As I shook off the water from my coat I sat next to a older gentlemen sitting quietly alone. Opening up my laptop I began my usual search. Macs List, Idealist.org, Craigslist, and Google. I’ve been scouring online for internship and job opportunities since the end of December.

Then I hear him ask if I’m in school.

The gentlemen next to me begins chatting to me in a heavily accented voice. He talked intensely to me about his granddaughters and how difficult young adults, and especially young woman, have it today. “It’s unfortunate kids today go to university, graduate, then end up working behind the counters here,” he said. He goes on telling me how he came from Greece and how I closely resemble the Greek. But, nails it with his second guess when he asks me if I have Italian blood.

He made a quip about staying away from boys, and proceeded to tell me I could do anything I wanted with my life and five steps I should follow. Within those steps he emphasized that I should never hold myself back from success or feel I couldn’t dream big. I giggled a bit to myself when he said something relating to how children would ruin my life, but I know he was trying to mean well with the comment.

After multiple recent discussions concerning what I should do next in my life I felt his words came at a very appropriate time. As he encouragingly chatted to me I’m not sure he really knew what the kindness of his words meant to me.

He left the coffee shop for an appointment to have a growth removed. He affirmed me it wasn’t cancerous. He waved goodbye and wished me the best of luck with my life, and I wished him the same.

When I joined Pinterest awhile back I never knew I’d be reading it’s name in headlines every other day. It seems that it’s the “popular” thing to be talking about.

I use my Pinterest account to stalk my love of fashion and photography. But as I’ve discovered recently the business world is jumping on and engaging too.

Every blog seems to be chatting about how Pinterest is becoming the next big thing in social media for business. PR professionals are discussing Pinterest as a trend and how it can be helpful in promoting your business. Everyone is talking about it — even those who think it’s a waste of time.

Personally I feel that it is somewhat of a genius idea. Most people are drawn to visual pleasing things — so why not make a site that allows you to bookmark webpages in the most visually appealing way. As a long time user of Delicious I can tell you right now that I’d rather click on a link with a gorgeous description then a few words jumbled together. Of course it can’t be used to bookmark all webpages — I mean I guess it could — but it can mostly be used to trace back to a product or idea you like, or want to use in the future. It’s like a giant creative brainstorming device.

I’ve decided with all this chat about how awesome Pinterest is for businesses that I’m going to test it out for a client of mine — free of charge. The business is a retail surf and skate shop, and I thought it would be the perfect client to try it out with. The business is more small scale but I figure there will be no harm in testing out some of the business development strategies. Stay tuned for how it turns out.

With that I leave you with some of my favorite Pinterest business strategy ideas.

Share Your Products

• It makes sense, and it is the most obvious strategy. What a great way to share your products with users? Group your pins in product categories. You can create a virtual product catalog of interest for consumers.

Drive Web Traffic

• It’s driving buyers to websites. According to Entrepreneur, “In the last six months, the retail deal site ideeli.com has seen a 446 percent increase in web traffic from Pinterest and sales resulting from those visits have increased five-fold.

Better Understand the Larger Retail Landscape

• Pay attention to who is pinning what, and from who. What products of yours are being re-pinned, and what isn’t.

Engage With Users

• As any social network does it gives you the opportunity to engage with other users to get more ideas, and helpful feedback on how to improve and give consumers what they want. Share other companies products, or comment on other users posts you feel signify what your business is about. Encourage customer interaction, and try following users back.

In my short life I’ve lived through many transitions. I’ve actually welcomed change with open arms.

If you ask me I’ve lived a darn good life so far. Of course I’d also say I didn’t see myself here at this point in life — but doesn’t everyone feel that way at some point?

Well here is to another transition — life after graduation.

I’m currently moving to a larger urban city to hunt down an awesome job in public relations and digital communications. In the process I’ve decided to let go of all the crap I’ve accumulated over the years in my storage unit. From the constant moving I have lost sight of the things I’ve boughten, and in turn, bought more of the same! It’s been a nightmare looking at all the THINGS I have. Everything I pick up I can remember some kind of importance it had on my life at one moment.  But as I browsed I realized no matter how much meaning it may have had during one point in my life it’s time to let it go. Even all those awards and plaques I’ve won (personal plug). I’m in a transition of my life that needs a fresh start, and I don’t need a bunch of things reminding of what was, because I won’t ever forget how amazing life has been.

I’ll be excited once the process of my moving sale is finished and nothing is left to tie me down.

Here’s to new beginnings, feeling free, and getting rid of all this stuff.

The awesome part about being from Oregon is that I can literally step outside and be surrounded by some of the most gorgeous outdoor sceneries. I took these photos on a hike the other day with my dog. The trail is a 5 mile round trip hike uphill in coastal mountain terrain. The rain had washed a few parts of the trail out but the muddy shoes was worth this gorgeous walk through the woods. I had a bit of fun taking my red jacket and playing with the contrast of the green and red. I’ve made a note to myself to take props on a hike one day.

Cape Arago Pack Trail, right outside Coos Bay, Oregon.

