Free Feet

A guide to downloading the best free music on the internet

Carlee Mallard — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:08:19 +0000

“Remember when I introduced myself because you had 7,000 songs? I really wish I could raid your iTunes today. Do you have any music recommendations, music website recommendations, or do you have a blog or something? Cuz you are the music sensei.” – Emily Beyer

There’s a lot of new music listening & discovery websites popping up. Where do you start? Well I start where I can listen to the music to my own whenever I please — at home, in the airport, on the airplane, on a beach — and I can only do that if I can download it and put it on my laptop and/or iPod. Therefore, websites and programs such as iTunes, Turntable.fm, Spotify, Pandora, and Grooveshark are great for listening and discovering new music, and I highly recommend all of them for different occasions or purposes, but that’s not what this guide is about. This is about where to download the best free music (some legally, some not so much) on the internet.

Disclaimer: Yes, I download music for free. I believe in supporting artists by paying to see them perform live at concerts and music festivals, which if you know me, I do quite a bit of.

Hype Machine

This is one of the first websites I open each morning when I roll out of bed and can’t yet think straight enough to choose music. I open http://hypem.com, click “Popular” and hit “Play”. I’m guaranteed at least an hour of good music I’ve probably never heard before without having to touch a button.
What is it? The Hype Machine keeps track of what music bloggers write about. They handpick a set of kickass music blogs and then present what they discuss for easy analysis, consumption and discovery. This way, your odds of stumbling into awesome music or awesome blogs are high. The Hype Machine tracks a variety of MP3 blogs. If a post contains MP3 links, it adds those links to its database and displays them on the front page.
You can purchase a song/album straight from their page on iTunes or Amazon, or if you’re like me, you can go straight to the blog that posted a particular track (identified under every track by name) and see if it’s available as a free download. Many times it is.

Visual Guide

If you like a song you hear and want to see if you can download it or want to just read more about it on the blog, click the blue text that will say “Posted by __ blogs” to see all the blogs that posted the song. Click the link at the end that says how long ago the song was posted to open the blog post in another tab. You can click any of links to the blogs, but I like EARMILK a lot, personally.

You can also search for remixes or new versions of songs by your favorite artists:

When you’ve found a song you like and followed its origination on a blog to download it for yourself, you might have to look on the blog post in a sea of other songs before you find the song you were looking for, but it should be there. If you see something that looks like this below, just right click on the song name and click “Save as” to download.

Vacay Wave

How they describe themselves: “an electronic dance music blog covering the global electronic music scene, including genres such as dubstep, house, electro, electronica, dance, nu disco, indie, minimal, and nu rave.”
A lot of the songs found on this blog are singles, remixes, or mashups hard to find for sale anywhere, anyways, and you can find a ton of really rare electronic music!
You can find artists’ Laidback Luke, Steve Aoki, Skrillex, Boys Noize, Rusko, and Diplo latest mixes, who all happen to be performing on the HolyShip music festival cruise, where I’ll be in January!

Visual Guide

You can search by artist, genre, or tag (i.e. Electric Zoo 2011) at the search box at the very bottom of the website, then check the genres and tags on the right next to each post in the search results to see if it’s something you’re looking for.

How to download songs on VacayWave within each post:

Soundcloud

http://soundcloud.com/

What is it? SoundCloud is the world’s leading social sound platform where anyone can create sounds and share them everywhere. Recording and uploading sounds to SoundCloud lets people easily share them privately with their friends or publicly to blogs, sites and social networks.
I don’t use Soundcloud as often as the other websites, but every now and then I find local and/or unknown artists/DJs have posted their own mixes or remixes of songs to Soundcloud and since they’re not very popular, they usually want you to download it freely. Some of it is pretty good, but most of the time it’s a lot of amateurs.
It’s also really easy to download the songs on SoundCloud, if it’s available for that track:

Pretty Lights

Pretty Lights is an awesome band (and a record label) that produces amazing music and post all of their CDs for free download on their own website. They have a ton of great CDs you can download and come out with new music every 6-12 months.

What.cd

For when I can’t find anywhere else to download a song I’m dying to hear.
NOTICE: This is by invite only. If you want an invite and think you’re worthy enough, let me know ;)
Basically, you can download high-quality singles, entire CDs, vinyls, in any format your heart desires through bit-torrent sharing. It’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Visual Preview

You can see a video of all the types of files and content here.

