Tag Archives: sarah cooley

Blog update

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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Well by know you all know that Random Sarah has been neglected. Tumblr indeed has won. But you will be happy to know that I will be posting here more frequently for a class I am taking. So for a short time at least, you will get the old Sarah back. The one who updates her blog regularly, and has lots of great stuff to write about new media.

But if you’re interested in what’s been keeping me busy these days while I’m not updating my blog, I’ll tell you. I’ve been doing some consulting work with a few clients while going to school full time. I’ve also rebranded my tumblr blog and opened a online store selling vintage home goods.

There are of course a bunch of other projects I always have floating around my head at any given time that I’d like to explore. Most recently I’ve been wanting to teach a skillshare class on the importance of copy in social media. But chances are before I get a chance to put a whole class together it will probably just become a blog post here.

 

The difference between loving the design and loving the service

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
2

On my last day in Austin, TX I was wearing a Gowalla shirt. I walked into the Aol Studio and someone asked me how I got the shirt. Gowalla was doing a special SXSW promotion, you could get your Gowalla passport, fill it up with stickers and get Gowalla swag.

So when the guy asked me how I got the Gowalla shirt, I was honest with him. I said “I paid for this shirt”. He looked really confused, he said “wait, you paid money for that shirt?”. My response: “Yes, I paid cash money for this shirt”.

I love the design of Gowalla, so I am willing to pay to wear their brand. However, I was not really using Gowalla at SXSW. I was not willing to check in everywhere just to get a shirt, but I was willing to pay for one. That’s the difference between loving the design and loving the service!

I love Foursquare, and the new update makes me love it even more! Foursquare bringing back the leaderboard was smart! It feels like a game again. Every check-in counts and I’m loving it.

Foursquare is also showing me more about my check-in history. Gives me extra points for hanging out with the same people, and really is helping me to explore my city.

This is going to make foursquare tips more useful. Just the other day I got a thank you on twitter for a foursquare tip I left over a year ago.

My Gowalla shirt from SXSW 2010

It’s things like this that will make me add more tips because I know they are really useful to my friends. I also think this will turn into certain friends becoming experts in the categories of places that they check-in most. Of course my friends are going to look for my tips when they are looking for a good vegetarian place to eat. Hopefully foursquare will start to reflect the expertise that your friends have. They had the data, why not use it!

Gowalla hasn’t lost me as a user yet, I just use foursquare more at this point. That is why you will see me wearing a Gowalla shirt, while checking in on Foursquare.

This is the story of the first time I met Gary Vaynerchuk

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
2

Today, Gary Vaynerchuk’s third book ‘The Thank You Economy‘ came out. And while I have not yet read the whole thing, I wanted to share a little story about Gary Vee that has a lot to do with the thank you economy and the kind of person that Gary is.

On May 12th, 2008, Gary appeared on the Late Show with Conan O’Brien. So he had a little party for the release of his book ’101 Wines that bring the Thunder’ and to watch the show.

Looking back on these photos I didn't even realize that AJ was there that night

When I first showed up to the small bar that the event was being held in I wasn’t sure I was in the right place. But my friend and I asked the hostess and she kindly informed us that there was a small group of people waiting for Gary in the front table.

Seeing as how we didn’t really know anyone else, we sat at another table and ordered a glass of wine. Soon more people began to show up but it wasn’t an overwhelming amount of people. After all, this was a very late event seeing as how the show aired at 12:30am.

Cheers!

Finally Gary arrived and he had brought with him cases of wine for everyone. This was still a very small event compared to other events of Gary’s that I’ve attended since but it was still very generous of him.

Before the show started Gary went around saying hello to everyone. When he came over to our table I introduced myself and Gary just looked at me and said “I know who you are”. I must have smiled from ear to ear because at the time I had only been video blogging for a few months but to think that Gary had seen my stuff was the biggest ego boost in the world (in a good way).  It really validated what I had started doing and encouraged me to keep doing it.

This is a horrible photo of me but just deal with it ok ;)

Over these last few years Gary has been a big supporter and a huge mentor to me. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be where I am in my career right now if it wasn’t for him. So in the spirit of his new book, I wanted to say Thank You Gary!

Ever changing

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
2

Many of you have heard by now that on Monday I started a new job…at AOL. It’s been a crazy ride to get to this place, but I’m very happy in my new position and I’m excited for all the opportunities that it will bring.

My role at AOL will be an ever changing one. As we all know, the internet does’t like to stay still and we constantly have to adapt to the changing landscape of this world that we live in, but we do it because we love it! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…I love the internet! And AOL is the perfect place for me right now.

Many of you know that I am still in school, so hearing about my new position confused a lot of people. Just to clarify…I’m still in school, full time. I will be working at AOL 30 hours a week as a Social Media Consultant for the Marketing team at AOL media.

Finding a company that recognizes the talent in someone that is still in school and is willing to take a chance on them is hard to find! This position at AOL does one very important thing and that is, it allows me to be myself! I finally feel like I don’t have to hide the fact that I’m still a student or the fact that I have (and have had) a great career!

I don’t think any of this would be possible without the awesomeness that is Matthew Knell! Back in 2009 I wrote about him in my Good People Day post and I can’t think of any better words to sum up how grateful I am to have him as a friend and mentor!

Matt Knell. You were the first person to ever come up to me, already knowing who I was, at a Mashable event back last summer. It was one of the most flattering moments EVER. Since then you have become a great friend and provided me with some great advice over the past year. You have never stopped believing in me and pushing me to be the best person I can be.

I’m so excited to be an AOLer and continue to build communities online.

Listening to your community

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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Building community is something I’ve always loved. My first experiment in community building was this blog, my personal blog. That community has grown, and stayed with me these last 3 years. From back when I started video blogging on Viddler, when I was doing Y! Live videos every night, when I was a featured user on Pownce,  when I started a video podcast, there have been so many awesome adventures that this community has supported me through.

But when you build a community, you also need to see how it reacts to changes that you make. When I started blogging about health and food, those posts never got nearly as much positive feedback from the community as the posts I would write about iPhone apps, or my geek gift guide. Just because my personal interests shifted, I can’t expect the entire community I built to be interested in it too.

So even though this is my personal blog, I feel that the content has lost direction and I would really like to re-focus it. I will continue to write about technology, geeky things, and online communities here on Random Sarah.

However, writing about food, health and my diet is something that I have a growing interest in and while I won’t write about it here on Random Sarah anymore, I am pleased to announce that I am started a food blog called Eat Raw. I wanted to start from scratch and build a community there that is interested in learning more about raw foods, and health in general. I have different goals for Eat Raw now then goals I had when I started Random Sarah. Some of my goals are the become a featured publisher on FoodBuzz, to grow a community that is interested in Raw Foods, and possibly attend a Raw Foods culinary school and see where that takes me.

These are all things that I would love to happen, but it will take hard work and dedication to the community for it to grow. But I wanted to let all of my Random Sarah readers know about my new endeavor into the world of food blogging and to let you know that I will continue to bring you the same Random Sarah content here that you are used to.

Thank you again for supporting me and reading Random Sarah.