****

“I feel sorry for you when they become teenagers.” “Dude, you’re surrounded by women.” “What did you do to deserve that?”

Being a dad of four daughters (we also have one son), I hear stuff like this almost daily. And honestly, I’m the one who feels sorry for people who think this way.

Having daughters is one of the greatest joys I could imagine. We have a saying at our house that goes like this: “I love you more today than I did yesterday.” Raising girls is a privilege, not a burden.

I certainly don’t have it all figured out, but I have learned 15 things about raising girls these last 11 years.

1. She wants to be loved. More than she wants the stuff you can buy her or the things you can teach her, she wants you to love her. No one else on earth can assume your role as daddy. Your daughter will let you down, make huge mistakes, and maybe even turn her back to you for a season, but don’t ever let her doubt your love for her. Look her in the eye and tell her you love her. Lots.

2. You have an influence on her future partner. Scary thought, but the kind of man you are to her will have a direct impact on who she chooses to marry someday. For years our third daughter would beg me to marry her when she grew up. I had to explain that I was already married to her amazing mother. If you’re doing it right, she’ll want to marry someone like you one day.

3. Listen to her music. When my girls are in my car, you’ll be able to catch us rocking out to the following Pandora stations: Taylor Swift, One Direction, Cody Simpson, Kidz Bop Radio, Katy Perry, you get the point. Not stations I’d listen to on my own—with one exception: I love Taylor Swift—but when it lights them up, it lights me up.

4. She’s watching how you treat her mom. If you take one thing out of this entire list, make it this. One of the best things you can do for your daughter is to love her mom. It’s easy to be child-centered, running from one kid activity to another. But fight for your marriage and make it a priority. The seasons of life when I lose focus on dating Brooke (my wife) are also the seasons when our children have more issues. I don’t think that’s coincidental. Love your wife, make time to date her, take her on trips, and show your kids that she is a bigger priority than they are.

5. Don’t shrink back as she grows up. Our oldest is almost 11, so we haven’t hit the dreaded teenage years, but I say bring them on. Dads who are further down the road than I am regret not being more emotionally engaged with their teenage daughters. It will be awkward for all of us, but I’m leaning right into it. Periods, boyfriends, shaving armpits, Snapchat, whatever it is. My girls won’t know any different than their dad being every bit as engaged when they’re 15 as he was when they were 5. Don’t disappear when their emotions and bodies start changing.

6. Teach her how to do a real push-up. I won’t be mistaken for Billy Blanks, but we take health and wellness seriously at our house. My girls aren’t wimps. They know how to do real push-ups. They play sports hard. They think “throwing like a girl” is a compliment, not an insult. They bring it. And more than the physical toughness, we’re raising mentally tough girls, just like their momma. In a world where femininity gets assigned far too often to princess dresses and fairy tales, my girls are tough as nails.7. Make memories. A friend once told me that my job is to be the chief memory maker of the house. It’s morbid, but I have 50 to 60 years left on this earth, tops. That’s not a ton of time, so I’m going to go hard and create as many memories with my girls as I possibly can. We celebrate big things like a 10-year-old trip, but we also take the little things seriously. Family movie nights on Friday nights. Big-breakfast Saturdays. Hikes after church. It doesn’t have to be expensive or elaborate, but it does have to be intentional. Fill up your daughter’s emotional journal with memories of being with her dad.

8. Teach her that it’s not about her. Something amazing happens when we realize that the universe doesn’t spin around us. We’re not modeling it perfectly for our girls, but we’re trying to show them that life is best lived when we give ourselves away. To serve others. To go last. To not always have to be right.

9. Show up to her events. As dads of young daughters, most of us are building careers at the same time. So it’s not possible every single time, but make the effort to get to her stuff. Even if it’s not your favorite activity. I hate the commercial of the dad at the daughter’s dance recital who is watching a football game on his phone. I love a good football game as much as the next guy, but clap as hard for your daughter’s recital as you would on your couch watching sports.

10. Proximity doesn’t equal presence. I’m guilty of forgetting this often. The simple fact that you’re there doesn’t mean you’re really there. Especially in an era of constant information and entertainment. Turn your phone off when you get home from work. Or at least put it in another room. Your daughter couldn’t care less about your Twitter feed, your emails, your fantasy football team, or your group texts. She cares about spending time with you. Playing with you. Being with you.

11. Do her hair and nails. Brooke does this 99 times out of 100, but I make it a point to tell all my girls that Daddy can make a killer ponytail. And I can paint their nails like a champ. Heck, they’ve painted mine on many occasions as well. Show her that a man can be gentle.