Disaster relief fundraiser complicated by tornado outbreak

Carlee Mallard — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 20:42:04 +0000

Ironic to hold an event to raise money for disaster relief only to have the most epic outbreak of devastating tornados rip through downtown Raleigh, knocking over trees & power lines, demolishing entire buildings, throwing debris miles away, and cutting out electricity to thousands (including the venue we held the event), just an hour before the fundraiser was to begin.

Whenever I’m worried or scared, I always ask myself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” and I usually realize that it’s not that bad after all. “Everything will be fine.”

But what happens when the unthinkable happens? When something happens that really is worse than the worst that you could have imagined? What do you do when the one thing happens that you could never have prepared for, happens?

I had been planning a fundraiser PechaKucha Night event in downtown Raleigh for Japan in response to the natural disasters there for the past few weeks.

On April 16^th, 2011 over 100 cities around the world held fundraising events with the mission to “Inspire Japan” to rebuild. Collectively we were all supposed to give hope and our support to those trying to get through the tragedy.

Saturday, April 16th, 2011

The morning of the 16^th I woke up with a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I spent the morning making last-minute preparations and reviewing the checklist. Guestlist, check. Food platters, check. Extension cords & lights, check. I actually spent more time worrying about getting to a presentation on time at 3pm that I was giving to a group of local artists than worrying about how the weather might affect the fundraiser turnout. The sky undeniably looked like it was going to break loose any minute and the weather service predicted severe thunderstorms in Raleigh between 4 – 6pm. I naturally expected a slight drop in attendance if not just for the fact that people don’t like going out in the rain, but I still hoped for the best.

On the drive to Peace College in downtown Raleigh around 2:30pm the weather service announced a tornado warning one county over; far enough away that I wasn’t concerned. In all of my 25 years I’d never known a tornado to touch down I the more populated areas of the Triangle. I naively thought tornados were reserved for anywhere but here.

I gave a quick presentation at 3:00pm as expected and by the time I left Peace College at 3:45pm to drive just a few blocks south to set up for the PKN fundraiser the sky opened up in full swing: heavy rain, lightning, and some strong gusts. Typical thunderstorm weather, right? For a brief moment I glanced up into the sky and noticed some type of debris floating above, then kept moving to get out of the rain. I’m not sure why I didn’t think more of it at the time…

Luckily I made it into the Alexander Square parking deck just in time. As soon as I shut off the car and started unpacking, the power to the entire deck shut off like in a horror movie and the emergency lights came on. Fire truck sirens started screaming and never seemed to stop. Seconds later the weather got suddenly worse—hurricane force winds, heavy sideways rain, hissing noises, lightning. I had no warning and just stood in the parking deck for a while wondering what was going on and if I needed to take more cover. I didn’t hear any tornado warnings on the radio, but friends in the parking deck were getting multiple phone calls and texts from parents and friends saying that the local news station WRAL said, “STAY OUT OF DOWNTOWN RALEIGH. IF YOU’RE THERE NOW, TAKE COVER.” Cellular connectivity was terrible, but I finally saw on my weather app that there was now a tornado warning in Wake county due to a tornado that touched down a few miles southwest of where I was—and it was heading northeast.

At this point I naturally began to panic. Is a tornado heading this way? Do I need to take cover? Am I in the tornado already or is the worse still to come?

This is what we experienced:

All I could do was wait it out. When we finally saw a break in the rain & wind I ran across the street to Isaac Hunter’s Oak City Tavern where we held the fundraiser. The good news: the bartender was there and let us inside. The bad news: no electricity here either.

It was nearly 4:30pm, only 1 hour before guests were expected to arrive by the time all of us at the bar got word that the tornado had ripped through downtown Raleigh a half hour earlier and danger had passed.

What now? Vegas, the bartender on duty, immediately called Zach Medford, owner of Isaac Hunter’s, to bring lots of candles and evaluate whether they would be able to keep the bar open at all without power. We were all out of any immediate danger, but what about the event? Is it still on? There’s no light to safely walk around. No electricity to plug in laptops, a microphone, to play music, or to take credit payments for drinks at the bar. We couldn’t connect to a single wireless network so we wouldn’t be able to live stream the event on Ustream as we had planned or even send a message to guests about the status of the event. We couldn’t even use our cell phones because the cellular networks were all bogged down from heavy usage. Not to mention reports of tons of street closures due to down trees and power lines and dead traffic signals at some of the busiest intersections.

