Marketing Hipster

So according to the video below, a member of the Geek Squad owned by Best Buy came to a women’s house to fix two computers when he placed his cell phone in her bathroom and pressed record to tape her in the shower. The geek guy is now arrested and of course the woman is suing everyone. Now I have a couple of questions about this but watch the video first.

Ok, so here are my questions.

1. I don’t understand – was the Geek Squad guy in the house, fixing her computers when she was showering or was he planning on coming back to get his phone?

2. If the guy was still there, who showers when a total stranger is in their house?

I just get the feeling that there might be more to this story than meets the eye. What do you think?

via The Consumerist

Technorati Tags: Geek Squad, Best Buy, shower

Ten-twelve years ago, I was working for an advertising agency in New York City. This was my first real “industry” job and my second real job since getting out of school a year or so earlier. I was working for a recently spun-off interactive arm from a very larger ad agency. I think I was the third person hired and I was told that we would be doing some very small projects while we ramped up with both people and procedures. I was totally green as the most I knew about the web was how to setup a table using HTML 1.0.

I think it was the third or fourth day there when the GM called the entire staff into his office. Since it was a total of six people, there was plenty of room…. He told us that there had been a change of plans and that our company had just signed a deal with a major computer company to do their web work.  And instead of easing into things as planned, we would be running at light speed working for this company named [tag]Dell{/tag} Computer Corporation.

I know most people equate Dell with the web, but at this time, Dell did not have a web site and was doing all their business through phone and fax just like everyone else. Our initial challenge was to build the front end static site while Dell began building a backend e-commerce system. Very quickly, I went from a coder position to a producer and ended up being the central point of contact for Dell. One of the first people I had met at Dell and who ended up being the man I was joined at the hip with for quite a while was a gentleman named Charlie Nichols.

Our relationship did not start well. Pretty much my daily routine was get work done, send it to Charlie and then have a follow up call with him so he could tell me all the things that we did wrong. There were many a time that I spent sitting on a conference call with Charlie listening to him tell me how much I sucked and daydreaming about a car losing control and running right through Charlie’s cube while I was on the phone with him.  Sorry Charlie….

It was difficult for me because of my youth and inexperience to continually get criticized day after day when I was working 20 hour days trying to keep up with a client who was light years ahead of us.

The reason I am bringing this up was because Charlie was truly the first person in my professional career who really taught me things. He was smarter, more experienced than I and even though at times I wanted him dead, he made me realize something very important – I would never be able to grow and learn in this or any business without people pushing me who were smarter and more experienced than I was. After a while, Charlie and I hit a groove and I had a great deal of respect and admiration for him which continues to this day.

After a couple of years working on the agency side with Charlie, I ended up heading down to Texas and had the opportunity to work with Charlie on the same team at Dell. After I left Dell, Charlie and I lost touch, but because of this great blogosphere, Charlie and I have been able to hook back up. Charlie has a great blog and company called Seven87 which I absolutely recommend.  He looks all nice and professional in his picture now, but I knew him when he had shoulder length grunge hair. 

Thank you Charlie for being the first person in my career to push me to be better than I was. I have throughout my whole career tried to find with each new position and company a new Charlie to kick my butt and force me to be a better me.

Technorati Tags: Charlie Nichols

Birthdays – depending on the period of my life, they have meant very different things. When I was young, birthdays were all about parties with family, friends and most of all presents! As I became a young adult in college, birthday’s was another reason to go out and do things that you would have a hard time remembering the next day. Like we really needed a reason for that. Recently, birthdays give me a reason to pause, take a breath and look back at the previous year. I look back at all that has happened both the good and the bad and more importantly, I try to see what lessons I can take that will I could hopefully use in the future.

So today, on the Ides of March, the day Caesar was killed and I was born, but not on the same year, I give my lessons learned over the last year.

No matter how hard I try, there are just somethings that I just do not have control over.

