I had a conversation with a woman at a real estate business today. She was looking for an intern. Well, let me rephrase. She initially told me she was looking for an intern, but I think she was looking for some free labor.

She wanted someone to “build a website” for her and “update and optimize google”. She wanted to publicize the internship and wondered what kinds of things would be best to say to find the right candidate. I advised her to talk about web design, marketing, and SEO.

She stopped me. “What’s SEO?”

Frustrated, I took a deep breath, and explained to hear the broad concept of search engine optimization. I usually enjoy talking to people and teaching them about new ideas or concepts they haven’t heard of or don’t understand, but this woman activated the “somewhat-irritated” button in the brain of ‘ole Jonesey.

I get it. This woman doesn’t know much about web design (didn’t understand how a URL I gave her would work without “WWW”), and wants someone to build a site for her, optimize it for search engine traffic, and promote it on social media. Makes perfect sense to me...sounds like a real need for a small business. But she wasn’t looking for an in-house person to manage their communications and presence on the internet, nor was she looking for free-lance designer to do this job. She was looking for an unpaid intern to do the work for her.

Here’s the thing. Internships are great opportunities for students and recent graduates. They allow them an opportunity to get some hands on experience and learn new skills while they make connections in an industry. But, it’s a contract of sorts. In exchange for free or cheap labor from an intern, a business is obligated to facilitate some form of mentorship and education.

It isn’t an internship if you bring someone who not only will not be learning any new skills, but will likely know more about a vocation then their mentor. And I get it. It’s tough times and people are looking to cut costs however they can, even at the expense of better judgement.

But maybe because things are so challenging right now, BECAUSE we are all struggling we need to better ourselves. What if we set a better precedent for how we behave now, so when we emerge from the recession we’ll have a better attitude then the one we had before that caused it?

http://consumerist.com/2010/07/usps-raising-rates-on-people-who-still-use-usps.html

Something isn't adding up with them. I've gone to the branch in my neighborhood a few times in the past month and every single time the line is outside of the door and there is one grumpy lady behind the counter. In the short term I'd suggest replacing the cranky people behind the counter. I cringe just thinking about having to go to the post office, because I know I'm going to get yelled at and berated for not knowing inner post office policy. Plus I would venture to guess more parcels are being shipped then ever before in history. Amazon just bought Woot recently...I'd think e-commerce is a godsend for anyone who ships. Either way, the solution to the USPS doesn't lie in punishing the customers they do have....I will be very surprised if they figure this out before it's too late.

However, almost on cue there were a few religious protesters condemning the thousands upon thousands of people there. Now, I’m bringing this up under the lens of marketing and PR. I’m not trying to take sides or start a holy war by any means...perse. But I should point out that anyone who decides to spend a perfect Sunday afternoon holding a sign and screaming threats of Hell at strangers should probably re-evaluate some of their priorities in life.

In any event, what I am genuinely curious about is this type of marketing strategy. Where you go into an environment with a specific goal of generating animosity. Does that help your cause? Does that attract followers and supporters? I mean, they do that in professional wrestling  but the strategy is to make one wrestler look like the bad guy, so that another wrestler becomes more popular. I actually think protesting anything in that fashion just gives the other side more power.

I’ll use another example. In college, there was a big debate on campus. Since my goal isn’t to take a side in specific social issues with this post, but rather to look at successful and unsuccessful ways of generating support for a cause, we’ll just say that the debate on campus was about the university eating bread with butter on top of their toast, or the bottom of their toast.

Like most social debates, on campus there were extremely passionate people on both sides on the polar ends, with less passionate, and then completely indifferent students in the middle. One day the side that liked their butter on top of toast went into a campus admin building and had a two day sit in..barring the staff and faculty from entering until the university change their policy to butter on top of toast, instead of the bottom.

On the third day, when the protesters left the building, the other side made an appearance. They had a much different tactic. The students for butter on the bottom of the toast had a cookout outside of the building; they made lunch for the workers who were displaced the day before and used the opportunity to discuss their side of the debate over some hotdogs and hamburgers.

And again, I’m not taking sides here...just trying to speak objectively about the strategy being used. But I have to say, if you are trying to recruit those that are undecided or in the middle about your side, I think friendlier and more respectful approach would be more effective.

What I’m getting at, is that in this digital age, attention is the most scarce resource on the internet (and off the internet!). Why let it go to waste by using just to piss people off?

Naturally, since we were running all around Chicago---I decided to pack my trusty SLR camera. I was looking for an opportunity to bust out my new 55-200mm lens, and the conditions were perfect for taking some great outdoor shots of downtown Chicago. It was the late afternoon (which meant vivid contrast in shadows), bright and sunny, and really busy with standard recreational Saturday activity.

As I'm walking past the creepy Crown fountain in Millennium park, I had a rare, yet perfect moment to snap a photo. There were a few kids playing in the fountain, and I saw a couple run away, leaving one child left. I just happened to be in the right spot, as I don't think I could have framed this photo better if I tried. Here it is, unedited (yes I know I foolishly cut the kids feet off):

I posted it on the Chicagoist Flickr group, and they actually featured it yesterday on their "Around Town" section. Of course I was pretty psyched and went back to the page a bunch of times yesterday to revisit my "masterpiece." Then I realized something after looking at this picture all day, that totally changes the reading of this.

The kid in the photo is bald. It's not the light...I zoomed in to double check. He's lost all of his hair. Given how young he is, I can think of only one logical explanation for why this is the case. He must be going through some kind of radiation therapy for cancer or an equally horrible disease. That changes everything. I thought I had a photo of a kid playing in a fountain. Instead, what I have is a photo of a child who has probably experienced the closest thing to hell that exists in this world, and despite whatever he has gone through, he is out playing in a fountain on a sunny Saturday like a child should be able to.

I don't know the backstory of the kid...this is all just based on assumption. Assuming I'm right though, how inspiring is this? If a child can overcome such a challenge, what are we all capable of?

What's on the menu?

I'll talk about some of my marketing ideas, share some interesting stories, talk about some of the projects I'm working on, and share any cool photos I take.

And, even better I'll let you RSS this beast. So tell your Google Reader to bring a towel.....because on my website, it's laid out like that.