The irony of the situation became apparent. Here I am trying to raise money for disaster relief and it’s threatened by a natural disaster itself.

I was not going to let nature bring us down again. Our purpose was to inspire hope and that’s what I still planned on doing. I didn’t know what would happen or how we would continue on, but I made an executive decision: it’s still on; this is going to happen with or without electricity or guests.

When Zach & Vegas asked us what we were going to do I didn’t hesitate, “We’re here. The food is here. The beer taps are working. I’m having a party whether anyone else shows up or not. Go ahead and start me off with the strongest beer you’ve got.”

That’s when I was able to get a handle on the situation and sent out my first tweets. First from my personal account:

I started getting multiple text messages, voicemails, emails, and twitter @ messages asking me if we were OK and if they should still come to Isaac Hunter’s or not. I needed a game plan fast. I sent the first message from the @pknraleigh twitter account around 5:00pm:

People actually started showing up. I had never been so happy to see their faces. I nearly cried. Sure, there was chaos. We had no idea how we would still give the 4 PKN talks without a projector, lights, or microphone. The guest list never emerged from my bag as I was thankful for every single person who walked through those doors. Food was hard to recognize in candlelight.

But people were there. We shared our experiences of the tornados and first-hand reports of the damage that I had yet to see. I was grateful that the tornado missed us, where half a mile south experienced complete devastation:

Update: The above video hit nearly half a million views so for some reason we can’t view it embed anymore. It’s on youtube here: http://youtu.be/ukuERsvfDMU

Volunteers like Dan Wilson & Simon Free pitched in big time setting up all the raffle items and engaging the crowd in a game to buy as many raffle tickets for Architecture for Humanity as possible.

When it became clear the electricity wouldn’t be coming back on, Isaac Hunter’s told us they’d have to close up shop when the sun set. That gave us about an hour to figure out how to go on with the 4 PKN speakers that remained. The presentations were all on our laptops, so we just set up the slideshow on 2 different laptops and put one laptop on each side of the bar and told everyone to huddle around! The speakers stood in the middle reading from note cards by flashlight in their regular voices as there wasn’t any noise to compete with. The silence was inspiring. For once nothing was competing for their attention and everyone was engulfed in watching the presentations given in the back of a dark bar during the last 30 minutes of daylight.

And then, as chaotically as it began, we rummaged together our belongings, thanked Isaac Hunter’s for their generous support, and disappeared into our own disaster-stricken city.

—————————-

The damage in Raleigh from a major EF3 tornado that traveled over 63 miles is no joke. A university is in shambles and canceled classes the rest of the semester. Children died. Hundreds lost or found damage to their homes. If you’d like to volunteer to help, complete this form from the City of Raleigh.

Despite the damage in our own home city, we came out relatively unscathed compared to Japan. More than 14,000 people lost their lives there. All the relief in the world still won’t be able to repair all the damage, but they need everyone’s help and now you know first-hand what it’s like to experience such a severe natural disaster so close to your own lives.

Please consider donating to Architecture for Humanity to help rebuild in Japan.

Is SXSW Interactive Worth It?

Carlee Mallard — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 04:56:24 +0000

Now that I’m back in the real world post-SXSW Interactive, just about everyone I talk to wants to know how it was.

The word I find myself using over and over is “overwhelming”. SXSWi was in fact entirely too large. The sense of “community” was lost in the masses of random people. There was little opportunity for serendipitous running-into-one-another of people you’d want to meet. Although yes, that did happen on occasion, for the most part if I wanted to meet someone I had to make a concerted effort—and even then most of the time it didn’t happen. Lots of, “Oh… I just missed you!”

Example.