I have always believed that you can accomplish and overcome anything with hard work and dedication. I think on many levels that is true, but over the last year I have learned that there are certain things that I just do not have control over. I could work 24/7 and lose an incredible amount of sleep, but when it comes down to it, I cannot control the outcome. I have come to realize that in these situations, I can only do one of two things. Either not put myself in situations that I do not have control over (not very realistic) or realize that all I can do is my best and then hope for the best.

There is nothing more important both in business and personal life than the people you trust, respect and care about.

I unfortunately had to deal with over the past year people who showed time and time again that they have absolutely no respect for the dedicated and passionate people who were working for them. These people showed me truly what men look like who have no heart or souls. Though they did help me realize just how important relationships are. I don’t care if you are talking about the love of your life or the co-worker you look forward to seeing everyday. I realize even more that I need to respect each of those relationships and not take them for granted because just like everything else, if you do not put time and effort into them, they will not last.

My life is not what I do for a living

I have always thrown myself into my work. I have never been the kind of person who can shut down their brain when they walk out of the office at 5 pm, but boy I wish I was. For a very long time, I have always defined myself based on where and what I was doing in my career. I have come to the realization that even though I have a great deal of passion for what I do, it does not define who I am and it should only be a part of my life and not the whole thing. I need to understand that by creating a more balanced life, I will be more effective both in my professional life as well as my personal life. This is definitely still a work in progress.

Well another year in the can and I am still breathing, awesome! I wonder what the next year will bring? Where will I be and where will you be when hopefully we are all reading this post same time next year, March 15th, 2008? I guess no one can answer that, but I think it will definitely be interesting.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Technorati Tags: Birthdays, Ides of March

My mother is really into sending chain emails. You know those emails that says, if you forward this on to 34 other people you will get love, riches and fame, but if you don’t a truck will hit you at high speeds. I usually never forward them on, but Mom sent me one today that is pretty good and I actually agreed with and have always had problems with. So I am forwarding on here, let me know what you think.

“John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

He was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, “I don’t get it!

You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”

He replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or … you can choose to be in a bad mood

I choose to be in a good mood.”

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or…I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.

Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or… I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.

“Yes, it is,” he said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood.

You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live your life.”

I reflected on what he said. Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released
from the hospital with rods placed in his back.

I saw him about six months after the accident.

When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins…Wanna see my scars?”

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.

“The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,” he replied. “Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or…I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

“Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked

He continued, “..the paramedics were great.

They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man’. I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well , there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said John. “She asked if I was allergic to anything ‘Yes, I replied.’ The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Gravity’.”

Over their laughter, I told them, “I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude… I learned from hi m that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. “

I am starting this week a new segment which I will do every Friday that I am calling Friday Freestyle. This is where I can only write a couple of lines of any subject that is presently on my mind and then have to move on to something else. I am going to try to pick 3-5 subjects a week to freestyle on. I also welcome you to comment freestyle as well.

Let’s freestyle baby…..

1. This whole Boston / Adult Swim fiasco has so many levels to it, I don’t know whose right or wrong, if someone is totally stupid or an absolute genius. I never thought that on the national news they would of played a video of two guys talking about hair. Genius.

2. A recent Gallop poll released shows that an overwhelming amount of people in Muslim countries have unfavorable opinions about the United States. My response – Thanks, Captain Obvious… How many people worked on this report to discover this ground breaking news?

3. George Bush’s approval rating dropped to it’s all time low of 36%. Most people see that as a bad thing while I try to find the silver lining in every cloud Think of the incredible amount of money us tax payers will save when they create his presidential library in a phone booth.

4. Wacky News – For 300 shekels ($70), clients at Ada Barak’s spa in northern Israel can add a wild twist to their treatment by having six non-venomous but very lively serpents slither and hiss a path across their aching muscles and stiff joints. People have way too much time on their hands.

Before I sign off for the day, I wanted to ask everyone for their help. This Sunday when you are watching the Superbowl, I would like you to keep track of which commercials actually got you interested in a product or service. Not that you laughed or thought it was cool, but it actually did it’s job by enticing you do to something. I would love to hear how many and which ones you thought on Monday.

Have a great weekend and fun Superbowl everyone.