Sarah Zibanejadrad

On June 24th, 2011 I had the opportunity to attend the NHL Draft in Minnesota to support my cousin, a hockey player who stood the chance of getting drafted. I had watched a part of the draft on television before and thought I knew what to expect. However, the event in person is far different than how one experiences it on television: At home I’m not wearing 5-inch heels and contemplating whether Spanx can cut off enough circulation to kill me. Also, I have the ability to change the channel during commercial breaks or simply watch the ticker underneath Sportscenter. Every time a team approached the podium, I’d find myself on the edge of my seat wondering if this would be the team. I didn’t particularly care who drafted Mika, since the Atlanta Thrashers closed shop earlier this year, so I had no dog in this fight.

Much to my surprise, Mika went fairly early on in the draft to the Ottawa Senators. Despite not knowing anything about the team aside from what their logo looked like, I was thrilled. Mika hugged his mom, dad, and brother, then he broke the one rule he was told to abide if drafted. He marched 4 rows up the stairs and hugged my immediate family; he didn’t care, we were family, too. Watching Mika don the Senators jersey for the first time, lead his first interview as an NHL draftee, and watching him take his first photographs in an NHL jersey was surreal. It quickly became more surreal when my tweet to share the news that Mika was now a Senator was shown on TSN, friends were texting me that my cousin was on television, and people began to ask for Mika’s autograph. This was really happening.

Later that night, after the draft had finished for the day and we had made it back to our hotel in Minneapolis, my family wrapped up the evening in the hotel’s restaurant. We ordered a bottle of champagne that we split between us and celebrated this monumental moment in Mika’s life. The televisions in the lobby were continually playing highlights of the draft and every 10 minutes Mika’s face was on every television and his name would flash on the ticker. It was then that I realized that the kid that sat across from me who wastoo young to drink his own celebratory champagne, was quietly sipping his Coke and being his usual introverted self. I wondered if that would change and if he knew the big things that his future had in store.

Check out who was the Society of Marketing Professional Services Member of the Month -

These days, just about everyone has jumped onto the social-media bandwagon. Whether through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or some other medium, millions of people and businesses are constantly connecting and interacting with one another. In fact, social media have become one of the top methods used to collect news, information, or learn about new products and technologies today. But given the significant popularity of these networks and the fact they are virtually all free, why haven’t more businesses in the fields of architecture, engineering, and construction gotten involved in social media? 

Perhaps those in the A/E/C industry find it counterintuitive to interact with the general population, given that their firms are tailored to such small niche markets? Also, by socializing with the public online, many believe they may run the risk of letting competitors in on too much information or creating a liability for projects and the company as a whole. Granted, these possibilities could very well be true; but an A/E/C firm’s participation in social media is no different than the firm’s participation in trade shows, industry organizations, or networking events: There’s always the possibility that someone could “say the wrong thing.” And much as anyone involved in the business development or marketing side of A/E/C knows, through training, guidelines, and experience, you will eventually learn what to say, how to say it, and what to avoid. Social media work the exact same way.

In the past, the A/E/C industry was very every-business-for-itself, keeping other firms and competitors in the dark about projects and clients. Now, with the recent economic decline, many firms are reaching out to one another to team up, bolster business, and do their best to weather hard times. More than ever, it is imperative that A/E/C firms constantly network and “get to know their neighbors.” Social media are excellent tools not only for learning about other firms, but also for introducing yourself to and building relationships with potential. You would be surprised how many federal organizations, municipalities, and developers are on only a click away on Facebook or LinkedIn.

Sarah’s blog was originally published in the  Society for Marketing Professional Services- Atlanta Blog in July, 2011. 

1. Referring to someone as a “Twitterer,” “Twatter,” “Twit.” Someone who sends tweets is a “tweeter.” ‘Nuff said. You would be amazed with how many news outlets, media aggregates, and alleged social media gurus don’t know the correct noun to use in this scenario.

2. It’s called a “tweet.” With #1 said, when someone sends a public post via Twitter, it is a tweet. The verb for this is “tweeted,” again not “twitted,” “twatted,” “tweetered,” etc.

3. Automatic Thank Yous. For some reason, it really irks me when someone sends a DM (direct message) or tweets “Thanks for the follow!” after I decide to follow their feed. I equate this to the Myspace days of telling someone “Thanks for the add!” I understand wanting to appreciate your followers by sending a message, but it’s neither personalized nor necessary. It won’t keep someone as a follower if you spam their Twitter feed, don’t post enough, or don’t post relevant content.