I saw someone tweet a few days prior that she would be speaking at a specific location on Monday at 1:30pm CT about a topic I’m really interested in: location-based services at events. I’d been following her on twitter for a while and thought the topic would be interesting so I put the event on my calendar to be there so that I could introduce myself and hopefully have a quick conversation about events. Monday rolled around and as I was finishing brunch with my sister around 1pm I got the reminder on my iPhone. I looked up the location on a map and noticed that it would be a good 10-15 minute walk to a part of Austin I hadn’t ventured into yet. No problem, the weather was nice and I had company to walk with me. I arrived at the venue and a man at the door checked to see that I was on the RSVP list so that he could give me a separate pass to go inside. Luckily he gave me a +1 so that my sister could get inside as well. We walk upstairs, unsure of what to expect, and find only a few people casually chatting, not phased at all by our entrance for the most part. We stand around for a little bit until I can break into a conversation to say who I was looking for because I heard she would be here at 1:30pm. That’s when they tell me that they had a complication and moved the talk to 12:30pm, so she had already come and gone. And… so we left.

There were just too many things going on at any given time between official sessions, unofficial meetups, block parties, free food, lunch breaks, coffee breaks, scavenger hunts, sleep, and a million other things I didn’t even know about.

I hosted a joint unofficial meetup at a nearby bar for Brazen Careerist & 20-something bloggers members in Austin that weekend with more than 50 people registered to attend. Guess how many showed up? Maybe 5. Some of those even helping to organize the meetup didn’t even show up. I can’t necessarily blame them, though. With RSVPs to so many different events I was impressed with anyone who was organized enough or could remember where to be at which times. Not only that, but any meetup or party without free alcohol or food was essentially doomed considering you could find both flowing freely at all hours of the day and night.

The biggest lesson I learned at SXSW is that everyone is flaky. RSVPs mean nothing (that is, everyone RSVPs to everything, so obviously they’re missing 75% of that which they RSVPed to). Expect plans to be canceled. If you’re planning to meet up with someone, you better double and triple confirm with them, and then don’t be surprised (or offended) if those plans change at the last minute.

Of course there were some really fantastic moments at SXSWi. Spine-chilling sessions. Bonding with new friends. Seeing celebrities. Discovering new brands and iPhone apps. Witnessing some amazing parties & events first-hand. Being inspired by the city of Austin and falling in love with it.

But, the million-dollar question: Would I buy a badge and come back to SXSW Interactive next year? Probably not. If I do go back to SXSW next year I would probably just go for the unofficial events, marketing ideas, and randomness. I would have no expectations. I would take more notes (with a pen or camera). I would sleep more.

For Raleigh: Notes From Austin

Carlee Mallard — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:00:18 +0000

People say Raleigh is a lot like Austin, TX.

I’m sure they have their reasons, but I disagree for the most part. Raleigh as it is now is nothing like Austin, actually. What Austin is for Raleigh is a role model for success.

In the past I’ve seen Raleigh residents, businesses and city planners try to copy other “big cities” like New York and Miami when we really just needed to cultivate Raleigh’s own strengths and culture, as I’ve seen Austin do.

We don’t need to be Austin, either. But we could certainly take some tips from them. Starting with getting creative, being open to new ideas, and getting excited about density and more competition (instead of squashing it)!

What I Love About Austin, TX

Rooftops and open-air spaces
Outdoor “biergarten” type venues/spaces
- wooden picnic tables
- picket fences
- sand pits
- outdoor “stages”
- food trucks serving bar-only venues
Retrofitted homes
- example in Raleigh: Brooklyn Heights Bar
Mixed-use neighborhoods
- restaurants next to homes
- bars and attractions interspersed throughout neighborhoods and sections of town
Larger spaces in general
- wide street front entrances
- 2-3 story bars/restaurants/music venues
- feeling as if you could “get lost inside”
Multi-purpose venues
- ability to support live music or DJ’s
- alcohol/food
- dance spaces
- relax/chill, couches, tables, chairs
“Dirty” businesses and areas of town
- not everything needs to be proper and gentrified
- casual, locally-owned unique restaurants, bars & music venues
Parking lots or vacant lots utilized
- food trucks congregating in lots “cafeteria style”
- block parties, stages for music, etc.
Lots of bike parking
Unique touches
- fire pits outside
- DJ booth on top of a bar
- games to play at bars
- hula-hoops!
- home patio furniture for more of a “living room” feel
- strung lights
- architecturally diverse, creative

Were you in Austin, too? What parts of Austin would you like to see more of in Raleigh yourself?

I quit my job.

