HeyChristine.com

Monday, November 20th

Monday morning panic attacks...

One completely exhausting day... but very productive. This morning's EB went smooth but it was an intense one hour and now I'm going to actually DOCUMENT the steps it takes to do so because once I hand off these duties I will never remember what I ever did.

Login to my email for any edits that Gus may have
Print a copy to read, check, and double check
Login to our Management Script to check the total number of subscribers
Make adjustments to EB including additional sign-ups from the night before
Login to our email management system (which takes 3 separate login steps)
Copy/paste into Word, replace dashes with blanks, copy/paste into Excel, separate the lists into 3 sections
Login to our message blaster system, copy/paste reformatted subscriber list to it
Confirm with Gus that the Opinion Poll question is okay (I never like the questions I come up with), then add it to the online Forums
Check to see if there was any last minute activity on the forums to add to the EB
Post last week's EB to the online archives (updates need to be made in 3 places)
Check the EB one more time, and have Gus run through it for the last time
Send message 3 separate times which involves 6 different copy/paste actions. Check the system. File a copy for reference.

So in total, I've got Textpad, Word, Excel, 4 browser windows, and my email system opened up all at once and I don't stop to BREATHE as I'm putting this all together. I feel like a freakin' octopus. If it wasn't for the fact that people post events at the last minute (4), life would be a lot easier. I keep having internal debates with myself, well they didn't post it in time according to our policies, but we should be nice, but they should know better, but we could always use more content, ugh. Also, I started separating our distribution sessions because of this one incident where right in the middle of the send, my computer crashed, and there was NO WAY to tell whether or not the message got sent to the entire list. We resent, and then got one too many complaints that the message was received twice.

And the entire process of sending the message is a panic attack of its own. What if I put the wrong dates in the subject heading, like, "You are now ORIENTED on October 32", or add one too many lines by accident, or miss a misspelled word, or align a line ONE space off from the line above??

I always wonder what other newsletter editors go through just before they send out a message, especially for a publication like the Industry Standard with MILLIONS of subscribers. It always amuses me on the occasion that they actually make a mistake and include an ERRATA line in their subsequent newsletter. By the way, did you notice today's EB? I 'borrowed' the word "ERRATA" straight from the IS. LOL! I'm such a geek, what can I say. I love the Industry Standard!! I just wished we had a comparable resource out here in Asia.

IPO-China would be a good name for such a publication, no?

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On the social front...

I went over to Ginny's for lunch and Tommy joined us too. That's always fun. Both of them are a total trip. Everything they say and do just trips me out, I can't explain it in words. I've always wanted to produce a sitcom in Taiwan about the international crowd here and put those two characters in it. They'd be the stars of the show.

Wennie and I made the decision to get our hair streaked, which will have to wait until next weekend because she's going SHOPPING IN CHINA. Just kidding. Well she is, in Shenzhen where you can get clothes tailor-made on the cheap. The last time I was in Hong Kong visiting Corrina we almost did the Shenzhen thing. I just can't appreciate shopping that much to want to do that unless I was really, really bored.

As for Gus, aside from the morning compilation of the EB, I didn't hear a single PEEP from him all DAY. He's up to something, I just know it. And I got a surprise phone call from James W. (HelloAsia) later on in the evening. I really like him. I just don't see enough of that boy, yet one more person I'd like to spend more time with but just haven't the time to do so. It was a funny conversation. He asked me how things were going and all I could say was that things were going VERY WELL. It went something like this:

James: "Weren't you going for funding?"

     Me: "Yeah, sort of, but I'm working on a marketing program that
             is going to bring me far more exposure than I could ever
             do on my own."

James: "What's your backup plan?"

Me: "James... I don't HAVE a backup plan. I'm WINGING it."

James: "No backup plan?"

Me: "No James, I'm diving in head first, and giving it all I've got."

James: "I see."

Me: "There's no turning back now. I'm at the point of no return.
No looking back James, get it?!"

James: "So you're like, embracing the horizon?!"

Me: "YES. I'm driving down the road and the road I'm driving
down shall have no stoplights as far as I'm concerned!"

James: "In that case Christine... I think you're on the HIGHWAY."

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