February 2009
9 posts
The Relevance of Online Media
Cheaters Never..
Look to the media each day and you’ll find something worth squeezing some wisdom.
Today, and for the past few days. It’s been Alex Rodriguez. Or A-Rod for short. Boy, tough year for him. A few days ago, a positive test for steroids was linked to him from 2003. This is back when baseball didn’t ban steroids, as they didn’t realize players were using them, and the...
Schmexperts
I’ve been learning the ins and outs of social media for a little while now, and I’ve seen a fair amount of people claiming to be “experts”, “mavens”, and a bunch of other adjectives.
Now I’m sure some of them are. Or maybe more like a few. The others are just regurgitating information and jumping up in line. It goes to show you though, how quickly and...
Oops.
So the basis of this project is I write something helpful, funny, or otherwise interesting every day for 364 days. Hence 364 posts.
But I didn’t do it yesterday. Life, you could say, got in the way. This left me wondering what to do. Do something new? Change the concept entirely?
No.
Because this is a great example of how everything you imagine sometimes doesn’t play out...
The Future of Marketing?
Much has been said about Twitter in the last year.
Useless. Fad. Annoying.
But also, innovative. Personal. Inclusive. Amazing.
After doing a fairly deep dive over the last few months, I can categorically say its a great thing. But with all great things, it is only great if managed correctly. You need to be careful about the people you follow. You also should have an idea of what you...
Transparency
There’s a lot of talk these days about being transparent.
An open book. Open to all reading, whether critical or not. This relates to some previously mentioned thoughts on accountability — by being transparent, you hold yourself accountable for all that can be seen.
That is not simply being able to take blame for mistakes; that is holding yourself up to your own strengths and...
How You Fight..
Ran across a great post relating how someone behaves under pressure in a fight (in this case in World of Warcraft) reveals a lot about them as a professional and a person.
While I agree, it made me wonder if there’s some unexplored methods for assessing people for new roles. Could it be more than questions like “what’s your greatest weakness” and “tell me when you...
Get Paranoid
I’m perusing the latest 24 this evening, and everyone on it is paranoid. That’s because everyone on it is corrupted or compromised or otherwise shady. They all have agendas, hidden agendas and double agendas. They backstab, double-cross, and otherwise make for entertaining television.
What’s the point? Consider those around you. Think about outside motives for a few. ...
The Wonder
This evening I did something rather simple that brings me a lot of joy.
I helped my wife give my baby daughter a bath.
There’s joy there, but the part I’m talking about is simply blowing bubbles for her while my wife gives her a good scrub. I’ve always had a thing for bubbles — I once owned a bubble machine — and was not exactly sure why.
Now, I think I know. ...
Persistence and Goals
This is the end of my first month at this. Haven’t missed a day yet. Nearly have a couple of times, and what started out as an experiment has become quite important to me. I put off a bit of sleep for it, continually telling myself I will manage my time better to post earlier in the day. That would be a goal.
On to the topic. Both are important. Super important. But both require...
January 2009
37 posts
Don't Always Know
Life is built to be regimented into routine. At least the way our society works. Just about everyone works a 40-hour week, but regardless, you most likely work a routine sequence of hours.
If not, hey, that’s great. Tell me sometime what you do.
Anyhow, the work routine is a tough nut to track. Outside of asking for flex schedules, and remote work, the only thing thing that could...
Intangibility and Ritual
So I’m watching Velvet Goldmine right now, it’s a solid film, but what struck me to ramble this evening was the records. You know, round black things that you used to have to actually own, and put on some sort of shelf.
Well, there’s a scene with Christian Bale, yeah, Dark Knight Christian Bale. Anyhow he’s taking great care getting a record home, in a brown paper bag,...
The Authentic Experience?
There’s been a lot of talk lately, with the “downturn” about the economy. That made me want to look into the current nature of our economy, versus previous versions through time. It’s through multiple perspectives of the economy that we’ll find the fruit just appearing, and that fruit will help us through.
I’m no economist, but if you think about how the...
Scare Yourself (sometimes)
In life there are times when its important to scare the crap out of yourself.
Not at an American ripoff of a Japanese horror film.
No, not when you open your credit card bill.
More like with something you’re going to do, that you don’t quite know how to — yet.
Good example is skydiving. Skydiving scares the crap out of me. Have I done it? No. Will I? Probably not, now that...
