Thanks to the phenomenal Marc Thiele for taking video.
Sorry to anyone who isn’t a fan of a harsh midwestern accent.
Who Cares About Content? from marc thiele on Vimeo.
Thanks to the phenomenal Marc Thiele for taking video.
Sorry to anyone who isn’t a fan of a harsh midwestern accent.
Who Cares About Content? from marc thiele on Vimeo.
I had the absolute pleasure — thanks to Marc Thiele — of being invited to speak at Beyond Tellerrand last week in Dusseldorf. I met so many seriously cool speakers, organizers, and attendees over the 3 days I was there. I got to be good friends with Stefan and Christina and catch up likewise with others, too.
I then got to spend 3 days in Holland, and the experience was delightful. Had it not been for Simon Collison‘s and Robert Eerhart‘s recommendation, I wouldn’t have gone to Leiden. But instead, I did.
Leiden is such a delicious little city; I want to wrap my arms around it and say, “Thank you.”
Thanks to Stefan for taking this hilarious shot:
As blatant as the title is, I *do* think my 365-days-of-playing-piano experiment was a good one. I wanted to devote at least 5 minutes a day to creative exploration musically — that is, ignore my inbox and disconnect from any stressors in life.
The good news is that I created 156 original songs of varying length, from a few minutes to more than 20, and I’ll always have them to enjoy. Because, hey, I’m not a trained pianist but I felt like they represented by emotions pretty closely.
Another great element of the experiment was that I developed the range of my left hand — I’m not even using the right verbiage here — so that it could carry a tune on its own. I mashed together crazy chords and brought them back to relative harmony. I tried to create new things that I hadn’t created before, and I didn’t judge myself too hard when I failed to be original.
Here are a handful of my particular favorites:
Overall, the piano on some days was (is) a cathartic experience. Just sitting there and letting my mind wander through the keys can be a powerful thing. I occasionally ended up crying for no apparent reason. I wouldn’t change a thing about those moments.
The bad news is that I only created 156 songs rather than 365, and most of them through June of this year. (Since June I’ve played very little. I could blame it on the whirlwind that is FastCustomer, but it’s entirely because I chose to spend more time in front of my computer or out at events than I did creating music. Period.)
So what’s next? Well, first up, re-commit. Maybe not 1-per-day commit, but “most days a week” commit. With or without blogging about ‘em, either.
That, I can do.
*shuffles off to piano*

Because I’m now trying to save the entire world from ever having to wait on hold again, that means I’m not taking on new clients. But I know people who can probably help you! (And I only say “probably” because I have no idea what their availability is right now. That’s like asking me to predict the future. Which I, sadly, still can’t do, no matter how much I try.)
Copywriters
Designers
IA and/or UX People
Developers
Mobile
Marketing Brainsplosion
Hand-drawn Typography Badasses
Photographers
Feel like your name should be on this list? It probably should be, and I just forgot because you haven’t sent me any gifts of flowers or chocolates lately. (Seriously, how rude). But email me or @ me and I promise to get it remedied ASAP.
A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of heading out to Mountain View and walking straight into our pitch with Dave McClure and Paul Singh of 500 Startups.
My partner in (startup) crime, Aaron Dragushan, talked for a few minutes about how FastCustomer solves the problem of waiting on hold for customer service, then described what awesomeness we’re going to make happen on our way to making customer service experiences *not* suck for all of eternity.
The whole thing was a total rush — with a super awesome outcome — that lasted fewer than 15 minutes. But what surprised and amazed me was that the energy I felt during and immediately following our own pitch didn’t dissipate for a full three days while I worked from 500′s offices.
In short, the vibe was incredible.
The office environment and inhabitants seemed constantly iterative and transient; only the gorgeous view of the valley and substantive, positive conversations with strangers-turned-friends were constants within the space. The furniture, pockets of people, speakers, and mentor office hours ebbed and flowed from morning until late into the night.
Fortunately, I had been invited to give a talk on content while there, which I did on Wednesday afternoon. I was told to plan for a couple hours of talking one-on-one with founders about the content on their websites and apps.
An invigorating six hours later, I finished my last discussion and called it a rewarding night. What’s more, I’m now a mentor for 500, so I get to go BACK.
I’ve never experienced such a dynamic environment in my life. I believe it’s the kind of place where words like “creative,” “unique,” and “innovation” are actually apropos.
I loved presenting “Intrigue Me” at FOWD London, and am thrilled @oh_cat and the @carsonified crew let me be a part of it; they were so welcoming and helpful. I’d only met one person before I arrived and was ultra nervous about, well, everything. Fortunately, the venue was sweet, London was (is) sweet, and the other speakers were sweet. I had unforgettable experiences while there.
After @seb_ly reviewed my slides and made UK-specific notes, then I felt ready to go — until @tomsturge told me to use my 40-minute slot because “the English don’t ask questions.” Which I learned wasn’t true, fortunately.
Thanks to everyone who came down to the B track to hear me during the first session of the first day. Here are the slides (with some slight font wonkiness from the upload, apparently):
Here are a few other resources I mentioned:
And thanks in large part to the great feedback I got about the talk, this is then how I felt at the after party (as captured by @marcthiele).
