Just ramblings about my everyday life. I often wonder if other people think these things too. Some day my children can read these thoughts and maybe the will say, “Hmm, so that is what dad was really thinking” or, “At least I would know what dad would do if he were in my situation”
This is my second review of this hotel. Please feel free to look into the archives.
If size is your thing, the Rio All-Suites is one of the better bangs for your buck in Las Vegas if you aren’t traveling on some kind of loyalty package. If you are in the Masquerade Tower (Ipanema is the other) you’ll have a nice view of the Strip although you will be far from the convention area. The rooms are quite spacious in size although those who prefer a luxurious bathroom will be sorely disappointed. Many of the newer and modern hotels have better amenities than the Rio which is in need of a bit of a refurbishment. There is an odd feature of a see-through window from the bath/shower into the bedroom, but other than that the room is pretty much non-descript. I’m not an interior designer, but the decor of the room (the bedspread) was definitely not appealing to me. An update is definitely needed.
In need of some repairs, my room had chair rails falling off the wall. Additionally, my in-room wireless service was spotty. I told the front desk and they admitted it was a problem and removed the charges from my bill. Overall, those looking for rooms at roughly $129 a night with a large living area and floor to ceiling windows will find some appeal to the room.
Rio seating area - small TV
Most people attending the Rio are there for the moderate pricing dining and non-pretentious environment off the Strip that reminds one more of the crowd that might be found in downtown Vegas. The other hotels located close by are the Gold Coast Casino next door, which is the economy hotel, and the more luxurious Palms across the way. The Palms though has recently been advertising specials comparable to the Rio pricing.
Shows of note at the hotel are Penn & Teller, the comedic magic duo, as well as the Chippendales revue (yes I saw and heard screaming women as I walked by and saw a few women giggling in the elevator with Chippendales bracelets. The marquee restaurant is the VooDoo steak house which affords more great views. I would say the food is modestly okay for a steak house but there are probably better steak houses in Vegas.
“Erik, let’s be careful out there, and take care of your body” – My dad as he used to coin the phrase from the show Hill St. Blues and then add his usual sign-off.
Not really much to say right now. I have about 5 posts all ready to be sent out for this blog but I have been a bit distracted. It is always a tough time of year for me. This week marks 4 years since my dad passed away and every night when I run or before I go to bed my mind has been racing with memories of good times and thinking, “What would my dad do?” it has kind of been a distraction and as the week comes to an end, I think my week of reflection has helped me with clarity.
In many ways my solitude runs at night have been my conversations, my wake up calls, my time alone with my dad. In a way, I like to think the hooligans (a word my dad would have used) who tried to hit me with eggs as I ran the other night were just my dad having some fun with me. I think my dad would have laughed if I came home covered in eggs.
As kids we look at our moms and dads and never really think of them as children of other people and the bond that they have with their parents. I’m sure my kids don’t realize how much I miss him, but the photos of us playing golf and laughing are all around the house and I think there are enough memories for my children to let them know how important a relationship is between a child and their father and how lucky they are to have one.
As I head into the weekend to become a full-time dad for 48 hours ….my memories of dad might fade..but they will always make me smile……Thanks Dad for still being here in spirit.
Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data.
– John Naisbitt, American Author and businessman
It’s the eve of our main annual Affiliate Marketing Industry conference (Affiliate Summit) and a couple of people have asked me how I see this next year and decade shaping up compared to the past 10 years in the industry.
On the surface there are many obvious changes, but we should look deeper. A decade ago (2000) BeFree and Linkshare as well as large merchants roamed the industry. Today there are many more networks and less merchants and less independent affiliates roaming the halls in my view. The era of banner creatives and tool bars have now progressed into RSS Feeds, widgets and APIs. The names Marciano, Messer and Gerace are now replaced by Collins, Ward, and Brogan. Online communities such as eCircles, Geocities and the Tribe have now been overtaken by Myspace, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. One thing is for sure the affiliate marketing industry has evolved and matured, certain vertical areas have consolidated ,and many in the industry have learned to fuse either their marketing savvy with their technology hutzpah or vice versa.
