Keeping Skills in Practice: Why I'm Glad I Moved to Rochester

(note: This is a work in progress)

Keeping your skills in practice is important, especially when you're in the process of finding employment. Which leads to my latest project: being the marketing specialist for The August Group's upcoming wine tasting fundraiser. As you can see above, a lot of details still need to be filled in, the event planning team is on that! I do have some ulterior motives for being in on this project, too. I love wine.

Earlier in December The August Group held a career fair, where I was the Marketing Team lead. The combined efforts of the career fair team helped make one of the most successful career fairs in TAG's history. It also gave me a good feel for taking part in large-scale projects, as most of my experience has been with working in small committees where 75 attendees for an event was considered a great turnout.

Which brings me to why I'm happy I picked Rochester as the city to move to. Sure it was an easy pick, having friends who already live here, but there's another reason. Rochester is big on networking, and volunteering, which provides ample opportunity to meet new people and keep my skills fit. If it weren't for the networking groups in Rochester, I would not have the opportunities I have now. I've met a lot of fantastic people, and have a chance to participate in some great events. Having activities like this keeps me going, and keeps me in good spirits.

To everyone reading, happy new year and I hope 2014 turns out to be great.

This Week in Bad PR: How to Lose Your Job in 140 Characters or Less

It's been all over the news since yesterday, Justine Sacco, the director of corporate communications for web media giant IAC, tweeted a racist tweet. For those who don't know, IAC owns some pretty big websites including OkCupid, College Humor, Urbanspoon, Dictionary.com, BlackPeopleMeet.com, About.com, Ask.com, The Daily Beast, and Vimeo just to name a few. Yes, the PR head for the company that owns BlackPeopleMeet.com is letting her racist flag fly.

Part of me is rather shocked that someone who's a PR professional could make such a huge slip. If you go out and tarnish your own reputation, you also take your employer down, too. As a somebody the same age as me, who has likely received a comprehensive HIV/AIDS education in school, she should know very well that white people can get AIDS. I'm also certain that there are white people in her destination of South Africa who have AIDS.

On a more sober note, thanks to DoSomething.org, here are a few facts about HIV/AIDS in Africa. 69 percent of those infected with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa. When it comes to children who are HIV+, 91 percent of those children are in Africa. 71 Percent of HIV/AIDS related deaths in 2011 happened in Africa. 59 percent of HIV+ people in Africa are women. The Do Something article has some other interesting facts related to AIDS in Africa. This is a disease holding a whole continent back because of how many people are too sick to go about the daily life many of us take for granted. There are more people in Africa with AIDS than there are drugs in Africa to treat AIDS. I'm sure some of those people in Africa who are infected are white, too.

As expected, Sacco was fired and her twitter account was shut down. I'm sure it will be difficult to find another employer. Unfortunately in finding articles on her online work history, her racist tweet was simply the straw that broke the camel's back. She's done everything from express disgust at dreaming about sex with somebody with autism, to body shaming, to poking fun at starving Jewish people.

So #hasjustinelandedyet?

On the plus side, people have been donating to AIDS charities. Aid for Africa is receiving record donations.

Introductory Post

Hi, I'm Courtney and welcome to my blog. Since using my previous blog my life has changed drastically. Most important being that I finished my Bachelor's and moved to Rochester. Of course, I'm doing some of the same things I've been doing for the past few years.

Let me tell you a little about myself and what I do. I enjoy digital engagement. It's a career path that happened upon me three years ago when I was asked by Saranac Lake ArtWorks to create a couple social media pages. I planted that seed a year ago interning at the Adirondack Daily Enterprise as an A&E reporter, and built up some strong connections with many of the artists in the village. From there I created a page for the annual Studio Tour, and the NorthWind Fine Arts gallery. For a brief time I also blogged for the gallery The Local Fringe.

I love what I do for the art community up in Saranac Lake, but I also know that career opportunities in general are pretty tough to come by, unless I want to volunteer for the rest of my life. Online engagement is still a new thing for the village, seeing I was one of the first people to create and maintain a page for an active organization like ArtWorks. I'm happy to see most businesses there now have active facebook pages.

I knew in order to find an opportunity to do what I enjoy for a living, it would be better to seek out opportunity elsewhere. I'll admit that I'm still adapting to being in a new location. The weather hasn't gotten to me yet seeing that temperatures in the 20s are downright balmy compared to the -20 that hit Saranac Lake this morning.

Feel free to stay a while. I'll be primarily focusing on my own activities, life in Rochester, and thoughts on the digital world.