So Saykay.

I've always wondered what could ever make this workaholic voluntarily go home before 7pm... Found it.

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:00:00 -0800

And his name is Wrigley.

Wrigley Bear Ellis III, to be exact.

And his name will always be a reminder of my husband and I successfully negotiating a compromise.

After growing up in Chicago, Hunter always wanted to name any puppy we welcomed into our little Ellis family "Wrigley."

But with both of us as such passionate alumns of Baylor University, I couldn't help but latch on to "Bear" ...and even had my front-runner as "Griff" in honor of Heisman Trophy Winner Robert Griffin, III.

Griff got the boot, but "III" stuck, and with Wrigley and Bear as the final first-name contenders, I couldn't stand the thought of my husband not getting to name his dog what he always wanted.

And there you have it, along with a little guy who is absolutely worth abandoning my typical late-night work habits for a few weeks to obsess over his puppy cuteness.

Now, if I could only get him to create PowerPoint presentations, sit on conference calls and/or code web applications....

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Where you will find my heart any season of the year.

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:59:00 -0800

Even this tightly-wound girl does take a vacation every once in awhile... And this December that was in Beaver Creek with my husband and his family.

Colorado is where I spent my summers growing up, and it's where I've skied since the age of 3 in what was at the time one sweeeet army green onesie.

I love this place more than words can describe, and until the day I die will continue to spend as many days of the year in "Colorful Colorado" as I am blessed enough to be able to do.

God Bless the Rocky Mountains.

-SKE

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Losing Incredible People Sucks. Doing Nothing To Learn From It & Improve Would Suck Much More.

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:48:00 -0800

In the last two months, I've had to say goodbye to two of the most talented young leaders I've worked with in my entire career. @markmcspadden and @marcelosomers

And with both I always knew our time would one day end, knowing companies would come knocking soon who have already decided what I hope we do more intently: to focus on retention of top emerging talent like these two, who we were slap-me-silly lucky to get for even a short time.

As for me, Marcelo will always be a part of a milestone in my career as my very first hire as a manager, which I wrote about here long ago. Marcelo is also the one who shot & edited this video that we created together last year:

I will never forget how many people questioned my "new manager" judgment on him due to his major of all things, and he swiftly blew them away within mere days.

And I hesitated soon after on moving into what was at the time my dream role because I hated the idea of not having him on my team.

My Chair Only Has 3 Legs
But today, I oddly still am struggling to wrap my head around why I'm still feeling gloomy about Mark leaving. I'm thrilled for his new opportunity, but I didn't expect to be so bummed after having prepared myself for that possibility and I was wrong. It still sucks.

Mark's efforts and impact are always missed by countless teams, most especially our own as our DNA was made up of not just any four people, but our specific goofy, talented & family of four.

Any time one of the four was missing, our chair only had 3 legs.

It's also possible I'm struggling to wrap my head around my first actual direct report leaving as a manager within weeks of another team losing the first person I ever hired as a manager.

Sadface x2.

Call me a dork for being overly sentimental, but I don't think it's a bad thing when you're dealing with years of people's careers & lives.

The worst thing a company, however, could ever do is let these situations come and go without learning or improving as a result. I'm trying to channel my energy into documenting my thoughts through blogs like this and hope I can refer back to them with a clear head and capture again how critically important it is we always make people our absolute, unequivocal priority.

Yet, today we all know going into the corporate world that:

People love companies. Companies love money. But everyone seems to so easily forget that the money is only as good and plentiful as the people you retain.

Leaving A Legacy of Awesome

End of the day, I hope both of these amazing guys know how exceptionally talented they are and how blessed I feel to have worked alongside them for the last few years.

And today they leave a legacy of unprecedented talent, proving what young visionaries are capable of and setting the bar at a place it will be damn near impossible for all others to reach in the future.

And thus, the below Forbes post caught my eye tonight as it listed the many reasons your top talent is leaving... which also reflected why our mothership said goodbye to a couple of rockstars.

Here's to a new year filled with exciting challenges, open opportunities to shine their brightest and for a long road ahead in their careers filled with endless possibilities. They certainly are worthy.

Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent

Whether it’s a high-profile tech company like Yahoo!, or a more established conglomerate like GE or Home Depot, large companies have a hard time keeping their best and brightest in house. Recently, GigaOM discussed the troubles at Yahoo! with a flat stock price, vested options for some of their best people, and the apparent free flow of VC dollars luring away some of their best people to do the start-up thing again.
Yet, Yahoo!, GE, Home Depot, and other large established companies have a tremendous advantage in retaining their top talent and don’t. I’ve seen the good and the bad things that large companies do in relation to talent management. Here’s my Top Ten list of what large companies do to lose their top talent :

1. Big Company Bureaucracy. This is probably the #1 reason we hear after the fact from disenchanted employees. However, it’s usually a reason that masks the real reason. No one likes rules that make no sense. But, when top talent is complaining along these lines, it’s usually a sign that they didn’t feel as if they had a say in these rules. They were simply told to follow along and get with the program. No voice in the process and really talented people say “check please.”

2. Failing to Find a Project for the Talent that Ignites Their Passion. Big companies have many moving parts — by definition. Therefore, they usually don’t have people going around to their best and brightest asking them if they’re enjoying their current projects or if they want to work on something new that they’re really interested in which would help the company. HR people are usually too busy keeping up with other things to get into this. The bosses are also usually tapped out on time and this becomes a “nice to have” rather than “must have” conversation. However, unless you see it as a “must have,” say adios to some of your best people. Top talent isn’t driven by money and power, but by the opportunity to be a part of something huge, that will change the world, and for which they are really passionate. Big companies usually never spend the time to figure this out with those people.

3. Poor Annual Performance Reviews. You would be amazed at how many companies do not do a very effective job at annual performance reviews. Or, if they have them, they are rushed through, with a form quickly filled out and sent off to HR, and back to real work. The impression this leaves with the employee is that my boss — and, therefore, the company — isn’t really interested in my long-term future here. If you’re talented enough, why stay? This one leads into #4….

4. No Discussion around Career Development. Here’s a secret for most bosses: most employees don’t know what they’ll be doing in 5 years. In our experience, about less than 5% of people could tell you if you asked. However, everyone wants to have a discussion with you about their future. Most bosses never engage with their employees about where they want to go in their careers — even the top talent. This represents a huge opportunity for you and your organization if you do bring it up. Our best clients have separate annual discussions with their employees — apart from their annual or bi-annual performance review meetings — to discuss succession planning or career development. If your best people know that you think there’s a path for them going forward, they’ll be more likely to hang around.

5. Shifting Whims/Strategic Priorities. I applaud companies trying to build an incubator or “brickhouse” around their talent, by giving them new exciting projects to work on. The challenge for most organizations is not setting up a strategic priority, like establishing an incubator, but sticking with it a year or two from now. Top talent hates to be “jerked around.” If you commit to a project that they will be heading up, you’ve got to give them enough opportunity to deliver what they’ve promised.

via forbes.com

-SKE

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2012: The Year of the Disruptive Heretic. "You bring the popcorn, I'll bring The Ruckus."

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:47:00 -0800

Just came across a few quotes worth sharing after I was lucky enough to spend time with some of the inspiring exceptions to my Gen Y rant from Monday. They/We DO exist, thank God.

And as a holiday gift, a colleague & I gave them "survival kit" of sorts for the corporate world: Wine + Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us by Seth Godin.

And after skimming through before I dive in for my 4th go-round, I discovered

three quotes that have just now caught my eye for whatever reason at this point in my career, and I wanted to share them with each of you.

#1: "WHEN YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH 'THE SYSTEM', YOU LOSE THE ABILITY TO GROW."