Some people such as Owen Van Natta have taken that prowess to the next level. 10 years ago Owen was was in Business Development having led the Amazon Associates affiliate program. Today he is the CEO of MySpace. 10 years ago, Todd Crawford was this upstart with a company called Commission Junction. He sold that network and is now starting the new decade with the launch of a new business which we will likely be hearing more about over the next couple of weeks and especially at this conference. I look forward to hearing the pitch from Todd and his partners.
There are other issues. Even certain industries within affiliate marketing are changing. In the music space, for instance, 10 years ago people would buy a $12.99 CD from Amazon and get an 8-10% commission. Today, more people are buying downloads of single songs from iTunes or $.99 and the affiliate commission is only $.05. This is such that recorded music has disappeared in the affiliate music space as an interesting option.
Okay, so the technology has advanced, the channels have changed, some industries have changed and if the faces haven’t changed they definitely have become a little bit older, but what hasn’t changed is that basic marketing and sales principles can not and should not be ignored.
What will the next decade have in store for the Affiliate Marketing Industry?
When you look at the Asians, the Asian is very gifted in creation, creativity and inventions. If you go to Japan or any Asian country, they can turn a television into a watch. They’re very creative. – Reggie White, former NFL start and Hall of Famer.
Okay…this is totally off topic for me. Well not so much, but recently I’ve come across a couple of racial stereotypes about Asians. Nahhh, I’m not offput by either of them. They were both done harmlessly although one I found to be one I relate to and the other made me look at myself in the mirror.
So the first one has to do with the trailer for the new movie, “Up In the Air”. Have you seen it? There’s a part where George Clooney’s character says he likes to get behind Asians in line at the airport because we are fast especially since we all wear slip on shoes. I plead guilty! Although I grew up with lace-up shoes (my Chinese father told me , “Loafers are called that because they are for people who are too lazy to bend over and properly lace up their shoes!), ever since September 11th I have switched to slip on shoes. In fact, I have a real affinity for a particular pair of Johnston & Murphy Men’s Harding Slip-On shoes. LOL! Seriously though, it really makes it easy when you are trying to grab all of your bags off the short conveyor belt while the people around you are busy stripping down or falling over trying to tie their shoes and race through airports. Want another tip from Asians? For the business traveler it’s the Timbuk2 Commute 2.0 Laptop Messenger Bag. Remember when we used to have to power on our computers and then spend a few minutes making sure that the computer powered on and off properly? Thank goodness those days are gone. But still, we have to pull out our computer and put it in a bin. With this bag, all we have to do is unzip it and flip out flat. It will save you another 30 seconds on both sides of the conveyor belt I guarantee it!
The other night I found myself watching Wanda Syke’s new show. It was crass chuckling humor and I was using it as background noise until there came a segment called “Know Your Asians”……now I am not someone who gets easily offended at pokes at my own ethnicity, but heck Wanda…what was up with the crack that Asians have flat “backsides”? We do have a little junk in our trunk. We just choose not to wear our pants around our bottoms because it simply isn’t a fashion we enjoy. I had to ask a few of my other Asian friends. We checked each other out. Japanese, nope. Chinese, not really. Phillipino, no way. Then came my Korean friend! Shyly she said she was to blame. There you go Wanda! You need to know your Asians! Seriously! We want a retraction and an apology! LOL! Again, this was all in jest and if you can’t laugh at yourself, you can’t laugh at others. I mean, here is Wanda, a black lesbian with a tranny as a co-host sidekick. We aren’t supposed to take this seriously.
Of course, if you really want to help me refute Wanda’s stereotype you can just check out my backside (my junk, my humps, derriere) or whatever you choose to call it. In fact, just get behind this Asian the next time we are at security at the airport. Just watch out, I’m pretty fast through the security area!
The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living.
– George Clooney, Up in the Air
It’s irnoic that line is the one that will be remembered most from the first big movie in 2010 or in this decade. Maybe that is why I’m running so much these days.
