Don’t Be Albert Brooks!

All the extra hours at the office and at home this week came to a head today as many of my colleagues were out of the office at a client meeting in Judgement City. Actually, it was more than a meeting. We have spent the last couple of weeks preparing for our defense as our client (at the direction of someone else in the company) opened up the business to a variety of public relations firms. Thankfully, we not only have the knowledge and relationship to back us up but we have the results to demonstrate the work that we have put into this account over the past year.

Having previously met with this particular client and with everything that is swirling around in my life right now, we all agreed that I should stay at the office and make sure that someone was actively working on the account while we were also defending the business. It really was an odd feeling sitting at my desk and pitching another great story while my colleagues were making our case. However, no matter how unique the situation, I still had a job to do and so I put my head down and pushed like I have every other day of the year.

So during the middle of the meeting, I am sending emails to our client of the opportunities that have been secured and the interviews that have been requested. Nearly every person in the room was receiving the same email demonstrating another successful product launch as the challenges were fielded in a small conference room. We all had a job to do today and frankly I am glad that I was back in the office doing what I know how to do best… getting media coverage.  

While this is going on I could help but think of Albert Brooks in Defending Your Life. Actually, it is more along the lines of the Meryl Streep character in that movie when everyone knows that she lived a full life without fear but she still has to go through the process and stand trial anyway. While I certainly would have liked to have achieved more over the past year (this is the common disease that every successful person and firm in this industry shares), the work that we did get done could not have been matched by another firm.

The meeting is over and soon the week will be coming to an end. Now we wait for the decision while we continue pitching, scheduling, and producing the results that we have been since the relationship began. After all, this process is nothing new and we still have a job to do.

Lack Of Communication

No matter how much you plan there are some days when the phone is just not your friend. Not only for what does and doesn’t happen over the phone but because of what happens while you are on the phone. Being connected to three phone lines during the work day, there are moments when I am working on something just waiting for one of them to ring like a communications form of Russian roulette.

It all began in the morning when my cell phone decided not to ring and sent someone directly to voice mail. Understand that I always answer my phone and when this happens it is highly annoying at the least and, when it is a call I am waiting for or generally a call I should take, it bugs the crap out of me. That was just the beginning. When the phone chimed to let me know I had a message (about ten minutes later) I picked up my office line and tried to return the call… voicemail. It would have been nice to have answered the phone as I was unable to get a hold of the publication for the rest of the day.

As the no ring scenario was playing out, I was also sending meeting requests and trying to fit all the pieced together to get another call scheduled for the early afternoon. Juggling three time zones is not as challenging as people want you to believe. With all times and the dial in confirmed it was stored away on my calendar until the reminder popped up to alert me of what I had done earlier in the day. I dialed in and found that one person was missing… can’t staff an interview when only half of the people show up. So back to the beginning. It turned out to be an email issue but I think the phone put it up to the task.

Two hours later, staffing a call to help out a double booked colleague, and this time the reporter was not on the line. At this point I was getting quit frustrated having had absolutely no success on the phone. Finally, toward the end of the day the rescheduled times were coming around and my colleague, for some reason, had me cover the call again despite no conflicts during the new time. We are all busy so I dialed in and everyone was on the line!

Thirty minutes later and the other interview, the one I scheduled, was about to begin. The problem was that the first conversation was running long. Time to multitask and get all forms of communication going at once. I got the second reporter on standby and as soon as the first call ended I brought in the next interviewer and pushed through the next thirty minutes. After over an hour on the phone and multiple follow ups (mostly sending promised files/documents) it was time to circle up with my colleague to make sure everyone was on the same page.

However, there was a slight problem as, while I was on the phone, they decided to duck out the back door and not let anyone know that they was leaving. I literally asked around and no one knew where they were or when they left. It’s one thing if you have to leave a little early, I understand that, but you have to let people know that you are heading out the door (emergency situations being the obvious exception). Well, as I found out later in a 45 minute delayed reply to my text, that they had to be somewhere at 6. No emergency, no client meeting, just somewhere, someplace where their phone is rendered useless and a lackadaisical mentality is acceptable.