Often I find myself managing a delicate balance between my reverence for the rich tradition & wisdom that are ever-present at a 50 year-old company...and my irreverence for the bureacracy & sometimes crippling addiction to comfort & stability.

And the knowledge that a lack of disruption could birth the demise of any established company in a dynamic vertical such as travel keeps me up at night, even though I see myself subconsciously easing up in challenging our methods, our models and our vision by the end of each exhausting year. That leaves me needing to throw myself into a concrete wall of competitive reality punches-to-the-face to snap out of it every December.

I've yet to fall in love with the system, but I do find myself making people less uncomfortable than I used to. That means I'm not pushing our thinking to as uncomfortable of a place as I should be.

And to be clear, it's not that the system hasn't worked. It has, quite well in fact.

It's instead that the reason I'm here today is to ensure the system evolves enough to work in the future... and the easiest way to fail at just that is to fall in love with the rehab patient I'm trying to help shake an addiction to a life of risk-averse comfort, stability & respectable success.

To those familiar with my hot-opinion-prone mouth:

If I start to show signs that I've tragically fallen in love with my cozy system, the one it's my job to shake-up for the good of its future, I beg you to slap me. Hard. And Twice, if needed, please.

Because if I do, I'll be doing no one any favors including my colleagues, myself and my company that only gets stronger when challenged.

There's a looming battle in our industry that will require every ounce of sheer strength, bravery and perseverence from energy-filled heretics to lead the way. But inside of any company's walls, so many of us all are just trying to get by, to hope someone else is battered & bruised while taking on the beast we'd prefer to avoid in favor of working our way up to popular & promoted.

But here's the problem with popular:

Popular is often mistaken for leadership. It's not. Popular our companies don't need their leaders to always be. Passionate, disruptive visionaries speaking truth they critically do.

It's time to get uncomfortable... to get information to those who need it most, to take one for the team, to risk your reptuation as someone who "gets how big companies work" (yes, that's a good thing around here)... it's time for it all, even if you get screwed putting your organization's best interests first. That's the point.

And you don't deserve to run that same company in the future if you don't have the balls to cause a risky ruckus today.

This may challenge conventional logic, survival & standard corporate politics... but if you're as good as we know you are, then why the hell would you want to politick your way into a top-level career at a company that sucks?

People love companies. Companies love money. And the end result sucks for us all. Get over it.While I know you always have to look out for yourself and be smart, my point is this:

Who wants to be CEO of a lemon? I don't. If you do, raise your hand & I'll be right over with your cardboard box.

Those content with lemons are rarely capable of anything more. We must sniff them out, just as we must with those capable of much, much more.

#2: "GREAT LEADERS EMBRACE DEVIANTS BY SEARCHING FOR THEM, AND THEN CATCHING THEM DOING SOMETHING RIGHT."

I feel like we need so much more of this in every organization. But the challenge is finding the time to differentiate between pointless distractions disguised as deviants and the value-rich, inspiring deviators from the norm we are so lucky to have retained, many times unknowingly... and then reinforcing their behavior.

We never have enough time to do these extra things... to seek out these individuals and foster their growth as much as we should. I'm equally guilty, as I struggle to find the right amount of time to mentor & develop younger talent.

The most depressing part is I know I should do it even more, but I'm already doing more than 90%. Yep - depressing. Why don't we throw ourselves into retention like we do into our boring-ass PowerPoint presentations? Because we're too damn comfortable, lazy and flat out stupid to not continue taking our people for granted every day.

NO more. It's unacceptable.

Othewise, we simply MUST take intentional time to mine these hidden nuggets of genius in our organizations... We must do better to find & retain those gems that are truly what differentiate us more than any business model ever could.

And holy hell, we even more critically have no choice but to open our eyes to the fact that you need a strong bench, and yet you have done nothing to ensure that bench is the right fit for the people you need to put on it. Today, the bench literally is repelling my generation. Literally.

Instead, trying to retain the top new wave of young leaders the same way you have the mediocre middle-60% masses for decades exhibits unprecedented levels of recklessness with your future.

As a recent article in HBR stated profiling the new Gilt Groupe CEO's philosophy on hiring & retaining top talent stated:

A people hire As. Bs hire Cs. Why? As don't take jobs under Bs & Cs. As seek out As, & retaining mediocre B/C managers poisons your talent pool leading to a slow, painful death.

At a minimum, I am personally eager to be watchful for this type of "deviant" and to constantly be an A on the lookout for other As so that I am equipped to reach out to them one day, encourage them, do what it takes to retain them... and pray they have a few peers equally "devious" looking for a place to cause a ruckus.

#3: "AS SOCIETY GETS MORE COMPLEX & OUR PEOPLE GET MORE COMPLACENT, THE ROLE OF THE JESTER IS MORE VITALTHAN EVER BEFORE.
PLEASE STOP SITTING AROUND.
WE NEED YOU TO MAKE A RUCKUS."

I could personally die a happy woman if the legacy I leave at any company is that I ignited a meaningful ruckus on our tiny ship of order... That I was a disruptive heretic of the highest order.

We need more heretics. We need more people stirring up a ruckus.

Yet, heretics are rarely welcomed because they bring with them the discomfort that begets more work.

At any large company where stability & comfort are obvious, yet unspoken perks...

...more work - no matter how important or interesting - is the last thing the middle 60% of your squishy bell curve wants.

They're just simply trying to find an ergonomic chair in which they can comfortably coast down the smooth road to retirement... but for the love of all that is good, profitable & EBITDA-holy... take your choke hold off of our 2020 revenue potential, our emerging talent and in the most respectful way possible, get the HECK OUT.

If there's anything I'd relish accomplishing for my own company over the next few years, it's inspiring a significantly important ruckus, or encouraging another talented individual to do so themselves... that would mean more to me than anything I've achieved career-wise to-date.

And even more importantly, I'd use that opportunity to shift our recruiting strategy to focus on hand-selecting & going hard after a few ideal young heretically-inclined leaders across the travel industry with the passion, intellect, healthy understanding of our history and fundamental courage to challenge just that.

I think we often, at every company, underestimate how healthy it is to seek out powerful new perspectives, dissenters of sorts, to help companies evolve into their next five decades of unexplored opportunity & potential success.

I personally can only imagine the resulting quotable moments if this dream were reality, as these new hires began to challenge the unchallenged, while the newly challenged have to defend the never before defended.

Don't you just love awkward moments? I do. And we need more of them.

A recent article in Harvard Business Review agrees. It's time to get all kinds of risky & accountable in each of the formerly ruckus-free companies we call home.

So, starting tomorrow, I plan to rest up, read a Godin classic over the holiday, & prepare for the year ahead.

You bring the popcorn. I'll bring the ruckus.

Happy New Year to All!

Oh, and don't forget the butter.

-SKE

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Every good story needs a villain & every Gen Y professional benefits from a swift kick in the shorts

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:05:00 -0800

Lately I've observed an increase in my Gen Y peers rebelling vehemently against the idea of working in a large corporation.

That sentiment is mostly shared from the middle 70% I refer to as the mediocre masses, who are too lazy to reach the top 15% where the brightest young Gen Y entrepreneurs reside, and conversely too parentally-helicoptered to drop to the bottom 15%.

They are the ones throwing stones at the idea of Corporate America without knowing even a paragraph's worth reason behind why. While I certainly don't believe the path I've chosen is the "best" or "correct" one for everyone, I know the least qualified individuals to count out a corporate career are the youngest, most inexperienced Y'ers with little to base their decision on.

Newsflash, new grads: While you're busy raging against the corporate machine via Occupy, you should also know there's absolutely nothing sexy about working for an over-funded, underperforming startup.

Not even close to every startup achieves the success of Zynga, or can make it look as easy & fluid as Hipmunk. And those that will won't be hiring anything other than the most talented few among us.

