My New Year’s Resolution – Status Update

I was really excited to see that Craig Zucker, one of my friends from college, is putting his entrepreneurial spirit to good use with launching an environmentally friendly brand of bottled “filtered” water called Tap’d in NYC.  Most people don’t realize the environmental impacts of some of the name brand bottled waters such as emissions due to transportation and glacier deterioration.   Tap’d filters and bottles NYC tap water and sells to local restaurants and delis.  In turn, customers save money and help the environment.  Click here to read the L.A. Times article about Tap’d!

 

So instead of doing the typical “lose 10 pounds” New Year’s resolution this year, I decided to focus my efforts on recycling, sustainability, and reducing my carbon footprint.  Since I’ve come to work for Monsanto, I’ve been really inspired by everyone’s passion for environmental and agricultural sustainability.  Here are some of the things that I’m doing at home and at work:

 

·         I just bought a bunch of reusable grocery bags so I won’t need to use plastic bags on my weekly grocery trips

·         I have started recycling at home – I have always recycled at work, they make it super easy, but I finally figured out how the St. Louis recycling schedule works

·         We recently installed energy conserving doors and windows in our house – I think we get a tax credit too so it’s a win-win

·         Instead of driving between the campuses for meetings at work – I take the Monsanto shuttle 

·         I’ve stopped drinking bottled water and have started drinking fountain water (or pop) in my own reusable (clean) cup

·         When I first started we were snail mailing a lot of the interview packets and correspondence to candidates – now I make it a point to email everything instead of printing and snail mailing

·         I recently bought an external hard drive to back everything up so that all of my pictures, music, and documents are on my hard drive and don’t need to be printed out

 

These are just a couple of small things that I’m doing to try and reduce my carbon footprint and to help the environment.  I hope you’re doing your part too!

Monsanto’s Sustainable Yield Initiative

Here’s some information about Monsanto’s sustainable yield initiative.  The background music is a little stuffy (mute it), but the content is really good.  I think it gives a lot of insight about how agriculture will need to respond to the challenges of the growing world population in the years ahead:

Global Commercial Emerging Leaders Program

I’m officially 3 months into my new job at Monsanto!  The time has flown by – and I can’t believe that it’s been so long since I’ve written anything – I promise not to let this much time go by between posts again.  Things are going really well, I like it here a lot and I’ve been able to dive into some really fun projects.

I’m actually working on a really neat project right now for our US Commercial group.  It’s a global rotation program – officially called the Global Commercial Emerging Leaders Program (GCELP).  We’re currently recruiting 2 people with a mix of Marketing, Product Management, Sales, and/or Branding experience to join our group (an MBA is strongly preferred).  The first year of the program will be here in our St. Louis headquarters and would entail learning the business and key functional areas.  The second year of the program would involve relocation to one of our other global regions to learn from and work with peers in other world areas.   After the conclusion of the global assignment, the individual would be placed in an appropriate senior level role in Commercial.  

In a nutshell, this is what I’m looking for:

-MUST be open to relocation – a global assignment is part of the program so mobility is non-negotiable.  Plus, when you return from your global assignment you might be assigned to a non-St. Louis based role.  You have to be open to relocation to be considered for this program.
-MBA from a top school is preferred
-At least 5 years of Marketing and/or Branding experience from a leading global, multi-national, consumer organization is also strongly preferred
-A history of moving up within an organization quickly or being flagged as part of a high-potential program would make you a strong candidate for this position

Here’s the link to the official posting: http://sh.webhire.com/servlet/av/jd?ai=554&ji=2329413&sn=I

Shoot me an email if you have an interest in learning more!

Building Your Social Media Resume

Online resumes and portfolios have been used for quite a while by creative and tech folks, but I’ve recently noticed a rise in the use of online social media resumes by the general masses particularly in the digital community and junior level candidates.  

If you’re not familiar with the social media resume, it’s basically just a landing page to store all of your professional accomplishments.  Most sites include a link to your resume, blog, portfolio samples, podcasts that you’ve created, screen names (AIM, GoogleTalk, Twitter, etc.), YouTube videos of you speaking at conferences or industry events, and links to your social media sites.  Here’s a link to a sample social media resume created by monster.com: http://cspenn.googlepages.com/.  It’s pretty basic (and a little lame), but it provides the general gist of what’s typically included.

A couple of things to remember when creating your online resume:

-Clean up all of your social networking sites.  Since this information is public and searchable you want to make sure that anything remotely offensive is removed before linking it to your social media resume.  I use the mom/HR/boss test – only post things that you wouldn’t mind if your mom, HR team, or your boss reads.  Pay special attention to the pictures you post, particularly things that you may not have noticed in the background.  Also pay attention to pictures that your friends may have tagged.