The new decade is here and what a decade the last one was. It is easy to look just back at 2009, but that would be a short-sighted and very depressing one. Wrought with health issues and a world economic crisis, even looking back 2 years might not even be what we need to be able to look back on the past decade with perspective. As I ran down 2009 through a series of runs through the Streets of San Francisco I tried to reflect a little on the past year, but kept pulling more memories out . As I looked farther back, I began to realize that I didn’t just need resolutions for the coming year (don’t like resolutions anyway). I needed to look ahead to the whole next decade! I haven’t written in a bit just because I wasn’t sure as to what to say as the thoughts kept flooding in. “Just put it to paper and let the rhythm flow without thinking” (to paraphrase the words of the lead character in Finding Forrester). So as I put my running shoes and headphones on and listened to my new favorite song, Good Life by One Republic, what I saw was a past that is shaping our future in new ways and some that we could never have imagined.
There’s so much to think about when looking back and trying to eliminate the macro-factors of societal changes and focus on only the things you really can control. For me it was about family, health, work, and friends. How can I proactively move towards making sure I better control these issues in the new decade.
In order to look ahead at the next decade and what it should look like for me, I found myself back in time in 1999 as we were selling our house and i was getting back into the venture business. Yeah, remember the Y2K craze and how much were were going to have to evolve when the computers came crashing down? It was a whole cottage industry for a doom and gloom that never came. We’re still here though. I think I had 3 jobs this past decade and hopefully won’t do that much switching in the next decade. I would never have expected in 1999 that I would end up doing what I do today, but my current job is one I’ve been at longer than any before. Is this my legacy?
Personally in 1999 I was a new dad in San Francisco wondering how I could move to a bigger place in the suburbs. Well we did do that, but we moved back to San Francisco. Not before we became ice cream moguls leaving a mark with a franchise in Marin County as well as purchasing another one in San Francisco. Anyway, now I’m a seasoned dad with a 10 year old and a 7 year old. So what does that mean? At the end of this decade I will just about be an empty nester as my two kids will hopefully be off to college. It doesn’t leave much time for me to think about how to afford their education and prepare for how I will prepare for my retirement if something like that would ever exist for me. If I thought my children dominated my life this past decade it will surely be a decade of building what will be a lifelong relationship. Maybe I shouldn’t even mention retirement as it won’t happen until after 2020 for sure.
The past decade also came with health issues as well. Losing a parent (which I could have predicted as my dad was already in poor health) was hard to take but reminded me of how important a parent-child relationship is and how fortunate I was to have my children meet their grandfather and develop a deep relationship with my own mother. Emotional preparation for the potential loss of another grandparent in this decade would be something I could easily see in my future. Cancer was something I never would have expected to be part of the last decade. In fact it was a large part with my mother and then followed by my wife and friends. Bad Health is never something you really plan or prepare for. I don’t know how much the next decade will be interrupted by health issues but age will not come without some aches and pains for sure. I have already started preparing myself. The last two years of training have built my stamina to a high level. I maybe not as strong or fast as I used to be, but if not getting sick at all for the past 18 months is any indication, I’ve definitely been fortunate in keeping healthy and maybe if I just keep moving…..
I don’t need to write much about friends and extended family and my expectations there given some recent posts, but this past decade has been about revitalizing past relationships. I only expect that to continue. It seems to be a natural processs as you get older and start to reminisce about times gone by. These are the people who will remind you about your past someday so its probably good to keep them close so that they remember it accurately. For sure their memories are already declining, not to mention their deteriorating eye sight. It just makes me wondering as the baby boomers will be moving into their 50s and 60s, will those people still be wanting to deal with small screens on their cell phones and buttons that don’t work well with arthritic fingers? Remember that this decade started with us using PDAs with a stylus. Now we just push things around with our thumbs. Will everything be voice-activated over the next decade? Will we see the first wave of brain cancer resulting from overuse of cell phones?
We now have a black President. Will the next decade bring a female President? An Asian President? A Hispanic President? A Gay one? Maybe 2 of those. We talk about national security as getting tighter given the terrorism that has started in the US. Is it possible this could get worse? Will the idea of being “green” work. What would people have thought if you used that term back in 1999? They would have thought you wanted to be a vegetarian and were giving up meat. For me all of this just heightens the urgency to show my kids parts of the world that they might never ever get the chance to see or at least the way they could see it today. The world is changing rapidly. How fast? The eco-system even in the SF Bay area was so drastic that one minute the sea lions that inhabit our piers had peaked at over 2 thousand last November yet today there are about 6. The plankton and the water temperatures have caused them all to move to areas up North where they can find more herring. A migration that grew over a 20 year period just disappeared in a matter of months. Will Alaska still be cold in 2020? Will there still be arctic glaciers?
