Survival Tips for Christmas Shopping!

It is almost Christmas time and I can't wait to be home decorating the house, singing Christmas carols and hanging out with family. But if you are like me, you probably have left your Christmas shopping to the last minute. Even the thought of wrestling all those stressed out, angry shoppers for the last copy of The Hangover, gives me nightmares.

It is a great thing I stumbled upon these 10 great tips that the Toronto Star recommends to survive the malls during this crazy holiday season.

1) Use the malls extended hours. Certain malls are open later around this time, not as many people will be in the malls that late.

2) Hire a personal shopper. I know what you are thinking. Personal shoppers are expensive. But they don't have to be. Sometimes they even end up being free.

3) Make a list. Lists are always helpful so you are not spending too much time wondering around. You can get in and get out without a tear.

4) Map out a route. Visit your designated mall website and plan out where you will go and in what order.

5) Use valet parking. Take a load off and treat yourself, you deserve it. Don't worry about trekking through the snow or rain, get your car delivered right to your feet.

6) Dress appropriately. Don't wear those fabulous designer pumps. Put on those trendy sneaks, a light jacket and a lightweight purse. Believe me it is worth it when you are half way through your list and your dogs are barking.

7) Don't try to wrap it yourself. If you find yourself getting stressed out about making your gift look presentable, leave it to the experts. Use the wrapping stations in the mall. It may cost you a little more but the money is usually donated to a good cause.

8) If you have no choice but to bring the kids, give yourself a break and bring the stroller. This will keep everything in order and you won't have to be chasing the little rascals around all day.

9) Make sure you stay hydrated and full of fuel. If you are feeling a little bit faint after going all day long, stop, take a break. You can clear your mind, rest your feet and refresh yourself for some more shopping.

and Lastly...

10) Instead of trying to do everything all at once, take multiple trips to the mall on multiple days. You will thank yourself.

So let the shopping begin. I hope this helps with the daunting task of last minute Christmas shopping. The best of luck and happy holidays!

My Personal Brand

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John Mayer First to Introduce Augmented Reality into Music Videos!

John Mayer has been known to be ahead of the curve when it comes to emerging technologies. He started tweeting and blogging before it was trendy to do so. Although he was not the first to do these things he is the first recording artist to release an augmented reality music video.

This idea of augmented reality allows Mayer’s fans to become active participants in the 3D experience. It becomes a way to engage his fans in a whole new way. It provides interactive entertainment by letting fans take part in the virtual concerts as well as it is a promotion tool for the artist. The more people that try it out and tweet about it, the farther it spreads.

“My generation is always looking for new experiences and sometimes the content becomes secondary to the experience.”- Mayer

John Mayer explains augmented reality as :
A digital hologram based off a marker, set graphic, that the camera of you computer recognizes and manipulates visuals off of. This is dependent on where you are holding the marker and in what proximity to the camera on your computer.

Confused? Watch this video!



John’s new music video for this new single “Heartbreak Warfare,” is now available on his website.

The Video



To participate you must:
1) Download either the PDF or IPhone version of the special augmented reality marker, which can be found on the website.
2) If PDF version, print markers.
3) Turn on your webcam and make sure you are in a well-lit area.
4) Line the marker up with the similar one on the screen and wait for the video to begin.
5) Now you can play around by using the marker.

Created by Adobe MAX, this new technology is a great way to get the fans involved with the music. As it is such an interesting and innovative technology people all over the world will want to try it out.

Artists are always looking to advance in the area of technology to try and be the one who pushes the limits and steps outside of the box to gain that extra advantage. With augmented reality John Mayer is sure to do that.


Another band that uses augmented reality is Lost Valentinos. The small band from Australia is using AR to get their name out there. As a small band they were thinking about new, different ways of promoting themselves.

As managing director Andrew explains:
“We’ve basically mapped a full song performance of each band member to 5 individual markers that users can place in their own world and record and share it. In that respect it’s a world first – not a diorama performance on rails in the fan’s hands but totally customizable and modular experience – ie you can have 10 little lead singers playing on your desk or the whole band playing on the steps of the Opera House.”

Lost Valentinos AR Explanation



The best thing about this is that it allows fans to record their own customized music videos. You can have the lead singer perform in the palm of your hand or you can have the whole band perform in your sink. This kind of technology puts the creativity in the hands of the fans so they can customize their experience. And what is better than tailoring your music video so it meets the artistic needs of each and everyone of your fans?


Example of Video

Midterm Bonus Question

Who is the most successful Canadian public relations professional? What makes you say this?

I would definitely have to say Michael Cayley!
This may or may not be because he is grading my midterm....lol

Midterm Exam Question 5

What kind of conversational patterns can you expect to encounter using social media as a PR professional? What will consumers of your content expect? How can you level these expectations?

According to Clay Shirky in the book Here Comes Everybody, we can see three main conversational patterns. The three patterns are Broadcasting, Loose conversations and Tight conversations. As a PR professional we will be encountering all three of these. The best way to describe these patterns is through the use of a long tail graph.

The relationship on the graph is between audience size (vertical) and conversational pattern (horizontal). Web blogs on the left had side, also known as the head of the graph, is the broadcast section. It is called this because of the there are so many readers it is more of a one-directional message to the readers. As size of the audience falls, loose conversation becomes becomes possible as there are less people to interact with. As you continue through the long tail of the graph, although there are less individuals reading your blog, there is an exponentially greater amount of two way interaction. Readers and writer can all pay similar amounts of attention to one another, this then forming tight conversational clusters.

We can see on the web that individuals, including PR professionals can have fewer and deeper interactions such as personal blog posts on a specific subject with a specific audience. Or they could have plenty of superficial ones, such as tweets and social media news releases. An example of this could be your 21st birthday party. You have invited 50 people to the event. You can take 10 guests into the V.I.P section and have long deep conversations or you can have shallow conversations with everyone. I think i order to fully engage your audience you need a balance of both.

Consumers of the context expect you to be actively involved by listening and providing feedback. Also, Building of relationships is important through continual conversation.

Midterm Exam Question 4

Who is Jamie Zawinski? How is the role he played & are design principals he helped spread important to you?


Jamie W. Zawinski, also known as jwz is a former professional American computer programmer. He is known for his significant work on the free software projects, Mozilla and XEmacs, as well as the early versions of Netscape Navigator. Jamie has now left the computer programing world and is proprietor of a nightclub in San Francisco.

Jamie's principals included taking the internet out of the hands of the rich and making it easy free and accessible to all. He also believed that if we do not expand software and improve on it, it will be taken over by something else, or in his case be re-written. "Zawinski was a major proponent of opening the source code of the Mozilla browser, but became disillusioned with the project when others decided to rewrite the code instead of incrementally improving it. He resigned from Netscape Communications Corporation on April 1, 1999."

His principals are important to me in relation to social media. Jamie wanted to make software easy, free and available to everyone. For any social media application, if it is hard to navigate and will cost money, people are less likely to sign up for it. His principle of expand or get taken over is also relevant to social media. These days anything on the internet can be outdated in a matter of days. Everyone is competing for consumer attention. Facebook for example, use to be about social networking but now they have added all kinds of applications in order to keep them in line with other competing social media. If Facebook was still just wall posts and messages do you think it would still be number one? Personally because of the expansions it has made MSN obsolete, as there is now Facebook chat.