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Photo Inclusion in Schmap NY Guide

 

A photo that I took at the Bloomberg SP09 summer party was recently published in the Schmap New York Guide. The photo was featured in the Randall's Island section (because the Bloomberg party took place there) and showcased my friend, John Wood, playing a frog-throwing game. Don't worry, the frogs were made of rubber! Here's a close-up for all you Randall's Island / John Wood fans!

Yoostar Test with Marilyn Monroe

On Fashion's Night Out at Bloomingdale's, I had a chance to try out the YooStar home green screen kit with Marilyn Monroe. Check out the video above!

Fashion 2.0 Fashion Week Meetup Sponsored by Style Coalition and Ideeli

(Above: Maria Kucinski and Erica Swallow (me) at the Fashion 2.0 Fashion Week Kickoff Reception Meetup)

(Above: Yuli Ziv, founder of Fashion 2.0 Meetup, and Deirdre Sullivan, Social Media Director at ideeli.com, hosted the fashion trivia giveaway!)

Last night, I went to my first official Meetup! It was the Fashion 2.0 Fashion Week Kickoff Reception that took place at W New York - The Tuscany. Organized by Yuli Ziv, the party included an open bar, a hot gift bag full of goodies, and a ton of fun guests. Some highlights for me included hanging out with my BFF Maria, meeting a few great people, sipping tasty wine, getting compliments on my Moo.com minicards and seeing Phillip Block.

For more photos, check out my Flickr photostream!

My First Time as a Mayor!

Hooray! I just became a Mayor on Foursquare for the first time ever! It just so happens that I'm the mayor of Dean & Deluca - Times Building. I owe The New York Times for this great honor. If I didn't work in this building, I wouldn't be compelled to eat so many Two Little Red Hens chocolate cupcakes, supplied by Dean & Deluca, just downstairs! And thank you, Dean & Deluca for your existence. And Soraya Darabi for introducing me to Foursquare! Cheers to all!

Friend.ly Facebook Friend Stats

Cool! I just discovered Friend.ly, a Facebook application that analyzes yours friends' demographic information and outputs basic statistics.

Thought I'd post my friend stats here so that you could all psychoanalyze me!

Out of Erica's 1,035 Facebook friends:

Most common name: Kevin (11 friends)

Most common zodiac sign: Libra (83 friends)

Longest name: Maximillian-Conroy Hencke

Shortest name: Yi Li

Female/Male: 50% / 50%

Single/Taken: 39% / 61%

Youngest friend: 17 years old

Oldest friend: 105 years old

Average age: 23 years old

If you're interested, go try it yourself at http://friend.ly!

Note: You can click "Don't Allow" for both prompt boxes and it will still calculate the statistics. Plus, you don't even have to publish the output to your Facebook news feed!

Make a Dent in the World Water Crisis!

Dear Friends,

I'm trying to help put a dent in the world water crisis and I need your help. I've created three projects via charity:water, each with a goal of raising $5,000, enough funds to build a water well in a community in need of clean water. I'm asking that all of my friends and family find it in their hearts to donate, as there are millions of people without the basic need of water.

I've made three funds to match my friends' interests:

1.) NYU Fund: For all of my NYU friends that want to make a difference. This fund goes towards helping bring water to schools in need of it. Have some school pride and donate today at http://new.charitywater.org/nyufund.

2.) NYC Fund: For the city known for its water towers, atop every building. This fund is for all the New Yorkers who care about delivering clean water to people in need. Donate now at http://new.charitywater.org/nyc.

3.) Erica & Weikai's 2nd Anniversary: Today is the 2nd anniversary of dating for Weikai and me! In celebration, we're asking all of our friends and family to find it in their hearts to donate to the millions without water. We're lucky enough to have been born in societies with an overabundance of water. Let's give back. Donate now at http://new.charitywater.org/EricaandWeikai.

With all of my love and best wishes for you and yours!
Erica

Tarot Cards over Dinner

(Above: Nicolas Crummey reads Maria Kucinski's cards)

Every Tuesday night, my 2-out-of-3 best friends (Nicolas and Maria) and I have dinner. We alternate houses, visiting each person's place a week. (Note: The third best friend is Alice, but she's in China.)