12. Date her. I wish I could say I do this consistently, but even once every few months is better than not at all. Dating your daughter is critical to showing her how a man should treat a woman. Call me old school, but on my dates with my girls, I open the doors, pay the bills, look them in the eye, and make them feel like a million bucks. This doesn’t have to cost a ton of money. A walk around the block. A short bike ride. A trip to the ice cream store. Doesn’t have to be fancy, but again, it must be intentional.

13. Her heart is more beautiful than her appearance. Guess what, dad? It’s your job to tell your daughter, and then remind her a million times, that what’s on the inside of her is what will make her go far in life. The heart is how we talk about it at our house, but it can be her character, her self-worth, her core. Raising girls in this sensual world isn’t easy, but they don’t have to settle for the belief that to be pretty means you must fit into a size zero or show almost every piece of your skin when you walk into a room.

14. Don’t blink. Kenny Chesney was right. She calls you daddy. Enjoy that role— it flies by.

15. Will you forgive me? I forget 1 to 14 more than I would like to admit. I’m doing my best. You are too. But when I blow it, when I hurt her feelings, and when my intentions were better than my actions, I’m learning to ask her for forgiveness. Not a simple apology, but a sincere plea for forgiveness. Model being a dad who gets down on her level and admits that you don’t have it all together. She’ll forgive you for that.

Dads, your role is a precious one. Love your daughters well.

This story originally appeared on the Huffington Post, courtesy of Justin Ricklefs.

– Professional players must conclude career in sport at age 30 or younger typically, resulting from severe injuries including frequent concussions

– Sport attendance experience requires signs in stadium reminding visitors not to use foul language or engage in taunts of opposition supporters
– Sport ownership and industry economics have driven ticket prices to $100-$300+
– Sport iconography and marketing designed to appeal primarily to adult males
– Sport often criticized by parents as un-watchable with children (or requiring serious DVR management), owing to high preponderance of adult-male-targeted advertising programmed by networks during games featuring alcohol, weapons and violence, and objectified imagery of females
– Sport has no gender parity, at any age or skill level, as sport is fundamentally designed with a game mechanic that is so violent that no leagues or versions of the sport are deemed as acceptable for female players by any society or community
– Sport only played and understood at scale in one country globally
– Sport requires highly specialized and expensive equipment, including a purpose-built ball, as well as specialized fields, goalposts, materials, etc.

– Sport includes a long and extensive set of rules which are impossible to memorize and apply without numerous officials and timekeepers at each organized game

– Sport recently introduced the prospect of a professional league game ending in (shudder) a tie

Sport 2:
– Sport rarely results in serious injuries at all skill levels, when injuries do occur they are typically strains and strains caused by lateral movement

– Professional players occasionally demonstrate negative behaviors off of the field, but this is rare and when it occurs players are typically castigated in the news media and reprimanded or suspended by teams

– Professional players often continue career into late 30’s or early 40’s, and amateurs often play well into middle age or beyond

– Sport attendance at professional and amateur levels in the U.S. (and, increasingly, globally) characterized by family-friendly atmosphere and sport’s governing bodies nationally and globally all vocally condemn negative or hateful language and harassment of any kind, whether on-field or by or among fans

– Sport ownership and industry result in significant corporate sponsorships across all professional teams, which results in subsidized teams which maintain ticket prices across a broad price spectrum and encourage diverse gender, age range, socio-economic background of live attendees

– Sport iconography and messaging includes arcane heraldry and strangely-named teams, all of which plays to traditional European sporting norms

– Sport often criticized as un-watchable by American males because it presents almost no opportunity for lascivious advertising and frequently ends in (shudder) a tie

– Sport has almost perfect gender parity (roughly equivalent number of each gender playing at each level from toddler to collegiate age, and now at professional level in several countries) of play, although significant room for more child and adult female fan growth in the U.S.  {Sport enjoys relative parity of diverse gender and age devotion globally}

– Sport played at scale professionally in almost every developed country in the world, and played among amateurs in every country on planet earth (save, perhaps, Antarctica)

– Sport requires one ball and two agreed-upon targets (or markers of a goal-line) to play, on any roughly flat surface of almost any size anywhere, and even the ball’s size and material construction may be improvised when necessary

– Sport requires working knowledge of only 2 rules in order to be played fairly by participants

… Feel free to define what being a “Long-Term Investor” means in this context. I’m investing primarily with my time as a father of three young kids and my decisions about how to direct their sport viewing, interests, attention, and fan support. I think the Economic / Financial context would likely be pretty interesting to consider also.

Long live the madmen, honestly. If only for the ample opportunities it creates for those interested in truly meritocratic rapid-rise scenarios within the ranks of a revolution of media and marketing software companies.

*Ed.note: Frontera significantly over-performs in the dinner and a glass of red category if you are looking for a fast meal at ORD, road warriors.