As I continue my running regimen I’m not running from the past but running toward the future. It isn’t necessarily a bright one or even a better decade than the past. It will have its own challenges and we can only prepare ourselves for what will be more of the same yet with more intensity. Of course, we have a chance to shape our own path by planning it before the future comes and dictates our actions.
Perhaps while this decade might not mark the beginning of a new millenium that it might end up being much more important than the past decade This may be the decade where we take control of our destiny and start to dictate what history will be. Maybe Live Strong won’t be an attitude for fighting cancer, but to beat Father Time and prevent him from catching us.
For me the answer is to not prepare for the end, but prepare for the future. Don’t look back too far, but just remember to keep looking forward so that what you left behind stays there and what you want to take with you in the future moves with you. For me that is simple. 10 years from now I want to be standing there proudly with my wife at my side as we watch our son thrive in college as he prepares for the real world and a career of his choosing and our daughter moves off to college strongly independent such that her parents will know that she is prepared for that next stage of her life. Me? I’ll be cleaning out their bedrooms figuring out how I can convert their rooms into my own 3D home theater and 24 hr. fitness club.
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You, too? Thought I was the only one.” – C.S. Lewis
One of the more wonderful things I was happy about in 2009 was that I got out a few times with one of my best friends from childhood. We’ve started graying and maybe even have started to repeat ourselves so getting out again with each other and while we didn’t get to great events like a Super Bowl or a Cal-Stanford Big Game with miraculous plays, getting out and enjoying things together with someone and sharing in the joy, the laughter, the sadness, and the disappointment is what makes those events and memories even more special.
Jerry Rice #80 and me
My wife often asks me about what it is that makes my friendship so special and I said it is that it is the unspoken. It is that we don’t even have to tell each other about what we were tniking because “we just knew”. The stunned look we gave each other as if to say, “Could this really be happening to us?”
Recently we went to a Monday Night Football game which I have to freely admit is not what it used to be from a television experience, but in a day and time when we see a lot of football played on Sundays, I had forgotten how special a night game in December could be. Granted the 49ers are no longer a dynasty and ESPN does not replicate ABC and Howard Cosell or John Madden, but it didn’t need to.
Just sharing the night with a friend made a special night even more special. I’d forgotten how great and magical Monday Night Football could be. Even without the 49ers making the playoffs for the 7th straight season, the stars were still out.
With ESPN's Suzy Kolber
The cool thing about Monday Night Football is that it is just as big a sporting event as it is a media event. The sports celebrities are as big as the players themselves. ESPN personalities like Suzy Kolber, Michelle Tafoya, Stuart Scott and Matt Millen were all in attendance on the sidelines.
Matt Millen did play for the 49ers so he helped to add to the celebrity status. There were plenty of 49er alumni in attendance from the glory years, some working as media as well as just taking in the whole scene:
Steve Young
Jerry Rice
Keena Turner
Deion Sanders
Steve Bono
MNF Pre-Game Hosts
As a football fan though, the game was very entertaining as the 49ers beat the defending NFC champs, Arizona Cardinals for the second time this season as they hounded them for 7 turnovers.
More importantly, the game ended with more memories for a good friendship that will leave us with more moments that we will be able to acknowledge with a simple nod and a smile because of its uniqueness in both of our memories. From my perspective, taking photos of my friend both with the owner of the team as well as the 49er cheerleaders cracked me up. Hopefully 20 years from now we’ll look back and them and crack up at how silly we were. They will go in the pile along with the Polaroids (Wait, is it still 2009? No? Time to throw away the polaroids.) we took with Miss Universe 1982, Shawn Weatherly (yes, I still have old polaroids.) In fact it was 1982 when the 49ers were bringing hoe their first Super Bowl (1981 actually). Maybe it is coincidence that I went to the game with my friend Dave. It has been a while since the 49ers had a winning season (they’ve not had a winning season since 2002), so this turnaround is a great time to share with friends.