On the verge of demolishing most of the phones in the office, my departure for the week was overdue. I packed my things, walked away from my desk, and assisted one of the younger people in the office as they cleaned out their desk, turned in their key, and headed out the door for the final time. I know that feeling and I really felt for them as they packed up their personalized space into a few small bags. I forgot about the phone issues and the long day as I tried to offer my limited wisdom and encouragement. Sometimes things aren’t so bad at the end of the day when you know that the next day has the potential to be much better.

Last Call: Time To Head Home

After an exceedingly long night, I woke up an hour early to begin my last day in Atlanta. While the show seemed to be winding down a bit, the day was packed from end to end with meetings and potential meetings. With little sleep the past three nights I was at the point of nearly staggering to our morning breakfast meeting. But sometimes you just have to suck it up and make it seem like you just slept for ten hours and you are fully awake and rearing to go for a new day.

I made it to the restaurant in the hotel lobby right on schedule and immediately found a couple of people to reconnect with from Monday. While I am sure they are pleasant individuals anyway, the editors were very friendly and greeted me more like a long lost friend than simply a PR person who set up a meeting earlier in the week. This is the kind of meeting that really motivates me to go back to their publication with great stories. You can be sure that I will be talking with them again in the near future.

The meeting was, to say the least, productive and could potentially lead to many more trips down to the Atlanta area over the next year. Not sure how my wife will feel about this but it is a darn good business opportunity and I am glad that I was able to be a part of the initial conversation. After breakfast, my colleague and I headed back to our rooms, packed our bags, and dropped them off at the front desk so that we could pick them up later in the afternoon when we were finally ready to begin the journey back home.

We got back to the show floor just as the doors were being opened and it didn’t take long before we were pulled aside to speak with a few more reporters and analysts that decided to stop by this morning. This was the final push that put the event over the top and what finally allowed me to check this off as a success in my own mind. The total finally got into the double digits and met he expectations that have been constantly been running like a banner in Times Square in the forefront of my mind. Even though we were only on the floor for a little over two hours, it was well worth putting that extra effort in to the morning.

While all of this is happening, Classroom Day was in full swing as multiple groups made their way around the convention center speaking to those booths that decided to participate, including ours. When these high school students come around you can't help but wonder if years from now they will be at this very same show working for one of the companies. If that is the case, I hope that their stop at our booth played some small role in their life trajectory. Who knows, if could happen.

From the show room floor we made our way back to the hotel and into another meeting. This time we were meeting with an existing client that, while keeping us a little extra busy as of late, she has been a great person to work with and one that completely understands what we do (not everyone understands PR). Being able to meet the client does add another dimension of motivation when it comes to the daily grind that can sometime try to get the best of us. Knowing the person behind the projects makes you push a little harder and a little longer.   

After the lunch meeting we retrieved our bags, got in a cab, and returned to the chaos of the airport. We arrived a little earlier than we both prefer but it allowed us to take our time and not rush for the first time all week. After a slight delay that left my yawning in the US Airways waiting area, we boarded the small plane and took off knowing that the turbulence upon arrival was going to make this an interesting flight. Surprisingly, the landing in the rain was uneventful as my stomach decided to relax for once and allowed me to feel human as we disembarked from the cabin.

By the time we got to baggage claim my wife was already well on her way to pick me up and it wasn’t long before my colleague and I officially concluded our productive trip in high spirits and I was in the car on my way back to the apartment. Today I woke up in Georgia and went to bed back home in Pennsylvania. Tomorrow things will return to normal as my routine resumes with an early wake up and commute to the office. The difference being that now is the time to follow up on everything from this week rather than the past two weeks which has been focused on prep.

Weeks like this may be the most tiring part of my job but it is also part of what I love about what I do for a living. It is a time when I work hard without working. While I am sure there is a definition or at least a more concise way of expressing this sentiment but what really defines it is the experience which can’t really be conveyed accurately in a way that would be universally understood. It’s just one of those things that you know when you are in the middle of it.