Last year, I wrote a post about Twitteretiquette (damn, that’s fun to say out loud) primarily because I was venting. But this time around, I’m going to layer on a new aspect: CARING.
And here’s what I mean: Twitter has become more a distraction to me than I can remember in the past. I know when I click on my Twitter pin tab that I’m about to forget what the fuck I was doing for about 30 minutes.
Which is why now, more than a year ago, I care that what I read is actually meaningful and not useless drivel. I want those 30 minutes of NOT doing billable client work to be well worth the distraction. Which on one hand is total selfish justification, but on the other is actually beneficial to everyone on Earth. Or a fraction of those people beyond myself, anyway.
This is idealistic, and I’m sure “meaning” is in the eye of the reader. So I’m certain that some of my followers consider my tweets to be inane, and for that I’m truly sorry and deserve a thousand lashings. (Or none).
Anyway, so in addition to the four I mentioned last year, here are four more types of Twitter updates that I really wish people would avoid:
Anyway, I wonder if any of these points are in The Twitter Book. If not, maybe they should be.
As requested by some attendees — thanks again — here are the slides from my talk on March 12, 2011, at SXSWi. You can also download the PDF of slides with my accompanying notes, and you can hear the audio of my presentation at the SXSWi site.
Finally, if you attended the talk, I’d love your feedback on SpeakerRate.
Special thanks to Brian Talbot for his keynote theme, Taylor Davidson for his pre-talk feedback, and @therealmig for listening to me practice a million times.
So, turns out SXSWi is awesome. I’d heard horror stories of getting South by Scurvy, not being able to get into any sessions, standing in endless lines, and meeting douchebags. Somehow I managed to avoid all that.
Here are several highlights from my experience:
Getting into Austin, I connected with @dillisquid and then he introduced me to @mikewavrecan, who introduced us to @windomearle. The four of us got referred to Mike’s Pub on 7th for the greatest burger in Austin. I didn’t have any other burgers, but the lunch was all together badass.
I was basically star-struck to meet the people whose books and blogs and Twitter feeds I’ve been reading — like @ticjones, @halvorson, @kissane, @melanie_seibert — and get introduced to new people who love content, too, including @evany and @jenhyde.
Right as I began my talk Saturday morning, I felt this crazy nervous searing pain go from the left side of my stomach to the right. I thought, “Wait, I might actually barf.” But then it was gone and I was rollin. I was happy to close the talk with about 20 minutes of active questions and then more after the session officially ended, and then I ate Stubb’s with friends and felt cool as a cucumber for the rest of the weekend. Woo!
While I was on the phone with my parents back in Ohio letting them know how the talk concluded, I walked right past a guy I’d seen in all of the @teamcoco videos. I stalked him for a couple blocks and then abruptly asked if he was HIM, and indeed he was. A bit of chit-chat and 10 Conan stickers made me giddy for much of the rest of the afternoon. Hey, it’s the little things.
Ok, so I wasn’t completely cool as a cucumber. I didn’t want to disappoint @keithmuth, @averyvery, or @castig with my less-than-ideal FlipCup technique for BeerCamp 2011, so I got to Emo’s early with @dillisquid (who, apparently, I’m AOK with disappointing since I didn’t reference him above) and practiced the shit out of making those orange plastic cups land on their mouths. Luckily, one of my competitors felt sorry for me and told me to lift instead of pop the bottom, at which point I had been informed of a sage-like technique that made me impossible to beat.* I then learned from @tomsturge that my midwestern accent of saying “Tahm” instead of “Tuhm” wasn’t going to get me very far when I head to London for FOWD in May. So I guess I’ll be practicing my talk over the next couple months with a forced English undertone.
I had really wanted to meet @zeldman so I could tell him that one of his tweets last year made me cry, in a poignant kinda way. It’s a long story, but anyway, I seemed to never be where he was until my last hours in Austin, when I turned around in the hallway at the Hyatt and BLAMMO, Mr. Zeldman was standing right behind me. I blurted out, “Jeffrey Zeldman, I want to tell you something,” to which he just outstretched his arms and I without thought just stepped in for the hug. I thought maybe it was because I was wearing a pin that said “Bear Hug” on it — which I scored by hugging @varick the night before at BeerCamp c/o the fine folks @nclud — but, nope, turns out JZ’s just a hugger. This made me way happier than I can express. So then we chatted and caught @hoyboy‘s awesome facilitation of a workspace culture session. I finally met @hoyboy in person, then got introduced to @seb_ly while grabbing coffee with the veritable @vlh and @ccashdollar. Twas a seriously rad way to end my Austin experience.
Wrapped in all this conference goodness were two nights with my dear friend @b_tay, who knows all the best places to get food and also happens to date Leroy Brown, and a weekend away with @therealmig, who unfortunately *did* manage to snag the scurvy on his first day in Austin.
I’m happy to be home, but I’m already looking forward to next year.
* Completely false. Team Throat Punch didn’t make it past the first round. So I joined Four Loko Workweek, which got knocked out of the running in Round 2. But I didn’t completely bonk, at least.