With ex-49er QB Steve Bono
Here’s to friends, football and pleasant memories. I know this might sound sentimental and mushy, but I watched the movie Finding Forrester with my son. The movie focuses ona reclusive writer who no longer wants to share with others because but a young kid from the neighborhodod shows him the joys of sharing and discovery again. I’ve seen several writings on the Moral Premise of the movie:
Ignorance and avoidance of the unknown
leads to fear, isolation, and despair;
but Knowledge and embrace of the unknown
leads to faith, friendship, and hope.
In the movie, the reclusive author rediscovers the joy of visiting Yankee Stadium and a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden with his new-found friend. This game was just a way for my friend and I to revisit some of those great memories and it just so happens that many of the heroes of our past were there. Seeing Jerry Rice, Steve Young, Steve Bono, Matt Millen and Keena Turner on the sidelines while watching an increasingly competitive 49er team play a game on Monday night brought back many fond memories and good times.
It should be said that fiendships are not only there for the good times. And that is why as we head into 2010 that I can only hope that many of the friendships of 2009 that were rooted in some not so fond times will get to rekindle some good times in 2010.
Before everyone takes off on their vacations from their virtual world, I just thought I’d wish you all a very Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwaanza, etc. Please be safe if you are traveling this season!
As I pushed through the chilling temperatures and blustery winds of San Francisco during my run last night I kept reminding myself of those cold December nights I’ve spent in New York City, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. Nothing will ever compare to those cold bitter nights when I wore long underwear under my wool suits and wondered why I left my “City by the Bay”. I do remember telling myself that I would remember those days so I would appreciate San Francisco that much more when I would eventually return. Although cold, my run was dry and I ran down the festively lit shopping areas of Sacramento St, Fillmore St., California, and Clement St. distracting myself with the observations of the decorations people had in their windows.
While the glittery lights were dazzling and the quietness of the air still reminded me of how our economy is not quite back up to speed, the most warming images of my run were of the people.
First, there was the elderly couple walking together with their arms around each other as they left their party at Spruce Restaurant (http://www.sprucesf.com). They stopped and kissed saying “I love you” and touching their foreheads together in the middle of the sidewalk as I dodged them. It was a split second of our paths crossing but it was a beautiful image.
Second, there were the two inebriated young ladies in their short cocktail dresses stumbling out of the Elite Cafe (http://www.theelitecafe.com/) before crashing to the ground. I say crashing because they fell backwards into me as I ran behind them. Fortunately I caught one before she hit her head on one of the tables outside. They were inebriated because as the cabbie and I helped them to their feet, neither of them could pronounce their destination. I laughed when she said they were going to New York. A great guy, the cabbie, a little Frenchman in his beret and scruffy clothes had me and one of the waiters watch him as he helped one girl open her purse to find her address. She kissed his scruffy face as he pushed her back into the cab. “Welcome to Christmas on the Barbary Coast”, he said as he tipped his cap to us while mentioning one of the many long-gone nicknames of San Francisco. I think I ran a whole another mile before the whole incident washed behind me, turning towards home. The cab driver reminded me of the kindness of people at this time of year.
As I passed by San Francisco’s only 24 hour Starbucks in Laurel Village (yes I love running by it at night just so that I can get a whiff of the caffeine aroma) a bunch of Fire Engine’s raced by me. Looking for an alternate route, I followed their sirens. A Portable Potty had been set ablaze nearby. This has been the work of arsons as dozens have been set on fire over the last year.
Not wanting to end my run on a negative note, I continued on and started to notice a pattern that is so familiar this time of year. I had been seeing it over the a past week as cars and taxis pull up in front of homes and the dwellers come out to greet and hug a family member returning home. The tears of joy and happiness really signify what this season is about and while the images weren’t exactly Norman Rockwell-esque, they told the story. The story of family and friends coming together. I even saw a soldier returning home a couple weeks ago in full gear as his mother screamed when she opened the door (adorned with a yellow ribbon).
All of these images (including the fiery portable toilet) told the story of 2009. Maybe they weren’t my story, but they were nice ones.
2009 will be just that for me. “A Nice One”. I’ll definitely take that after 2008. I needn’t look much further than 2008 to remember what was happening last year as my wife was recovering from her second surgery in 3 months and we scheduled ourselves for a very low key Christmas with only enough fanfare to keep our kid’s spirits high. Just 365 days ago I sat by her bedside making sure she’d be okay just to get up and deal with Christmas. While 2009 was no picnic, and we did deal with two more minor surgeries, life today compared to last year couldn’t be much better healthwise.
