Confessions of a Social Media Junkie

Those of you who read my blog regularly are well aware that I am a social media whore user. Those of you new people who may be followers of @jennicake on Twitter and have stumbled into the blog of @dlegas05, welcome. She makes me sound pretty interesting...hope I can deliver for you. (Also, if you are a blog regular, follow her on Twitter. Do it.)

Since there may be this major influx smattering of new readers coming it, I figured this was a good time to re-introduce myself and publish the bio I wrote for a PRSA-YP profile that never made it to print. It ties directly to the content in this blog and the link I have to USC (and, thus, the folks who brought you here).

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Dale is a Sr. Account Executive at the David James Agency, a boutique agency focused on cutting-edge high tech. As a former baseball player at USC, Dale brings to his work a tangible competitive streak that greatly benefits his client base of primarily startup and emerging companies.

In his SAE role, Dale has handled media and analyst relations for a number of B2B accounts ranging from semiconductor and enterprise software companies to network systems integrators—all the while being amazed at the number of high tech companies located right here in the greater Los Angeles area.

Even growing up locally in Burbank, Dale shared prevailing perception that high tech was completely dominated by Silicon Valley. However, with only one northern California-based client, it's clear that tech is alive and well all up and down the west coast, and he's confident that the DJA is in a great spot to thrive right along with it.

On weekends in the spring, you can find Dale on high school baseball diamonds sharing his passion and imparting his competitive fire on the freshman team at his alma mater, Crespi Carmelite. He splits the rest of his free time among spending it with friends, trying to learn new songs on one of his four guitars and complaining about the lack of a playoff in college football.

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For the record, it's weird writing in the third person.

But the major takeaway is that I am a former USC baseball player who is now a tech geek PR guy dealing with all kinds of complicated stuff I never knew existed before. I broke this down in a post when I was added to the PRSA-YP blogroll, but as you peruse, you will see client-inspired tech acronym explanations, general musings about sports-related topics, rants about non-sports related stuff, articles, songs and some actual real-life issues.

I hope you enjoy your stay, and please feel free to leave comments. I love comments. I love them so much I removed the obnoxious "word" verification thing. Even when you're telling me that I'm an idiot.

Blogroll Addition of the Day

Discovered this fine gentleman this evening when he retweeted my quip about the basketball team giving up fewer points than the football team:

@uscpsycho I laugh. I cry. RT @dlegas05: and in a bizarre turn of events, USC's basketball team may give up fewer points than the football team :(

That's right, Trojan fans. It's the dude who's been front and center at every USC football game since USC opened Pandora's box hired Paul Hackett as its coach (and probably before). I watched games with pops long before I ever signed and went there, and this guy was there with his signature USC SYCO California license plate.

Well, he has a blog. He's archived his travels and experiences watching the Trojans everywhere all over the country. It's a unique perspective and a pretty entertaining read. Check him out. Leave him some comments. Follow him on Twitter!

It's a Celebration! (Kind of)

I had designs on putting together an aggregated history of the DL on this momentous occasion of my angry defection from myspace its first birthday (even though this is a rather nondescript 191st post), but that's just not going to happen. This week has included pitching a story of a multi-vendor latency/features test of a 48-port 10-Gigabit Ethernet switch that scales to offer data center architects the density necessary to enable cloud computing. Apparently, the pitch went over so well with one pub that it decided to break my embargo. (The full announcement doesn't go until Monday.)

Now, in this gent's defense, this is not exactly his area, and it was a mistake that he pulled quickly. But as my gchat status said, when the morning starts at 6-something with a broken embargo, it does not bode well. Small victories by getting a major analyst firm to agree to stop by the Fulcrum booth next week at SC09, but other than that, the day was rough.

On the way home I called Ganser, with whom I have been playing phone tag, and found out that there is some crazy all-you-can-eat deal on Thursday nights at Acapulco. So, I met him over there crushed some ridiculous amount of Mexican food, rolled back to see his new place and have a beer. This now brings me to this minute...in which I am trying to write a blog post but have pretty much zero motivation to do so.

So...happy birthday, DL from DL. Congrats on one year and 191 (mostly inane) posts about sports, work, tech, friends, family, fortune cookies, songs, articles, rants, raves and just general stupidity. It's been real, and...let's not kid ourselves. We'll be right back here tomorrow.

Article(s) of the Day - PRSA Quality Time

Just noticed that these hit the Interweb in the last couple days/weeks. Good times!

Saturday Shift: PRSA Quality Time Event
What do supporting underprivileged children in Mexico, giving up a year of one’s youth to serve the community, helping others battle through addiction and saving the arts in the face of education budget cuts and stiff competition have in common?

On one sunny Saturday in October, the answer was the Public Relations Society of America—specifically PRSA’s “Quality Time with PR Minds” event.

