"It's been a beautiful run but we're moving on up.  Please find my new blog at LaurenProctor32.com/Thinking."

 

How did we get so lucky and who could have ever guessed that this would be our future?  I've recently taken a bit of time to pause and reflect on my life and I'm filled with gratification.  This has been a great blog, but I finally figured it was time.  Time for my own website, time to move, and time to recap what's been going on over here.  Below you'll find a bulleted list of what's happening and what it means.

• Got a new website.  You can now find me at LaurenProctor32.com.  My blog is at LaurenProctor32.com/Thinking.  I've also started to take my personal Twitter account more seriously. You can find it at Twitter.com/LaurenProctor32.
  • What it means: I launched straight into helping everybody else with their new media marketing and branding strategy without looking at my personal brand for even a second.  Now we're taking that second, and I've decided to spend a small fraction of my time practicing what I preach on my personal brand. 

 

• Recently became a research fellow at The Hybrid Reality Institute, an intellectual organization that examines human technology co-evolution as it relates to society, business and politics.  
  • What it means: Worldwide brainstorming salons, idea incubation labs, blogging on Big Think and research projects on the ripple effects of innovation clusters.  This is pure love.  It looks like my first research project will be with The Blue (man group) School on the future of learning.

 

• Started working at Jen Bekman Projects, a SoHo, NY based gallery with art eCommerce site 20x200 and Hey Hot Shot!, an international photography competition.
  
  • What it means: Art,new media, one of Fast Company's most influential women in technology. I adore the team, the way they work, and the work they put out.   

 

• Became the Director of Social Media at persuasive communications firm LawPadilla.
  • What it means: Short and longterm consulting projects on brand strategy and new media marketing in a variety of industries.  Talk about doing what you love.

 

• Working on a rebranding project with PhiPower, an interactive research firm with multiple Fortune 100 Clients. 
  • What it means: I've fallen in love with the future of research and adore the process of nailing down the kind of verbiage that captures the financial world as much as it does major executives and big companies.  If you want to see fliers, booklets, and other marketing materials feel free to reach out.

 

• Still at L2 Think Tank.
  • What it means: L2 is love. We were recently called the TED for marketers and received a tweet from outer space.  We also expanded from "a think tank for prestige brands" to a "marketing innovation think tank."   

 

• Brewing with a startup.
  • What it means: There are still a lot of loose ends I need to tie up before it's announced, but I think you'll like it.  I sure do.

 

• Reading like a madman. And I'm kind of obsessed with podcasts.
  • Curiosity never dies. Some things never change.

 

So I've been carrying around this big envelope with an authoritative Commonwealth of Massachusetts design on it for a couple years now. I've moved it three times and left it unopened but on my desk with a select few other items in my organizer.  You know, the vertical leather desk organizer that houses only the very major things.  The first few magazines that gave you paid bylines, a card from Mom and Dad, and an old financial statement from right before you went paperless.  Because really, where else does one store their undergraduate diploma?

For whatever reason I glanced at my diploma envelope today and realized something quite shocking. The envelope I've been carrying around had a return address of "MIT."  I went to UMass.  

The sudden discrepancy was of momentous shock to me so I ripped it open only to find an invite waiting inside, worthless now that I've missed the sign up date by two years.  A piece of junk mail that I've moved three times and glanced at (emphasis on the glanced apparently) every now and then.  I'd say the MIT invite is almost sentimental if only for the solid laughter and the "You really graduated from college?" moment it delivered.

As for my actual diploma...I've never even seen the thing.

I was recently reminded that this seemingly incessant heat is almost over.  Summer is steamrolling by and it's almost Fall, almost time for the holidays.  And so rather than let it pass too quickly I believe it's time to take this heat head on.  

It's time for Beach Revelry 2010, a casual get together for a few friends (and inevitably a few strangers). It's nothing formal, totally last minute, and very small but I'll probably bring my DJ backpack, share my funnel cake, and encourage you to swim a little too deep this weekend.

Let me know if you care to join,

Lauren

Gen Y spending is poised to eclipse that of Boomers by 2017 and this generation is about to move into its prime spending years.  L2 saw this and decided to delve further.  The result is our Gen Y Prestige Brand Ranking, a survey of 450 Gen Y high-earners from 45 countries (83 percent are expected to make more than $100k+/year in the short term).  As the most robust study of its kind, this ranking reveals what L2 founder Scott Galloway calls the the closest thing to a crystal ball in measuring the future success of luxury brands.  It's also a grander statement on retail and consumption as a whole.

In addition to the above photo gallery with my favorite charts from the study, you may also enjoy a few of these statistics about Gen Y.

• 65% of females and 61% of males consider themselves "brand conscious."  Only 1% of females and 3% of males do not consider themselves brand conscious.
• Print is not dead. Print continues to be a primary source for information on prestige brands. It is the #1 source for women and #2 for men.  Recommendations from family and friends via word of mouth are also crucial, ranking #1 for men and #2 for women.
• One in five Gen Y respondents like a prestige brand on Facebook and one in ten follow a prestige brand on Twitter.  Almost half have signed up to receive email from a prestige brand and alomst one in five Gen Y's consider blogs to be one of their top three sources for information on prestige brands.

Click here to download the report in full.

 

Sometimes at night I look at the skyline and imagine all the potential resting in every window of every building.  What would it look like if it exploded?  Would it illuminate so bright the colors and light would block out the sun?  Of course that doesn't have to do with anything, or at least I didn't think it did until last night.

I walked into a bar (don't all the best stories start that way?) and the second the door behind me swung closed I found myself catapulted into another world.  Sugary voices, fingers caressing guitar strings, and the types of drum beats that change the way your heart beats all have a way of doing that for me.

Sometimes it scares me. I stand there defenseless to the way music makes me feel and I wonder if I'll ever be that happy again in my life.  Will something ever take me in so deeply and will anything ever make me feel that same exhilarating comfort again?

That happened to me last night in the bar, and with choppy breath I wanted to find all blank spaces in all the world and fill them with "This is everything."  In thick Sharpee printed on the surface areas of my skin, splattered in paint on the walls, and written over and over again through the air with ribbons and movement. 

"This is everything" I kept repeating over the soft bass line.  "This is everything."

But all I could do was stand there, wishing I could slit my body straight down the center and let sentiment and sound flow and fill in the spaces where my blood goes.  That's when I realized something important.

That music, that stage before me, everything there represented the explosion of human potential.  This was it, the sound of light so bright it blocks out the sun.  Or maybe art like this is just everything that compliments the sun and keeps us thriving.

In some ways sharing experiences like this feels like the purpose of my life.  I want everyone to feel this, if only for a few measures or for that instant when you first lay eyes on a painting.  I don't want them to just say it, I want them to feel it fill all the blank spaces in their world.

I want it to help them realize that if you put tools in four people's hands and then place them on a stage then they can achieve anything.  After all, this is everything, and in a moments like this it all feels like a gift.