chris lee

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Jake Bugs Me

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jakeOk first of all, let me get it out of the way. I watch reality TV.

I know I should be crushing it and drop the TV entirely but it’s an interest I share with Heather and we get to spend time together. Having a great relationship with her and with my family is priority one so if it takes me a bit longer in my efforts to crush it, so be it.

So Jake… The Bachelor… He bugs me. Soooo bugs me.

Couldn’t deal with him last season on The Bachelorette either. Just reeks of inauthenticity to me.

I’m sure he’s a nice guy but he’s too controlled (and this is coming from a controlled guy). Not only is he controlled, he won’t admit it. He just complains girls never fall for him because he’s “too perfect.” Sure they may have used that moniker once or twice throughout the show but he locked on to it and IMO he used it way more than any of the other guys or the show itself. Complaining you’re just “too perfect” is ridiculous. If you really are something of the kind, there would be nothing wrong with that. No such thing as too nice. If that’s what you really are, it’s the girls’ issue, not a weight you have to bear.

Get over yourself.

Then the Bachelor aping for the camera. Shirtless & all abs. So cheesy but even worse when it’s wrapped in “perfect.” You’re reveling in the media d-baggery & loving it so drop the “perfect” act.

And he’s so freaking wooden it kills me. The smile is so wooden & fake. The walk is so wooden & fake. He so tight, he’s the worst dancer in the history of the world.

Loosen up, Jake. Drop the act.

People will connect with you. And like you more. You can’t connect with wood. (Well you can but it has to be cool wood like sassafras or koa or huon pine – not the stuff you get in the scrap bin at Home Depot.)

I also have to say I’m rooting for Vienna because she’s so lame as well. Lame deserves lame.

They should have gone with Reid.

So I Am for Sysco…

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So I am for Sysco. Through one of my amazing friends, Greg Head, I was introduced to Dave Barclay, a VP at Sysco Arizona. It turns out Sysco does services for business and was looking to add social media to their portfolio.

I met with Dave. Not sure how this was going to work. We don’t do social media. Sysco wanted to provide something for their customers though. And they do it for free. They do it in the hope that if they are a good enough partner with businesses that they will continue to keep buying from them. They do business reviews where they go over X, Y, Z.

As far as the social media stuff, I’m helping them because I enjoy it. I’m helping with articles, helping write their social media module and I helped do a presentation on Social Media Marketing for Restaurants at their Innovate!2010 food show. Did it all for free. Part of the reason was that it feels good. And it gives me an opportunity to get exposure to more local restaurants. If someone likes what I did there or what I’m writing over at the site and wants to collaborate, killer.

But I LOVE food. And I LOVE restaurants. And I LOVE social media.

I was pretty conflicted about this. I mean a lot of the friends I know drop anti-Sysco comments all the time. And the food that really moves me is typically made from scratch. I love home made pasta. I dig Seacat Garden’s tomatoes. I love McClendon’s Select. I like Maya’s Farm.

Sysco’s not that, right? We they do supply all kinds of stuff. And they are working with independent restaurants, not chains. The chains have their own distribution channels.

Walking the food show – so not what I love.

I even went back & talked to some folks I respect at Caffe Boa (Matt & Shantal). They weren’t

Came to a place with it. We did the presentation & there were 50+ folks from local restaurants. We went way long & most actually stayed the duration. Many were interested. It was cool to engage with them and respond to their questions. It was even cooler to talk with some of them after the session.

The thing is, I’m a fan of these local businesses & what they’re doing. The fact that they’re using Sysco is cool. If they’re not using Sysco, they’re still using Shamrock or US FoodService. Not everybody can be a Binkley’s or a Quiessence. So I think what I was putting on myself wasn’t giving people a fair shake. There were folks here with a little neighborhood pizzeria, folks from an Irish bar, folks from The Monestery, folks from The Douglass Hotel. I love these types of places!!!

And by working with Sysco, I get a chance to help.

Make It Easy for People to Give You Their Money

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dollarsignYou need to make it easy for people to give you their money, subscribe to your blog, get hold of you, whatever…

Why do we have all these barriers preventing people from doing what we want them to? We spend so much effort getting them to a certain place…looking at our offerings, visiting our site, deciding to contact us. Then we don’t allow them to finish the process?

You don’t take online payments unless we do this & that & this & that.

Or your blog has no prominent RSS feed subscription link? Make your customers hunt & scroll to find it. Or you don’t have one at all. At least make it easy to find the URL.

Restaurants have websites with no hours on the site. No address, no phone number, no menu. Why????

Remember every step you put in between someone who is interested and actually enrolling them in what you’re trying to do is a hurdle to jump over. You lose people at every one.

I like to think of it as setting things up so it feels like people are riding a bike downhill. Let gravity or momentum just pull them along to the finish.

Enable yourself to succeed.

