I don’t like Mondays, but in this case it is OK

I know it has been a while since I have posted last, but there was a lot going on and I also wanted to not really say anything to put a ripple in the situation, you know, just in case anyone reads my ramblings.

Now is a good time to talk as any so here you go;

I am now employed at a new company, and the only reason I took the job was for a view of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade (my new employer is on Broadway) only to find out that the parade route switched and now is going down Seventh Ave, right by my old employer. I am just screwing with you; well at least the new parade route changing to Seventh Ave. is true. I was offered an awesome opportunity at SMG Search that I couldn’t refuse. So I didn’t. I have a new boss, who goes by the name of Jill, and so far I think I am really going to like her. My first week was last week and what a whirl-wind. 5 Days of new people, new clients, people eager to have me, and then throw in a Rangers game with Lard on Tuesday, dinner at Craft Steak with Bing Cashback team (Jorge and Angela who I am completely looking forward to working with – great team), Jill and Kristen, drinks after at Budahcon (I don’t have internet connection right now so I can’t check how bad I just massacred that name), and then closed the week out on Thursday night with Christian & Lindsey (Vibrant), Lard, Brad and Ellen at Republic , then to the Pretty Things show for a little dance music, followed with a pretty intense Friday in the office. WOW! Back at it on Monday…

But I am so excited for Thanksgiving. I can’t stand it when people are so short-sighted and go straight to Christmas and skip over Thanksgiving. Don’t get me wrong I love Christmas, but I also love Thanksgiving. Trying to install the value of being thankful in my kids, because I have it pretty fucking well, and for once just letting go to drink some beer and eat some delicious food. This will be the first year since moving to NY that we are going to have Thanksgiving at our house with just us. This is how great Upstate is, when people find out that we are not going back to the West Coast to see family (would be a nightmare to travel on Thanksgiving for only a few days – so not worth the pain and cost) our friends invite us over to have it with them and their family. This has happened for at least four years, so it will be a little different this year. Welcomed though.

So what else is new or worth talking about… I haven’t had a chance to miss my old co-workers, or actually even get to know my new ones. I don’t feel that I will miss my old ones only because I don’t plan on saying good-bye to them. Yeah, I won’t see them everyday in person but I definitely plan on seeing them. Hell I saw Lard more times last week not working at MEC than I did when I did work there. The new co-workers will come in time, because that is half of the fun moving to new places, learning the details. Obviously as time goes on I will let you know how it goes and might have to change the names of a few guilty parties…

I am going to the Pixies tonight which should be so kick a$$! I am a huge fan and have been since the early, early nineties. Lard is going, which I am happy for, but I was really disappointed when I mentioned them to him and he didn’t have a clue who they were, or even after I played a few of their better known songs. Oh Lard, crazy Swede / English / Hawaiian guy, but it works for him…

Ciao

Just Some Tuesday Thoughts & the Improper Way To Say Good-bye

Well, this is my last week at Mediaedge as a Search Director. I have been here for 2 years, 8 months and 3 weeks. It has been a blast, and an experience where I truly enjoyed coming to work most of the days. The New York office started out with approximately 10 people and I leave it with us grown to over 40 people. Some of it had to do with a major client win, but none the less I have been part of an amazing process. Most everyone here I could call a friend, and most definitely a great co-worker. I am not leaving out of spite or anger (trying to remember a Motley Crue song here but no dice) but out of a great opportunity at SMG Search. Stay tuned you will hear more about us, I promise. I think what I will miss most is the friendships that I have established, but I guess in the end if they were friends then they still will be no matter where each of ends up.

Not sure how everyone's Halloween went. Mine was good except the kids did not get a lot of trick or treatin' done due to the cold and rainy weather we had. You can't win them all and we have had great weather the previous two years. The kids still had fun and did not let the weather effect them that much. It did force us to move our Washas game inside to my buddies garage. Thanks Brad.

What is up with my iPod!? Does it know that the stores are already advertising for Christmas. It keeps playing Holiday songs and I am not ready yet. I still want to lay around and gorge myself on turkey before I start thinking about Christmas.