Saturday, Aug. 30

• Why Beards? Why Twerking? Why Now? (12:00 PM – 1:00 PM)
• Youngblood Hawke (1:45 PM – 2:30 PM)
• Wu-Tang Clan (9:45 PM – 11:00 PM)
• The Afghan Whigs (10:00 PM – 11:15 PM)

Sunday, Aug. 31

• Why Bronies? Why Juggalos? Why Now? (12:00 PM – 1:00 PM)
• Hobosexual (12:30 PM – 1:15 PM)
• Sandrider (2:00 PM – 3:00 PM)
• ScHoolboy Q (2:45 PM – 3:45 PM)
• Red Fang (3:45 PM – 4:45 PM)
• Negativland (5:15 PM – 6:15 PM)
• The Replacements (6:00 PM – 7:15 PM)
• The Moth (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM)
• Mission of Burma (7:15 PM – 8:15 PM)
• Big Star’s Third (8:00 PM – 9:15 PM)
• The Dismemberment Plan (9:00 PM – 10:00 PM)

Monday, Sep. 1

• Why Cats? Why Bullying? Why Now? (12:00 PM – 1:00 PM)
• Rose Windows (3:30 PM – 4:30 PM)
• Nada Surf (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM)
• Neon Trees (8:00 PM – 9:15 PM)
• Real Estate (9:00 PM – 10:00 PM)
• Foster the People (9:15 PM – 10:30 PM)

Favorites generated from the mobile app available here: http://essaie.ca/app/bumbershoot-2014

I am indebted to Brendan Moorcroft and Quentin George for always providing both a broad strategic perspective on the adtech market as well as honest points-of-view on where I should focus specifically. I am extremely impressed with how they have already shaken up the market with their new(ish) venture \UNBOUND\ — and I’m not surprised they are already attracting more senior talent to join them. No one has provided me with better, more candid professional insight and advice than these two people over the last 4 years. I hope that they will call in a favor or two from me in the years ahead.

Kurt Vonnegut advised a group of graduates one time, “So get a gang.” Over dinner last night with my wife, I commented that my two years working in the digital division at Mediabrands was really the only time in my career when I felt like I had that. I valued – and enjoyed – the time working with my digital compatriots Angela Steele, Mike Brunick, Nicole Craine, Neeraj Kochar, and several others primarily because it felt like we always had each other’s best interests at heart when things were challenging. It’s the only time I’ve experienced what group leadership feels like in the workplace, and I hope to be able to create a similar dynamic with future teams.

Two mentors / career coaches / smart dudes have been exceedingly ‘tough but fair’ in their advice to me over the last 5 years or so. Kevin Corcoran has been there for me in this capacity for more than 2 decades now, and he knows all the skeletons in my career closet to boot. Marc Sagal has a knack for telling you what you already suspect about yourself but framing it in what others know but aren’t telling you. Tough but fair – the advice you need to receive, at the time you need it, but which most people are either too close or too distant to share with you. I suspect I’ll be relying on them more in the years ahead, as well.

During the first half of 2014, I had one of the most liberating and interesting career experiences yet — enabled by the generosity and open spirits of Chris DeVore and Andy Sack. These two Seattle startup / angel / entrepreneurs / good dudes let me spend the better part of 5 months in an informal EIR gig at Founders Co-op. I can’t remember when I’ve had so much fun in my career. With their good-natured endorsement, I hovered around the edges (and sometimes dove deep) into the Founders/TechStars hive in South Lake Union from January to May. I was able to re-connect with the Seattle entrepreneurial and venture finance communities, to meet scores of ambitious and inspiring founders, and to have the right sort of brain-space and office-space to do a ton of research into the mobile and adtech SaaS fields. Through it all Chris remains a good friend, and I’ll be indebted for some time to him for opening his doors and investment portfolio companies to me as I sharpened my thinking about what I wanted to do next.

Along the way during these past 6 months or so, I’ve had numerous rich and insightful conversations about my own interests and where the larger adtech and marketing software marketplace is headed with various Seattle-based digital luminaries. Among the most memorable have been chats both formal and informal with Jessica Michaels, Shauna Causey, Michelle Goldberg, Sanjay Puri, and several of the partners at Madrona. And perhaps the deepest professional gratitude – and respect – that I have in my local community is for my friend and prior business partner Ben Straley, who is deservedly charting an exciting new course on mobile for everyone’s favorite global coffee company.