4. Cursing. Don’t get me wrong, in reality I curse like a sailor. However, there’s something trashy about cussing incessantly in every tweet that disqualifies everything you say, even if I agree with the statement. Plus, your Twitter feed will be there for an indefinite amount of time. So, even if you think that it’s cute to drop f-bombs while you’re in college or happily employed, it will come back to haunt you when you’re looking to get hired or your boss sees it.

5. Trash-talking your job. I understand your jobs sucks and you hate your boss, but going back to #4: Your boss could easily see these tweets after a quick Google search. If you don’t mind getting fired or finding a new job, though, knock yourself out.

6. Checking in on Foursquare every 5 seconds. I don’t care if you’re at home, at the grocery store, or using the bathroom. It’s cool to check-in if you’re visiting a location that is a bit out of the ordinary or a landmark, like the White House, the Space Needle, or the Hollywood sign. Or, if you’re checking in at a business to get a discount or perk that you can only retrieve via Foursquare, checking in makes sense. Let’s face it, though, unless you’re trying to notify stalkers, who cares when you check-in at “Poorly-Lit Target Parking Lot.”

7. Tweeting the exact same thing over and over. I understand that you want people to read your blog, but you couldn’t come up with 140 new characters to promote it? Even if you’re using an account manager to schedule posts, add some variety to your posts. After all, variety is the spice of life.

8. Spammers, bots, and tweeting just a link. Self-explanatory. Why is it I have an odd-feeling that you don’t actually make thousands of dollars via Twitter every year by working from home and that you’re not actually a doctor from Nigeria?

9. Companies with a dying Twitter account. Getting involved in social media is becoming a must for companies in today’s marketplace. But, having a Twitter and neglecting it is worse than not having a Twitter at all. Either get someone to update it regularly (once a week is NOT regularly) or decide if Twitter is a good fit for your company.

10. Not “joining the conversation.” Twitter’s entire concept and brand is founded on their slogan “Join the conversation.” Just posting random tweets and never interacting with followers simply defeats the purpose. It’s like talking to yourself: The only people who do that are neurotic, socially awkward,  or overly self-involved.

I just finished reading an interview with the author of the book The Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser, on the issue of web personalization. Pariser states in his book that the promotion of web personalization within search engines and news aggregates is leading to society having a limited world view. Because websites such as Google and Yahoo News essentially cater search results according to that user’s typical clicks and interests, they are merely limiting the interaction that the user is having with the world. In turn, web users are receiving a convenient, tailored package of what they will want versus the gamut of world views and intellectual ideas to sift through. Therein lies the issue of whether web personalization is harmful to the socialization of contributing members of society? Are they only seeing what the aggregate wants them to see? Or, is this just the continuation of a long-time human error?

In the interview, Pariser concedes to the notion that personalization is more effective in that it saves the surfer from having to sort through millions of search results to find what they need. However, he believes that web personalization differs from people’s tendency to watch the same news network or read the same newspaper. Pariser states that people understand what the editing process is at Fox News Network and that certain information will be left out, whereas in the internet world people don’t realize that their searches have been altered to fit their past website views. I find this hard to believe. Given the amount of commentary I have personally witnessed and overheard in which individuals cite Fox News as a balanced, throroughly cited news source, I highly doubt that many people are media literate enough to know where their news comes from. Sure, for some it may be easy to comprehend how every form of media has their shortcomings in terms of accountability, bias, and truthfulness. For many, though, anything that is shown on television, printed in a newspaper, or plastered on a magazine cover must be true.

Pariser also states that his fear with web personalization is that people will stop caring about un-sexy stories, whether it be “homelessness, the war in Afghanistan, or the end of humanity altogether.” Mr. Pariser clearly has better faith in humanity than I do, because I’m convinced that people stopped caring about salacious stories upon the advent of yellow journalism well over a century ago. When I have to hear more about Snooki, Kate Gosselin, and Kim Kardashian on news networks than I do about issues that directly affect me, then clearly something has gone wrong. Personalization happens with every form of media at some point down the line, whether it’s when my Google results page loads or a producer tailors a newscast to get ratings. Everything we consume in media is based upon what most people like, how much they like it, and to what extent they will they listen to someone talk about it. Unfortunately, Arbitron and Nielsen have been doing analytics much longer than Google and this is simply a continuation of the cycle.

