Irony

Dictionary.com defines irony as "the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning." Why in the world would I bring this up here, of all places? Because I've been thinking about my position here at MedCenterNetwork. 


As the Social Media Coordinator, I'm in charge of promoting our online presence and getting our name out there. But one of our goals as a company is to be the best media connection that you've never heard of. The campaign and our partners' names are the things we want to get out there. And, yet, here I am, blogging and updating the Facebook and Twitter pages. I understand that it's really to help get others interested in partnering with us and get the message out thataway, but it still struck me as amusing ironic and I thought I ought to share.

Still to come: More of Emerson's Bogus Health Tips, office coffee maker wars, and random pictures!

Go, Go, Go!

Today has been busy. A meeting with a third news station early this morning, a trip to Boulder with Rebecca and Bianca to gather intelligence (read: information on other companies that might be interested in partnering with us), lunch at the Boulder Teahouse (my fault, because I'm a tea addict), and now writing a blog about all of it. At least it's cooler in the office than it is outside; I swear I felt like I was going to melt while we were walking down the street. Note to self: get some shorts.

Anyway, this trip to Boulder was short and sweet: visit the visitor's center for as many pamphlets as we could carry, have lunch, work whilst eating, visit another company that might be interested in working with us, and come on home. And, if you don't believe me that we were working during lunch, take a look at the massive stack of pamphlets and magazines we were attempting to sift through.

I've also decided that I'm going to turn this into a food blog. Surprise! From now on, I'll be rambling about the best places to eat in the Denver/Boulder area. I mean, really, check out this awesome salad I had! Fabulous salmon, succulent orange slices, beautiful goat cheese and a delicious Dragon's Eye tea vinaigrette dressing. 

Note: I'm not actually changing this into a food blog. It's just an amusing thought, especially since I will, at some point, be talking about healthy eating, I'm sure. 

Still to come: Which new station decides to partner with us? How much chocolate does it take to get the Social Media Coordinator bouncing off the walls? And why does our office refrigerator freeze everything we put inside it?! 

Ps. The office is now complete! We have a coffee maker and an electric kettle for tea. Huzzah!

Tougher Than it Looks

Do you know what's tougher than it looks? Getting people to sign on with us. We know exactly what we're doing, but since it's so out of the box, it's tough to explain to potential partners over the phone (or, heck, even in an hour-long in person meeting!) what that is. Colby, Rebecca and Keith have been working on a one-page summary of our current project for weeks now, and they still haven't quite pinned it down. Surprise, that project got dumped in my lap today! Let's hope that writing degree comes in handy.

But back to phone calls. Over the last two weeks or so, basically everyone in the office has been making phone calls left and right, conference calls, trying to entice people to partner with us. So far, it seems to be working pretty well; we've got a lot of companies that sound interested. We just have to amp up the bait a little, give them some more information or some examples of what we're doing. Lets just hope we can all remain sane in the meantime!

Historical Artifacts

Welcome back to Connecting the Dots! I hope everyone had a lovely long weekend (super long for me, sorry about that!) and I'll bet you're all ready to get this show on the road again. Well, today, we're going to spend a little bit talking about MCN's past. 

Now, I bet you're wondering what this guitar has to do with MedCenterNetwork, right? A) It's plain awesome, even if you don't like country music (all those signatures are country stars). B) It's good entertainment during down times. C) Everyone who has signed that guitar has worked with us in some capacity or another, mostly before we were formally MCN. This guitar has traveled through two office spaces, and been around since before MCN was created in 2007. I really should have some sort of amazing anecdote about how this guitar represents us as a company, but, in all honesty, it's just one of the neat little artifacts hanging around our office.

Like the bookshelf of awards that Keith has won over his years in broadcast and other forms of television media. At the moment, said shelf holds only a very small portion of all that statues and other art pieces that count as awards; the rest are still either in the old space or in storage. I swear, I'm not exaggerating. I'll post a picture as soon as all of the awards come out.

Where did all these awards come from? Work with NBC, CBS, ABC, Animal Planet, Discovery, Disney, Outdoor Life Network, History Channel and Great American Country. Keith was also involved with Lifetime Network and Discovery Channel's weekly health programming, as well as co-founding American Medical Communications, which was another innovative company allowing medical professionals to view relevant programming over broadcast television. So he's definitely got a history in different thinking and fabulous video production!

