I was sad to learn today of Will Owsley's passing. It didn't happen today - in fact, it actually happened nearly a year ago on April 30, 2010. Today was the day, however, that a short tweet popped into Tweetdeck and made me aware of the tragic situation.
I was floored, honestly.
And then I was immediately transported back to my Nashville days and to the significant amount of time I spent listening to his self-titled debut. Great, great stuff. While I was never able to get as excited about The Hard Way (the follow up), Owsley represented big chunks of what I'd always aspired to deliver as an artist - huge hooks and a big sound with super-smart lyrics.
Last night, a friend shared this picture taken from a Macy's circular she got in the mail. She thought it was weird. She wasn't alone.
Just remember, someone (likely many someones actually) thought this picture was a good idea and correctly captured the tone and emotion Macys was trying to elicit. So well, in fact, that it needed to be on the front cover of the circular.
I have a lot of hair. I mean, not just like a little bit that looks like a lot because I use Rogaine or plugs, but a full, thick head of hair all naturale. Enough hair, in fact, that every time I've ever had to find a new hair stylist one of the first things they've always said has been, "Man you have a lot of hair!" Not only do I have a lot of hair, but it also grows incredibly fast. Though both realities have their downsides, all in all the fast-growing, thick hair predicament is a blessing I know many folks would love to have. Though there are many reasons why this is the case, perhaps the most fun is that this "situation" allows me to change up my hair style with reckless abandon. I haven't always been cavalier with my hair, but once I started being so (about 15 years ago) I really haven't stopped. I've done a host of colors (blond, white, black, red highlights and more) and I've also done a host of different lengths and styles (long all over, long bangs, spiky, short all over and so on.) The saving grace has also been that no matter how good or how bad the new style might have been, I could rest assured I could simply hit the reset button in 6-8 weeks time.
Since I've been in the "professional" world, my hair has primarily been spiky. I like it that way, my wife likes it that way and it seems to be a style that fits both my personality and my occupation. Still, I've changed it up a few times of the last few years, always with mixed reaction. About two years ago, I cut my hair really short. To the casual observer, it was a drastic change but I didn't really think that much of it. I soon realized how significant a conversation piece my hair was though... and it fascinated me. Perhaps the pinnacle was when the CMO of the Fortune 50 company I was working for at the time commented about it. I was flattered he noticed, honestly - but was also amazed it had reached that level of commentary. The cut itself didn't last long - maybe a couple months tops, but it was an interesting experience.
So why am I retelling this tale? Well, on Sunday I decided to cut my hair off. Again. After having spiky hair for another two years or so, the time was right to chop it all off. Here's the pictures, both before and after:
Today was the first day back in the office and the reaction was fun and predictable. There were a lot of people who were surprised but no one who ran away screaming. So why did I do it? There are a few reasons, some more significant than others. That said, I could take this opportunity to pontificate about the big picture implications of "change"... you know, it gives you a start fresh, it can give you a new perspective on your current situation, it allows people to "see" you differently, etc. And those are all fair to be sure... but I just don't want to go there. Not today at least. Today, I'm going to focus on a few of the practical benefits because that's just where I'm at. So here are just a couple off the top:
1a. It takes less time to get ready in the morning. It honestly never took an incredibly long time to begin with, but with only a little hair to wash and no product to apply, I'm saving 5-10 minutes a morning. I'll take it.
1b. It takes less time to get ready (again) when I have to run at lunch. With my marathon training ongoing, this is a big plus.
2. I can wear hats more often. One downside of having so much hair with so much product is that hat hair is pretty much a given. I find that unfortunate, because I really like hats, especially stocking hats in the winter. With short hair, that's not an issue at all. I can wear a stocking hat to the office on a cold winter morning and not have to worry about the hat hair impact.
3. It saves money - actually more than you might think. While the shampoo and product savings are nice, the real savings come because I can shave my own head (3 guard up ftw) so there's no monthly salon expense. While I don't pay hundred of dollars a month for my haircut, I pay enough that this savings is not inconsequential.
