Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

March Pop Culture Round Up

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March 2020 Pop Culture Round UpWell if you didn’t think you needed a dose of pop culture distraction before…

I hope you are doing well, staying safe and washing your hands CONSTANTLY. I am so grateful for the distractions of pop culture right now. From reading outside while the dogs run around to insane Netflix docuseries and podcasts on my dog walks, we will get through this social distancing with great pop culture. Instead of 3 more reasons to do some marketing tasks during COVID-19 in my March newsletter I gave a Top 10 list of my favorite pop culture distractions. If you missed it, check out my list here. (Also you should subscribe to my newsletter if you don’t already!) If you already blew through my first set of recommendations, here’s a few more to get you started on another month of stay home stay safe.

Reading

I am finally making strides with The Starless Sea and will finish it before I’m out of quarantine! I tend to read outside when the weather is nice and since the sun returns soon, I am hopeful I’ll finish this book!

I was chatting with a friend last week and she mentioned we should start a pandemic book club. Since we were messaging through Instagram we decided to make it an Instagram book club. I had a stack of books to read so sent her my stack and she picked one that sounded interesting to her and so now about 10 of my friends from all walks of life are going to read Inheritance by Dani Shapiro for a book club. If you’re on Instagram message me (@ejcase) to join the club!

I am of course reading a lot of news every day as well, and trying to focus on the news specifically in Oregon and Hillsboro/Washington County. And by the evening I try to unplug from social media so I can sleep at night.

Listening

God Bless Podcasts. And the new Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga songs!

When I mentioned Inheritance was my pandemic book club pick, a friend messaged and asked if I listen to her podcast – Family Secrets. I do now! Holy crap it’s great! I’ve only listened to two episodes but it’s crazy and exactly the kind of thing I love.

I had mentioned sports podcasts in my newsletter and I finally listened to an episode of Hall of Shame. It’s fun – two friends talking about some crazy sports story from history. I recommend it if you like sports or really ridiculous stories.

Watching

In response to my March newsletter a friend responded and asked if I have watched McMillion$ on HBO yet. I saw it when it first came out and thought it might be better binged. I was right – this show is crazy. It’s all about how the McDonald’s monopoly games were rigged! It’s was GREAT!

The other day an ad came across my Twitter feed for Tiger King on Netflix. It checks all my favorite boxes – docuseries, cults, polygamy. It is AMAZING. I am so sad it’s only 7 episodes. Just when you think it’s unbelievable they cut to the local tv news clip confirming it. If you haven’t watched it yet, jump on it so you know what the rest of us are talking about.

This weekend I vegged out and finally watched Booksmart on Hulu. It’s about 2 “booksmart” girls on their last night of high school who finally go to a party and do all the wild things they never did in high school. I had tears rolling down my eyes I was laughing so hard. Olivia Wilde directed it and there’s a variety of SNL and other fun adults in the movie.

I am so thankful for Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist – it’s the exact kind of light hearted show we need right now. I find at this time that watching really deep and heavy TV is hard. I’m glad we finished The Outsider and The Morning Show when we did. They’re too heavy for quarantine (for me anyway).

My friend suggested Self Made on Netflix which will be up shortly in our queue. And I may finally finish Locke & Key. A friend also mentioned that they finally got Hulu and finished Veronica Mars. If you never watched this series, this would be a GREAT time to watch a young snarky Kristin Bell as amateur PI show. I promise.

What pandemic pop culture is helping to get you through everything going on right now?

3 Recent Mailchimp Updates That May Affect Your Business

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3 Recent Mailchimp Updates That May Affect Your BusinessThere have been a few changes with Mailchimp lately that I recently shared with my clients and now that we’re all squared away I wanted to pass this along to you as well!

  1. Mailchimp has changed (again) what you get with your FREE account. ARG. Any NEW account from this point forward will not be able to schedule a newsletter – they just have to hit send when it’s ready to go. I chatted with Mailchimp about this and they said this will also happen if you are inactive for 12 months. SO – don’t go a whole year without talking to your audience on Mailchimp! Let me know if you have questions on this.
  2. Change to User Setup – With the last round of changes free accounts can no longer add users to their account. HOWEVER – as a Mailchimp Partner I am setup as an agency so I can be added and it won’t count against your user count. Here’s instructions for how to get this setup if we work together OR if you have another service provider who qualifies as an agency.
  3. Squarespace users – (This is unique ONLY if you have a Squarespace account, if you don’t I only had 2 points for you) If you have a subscribe form on your website and have received any emails saying that the account no longer can connect to Mailchimp – that’s correct. First do follow the instructions in the email and attempt to fix the issue. That’s worked for a couple of clients. However, my recommended work around for clients still having an issue is to setup a Zap in Zapier. You can talk with your web developer about this – let me know if you have any questions.

mailchimp partner

Like most software, change is the constant at Mailchimp. I still believe they are a great tool and resource for small business owners, AND they are a company who have mouths to feed and bills to pay. It’s a bummer that the free resources are increasingly limited, but hopefully you can work within the confines or upgrade to a paid account. Either way, I’m here to help if you need me!