The holiday is often on its long tail as we’ve already had two family gatherings, a work party and a large bash at a friend’s home yet we are still 3 days shy of Christmas. We still have two more family gatherings to go to. Such is the life of the fragmented world and family. As I sit here in my den, I know of local friends spending the holiday in Hawaii, Argentina, Spain, France, England, Italy & Brazil just to name those places not on this continent. They all sound enticing…. the Champs Elysees on Christmas? How magical does that sound!?
Well San Francisco is where we remain and where we will keep our hearts this Christmas! No snow and no sand! The image above is from Sara Showalter, (www.sarashowalter.com) or @gidget on Twitter. A great local artist, the image was used for our holiday card this year. If you are looking for an artist or photographer, I highly recommend her. And the best thing about her? She is a diehard San Francisco Giants fan!
Last month I spoke on a panel at a Marketing conference at Electronic Arts in Redwood City with several marketing professionals speaking about innovations in marketing. The panel was set up a bit around brand marketing as well as social media so those on the panel spread across a large group of marketing functions as well as types of companies. After all, marketing for a consumer packaged goods company is not the same as marketing for an online gaming company. We have a much better educated consumer these days.
The questions were pretty basic about our own particular experiences. I always think that each industry, product and company has its own challenges/barriers to overcome. In the entertainment business where I have run affiliate marketing partnerships for the last 10 years, the challenges are very unique whether an established brand such as Ticketmaster or a hot new start up like Reel.com was back in 1997. It is hard to give advice when such antedotes do not apply to other situations. In the end the basic principles of managing your brand are still the same though and times have changed in brand marketing, product, promotion, placement, and pricing (the 4 P’s) are still very important and fundamental to the marketing of a product or service.
There did come a point during Q&A though when the panel was asked about what is the new hot thing or what is innovative in Marketing today. Many on the panel hesitated and I started to agree with some of the responses that there is nothing really new and innovative. Maybe there were new channels such as the internet and social networks where placement was just more timely and pricing is more discounted and services and browser based products seemed to succeed better than physical products.
Just as the conversation stopped I asked everyone if they knew who the CEO of Electronic Arts is (this panel was taking place in their building after all) and a few hands were raised. I asked the same about Proctor & Gamble. Again hardly anyone raised their hands. I then followed and asked if anyone felt either of those brands knew who they were. Silence. When I asked the same of Amazon, Microsoft and Zappos, the names Bezos, Ballmer and Hsieh were blurted out and hands were raised and people agreed those companies sure knew a whole hell of a lot about who their comsumers are. For years, companies have been wanting to “own” the customer so that they could market to them as efficiently as possible on a 1 to 1 basis. Well the big deal and innovative piece is that these companies are now able to do this. Faces now represent the brand more than ever. Sure we all knew Lee Iacocca, but he never had a dialogue like new companies do today. The opportunity to get to know your customer is there so that the dialogue is no longer about nameless faces and people talking to you from a call center in some 3rd world country asking you about the weather.
Sending an email or letter to a company CEO used to be hard enough as nobody gave you their information. Now people like CEO Tony Hsieh of Zappos have their own public Twitter accounts where you can have a public or private dialogue with him about how much like his company or your favorite pair of shoes that you want him to carry. Now while that may not be quite that personal and while Tony might not respond to everyone, it is quite empowering to the customer that at least their voice will be heard. In this day and age our society always wants to air their grievances and praises publicly. Things just aren’t that personal anymore.
That said, in the world of music, there is a lot of impersonalization going on when it comes to music discovery. It always used to be that you had one or two good friends who you could rely on to recommend a hot new song. You would also rely on your favorite DJ to introduce you to something cool. Nowadays, radio stations are being condensed, Djs are now replaced online by music sites where you self select and program your own radio station and or get recommendations from perfect strangers. I personally find the recommendations on iTunes to be very off-putting. Artists such as Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) and Matt Morris (@Mattmorris) are getting personal on Twitter, interacting with their fans. Backstage passes mean a whole new thing with artists granting you the opportunity to meet them before a show and take photos for just a little more money. Gone are the days when the artists were held on a pedastal like gods and you swayed in a mosh pit of 50,000 people barely able to see the band. People want to touch and feel the merchandise. My 7-year old daughter now believes that every concert starts with getting together with the band for a photo shoot. She doesn’t root for people on the awards shows because of the music they play but rather on how nice they were to her when we went to see them play. She wants me to text them during the concert to win an after concert meeting as well. Of course my job affords me these luxuries occasionally, but as this example points out, people have a tendency to have an affinity for those things which have a little more touch in their lives. People don’t want to just have a photo or a poster of Lady Gaga, but they want to be in a photo with Lady Gaga and they want to put it on their Myspace page.