All told, I fully expect I will be back to spiky hair within the next 3-4 months, but for now I'm going to enjoy my new, old hair style.
Do you have short hair? What do you like (or not) about it?
Last Sunday, Atlanta got hit with a pretty hefty snow storm. Where I live in Marietta, we got somewhere between four to six inches - not a ridiculous amount, but definitely a lot for a city that rarely sees a snow dusting, let alone an accumulation. What followed over the course of the next five days was hilarious, exhilarating, frustrating, enjoyable and maddening all at the same time. The city is still returning to normal (yes, nearly a week later with only trace amounts of new snow since the first storm) but here are six thoughts from where I sit, in no particular order:
1. Atlanta is in no way, shape or form capable of handling "large" snow storms. I grew up in the Midwest so I've long taken for granted the infrastructure necessary to quickly help a city recover from snow storms (salt, sand, trucks, shovels, etc.) Very few of these basics exist in Atlanta. Although we're the 8th largest metropolitan area in the US, we have only eight snow plows. You read that right - eight. Even at a personal level, snow shovels and ice scrapers are not common and most folks end up improving as best they can (rakes, yard-work shovels, etc.) The net result? The city was basically shut down for the entire week.
In fairness, it does seem hard to justify spending significant taxpayer (or personal) money on a significant investment that in all likelihood will only be used once every few years. That said, you would hope a city the size of Atlanta would find ways to be better prepared especially with the kinds of advance warning we had of the storm (it was talked about profusely for a week in advance.) Though this example is a year old, the last time we had a major storm half of our trucks were in the shop. I have no idea how that happens.
2. It's still a lot of fun to play in the snow. I've now lived in the South for almost 15 years so I don't see much snow anymore. So while I was shocked it's taken so long to dig out, I did have a great time playing with my daughters in the cold and snow. We even got a good picture of our three month old experiencing the snow (albeit very briefly.) Snowmen, snow ball fights and snow angels are just as much fun as I remember them being, and we even came up with a few new ones like "ice pizza" to feed our snowman. It also made me realize I really want to go snow skiing. Soon. We'll see how that works out.
3. I cannot work from home when everyone else is in the house. Try as I might, when my entire family is home and awake, it's nearly impossible to work from home. While I can get things accomplished when the kids nap, it was tough to string together long stretches of time otherwise. For me, working from home will continue to be "working much closer to home from a coffee shop down the street" or "working from home when my family is away."
4. I'll take one Epic badge please. When I first heard of the changes to Foursquare's Swarm badges I wasn't sure if I would ever get a chance to get the Epic badge. It would be possible, to be sure, at places like SxSW but even with the ridiculous growth of Foursquare, getting 1,000 people to check-in to one location in a defined period of time is not an easy task.
However, Snowcation in Hothlanta made it happen and I am now the proud owner of both the Super Duper Swarm badge (500+) and the Epic badge (1000+.) Nerdy yes, but nerdy cool!
5. Technology is still cool. Working from home did give me a chance to continue to try out a few new bits of technology. Sure I've long been a heavy VPNer, but believe it or not, I hadn't signed up for used Skype until this week. I quickly fell in love with it and anticipate using it a lot more moving forward. I also got to mess around with a few photo apps on my Droid, most notably Retro Camera. I'm still learning how to take good pictures with it, but I had fun documenting the snow fall:
I also realized I need to get our home PC webcam back up and running again very soon. I'm going to be traveling a bit over the next couple months, so whether via Skype or Google voice and video chat I will be using tech to stay even more in touch with my family while I'm on business travel.
6. Atlantans can't drive any better in the snow and ice than they can in the rain. I wish it was different, but Atlanta is a town full of terrible traffic and terrible drivers. Regardless of the conditions, people seem to have only two speeds: normal (which is to say 10-20 miles over the speed limit even when it's messy outside) and super-slow (sitting in the fast lane doing 20 because they're on their phone, for example.) Few people understand the art of the middle speed, which continue to amaze me especially given how many transplants there are here. Bottom line: if there's any kind of precipitation occurring at any time of day, your best bet is to stay off the roads entirely. But you knew that already didn't you?
