adj : relating to or caused by a virus; "viral infection"
No, I don't have a virus.
I was basically held at gunpoint this afternoon until I assured my friend Brian that I would blog about a project he's involved in at work. Here is the conversation we had taken directly from the chat window.
Brian: i'm pretty proud of myself
if you wanna help viral me a bit with your blog that would be moy bueno
me: sure I can do that
Brian: thanks doc
word of the day = viral
me: hah
okay, you ordered it
The project is basically a Solar Car Race Team from Houston. The company Brian works for, Schott, donated the solar panels to the school so they could build the Sundancer, the car they plan to race in the Dell-Winston Solar Car Race in Dallas, TX. Brian set up this blog for the students so they could track their experience and update fans who are checking on their progress. He thought I was being sarcastic when I said I thought it was cool, but it actually is. I wanted to build a solar car when I was in high school, but instead we just got to read about it. So these kids are pretty lucky to be involved in something like this.
What I'm wondering though is why I don't get this excited about any of my work projects. Of course, I don't work somewhere that invokes excitement. And I *was* excited to go to Russia for the G8, but that didn't work out because they thwart fun. I guess converting websites isn't exactly thrilling work so I should just be glad that I work with really wonderful people who I don't mind spending 40 hrs a week with. But I would really like to be doing something that I could get excited about.
So back to the word of the day. Why did Brian want the word to be viral. He doesn't have a virus either. He's in marketing and he wants his advertising of this program to be infectious. Perhaps I should have used the word "infectious" because that better explains what I'm talking about here. How many people in the world have a job that is a happy form of infectious? I wish I had one.
1 comment:
For the record, my job isn't necessarily as amazing as you make it out to be. Although they haven't yet kaboshed a trip to Russia, they don't even know what "fun" is. It's a German glass company. Come on now, this isn't ESPN, or, like, Vandalay Industries. I'll refrain from making further comments as this is linked back to a work project.
Why Viral? Viral marketing is a term used where you do word of mouth stuff (think viral videos). By you linking to the Sundancer blog (check it out people, it is pretty cool stuff) people will click on it and be exposed to my company's messaging.
Everyone that links to your blog now links to my company's messaging. So, it's viral. Or, 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon-esque if you will.
We're also targeting more relevant blogs, like solar and renewable energy verticals and I want to see who generates more hits. A seemingly irrelevant blog (this) or them and who of those people click through to our corporate website. It's a half-assed experiment if you will.
And, for the record, I didn't strong arm you to post this. I just threatened I'd never send you a post card from Germany if you didn't do it.
And you want to be my latex salesman.
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