Despite the natural glamour that lures many into startup shantytown where every day is a SXSW afterparty, the % of those who will succeed is in the low single digits. And your early years spent seeking "fun" at a sub-par company versus substance could damage whatever opportunity could have been in your thirties.

Suffice it to say, my generation is missing a piece of their puzzle. We're making decisions based on whimsy & ego versus logic & humility.

Thus, from the "evil, dark corporate abyss" I'm writing this post to offer my thoughts on the 2 things I believe will help fill that void.

1) A chance sooner than later in their careers to be humbled

and

2) My renewed commitment to ensure the enemy of Gen Y's mediocre masses, large corporations & all they stand for, will thrive, remain profitable and, most importantly, be as despise-able as ever to fuel the anti-establishment fire.

Why? Every good story needs a villain.

Every ill-founded movement needs something to blindly oppose. Corporations give them that. But as of late, the youngest of my generation are starting to live up to negative stereotypes we've battled against for years and their competitive spirit has morphed into misplaced arrogance.

So, despite my birth year falling squarely into Y territory, I've temporarily lost that Gen Y loving feelin.

I can't help the fact that I'm disappointed.

And today I'm ready for us to stop making excuses. I'm ready for us to reach our full potential.

We should be emphatically, as a generation, knocking it out of the park. Instead, we're barely making contact with the ball & some days we even forget to bring the bat.

Personally, I define "knocking it out of the park" in a different way than those holding signs & camping out in major cities protesting in front of buildings they will one day likely walk into and apply for a job.

I define it as DOING something. Proudly kicking our own asses, burning midnight oil as a regular practice and collectively yanking our economy up from the doldrums.

Most of us don't have families yet.

That's why NOW is the time to get a head start. TODAY is when we have the blessing & opportunity that time presents, not tomorrow.

Doing more by sucking it up after college and opting to send a check to a landlord even when it's hard versus BestBuy for that new flat screen TV or Starbucks for overpriced coffee habits all while skating by on free rent under our parents' roofs.

While every other generation moved out of their parents' homes at 18, our generation has decided instead to selfishly act like the leeches we were prophesied to become on the US economy.

20 somethings living with parents well past college are taking lower paying jobs because without rent, they can. And thus their contribution to the economy vs. previous generations is abysmal. They make less, spend less & thus are suffocating our economy into a slow, depressing, ambition-starved death.

We've been lazy & our parents have enabled it. Shame on us both.

It's time to be something more.

Be better, smarter, more humble and more grateful than ever before.

But can we...

The immature & borderline laughable career expectations of my generation are now paired with an over-inflated sense of self, leaving nothing but an overwhelming gap where questions should be asked... where learning should happen.

We think we should get a promotion after 6 months of mediocre work as if owed something, while we have yet to be proven capable of executing our way out of our high school bedroom, much less executing on greater responsibilities at work.

It's sad, really. I used to defend us against all of these criticisms, but our recklessness has finally broken me.

We're embarrassing ourselves.

And out of this cycle has come the perfect storm of lazy douchebag-tastic talent pools from which companies are forced to choose, causing most to naturally lose interest along with any desire to increase bench strength with talented Gen Yers.

We're killing our future opportunities where we sit today.

Swift Kick in the Shorts = A Gift

I believe part of this Gen Y crisis could have been averted with early-on swift kicks in Gen Ys professional shorts.

The majority of my gold star generation has never been humiliated due to oceans of protective parental praise and "you can do anything, be anything, demand anything, and you deserve everything" mantras ingrained into their millions of US households.

What's missing today is the balance needed by pairing that confidence with humility & hard work.

Everyone needs to experience once the sinking feeling of screwing up royally. If this generation already has, then they weren't given the gift of honest feedback.

Their actions are crying out for someone to tell them "Hey, that sucks.You half-assed it. Do it again, and do it significantly better than before."

The helicopter parents deprived this generation of complete self-awareness and perpetuated their attitudes today manifested into a waste of potential.

That has left most ill-prepared to work in a collaborative corporate environment with those who have been, & thus why the corporate path I've chosen isn't crowded.

We all remember the days in each of our own careers when these kick in the shorts-moments happened. You never shake the memory of the feeling you had when you first screwed up on the job. And how you could have corrected it played out in your mind, and continues to do so throughout your career as it has been one of many great experiential teacher

So, why have we selfishly deprived this generation of that feeling we each remember from our own mistakes, and that has helped us become who we are today?

The most important future need for today's middle 70%

If we can figure out a way to give them today what their personal career development has been deprived of,to-date, that's only half the battle.

They then should start praying even harder that I and others with similar interests are actually able to turn this boat around with those they've jaded on the hiring side of the equation.

I believe the most critical need the middle chunk of the Gen Y masses won't be the villification of Corporate America... instead, a company, any company, in 2020 willing to hire lackluster talent.

Corporate America needs more mediocre talent just about
as much as the American diet needs more sodium.

So... yeah... good luck with that. But I truly will be rooting for you... from a safe distance in my cube, of course.

In all seriousness, to the youngest in my generation, I hope to see us all blossom into our full potential one day soon. Because the moment the Boomers finally start retiring, our generation will have no choice other than to rise to the corporate occasion.

It's time to get to work.

As for me, I'd like to think I'm living proof that a few "swift kicks in the shorts" early on can teach Gen Y'ers lessons critical to their future... and that a future when my peers will seek out corporate careers involving large-scale complexity just might be possible after all.

It's time for my generation to pull up its big girl britches, sinch them tight, and for the love of all that is evil, good and holy, go toe-to-toe with your potential.

All my love,

-SKE

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Not Sucking When It Counts Is A Very Good Thing.

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 20:47:00 -0700

The past 160 days, and really the last 8 weeks, have had my team focused on delivering a small new product for which we've had start-to-finish responsibility since the Social Solutions team was formed last year.

And today, we launched.

I'm tired. And my team is likely even more tired than I am.

We finalized the concept, business case, project scope, key requirements, database architecture, back-end development, front-end development, user experience design, market launch plan, marketing communications plan all in under 160 days... and today we continue marketing, technical maintenance/support and phase 2 development.

But even more than I am tired, I'm proud of my tiny, yet incredibly talented team.

They amaze me every day with what they are capable of despite our extremely small size, in addition to the vast array of responsibilities we carry beyond the norm for most teams.

When crap hits the fan, we're the only one holding the red bat phone.

When something breaks at 5am, we're the ones sending red-exclamantion mark-laden emails to... well... ourselves because from start to finish, from business case to critical bugs, it's all us.

In a large organization where 99.9% uptime is simply table stakes to exist, we have uniquely been given the blessing and curse each day of working in an undefined space with less sleep and fewer resources than almost everyone else... but greater freedom to own and deliver something groundbreaking, or even capturing fast-follower status in the growing area of social.

But growing areas tend to be long slogs on the way up... and the main reason I think our team has trudged through them with success is our persevering sense of humor.

We don't take ourselves too seriously, especially during the toughest parts of a project, and had I ordered it early enough, I would have worn the below shirt to work this week just as a reminder that with as little sleep as I've gotten lately, I'm basically a walking Ruby error.

And that's the same Ruby 500 error every developer dreads seeing on a launch day... and we've seen our fair share. But both of my developers handle every single one of those scenarios with skill and poise, while taking the time to laugh in between.

Yet, we're serious when we say we believe the success of our business in 2020 will likely be as a result of some of the cutting edge work we're doing today. We could very well be wrong, but the winners of tomorrow have to be taking the same gambles we are today to be in the game at all.

And personally, I'm proud to walk out the doors of my HQ at 4am every once in awhile knowing I pushed myself to the limit that day.

