When my son Ben was 2, he was given a pair of red Sperry’s…love at first sight! Ben was so passionate about his red Sperry’s that he wore them 24/7. It was winter in Michigan — they had to fit over his footie pjs. Night after night I would wake up to see his little head by my bed…”I lost my shoe!” Over and over I crawled out, dug around in the bottom of his blankets, and slipped the much loved red Sperry back on his pj covered foot. Ben discovered that passion keeps you up at night. Read the rest of this entry »

I wasn’t paid to tell this story like some celebrities on TV. This is real life smacking you in the face on a Wednesday. The great thing about the story I am about to unfold is that it’s about you in some ways. Probably reckons that you’ve been there before.

Setting - on the way to an “anonymous Greenville, SC tire station” to help a friend get his flat fixed. Since I was following behind for precautionary measures, I was the last to arrive at the scene.

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I’m a big fan of the Drudge Report and get 90% of my news there. I usually check it several times a day. I’ve been reading it so often for so long that its brilliance escaped me… until now!

I am fortunate to follow 37Signals Founder Jason Fried on Twitter. Yesterday, he said this:

“I still maintain the Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web. Has been for years.”

Allow me to explain why I agree in more than 140 characters. Read the rest of this entry »

The four of us were standing in a room, dressed in large brown jumpsuits and separated from the rest of the group. We were in Hallstatt, Austria waiting to start a tour of an ancient salt mine. Everyone around us was in a conversation with each other — in German. The guide talked in German to the majority of the group for 10 minutes then uttered those (to us) famous words, “Ok, who needs the English translation?” Suddenly, we realized that what we were going to learn about salt mining was minimal. We ended up walking miles underground staring at brown dripping walls and “hearing” long German explanations followed by our  “English” translation of one or two sentences including explicit examples like … “Ok, this is where they mine the salt.”

I know, this is an extreme example of total lack of communication, but when I am in the middle of a conversation and I realize that neither of us are understanding what the other is saying, my mind goes back to the salt mine. Read the rest of this entry »

While doing some research on the Web for marketing purposes, I found a good blog. Finding a good blog definitely makes a good day better. The blog - badlanguage.net. It has nothing to do with euphemisms or profanity from all that I can see. On the other hand, it contains a lot of helpful information about business, technology and marketing. The article that caught my eye, “What’s Your Profit : Pain Ratio?” rang true with many of my thoughts and conversations with the other Web strategists at Worthwhile. Read the rest of this entry »