The Industry

     If you follow me on twitter (@mitchhawes) then you would know that today was a rather busy day… I believe I said “Busy Busy Busy…. but good busy… like if busy was ice cream it would be chocolate chip cookie dough, that means good busy also! What?…” and if you’re confused by that, well I like ice cream, I like cookie dough and I like cookie dough ice cream… oh and I was busy HA! Today was again, all about spreading the word of the blog. This time, I’m talking the written media!Now I don’t claim to be a master of the written word… although that would look pretty awesome on a business card. However, I know the media is always looking for a story and this includes newspapers. Today I explored this route. Don’t ask me why I tend to think of these networking ideas on a Friday, where I won’t know the result of my efforts for at least a couple days… it’s just apparently how I work. At the front/middle/back (basically somewhere) in any given newspaper they will have a contact list of the writers. For example at the local newspaper here in Victoria (The Times Colonist), they have a whole page dedicated to the names of editors and feature writers. I sent out emails to everyone. From features to technology and community writers. My goal out of this is to be hunted down for an interview so that everyone in Victoria knows about this little blog… MUAHAHAHA uh… sorry that should’ve been less evil… more of a HAHAHAHA… ya that’s better. Anyways… I contacted all of the relevant writers and cross your fingers… hopefully I will hear back! Then I moved onto the community newspapers.

Now obviously they have a smaller operation. I checked their paper, but no such luck on a contact list, but then I went all journalist on their butts. I checked out their website and although I didn’t find a contact list like I wanted, I did some clicking around and turns out the local newspapers which are run by the Black Press and they have a little project that they are calling B.C. Blogs, where a bunch of bloggers on a range of topics blog and I believe, get paid! Naturally, I sent an application in for that… how sweet would that be, am I right?!

That took up the majority of the day, but one of the other things that I discovered today was called Red Friday. If you take a look at Todays Extra you’ll see a lovely picture of me and my Maja sporting our red shirts. Basically Red Friday is an operation to support the troops overseas. As I said in the blurb on the extra page, it is not a political or religious thing, nope it’s all about supporting those fighting for us. I thought it was a really cool initiative so I sent a little message to the group and this is what they said back:

“Thank you so much for the kudos. I have been doing this since 2002 and I am glad the recognition is growing. Your help is greatly appreciated for the greater cause. 

Hats off to you my friend!

Brian Muntz - Founder

Very Cool. So read up about their cause and get the word out there… I mean c’mon it’s the least we can do… and if you don’t have a red shirt, it gives you an excuse to go shopping. I am also going to post a message I got from the Program Director of Rock 101 out of Vancouver today, but this post is a little long so I will post it right away, in the next few minutes. Look for it because it has a bunch of awesome advice.

With that I bid you a happy Friday!

-Mitch