Business

I Suspect Everyone Else Is Smarter, Better-Looking, Taller, Cooler, Cuter, Has Newer and Shinier Objects than I Do (and Is More Modest)

When you are prone to measuring yourself against others, like I am, and when you both work and live out chunks of your life online, as I do, the Internet can be a bitch. It’s easy to get caught up in measuring your impact online, and to suspect that your own self-worth is tied to it. It’s easy, for example, to measure your popularity and self-esteem in terms of the number of “friends” you have on Facebook, the number of followers on Twitter, the extent of your professional contacts on LinkedIn, your cache of Feedburner subscribers, your Web site’s Google PageRank, tags on Flickr, comments, links, visits, clicks, referrals, Karma on Plurk, and—worst of all!—your Technorati degree of “Authority,” which implies a sort of collected clout and power that, for most of us, doesn’t really exist outside of the unblinking screen that is our dashboard to the world. Those of […]

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Beta Before Alpha

My friend Rachel emailed me an article the other day from Yankelovich, a market research company. The article, produced just after Mother’s Day, heralded the arrival of “Beta Moms” and their “newfound acceptance that being a ‘just good enough for my family’ mother… speaks to a more forgiving, laid-back approach to parenting.” Unlike “Alpha Moms” (or, as they are sometimes called, “Extreme Moms”—those “ultra-organized overachievers who approach parenting with the same intensity and quest for perfection that they take with them into the boardroom or the gym, treating parenthood as if it were an Olympic competition”), Beta Moms (or “Slacker Moms”) are more relaxed. They are less anxious, less prone to perfection, and less perturbed in general. And they don’t feel guilty about being that way. The article mentions two book releases as bellwethers of the Beta Mom Age: Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box and Let Them

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American Idolatry

Last week I signed on for the Comcast triple play, which brought our triumvirate of phone-internet-TV under Comcast’s wing. It also simultaneously catapulted us back to the Land of DVRs (Digital Video Recorders), a place from which we had reluctantly decamped after our last TiVo box died months ago. With DVRs, we’ve learned to start the recorder, then begin watching shows 10 or 15 minutes after they actually begin. The practice allows us to blissfully sail straight through commercials on a kind of joyride. Fast-forwarding makes me feel giddy and anarchic, like I am engaging in something revolutionary—albeit a lame sort of Digital Age revolution, its rebels armed with thumb-controlled remotes, asses planted firmly on the couch. So last night the kids and I were parked for the season finale of “American Idol,” a program that we love to both deride and debate about… but never miss. For us, the

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A Retro Road Trip in a New World

When you’re from New England, the whole concept of taking a “Road Trip” means driving an hour to the beach. So when my friend Beccy suggested we take a road trip to Niagara Falls during our kids’ spring break, I mentally padded the usual duration with an extra hour or two and impetuously answered Yes. As I’ve established, I’m notoriously terrible with directions. I should have paused before answering. I should have considered that Beccy is from the Midwest, where folks will drive for two hours on a Sunday morning just to worship at church. She comes from a place where people traverse vast distances over flat earth to get almost anywhere. Or, nowhere: When my friend Jen was growing up in Nebraska, her parents routinely piled six kids into their Country Squire just to head out for a drive. So this is how I found myself, last week, journeying

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MarketingProfs in Santa Barbara: Show Notes, ‘Ann-otated’

00:00:01 My daughter Caroline. “I like the weather” (paraphrased) is kid-code for “Check it! I love being out of school!!” 00:00:18 Real drama unfolds as Sharon H. reveals that her work-BFF is actually… well… it’s not me. And it’s not Val, either, even though they live together. (Val: You might want to sleep with one eye open.) Behind her, Corey nods his head. Is he agreeable, or is it just easy to dance to? 00:00:40 I intimate what my real passion is. Is it blogging? Maybe. Or possibly it’s all that wine I’ve obviously had. My real passion becomes trying to stay upright. Meanwhile, Val is ready for her close-up, but soon gives up and joins Sharon E.’s mission to stay out of the frame entirely. 00:01:03 Penny is captured on camera saying with a smug dismissiveness: “You can’t blog? Well, can you type? [Then] You can blog.” Eavesdropping across

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The Shadow Knows: Watching Superbad with My Son

When I was a kid, in the 70s, I used to swipe my older brother’s Mad magazines. A lot of the humor was over my head, but that only added to the allure: This was a peep show into an unknown world, and I was lusting to grow up. One Mad feature I did get, however, was the regular series by Sergio Aragones: “The Shadow Knows.” It was a simple cartoon of all sorts of folks in all kinds of daily situations, but their shadows behind them projected (literally) their true thoughts or motivations. Like this:

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New Media as Community Theater—All the World’s a Stage

I am a total sucker for community theater, especially musical theater. What I love isn’t so much the corny show tunes or the predictable story lines, but the players’ infectious energy for taking risks. I was reminded of this a few weekends ago when I went to see a local production of Godspell. Because I have an artsy teenager who does tech crew, I’ve sat through lots of high school musicals over the past few years. I always come away shining with true admiration for the kids on stage. As we all know, adolescence is really tough. There’s probably no time in your life when you are more prone to self-doubt and insecurity, and there’s no time (at least for boys) when your voice performs less than predictably. It’s easier to blend in with the crowd than to call attention to yourself. It’s easier to not set yourself apart. Godspell

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What Is a Friend?

My friend and colleague Shelley and I are taking our two girls to a company “junket” we’ll both be attending next month in southern California. (We’re calling the two of them the MarketingProfs “Web 3.0” team.) The girls are 9 and 11 and live, respectively, in Texas and Massachusetts. Kinsey (the 9-year-old) and Caroline (age 11) have never met in person. But last week, in anticipation of their trip, they started chatting with each other on Skype, the internet phone and chat software. Their instant messaging quickly evolved into free Skype-to-Skype calls. This past week, they’ve spent some time jointly playing games at various kiddie sites (like Webkinz, Disney and Club Penguin) and chatting all the while—about the game, but also sharing their favorite subjects at school, talking about their pets, what their moms are making for dinner, and so on. In other words, they’ve been becoming friends.

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Me and TomTom—True Love Always

Around Christmas, I met TomTom. We’ve been inseparable ever since. TomTom, if you don’t know, is a portable GPS navigation system. It mounts on the car dashboard, and its voice commands guide you to your destination. For someone like me—I get lost finding my way back to the table after a visit to the restaurant bathroom—it’s a godsend. Since we met, I’ve realized that he’s all that I’d ever want. And, as with any good relationship, he’s full of small surprises I didn’t even realize I’d want, but now find I can’t live without. What’s more, he’s opened up new horizons for me, encouraging me to venture into places I would have considered off limits before he was my companion. What’s all that if not the essence of a good relationship? Can you see why I love him? In fact, let me count the ways… Trust. TomTom gets me from

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