Who am I? Why this blog?

Recently engaged and very new to Atlanta, I am eager to discover everything the South has to offer. Especially, the amazing food … My food exploration will include Atlanta as well as any place worth sharing along the way. I’ll get to all that in my second post because I want to give you a little background on how I got here (to creating a blog).

So, Who am I? Why this blog?

Almost three years ago, I moved to Denver from Kansas and began working for a start-up technology company, Efficient Forms, with probably 15 employees total. I was hired to do sales. (Note: I had no sales experience, and it was cold calling, nonetheless.) Tech company. Start-up. Denver. All pretty normal.

Here is the twist for me. I came from a marketing organization for the insurance industry … sales environment … 150 employees … average age around 28 … my job was to give away Corvettes and Harleys, help plan reward trips and employee events, produce a monthly magazine, and other really fun and amazing things. It was B2B marketing, and my target audience was insurance agents. (One more note: I was young, loved my job, and a bit naive … and maybe a little arrogant too.)

My new job and environment was shocking. So shocking that it took me well over a year to adjust to the change. BTW, I am back in marketing, and I am getting to the point so stick with me …

Last summer, the tech company decided to launch a product for consumers – high school seniors to be exact. (Check out CollegeZapps.com!) Everything I learned about marketing over the previous five years went out the door, and the past year has been an “experience.” Let me introduce just a few of the things that I have learned and I am still learning and will continue to learn: blogs … MySpace … Facebook … YouTube … MyYearbook.com … what’s next?!

BTW, I am not that old. I am still in my twenties … So, technically, I should have probably known a little more about all of this. But, I had this “opinion” about people my age who had a blog or spent time on MySpace. Seriously?

What I have come to realize is I was really the one who was totally in the dark. The tech people who I work with and who I originally had such a hard time figuring out … well, they are different than me, and they are wonderfully different. They have opened my eyes to a really great, new techy world. They have introduced me to things (like blogs) that I need for my job, that allow me to understand my new target audience (and my younger sister), and to things that I would have probably never explored myself. And for the long-run, all of this is the key to Generation Next who I will be working and communicating with very soon in the workplace.

Seriously, where was I for the past six years (okay, five years because I have come a long way in the past year)?!

So from here on out, there will be very little techy talk. I’d much rather share about my favorite place to eat breakfast on Saturday morning (with very little Atlanta knowledge, how about J. Christopher’s in Roswell – hello tummy!) or the amazing seared scallops I had last weekend at Barnsley Gardens Resort in Adairsville, Georgia. And, in case you were wondering, I love everything from donuts, onion rings, and beer to shopping at Whole Foods and striving to eat my recommended daily fruits and veggies. 

P.S. Thank you, Chris Kasten, for your patience with me and for being so hip. (Is “hip” really the right thing to say with Generation Next? In this case, I really don’t care. I think you are hip.)