Raked the leaves out of my yard and now my back is telling me that it was not happy. I need ibuprofen stat once I get into the office.

Go Karting with Yahoo!

The Mediaedge Search team and Yahoo! went go karting on Wednesday night. Damn was it a kick in the pants! We all piled in to a bus a drove north about an hour, which actually was the lamest part of the trip. We were not allowed to sip any adult beverages since we did not want the Grand Prix of New York to ban us from driving the karts. This is gas powered karts on an indoor race track. We were doing 25 mph. Insane fun. I after all of the qualifying and racing came in third due to a bogus penalty called against me. Lard went wide I ducked under and when he came back low he got t-boned by me, spun out while I kept going. But hey who's bitter. Actually me! Then we had some drinks and food at the bar at this place and then headed out on the bus back to NYC. This time we were able to drink some beers and rehash all of our driving stories. Thanks BoneIll.

Hump Day

I realized that I never published this post, so it is now being delivered about 2 weeks late.

1. I am heading to Fenway Park to see a Boston Red Sox game. This will be the first time so it is pretty exciting. I am mixing some pleasure with business and taking one of my clients with me. I am excited. I don't plan on rooting for the Sox but I can imagine it will become hard not to when the crowd is getting into it. I just hope it is a fun game. Oh, and I still have not made it to the new Yankee's stadium.

2. www.PeopleofWalmart.com is the best site on the web right now. I have been visiting it for over a month and it is freakin' amazing every time. It still has not become old.

3. Advertising Week - great time and too much enjoying the social scene. Good times. IGN party had an amazing location. The MSN loft was insane, I want to live there. facebook party was fun but fairly ordinary. Yahoo had a good set-up at the Standard hotel.

4. Gaydar: is not just a good feeling any more but is now scientific by using a MIT program. I could write a lot about this and how we are going down a slippery slope with it, but I actually might write about it for SearchFuel.

5. Google Sidewiki: First of it has an extremely lame name. Who comes up with these? It must be a search marketer and not a creative director. This tool seems cool, but I am not sure if it will catch on. There have been a few attempts with the same concept in the past that never gained a foothold. I also cringe for companies. I agree that they should build awesome products and not hide completely behind marketing, but this could really hurt good companies. I am also torn between does a company own "its" brand or does the public own "the" brand. This definitely answers that question. I will be watching this one to see how it plays out and what SEM opportunities become available.

6. Dirty Dianna by Michael Jackson: Excellent song.

7. Amtrak Acela: First class is nice. Think I will need to upgrade again for my return trip. Is it OK to drink mimosas before work these days?

Off to enjoy some Boston culture.

Ciao

Til' Tuesday

1. MIXX Awards tonight: I am up for two awards with the work that we did on the Pizza Hut campaign. I keep forgetting which awards they are but without checking I believe they are for Best Direct Response campaign and maybe Best Search campaign. Whoever reads this blog and knows definitely comment the correct awards. I am not tooting my own horn, but two years ago I won a Silver and Gold for these exact two categories with the Showtime campaign. The awards were fun and hosted by the John guy who won the Last Comic Standing. Tonight's ceremony is being hosted by John Breuer, so should be entertaining. Hey at least it is free drinks and free dinner. Which leads me into...

2. Advertising Week in NYC: Too much going on each night. Actually tonight isn't too bad, so if you have a cool party let me know. Tomorrow I am triple booked, but all events seem fun. This is our SXSW I believe.

3. Creative Media Awards: These are tomorrow night and I am up for the Best Search Campaign with Pizza Hut. I am going to sound like a broken record but I won this award a couple of years ago with the Showtime campaign. It would be nice to win it again.