I think a little sacrifice like that every so often is good for the soul.

But even better for the soul is not sucking when it counts. And today, we didn't suck.

It was one of those few days when you stop to look back and appreciate the work achieved... even if just for a few moments because you don't have many to spare.

Through my sleep-deprived & 5 Hour Energy-supported daze, I realized we broke our single-day site traffic record for visits, pageviews and time on site only 14 hours into the full 24.

Hockey sticks are almost always a blasphemous, ugly joke any time they appear in a presentation, just like the one below at which too many of us have stifled a laugh or eye-roll.

Yet today, our hockey stick was real. And a hockey stick based on real data from our real new product is an incredible thing of beauty.

But if you stare at it for too long, you'll go blind, or lose a foot... err... or something sort of like that.

The most important thing at the end of this project is to know even more definitively than before that my team truly rocks. And after a very hard 160 days, I wish upon them each a weekend full of uninterrupted ZZZZs, exclamation mark-free emails and error-free codebases.

To my heros, @markmcspadden & t_itchy, tell Theodore to put down the tequila because he's on bat phone duty all weekend.

SKE

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I paid $80 for a free video... oh, and some KSwiss Tubes.

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 20:32:00 -0700

For those of you who have been within 100 square miles of me over the last few weeks, I've likely forced you to watch this video... all 5 minutes of it.

After obeying my demands and accepting that you might have to sit through another boring video some annoying co-worker told you was "SO FUNNY" and that you "HAD TO WATCH" ... most of you quickly realized this was one of the rare gem's that viral videos all aspire to be.

And you thanked me, right after you forwarded it on to everyone you know.

What's important is that somehow a brand, as quickly fading into history as @KSWISS has been over the last decade, more than resurrected itself in such a bold fashion that I basically sent them an $80 "Thank You" note for all of the laughs. And as a perk, I happened to get some sweet new Tubes out of the deal shown below.

Even while I was entering my credit card information, I felt like I was sending them money I owed them, or that they somehow deserved, for taking the time to grace me with such copywriting genius. Granted, I have an affinity for great writing stronger than most, but I know I wasn't the only one whose bank account made a donation to the Kenny Powers #MFCEO campaign... and the best part is, the shoes are actually pretty great.

My last setence is probably their optimal use case in this campaign. Glad to help out a marketer's metrics any way I can.

More than anything, I want to shake the hand of the ballsy CMO who had to sign-off on the entire shebang, along with his or her job security in the process.

These are the kinds of decisions very few marketers are capable of making without seflishly watering it down in the name of job security or risk of stunting their speed up the corporate ladder... but for this person, holy crap did his or her gutsiness pay off.

All I have to say is thanks and kudos to @KSWISS & it's ad agency @72andsunny for creating memorable... and offensive, sure .. but still, most importantly, memorable and effective work this year.

What's up dog? KSWISS just killed you.

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My Slide Master Can Beat Up Your Slide Master: A tale of getting pwned by PPT for 7 years & counting.

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:27:00 -0700

{To start... if you don't know what "pwned" is, go here. Moving right along...}

There are certainly many days of my career when I have wondered how amazing it will be to look back at the past 5, 10, and hopefully no longer than 15 years of Powerpoint misery to "brag" to the then youngins about how hard we used to have it when we were forced to trudge through proverbial 5 ft. of SmartShape-esque snow to and from meeting hell.

But I've been waiting for that day for now 7 years and it's nowhere in sight, thus my lovely artwork below from early 2010.

I actually don't mind designing/putting together presentations every once in awhile. I like to think I'm pretty decent at it, and seeing the finished product is always gratifying. Selling a great idea or product concept is one of the most fun things I get to do at times.

The problem is when we depend so much on PPT to communicate in every mid-size+ company in every industry (as I wrote about here just last year), that many of us end up spending EVERY DAY of our lives working in that God-awful inefficient posterboy of a mediocre-at-best presentation software program.

Why PPT Turns This Positive Patty into Cathy Cranky-Pants.

Over the last two weeks, I've created three different 20 slide+ presentations from scratch all with at least 75% brand new content.

Personally, I know I need at least two solid days to work through the creation of any 5 minute or longer PPT presentation... and whenever I present, it's to sell someone on something or to rally support around idea that will eventually be "something" and thus also need to be sold.

In Powerpoint, no doubt.

So, because I know presentations are immensely important, I build every single one from scratch to ensure I at least give myself a shot in hell to hold the attention of my ADHD audience and never waste their time.

I hate templates. I hate text. I hate fonts created before 2010 (other than maybe Lobster, or as @marcelosomers calls it, the "new Comic Sans" - Ouchie. :)

I hate people who spend more than 10 seconds on any slide other than a financial forecast in 11 point font. And even then...

And to make matters worse, I am a perfectionist.

So usually two days of effort turn into three... filled with font-embed trainwrecks, Photoshop marathons and stock photo editing circuses that all come together to tell a decently interesting story that the average observer might mistakenly think was built in Keynote.

Even if I fool a few for a slide or two into that notion, I feel like I succeeded.

But once it's all over, one might assume the competion of a successful presentation would make the time invested 'all worth it' after.

Even Cupcakes & EBITDA-Pooping Unicorns Can't Turn This Frown Upside Down

Yet no matter how well things go, how much money/resources are thrown my way or unicorns given to me that poop cupcakes & EBITDA, I'm left feeling like I just wasted three precious days of my life I will never get back... and now I'm three days further away from putting the actual solution into the hands of customers.

I happen to love my job right at this moment, and I have an incredible team working hard toward a set of strategic goals I'm sure I typed in a PPT presentation somewhere along the way.

So, I understand better than most that without selling our experimental ideas & concepts to tough customers and putting it through the test with those who really matter, our work is about as relevant as one of the hundreds of "Social Media is the Next Big Thing" .ppt files we all have somewhere in the depths of our hard-drives from 2006.

If we can't sell it, then we are just useless, renegade cowboys begging to be shot down or drowned into the black hole of political churn... and that threatens the one consequence I respond to most adamantly - the potential to waste even MORE time vs. throwing down the binary 1s & 0s with our customers.

He's Staring At Me Right At This Second... This Is Getting Awkward.

With that said, I can't waste any more time typing - or even reading this again to ensure my writing above is even moderately coherent.

That's because my "buddy" Powerpoint is standing right here, tapping his rigid, slow-moving feet dressed in ugly shoes that haven't been in style since 2003...

While it drives me up the wall that he doesn't understand how "blog", "facebook" or "Tweet" are actual, properly spelled words, the worst part is he's still sporting that friggin t-shirt to the office Every. Single. Day. that reads: "Sarah is my SmartShape Biotch"

So, back to work. I know who butters my animated .gif bread.

Saved As & Closed,

SKE

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Quote of the Week from Indy 500 Bump Day: "Stick it in the fence or stick it in the show."

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:12:00 -0700

Some of you, including even my closest friends, may be surprised to know I've turned nearly 180 degrees over the last year or so into a legit, fascinated fan of IndyCar and naturally the entire business that surrounds it.

I can now easily sit and enjoy watching an entire 500 mile race on any given weekend, while explaining to my husband the rules I've apparently memorized related to qualifying, along with random 'hot sports opinions' on what drivers I just can't stand.

While I'm sure he's a nice young man, Will Power's cheesy name and Opie-esque persona annoys the crap out of me. Guilty as charged.

Moving along...

Combining the precision required in both driving, engineering and mostly the business to support it all (the logistics alone of getting all of the mechanics & equipment from city to city gives me heartburn)... the sport is mind-blowing as much as it is purely awesome.

