Ashley Cross's blog

Hello everyone. Catching up after the holidays has all of us busy, so I thought I would stick to a quickhits list today with some random musings.

Yesterday, Tracie blogged about our Black Friday Experiment. We are always trying to find ways to help out folks in athletic departments. We know how little “extra time” there is around a department to spend brainstorming on ideas. The day-to-day grind and to-do lists get in the way of thinking about the big (or little ideas).

Last week, Tracie and I had the chance to swing by the Northwestern University athletic offices to visit with former co-workers and our current clients. It is refreshing to be back on campus and even more refreshing to chat with some of our closest friends in the business.

Hello folks. I know everyone is angry with Facebook today. They changed their look and it has thrown people into quite the tizzy. I remember back in college when they added the status updates and people said it was the worst idea Facebook had ever had. And now, I have no idea what people would DO with Facebook if not for the status updates?! People don't like change.

Aaron posted this graphic today. My thoughts exactly...

Aloha from beautiful Illinois!

I am getting settled in back in the Land of Lincoln. It is great to be closer to some of my clients in the area and I am looking forward to adding some more to the already awesome list of Old Hat clients.

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend one of Bradley University’s Community Nights in central Illinois. We put together a website to promote the coaches tour (check it out here: bravescommunitynights.com/). The website was a big success, increasing fan interaction and providing some valuable fan information for the athletic department.

So Dustin is out of the office today. He is at a video shoot in Michigan with Zac and asked me to step in for him today. Dustin usually does some quicklinks, so I thought I would follow in his foot steps.

PLANKING

The web craze of planking has finally reached Norman. Some peeps around the office decided to take part. Here are our death defying acts...

Planking #21: On a desk

So when I am not throwing down dunks, noodling in an Oklahoma river, or getting punked or embarrassed by Robert, I am usually scavenging the internet for cool social media news, marketing ideas or up and coming websites. I stumbled across this awesome blog post the other day on The Hundreds website, a site run by skateboarders who blog, video and have a clothing line. The blog post was called “Just Work Hard: It’s Not Hard Work”.

During my junior year of college, I had one of the best/worst jobs ever. I worked as a promotions intern for the Peoria Chiefs minor league baseball team. It was the best job because I watched over 70 baseball games in one summer and ate all the hot dogs and popcorn I wanted. It was one of the worst jobs ever, because I worked over 70 baseball games and ate way too many hot dogs and buckets of popcorn. During the games, I worked as a Buffalo Wild Wing, sporting the restaurant's shirt (as seen below), and ran those crazy on-field activities.

In honor of the royal wedding, which I woke up at 5 AM to watch and have been made fun of by my peers for, I thought I would put together a top ten list to help people out there plan a wedding. Both Deb and I are in the midst of planning weddings ourselves. I don't like making decisions, so it has been pretty difficult. I asked Deb for a quote on planning a wedding and her response was a series of "Hmm..." and "Ugh..." While wedding planning may not be the best part of the joyous experience, hopefully, this list will act as a guide for future wedding planners.

1. Don't let your outfit outshine you.