by Katie Bailey on August 21, 2009
Zoo Tube [Click here]
We went to the Toronto Zoo recently, and I thought it was the perfect time to hone my web-video skills. I used my cell phone camera (who knew it would be so crappy?) but it was fun trying to (poorly) edit it together. I’m also not quite savvy enough to embed this baby yet, so I’ll have to work on that. So, sorry for the poor quality, but here is Zoo Tube in all its low-res glory! (Even if you can’t really see the animals, I set it to a New Order song, so at least you’ll have something to listen to, haha.)
by Katie Bailey on August 21, 2009
This July, I joined forces with
Wolfpack Marketing, a new collaborative marketing agency based out of Montreal. It was founded by Guillaume Pare, whom I met about five years ago when he was the editor of SBC Wakeboard magazine. Guillaume has been on the up and up since then, becoming the marketing director for a major action-sports product distribution company and earning his MBA. Wolfpack is a full-service marketing agency meant to help bridge the gap for non-endemic brands who want to reach the finicky action sports market. I assisted the Wolfpack team in editing content for their English-language website, which you can check out
here.
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by Katie Bailey on August 14, 2009
The summer issue of
On The Bay has been out for a few weeks now, featuring, to my slight chagrin, lots of pictures of yours truly in it. I wrote a feature on paddling, and as usual for my OTB work, I like to do the activity I’m covering, and write from that experience.
But I have to admit, I didn’t really think this one through before jumping in my rental car and striking off up north. I had tried to get extra people in on the trip so they could be in the photos, not I, but bad weather pooched our first scheduled trip and no one else could make it to our rain date. When I left town at 6 a.m. on the day of the trip, my mind was only on the terror of making it up there alive (I drive, like, once a year), not on the fact I looked like crap. Ergo, there is a beautifully shot feature in the magazine with me all over it, looking like I just woke up. Nice one, Bailey!
Read the story here.
by Katie Bailey on August 13, 2009
If you’re in the action sports industry — or just like to read about it — check out the new issue of SBC Business. As you can see here, it’s got a completely new look and lots of juicy content. I’ve got two stories in it, a huge-ass feature on action-sports companies with Canadian offices (”Northern Exposure”) and the third installment of my environmental column, “Green is the colour of money.”
by Katie Bailey on July 21, 2009
Me and 23 other girls at Baldface Lodge, BC
When you write about wonderful things, especially travel, there is one downside: it’s usually done from your desk. Sure, there is the odd trip to spice things up and maybe it was even (mostly) free, thanks to the connections you’ve made over the years. But most of it comes from careful research and interviews with people in the know.
The reason I bring it up is that right now, I’m writing a directory on backcountry ski and ride operations in Canada for the SBC Ski & Snowboard Resort Guide. It’s a pretty dreamy topic, as these things go: endless peaks of powder, getting ferried up the hill in a snowcat or, gasp, a helicopter, which is possibly the coolest thing in the universe. I’ve gotten the opportunity to go catskiing once and it was truly epic–nothing you do on snow will ever quite compare again. So while I am writing about all of this from home, it is bringing all of those memories flooding back: the sheer exhilaration, the incredible feeling of weightlessness in powder, the high-fives at the bottom.
Although these trips can be vastly expensive, I think it’s something every serious skier or rider should try to do at least once in their lives. Catboarding is a more affordable alternative to heli-skiing, and although you don’t get to feel like a Delta Force commando being choppered into some sort of emergency situation, you do get all that sweet, sweet untouched pow just the same.
by Katie Bailey on July 8, 2009
As I’ve posted on here before, I do an annual “best of” article for SAM magazine each May, listing what I think are the best resort ads in snowboard magazines for that year. Bear Mountain is always somewhere near the top of the list, thanks to the efforts of their creative agency, The Machine.
Here’s a Transworld Business video interview with the principals of the firm, Jason Bump and Mark Hibdon, commenting on their win.
Here are the ads: 
by Katie Bailey on July 3, 2009
I meant to update this site with some of my more interesting assignments from my PR course, but unfortunately, the last few have been decidedly uninteresting. However, this week, we were charged with interviewing a PR professional about what an average day is like for them, and some of the challenges they face. Since I interview people for a living, the thought of doing one “for fun” was a bit uninspiring, until my boyfriend suggested I use the opportunity to speak with someone I already know and think has an interesting job. So that’s what I did, speaking with my friend and professional colleague Janice Nickloff, PR Manager with Burton Snowboards. I work with Janice quite often to secure interviews with Burton athletes and executives and knew she worked hard, but until now, didn’t know quite how much she juggles every day. That girl is busy! Between evaluating the hundreds of product requests that Burton is approached with all year round, she also coordinates in-store events and appearances at Burton flagships, works with stylists and approvals for product placements, and is the main media contact for all of North America.
It’s easy to think of a job such as Janice’s as super glamorous (heck, I certainly fantasize about having such a job), but that Burton PR team works hard. Like, really hard. Sure, the benefits are many and most people in the profession would love to have an industry leader like Burton on their resume, but they certainly, in ski-resort terms, earn their turns. It’s one of those things that can be easy to forget when you’re drumming off emails for a story, that someone like that probably has 50 similar requests a day. So it was definitely nice to touch base with Janice and get a sense of what it’s like on the other end of the phone, on any given day of the week.
If you’d like to learn more about Janice and her day-to-day, SBC Women’s Annual did an interview with her on the website here.
Zoo Tube [Click here]