The reason I initially became so interested is thanks to a few friends of ours - Sulli & Bunch as they are known to us - who are now the proud owners (I guess technically SH Racing is the proud owner with S = Sulli), of an IndyCar that ran its first race last weekend at the 100th Anniversary of Indy.

And in its first showing, their car ran as close to the front as 2nd with less than 30 laps to go, then finished 8th in the very first showing of the #07 Redline car driven by Tomas Scheckter.

While it may sound naive to over-celebrate an achievement that, by its very nature, has to be preceded by immense amounts of success... thus making that achievement just one after many, many that had to come before it...

It is stories exactly like this that inspire passionate people to get out of bed in the morning.

I know there were likely countless years of painstaking work, failures, learnings and sheer determination toward a goal that pushed Sulli & his family to a place where that hard work is now manifesting itself as an amazing opportunity with continued blessings.

And I would also have to assume that the terrifying, yet calculated risks one has to take to get this point in business and in sport are risks that not everyone in the world is capable of taking. Some have the passion, some also have the work ethic...

But I believe very few have all three.

Yet, for those lucky & talented few, with risk comes reward... and reward for SH Racing is another day, another race... another chance to stick it in the fence or in the show. The picture below of Sulli says all you need to know about exactly how much passion this guy has.

Personally, the very idea of a car, for which the average IndyCar engine alone is leased for around $1 million or more per year, and for which the annual tire expense is likely more than I make or will make in any given year, the idea of a split-second mistake sending that car head-first into a concrete wall made my stomach turn as I watched them reach speeds of 230 into every single one of those ridiculous turns.

All 800 of them.

Yet, the instant you hesitate as a driver, a race strategist or an owner to make a decision in this sport, with not a one in the bunch that isn't risky, then the more likely you are to put your team and your business at even greater risk when nanoseconds matter.

That's why they have no choice but to be the best at what they do and hire those who can do the same. Outside of racing & I guess maybe space travel, there are few scenarios in the world when precision matters more.

With all of that said, I came away from last weekend with one quote that has stuck with me from the unexpected source of Marco Andretti.

Never really taken the time to form an opinion of him one way or the other. He could easily be an idiot or a genius... all I know as fact is that the kid can drive.

On the final qualifying day, Marco was the headliner in what this sport would define as a quite dramatic, just barely making it onto the track at 5:59 after being bumped out of the field with minutes to spare. He was 50 seconds away from not qualifying for the 100th running of the Indy 500, and his run would determine whether or not his teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay, who was then on the bubble, or Marco made it into the race.

And he nailed it.

While hurling himself and his car around a track at 224-232mph, he executed flawlessly & didn't hestitate to use every inch of that track - including the inches closest to that looming fence - to make it happen.

The quote he shared as he crawled out of his car is probably one his father and his father's father have said over the years.

"It was either stick it in the fence or stick it in the show."

Whether you are an IndyCar driver or a mid-level manager in travel technology, even though the stakes in racing may be just a teeeensie tiny bit higher than for me, the passion we all carry with us into our careers translates.

We each get out of bed in the morning and make a decision to be okay with the in between or decide to use every inch of the track with the only options being the fence or the show.

While I plan to stay away from the literal fence personally, I hope I can put that type of uninhibited passion that SH Racing exhibited to work every day in my career, even in the smallest way, and give my customers, colleagues and my business every inch of the passion required for us to not finish anywhere other than whatever is defined as our 'Show.'

And with that said, this 'Johny-Come-Lately' IndyCar Fan taking life lessons from Marco Andretti obviously needs some sleep...:Because without my 2 full REM cycles, the only place you will find me tomorrow is in the fence.

Congrats again to SH Racing on an incredible debut.

-SKE

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Worth Taking A Break For: "Misery Bear Goes to Work"

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 12:32:00 -0800

via youtube.com

I promise I'm not a YouTube video junkie... but lately, it seems, my husband has had plenty of time during grad school to discover a wealth of comedic genius via YouTube.

And so, I share with you yet another epic: Misery Bear Goes to Work.

It will have you after the first 5 seconds.

Enjoy. :)

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Stop what you're doing. Right now. And spend 2 minutes 46 seconds with pure advertising gold.

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:03:00 -0800

via youtube.com

Oh... and, you're welcome.

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Can you tear it? Absolutely. One color? Nothin' special about it. Chief Strategic Officer? So what.

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 17:02:00 -0800

via youtube.com

The reminder that this little gem of a video exists just made my night.

Many thanks to @grayum_ian, as he reminded me of this humble genius who has more quotables in two minutes than JFK ever dreamed.

This is the kind of guy that you invite to speak to a group on whom you have been waiting for the absolutely perfect opportunity to play a practical joke.

One day when I reach the ranks where the letter C is somewhere in my title, and when by then my better judgment may counsel me otherwise, I would kill to invite this guy to spend an hour of time with my peers... explaining how this powerful speaker is going to change the way we think about our business and our people... and share with them that it was such a very special opportunity, "I wanted to pay for it personally in the hopes we could invite him back again - so, my treat... and you can thank me later."

Jackpot.

I don't even want to know what he might think he's worth an hour... but it's gotta be as jaw-dropping as this year's Superbowl commercials were bad.

And it has to be a monstrosity to pay for his 4C 2-sided 120# die-cut pop-up. That's the kind of card you drop into a giveaway bowl in a moment of forgetfulness and immediately fish that $2 a pop bad boy right back out and into your pocket.

"I build crowds! Guaranteed. What do you do guaranteed?"

Well, Joel, I guarantee I will not make it through my overflowing inbox at least one day every week - GUARANTEED. And if I spend any more time tonight giggling at your quotables, today will be that day.

So, back to work.

-SKE

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Standing. Clapping. Cartwheeling. Deutsch/LA gives a clinic on how to nail a target market.

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:53:00 -0800

Personally, I hate watching the Superbowl.

Not because of football. I like football... and not in a "I'm a girl who is so cool because she knows more about football than you" kind of way... but more so in a "I rarely request a channel-change on Saturdays or Sundays during football season" kind of way.

But back to the Superbowl. I hate it because every year my ability to wrap my head around what some of these a$$ clown agencies were thinking during creative pitch meetings as they piss away their client's $3M continues to diminish.

I say this with empathy as a former account executive in the long hours & low pay ad agency world, albeit in a tiny corner of that world. But in big agencies like Deutsch/LA or small ones like my former beloved home of mundayMorning, AEs regularly have the opportunity to watch our creative teams stumble upon genius or puke all over themselves in bad idea gobbledy-goop as we sprint through tens of thousands of billable hours. Fortunately, my years in this business were, for the most part, puke-free.

So, why all of the puke these days?

As I've grown older, maybe creative directors are growing younger... and I'm just not getting the punchlines anymore.

Or the latter - the option I fear may actually be the truth - these CDs are suck-tasticking their way to their ad agency's "I died defending traditional" engraved tombstone. And it's as much, if not more so, about their inability to understand the target demographic as it is uninspired creative.

But this year, amidst a sea of said crap, I was impressed with this target market-owning superstar. Obviously the VW commercial was loved by almost everyone - I'm not telling you anything new.

But why is that the case? Star Wars-themed & kid/parent combo car commercials are a dime a dozen, so why did this one resonate?

The why is in the "who with."

To me, as a Gen Y'er with an Audi in my driveway that I love, with no kids anywhere in sight, and with limited to no affinity for Star Wars (I know, I know. Throw stones at me later.), it was my clear favorite... and it made me wish I was in the market for a car. So while maybe I'm a tertiary target market, there is a long list of demographic groups above me on VW's list with whom it likely resonated even more.

That includes every 30-45 year-old mom or dad, Star Wars loving Baby Boomer, Gen Xer and Gen Yer, along with all kids around the globe. Even those who, like me, never fell in love with sci-fi, may still have had their heartstrings tugged on as they reminisced about a time when they too had childhood superhero aspirations, or parents who would do anything to make their child's dream come true.