This week, Nicolas (aka Nick) hosted dinner. The theme was summer. He made the most excellent tomato/basil/mozzarella appetizers and an incredibly tasty pasta salad for the entree. Maria brought the wine -- a rose and a white. And I supplied the desserts -- gelato and fruits. MMMM.

Nick's roommate, Hailey, happened to have a deck of tarot cards lying around and let us play with them. Luckily, they were beginner's cards with notes and meanings written on them. The deck even came with a piece of paper to place under the cards that told us what the placement of each card meant.

All in all, Maria's cards were excellent. She got the star... the empress... the awesome stuff... and all was well. Meanwhile, Nick read mine and I got all the crap! The hanged man... the devil... the moon. Ugh. It was horrible. Basically, my life sucks. But it turns out that everything is supposed to end well at the very end... so, only a lifetime of suffering left, and then comes the good stuff!

I learned a few things about tarot cards, though:

• The cards should face the reader (so they can read them, obviously)
• There are 21 cards in all, numbered with Roman numerals
• The cards should be placed in order (I - XX) and handed to the questioner (the person with the question)
• The questioner should then shuffle the cards, concentrating on their question. Lastly, they cut the deck three times. They should concentrate on their question, in order to feed their energy into the cards, apparently.
• It doesn't appear that questions like "What color is my shirt?" can be answered... it truly didn't work.
• "The cards don't lie." Nick, Maria and I broke out in song to these words, singing as Nick played his banjo. They must be true, as the only explanation I can muster up is that we were possessed by their power to react in such a way.
  

Overall, I'm not a suspicious person. However, it is kind of strange that I received all bad cards and Maria received all great cards. Maria and Nick attribute this to me cursing at the cards and ridiculing them while Maria was getting her cards read... they heard and were out to get me.

hehehe. This makes me want to get a Ouji board now!

My 1,000th Post on Twitter

Let's celebrate! I just posted by 1,000 post on Twitter! Just wanted to get that on record. Ok. Go back to your normal lives now. Cheers!

Interning at The New York Times

Today I created a Facebook group for the Summer '09 NYTimes Interns and it reminded me that my internship is really awesome! I also love the work environment at The New York Times, so I wanted to share it with you! Below are some photos of the beautiful space that I work in! What a blessed life!

(Above: The New York Times Building)

(Above: The lobby of The New York Times Building is simple yet beautiful. Walking through it is a great way to start the work day!)

(Above: My subway station exit is about 10 steps from the building. So, each morning, I enter here!)

(Above: My desk on the 9th floor of The New York Times Building)

(Above: The view from my desk. This is a view of Port Authority at 40th Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan)

Not only is working at NYTimes.com amazing, it's aesthetically-inspiring!!!

My Resume was Featured on Scribd.com

(Above: Click the screenshot above to enlarge and see my resume featured on Scribd.com)

Wow! What a day! I finished a super cool NYTimes project, which is yet to be launched, and my resume was featured on Scribd.com. I'm floating!

P.S. Just found Scribd on Twitter!

Update (03/19/2010): This feature resulted in 3,636 reads, 178 downloads and 6 five-star ratings in a little less than 8 months. (It was published on 07/24/2009).

Louis Vuitton Advertises in Space Style

(Above: Louis Vuitton takes a new direction with luxury advertising)

(Above: On July 20, 2009, Louis Vuitton advertised with a drop-down ad that read "MEN WALK ON MOON on July 20, 1969. 40 years later, Louis Vuitton is taking you on a Journey Beyond." The ad links to louisvuittonjourneys.com.)

Louis Vuitton is taking a new direction on advertising. With the recent 40th anniversary of putting a man on the moon, Louis Vuitton is taking the opportunity to honor the journeys of three space heroes: Jim Lovell (commander of Apollo XIII), Sally Ride (America's first woman in space) and Buzz Aldrin (the second man to step on the moon).

The website louisvuittonjourneys.com takes viewers on an adventure through the lives and careers of the three space legends, as described by them in a private interview with Louis Vuitton.

It's an interesting take on luxury advertising. Best of all, I love how Louis Vuitton is not directly advertising their products. Instead, they are engaging viewers in conversations with great American legends. What a treat.