Carlee Mallard — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 21:54:18 +0000

I quit my job at RTI International. My last day was Wednesday, March 2^nd, 2011.

I’ve already received many congratulations, which is exactly the response I was expecting to get. I’ve also received lots of questions like, “What’s your plan?” or “Do you have another job or interviews lined up?”

My “plan” really started a year ago and because RTI wasn’t part of my plan to achieve my goals, quitting was simply imminent.

No job lined up. So what is my plan now? I’m looking for the next big thing that will bring me closer to my goal of owning my own company and being a leader in my community by 2014.

I am still organizing PechaKucha Nights (oh hai, next one is coming up on Wednesday; you should come).

I am still heading up the Triangle Community of Developing Careerists meetups every month.

And I’m still putting in a few hours each week over at Live Work Play.

Most immediately my attention has turned to preparing for my upcoming trip to Austin, TX for SXSW Interactive from March 10^th through March 19^th. Oh, you’ll be there? Let’s meet up!

Taking it one step at a time…

[For more information about “what I want to do” see my Linkedin profile and resume; my bio helps, too.]

Online (and offline) Event Planning Resources

Carlee Mallard — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:58:59 +0000

People across all sorts of industries are finding industry-specific events to be I got an email the other day from a friend of mine up in New York City who’s completely new to putting on events and is faced with the possibility of holding monthly events in NYC in her industry. Not only is she new to event planning, but she’s sort of scared of it. It’s totally new territory.

So she emailed me asking for some suggestions, a place to start, and some “event-y wisdom” as she put it.

Consider this an “annotated bibliography” of event planning resources I’ve used over the past year.

The Basics

Blogs and online groups are all fine and dandy when you’re looking for creative ideas, need to ask for advice, or just want to keep up-to-date in the industry. When I first got started, though I didn’t know where to start. I needed to do my research before asking others for help. I found two books at the library to be especially helpful in a “general overview” sort of way”.

Meeting & Event Planning for Dummies

Laugh at these “dummies” books all you want… but they have some useful information. Especially when you really have no idea where to start. Although published in 2003 (so the technology aspect of the content is pretty out-dated), I found this book good for understanding all the different types of meetings, events, and parties, sponsorship basics, what to do about contracts, how to set up a realistic budget, and all the little details that generally aren’t blogged about because that’s not the “fun part”.

Event Planning : The Ultimate Guide to Successful Meetings, Corporate Events, Fundraising Galas, Conferences, Conventions, Incentives and Other Special Events

Another good reference book. This book covered some aspects of events that Dummies didn’t capture. My favorite chapters: “The Guest List” (including some awesome checklists and timelines for when to invite whom) and “Your Next Event” (covering good questions to ask yourself and guests about how the event went and how to improve future events). As a bonus, there’s little Q&As scattered throughout the book so you don’t have to read long narratives to find what you’re looking for.

Blogs & Websites

http://blog.eventbrite.com/

This is quickly becoming my favorite blog. From event planning best practices to “5 risks every event planner should take” to tips for keeping the post-event buzz going on social media channels, I can always find interesting, provocative, and useful articles here. Sure they write a lot about their own product, Eventbrite, an event registration tool, but it’s also the BEST event registration management tool I’ve found out there.

Some of my favorite posts:

Guest post: 5 ways to generate (more) revenue with small(er) events

Guest post: 5 risks every event planner should take

Boston Tweetup shares tips on how to host a successful Tweetup

Charlene Li: 5 ways to keep the social media buzz after an event

Yea… I could go on and on… there’s way too much good stuff there.

LinkedIn Group: Event Planning & Event Management

Got a question about something you couldn’t find in books or blogs? There’s a good chance some people in this group will have an answer. I haven’t used the group as much as I probably could, but it’s worth mentioning.

Twitter

List

I created a twitter list of people that tweet a lot about event planning, conferences, and social media/marketing as related to events. Check out the list here: http://twitter.com/#!/carleemallard/event-professionals/

I’m always looking for thought leaders in the event world to add to my list. If you or someone you know should be on the list, let me know!

Hashtag

Follow #eventprofs for a continuing conversation between event professionals.

SUPPLEMENTS:

Alltop: Event Planning

Good place to browse the top stories in the event planning industry. Includes everything from career advice, wedding planning ideas, business meeting trends, conference planning, party rentals, hotels, trade shows, finding motivational speakers, etc. The list goes on. Browse away.