4. Gaydar: Has now gone from an instinct in a human being (being able to predict if someone is gay) to actual technology. The Boston Globe had an article about how some MIT students built a program that scrapes people's facebook profiles and from that info can predict if that person is gay. Now I find this interesting on a few levels, one not being if someone is gay (doesn't matter to me), but on using technology to do something that we do everyday, judge someone. This is interesting on the factor of scariness. What if companies start using this technology to scan potential employers? Let's say everyone you hang out with is young, you talk about toga parties, etc and they brand you as a partier. Good bye job opportunity. Even scarier is what happens if the government starts to use this? Can we say Big Brother and Big Father. I do find it interesting that technology can be used to accuracy to categorize people. My immoral side says this is going to be cool and one more tool in the behavioral marketing arsenal that we have. I would believe if they aren't already using this kind of technology that dating sites like eHarmony and Match.com that they should. It seems that if the tool is accurate it would be one of the best ways to match people because now it is not based on what answers they give you on a form but on actual behaviors. Good news, I am not out there looking for dates, I am happily married. But what happens if this tool tells me I am gay, there could go that happy marriage...

5. How about Fall in NY??? I hate that summer is over and was not one of the better ones on record, but so far Fall has been beautiful. The leaves are changing, the temps at night are cold, so no bugs and fires, and the days are sunny and warm (in the 70's). So nice.

6. Fantasy Football: I Love and Hate Fantasy Footbal, but at least this weekend comfirmed why I love it. Almost ruined a Chris Johnson performance by losing, but Dallas Clark pulled it through for me on a Monday night when all hope was technically lost.

7. Captiva Secret Society: Will happen.

Not Sure

But I am thinking about giving this whole Social thing up. Don't have the time to live it and talk about it, so my only real options are to just live it, or to just talk about it...

Has Twitter Jumped the Shark?

I still remember, vaguely, when Fonzi jumped the shark on Happy Days, signaling what we know today as the decline of the show, but more importantly I remember when Henry Winkler actually jumped a shark on Arrested Development. Much like Happy Days, Twitter seems to be in a decline. This statement is based on general observations and not on actual usage statistics because user statistics don’t show the real value that something can provide. I know from personal usage (I have been registered on Twitter for over a year now) that I check it frequently and every once in a while I find something useful, but a majority of the time there isn’t anything that peaks my interest. The following is some of my observations why I believe that Twitter has strapped on their water skis, hit the ramp, and are flying through the air in their best Fonzi impersonation.

There is too much spam right now. Everyone is asking me to check out their sexy pictures, which I would if I a. wasn’t at work, or b. didn’t have morals. Even the ones that don’t ask me to check out their pics are someone who is trying to be the social marketing entrepreneur of the year and just posting news articles from other sites. Trust me lame guy I have news aggregators that I have been using long before you lost your job and decided that we had a real need for you getting me news. Also, these twammers are all about getting followers for their Twitter profile. Red flags tend to be raised when you have over 1,000 followers and no updates.

People seem to be locking their profiles now in order to follow them. Dave Navarro (@davenavarro6767) of Jane’s Addiction has done this recently and swears by it. I have also seen more people that do not deal with fame lock their profiles. I am tempted to do this but I feel that I would be defeating the purpose of Twitter. I have always treated Twitter as my public profile and facebook as my more private profile.

Even legitimate twitters, at least on the surface, are now willing to take money to post ads in their tweets. I don’t knock them for trying to get the money while there is money to be getting, but come’on you have 4,000 followers and I don’t have a clue who they are or how I begin to target them other than a generic message. I could definitely do test messages to see which one resonates the best, but then I come back to you only have 4,000 followers and 10 updates a day.

Just today this short term study that Pear Analytics put together puts some analytical data with my above ranting. This study should be considered in the eye of the beholder but it does state an interesting trend, “Twitter tweets are 40% 'babble'.” I think I would have used a more descriptive term like crap. It also goes on to state, “8.7% of messages could be said to have "value" as they passed along news of interest.” That is not much, especially considering the amount of time people spend on Twitter. I know that people don’t spend 9% of their time on Twitter, but when budgeting out time shouldn’t you have more than a 1 to 1 ratio of value?

I will still use Twitter and feel that companies should get involved in tweeting, especially if they have something of value to offer the follower. It can be done respectively, just check out Pizza Hut (@pizzahut), and follow their twintern. A company mixing in some personality with breaking news and a promotion here and there will go a long way on validating Twitter and keeping it an option long after they touch down on the landing ramp, clearing the shark with ease. At this moment I have my concerns but I am still thrusting my two thumbs up and saying “Aaay.”