Catch Up Lady

RIP Catch Up Lady (b. 2006 - d. 2010)

After four great years, it's time to pull the plug on Catch Up Lady - which many of you will have noticed has been dying a slow and painful death over the last six months.

In talking to others about my predicament, I found myself listing off all the reasons why I felt compelled to end it.  This lead to a joke about creating an Advanced Directive for any blog you start - basically a list of situations in which you are obligated to pull the plug.  Here are a few of mine, got any to add?

• You Lose Your Strategic Filter:  When I started blogging about social media back in 2006 (on FRIENDSTER!), "social media" was a perfectly appropriate filter - it was new, and almost anything a brand did was news in the space.  Fast forward 5 years and social media is its own industry - brands have moved beyond experimentation to full integration with their marcom efforts.  And, there's a site that blogs about "social media" in its entirity, it's called Mashable, and they have a few more hands on deck then I do...I needed a more specific POV.

• Blogging Becomes a Chore:  About six months ago my blog started to feel like a weight on my shoulders.  I suffered from major "blog guilt" for not blogging and feared that protective services was going to come take my blog away from me.  Unlike times past, nothing I saw compelled me to blog...I stopped thinking like a blogger and being excited to post.

• You Stop Caring:  Finally I hit a point where the blog guilt went away, and I just didn't care anymore...  It was time to move on.

So, move on I will - and I hope you move with me, over to Social Sweat, my new blog focused on the intersection of social media and sports marketing. 

Thanks to all of you who read, linked, commented, sent ideas, and supported the Catch Up Lady.  And special thanks to those fellow bloggers who I came to know through this project.  I'm proud that many of you are now my friends "IRL" - that alone is worth every minute I spent on this blog.

Yes, I'm Judging.

Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) First to One Million Twitter Followers

"People of the Interweb, today we have done something extraordinarily special.  We have shown the world that the new way is here, it's present and it's ready to explore..."   -Ashton Kutcher, 2:14am EST, via UStream

Special props to Ogilvy Public Relations for sending me on a west coast business trip (and thunderstorms in middle America that caused our flight to be slightly delayed) so that I could come home at 2am EST and get sucked in to this in the home stretch. 

Sayonara 2008!

I had the best intentions of publishing my 2008 In Review post today.  But let's be real, it's not like I've been on vacation for 10 days with all the time in the world to write it!  Oh wait...

In all seriousness, my grand plans involved a photo montage, and I recently realized that I don't have access to a key series of pictures I need to kick the whole thing off.  So my post will go up on Sunday, and as an added bonus, it will include the first five days of 2009.  Get hype!

In the mean time, I invite you to enjoy this giant photo of me dressed up as Blue Man Group for Halloween.

Ok, FINE - I will admit I just wanted my final post of the year to involve this picture.  But my 2008 wrap is coming is coming.  Thanks to all of you for reading and commenting this year, 2009 will be even better!

Please Standby

The Catch Up Lady is going on vacation!  (You're probably thinking - "Vacation?  Bitch, you've barely posted on this stupid blog the last few weeks!" 

But, it's true.  I'll be back after Columbus Day.  Please standby.

Hey Michigania!

Tomorrow Swiss Family Catch Up heads up to Camp Michigania for a fun-filled week of Dirty Dancing style family camping.  That's right.  My family is heading up north to Walloon Lake to stay together in a cabin and spend our days swimming, sailing, making chinsy arts and crafts, doing ropes courses, shooting guns, firing bows and arrows, taking nature hikes, eating in a communal dining hall and pretty much having the best time ever.

Camp Michigania is a family camp for University of Michigan Alumni.  Seriously.  (Just picture Dirty Dancing, it's really the only way to explain it.)  My family camped 5th week for 10 years when I was growing up, and I was on staff for two summers while in college.  Words really can't explain how special this place is - but suffice to say it is my most favorite place on this planet.  I would trade in any vacation I've ever taken (tropics, Europe, etc.) for a week at Michigania.  

So, melodramatic post aside - I'm off for the week!  I think we'll all get through this, I mean, it's not like I've been a posting machine lately.  I'll see what I can swing in between trail rides and regattas...

Happy Mother's Day Catch Up Mom!

Since I've sent my mom two cards in the last four weeks, I thought I'd do something a little different for Mother's Day and make a public declaration of her awesomeness right here.  (Lest you think I'm a bad daughter who didn't mail a card in time, I assure you I've been planning this for well over the 2 - 3 business days it takes to get a card from DC to Michigan.) 