Cvent.com

If you have a budget for outsourcing some of your event’s marketing & survey work (which I never have…) you might want to check this out. Even if you’re doing everything on your own, they also have some good whitepapers on creating surveys, venue selection, and planning a green meeting.

BizBash.com

Great resource for local markets: Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orlando, Toronto & DC. It’s especially useful in researching venues and suppliers locally and reading about successful events in each city. BizBash also holds an annual expo in New York, LA, Chicago, Miami and Toronto, so if you can make it to one of those cities, it sounds like a good place to hobnob with other event planners.

Are there any other big hitters that I’ve missed? What do you use daily or a as a reference for every event you plan?

Learning to Remember

Carlee Mallard — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:08:48 +0000

December 15 – 5 Minutes

Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010.

These fruits that grow in Jamaica remind me on little miniature brains (but they taste really good with eggs).

This was sort of a good exercise, except by nature of the exercise and having been reflecting on the past year for over a week now, mostly what came to mind were the big life-changing moments of 2010 or just the really exciting moments. I wasn’t able to capture the finer, less obvious moments that I wish I could still remember.

ideaSPARK 2010: a complete success. I crave recognition for my hard work but don’t know how to accept it very well…. so…
The moment I realized I found my passion. (probably somewhere between when I heard “hey, great event” from my grandmother, House Representative Deborah Ross, Wayne Sutton, Sumit Vohra, Scott Stratten, David Millsaps, my volunteers and my presenters in a row).
Volunteering for Grow & Share at Bonnaroo 2010. Physical limits tested to the max.
My first Bassnectar show in Tennessee
Staying up all night one hot summer night and connecting with my sister openly and honestly in a way we probably never had before. We even wrote a letter to each other to make sure we remembered that moment. Oh yes, I still remember it.
Seeing inside the NPR studio and watching Frank Stasio plug the awesomeness of PechaKucha that was my sweat and blood!
The day when my sister and I were in The New York Post {love!} one lovely Monday morning, followed by the excitement that my sister was offered a position with Carrot Creative on her blog. It brings tears to my eyes thinking about it (is that weird?)…
Being proud of my sister (that’s pretty much every day, though).
Aha! reading Linchpin
Meeting Regina Twine: friends at first sight!
Summer… gosh it was so nice and warm.
The taxi drive from Montego Bay, Jamaica to Negril, Jamaica and realizing in that hour the difference between Americans and Jamaicans.
Conversations had at the Brazen Careerist DC launch party
SPARKcon, again. AMAZING.

Sometimes I wish we could just attach a video camera to our eyes so that we could replay any moment we chose. That would take a lot of space though.

A theme I’ve also noticed is that I seem to remember moments during periods of travel more than moments stuck in between my normal routine. Maybe that’s a good excuse for traveling more often, even if just to the next town over or somewhere I’ve never been before. If I go somewhere I’ve absolutely never been before, then I’m creating a memory in that physical location for the first time and I’m more likely to remember it than had I done the same thing in a geographic location that I’ve been many times before.

Does anyone else have a hard time remembering parts of their lives and have you done anything to help you remember more? (And I don’t mean textbook material or knowledge, but rather the emotional/experiential part of your memory).

…

In participation with #reverb10.

A Wise Decision, Things My Life Doesn’t Need & Appreciation

Carlee Mallard — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 19:56:07 +0000

Disclaimer: I probably say a lot of things I’m not “supposed to” say in the words that follow. Well, screw the rules.

I think it’s about time I get really clear about my job situation.

I can’t take it much longer. I’ve been there for 2 and a half years. I’ve changed so dramatically over the past two and a half years and my job has changed this much: not at all. So I was happy there at first. I took copious notes. I pitched in as much as I could. I read everything I could get my hands on. I was doing things I’d never done before like training people 30 years my senior, navigating cubicle world rules, and learning how to make and take phone calls with important, busy people (yes–I used to be shy). Everything was shiny and new. Most of my coworkers were different from me, but I respected them and tried to get to know them. My immediate project team was an awesome bunch to work with. We communicated often: stopping by each other’s cubes, emailing, IMing, picking up the telephone, etc.

The part where I whine a little.