All in all it was an interesting week for me and my crew - how about you?
I've always been into playing competitive sports. When I was young I played a little bit of everything - soccer, baseball, tennis, basketball, you name it. By the time I got to high school, I had focused in on tennis, soccer and basketball. Through college and on into my early professional career, I was primarily a basketball junkie - I can remember my early undergrad years playing pick up hoops after class for 3-4 hours a day, heading back to the dorm, hydrating with ice cold lemonade and then doing it all again the next day. When I moved to Nashville and then ultimately Atlanta, I sought out early morning basketball games. Most probably believe it's a little insane to play basketball at 5:30am three times a week, but I really thrived on the competition, the trash talking... the game.
After my oldest daughter was born in 2006, however, things began to change. It became more and more difficult to get to the games consistently and by the time our second was born in 2008, my basketball-playing time had shrunk considerably from about three times a week to three times a month. As a competitive person, this frequency was unbearable on a host of levels but the biggest thing was that the less amount of time you spend playing (or doing anything for that matter) the worse you play when you actually do. It takes longer for your shot to come back, it's more difficult to feel comfortable dribbling in traffic, that kind of thing. Ultimately, rather than really enjoying the little I did get to play, I ended up feeling even more frustrated at the end of any given session. So, I pretty much quit cold turkey about a year ago.
As you can imagine, it's not as if the competitive juices simply went away. So over the last few months I've been casually exploring a new pursuit: running. I've never been a runner - honestly even today the thought of running just to run (rather than to say chase a soccer ball or get out on a fast break in basketball) is a bit mind-numbing. That said, this past summer I decided to run my first Peachtree Road Race, the world's largest 10K hosted right here in Atlanta on the 4th of July. While my time was only OK at best (under an hour which was my goal,) it was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Enough fun, in fact, that I decided to run the 2010 Locomotive Half Marathon a few months later. I'll be honest, it was fun but it was painful - even with a training regime, I learned I still had a lot to learn about distance running. But I'd dabbled enough that I began seriously contemplating the next step, albeit a big one - a full marathon. So after the healthy birth of our son in October I made the decision and I've just begun training for my first full marathon, the Nashville Marathon, April 30, 2011.
Over the next 16 or so weeks, I hope to chronicle some of that journey here. It won't be the only thing I talk about, but it will be some of it to be sure. I'm already in week 2 of training and am excited to see where this goes.
OK I'll say it - I'm going to try my hand at blogging (at least) one more time. I seem to keep sayng it every year but I'm going to give it another go. I've even got some editorial content in mind (gasp!) so hopefully that will help out my consistency. We shall see how it goes, however!
So here's to a first real post in the New Year... hopefully later today.
Wow, it's been a long time since I posted. There's been a lot going on in both my personal and professional life and I simply haven't found (or made) the time to keep this as up to date as I would like. So it goes I guess. I will strive to do better but perhaps this post can serve as a rebirth, a new beginning (again) of sorts. And in that vein...
As you may have seen earlier this week, there were a few tweets (most prominently from Brian Solis, Aaron Strout and C.C. Chapman) about an opening for a Social Media Channel Manager at The Home Depot, my current place of employment. I got a couple DMs and inquiries about what this might mean for me, so I wanted to quickly provide an update. In short, I've decided to leave The Home Depot and my last day in the orange apron is today, May 27. There were a lot of factors that went into my decision but at the end of the day it is the right time for me to head on to new adventures. So where exactly am I headed? I'm off to InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) to take on a global social marketing and strategy role. I'm pumped about the opportunity and what lies ahead in navigating the nuances of social media in a global, multi-brand environment. Should be big fun!
That said, leaving really is bittersweet for me. I quite literally cut my "social media teeth" here at The Home Depot and have been afforded incredible opportunities to help bring our brand to life in the social spaces. Over the course of the last five years I've also had the honor of working with scores of amazing people and have built relationships I will hold on to once I turn in my Blackberry (joy? pain? both?) and pull out of the parking deck for the last time. It's been a great ride.