Modex Day Two: I’m Beat!

Day one at Modex was a success and, while exhausted and walking slightly above a stumble, I was looking forward to day two at the show. Today was ‘stop by’ day when I was looking forward to meeting the media members who were not able to set up a specific time during the week but assured me that they would stop by at some point during the show. Actually, there was also a scheduled video interview in the early afternoon that consisted of preapproved questions and some uncomfortable makeup.

By the time we departed the booth in the early evening we had added three more media interviews to the six from yesterday. Having spoken to nine publications in the past two show days, we all made our way up to sublevel three to partake of unique cocktails and relaxing conversations. This, of course, extended our day well into the evening and we were all ready to head off as a team and enjoy what has been a, so far, successful event.

It should also be noted that the attendance at the show today was much greater than that of day one and the constant waves of people reverberated back and forth across the hall with many of them stopping at our booth to find out more about the company and the technology. It is actually commonplace for the first day to be the lead up and the event to peak over the second and third days but something else coming into play was the fact that it wasn’t raining when the doors opened at 10:00 am. It may have been cold this morning but it wasn’t wet.

Sitting around the dinner table, at a restaurant right near the hotel and show location, it was the first time since we arrived on Sunday that I began to relax. I wasn’t, and still am not, at the lean back stage but we passed the point today of all the work previously put in starting to pay off. The interviews were happening, the coverage was beginning to come to fruition, and the client seemed satisfied with our efforts. It was time to breathe just a little bit.

Maybe the best part of this all is that this is already at a point that it has set the new standard for us to surpass next year and we still have a half day to go tomorrow. While I don’t expect a lot more, it would be nice to check one or two more media members off my list. Tomorrow will really determine if I will be able to lean back on the flight or if I will be wondering what could have been done differently in order to get one or two more people in the booth. I wonder which one it will be.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Modex!

I woke up this morning in Atlanta, Georgia and the sun is nowhere to be found. Honestly, I didn’t realize that fact until I made it down to the lobby and walked into the restaurant to have some breakfast to begin the day. Not having an extensive track record with trade shows, I was quite nervous about the day and also eager to get things going. Of course, that might have been the lack of nicotine as well.

After a breakfast that was actually pretty tasty, I ran back up to the room to grab my badge for the event and made my way back down to the ground floor to try and ease my nerves. With freshly washed hands and a mint tingling my tongue, we gathered in the lobby and braced ourselves for the dash to the convention center next door through the bitter rain which seemed to plan its fall to coincide with the beginning of the show.

We were right on time in our decent below ground to the showroom floor and the closer we got, with each successive escalator, the crowd seemed to become denser and denser. The local weather combined with the natural events in other parts of the country delaying and cancelling flights, it was a shadow of the 25,000 expected to attend but it was still a healthy flow. Finally on the floor, we turned left and headed to the booth arriving just as the first of many scheduled interviews was to begin.

Without a wasted second, the introductions began as soon as my foot hit the booth carpet. That first interview set the tone for the rest of the day as everyone was on time, the conversations we all productive, and it left us with a great relationship that we look forward to building in the future. The sum it up, the media thus far have all been fantastic and I am looking forward to speaking with each and every one of them again in the near future.

With meetings booked throughout the day, from the 10:00 am open to the 5:00 pm close, the day was over before we knew it and we were all walking out of the convention center wonder where the day had gone. We all went back to our rooms to recover for an hour before reconvening across the street for some wings, burgers, and libations. The evening was filled with relaxing conversation and was a great opportunity to get to know everyone a little better.

I enjoy these times when I am able to learn a little bit more about those I work with each week. After two hours of entertaining conversations where we were able to find both differences and commonalities with one another, we finally called it a day. Time to go back to the room, get some work done, and try to sleep as much as possible. Day one done and things couldn’t have gone any better. The fact that we didn’t have to deal with Philly snow again was just a bonus.