Kudos to a client and an agency coming together to create greatness.

When this commercial comes as the end-result, I say "Long live the expletive-worthy Deutsch hourly rate."

For everyone else? Your clients want their money back.

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Three full days of out-punting my coverage.

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 17:40:00 -0800

I've been a somewhat MIA blogger lately while preparing for the relaunch of one of my "little engines that could" (in this case, AgentStream) after months of tedious work. On Nov 15th after a two week delay, its day in the sun came, which was also the day of my flight to the PhoCusWright Conference.

As my alarm went off around 3:30am, beckoning me to HQ where my developers had already begun working their magic, I wondered how dumb I could possibly be to allow this all to be happening on the same day.

The good news is it kept me busy - I had little time to get nervous before my week of surreal opportunity that was waiting for me at PhoCusWright.

For those of you who caught a post of mine from a few months ago, the story of what has resulted is still too unbelievable to put into words.

But suffice it to say that random post became the catalyst that changed my professional trajectory for the last quarter of 2010... it birthed an incredible opportunity to attend the PhoCusWright Conference and meet 34 other awe-inspiring young travel industry leaders as a part of the inaugural "Class of 35" and first annual Young Leaders Summit, as well as participate in the Center Stage event as a "Talkbacker" interviewing keynote speaker Razorfish President, Pete Stein.

Pete was incredibly gracious and seemed to be the crowd favorite of all keynote speakers that week as he spoke on the future of interactive marketing, social, mobile, tablets and beyond.

His easy-going personality made it not quite as impossible as what this Nervous Nancy had imagined to relax, and other than the fact that I could feel the entire room wondering "What the hell is a 'Manager' of anything doing on the stage at PhoCusWright?" as my title was announced, I was able to muster up the gumption to step on stage in front of 1,000 of my industry's top senior leaders and executives.

No big deal....?

I believe I described this scenario to a few of my friends as basically speaking in front of a crowd containing all of the decision-makers in my industry who would ever be interested in doing business with me in any way, shape or form down the road... or hiring me if I screwed up this opportunity so badly my current employer couldn't bear to claim me any more. No pressure.

Can you tell I'm a sensationalist? I like to think of it as a sobering realist.

Fortunately, I didn't have to experience the negative outcome that any of my sobering reality scenarios proposed.

What I did experience were a few small learnings that aren't yet natural to a rookie like me going on stage at any decently-sized event:

1) I should've pulled my hair back.

No one wants to see you flicking hair out of your eyes on stage. And the microphone is a challenge to secure behind your ear with hair all over the place.

And what do you get when you, out of habit, try to flick hair out of your face right next to where the microphone sits? You guessed it.

I used to pull my hair back for every interview - even during my graduate intern case competition at Sabre just three years ago for which I also forced the other females on my team to do the same - but I guess the casual culture in our office has shaken out of me (and I haven't minded, I might add...) any Armani suit-wearing, formal corporate appearance habits I picked up during grad school.

Shame on me - I should know better.

2) You always think you look more visibly nervous to the audience than you really do.

When I watched the video of my session, I was pleasantly surprised... that's because I felt like the entire room could see right through me and my nerves.

We are our own worst critic, and the audience rarely wants to see someone fail... those are two things I must remember to always tell myself.

3) When in doubt, stick to the script.

I have a terrible habit of thinking faster than I speak, and while I work out the thoughts in my head, my mouth keeps rambling on nonsense.

So, knowing this happens more often when I'm nervous, I meticulously wrote out my questions I planned to ask. While my bad habits still kicked in at times, I fortunately caught them before the rambling went down the path of no return, and relied on my script... hopefully without looking like I was relying on my script.

Wasn't I just asking short, simple questions you ask? Yes... but this rookie knew that on a large stage with bright lights, that might not be as easy as it sounds.

And for someone like me who embraces verbosity like kid left alone with a giant ice cream cone, I need a script for 10 words more so than even 10,000.

4) Don't be the moron who forgets a professional binder to house your notes.

I was. And that morning I imagined walking up on stage with the snazzy "Office Depot" legal pad I use to take notes on each day at work... not happening.

But holy crap, what else did I have with me? Nothing.

So, I improvised.

You know those leather notebooks and binders hotels usually use to display all of their property info, room service menu, etc?

Well, my room was one notebook short for most of the morning... I just prayed I wouldn't drop it on accident and become a live on-stage advertisement for Westin and all of its leather-embossed logo glory.

Yep, I'm that girl.

The entirety of my experience from last week still hasn't sunk in - nearly 7 days later - but what has sunk in is how blessed I am to have been given the opportunity to step foot on that stage, and I sincerely hope that the new Class of 35 initiative will give many others like me the opportunity to do the same for years to come.

I met some wonderful people last week, including many from PhoCusWright who added one more challenge to the list when presenting me with Eugene the Unicorn, who gave my suitcase's zipper a run for its money, but came out with a victory and is today my cubicle's new pride and joy (Many thanks again to Bruce, Tahnee & Eugune [the guy, not the unicorn] for that fun surprise).

I can't say thank you enough to the incredible leaders - from both Sabre and PhoCusWright - who are the reason this opportunity evolved into all it became. I'm lucky to be exposed to such individuals so early in my career, and I will never forget the kindness shown to me throughout this entire process.

I was given a shot not many are given... and I am humbly grateful for luck, preparation and generosity of others intersecting at just the right time.

A week ago I would have never guessed that out-punting my coverage could've been this fun... but it sure as heck was.

Thanks again to all.

-SKE

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This is where I grew up.

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 19:05:00 -0700

This past weekend I went back to the place where I grew up... not the hometown of my youth where my parents reside, but instead the town that put the end-cap, an exclamation mark of sorts, on my pre-real world years.

Waco, Texas.

This quaint, lovable town is known for many unique things, and during the very short four years of 2000 - 2004, that included this girl.

For me, the mere mention of Waco creates an incredible mental slideshow complemented by a Radiohead album playing soundtrack to a story containing an odd mix of memories featuring Pi Beta Phi, Groucho Marx glasses, intramurals, hidden passageways, Common Grounds coffee, satire, Ninfa's, late-nights of writing, Sing, pranks, religious debates, pink noses, walking the tightrope between being loved and hated, and maintaining my anonymity as a part of an anonymous group of satirical writers.

The irony is that one of the reasons I joined this group was to expose the uncomfortable truths & occasional hypocrisy that Baylor and its Baptist students were known for.

All the while I played the role of the athletic, social sorority girl who had just gone through a year of training to walk on to Baylor's women's basketball team... when I was beginning to find that my true self was with this group of unathletic, decidedly anti-greek, anti-social intellectuals.

This is where I grew up.

This group represented something different to every member who chooses to become a part of its long legacy... but to me, this diverse group of friends, brothers you might say, shaped my vision of the world & my Christianity in a more powerful way than anyone ever had.

This group, in my eyes, played an honorable role on Baylor's campus, many times amidst shameful and unhonorable circumstances, many of which the college students in us tended to create for ourselves... but overall, we were in love with our school and saw our roles as somewhat noble... and in many ways that was part of the wit, the irony of it all.

We made fools of ourselves so that the genuine amongst us could one day emerge from the shadows of those pretending to be something they were taught to be... not something they themselves believed in or decided to be. We were there to start the discussion that no one else would... with a few highly inappropriate jokes, at which I am a specialist, scattered in between.

This was where I grew up.

I feel lucky & blessed to have known Baylor as something entirely different than what many did - no better, no worse - just different.

