Wooden Nickels

I’m thinking a lot lately about what I do for a living and how I could do what I do better, and how I could apply and/or acquire new skills to make myself a more valuable employee/member of the workforce/member of society. Of course, underlying the veneer of my professional motivation is a desire to provide for my family, but I do think that participating in the process of social evolution is a valid and valuable endeavor – and that’s a part of the thesis of this post.

I’m a project manager for the corporate marketing team of a company with a franchise-based business model. Largely, I manage web development projects, contribute ideas to ongoing marketing initiatives to leverage our existing tools and touch points, participate in strategy development, and I specialize in tactical implementation of our strategies. I move a lot of data around from place to place online using a wide variety of tools, interfaces, and mediums. I also work with our franchisees in their local marketing plans, and I stay in touch with what’s working in the marketplace. A lot of my job depends on my knowing where all of the operational moving parts are in our company, and having an insight into how to get that information in front of prospective customers. Armed with this insight I manage projects that create paths to market for our product data, location data, and marketing messaging.

For a long time now I’ve found that the most stimulating aspect of my job to be in the study of emerging technologies. I think that the line between the ways that people look for information and the places that they spend their money – or research spending their money – are being blurred. I’ve observed people being influenced in their buying decisions and social decisions in the same online venues more and more. I’m finding that the way we subscribe to and/or filter our media is evolving at an exponential rate, and that the players in the game who are “winning”– whether that game be for profit, for political gain, for social influence, or what-have-you – are highly optimized and exposed in the appropriate doses in the appropriate media venues and channels. Their messaging permeates the culture as a result of their ability to leak their messaging so fluidly from medium to medium.

Here is the opportunity I see in this. Creating a corporate presence in multiple social media channels is old hat, but for many outside the marketing community the questions remain: “What do I do with all of these channels? What the heck is Twitter? Do we need that?” And so on. But in order to ensure our messages are heard somewhere we should optimize or marketing to permeate all channels – and be heard everywhere. Sounds daunting, but really, when you distill it down to the essential elixir, you’re simply leveraging one message into multiple channels. In reality, it’s only a matter of dispensing your messaging efficiently.

So that’s where my efforts are moving. I’m going to create a calendar of upcoming marketing campaigns based on our current plans and begin to back into that plan with consistent content and messaging with a hierarchy of website campaigns, blog posts, social networking messaging, and micro-blogging. I will write a lot more, which I welcome, and my company will dominate a marketing landscape defined not by singular placement, but my placement everywhere. And conversely not by multiple messaging, but by a singular message.

I think that’s where we’re going, if we’re not already there. So I’m moving my company there with all good haste.

Yo,

We made a book for Nana Doyle – my Mom – for Mother’s Day. I exported it to a .mov file to take a look at it. It’s the Z Clan from X-mas 08 through Easter 09… good times! Scope it:
Nana’s Book.

Rock On!

Getting out the door today was a debacle. The signs were all there: I didn’t heed them. I paid the price.

I woke up feeling like I was wearing someone else’s skin. Soap in my eyes in the shower – Dr. Bronner’s is the worst – and I hopped out of the shower without rinsing my hair out well enough, and had to hop back in to rinse it. And then the most bizarre sign of impending doom: I forgot to make coffee this morning. How is that possible? How can a man forget a ritual he’s lived with for 20 some-odd years? This should have been the sign that told me something was up. But I trundled on: Jackson and I were ready, it was time to go, and it was too late to make coffee.

So I washed up the dishes right quick, toweled off my hands, hung up the towel and deftly knocked the cutest little vase in the world with a sunflower in it off the window sill behind the sink, shattering it in the sink. I think Emily really liked that vase. But she didn’t freak, ‘cause she could see I was already kinda losing it. My brother Mark – were he there – would have said: “Smooth move, Ex Laxx.” And it was: like biggest knucklehead move ever. Well, almost; read on…

So we roll. Jack and I say goodbye to the girls, grab our gear, and hit the van. Jack buckles up and whips out his Nintendo for the drive to Mill Valley and school. I buckle in and run down the pre-flight checklist, note with a twinge the appalling lack of coffee in this morning’s transportation equation, and realize that I’ve forgotten my watch. Off I go, back up for the watch, and find Emily with it at the top of the stairs – she knew I’d be coming back for it when she found it on the kitchen counter.

Back in the van, we drop it in “D” and move out, me thinking about two things: where do I stop to get coffee, and who do I need to call en route to school – there’s always a return call to make in the mornings. Hold it: my phone’s not here… breaks, shove it in “R,” and wrangle the rig back to the driveway, slam in in “P,” ramble back up the stairs, grab the phone, back in the van, drop it in “D”… Jebus Hurcule Crimmeny Cracken on a bicycle: how many signs does a man need? I note to Jack as we pull out for the third time: “Today is the kind of day where the world is telling you not to leave the house.” Would that I had heeded my own intuition. Men don’t listen to their intuition well the way women do… but I digress.