I recently read a blog by a man who was vehemently against companies hiring self-proclaimed social media experts. I found this ironic, considering the author clearly was an active blogger and had accounts on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. In my head, I likened him to a self-proclaimed vegetarian who was wearing a Bubba’s BBQ Ribs t-shirt while singing the “Oscar Meyer Weiner Song” in a slaughterhouse, but I digress. If anyone involved in marketing, public relations, or business development still holds onto the antiquated belief that social media is too volatile or new-fangled to integrate into their marketing plan, they need to consider the following:

• What other form of marketing allows you to “meet” thousands of current or potential customers in one day? Twitter and Facebook both allow you to tap into your client base and see what they’re doing, what they like, who they communicate with, and what they hate all in one convenient, organized location.
• Websites like Digg, Delicious, and blog allow you to see what people are reading about and tap directly into your audience’s interests, intelligence, and what speaks to them the most.
• You don’t need market research or forecasters to know what topics are trending in the social networking world…Just look at the right-hand column on your screen.
• Using built in analytics through popular (and sometimes free) websites like Google Analytics or HootSuite allow you to track what’s working, what’s not, and who is checking out your website instantly. Top that, direct mailers.
• Communication via print, broadcast, direct mail, and other conventional advertisements are all one-way messages and don’t allow the customer to talk back. Everyone who dates knows that people like it when you talk about them more than yourself. Social media is the same principal in terms of marketing. Make your customer want to “date” you.
• Social media is constantly changing and evolving, keeping your customer base actively involved. Take advantage of that!
• You can be far more creative in developing advertisement campaigns online than you ever will in any other form of media.

Now, while I firmly support integrating social networking into your company’s marketing scheme, I don’t believe in “social media experts.” I find it hard to believe that anyone can be an expert in a constantly shifting, ever-changing realm. Anyone with a passion for media is someone who is the perpetual student with a knack for the creative and possesses exceptional communication skills. Also, just because someone is young or does not have a lot of conventional marketing experience does not make them unqualified for a social media marketing position. In fact, an applicant who is adept at using the web and fluent in social media without conventional marketing experience is the best candidate since they have less bad habits to break. Lastly, if you begin looking for someone to man your social media campaign, DON’T request that candidates have 5+ years in social media experience. Why? Because what is considered interactive social media today has only been around for a handful of years, so unless your ideal candidate is named Eduardo Saverin, don’t kid yourself.

Check out a short documentary I co-produced for the Smithsonian’s website on Faith Bradford’s Dollhouse

Like many people in the working force, I am whisked away to faraway lands whenever my job calls for it. In this case, my job as a marketing coordinator for an engineering firm sent me to an industry conference in North Georgia. And when I say North Georgia, I mean North, North, North Georgia in a little town called Young Harris. The conference I was to attend would be held at Brasstown Valley Resort, which judging by the website, is a pretty nice place.

In order to make the 8:00am to 10:00am registration and setup time, I had to leave my Buckhead apartment at 6:45am. Following Google Maps directions, I took GA-400 straight up to Dahlonega. Then, I turned onto Highway 9 and found myself curving along cliff-side roads for the next hour and hoping to God my Prius didn’t decide to A. Break down or B. Lose control. I passed signs for wineries, outlet malls, and kangaroo farms, but those seemed like a distant memory by the time I finally got to the resort in East Jesus, Nowhere.

Upon check-in, I was greeted by an exceptionally friendly, albeit absent-minded woman who gave me my room keys and told me where my room was. Apparently this resort is set up with multiple cottages and she directed me back up the road I came from, probably a mile back. Confused, I walked back to my car to drive to my cottage. Around this time, a bus pulled into the parking lot and the driver smiled and waved. “These sure are friendly people,” I thought to myself while hiking up a steep hill to my car (everything within a 25 mile radius is a steep hill). As the bus passed by, I saw the words “Prisoner Transport Services” painted along the side. I stopped. There was nothing for miles, and I was on the resort’s grounds, so I know they weren’t headed somewhere else. This was a disconcerting realization, but I thought nothing of it until I reached my “cottage.” 