This past weekend, I reminisced with this group of individuals with whom I used to proudly schlep satirical prose, entertain the Baylor Baptist masses and today relive the legacy and tradition of a brotherhood that is nearly 100 years old.

These were, and still are, the smartest individuals with whom I have ever associated, and no one can make me laugh even close to the way they had the ability to do.

They are today's NASA engineers, FBI agents, attorneys, doctors, politicians, pastors, senators, business owners, government defense consultants... and they are my brothers.

Growing up with them truly did change me forever for the better, and it's weekends like this past one that remind me of those I have to thank for the blessings I experience today in my life.

While I don't know many people who would get the joke that is Aqua Buddha, the incident in which U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul allegedly participated back in his Baylor days, or understand how I can be a Christian and think it's not blasphemous to have written satire about the Holy Trinity getting tired of "riding the tricycle" together... the important thing is that I do.

To this day, I still hope and believe this town was a place where my writing and the writing of my even more talented brothers, genuinely started a discussion worth having that changed someone's life... hell, I think I'd settle for even something small that impacted just one person in a positive way.

And when I look in the mirror, I see one.

This post won't make much sense to many of you, will come across as vague, uninteresting and self-indulgent... but to a few, it will resonate. And just like our paper, The Rope, that's kind of the idea.

For those of you who are appalled...

This is the town that gave life to the character that was David Koresh, the town that has endured decades of embarrassing Baylor football, and the place where hypocrisy in Christianity at times can reign supreme... so let there be no doubt that this is the town where God has, quite clearly, chosen to have an incredible sense of humor.

And it is also the place where, for some, there's a beautifully thin line between satire and sharing your faith.

This is where I grew up.

All my love,

Brother Yoko ONoZe

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A future museum exhibit of bad user experience... Or a half decade addicted to after-hours productivity?

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:14:00 -0700

I'm going to go with both. Until now, I had no idea I was so loyal. Huh. (Insert introspective moment here...)
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

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What. Just. Happened.

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 18:11:00 -0700

Sarah Kennedy Ellis from Sabre Holdings Makes the Class of 35

Sarah manages Social Product Strategy, Development & Marketing at Sabre Holdings and is responsible for all of the social media product strategy within Sabre Travel Network including the product vision, development, launch and marketing of custom social tools and community products.

In her role at Sabre, Sarah is responsible for their Cubeless enterprise community platform as well as Sabre’s virtual travel agent community, AgentStream. She also leads a cross-functional team responsible for Sabre’s social media marketing efforts including ongoing support for the new Sabre Red total travel solution.

via classof35.com

As one of my recent posts from a couple of months ago highlights, I am of the opinion that top young leaders not only need, but crave the opportunity to learn & grow early-on in their careers by attending events like The PhoCusWright Conference where industry veterans gather each year.

Not 48 hours after I published that post, I received an email from the President of Sabre Holdings & the President of Sabre Travel Network with a humorous quip or two about my odd obsession with unicorns, followed by the most surprising gift I could have ever imagined receiving from an executive at such a young age... #1) Reading my blog... and #2) Acting on it by sponsoring my attendance at PhoCusWright.

While they were busy making my year, it just so happened that the PhoCusWright team had also seen my blog and already had young employees who, over the last couple of years, had shared similar ideas to those I published in my post... I guess the timing was right as this seemed to be the tipping point that gave those young employees the green light to get PCW's idea off the ground.

Within 5 weeks of my original post, the PhoCusWright team announced the new Young Leaders Summit exclusively for the top 35 young leaders in travel under the age of 35 and began accepting applications.

Thus, my blog's title.

Before I could process it all, the Young Leaders Summit application was posted and members of the Class of 35 began to be accepted.

It's rare to see positive action taken so fast in any industry, but PhoCusWright pulled it off and did so with ideas that went well beyond what my initial idea had considered. Above is an excerpt from the classof35.com blog, featuring the announcement of my acceptance into the Class of 35... I can't wait for November!

I'm honored and thrilled to be a part of the new class this year, but I'm even more grateful for the incredible executive leadership under which I am lucky enough to give my time, passion and effort each and every day in my career.

Before this event unfolded, I would have told you that money, without a doubt, was the most influential ticket to loyalty from me with any employer. And it still ranks at a high, high place... just a close 2nd.

This gesture was meaningful beyond the obvious simply because I know how frequently our 9,000 employees clamor for the attention of these leaders every day, and for them to simply take the time to even read my blog amidst 500+ emails each day, much less go to the effort to sponsor my attendance at PhoCusWright... it's something for which any mid-level employee would be extremely grateful.

I'm not sure I fully realize exactly how rare & special it is for a company of our size to have an executive team with a history of operating with integrity and proactively developing employees that is decades long... but I'm starting to.

Bottom line, I feel blessed.

I believe that beyond grace, talent and hard work, much of the success anyone experiences in a career is based on being in the right place at the right time and getting lucky when it counts.

I'm one lucky lady.

-SKE

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Make it easy for people to tell you how badly you suck.

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:46:00 -0700

A little less than two years ago when I hired my first employee, I couldn't have been more excited to begin supporting the young rock star I speak of often, @marcelosomers.

And before I ever met Marcelo, during a challenging first year at the company I today am happy call home, I decided that one thing I wanted to do for every employee I hired was to share with them a valuable lesson I learned during that time.

Sometimes situations in your organization will change outside of your control, and you are going to have no choice but to work for a manager who doesn't offer the guidance or support you need, but the most valuable way to spend those times is not to bail - it's to buckle-up and learn.

You can turn that potentially negative experience into a goldmine of future insight - cheesy as it may sound, it's true.

I simply bought a Moleskine and wrote down everything I learned from this particular manager about how his missteps made me feel, and what, at that moment, I wish he had done differently. Today, I refer to it often.

So, I decided I would give every employee I had the opportunity to manage in career a Moleskine for exactly that... in exchange? They had to commit to sharing as often as possible any time they had negative experience or could suggest improvement with me in how I manage them.

I started my Moleskine during that first post-graduate year of 2007, and after having now gone through six different managers over the last three years, I've learned a lot. The reward amount I have noted at the front if lost has gradually increased as the months and years go by.

Feedback, good feedback, sometimes is hard to come by. And many times employees are too timid to give the hard truth in semi-annual reviews. Hopefully, the encouragement to document those times when I, quite frankly, suck as a manager, will help us both immensely in the long-run.

The amusing part is that when I originally bought these Moleskines, I decided to buy in bulk and save a few bucks, not realizing it might be quite awhile until I had managed ten different people.

And just today while cleaning out a drawer, I found the remaining 8 from that first batch that are still blank pictured above.

It's inspiring to think about how much my blunders (and hopefully a few of my positives along the way as well) will teach my future employees on the currently blank pages of these Moleskines... and I can't wait to one day hear about the areas in which I suck the worst.

Let there be no doubt, feedback is a gift.

So my humble advice? Always make it easy for people to tell you how badly you suck.

Would love to hear feedback from any of you on what you do to encourage 360 degree reviews as a manager, or what your managers have done to encourage that with you as an employee?

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While I've always wanted a unicorn bathed in fairy dust, I'd give it up for a ticket to PhocusWright.

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:16:00 -0700

The three years I have spent in the corporate world following the completion of my MBA program have been full of learning, to say the least.

Most notable has been learning to adapt to change on the fly, in any and every scenario.

I'm actually quite grateful for this now expected state of "anything can happen at any moment" mindset. It keeps me on my toes and challenges me to continue seeking out opportunities to learn & grow in my career.

Knowledge has always been my rock. And as an employee, I have to be given a chance to grow in that area to feel as though I'm reaching my full potential. And that growth occurs for me in leaps and bounds whenever I'm given the chance to attend industry events.

In the closet of travel industry events, The PhocusWright Conference is your best pair of Christian Louboutin pumps.