-Google yourself.  Make sure that your online reputation and brand is accurate. If there is anything disparaging or inaccurate floating around, try and get it cleared up as soon as possible. 

-Tailor your resume and post relevant information.  I think it’s really easy to get carried away and link to every social site that you are involved with on the resume.  I am a firm believer in quality not quantity.  Make sure to tailor the information to the specific position you are trying to land.  For example, let’s say you’re trying to find a new job related to video game marketing and development, but the bulk of the information that you post on your resume is related to public affairs blogging and blog monitoring.  You’re probably going to get very few video game marketing hits and a ton of public affairs blogging hits.  Try to craft your resume to show experience in the area that you are trying to move in to as well as highlighting the experience that you have already attained.

-Visual appeal.  Make sure that it is visually pleasing and professional.  Like any resume, it should be formatted and easy to read.  Avoid obnoxious or distracting animations, color schemes, or fonts. 

-Use keywords.  You can track your daily web traffic to make sure that it’s getting out to the appropriate audiences.  If you are experiencing low traffic, you may want to play around with some of the keywords.  For example, if you are looking for a public relations position and the words “public relations” aren’t listed anywhere on your resume, your chances of being found by a public relations recruiter are decreased drastically.  That’s not only true of social media resumes, it’s also try of any standard resume that you post to a job board or use to apply online. 

Ready to get started?  Here’s a link to a free service that can help you create your own social media resume: http://www.gigtide.com/social-media-resumes.

Whoever Did the Online Marketing Strategy for ‘Twilight’ Needs a Big Fat Raise!

‘Twilight’ was god awful – but fans don’t seem to care.   The screenplay, makeup, and special effects were all kinds of cheesy.  I didn’t want to miss the pop culture moment, so I caved and went to a matinee yesterday.  The whole thing was, for lack of a better word, neutered.  It needed a little more testosterone – and more vampire stuff.  It took itself way too seriously and lacked subtlety – it was like killing a fly with a two-by-four.  Thank god for the Dad character, he added some very much needed comic relief, and I actually thought the baseball scene was pretty fun.

But based on the blogs, it sounds like (for the most part) all is forgiven. Most fans were expecting a low budget flick anyway, and they continue to go to the theaters again and again to hopefully give Summit Entertainment enough money to make the next one bigger and better (and also to stare at super-dreamy Robert Pattinson for a few more hours). However, in my opinion, the budget doesn’t excuse the poor script and hokey over the top melodrama – oy vey.   It’s possible to make a movie that is intended for one specific audience, but is watchable by all audiences. For example, once they added Chris Tucker to the Jackie Chan movies, everybody started enjoying them – not just boys obsessed with martial arts.  Here’s my advice to Summit – from what I’ve read online, the fans are being pretty easy on you (that glitter effect alone, complete with totally random sparkle sound effect, should have converted everyone into haters) – fans are pumping tons of money into this movie in hopes that they will get a return on their investment in the sequels.  In other words, you got a pass on this one because of budget, but if you fail to deliver in the next one, you’re probably going to have a mass exodus on your hands.  Hell hath no fury like a Tweener (and her Mother) scorned.

Now that my inconsequential review is out of the way – I do want to compliment whoever handled the digital/online communication strategy. I don’t know if that was handled by Summit’s marketing dept or by an external agency – and I don’t really care enough to research it – but I think it’s an impressive example of how to successfully market to youth (and, in some cases, their parents) online.  Is it weird that I’m a bigger fan of Twilight’s marketing department than the actual movie?  They covered everything -social media, blogs, widgets, Facebook, Twitter, iTunes, YouTube…the word of mouth was brilliant.  I thought the use of widgets, which counted down everything from trailer sneak peaks to Bella’s period (joking, but I wouldn’t put it past them), was clever…and ubiquitous.  The blogger outreach strategies were key – I think that’s why the bloggers are (for the most part) staying positive and focusing on the future rather than lamenting about the ho-hum piece of crap they were served.  The partnership with MTV.com also helped to target the right audience and throw tweens into a complete hormonal frenzy on a weekly basis.   They truly made it look like it was as easy as shooting fish in a barrel – seriously, bravo!!

Here’s another fun Twilight mash up from my favorite show ‘The Soup’:

Taking a little break…I’ll be back soon…

Sorry for the long break in blogging!  I actually just started my new job at Monsanto and I thought it might be a good idea to take a small hiatus from posting while I’m learning my new role.  I’m still going to be recruiting for marketing, PR, branding, and communications pros, but now I’ll be recruiting for in-house corporate positions rather than PR agency jobs.  I’m super excited to learn a new industry and so far everything is going great with my on-boarding!  I’ll be back soon to tell you more about Monsanto and specific positions that I’m recruiting for in our U.S. Commercial group, but in the meantime, feel free to shoot me an email if you have agribusiness marketing experience and you are interested in opps with Monsanto!