to hate the term as much as the bitter guys. But, I’ve been a huge Internet nerd since being introduced to it in 1996. I love meeting people from all over the world and the many different ways there are to do so.

That’s what social media is to me—a different world to meet new people and talk with them. Frighteningly, I don’t think a lot of people share my opinion. I think a lot of them say they do only because that’s what’s expected of them.

So, while learning to overcome my quiet nature, I hope to bring my experience and honesty to the table during my eight weeks at Veritas. And, I hope I learn a lot, too.

I dig brands. Well, certain brands. I totally buy into companies with strong, unique and recognizable brands.

Example: I’m a Mac girl. It all started with my utter obsession to get an iPod. About five years ago, my big brother’s desire to own an iPod became mine as well. For a couple of Christmases, he’d shake every gift box next to his ear and ask aloud, “iPod?” It was never an iPod.

When I got my OSAP loan about two and a half years ago, I bought a silver, six gigabyte iPod Mini. It’s pretty old school now, but I’m still kind of in love with it. And, I only use Apple earbuds. Specifically, this in-ear version:

You’re probably thinking, “She only wears those earphones so people will know she has an iPod.” That’s a common reaction, and I get it. Honestly, I used to think that’s why I wanted only those. But, it’s more about the Apple brand for me. Apple earbuds are fairly recognizable, and that’s just the way I want to roll.

I hated the colour of my iPod when I first bought it because it’s not white like the original iPod. But, I could only afford a Mini, so silver was the next best choice.

A year and a half ago, I bought a MacBook. It was around the time Apple released the black version of the product. What colour do you think my MacBook is?

Most of you reading this know I’m crazy about Twitter. I’m ridiculously obsessed with it, and I know I’m not alone. But, most Twitter fanatics are devoted to one twitter application or another. The thing is, I’m just not feeling it.

Snitter is a Twitter application that users can download to their desktop. The client allows twitterers to see what’s going on in their feed while going about their daily online business. If a Twitter users receives a message directed at her, she’ll see a notice (accompanied with a pretty, little ding) pop out of the top-right corner of her monitor. Best of all, she can reply without going to the website. Here’s a picture of the pretty, little ditty:

Twirl is another application similar to Snitter. It does essentially the same thing as Snitter, but all clients have their own tiny differences that make them unique and appealing to different people. I don’t know much about it because I’ve never used it. Actually, I haven’t used Snitter, either. But, I’ve seen Miranda use it quite a bit. Here’s the visual:

The reason I’m not terribly fond of either of these applications lays in the Twitter brand. I like the way the website looks. When I see it, I immediately know where I am. It’s familiar. It’s Twitter.

I prefer keeping a tab on my browser open to twitter.com at all times when I’m online. Every few minutes, I refresh the page. That way, I’m always on top of everything that’s going on in my twitter stream. I’ve seen people tweet they missed an @message or direct message because of their application one too many times to put my faith in an outside source.

However, I’m not attacking twitter apps without trying something out myself. Actually, I’m not attacking anything. I’m just stating my preference. Anyway, I use TwitterFox:

TwitterFox is a client designed for users of Firefox, obviously. I like it because it appears as a tiny “t” in the bottom-right corner of my browser. Tweets appear as they are posted. @messages show in green, and direct messages in yellow. My feed is hidden until I click on it and ask it to appear. And, if I double-click on the t, I am directed to the site. But, what I like most about TwitterFox is the colour. It looks a lot like the website. It adheres to the Twitter brand.

And yes, you can change the look of your Twitter page; you don’t have to be a sheep like me. But, I just like the site the way it is! I tried playing around with the colours, but nothing looked as good as the default. Developers really know what they’re doing, ya know? This is the same reason I never souped up my MySpace page.

There are many more applications for Twitter I haven’t mentioned. But, I think you get the point.

Fellow Twitter pals, what application do you use and why? Perhaps you can convince me to experiment with a new client.

On Sunday, I attended (and volunteered a little, but was barely needed due to excellent organization!) PodCamp Toronto 2008. I had such a good time basking in being a huge nerdly nerdstrom. But, I decided to challenge myself a little at this event.

A posting by my colleague Kristen Zemlak today reinforced my belief that I need to take more risks in social media, PR education and life in general. She wrote:

As we have recently learned during in-class interviewing modules, it’s common practice for interviewers to ask questions to which they already know the answers. Their intent being to get their source to tell the story.

I responded:

I agree with that statement 100 per cent. I know what I find interesting, and sometimes it’s difficult to ask questions that aren’t intended to reinforce my beliefs.

Some of my classmates consider me ahead of the pack when it comes to involvement in social media. One of them asked me today why I didn’t ask a question during Inside PR’s 100th episode recording session. I told her I already knew the answers to the questions I wanted to ask, and felt it would be pointless to revive the dead horse. I know this is a weakness of mine, and I am trying to take more risks.

