They say your 20s are the years of many crossroads. I’ve found this to be true, and exciting!

This is a BIG summer for me. I just started a new job here at Borshoff, moved to Greenfield and soon I’ll be married! 16 days and counting…I can’t wait!

There are a lot of changes occurring in my life, and though they each carry a certain level of stress – I couldn’t be happier. I feel like I’ve met my match in more ways than one – I’ve found my soul mate in my soon-to-be hubby and joined the incredible team at Borshoff, an agency that shares many of my personal values.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to work for an advertising agency.  I remember watching Bewitched and hoping I’d have a job like Darrin Stephens someday. As a kid, I’d hear and see commercials and make up my own little jingles or draw my own ads.

In high school, I took marketing classes and served as the editor for the yearbook staff. I took art classes and ripped out ads I saw in magazines to save them for future inspiration. I wanted to write, create and be the mind behind the message. I wanted to motivate people to act.

In college, I discovered I was not only interested in creating.  I enjoyed writing, editing and seeing projects through from start to finish. I realized I had a passion for communications as a whole and became particularly interested in integrated communications as I learned how powerful marketing, advertising and public relations could be together. I majored in journalism at Butler University with a concentration in integrated communications. I packed my college experience with great opportunities – from networking to service opportunities to starting Butler’s first advertising club, Adrenaline.

Now, two years out of school with some excellent educational, work and service experience under my belt, here I am – happily employed at one of the largest communications firms in Indianapolis. My 8-year old self is beaming!

“I could probably push a little more here…”

“I like the connection here…”

“I’m drawn to that…”

“We need to get it a little bigger to communicate…”

“The relationship between the shape and the type is much more balanced here…”

“The greens and blues make me feel good…”

“I love what you did with the Y here…”

“Adding the vertical line – it needed that…”

“I like the thought behind that…”

“It seems a little funky…”

“This is an initial look at where we’re going with the theme…”

“If we could just give a little more color and life to it…”

“I wanted this typeface to have a little more personality on this level…”

“I want to work this a little more — see if I can bring in a little more color…”

“I want to impress as much as we can…”

“I’d like to have other themes in our back pocket…”

“I would feel comfortable presenting these three just the way they are…”

“Beyond that, if you guys want to tweak and finesse, I’m all for it…”

“Perfect. Thanks guys.”

College students may keep in touch with their friends and family via Facebook and Twitter, but when it comes to networking for jobs, there’s nothing like an old-fashioned meet and greet.

While the theme of my presentation at the University of Indianapolis’ guest lecture series on Tuesday, Feb. 9 was “Careers in PR,” students really wanted to learn about networking. After all, while the 40 or so students were there to learn more about my career, the majority just wanted to know how to land their first job in our down economy.

Ron Dow, assistant director for the university’s Institute for Emerging Careers and the driving force behind the guest lecture series, said he can lecture all day about face-to-face networking, but an 11-year working professional holding out business cards poses an opportunity too good to pass up.

The impressive collection of students listened attentively, and many waited afterward to talk to me. My advice? Ask for help if you need it; every working professional had to land his/her first job. We really will take a few minutes to talk with you. (But also understand that we receive a lot of requests for informational interviews and unfortunately can’t honor every one.)

My networking connections so far from students at UIndy?

• Zero old-fashioned phone calls
• One business card (yes, for a student!)
• Two very well-written e-mails
• One resume

Now I’m just waiting for my new [Twitter] followers and [Facebook] friend requests!

As a graphic designer at an advertising and PR agency, I’m charged with finding creative ways to send information on behalf of our clients. While it’s becoming increasingly rare to send direct mail, it still happens. The problem with direct mail is it’s often as well received as a telemarketing call – except instead of being hung up on it gets thrown away.

And that’s the challenge: make the mailer so interesting that the recipient’s gut reaction isn’t “trash, trash, bill, trash” but something more like “trash, trash, bill, oooooooh.” There’s a lot to consider before getting creative on a mailed piece: Can it be any shape? How small or large can it get? How much postage does this bad boy need?

To help us answer these questions (and to have a little productive fun in the office), we set up an experiment: find objects around the office we didn’t think would make it through the mail, slap some postage on them, and drop them in the mailbox. No envelopes. No containers. No packaging. Au naturel, if you will.

We began with sending a CD. Then, we sent a Kleenex, a business card, a dollar bill, a drum head and finished up our experiment with a fully inflated Jerry French doll from the French Paper Company. I won’t lie; I was very surprised to find almost every item successfully arrived at its destination, especially Jerry.The one item that didn’t make it through, sadly, was a big yellow highlighter.

Frankly, we were surprised that so many items did. Even the Kleenex made it through without any damage. Now it hangs, with the rest of the successfully mailed pieces, on the wall above my desk.

As market researchers, we learned how few limits there are on what can be mailed. With enough postage, it’s just about anything! So kudos to the post office. They even put some items in “we care” plastic bags or envelopes to protect them, and complied with our highlighted request to not deflate Jerry.

I’ve had a personal fascination (some might say obsession) with interactive design for years. Just when I thought I’d seen it all, I stumbled upon a new company pushing the limits of online advertising. Better yet, we had the opportunity to partner with them on a recent campaign for Marian’s Adult Programs.

Let me introduce you to Spongecell. It is as catchy and engaging as its name. It capitalizes on interactivity – enabling users to connect to social networks, Google maps, Outlook calendars, RSS feeds, Twitter and more – without ever having to navigate away from the ad itself. (See other examples of their interactive ads here).

And yes, every click is trackable. Spongecell builds buttons into the bottom of an existing ad, and the engagement begins!

In a recent Ad Age article, it was noted that whiskey producer Southern Comfort will be shedding its entire media plan, dropping all print and television advertising, to move company branding completely into the digital realm.

Frankly, it’s shocking. Southern Comfort isn’t the first company to go the all-digital route, but this is certainly surprising coming from a 120 year-old, proven manufacturer of a timeless product. The change makes sense according to the company’s ad challenges: major advertising limitations for the industry, a shifting demographic, and stiff competition (no pun intended). But to completely remove its presence from traditional media altogether still sounds crazy. How can a company of this size and reputation really forego television and print, the great bastions of the advertising world?

Then I noticed some of the places they’ll be putting their content, advertising and sponsorships. Browsing the list, it became clear that this could be a brilliant move. As a member of their proclaimed demographic (21-29), I can’t say that I see too many SoCo advertisements, but if the list is any indication, I won’t be able to escape it any more than any of us can escape death or taxes.

It’s hard for anyone my age to avoid the networking and social draws of Facebook, so as I go to stalk my friends every night, SoCo’s going to be there. When I go to Spin to listen to the top 50 cover songs of all time, SoCo will be there (they’ll even give me 10 free downloads!). If I try to get my culture fix at The Fader, SoCo will be there. When I miss episodes of two of my favorite shows, 30 Rock and The Office, SoCo will be there. If I want to catch up on the Colbert Report, I’m going to find SoCo’s “Holiday Survival Guide” at Comedy Central. When I use Hulu, guess who’s going to be there?

It seems that Southern Comfort has found me. Mission accomplished?

Maybe. It’s sort of like having front row tickets to a prime-time boxing match, knowing that the outcome of the bout will have a dramatic affect on the future of the industry. It will be interesting to see whether or not Southern Comfort’s surprise move is enough to throw the competition off and go for the knock out. Whether they win or lose, however, this is going to change the face of things to come for the world of advertising