So here’s the point. Social media now allows us to do what we used to do on a more realtime basis. We used to get advice from the 3-4 resources in our lives that shaped our tastes. Now we still can, but we are able to share more information and on a more timely basis. We’re also able to get more information in your hands so you can make a better decision. Sometimes the brand, or serice or product is presented to you in a way that is more personal as well. Your friends who told you about the next great thing, now can just send you a quick note via Twitter to your cell phone. Why is this important? Because you’d rather hear that advice from a face and name you know rather than a person you’ve never met. We learn more about each other and sometimes we get to give feedback that someone will really use.
In the end its all a personal sale, a personal purchase that means more to you than it probably would have 10 years ago. Its a real change in marketing evolution. It’s about at least three things that help social media to change the way we make our buying decisions today: 1) More product information 2) More Personalization/customization and 3) more timely interaction. But remember, it’s not that new. It’s just that the social media world just makes us more social. It’s just not a good social in my mind. Playing games online through a virtual network rather than in the same room, sharing music through file sharing rather than having listening parties around a turntable, and sending someone a virtual rose for Valentines as opposed to handing a real rose is social, but just not the same. We run the risk of building very loose relationships. In the world of customer acquisition, the cost of those relationships should not be as high as those we have paid for in the past.
May the good lord be with you down every road you roam. And may sunshine and happiness surround you when you’re far from home. – Rod Stewart
Thanksgiving Day Sunset 2009
The four days of the Thanksgiving holiday give you just enough time to be thankful for what you’ve received over the past 11 months but give you just barely enough time to rest before the onslaught of the holidays consumes you. These days we are not only hit with Christmas, but we have Kwanzaa and Chanukkah, and we also have commercially Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you’re in the affiliate world it just hits you all at once. The bargains are there to be had but getting those discount codes in front of everyone is becoming more and more difficult.
Consumers are also more savvy. They know that there is more demand for your business that ever. I even saw one site giving away a $1000 gift certificate to their Twitter follower that gave them the right answer. The funny thing is that this company only had 233 followers! What odds! Are they kidding? They didn’t even have much of anything on their site that I wanted to buy. I think it is funny that this promotion couldn’t even get people to follow them on Twitter. I even just checked and noticed that they lost 3 members since I last looked. This goes to show how brand awareness is still significant when running promotions on the web. The social web is not as viral as it once was. People are only following things they know and trust. They aren’t blindly following people and becoming friends with strangers online. It does concern me about the validity of the networks and friendships being created on sites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.
Anyway, I digress as usual. I am truly rejuvenated in thought, body and soul. Over the holidays it hit me. Thanksgiving really has more meaning to me because it is the holiday where I met my wife. Where I met her 25 years ago and for that I will be forever thankful for that fateful night. 25 years later I ran out to the bridge and soaked in the beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge and took some photos of one of the most beautiful spots on Earth. Earlier that day I had watched my 10 year old son play golf and he played his greatest round ever, almost beating me. In his mind he was playing golf with his dad. In my mind I was also playing golf with my dad. There are so many similarities between my son and his grandfather. The smile, the giggles, the swagger, and his incredible casual demeanor….his spirit lives on in my son. Did I mention their golf game? Such a beauty to watch. I only wish they could have played golf together. Such a pair they would have made.
The holidays are tough on many and I still feel the loss of my father during the holidays. We had some of my aunties (my dad’s younger sisters) over for Thanksgiving. I don’t remember how it happened or what the conversation was that led to it, but we all broke down over dessert as my 75 year old aunt told me how much she missed my dad and wished he were still around. Imagine that. A 75 year old lady still needing the comfort of her older brother. My sister and other aunt and I just shed a tear and for about 2 minutes as we couldn’t talk as we tried to compose ourselves before pushing on, but it was nice to pay respect to my father and remind myself of how thankful I was to be the son of a man that still emitted those emotions years after his death. My brother-in-law who never really knew my dad I think was very touched by the scene.
