Word of Mouth Genius

PR post: Todd Defren's blog "PR-Squared" is my favorite PR blog, possibly my favorite blog period. He has great insights for the future of PR, with an emphasis on social media.

I have to ask the same question Defren did, "Is BzzAgent Dave Balter a Genius?"

Balter has written "The Word of Mouth Manuel, Volume II."

The book is $45 and limited copies were printed.

My initial thoughts: "$45 bucks! And there's only a few printed, what's he trying to pull?"

BUT...

Balter asked 20 popular bloggers (Defren being one of them) to post about his book. On the 20 selected bloggers post there is a link to get the entire book for FREE!

My fully informed thoughts: Genius, pure genius.

My PR friends (or anyone else for that matter) go to Defen's blog, click on the link to download the book or just click here. I'd also recommend that you add Defren's blog to your RSS feed.

I've just skimmed the first few pages and I'm planning on reading it through.

I really have to hand it to Balter, he is promoting his book through the means he is discussing. Pretty smooth, pretty smooth.

I GOT MY MISSION CALL!

I have been called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have been assigned to labor in the Arizona Mesa Mission. I report Wednesday, 3 September 2008, English speaking.

I'm in the 'Zona!

This is a super rough sketch of my mission boundries.
It has part of Phoenix, all of Scottsdale, Mesa (obviously).
It also has the Navajo reservations in the Eastern part of Arizona.
But no Tempe or Gilbert.

I'm really excited to preach the gospel to the people of the great state of Arizona. Although I had thought I would serve foreign, I know that this is the right mission for me, with people waiting to hear about the gospel from me.

For those of you wondering who guessed the closest, the winner is my cousin Katie who guessed New Mexico.

I have much more to blog about NYC wise but I've been really busy this last week with our big event on June 4th at Carnegie Hall for work and 4 of my extended family arrived on Thursday night. But I'll do my best to get blogging!

Eradicating Grammar Errors

I thought I'd take a break from my NYC story telling and post this article one of my professors posted on his blog titled, "Typo Personalities: Armed with Sharpies, erasers and righteous indignation, two apostles of the apostrophe make it their crusade to rid the world of bad signs."

Read it, it's great. They are grammar heroes.

Maybe I am a Lucky Person

In the public affairs office where I work there is senior missionary couple, the Howells. I think they are great. They have a son visiting in NYC, so after work on Wednesday the Howells said they were going to Wicked to try and win the lottery so Sam could go.

Background info: Wicked the musical has a lottery system for 26 seats for each show. You put your name and how many tickets you would like (max. 2) and put it in for the lottery before two hours before curtain. The tickets are for the front row, for $26.25 a ticket and must be paid in cash.

I said I wasn't doing anything right after work and would go to try and help increase the chances. We didn't win.

Thursday however luck hit me in the face. After submitting our names Rita (the other intern I work with), Sam, Elder and Sister Howell and a fellow BYU Comms Intern, Alina, and I were talking. We were engaged in conversation when I hear "Sarah To-moser." I was hardly paying attention, and didn't even realize they had started and I was the first name to be picked!!!

So Sam and I got to see Wicked from the front row! It was really amazing, I saw Wicked last summer in Chicago and was really pleased with it. I walked away thinking that was really good, but I didn't understand the HUGE amount of adoration people had given it. After this time I walked away perhaps more impressed because I was able to see everything up close. I was able to see the costumes and the intricate detail put into each piece. Plus, I was given the soundtrack for Christmas and have been able to know the songs. So it was really awesome to be able to hear the CD played out for me live, and so well done! I really am a fan, did I buy a shirt or any other memorabilia? No. Did I wish I did? No. But it is for sure an amazing show and would give an extremely high recommendation to anyone.