At PodCamp, I sat in on sessions about TalkShoe, interpreting web stats and Yahoo! Pipes among others. I knew next to nothing about any of these topics before Sunday, and I am very excited to see how I can put new tactics to use.

I’m not gonna lie—I was in heaven while listening in on a Twitter panel discussion with Connie Crosby, Dave Fleet, Adele McAlear, Eden Spodek and Tommy Vallier. But, I could have attended more talks about topics I’m well aware of.

The most important thing I learned this weekend is:

I can have just as much fun learning something new than looking to talk about something I’m already passionate about.

I’m sorry for the tease; I will write a more detailed post about PodCamp Toronto soon. I just needed to let some steam out of my personal air ducts tonight.

I’m glad Lisa posted this because I was toying with the idea for a while. I think it’s a great idea that we share some things about ourselves that, while not too personal, would not likely come up in our typical conversations.

So, I’m going to pretend Lisa tagged me, and fill out this little meme myself. And, I will tag some of you to do the same. Do it! Come on, it’s fun!

Without further hesitation, here are 10 things you probably didn’t know about me:

1. The town I lived in for the first 11 years of my life has a population of about only 300. My mother grew up there, her parents lived there and it was just a fantastic place to grow up. My house was steps away from the Atlantic Ocean. We had a big bay window, and we’d watch whales play all summer days long.

My house was not far right of these two. Ours was one of the larger houses in the community; a two-and-a-half story home, updated with a beautiful skylight window in the upstairs.

The closest “city” was a 45-minute drive away, and its population was about 5,000—the same size as Napanee (where I went to high school), which everyone thinks is unbelievably small.

2. Some of you already know this because of my stories during the planning of our mock media conference, but when I was little, my imaginary friend was Wayne Gretzky.

That’s right—I wasn’t imaginative enough to create my own imaginary friend. I had to borrow one from the LA Kings. I didn’t even like hockey growing up, and I still barely do, but my dad was pretty into it, and he’s always been a huge role model for me.

One time, my brother overheard me having a conversation with myself in the sandbox. When he asked me who I was talking to, I said, “Wayne Gretzky.” There you have it. Oh, and my mother still has copies of letters I wrote to Wayne, telling him I planned to visit him and his family in LA.

3. I was voted mostly likely to work for Rolling Stone in my high school yearbook. This is largely because I was on the yearbook staff, and I refused to believe I was meant to do anything else.

4. I LOVE back-to-school shopping, but I have never needed to do so. I have more empty notebooks and unused pens than I do used.

5. My parents are ministers. That’s right—both of them.

My mother went into the ministry when she was 17, but left after under three years because she found it difficult to handle as a young, single woman. Mom and dad went back to the training college when I was 11, and my family lived in a college with about 30 other students and their families for two years.

6. I boast about the east coast of Canada like I’m getting paid for it, but I’ve never been farther west than Toronto. (Don’t worry, I really want to go some day!)

7. I own probably more than 50 pairs of socks. (I’m obviously not counting.) I’m not much into buying them anymore, but there was a time when I couldn’t step into a clothing store without buying a pair of socks. My close friends and family know me as a person who loves socks, so I add at least a half-dozen more pairs to my collection every Christmas.

8. I go to a lot of concerts. The first musician I saw live was contemporary Christian artist Ray Boltz in Mount Pearl, N.L.

Hilarious, right? Here’s a more recent photo:

When I moved to Ottawa for university, I began going to shows by myself because I didn’t have many friends who liked the music I did. Since coming to Toronto, I’ve been to about 12 shows.

I’ve seen Hot Hot Heat four times and The New Pornographers and Tegan and Sara three times, just to name a few. This number may pale in comparison to others’ lists, but keep in mind, I haven’t been going to shows for that many years (I’m young!).

9. I don’t wear jeans. I just don’t like them on me. I wish I did, but they just don’t work for me. I wore a pair one day last semester, but it was a lot less weird for you guys (my classmates) because you didn’t know this about me!

10. I used to blog on a site that no longer exists, called Teen Open Diary.

I had a personal journal and one under the moniker -Alexis Bledel-. Yes, the girl from Gilmore Girls. There was a tightly knit community of people on the site that role played as famous people. We would update our blogs about our fake lives, befriend other celebrities and even find role playing boyfriends and girlfriends. There was no live chat, so we’d meet on one person’s page, leave comments to each other and refresh the browser every 30 seconds for hours on end.

…I am lame, I know.

As promised, I tag the following people to share some of their unknowns with us:

• Miranda
• Megan
• Rick
• Joe
• Natalie

I apologize for writing so much, and I’ll try to keep my posts shorter from now on. They will usually be less colleague-centred, also.