Read full post on DJA Blog...

What'd you do this weekend?
Guest blog post from PRSA-LA YP member Dale Legaspi:

It’s a common question asked on Mondays in offices everywhere. A few weeks ago, though, my answer was an enthusiastic “work!” The quotes are certainly apropos, though, as I “worked” at PRSA’s Quality Time with PR Minds event, which was certainly nothing that resembled the weekday norm. I could not be happier with my decision to participate, and I wasn’t alone.

Read full post on Next Generation blog...

Century Club

In honor of this occasion, my hundredth post, I wanted to do something to give a shout out to those brave souls who made up my readership for this first hundred posts. I, of course, have no idea who reads unless said individuals leave comments, so if you browsed through but never left a comment...well...you're assed out. Leave a comment next time.

Additionally, there are major recurring characters in this blog, so I will point them out and give a brief overview of what makes them pertinent to the DL.

First of all, my readership:

Anderson, Kim: sister of Anderson, Cheryl (also a DL loyalist but with no comments); known/referred to simple as "magic show," as she talks a big game about showing the magic to anyone who will listen but primarily to Toph

Barbarino, Tim: brother status; old buddy who has run with the DL since high school and the days of Burbstank and the canyon; common thread between the DL and princess (his cousin)

Davis, Topher: brother from norMinn; being forced to deserve at the hand of law school out in the IE while living with the Hoser; does not have a couch (lives with patio furniture in his living room)

Hirsh, Matt: close friend from growing up with whom the DL shares brother status as well; was a groomsman in his wedding to...

Hirsh, Stef: giant fan of the DL (as the DL is of her)

Hussein, Adam: Toph's roommate; the Hoser, continuous victim of racial profiling at Dave & Busters in Ontario, Calif.

Kramer, Sally: another blogger and friend of Cheryl and magic show; bonded over concurrent car-related issues

Kruska, Katy: elder sister of former high school teammate/good friend; mother of Jophes and Emily. (If you don't know who Jophes and Emily are, then you need to educate yourself.)

Legaspi, Gene: dad; has achieved rock star status among friends of the DL, and is the #1 fan and #1 source of comments for the DL. Shares all updates with...

Legaspi, Pam: mom; also a rock star among the friends...just picks up DL updates from dad

Mathers, Crissy: cousin and avid blogger/cyber stalker - love you, cuz!

Moshy, Michelle: best friend from college; always a phenomenal partner for a session of o & r

Schwartz, Emily: good friend and fellow Trojan PR alum; the PR rock star from Golin Harris in charge of the PRSA young professionals blog and one who made the "strategic decision" to add the DL into the blogroll

Welch, Jennifer: see "Kramer, Sally"


That should cover the readership. Now, we drill into the cast of characters that makes up the content.

Alcantara, Christine: declared PR sister in school, transferred to SC from the College of Saint Scholastica in Duluth, Minn. (no joke)

Clark, Nick: old high school buddy and current head coach of freshman team; also known as Grant; other half of "The Last Call" two-man guitar jam show

Hillman, Catherine: fake wife; high school friend of college best friend Moshy, Michelle; has yet to be featured in postings but will be prominent factor upon move

Ishak, Amanda: declared PR sister in school

Jordt, Mike: old high school and coaching buddy; current assistant coach at LA Pierce; can typically be found drinking with fellow coaches Clark and Legaspi

O'Sullivan, Annette: new roommate in east Ventura; owner of Spuds

O'Sullivan, Frankie: Annette's dog; referred to in the blog as Spuds (because the DL failed to remember his real name)

To all of you who endured through my idiotic ramblings for these first 100 posts, thank you, and hopefully you enjoyed them and will come back. To anyone I may have missed, I apologize profusely. Hit me with a comment, and I will definitely add you all in.

ADDENDUMS:
In an absolutely egregious oversight, I missed the one and only person here who had an entire entry devoted to her.

Brici, Paula: virtual coworker with whom I spend a portion of the day chatting with on IM to stay sane; a true PR rock star and a friend and mentor to me; also get major brownie points from the DL for being the only coworker who reads the entries and keeps tabs on how the baby Celts are doing

Milan, Neil: best friend high school version; something of a phantom reader of the DL, claims to read but never leaves comments; busy with his misadventures in the south trying to get his PhD; clearly has zero sense of priority in life

Reimers, Nicole: soon to not be Reimers, Nicole; wedding in June in Texas; has "put up with [the DL's] shit for eight years now...yeah, eight years"; blog mooch (frequent reader, never commenter...unless it's to whine about not getting a shout-out)

There! You happy now?! Now send me my reading, lest I screw it up at your wedding! ;)

Helloooooooo PRSA!