After driving back up the road and parking in front of the cottages, I got out and began to lug my stuff into my room. My “cottage” was really just a cabin with hotel rooms in it in the middle of nowhere. No hallways. No ice machines. Nothing. In my room, there was a basket made of twigs filled with tiny bags of trail mix, Jelly Belly jelly beans, and snack-sized Pringles with a note. “Decorative basket: $12. Trail Mix: $5. Gourmet Jelly Beans: $4. Pringles: $4.” Right, I thought to myself, like I’m going to spend that kind of money for junk I can get from the dollar store. Hotels always try to extort you like that. Around this time, I heard a van pull up in front of my shack and I looked out the window to find more prisoners: The maids were here. I decided it was time to go back to the conference, where people could hear me scream and act as witnesses, just in case.

Making the trip back to the main lodge at the resort, I tried adding up all of the factors. Why did all of the hotel vehicles have government license plates? How did a resort get prison inmates to do all of the work? To settle this internal dispute, I walked into the lobby and asked the woman at the front desk, “Is this resort state-owned?” She replied with a chipper “Yep! Well, it’s owned by the Department of Natural Resources. But, still State of Georgia.” I tried to act like this seemed normal. “Oh, yeah, I just saw the, uh, you know…workers. I was wondering how that worked out.” “Oh, the inmates,” she chimed, “gotta love free labor! But yes, it’s because we’re state-owned and use the inmate worker program.” She said this as if it were supposed to calm me.

After a little research on good ole’ Google, I managed to find a few articles. One was from last year in the AJC, stating that Brasstown Valley Resort was, in fact state-owned and partially tax-payer funded, including funding for the swanky spa: http://www.ajc.com/news/government-waste/unchecked-staffer-let-funds-558516.html

It also states that a few government officials have been taking advantage of tax-payer money through Brasstown Valley Resort’s accounts. Interesting.

I also found another blog: http://www.peachpundit.com/2009/07/29/former-dnr-official-takes-state-spa-services-doesnt-pay-in-other-news-the-state-has-a-spa/ This seemed to resonate with my opinion, being, why in the hell does the State of Georgia own and operate a spa and resort?

Aside from government officials taking blatant advantage of department-funded endeavors and the ever-curious question as to why the Department of Natural Resources is funding a $140-a-night resort/spa/stable, there is still the issue of using prison workers for free labor. So, you mean to tell me that it is fine for tax-paying citizens to pay exorbitant rates for a crappy “cottage” (which technically should be at government rates given that tay-payer money was used to fund it)? Yet, the government couldn’t use the money it makes to hire actual employees to help Georgia’s devastating unemployment rate, but instead opts to use free prison labor? I’m confused.

All I know is:

Crappy cottage in the middle of nowhere + prisoners running around willy-nilly =  Setup for horror movie.

Tax-payer money + Corrupt government officials/ Expensive resort in the middle of nowhere = Setup for abuse of funds.

Often times in love, opposites attract: Outgoing and shy. Tall and short. Alive and dead? Although some of these examples happen more often than others, there is proof that there’s always someone out there who will love you for exactly who you are, even if you’re a rotting corpse. Take for instance the “love” story of Carl Tanzler and Helen de Hoyos, an unlikely couple who give love a bad name (and not in the cool Bon Jovi kind of way).

On April 22, 1930, Dr. Carl Tanzler met Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos, also known as “Helen”,  in a hospital he was practicing at in the Florida Keys. The couple had very little in common: Carl was a well-to-do, German-born doctor in his fifties. Helen was a 21 year-old, impoverished Cuban American dying of tuberculosis. Still, the doctor fell in love with his patient, claiming that he had visions of her in his dreams and that they were meant to be together. It is unknown whether or not Helen felt the same, since she succumbed to tuberculosis and died on October 25, 1931. 

After her death, Dr. Tanzler paid for her funeral and had a mausoleum constructed to hold her remains. Since her family was poor and thought of this as a goodwill offering, they obliged and allowed Dr. Tanzler to select her burial site: Conveniently located near his home. Over the course of two years, neighbors claimed they witnessed Tanzler visiting the cemetary Helen was buried in on a nightly basis, entering the mausoleum to sit with her body. There were even rumors that Dr. Tanzler would bring books and a typewriter with him to use Helen’s mausoleum as an office of sorts.

