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This Week’s Links on Ma.gnoliaNovember 30

Some stuff I’m reading this week…

Digital Domain - The Forces Driving Women Out of Computer Science - NYTimes.com

When one looks at computer science in particular, however, the proportion of women has been falling. In 2001-2, only 28 percent of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women. By 2004-5, the number had declined to only 22 percent. Data collected by the Computing Research Association showed even fewer women at research universities like M.I.T.: women accounted for only 12 percent of undergraduate degrees in computer science and engineering in the United States and Canada granted in 2006-7 by Ph.D.-granting institutions, down from 19 percent in 2001-2. Many computer science departments report that women now make up less than 10 percent of the newest undergraduates.

ColorFlip.com by Rafaël Rozendaal, collection of Sébastien de Ganay

This is pretty gorgeous. And insanely addictive.

What I ‘Do’ For a LivingNovember 16

The most common conversation I have when I go to an event goes somewhere along these lines:

New acquaintance: “Tara, I see your name everywhere, but I still don’t quite understand what you do.”

Me: “Well, I make a living as a marketing consultant, specializing in online communities and strategy, but I spend more of my time these days as a community organizer and armchair economist. I also have a book coming out in April of 2009, which also makes me an author, and I travel around the world speaking at conferences on the online marketing and strategy work that I do.”

That’s sort of it in a nutshell. But my background is varied and so are my interests, so I believe that leads to a great deal of confusion for people as to what exactly I ‘do’ for a living. Even though my ‘about’ section as well as my resume outlines my experience and expertise in the area of marketing strategy (both online and off in less ‘traditional’ types of marketing), I admit that I spend more time reading, thinking and writing about a much broader array of subjects.

I’m deeply interested in social issues and how economics underpins much of our social world. That is what got me into the study of social capital. The current understanding of economics tends to be pretty simplistic and focused on personal wealth - that is, what is in my bank account at any given moment and what the damned government is taking out of it at the end of each year. I think thi

This Week’s Links on Ma.gnoliaNovember 16

Some stuff I’m reading this week…

Renamed WiFi Networks Guilt Freeloaders Into Buying Coffee » Adrants

This is truly brilliant.

Daily Kos: Prop 8: The legal challenges are beginning

I still can’t believe that millions of total strangers who have never so much as laid eyes on me had the right to vote on my rights and equality at all, let alone that they voted against them. If this was, in fact, an unconstitutional proposition, it means they did not have that right. It won’t change the fact that they voted how they did, but it will take some of the pain away.

Cupcakes Take The Cake: Barack Obama in 1240 cupcakes

Artist Zilly Rosen of soon-to-open Buffalo, New York bakery Zillycakes has made

The True Value of Social Media ConsultantsOctober 22

The other day, I was in a meeting with a group of very smart people and we were talking about how to discern a ‘great’ social media consultant from a ‘mediocre’ social media consultant. I’ve never really considered myself a social media consultant, though. I’ve always thought of myself in a more integrated way, since I’ve spent my marketing career working online AND offline and being part of product development as much as promotional campaigns. Even the term ‘community marketing’ that I usually use to describe my practice falls short.

Even so, I believe the job of Social Media Consultant entails using the online social media tools available to spread the word - much like PR does for traditional media - to pick up steam for the brands they represent. This, of course, is a very smart business to get into, especially during these turbulent economic times. Social media tools are inexpensive and are quite easy to measure impact for. I particularly like tools like HubSpot and Google Analytics for measuring impact of social media campaigns, as well as tracking word of mouth through Twitter’s search and Google Blogsearch. There are many other tools available, as outlined here by my

Red Zone/Green ZoneSeptember 28

Baghdad (International) Green Zone by James Gordon

Does this sound familiar?

Jane works for a company that is fairly successful. The product it produces is beer and has moved from being a local favorite to a regional favorite to a favorite in pubs across the entire U.S. Jane’s role is customer service and she takes calls from, mostly, happy customers every day, thanking her for producing a really great beer with a great taste and a solid heartfelt brand. One Monday morning, the companies executives round up all of the employees for a big meeting and tell them that, because of the great success thusfar, the board has decided to go more nationally aggressive with the company. The company is getting a boost in funding and will be hiring a whole bunch of new people to handle the expansion. Jane is excited. More customers equals more great phonecalls for her.

As they expand, things start to change…but not in the directions Jane thought they would. The biggest addition seems to be to the sales team - a group of beverage sales specialists. In order to help Jane out, they hire two other people, quite junior as part of her customer service staff. The sales team sticks to their own, which baffles Jane a little. Th