Here are some of the cool things about my mom you may not know:

* The Travel Agency of Val: This woman can find deals, change seats, coax information out of airlines and book flights like nobody's business. 

* Highway to the Danger Zone: She drives really fast sometimes, which I think is hilarious. 

* Stuff This: She is a great cook.  The Atkin family stuffing recipe, peanut chicken, and meatloaf are just some of the highlights.  (Everything except that casserole with the potato chips on top, which I hate but everyone else likes.  And that soup we fed to deer when I was 6.)

* She's Always Right: Even when she's wrong, she's right.  This used to annoy me when I was a teenager, but now I just hope I'm that smart when I grow up.  (Which apparently has still not happened...)

* iMom: She got an iPhone (Edit: Before me!)  She's on Facebook (where my friends Friend her, which kind of says it all.)  LinkedIn, and once said, "We have GOT to get your father on Dopplr."

I could go on, and on, and on, and on like about that time she went out and bought me Excedrin when I was  quite literally dying of hangover, or when she drives me the airport at 4:45am, or how she cooked me seperate meals as a kid because I was such a "god damn picky eater," or when she sends me fun things in the mail out of the blue.  But I'll end it here - Happy Mother's Day Mom!  I love you - thanks for all that you do and raising us right.   

Come Work With Me!

Do you love reading this blog, and occasionally find yourself wishing that you were my colleague?  That we went out to lunch together and bonded over crappy deli sandwiches?  That we went out for drinks together after work and knowingly shared inside jokes at Smith & Wollensky, our local watering hole? 

Well, then I have good news for you.  We are looking to fill several positions within Ogilvy's 360 Digital Influence group (VP and Strategist level) in New York, Washington DC, and San Francisco*.  You can check out official job descriptions here - or peruse blog posts by my colleague Virginia Miracle on the subject here and here.

Feel free to apply online, email me personally, Twitter me, Facebook me, etc. etc.

*Note that the frequent bonding over sandwiches and drinks offer applies mainly to Washington, DC candidates...

Why I Blog (or, Let's Hug It Out Bitches!)

I work in the social media space, so if I had a nickle for every time I've explained that a blog's influence is based on more than its Technorati Authority ranking, I'd be a rich, rich girl. Technorati's Authority figure is, literally, the number of inbound links a blog has collected in the last six months - and while the number of blogs and Web sites linking to you is important, other criteria (traffic, quality and quantity of comments, search placement, the influence of the inbound links, the affiliation of the author, etc.) are also key components in assessing influence.

However, as a BLOGGER, it totally blows when your Technorati Authority ranking drops due to old links "expiring". One of my blog posts last summer - Batman: The Dark Knight's Viral Promo Kicks Your Viral Promo's Ass (And Takes Names) - hit it big, with nearly 40 big time blogs linking in to the Catch Up Lady. Which means that now, six months later, my Technorati Authority figure dropped almost over night from 95 to 60. Yes, I almost had a heart attack. I mean, seriously talk about a freaking ego blow. I let myself wallow around for awhile recalling my 15 minutes of fame and then I went on vacation for the holidays and something happened...

I caught up with a few friends who happened to mention that they (and various friends and family of theirs) follow my blog regularly and really enjoy it, which was unexpected and really positive. I also checked out my inbound links on Technorati and saw a couple new hits - one from Keri's Korner, a brand new blog by the founder of Supper Thyme USA, that listed me on a Blogroll of "Favorite Blogs". Then today, I got a quasi taunting comment about Michigan football's bowl game domination over Florida from my friend over at Where's My Jetpack, who was one of the first bloggers I ever "made friends" with. And somewhere in all this I picked up the pace on blogging, and with 10 days off work I really, really enjoyed doing it

Anyway, I tell you all this because it really reminded me of WHY I blog, and why Technorati Authority is not something I should feel even marginally saddened by. I blog because I have thoughts and opinions that I want to share with others (that I am apparently not able to fit in during a standard day of running my mouth). I blog because there is a whole community of "like minded" people out there who not only value my writing, but more importantly are there to interact with and learn from. I blog because it's a daily reminder to stay up on and really analyze industry news, web gems, and all things Internet (which as you may remember, I love).

My New Year's Resolution is to blog more. And you all can feel free to hold me to that. Ok, ok, I'll stop this mushy fest post before we all start crying.

Edit: I Googled "saddened" to make sure I'd spelled it right (looks like lots of d's, right?) and the first hit is a newspaper article, "Dog Condom Creator Saddened Over Product Recall." I knew you all would want to know.

A Public Service Announcement from Catch Up Lady

For when you just can't afford that background check - - remember that there are reliable free alternatives.