Some time ago, I wrote a blog post about the importance of Community in supporting entrepreneurial endeavors in the Pacific Northwest — where we are a bit of a distance away from the perceived power-centers of the Bay Area and NYC for marketing technology and media innovation. My experiences over the last year or so have only deepened my beliefs on this topic. I am grateful to all of the people mentioned above – and many others – for their support as I once again pursue a slightly new direction and set of challenges in my career. I’m sure I’ll call on several or most of them again in the near future, as I have become a big believer in the benefit of crowd-sourcing emotional and intellectual support for high-speed, high-stakes entrepreneurial endeavors where “we” always tend to do better than “me”. Lastly I can’t close a post like this without mentioning the gratitude I *always* feel, day in and day out, for the depth of understanding that Mandy Levenberg displays for all of my professional ambitions. We’ve done a great job of counter-balancing each other over the last 14 years – with one person providing a measure of stability while the other takes on a little more risk, and vice versa. As Mandy is setting off on her own adventure of starting not 1 but 2 (!!) new businesses this year, I hope to be able to provide some of the stability and balance for her during the ups and downs of new ventures that she has provided to me at key moments.

I can’t imagine living and working anywhere else at this point in my career and life. And I can’t be more grateful than I am now for the support which all of these people have provided to me in recent years. So thanks. And, onward…

After 7 years of co-founding, building, managing, and then directing the integration of Spring Creek into Mediabrands and IPG following our acquisition in 2011, I recently decided that the prospect of a little extra time with my family and the chance to explore new potential career avenues for myself was too much to resist.  A few more volunteer hours at my daughters’ school + the desire to investigate new entrepreneurial avenues are things that I am keen to begin following the official conclusion of my tenure at Spring Creek and IPG this week.  I take pride in knowing that I will depart SCG having given everything that I could to it.  The memories and experiences I have built with Spring Creek’ers (and notably some of the very earliest ones with my co-founder and friend Ben Straley) have been among the true highlights of my life.  I leave deeply indebted to every SCG employee who took a chance on their career by choosing to work with us.  I can only hope that, like me, many of our past and current team look back on these 7 years as a successful experiment in building a mission-driven company based upon shared values and collegial respect.  

I will leave equally grateful for the support of our many technology partners, our fellow agency partners, and most importantly our for-profit and not-for-profit clients.  Without their willingness to partner with SCG, we would have been just a group of ambitious and risk-taking social media devotees camped out up here in our overcast (but beloved) corner of the country.  I simply cannot express here the depth of my gratitude to all who challenged me, and us, to be something more than just a wacky digital agency startup.  My personal and professional lives became fully intertwined during these 7 years, in the best possible ways.  Despite the challenges encountered along the way, I wouldn’t have traded a moment of it for any other job or endeavor.  

I will be taking a little time after wrapping everything up for myself in the next few days to consider what I find as cool, interesting, ground-breaking, and potentially valuable for brands and customers to work on for the next few years. I am sure I will find it difficult to locate anything as exciting as I found the nascent emergence of social media many years ago, in the earliest days of Spring Creek’s formation.  To those who know me well, and who find themselves reading this post in the next several days, weeks, and months: I encourage you to reach out to me and share your own thoughts on this topic with me… I’ll gladly buy you the delicious beverage of your choice in exchange!

Thank you to my team – now not only in Seattle, but also in San Francisco, New York, London, and a few other key outposts around the world. Keep up the good fight and remember: when it comes to innovative marketing, (1) less=more, &, (2) customers always come first.  Thank you to all of my past and present peers + colleagues across Mediabrands and IPG. In just 2 short years, I learned so much from all of you and I always felt respected and warmly included in our greater shared goals.  Thank you to my family – and my ‘extended family’ of social media industry fast-movers and professional circle in Seattle – who supported me in countless ways both private and public throughout this journey.  I leave with a heart full of gratitude and appreciation for you all. This was probably the strongest motivation I had to select now as the right time to depart in favor of something new and challenging for myself.

Not much more to be said, therefore, than…

Onward.

– Clay

To: @SeattlePD

Hi. This morning on my commute to work by bike, a minivan passed me (quite closely – let’s say he was not aware of, or observant of, the ‘Give Three Feet’ rule) while I was travelling in a marked/painted bike lane in Wallingford. The van then shaded over on top of the bike lane to wait at the intersection stop sign. When I passed around the van on the left in order to prepare to go straight at the same intersection, the minivan driver identified himself as an off-duty Seattle Police Department officer and informed me that what I had just done was illegal. I informed him that I was forced to switch from the bike lane into the auto traffic lane and to pass him on the left because he was illegally occupying my bike lane. [As I observe drivers doing all the time in Wallingford, Fremont, and downtown in preparation for turns or just out of a lack of awareness that bike lanes are not to be occupied by cars at any time.] The driver insisted that he was correct, and that I was wrong – and that he had a right to occupy the bike lane with his car, while I did not have a right to leave the lane to pass his car. My question is this: Is it true that bikes are NOT allowed to leave a painted/allocated bike lane in order to merge into, and pass around, traffic waiting to turn at an intersection – EVEN when cars are stopped and occupying our bike lane while they wait? Please clarify — if this is true, I would find it surprising but would like to know for the future so I don’t make more off-duty police officers or others so angry. Thanks in advance.

Signed,

@claymcdaniel