The honeymoon phase ended and corporate bru-haha got really complicated. New bosses. More rules. No more telecommuting. Backstabbing coworkers responsible for a lack of raise. Flexibility? zilch. They even moved me to a new office away from any of my immediate project team members and the only friend I’d made so my supervisor could see me from his office. One of my coworkers actually contrived an illness from “sick building” syndrome so that she could get moved out of our building entirely so that, as she said, “Daddy can’t watch over me anymore.” I started getting yelled at on a daily basis for being late. I got kicked off the social committee.

Meanwhile the project work stayed the same. Communication between my project team decreased significantly. I guess everything became second nature, or something. I started going weeks without ever talking to anyone on my team and only had human interaction between November and March, the high season of incoming calls to the hotline number. Summers were so slow that if I did anything of importance I surely can’t recall what it was. Come into the office by nine. Get yelled at for not coming in at 8:15. Do your work. Leave by 5. Repeat.

I still enjoyed the time I did spend with team and for the most part felt a sense of pride for the work that I was helping to produce. But I knew I couldn’t stay too much longer. The administrative crap was weighing too heavily on my mental (and at times, physical) health. So seven or so months ago I decided to drop my hours to part-time. I would only come into the office three days per week and management let me (sort of) choose which 20 hours those were. Knowing that “being late” was a constant fight between my supervisor and I and knowing that I could manage coming into the office by 9am every day, I’ve officially been on a MWF 9am-4pm schedule since then.

Then LOTS of stuff happened.

PechaKucha Night Raleigh blew up. SPARKcon happened. I got on NPR. My sister moved to NYC and got an amazing job with an amazing group (yes, that affected me because the New York Post wrote an article on us). I was freelance writing. I got a social media marketing internship. I met Penelope Trunk. People I didn’t know started recognizing my name for the first time in my life. A brand in the making.

So exciting, yet still so disappointed.

Six months of all that and somehow the day job just started to feel like a prison. Like there are bigger, better things out there for me to be doing. Having just started the 3rd survey cycle season last month, I realized that the only “challenge” ahead of me was getting through each day. Not in the good way. Getting through the repetitive movements: check email, reply with stock answer, copy/paste from one document to another, sort data this way and that, avoid questions about my personal life on conference calls, then put conference call on mute for 45 minutes, and occasionally answer the hotline (the most fun I have all day–talking to strangers!).

In plain English: I’m bored to death. It’s the same old routine I’ve gotten so good at the past 2 years. I’m still in the same position I was when I took this job straight out of college. I’m at the bottom of the rung, with no opportunity for growth. I relish in every writing and project management position I can get into, which really isn’t much. I can’t find any pride in the work I still do. Actually, I feel worse because I know there’s so much untapped potential. I feel in-genuine for staying at a job I resent. I actually feel awful for not [wanting to] pour my heart into my work.

Meanwhile, outside of this job I’m sort of a rockstar. I handle complex details of event management (very akin to project management, ya know), social media strategy, and writing this blog among much else (all things that I love and would do for free). The Communications department at my company knows more about who I am, my skills, and my outside work than the team I’ve work with for over 2 years. They sought me out and held an hour-long meeting with their entire department just to hear my opinions on the company’s social media strategies. For the first time at my company I felt like I was genuinely being listened to, that I was part of a team, and I knew I was adding true value. Thank god for them. They made my day and reinforced what I should be doing.

I can do better.

I want to feel better about myself.

It is time to move on.

Now I just need to find one job, one project, or one team that can use my skills full-time.

Where are you?

…

In participation with #reverb10.

How To: Throw the Best Party of 2011

Carlee Mallard — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 02:00:22 +0000

I went to (and threw) a lot of great parties in 2010. Taking the best parts from each of my favorite events, I present to you my formula for throwing a party of epic proportions in 2011!

There shall be dancing!

Case Study: SPARKcon flash mob dance: Raleigh, NC

If you look closely, you can see my head bopping to and fro. Participating in a flash mob dance was something I got to check off my bucket list this year!

Music to my ears.

Case Study: Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, Manchester, TN

Just pretend like you’re hearing music right now. Bonnaroo was the BIGGEST and BEST party of 2010 because there was literally music playing somewhere 24/7 for 4 days straight.

Playing dress-up.