February Pop Culture Round Up!

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I finally read a book! I was on quite the dry spell this winter and I am SO happy to say I read a book – and I read it in 3 days which is really fast for me. YAY ME. Here’s what I read, plus my other favorite pop culture distractions this month…

Reading

I read The Family Upstairs last weekend. It’s a book I heard about a few months ago from Entertainment Weekly (I think that’s where I heard about it…) it’s about a woman who inherits a large home in London on her 25th birthday. She was adopted and she finally discovers who her birth family is. It has two of my favorite topics – adoption AND cults. It was a fun quick read!

I also caught up on some comics while we were at the coast earlier this month. Brian K. Vaughn did a stand alone The Walking Dead comic called The Alien that was a quick read. It was good, not great, but did tie in well to the story as a whole. I also finished Kelly Thompson’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch, it was cute but not amazing (which she often is -I read most of her comics).

I’m 150 pages into The Starless Sea. I really like the current day story but it alternates with a book (one chapter about a person in the present, the next about a book they have) that is a SLOG to get through. I was talking with a librarian last week and she agreed that it’s a really hard read. I trust the author (she wrote The Night Circus which I LOVED) but man alive is it a challenge to read…

Listening

Justin Timberlake and SZA just came out with a new single for the Trolls: World Tour soundtrack and I am here for it all spring and summer…

I am really enjoying the latest single from the Jonas Brothers – What a Man Gotta Do. I never expected to be a Jonas Brothers fan but here we are. Also – if you missed the Seth & the Jonas Brothers go day drinking last month on Late Night it was worth the time. And has my new favorite musical rhyme. Please let me know what you think it is after you watch.

I’m listening to 30 for 30 – The Spy who Signed Me and it is a really weird story and mostly is a great reminder that female athletes are paid TERRIBLY and we need to stop that.

I’m enjoying (when their audio is level) Capitolizing which is a very niche podcast – it’s 2 Oregon State Senators who recap what’s going on in the capitol each week. I just discovered it and it’s nice to get some inside scoop. I’m also listening to a LOT of Politics Now and Think Out Loud as Oregon is in the midst of our 35 day short session and the Republicans walked out (seriously – they left the state and bragged about their tickets to somewhere warm…) on Monday so there’s a LOT to keep up with.

And I was ON a podcast this month! Digital Marketing Masters had me on their pod to talk about email marketing for small business owners. We also talked about HillHub and the Hillsboro Chambers Small Business & Entrepreneurs Council. It was fun and worth a listen if you miss the sound of my voice.

Watching

I finally started watching The Outsider on HBO and it is SO GOOD. The PI is an amazing actor and the story is so creepy – I can’t watch it late at night I’ve discovered. I also watched the pilot of Locke & Key which is based on a comic book series by Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son – also Stephen King wrote the book The Outsider is based on) and it was super fun. More family oriented in its mystery but I enjoyed the pilot and will binge the rest soon.

I watched the pilot of Briarpatch and enjoyed it, now to keep going. I didn’t love the pilot for Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist but my friend emailed me about it a month ago when the pilot aired and so I decided to try the next couple of episodes. I’m caught up (through ep 3) and I have to say – I am really liking it! I tried the pilot of High Fidelity (on Hulu) and couldn’t get into it. I like the movie and Zoe Kravitz though, if you continue to watch and like it please let me know!

This final season of Schitts Creek is so great. I need a case of Moira Rose please…

While at the coast my husband and I finally watched The Battered Bastards of Baseball which is about the Portland Mavericks – an independent baseball team in the late 70’s. It is a crazy fun story. If you live in the region you should watch it. And if you like baseball and live anywhere in the world you should watch it. They had their own dog ball boy, this team was so great…

A couple of weeks ago I recorded Date Night (yes the Tina Fey/Steve Carrell movie) and it holds up. It was the perfect Valentine’s Day movie my husband and I discovered. Speaking of older movies – last weekend I finally watched The Campaign (from 2012 with Will Ferrell) and it is ridiculous and hilarious and was a perfect Friday night movie with friends.

Okay, I think that was enough pop culture for one month. What kept you entertained and distracted from politics and coronavirus free this month?