Given my pledge to try new things with photography I’ve used a new app to repurpose some Instagram photos into a neat collage. I give you the Oregon Coast, and another cameo from my dog Bailey.

Did I mention this is my first blog post using my iPhone too. High five for firsts.

Dear writer’s block, it’s not you, it’s me.

I’ve come to the conclusion you aren’t the one stopping me from reaching my full potential it’s my constant battle with trying to be perfect and my bad habit of overanalyzing EVERYTHING.

Everyday I wake up and tell myself today will be the day I break free from this creatively constraining relationship, but then I’m sitting next you again holding your hand for life support. I’m scared what my life will be without you. I’ll be forced to make decisions on my own and spill my thoughts and ideas freely. But I have to do what’s best for me. I’m cutting you out of my life — let’s hope I swim and not sink.

There I go again being miss negative! No. I will swim, and I will swim freely writing down paragraphs for all to hear. I’ve become negative. For an insane optimistic person like myself being negative is draining. I’m letting you go. I know you will find another depressed writer just waiting for you to cradle them. You will be fine without me.

Always, and never again,

Makenzie

Now that I’m in a image overhaul — new resume, new website, new portfolio, new city — I’m asking for a lot of feedback on changes I’ve made. The big one has been my resume. I’ve sent it off to multiple people to read over and critique. If you want in on the criticizing or applauding of my resume click here, and take a gander yourself. My final product is pretty decent, but I’m always thinking of what I COULD be changing. For example I’m confused on exactly what people want for the “Skill” section. After reading through many resumes lately I realize everyone has different ideas of what the “Skill” section is suppose to be. So who is to say what kind of resume works better?

Two people actually gave me completely conflicting ideas of how to change and fix my resume. I went with my gut and took the advice of the one who wasn’t a professional in career services. The advice I was given from the career center didn’t give me the feedback to help me succeed; rather the advice was aimed at a student with little to no experience who wasn’t going into communications. Which brings me to the infograph resume that went viral and was made by Chris Spurlock.

For what Chris wants to do with his career this resume is absolutely great. It shows creativity and skill for what he wants to ultimately do. Now I’m not sure this resume would work wonders on the next HR department at a PR agency but I won’t ever know, because I don’t plan on making a resume like this one. Personally I don’t think it gives enough detail about what his work experience has been, but as I mentioned before it shows off his skills for what he wants to do — journalistic visualization.

With that I give you the article by the Huffington Post where I discovered Chris’s infographic resume. It gives you five tips you should pay attention to.

How to Make Your Resume Stand Out: 5 Tips From Chris Spurlock

For my first photo #oneaday post I’m sharing images I took on the one day the sun shinned in Oregon in the past few weeks. Today the wind and rain are back.

To use the manual focus on my camera (Nikon D100) I strain my eyes (lack of glasses & contacts). But I need to practice using my camera on manual instead of auto — so that’s what I did.

A friend of mine forwarded a link to me that got me thinking. The link was to StoryADay.org. Of course I love to write, and of course I understand I won’t get better without practice. With a wee bit of inspiration from friends, and my love for storytelling, I’m setting a goal of writing (anything!) once a day for a total of 31 days. Plus I’m throwing in the goal of snapping a photo once a day. I already take enough pictures that this goal won’t be difficult to concur. During this time I want to experiment with new techniques to help better my skill set.

I’d enjoy company on this 31 day quest so if you’re out there and feeling inspired please join me. What do you have to lose? Plus we can hold each other accountable : )

Cheers to improving!

I’m perplexed when I google a business today and find no website, or one you don’t know the slightest clue how to navigate. With the way our society is integrated in digital technology you would think businesses would want an online presence. My opinion is they should have one. Even if it’s a simple site with the business hours and location. Apps and online review sites may be giving your business a presence with out you even being aware of it. I can’t stress how important it is for businesses to have an online appearance, or at least be aware of it — and a great one.

One of my biggest pet peeves is having a poor looking website. As a consumer if I came across your website and I can’t understand what is going on I quickly hit the back button and I’m onto the next. Sadly the site was probably built by someone who charged them a lot of money too.

This morning as I was job hunting I came across a list of top public relation and advertising firms. I scrolled through the list and clicked on every single website browsing for anything that resembled “work here.” I was amazed at how many of those websites were cluttered, messy, hard to read, and overall frustrating to look at. I was especially put off because most of these agencies work at being digitally creative — so why can’t I read your website?  A website is your first impression. Some of the agencies could be phenomenal to work for, but because of their confusing or jumbled websites I quickly turned around and ran (scrolled). In business your first impression can make it or break it more than people like to admit. Wieden + Kennedy is my favorite example of what a clean and aesthetically pleasing website should be. There isn’t any flashy words flying across the screen, the white background allows you to see what you’re looking at clearly, the side bar changes textures and colors, and I can easily navigate the site.

Next time you’re browsing the web pay attention to the little details that make a website good, or bad, and in the future use those observations to make a great first impression.

Three ideas for making a clean easy accessible website:

• Make it simple.
• Don’t add too much clutter.
• No flashy or moving backgrounds