Be Like..Fedor?
Fedor Emelianenko is this guy. A, uh, tough guy, you could say. He’s the guy walking away from the knocked-out guy in the picture. He’s a mixed-martial artist, who competes in MMA matches around the world, and has yet to be beaten. He’s mythical in that realm, no one can really touch him.
That guy on the ground, Andrei Arlovski, tried, then got himself countered by Mr....
Perspective, Part Two
Now, how to benefit from this rapid change in just about everything, due to the development of the net?
One is to realize the behavior tendencies the internet enables — its a ton of communication, no doubt, but its impersonal communication. People throw out their thoughts on sites like twitter and facebook, and hope to find someone listening. That’s all great, part of this...
Perspective, Part One
Lately, at least to me, it has been easy to lose a sense of perspective. Perspective on what all this, and my this I mean the internet in general, and how it has evolved, grown, and connected to other channels.
Think about it this way — the internet was invented. There was a time, not too long ago, mind you, when it did not exist. People would call each other, or even write. They would...
Facing Fear
There’s a lot of times in life when hesitate. We aren’t sure. We don’t know what to do. They’re these little moments where fear manifests itself and stops us.
It stops us from moving. From acting. From taking a risk. From trying. From succeeding, and from failing.
There are good aspects to fear. Like pain, it can tell you when to stop, when danger is imminent. ...
Fall Down 7 Times, Get Up 8
I’ve touched on this a bit in various ways, so I figure I should directly address it.
Failure.
It seems to be a fairly universal feeling now, with thousands and thousands of people being laid off, and businesses shutting down. We are being put into bad situations, and we are beyond the point of finger pointing. Since we are all feeling a degree of this pain right now, perhaps some ways...
A World Beyond
The insane amount of media coverage through all the different channels yesterday really struck me. I’m sitting there watching the inauguration, live on the CNN/Facebook little setup, while streams of random people are updating their Facebook statuses in another column. There were multiple outlets for watching the ceremony live online — CNN, current.tv (which is awesome, more on them...
Historic - For All
Finally getting a moment to reflect a bit on what happened today.
We welcomed a new president, and in the process signaled what I hope is the beginning of true change in America. Change into the country we all hope it can be, but isn’t today. The thing is it won’t happen without everyone working towards it, not just President Obama. Wow, how cool was it to say that. President...
The Closing Gap
Just a little personal observation here. My wife and I have spent most of the last few weeks watching episodes of 30 Rock on the Roku Netflix player.
First, finally I feel like we’re getting value out of our Netflix membership; you really have to keep on your DVD viewing and adding new films online, and returning. We were all over that, but then our daughter came along last May and that...
Tumblr v. 5
Looking good today Tumblr! Yesh!
Keeping the Flavor
I was talking with my wife this evening, and asked what I should write about. This was half in jest, as I expected her to say “proper diaper application” or “infant teething”, but she mentioned an interesting topic: cast iron skillet cooking. We just picked up one and have been making some tasty dishes with it.
So I paused a second, and searched my brain for a decent...
Work + Love + Play
Within the areas of you life, it has become clear to me there are three areas that require dedication to — and this dedication will give you the best chance to live a long, rewarding life. Doris Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals and other biographies of presidents, explains this concept well in relation to past presidents.
Abraham Lincoln had a deep and passionate interest in a wide range...
Being Thankful
After a week or so of “Being” posts, I thought good way to wrap it all up is to realize some perspective — even levity. When times are tough, like now, it’s easy to focus on the negatives, to focus on what we don’t have.
Well, maybe we should focus on what we do have for a second. We still live in one of the best countries in the world. It has its up and downs, for...
Being Real
After meandering a bit yesterday about Being Nice, a (fairly) logical development from it what the idea of being real. In a way, being real is about being nice, yes, but more just you. And the reality that to be real, you won’t always be nice. Here’s some ways to keep yourself you, nice, and a human.
1. Be honest. Yeah, being honest can suck sometimes. It puts you in positions to...
Being Nice
For the next few days I’m going with a series of “Beings”, posts of varied topics but all about finding something in yourself to develop, reverse, or discover.
“It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
Now, I don’t remember who said that exactly, probably someone’s mother. But it’s totally true. And it...
Being Relevant, and human too
Ideating can (and does) exist in a void, driven by the aspirations of the creatives involved. Too often are the wants and needs of the intended audience missed, or, more likely, not researched deeply enough to grasp motivation.
