About

Hello.

My name is Allison and that’s my husband, Scott. We live in Seattle, with my cat Luke.

I am about to finish my final year in the MBA program at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. I have been focusing on deepening my understanding of marketing and business strategy. My background includes experience in consumer behavior research for advertising campaigns – including TV, print and radio. I was really fortunate to intern at Popcap Video Games last summer, specifically conducting data analysis on their social game Bejeweled Blitz. I would love to continue working in the industry after I graduate!

That said, I get asked if I’m “a gamer” fairly often, and my answer to that is no. I’m a typical casual game consumer – female, 30ish, and I play games in between things in my life. I don’t think this typical consumer calls themselves a gamer, which is part of the beauty of what’s going on in the casual and social game space right now. These are some of my favorite games: Bejeweled Blitz, Animal Crossing, Braid, Words with Friends, Angry Birds, Carcassone, Moxie, Rock Band and Lumines.

When I have the time, I love to travel, write, take photos with my Canon Rebel, and tinker with Photoshop. Scott and I spent the summer before grad school living and traveling in Perú where I was able to do all of the above. It was incredible. I wrote a lot about it here and kept directory of all of our favorite places! Let me know if you want a recommendation!

This blog was previously called “SparklingAllison”, because I used to work at a bottled water company… My favorite product of their selection was the plain sparkling water. I recently changed it to “Assuming Beta" to better reflect my current "beta" status as a student. (And really, is anyone ever out of “beta”?)

You can find more information about me here:

Twitter | LinkedIn | Resume | Facebook | Flickr | NY Times Meme | Good Reads | Delicious | Wish List

Everything written on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, except where otherwise noted. A simple mention of “original work by Allison Bilas” and a link back to the original page it came from is all I require for attribution.