With that in mind, I also wanted to provide a link to the open Social Media Channel Manager position here at The Home Depot. It's a great opportunity at a great company. Best of all, you'll get to work with the crazy-talented Sarah Molinari who has been my social partner in crime here for the past couple of years.
So here's to new beginnings. For this blog (hopefully). For me professionally. For the company I'm leaving behind and for the company I'm headed to. But in some ways, it won't be a new beginning at all, rather just a slight change of direction. I look forward to being able to continue to interact, participate, learn, ideate and grow with all the great folks active on the social web. I'll still be all over on Twitter. I'll still be attending conferences. And I'll still be based in Atlanta. So cheers to more of the same as well!
Over the last few months, I've really grown to enjoy Deepspace 5, Mars Ill and several from their large-but-diverse crew. I stumbled on this video last night for an as-yet unreleased song directed by DS5's own DJ Dust.
My three year old daughter is a slow eater. Nothing that out of the ordinary, but she perennially is the last one done at nearly every meal. In an attempt to get her to eat a bit more quickly, my wife and I have found ourselves turning meal time into a game of sorts. You know how this goes, right? "Mommy is going to finish before you, you better hurry!" That kind of thing. On the surface, very innocent and very effective.
The challenge is that our daughter doesn't talk about "finishing first" or "winning", she talks about "beating". Can you see where this is going? These days, nary a dinner goes by where we don't hear:
"I'm going to beat Mommy!"
"I'm going to beat Daddy!"
"I'm going to beat Maddie! (her one year old sister)"
and the always popular "Daddy is going to beat Mommy!"
While this is often humorous in the privacy of our home, it's become downright terrifying in public. The final straw came a couple weeks back when we were at a local restaurant and the familiar cadence began: "Daddy is going to beat me! and Mommy! and Maddie!"
The looks I got were fierce. I found myself emitting nervous laughter and then quickly correcting her in that loud-enough-that-the-table-next-to-us-could-hear-but-not-really-yelling voice, "Yes baby, I'm going to finish eating before you, your Mom and your sister. I'm going to win." But the damage was done, or so it felt.
The bottom line - I've got to find some new words. Thesaurus anyone?
I've been thinking a lot lately about the concept of gaining a "customer for life" as well as its reciprocal - losing a customer for life. One the great things about the world of social media-enabled customer care is that we've all been able to witness numerous situations where customers who claimed they would "never shop company/brand X again" have been turned, over a course of a few interactions, into a customer who becomes said company/brand X's biggest advocate. It's exciting. It's invigorating. It's one of the reasons I feel good about what I do day in and day out. But that said... I'm not convinced.
I'm not convinced these customers are actually anyone's for life. Sure, in the halo of the initial experience, I'm positive there is a strong sense of loyalty that leans on a customer to choose one company/brand over another. But over time the draw lessens, the situation changes, and well - life happens. Maybe they move to a new city. Maybe they get married to a person who prefers a competitor. Or worst, maybe that one exceptional experience is followed up by a series of mediocre experiences that erodes their trust in the company/brand's ability to truely provide a world-class experience when the customer sets foot in their store or visit their website.
At the end of the day, I just don't think I believe that any one interaction can in and of itself create a customer for life. Maybe there are exceptions out there, but more often than not I think that first exceptional interaction is just one step along a long journey. It's up to us to make the commitment to our customers to be exceptional each and every time they interact with us. Every email, every tweet, every blog post, every Facebook wall post, every call handled by call center must be handled with a vigor, energy and passion that will turn transactional, company/brand-agnostic customers into customers for life. So beware of customers who tell you they're yours for life. Instead, at every turn interact with them in such a way that they don't have any other option.
The other piece of good news? I believe this same approach can turn "long lost" customers into brand fanatics. Just be respectful of their concerns, authentic in you response and then most of all - consistently exceptional at ever turn.You just might be surprised at what happens.