I don’t know why, but that night more than ever I felt my dad with me on my run. I felt like I was running in solitude but I ran like the wind and ran faster than I had in a long time. Sometimes, revisiting your past I guess can just remind you of your youth.
I had a friend turn 45 the other day and I casually sent her a link to Alphaville’s “Forever Young”. It seemed so a propos. She responded so affirmatively that it made me smile. Then I found Rod Stewart’s “Forever Young”. The words rang true and all I could think is how good and motivating those words are…..enough to get me through this holiday season at least.
This is my most special place in all the world. Once a place touches you like this, the wind nevers blows so cold again. You feel for it, like it was your child.
– Moonlight Graham, Field of Dreams
Ah..what to write. When I run each night, the mind swirls with this thick soup of thoughts. Some people have writer’s block. I have writer’s neurosis. I wish you could see the list of half written blog entries that I have yet to complete. You will, but hopefully they will still be relevant. I guess tonight I will have to address some recent inquiries to my email……
Funny how I still occasionally get an email (this week I got two) which asked how my wife is and why I don’t write about cancer anymore in my blog. The short answer is that this blog was never intended to be about my wife’s cancer. It was just a continuation of my personal thoughts on life. My public memoirs if you will.
The long answer is that I can say that I feel so lucky that my wife is doing great, gets monthly shots and takes daily pills to make sure the cancer does not come back. We are just about at the one year mark of five years of Tamoxifin treatments (20% done is quite an achievement). The monthly shots leave a nice black and blue mark on my wife’s abdomen, my wife’s surgical scars are starting to fade, and occasionally we talk about her side effects, but I take my cues from my wife for the most part. She’s ready to move on. That said, we don’t forget. We don’t forget the fears, we don’t forget the worries, we don’t forget those nights without sleep, and we don’t forget the months of surgeries. Reading some of the blogs and talking to those who have just been diagnosed or who have wives reminds us of where we were and how much our lives have changed.
Breast cancer is now a large part of our lives so much so that we have to escape. No breast cancer walks or runs for me. My runs are my way of running in honor of my wife, mom, mom-in-law, cousins, aunts, and friends who have all been struck by breast cancer. Every night when I run I am reminded of our fortunate results, my wife’s strength, and those others who we have met through our ordeal. By the way, of all the above mentioned, only my mother was over 50 when first diagnosed. Yes, this is in light of the new panel study which says that women should now wait til 50 before having mammograms. It is really a shame that we are now trying to cut back on preventive medicine during a big time for research and discovery. Now is not the time to cut back when we are making so much progress.
Yes, breast cancer as a topic is all around us now and we just can’t escape it so we relish those moments when it doesn’t remotely come close to infiltrating our conversations or thoughts. It is like my friend who works with juvenile delinquents on a daily basis. He has told me that because of his job he doesn’t want to have children of his own. This week I met with a gentleman who has been waiting a month and his wife’s surgery is right after Thanksgiving. I had met him a couple times, but this week he just broke down. His fears and concerns finally overwhelmed his facade. His worries about his wife, his kids, the mounting medical bills, and all the uncertainty surrounding the outcomes finally came to a head. It just took me back a year and I relived it all in one hour. That feeling of hopelessness hit me like a ton of bricks. I broke down with this man I barely knew. I couldn’t tell him things would be alright as I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to hear either. I wanted a path. I wanted a path out of the mess. All I could tell him was to bury himself into caring for his wife. Focus on the task at hand.
That night I ran a long run. Couple that encounter with an incident earlier in the morning where I had a woman faint in the elevator bank in my office bulding. It turns out she was having a heart attack. All she kept saying was “my babies, my babies” . Her predicament had me distracted the rest of the day until I had my conversation with that breast cancer husband. Both incidences had me reeling. They reminded me of how fragile life is. All I wanted that night was to be alone with my thoughts so I could just make sense of it all.
Well I hope that explains it all. Thankful this Thanksgiving? Yep I sure will be. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.