Go Google Yourself!

I use Google on a daily basis for numerous reasons but mostly as a means to find photos for this blog, tracking mentions of various companies, and finding news about different subjects. It is a great tool that makes the daily tasks a lot easier than it used to be. I’m sure I am not the only one who remembers using a card catalogue and flipping through pages and pages of useless information. Well, maybe not completely useless as it has done wonders for my random knowledge over the years. In fact, much of my recent genealogy work has more closely resembled this method rather than the modern instantaneous gratification that we have all become accustom to.

Every once in a while I take advantage of this modern convenience and see what happens to be floating around out there that is tied to my name. It is quite the interesting exercise and, to a certain extent, a little disconcerting. Have you ever done a Google search of your own name?

It’s a given that all your social media accounts play a prominent role in the search results but there is also, at least for me, a lot of other information that surfaces. From mentions in articles, old corporate blog posts, press releases, reading announcements to, if it so applies, any piece of information that is part of the public record including your address, phone number, and pictures of your friends and family. If you are a writer, you can also find some class assignments based on your work (this was both surprising and entertaining).

Such is the time in which we live. Whether you like it or not, your name is out there for everyone to see. While I am a pretty open and outgoing person, some others don’t have the same perspective. This is why I am constantly conscious of what gets posted, what pictures are taken, and the people and organizations with which I associate. Everything is out there for anyone to find and you don’t want that random picture to surface that was taken immediately prior to you blacking out.

It will be interesting how subsequent generations react to such openness and whether or not the barriers remain between personal actions and professional consequences when the moments of youth live on in perpetuity on the internet. For me, I remain cognizant of what is posted and what is said. I do my best to minimize the censoring of my opinions and perspectives in an effort to remain completely transparent and honest with those who may come across these words and I enjoy the fact that I am able to record my own life and maintain an ongoing record for future generations. Good or bad, this is who I am and this is one of the main things that will show up in a Google search.  

Anyone Know Of A Good AA Group Around Here?

This is the line that really has me strung out!

Despite our frequent warnings, this past week my wife and I had a friend of ours finally take the plunge and get onto ancestry.com. Since then we have noticed a significant increase in their time spent online sometimes going well past midnight. Of course, this is one of the early warning signs and my wife finally got to the point that she had to ask the question that was also floating around in the empty space of my mind, “Are you getting too addicted already?!?!”

We ask because we are and, if need be, we will have an intervention. We know the signs all too well and we know the constant pull that the website has during all hours of the day and night. We are Ancestry Addicts and we are proud of it.

Unfortunately, I don’t think our friend really knows what they are getting themselves into. It starts with a small hit and a high that is just enough to make you want more. Soon it is never enough and you are spending hours at a time on the computer without even knowing it. One night you get on for a quick search at 10:00 PM and before you know it the light peers through the blinds and it’s time for breakfast.

And, if that wasn’t bad enough, it gets worse. Soon your reaching out to relatives you haven’t spoken to in years grilling them for more details about a cousin you just discovered or an Aunt that caused a ruckus in her neighborhood in 1924 because she didn’t care for the art deco designs. That’s when you find that only an addict knows how to satisfy and addict. The rest of the world doesn’t care if your great great grand pappy had the grandest outhouse in the county and before you started chasing the genealogical dragon you didn’t care either.

There really is no end to the vicious cycle of research and discovery and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am a heritage hoarder and an ancestry addict and I’m darn proud of that fact. I am finding out who I am by finding the people that made my family what it is today. I will continue to search and I will always look for new places to explore. And while I am looking elsewhere I will continue to return to the tree and, occasionally, partake in some of the good stuff, the easy highs, that come about when a new leaf appears and taunts me with its shimmy.

Yeah, I have problems but I can’t stop to think about that now, I have more work to do and files to organize. So while I’m gone feel free to comment and let me know of any good Ancestry Anonymous groups that might be out there. It’s always better when you get high with others.