Twitter's Internal Strategy is Compromised

I stepped out of the office for a little bit today and when I returned I found a 40-paged article on my desk, freshly printed and bound with a binder clip. The article, from TechCrunch, was entitled Twitter's Internal Strategy Laid Bare: To Be "The Pulse of the Planet".

Apparently, on Tuesday evening, more than 300 confidential Twitter documents and screenshots were sent to TechCrunch. Skimming through the article, I can't help but think the following:

1.) How can Twitter be so rude to P. Diddy? (@iamdiddy)

2.) Is this really a strategy? And was it written by 10-year-olds? But, then, on the other hand, I'm thinking that Twitter must have a really youthful culture to use such juvenile language in official strategy meetings. Some examples include:

-- Google would kick our ass at finding the good tweet.

-- Twitter should tell me stuff without me searching for that.

-- Getting into bed with Microsoft / Why did we start talking to Microsoft in the first place?

-- We can give people stuff for free but not forever.

3.) Wow. I wonder how the folks at Twitter conned TechCrunch to not publish all 300 confidential documents that were sent to them.

If you haven't skimmed through (or completely devoured) the article yet, please do so now! It's hilarious and a bit enlightening at the same time.

Binging and Googling Myself

As many of you may know, Microsoft just came out with Bing, it's new search engine that is positioned to rival Google.

And what was the first thing I thought to do with these two mega-power search engines? I'm shameless. I just Binged and Googled myself to see which one has the better search results. Let's compare, shall we?

Number of Search Results

Google retrieved 397,000 Search Results, while Bing somehow managed to pull out 762,000 Search Results... hmmm. Somehow, I doubt they're all about me.

- Bing wins Round 1!

Timing

Google performed the search in 0.40 seconds, while on the other hand Bing didn't even tell me how long it took. In the broad scheme of things, I guess I don't even care, but it would be nice to have that extra piece of information for shock value!

- Google wins Round 2!

Quality of Search Results

I've always loved Google's ranking system. They never let two of the same domain name enter the first page. If they do, one of them is listed as a sub-category of the other. HOWEVER, Bing allowed two Twitter pages onto my front page. One is my Twitter account, and the other is a tweet that I wrote about Hillary Clinton speaking at my graduation. Bing also let two Brandstorm Community webpages up on the first page. Tsk tsk, Bing! What are you doing over there?!?!?

- Google wins Round 3!

Number of Options

So, this battle is all about who has the most options on their page. Google has a TON of applications and tabs at the top of their page that people use every day, which include Maps, Images, Video, News, Shopping, Gmail and More.

Let's see what Bing has.... At the top of their page, they have Images, Videos, Shopping, Maps, MSN, Windows Live and More.

Great try, Bing, but Google is the king of Apps.

- Google wins Round 4!

Name

Ok, so far Google is kicking Bing's ass, but who will win the Battle of the Domain Names?

Google is a clever name. "Google" is derived from googol, which is 10¹⁰⁰, that is, the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros (in decimal representation). This is a great name choice for a search engine, as it implies that it retrieves a very large number of results.

And, so what does Bing mean? According to dictionary.com, it means "a heap or pile". I see where they are going with that. It also is a type of cherry. And it also means "to go". When I think of Mandarin Chinese, I think of the word "ice", pronounced as bing. Hmmm... but somehow, I'm not buying it. Especially when you write it as a verb: Binging. It reminds me of binge drinking and bulimia (binge eating and purging).... ICK!

Plus, there are already a lot of social networking sites out there with similar names, such as Ning and Ping. But there are other similar onomotopaeia-ish names, such as Boing boing, Blurb, Bonzo, Badoo, Blip, and Bebo. Very unoriginal and not well thought-out, Microsoft. And kudos to Google for the creativity.

- Google wins Round 5!

Overall, it's Google at 4 and bing at 1. Google is the champion here, and it seems that the only edge that Bing has over Google is the number of results returned. But, peeps, it's QUALITY OVER QUANTITY!

Check out the screenshots from my vain Binging/Googling session!