In my industry, there is one event that stands as the mecca of all each year... where the biggest players in our industry come to pow-wow, schmooze, and revel in each other's near-celebrity status - The PhocusWright Conference.

Last year, I struck gold. By being in the right place at the right time when a colleague had to back out last-minute, I was the only one around able pick up and go at a moment's notice.

Of course, it just happened to be two weeks before my wedding. Didn't matter. No friggin' way I would turn down that once-in-a-late-twenties career opportunity.

It was a smart move.

The keys... or at least a 3-day pass... to the travel kingdom.

I met some incredible leaders and executives, as well hundreds of startups with some of the most talented minds in travel. I listened in awe to keynote speakers whose voices reverberated throughout the room in tones intending to put the fear of God in you... to shake you into action, into innovation, into GO DO SOMETHING.

I came back with over twenty pages of notes and ideas, many of which I'm still pulling from today. To me, actionable ideas are priceless.

And even more valuable are the new industry friends I first met at that event, many of whom I am today actively doing business with in ways never before explored by either party.

This was real, measurable value... more so than many weeks of work produce.

But I knew the inevitable truth that it might be ten years before I ever had the opportunity to experience it again.

Are unicorns bathed in fairy dust included with my registration?

The problem is price. PhocusWright likely wants to keep it as the elite of the elite for a reason... to maintain the level of demand that posts exactly like this one represent, and price is the simplest way to do that. And the quality of the event reflects the price to be sure - it's big time as far as travel conferences go.

How much? Try $3,000.

No, that's not a typo. And that's about as cheap as it gets.

I believe it's worth it, but does the company funding it agree is the question.

After airfare, hotel, etc, we're talking $5,000. If I wanted to be laughed at, I would ask for approval for that purchase without so much as blinking... but a history of conservative budgeting would incline me to not waste my breath.

It's not like I haven't already been sent to other conferences and training events this year - I have. They are just much, much less expensive.

To me, this is when an industry with decades of history and tradition can be somewhat depressing instead of inspirational like I've seen it be.

It's one of those roadblocks you encounter that prevents progress for young leaders personally and professionally, and is many times why so many leave our industry for good.

As an industry, we're perpetuating the prohibition of fresh thoughts and innovative ideas penetrating the top ranks of industry executives or circulating with trade press... all because of price.

I'm not saying that by adding a few youngsters, this will completely change. The rules are the same. What I am saying is that it will help.

Gen Y is different from the wise leaders who have come before us in many ways, in some good ways and some bad.

All we've ever known is collaboration and teamwork. It's one of the things we do best and we look to proactively create opportunities for innovation through partnerships with our networks, both personal and professional. For us, the two blend as nearly one.

Yet, ironically these events to which our companies aren't able to afford to send us are exactly where that kind of collaboration can most easily take place - face to face.

Wouldn't ya know it... I forgot my mock turtleneck & sport coat.

Last year, as I stood in a room full of 50+ men, seeing rarely a female pass by and definitely never a female within five years of my age, I realized I better relish my three rare days in the "travel industry elite" sun. Out of over 20 innovators who presented at the annual "Travel Innovators Summit" on the main stage, only one was a female... and she was running some dude's Power Point presentation.

It was like watching an episode of Mad Men, except the women weren't disrespected... they simply weren't present to begin with. I was shocked, but later told that's "just how the travel industry is."

I can accept that I've got two things working against me - my age and my sex. My hard work has gotten me where I am today, but I've got a long way to go.

And I'm fighting a losing battle as our industry tolerates under-developing young leaders, which many times forces women to explore opportunities in industries where, for the most part, women are in much greater number in top leadership positions.

At 28, in a mid-level management position just like mine, I need to see living proof that what I strive to become is possible... that it has been done successfully by a woman before me.

There was no greater recent loss to our industry in this regard than Michelle Peluso, former CEO to the home of the beloved Roaming Gnome.

And if top young performers don't have role models to look up to in their own organization like Michelle, events like PhocusWright are when they can meet the living and breathing examples in our industry of what is possible... the future meets the soon-to-be history.

It all comes down to the $crilla.

The price tag of an event like this prevents companies from ever consider it a feasible expense for young leaders, male or female, which is quite understandable and, in fact, financially responsible. Making it worse is if everyone in higher-ranking positions must be given budget priority.

This type of obstacle hurts young high-potential employees in their development as well as their companies.

It's a cycle supported by prices that treat everyone equally, but ironically that equality ends up excluding most young leaders because of the budget constraints that naturally exist for younger, less tenured employees regardless of their future potential.

Young leaders worth their salt make the experience better for all.

I'm not saying let's send anyone and everyone. Not every member of Gen Y in the travel industry is worthy of or ready for face time with an executive just because of their birthdate.

But some are, most likely including your future VPs & CEOs.

This industry is too complex for emerging leaders to not to be ready at lower level in his or her career, and we should be thrilled if we're lucky enough to have already recruited and hired that talent. The bigger question is do we know it and are we capable of retaining them until they reach their full potential?

One idea for a solution.

30 slots should be reserved each year to be awarded to the Top 30 Under 30 (or 35) young leaders in the travel industry. The media revenue opportunity for the sponsoring organization or publication around the application process, selection of winners and final announcement leading up to the event, as well as post-event coverage, could be built to more than cover costs.The result of this initiative could spark the ideas and connections that will drive the breakthrough solutions for the next generation of travel.

Additionally, this initiative could create a long-term opportunity to promote the development of young leaders in our industry, while establishing an annual recurring media revenue opportunity for the sponsoring publication.

Not only is it valuable for the chosen attendees, but more so for the top executives who, if I was a betting woman, might gladly welcome some fresh insight and challenging rhetoric with the young up and comers and get as far away as possible from the status quo.

What's the worst that could happen?

Until something like this is put into place, the industry suffers, its bench of talent rots, and its future success is limited to only as much growth as what will be desperately fought for and scrappily obtained by those young leaders, many of whom will be jaded at the end of the process.

If you gave them that extra boost of support they need today, how much more could they do for you and your company tomorrow?

One of the few travel companies that I have seen to-date recognizing the next generation of leaders in our industry and giving them a voice is Tnooz.com. I hope Tnooz's breakthrough in this area will inspire other companies to do the same and make our talent pool overall better as a result.

Passion + energy abounds from high-potential employees. Take it & use it before you lose it.

To oversimplify a complex topic, let's go do this thing. :)

The longer we hold young leaders back, the less prepared they will be to one day lead your organization, and thus the longer it will be until you can retire with the peace of mind that you are leaving the company in good hands.

Give your next generation of high-potential leaders in travel a chance to prove if their hands are, in fact, the good ones.

-SKE

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Why I love going to work every day at Sabre Holdings.

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:29:00 -0700

This July, our Young Professionals Council at Sabre Holdings offered up our skills, and by "our" I mean @marcelosomers and his video production & editing prowess, to help with our company's submission to the Great Places to Work Institute for 2010. Somehow the travel tech industry lucked out and Marcelo chose video production as his hobby and travel technology his career, instead of the reverse.

While my favorite work of Marcelo's to-date is still the intern recruiting video he created while completing his internship in 2009 (I'm partial to an artist's work before they become famous, clearly), his most recent effort below is one that details exactly why we call this large Texas-based corporation home and are inspired to come to work each and every day at a place where we are empowered to apply our passion in unique ways inside and outside of our daily jobs at Sabre Holdings.

Oh, and please feel free to ignore the cheesy girl at the end who might look oddly similar to me... but definitely is an impostor. (And FYI, our theme for the entire submission was "Destination Sabre" hence the random title at the beginning.)

Sabre Great Places to Work from Marcelo Somers on Vimeo.

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