We’re on the road now, I’m running through all the coffee shops between home and school in my mind – I rarely need to stop for coffee, as I make it myself at home. I’m thinking about maybe putting a positive spin on the already bungled state of affairs by scoring a nice mocha or something, my eyes are on the road, and suddenly all of the traffic ahead of me is stopped dead. But I’m still moving 25-30 mph. I hit the brakes at about the same time I hit the car ahead of me. Things are blurry for a sec, and then the smoke from the deployed airbag starts to fill up the cabin of the World’s Sexiest Minivan. I’m putting the window down, checking out Jackson in the rearview – “You okay Buddy?” – and he’s cool as a cucumber. Me though? I’m on fire! I look down through the smoke issuing from my steering wheel and airbag, and my right hand starts to burn – some kind of smoke burn or chemical thing is burning the crap out of my hand!

I’m out of the car in the street, I check in with the woman in front of me: she’s okay, shaken, but not injured. I grab the ice pack out of Jacksons’ lunchbox and apply it to my swelling hand, and dial 911. Cops (who were actually cool, it should be noted), insurance peeps on the cellie, tow trucks… the World’s Sexiest Minivan looks fairly well totaled. I haven’t heard the estimate yet though, so hopefully she can be repaired. Emily came to get us after the circus of cops and tow trucks had gone. The woman in the other car – Jan – is nice as pie, and gives me a couple of hugs, and some sage advice about taking care of my hand.

Jack and I took the day off. I fielded some time sensitive emails, but tried to lay low. It was hard to type with my hand burning like a mofo. I shoulda seen the signs: they were numerous and overt, and indisputable. Sometimes our sense of responsibility overcomes our common sense, I guess. That’s how I’m couching it to myself anyways.

Stay tuned for updates on the fate of the World’s Sexiest Minivan. And heed the signs – all of them. Omens, hunches, street signs, etc. They’re there for a reason.

So apparently having twin 21 months old girls that are cuter than ought to be allowed by law wasn’t enough: we needed a puppy. So we got one!

Sadie Zabierek is a 7 ½ week old Rottweiler mutt. Her birth date was March 19, 2009. Her mom Tonka is all Rottweiler, Dad is Heinz 57. Tonka belongs to my S.O. Emily’s brother and sister-in-law, Damian and Bliss. They live in the foothills of the Sierra’s and the pups were born at their house. The Dad is their neighbors’ dog: they like the dog, so they allowed the mating.

Sadie’s litter had 13 pups, of which 8 survived. Sadie arrived sixth in the litter. Tonka had begun having the pups outside the house while Damian and Bliss were at school, and when they arrived home they heard the pups whining. They found Tonka and five of the pups in a nest near the house, so they moved the pups inside and called Tonka inside, as she was rooting out another nest outside. An hour or so later, while the rest of the pups were coming, Damian went outside and heard a faint cry. Snatching up a flashlight he combed the area where Tonka had originally been with the pups. After several minutes of searching he was about to give up when he heard a cry right at his feet, dug into the oak leaves and pine needles, and found #6 puppy: Sadie! She was cold, so he slipped her under his shirt to keep her warm next to his skin, and got her inside quick. He warmed her by breathing on her for a while until she began to respond a bit. Her cleared the other puppies away from Tonka and worked up a nipple for her to feed. He held her there and kept the other pups from forcing her off for about 20 minutes until she gained enough strength to fend for herself. She’s been happy and healthy ever since.

Thus: Damian is my hero, natch, and his heroism will go down in the lore of my children for eternity. Uncle Damian saved Sadie: we’d have never known her, and all the things she’s about to do to enrich our lives would never have happened without his good deeds. The man is a King, a Giant Among Men, and the stories told to my kids shall reflect it.

We picked her up on Sunday while we were out in Tracy at Emily’s Mom’s house. Damian and Bliss were there for Mother’s Day – along with 4 generations of Emily’s family – and brought the puppies. Before we got there Em and I told each other we wouldn’t take one home, but couldn’t resist Sadie and her brothers, and her story specifically.

An aside: we had tickets for The Dead at Shoreline, for Sunday night. We blew it off when we heard we were expecting so many peeps from Emily’s family at the Mother’s Day shindig. I’ll go see the Dead on Thursday instead, we got to hang out with four generations of Emily’s family – and more importantly the girls got to as well – AND we ended up bringing home Sadie. Makes one wonder what would happen if you chose a different path just one day in your life… how everything might be different.

Sadie’s a bit mouthy still – at 7 ½ weeks – and the girls love her, but nobody knows how to act with each other yet. The girls’ new phrase is “No bite!” Sadie will learn not to nibble and the girls, I’m certain, will learn how to bend Sadie to their will soon enough. Emily loves to snuggle her, and I’ve had to sneak my snuggles in edgewise. The puppy breath is chronic, and we are scheming to bottle it somehow, and make millions. She’s still a bit tentative, and extremely mellow overall. I am unabashedly all a flutter over her.

So pretty much, between The Twins, Jackson and Sadie we’re swimming in a sea of cuteness over here. Feel free to drop by. Bring your camera!

Cheers,
PAZ