And what does a bookshelf full of awards, a crazy mind and a guitar signed by country singers make? Keith Singer: created by a man who doesn't have a box to think outside of. He has a Bluebell ice cream container. And a strong reputation for creative, innovative videos and ideas. What do you get when he takes those ideas and bases a business off of them? MedCenterNetwork: a company unlike any you've seen before.

Pitches and Titles

Today I finally got to attend a formal meeting instead of sitting in my cubical and eavesdropping. It's quite a lot more fun to sit in the other office and watch the expression of our potential partners change from "oh, um, okay?" to "oh, wow, my brain has totally just been blown because this is such an awesome idea and I can't believe no one else has come up with this before. Except I'm still not entirely sure how to explain this to everyone else at my company." That just means that we're going to have to go into said company offices to explain on our own. Oh, woe, whatever shall we do? Going into a local news station to explain our standpoint and ideas again sounds just like torture, doesn't it? (Note the ample sarcasm. I actually think that'd be pretty cool).

As you might have guessed from the last sentence of (minus the aside) of the previous paragraph, today we're meeting with representatives from local news stations! It's pretty fun to actually see other people in the office instead of listening to half a conversation on the phones in the other room.

But what really amused me about this meeting was how much it reminded me of a prolonged novel pitch session. As a hopeful novelist, I got the opportunity to pitch my novel idea to a literary agent at a conference last year (it didn't go well), and watching Keith pitch MedCenter's philosophy to a potential partner felt a lot like that: the eager, earnest pitcher talking a mile-a-minute to the agent/partner, who's sitting in a corner, nodding, looking mildly impressed and slightly confused. The good news is this is probably going to go a lot better than my novel pitch!

I also officially received a title today, which was very exciting: "MedCenterNetwork's Social Media Coordinator." Sounds a lot more official than "social media representative," doesn't it?

MedCenter...Weather Gods?

Guess what today is! That's right, another rainy, thundery day! What's that mean? The folks here at MedCenterNetwork have their thinking caps on again! We're not entirely sure why or how, but it seems that all of the recent rain has been a direct result of MedCenter's brain trust getting their think on. Every time you see a lightning bolt or hear thunder rumble, one of us has come up with a brilliant new idea. We're just that good.

Don't worry, though, we're working on a way to keep our magical, idea-generating brains from affecting the weather like this again. Hopefully we'll have the tin foil caps installed within the week, so keep an eye out for the sun again soon.

(Disclaimer: any and all claims made herein that the crew of MedCenterNetwork have any actual sway over the weather or any other magical powers are here for comedic effect. Except maybe me. I might be the next Hogwarts valedictorian. But let's keep that on the down low, shall we? They don't really like me talking about it. )


On another note, I have a few shoutouts today. The first goes out to Lee Suttie, our cofounder, who has recently complained about not being on the blog. Here you go, Lee, your very own half a paragraph! The second goes out to Rebecca and Colby, who helped me figure out today's post (kinda). Thanks, guys!

Aborted topics for today: the health benefits of owning a pet, the health benefits of chocolate, chocolate cats, and chocolate thunder. Aren't you glad I didn't wind up talking about any of those?

Things That Keep Us Awake at Night

Apparently, the thing that keeps our director up at night is the state of the office carpet. Oh, the things I learn by eavesdropping on the random meetings that happen on the other side of the room. Last night, Keith had a dream that MedCenter was the object of a huge corporate uproar over the way our carpet looks. Now, I must say, the carpet itself isn't too terribly bad. Not anything I'd want in my house, sure, but it's in pretty good shape for the most part. Cleaner than my former dorm room, at least. Kind of ugly, though.

And then I saw this:

 

I'm not sure where it came from or  if it's fixable, 

but there appears to  be a rip/snag/other deformity

of your choice in our carpet by the computers. 

And now I totally understand where that nightmare came from (note the sarcasm in that last statement). The good news, I suppose, is that this is the only thing keeping us up at night at the moment. No worrying over whether we're doing right by our clients; no fretting about getting projects done on time; no tearing our hair out over where we're going. Just our carpet. Our lovely, ugly, torn up carpet. 

Oh, we worry about how hot the office is, too. We've got a big set of windows facing out east, so the rising run always shines right into the room and heats it up until it's basically sweltering by the time we get in here around nine. Four or five people sitting around, brainstorming, and sweating like pigs isn't all that attractive, I can promise you that. We've been tossing around plans to get a fan or something to help with this problem, but nothing's been done as of yet. That keeps me up at night. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be creative and funny when I'm practically melting all over my desk?