Image credit:  P3097029 on flickr by ArghMonkey

I Freaking Love Posterous

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posterous-logoI can’t even believe how much I love it. It seems to do pretty much everything I want in a microblog. At first, I didn’t really get the email thrust of posting. I’d played with tubmlr a bit (of which I’m also a fan). I dug the IM posting. Dug that tumblr has a full iPhone app. The more I use Posterous though, the less I miss.
  • A great staging place for your “real” blog – can dump everything here, work on & autopost
  • Lets you accumulate everything you do in one place for those who really care – mostly family I’m guessing
  • Lets you intelligently autopost your content wherever you want it – can autopost different content to different sites/platforms
  • PicPosterous – love the iPhone app that allows you to upload a picture to a post and then add additional throughout the day/night/week into the album
  • private@posterous.com – was looking for a way to send drafts that weren’t ready yet – private does the job & you can just email the private@posterous.com address
  • ((tags: tag1, tag2)) – was also looking for a way to tag from email – turns out you can tag in the subject header with a little formatting.
  • Smart consumption/processing of media – it’s so smart with the way it consumes and displays different media types.
  • Breadth of consumed media types – takes & processes almost everything
  • Bookmarklet – this is common with so many platforms but I just find it handy – also like the ability to select images & comment from it

from chrisly’s posterous

Yelp Checkins > Explosion

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yelpburstYelp check-ins in the new iPhone app update is going to be huge.

Yelp already has a ton of users but this will definitely spur growth. People love checking in and feeling part of something.

With their check-ins, Yelp is instituting the concept of regulars and the one with the most posts. They are also instituting a leaderboard. These are things that have made Foursquare and Gowalla so popular. I imagine that the Yelp check-in functionality will continue to expand and mirror some of the additional features of the other platforms.

With the check-in feature, this will give social media enthusiasts another reason to give Yelp a shot.

Yelp already has a ton of people reviewing. As social media enthusiasts give Yelp a try, they will find a ton of features in the platform that they will like.

  • Friending
  • Complimenting
  • Messaging
  • Fanning
  • Tips
  • Photos
  • Funny/Useful/Cool
  • First to review (FTR)
  • Review of the date (ROTD)
  • Integration w/Twitter
  • Integration w/Facebook

While I’m already a fan of Yelp (I like the features of the platform and have met a ton of killer people through their events), I think this will embed the service even more in my regular routine.

from chrisly’s posterous

Amazing Show – Jake Shimabukuro at The Orpheum

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The show was absolutely incredible. Jake was amazing. His playing was unbelievable and he was just so likable. He told a bunch of entertaining stories and seemed so nice, so real. I’m so glad we went – and so glad Heather was there and the girls as well.

The venue was perfect for him. With some of the YouTube videos I’ve seen, you can see he plays in all different kinds of places. The Orpheum really added to the experience. It was stately, quiet and had great acoustics – really helped you focus intently on the show. It was our first visit to there ever. What a great theater!  It’s beautiful, very ornate, has tons of character but it is still quite comfortable. I loved it. Whenever I notice anything interesting playing there, the venue will definitely add to the draw.

jake-shimabukuro

By TEDxHonolulu 2011

I went with Heather, our 5  year old and our 2  year old. I’m totally impressed at how good the kids were too. The show was just Jake playing on stage for almost an hour and a half with nothing else to occupy attention. It was dark and completely quiet. With the whole crowd so quiet and focused the entire time, I just wouldn’t have expected them to handle it as well. They were awesome though. They really enjoyed it too. Marina was clapping like mad and Sienna was grooving to tunes much of the time – not bad for 8:00 to 9:15 when they were already wiped out. Sienna even asserted that she really wanted to thank him after the show.

Jake did come out afterwards and signed autographs (on everything including ukuleles that many folks brought), took pictures and talked with everybody. They had a few CDs for sale, a t-shirt and a few other things. He was still going when we left (at least an hour later). The girls met him, talked with him and took some pictures with him. He was wonderful with them.

So to the show…

Set List:

  • Blue Roses – hadn’t heard this before but it was a brilliant start – lyrical and beautiful
  • Let’s Dance – this is his flamenco-like number, incredible playing
  • Me & Shirley T – one of the first songs he wrote when he was a kid drinking Shirley Temples
  • Sakura Sakura – a song he wrote in the style of the Japanese koto – a 13 stringed floor instrument – really sounded much more like that than a ukulele
  • USCD – quick ditty in the old Hawaiian style to support storytelling
  • Kung Fu Star – another quick ditty with the first lyrics he ever wrote
  • Piano Forte – a song on the style of a piano piece – beautiful
  • While My Guitar Gently Weeps – amazing George Harrison song – over 5M views on YouTube
  • In My Life – brilliant rendition of the Beatles song
  • Trapped – kind of a jazzy groove
  • $5 Unleaded – a new song with ups & downs mimicking the feelings you have when you fill up your gas tank, it runs down & then you fill it again
  • Ave Maria – he used a ukulele he was donating to a museum here – last song he’ll ever play on it
  • Untitled (Kelly’s Song) – new song for the next album – loved it
  • Orange World – bluegrass vibe – catchy
  • Encore – Crazy G – went nuts with this as the crowd urged him to go faster & faster

Live album with many of the songs he played tonight

also at…

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