After two years of visiting Helen on a regular basis, Dr. Tanzler decided he no longer desired a long-distance relationship. Late one night in April, 1933, Dr. Tanzler wheeled Helen’s body out of the cemetery, down the road, and into his house on a little red wagon. Once there, he gave Helen’s decomposing body a bit of a makeover. He strung her body together with wire, replaced her rotten eyes with shiny new glass ones, and doused her putrid body in perfume and disinfectants. From then on, Helen not-so-lived with Dr. Tanzler, spending her days and nights in his bed. As years went by, the doctor would replace her hair that fell out with a wig made with her own hair, her decayed skin with silk and plaster, and used old clothes to keep her body cavity from collapsing. 

Sometime around Dr. Tanzler and his corpse bride’s 9th anniversary, Helen’s sister came for a visit because rumor spread around town that neighbors hadn’t seen the doc down at the cemetery in awhile and he had a doll that looked oddly like Helen. Sure enough, upon searching Dr. Tanzler’s house, Helen’s sister and the authorities found Helen’s extremely decrepit body laying in Tanzler’s bed. Even more horrifyingly, those who witnessed Helen’s autopsy claim that Tanzler equipped the subject of his undying love  with a vaginal tube to allow him to have sex with her. Arrested on the charges of tampering with a grave and disinterring a body, Tanzler went to trial but due to evidentiary issues, charges were eventually dropped.

After this whole debacle, Helen was reburied in an unmarked grave where Tanzler couldn’t find her and Dr. Carl Tanzler lived out the rest of his days, allegedly, with a doll made from Helen’s death mask. Oh, unrequited love…

I’ve heard the phrase “everything is bigger in Texas” about a quarter of a million times throughout the span of my uneventful 22-year lifetime. I never really knew what that meant, given that I have never 1. Been to Texas 2. Could fathom what “everything” could be that is bigger in Texas. Burgers? Houses? People? What? However, I was sent (dragged, really) to what I was told was Dallas for a trade show for work. Upon arrival, I realized that Grapevine is NOT Dallas. Instead, it is a suburb of Dallas that is just far enough outside of city limits that taxi fare would be exorbitant, yet I can still see the skyscrapers in the far distance. So, what did they expect me to do while I wasn’t charmin’ it up at the super fun landfill gas conference? 

Driving through Grapevine should have given me a good idea of what to expect of my hotel. First, there was a gargantuan Bass Pro Shop that is bigger than my local mall in Atlanta. Next, there was a hotel that was supported by pillars sculpted to look like wolves. This town is so manly, I am pretty sure every last atom of estrogen left my body and went back to the airport. Or to a dollar theater showing of a Nicholas Sparks movie. Who knows? All I know is, by the time I got to our resort, I had grown a ZZ Top beard and was dying to know what the NCAA March Madness scores were. And that’s when I realized: I’m not staying at a hotel. Instead, I would be a tourist in a building so large, it housed an entire small, cowboy-loving country. Like a redneck Vatican. I panicked for leaving my passport and cowboy boots at home.

As I walked through the front doors of the Gaylord Texan, I about peed my pants. There was a life-sized replica of the Alamo in the lobby, along with an indoor river, a recreation of the San Antonio Riverwalk, Adobe houses, train sets running in every direction, and 3 different restaurants. All in the lobby. Seriously. With the country music constantly being piped in throughout the hotel, I felt like Disney had made a Texas-themed hotel in the middle of suburban Dallas. Apparently this chain of hotels has another one in Nashville that is Opry-themed. This made me wonder if they’d consider building a themed hotel in Atlanta equipped with bass-heavy rap music being piped through a vandalized, dirty streetscape lobby that smells like homeless people on one side and with overpriced boutique shops run by nice, fashionable gay men on the other. If anyone from Gaylord hotel chain finds themselves reading my blog and would like to franchise in Atlanta, please contact me. There are plenty more great ideas where that came from.

Overall, this hotel is pretty nice and I don’t even have to leave the property to eat, get drunk, see the famous Texan landmarks, see a hair metal cover band, buy bedazzled cowboy boots, or attend a landfill gas engineering symposium. And since everything apparently is bigger in Texas, I get winded and break a sweat walking from the elevator bank back to my room, so that comprises my workout for the day. Perhaps, I’ll never leave. I wonder how one becomes a naturalized citizen of the Gaylord Texan?