As a product of nepotism a strategic decision by the communications chair, I am now linked in the blogroll of the Los Angeles Chapter's Young Professionals group to add some color amid the serious links. That's right, folks. My good friend and fellow Trojan has decided that my blog belongs amid all the serious links and industry news.

This new PRSA link may double my readership and take it to...I dunno...maybe even double digits. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. For those of you YP rogues who do wander onto this, here's a rough sketch of the kinds of inane ramblings you can expect.

Sports: I'm a former D1 athlete bench jockey, a fan and a coach. Baseball is my game (and since it's high school baseball season, you will see numerous posts about my freshman team at Crespi Carmelite HS), but I am an equal opportunity fan unless it's soccer. I hate soccer.

Things/People that Suck: The following have all been covered in previous posts: giving up drinking for Lent, "word" verifications, drunk drivers who drill parked cars, obnoxious people in restaurants, Dave & Busters in Ontario, local utilities in Thousand Oaks, myspace, etc.

Things that are Underrated: Thermos bottles, shoe polish, cruise control....I'm really long overdue for another post in this category...probable future topics: college baseball, the Netherlands World Baseball Classic team, technology in SOUTHERN California. Stay tuned.

Random Technology Acronyms/Facts: Multiprotocol label switching, transient voltage suppressors...these are the kinds of things I do for a living and are tied to the accounts on which I work. Sooooo...you should probably skip them.

Other than that, it's pretty much my own take on my own life as a young professional. Hope it's interesting/entertaining to some of you guys. If you're looking for deep insights, hit the back button on your browser and then check another link. If you're just looking for something to deep fry me about on facebook or linkedin or at the next mixer, here you go.

ADDENDUM: Should you stumble onto Earl Weaver post, turn your speakers down if you are in the office because the dialog is definitely NSFW.

Song of the Day - "Simple Man"

In light of the beginning of this season of spiritual emphasis and a return to basics along with the new life brought into the world today, this is the song of the day. Jophes Joseph Michael Kruska weighed 8 lbs. 3 oz. and measuring in at 20 1/2 in. Mom and baby (and dad and big sister...despite her getting the consonant sounds backward in his first name...are too) are doing great. Congrats Katy and CJ! Uncle Matt and "uncles" Jordt and Dale will be coaching him up in no time.

More info on the fam will undoubtedly be found here once Katy is home this weekend.

Oh, and if you can't figure out from this info why this is the song of the day, keep listening to it until it makes sense.



Mama told me when I was young
Come sit beside me, my only son
And listen closely to what I say.
And if you do this
It will help you some sunny day.

Take your time... don't live too fast,
Troubles will come and they will pass.
Go find a woman and you'll find love,
And don't forget son,
There is someone up above.

And be a simple kind of man.
Be something you love and understand.
Be a simple kind of man.
Won't you do this for me son,
If you can?

Forget your lust for the rich mans gold
All that you need is in your soul,
And you can do this if you try.
All that I want for you my son,
Is to be satisfied.

And be a simple kind of man.
Be something you love and understand.
Be a simple kind of man.
Won't you do this for me son,
If you can?

Boy, don't you worry... you'll find yourself.
Follow you heart and nothing else.
And you can do this if you try.
All I want for you my son,
Is to be satisfied.

And be a simple kind of man.
Be something you love and understand.
Be a simple kind of man.
Won't you do this for me son,
If you can?

More Jophes:

More Bandwidth!

That is the answer. This is the question.

This traffic prioritization issue God complex among carriers is going to be an ongoing issue as long as files continue to increase in size and complexity (which will, invariably, continue to happen). Increasing demand for video and larger graphics files, along with the "blogosphere" and the fact that any slapdick can create his own content. Gotta love that this kind of stuff keeps me employed. Tech won't stop. Are you ever going to say, "Enough! My computer is too fast!"? Thought not.

New Blog Subscription

TechCrunch...despite the fact that they have demonstrated that they hate PR people. This is a great site for consumer electronics, and in fairness, they have a legit bitch with the chick that they deep fried today. Granted, sending out a Samsung monitor pitch to PhoneScoop...not a good plan in any context. Blaming the fact that it went to the entire CES press list...digging the whole deeper.

While it would smart for CES to segment their media list somehow, in the absence of them doing so, the onus falls on the PR person to pick out the pertinent targets and send pitches accordingly. The sheer magnitide of that show makes it unmanageable for everyone involved if every pitch goes to everybody. That is just asinine.

This also points directly to a fundamental question in media today: What is the role of the blogosphere? This is Web 2.0. Information communism. Viral marketing. Pick all the buzz words and descriptions you want, but how do PR people and bloggers coexist without wanting to kill each other? Blogs are different from dying "traditional" media, so how do pitches differ? It's easy to dogpile on bad pitches, and there are plenty of them, but what constitutes a good one? Interesting questions...interesting times. I would be fascinated to hear feedback from everyone on this.