Above: Googling results for "erica swallow"

Above: Binging results for "erica swallow"

China Care Foundation Launches New Homepage

During my four years at NYU, I had a huge involvement in the China Care Foundation. My roommate, Alice, and I, along with three other friends, founded the NYU China Care club. During my time there, we helped dozens of children receive life-saving surgeries and feel loved from thousands of miles away.

This week, China Care launched their newly designed website: www.chinacare.org. It is much more user friendly and explains in detail the new program that they have with Half the Sky, their new partner. We even have a whole new Youth Empowerment section dedicated to clubs, in which I'm actually featured in numerous sections! NYU is listed as a recipient of the first annual Club Awards(in which I won an Outstanding Leadership award); they used an NYU photo for the Fundraising section (which features our Treasurer Amanda Fuller, as seen above); and they even feature the newsletter story about my 2008 summer internship with Saatchi & Saatchi (which you can read about below, or click on the photo to go to the webpage), in which I led a team to create a pro bono ad for China Care that was placed in CosmGirl magazine!

I hope this new homepage brings lots more attention to the China Care Foundation, as they touch not only the lives of they children that they save, but also the lives of so many others, like myself, that help in the process.

I'm a Gilman Scholar! Are you?

Above is an interview that I did with the Institute of International Education about my experience as a Gilman Scholar. I discussed my Gilman experience as an NYU in Shanghai study abroad student in China and offered advice to current applicants for the Gilman Scholarship. Wish I was more interesting! I need to start reading a dictionary!

To learn more about my time abroad, check out my China Adventure website.

Swap-a-palooza Tonight!

I'm modeling in the annual Swap-a-palooza tonight! I've modeled in the show for the past four years, modeling for AuH2O, designed by my friend, Kate Goldwater. I actually met her four years ago on an audition to walk in her show. Luckily, I was picked as one of the models and have been working with her ever since! This is my first time to be on a show flyer (see above)!

What is Swap-a-palooza? It's an eco-friendly fashion show. Basically, the entrance fee is a bag of your clothing. In return, you get to go through tables of other people's clothing, alter them, and bring home new pieces! The event lasts all day at NYU's Kimmel Center and ends with the fashion show at 5pm, brought to you by AuH2O.

So, why AuH2O? Well, AuH2O is an eco-friendly and socially conscious clothing store owned by Kate Goldwater. AuH2O is “Goldwater” in chemical symbols: Au=Gold, H2O=water. Clever, right? Kate makes all AuH2O clothing from recycled materials, sewn right on site. AuH2O also carries other eco-friendly designers, and vintage and consignment clothing, jewelry and handbags.

You should all come out! Check the Facebook invite or the AuH2O blog for more details!

John Caples International Awards

Above: Host Ralph Harris, actor and comedian, had everyone laughing.

On Thursday, I attended the John Caples International Awards with my teammate Daniel McCoy. We were entrants to the Student Campaign of the Year Award, sponsored by Alloy Media + Marketing, with a campaign entitled "Spin the Pen. Save the Planet." Among our many campaign strategies, we utilized a Facebook group, YouTube page and website. We featured pen spinners JC and Xero spinning the Recycology products. The response was great. As of now, we have almost a thousand YouTube channel views, 22 subscribers, and 1848 total video views. On Facebook, we have over 200 Group members. Here are some of our videos:







And the winner was.... drumroll, please... Daniel McCoy and Erica Swallow! We were super excited to win. Above and beyond winning, we had the opportunity to meet countless industry experts and enjoy a wonderful evening at Capitale. Below is our trophy!


Thank you to JC and Xero (our pen spinners), Josh Oh (our cameraman and video editor), Bernhard Wiecha (our Flash guy), and Chris Turan (our webhost)! Thank you Weikai for running to the convenient store to get tape, ironing the sheets, lending us your lamps, and being our first YouTube subscriber! Thank you Dan for being my teammate! Thank you to Alloy Media + Marketing, Pentel, the judges, DMNews, and the John Caples board. Cheers to all!

First Random Post

I decided that it's time for me to have a blog! No reason. No purpose. No scheme. No plan. It's just a blog, and I'll follow it where ever my randomness decides to go.

I know what you're thinking. Oh great, another random blog. I agree. It sounds cheesy. I'll do my best to make it fun!

I'm not sure what the theme of my new blog will evolve into, but I hope you'll join me in the process!