Or, also likely, said audience is not defined tightly enough to construct an accurate model of said wants and needs.
Or, the most likely of all, we forget we’re...
Being Remarkable
This is a bit of a reblog, and I can’t recall where I got it. But its great so I’m going with it. :)
1. Understand the urgency of the situation. Half-measures simply won’t do. The only way to grow is to abandon your strategy of doing what you did yesterday, but better. Commit. 2. Remarkable doesn’t mean remarkable to you. It means remarkable to me. Am I going to make a...
The Fail Whale
When twitter is down, or out of bandwidth, this image appears. This image is supposed to represent failure, or twitter’s inability to scale to follow its monumental growth.
And yet, people love it.
It’s now been fondly dubbed by twitter users the “fail whale”. There’s t-shirts, and a fan site, failwhale.com. I have a fondness for it now too; what’s up with...
“Satisfaction does not come with achievement, but with effort. Full effort is...”
– Mahatma Gandhi
Inflating and Deflating
A little bit on interpersonal dynamics — this time the concept of inflating and deflating a situation. Often, when you’re in the midst of a disagreement, an argument, a beef, or whathaveyou, there will be a moment when the situation will be either inflated or deflated.
Think about it like a balloon; normally, the balloon is empty. But something will happen to make some air get into...
A week in
On a side note, I managed to do this thing for a week. Even during an intense pitch. And while the thoughts and such here are a bit random right now, they’ll be developing into something more cohesive as time goes on.
Resistance is Futile
One of the reactions I have seen at quite a few agencies out there is resistance; resistance to change, resistance to a different approach, resistance to, well, getting something done outside of the norm.
Now, everyone talks about being integrated, about focusing on the online space and this and that, and you even see said resistance from agencies “native” to online. What I think is...
Building an Agency; Part 2 - How To, Cont'd
This is a quick note, as I’m jamming on a number of stuff this evening.
I previously mentioned personal dynamics, and mixing ingredients. This is most true for the first few people you bring in. The reason? They’ll all make each other better, but only if they get along and believe in each other. The good will be pushed to be great, the great, to stellar.
A recruiter once took me...
Building an Agency; Part 2 - How To
After reflecting a bit on the don’ts on building an agency (or really any business) finally I can get to the happier part, the do’s. And similar to how you can learn more from failures, it could be of more importance to pay attention to the how not to’s. But, here are some basic ideas to at least build a good foundation.
1. Have an angle, first. Be the absolute best at...
“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible;...”
– Edward R. Murrow
“When it is darkest, we see the stars.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Building an Agency; Part 1 - How NOT To, Addendum
Ok so I talked to some folks about these ideas around this topic and had some additions worth sharing. And apparently there’s a fair amount more of the what not to do variety, which is not surprising. First point is on that tip.
5. Don’t Ignore the Bad. It is seemingly human nature to focus on what’s wrong, even within an ocean of what’s right. Never downplay or worse,...
Building an Agency; Part 1 - How NOT To
I’m going to take a few days here and ruminate a bit on my experiences with building an agency. There are methods and approaches I’ve seen work, and those I’ve seen definitely not. I’ll keep it vague as to protect the innocent, and ignorant, as it were.
First, how not to, or the don’ts.
Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Gone are the days of concepting...
Is it a Phish rash?
So I’m not talking about the jam band from Vermont (I think) but the evil, evil attempt by scumbags around the world to steal critical information from innocent people by linking them to fake sites.
It’s crap, it really is.
Like spam, I often wonder where these guys are that do this stuff. Do they have board rooms? Do they have meetings to come up with their phishing schemes? Was...
Facebook VS Twitter VS Tumblr? Round 1
So the word for 2008 had to be (aside from recession and foreclosures) socialnetworking, and microblogging. Microblogging is technically what I’m up to right now, smaller length and relatively simpler format blogs that allow quicker uptime and for more the more “aside” type of commentary. Shakespeare would have been proud, I think.
Now, of course, people like to put available...
4 tags
It all begins with one step
So I’m doing my normal morning routine (at least while I’m off for the holiday) of showering while my wife and 7 month old kiddo are napping. My shower used to be so minimal — a true designer’s shower, as it were — and now, its full of rubber duckies, plastic bathtubs, and hand puppets that double as washcloths. That last bit is kind of awesome, actually.
Anyhow,...