Case Study: Revolution Raleigh Glow Party: Raleigh, NC & WKNC Afterhours’ dance party (Beach Style): Raleigh, NC

Costumes & themes make the photos distinctive (aka worth remembering) and give everyone something to talk about at the party. We also spent about 2 hours beforehand preparing!

See that beach ball? Yea I brought that and decided to turn it into a game. I purposely threw it all around the room and everyone there drew on it. Props add dimension.

Glow sticks, while technically a prop, get a whole description to themselves. They make any party exponentially better.

Location, Location, Location.

Case Study: Bourbon Beach Club Reggae Beach Party: Negril, Jamaica

Parties in exotic locations are going to be memorable no matter who you were with or what you were doing.

No shoes necessary at this party. Actually... clothes aren't really necessary at all once you get in the ocean just a few feet away (luckily we didn't get pictures of that)!

VIPs

Case Study: PechaKucha Night at ideaSPARK after-party: Raleigh, NC & Brazen Careerist’s Network Roulette launch party: Washington, DC

The company you're in is really *the* most important aspect of a party. Being in the company of good friends at my events makes me 200% more joyous than if I were with strangers.

The VIP list could make or break the party. For example, Regina Twine and I drove 4.5 hours to DC just to meet Penelope Trunk, Ryan Paugh, and seriously so many other amazing people that I don't have space to list them all. The guest list definitely MADE that party :)

What’s Next?

Holiday parties galore. They will probably all include: music, dancing, costumes (hey — Christmas dresses count!), people I definitely want to see, but all in not-so-exotic locations.

In 2011, though, expect a lot more parties. This was the year that I found I’m totally passionately in love with planning events of all kinds (except birthday parties, weddings, and funerals) so it’s going to happen. I’m really *most* excited about all the SXSW Interactive parties more than anything, however :)

…

In participation with #reverb10.

Beautifully Different?

Carlee Mallard — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 03:57:47 +0000

How do we go from cherishing community one day to proclaiming to the world how uniquely different we are from everyone else?

Sure I’m different from a lot of people, but I thank God that I actually share a lot in common with my friends, family & extended communities. What actually keeps me sane when I feel like I’m all alone or that nobody understands me is the fact that there are people out there in this big ol’ word who feel or act exactly as I do. (So I can’t be that weird, right? I must be OK, right?)

You see, I’ve always though of myself as unique, maybe too unique.

From as far back as I can remember my parents had to sometimes put me in my place and remind me that I’m not so different from other people. I’m a hypochondriac. Well that or I’m actually sick a lot more than other people, but either way the same point rings true, but I can’t know which one it is. I tend to go to the doctor proclaiming that my anxiety is uniquely different from anything they’ve ever seen or my sinus cold must be H1N1 or an undiscovered disease that surely could only survive in my unique body makeup (HA!). The tricks my mind play on me sort of suck. Whining about every ailment isn’t something that makes me feel all that beautiful at all. And dammit, I just want to fit in!

There are some quirky things about myself that I love, however.

I didn’t get my ears pierced until my 25th birthday.
People tell me that I have a freakishly close relationship with my 2.5 years younger sister. (See last 3 months of my blog posts all about her to understand what I mean).
I wear a lot of hats. Literally (but figuratively, too, I suppose). Almost every day in winter because it’s the only time I can get away with it (although I do this mainly because I have a fairly rare hair disorder and I hate it… but I love my hats!). Yay photo collage time!
Think independently — love together. I value having a mind of my own, but I share my heart every day with those I really care about. It’s something hard to balance at times (thinking rationally any with my heart at once: example of how I used my blog to help my sister’s dream come true) but I think my friends & family both respect my independence and know I would do anything for them at the same time. I’m just crazy supportive. I don’t give up on people. I hold them accountable out of my fierce love for them.
I’m an evolving personality. I’m never what people expect me to be when we first meet. Partly due to my seriously off-beat facial expressions at just the wrong moment and partly because I’m so open to trying new things that I’m truly different from year to year and depending on the social circle I’m in at the time. I’m social and shy. I’m financially conservative, yet socially [extra] liberal. I’m a career girl and a party girl IN ONE. I’m a planner and spontaneous. If one thing is for sure, I’m guaranteed to surprise you. Test me!

Now if only my friends and family could confirm that I speak the truth.

…

In participation with #reverb10.

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