If your work meetings suck, this is for you.

Recently, an app called Charlie scored an Accelerator Finalist award at SXSW.

Charlie has one goal: prior to your next business meeting, get to know your co-workers and other people involved in the meeting. Charlie filters through available data online and presents profiles of meeting participants so that you can get to know more about them for the meeting. It can even send alerts to you if there’s anything in common with another participant in the meeting.

It’s a little Big-Brother-y, but I guess the thought is that if you know a bit more about that person… what they like, what they do… that you can have a better meeting. 

Charlie is just in Beta testing so, for now, companies have to rely on their existing resources to make meetings productive.

So, during your meetings, are your employees not engaged?  Is it low energy? Is everyone playing with their phone?  Are YOU playing with your phone?

It sounds like your meetings need a facelift… or a full body transplant.

By being more creative, allowing more freedom, having fun, your employees can look forward to meetings that are productive and valuable.

Here’s how to make your meeting totally rock:

  • Start with an icebreaker.   This can be as easy as “What’s everyone’s favorite movie?”  This frees up the tension that employees would have about speaking up.  Everyone gets to learn a little more about their co-workers. Keep this in mind: a very effective icebreaker can transition to the first topic of discussion.
  • Add music.  Totally eliminate the memory of your boring meetings by always starting your new meeting with high energy. 
  • Eliminate the hierarchy.  King Arthur did this with the Knights of the Round Table. All of your employees should feel very comfortable speaking and sharing ideas in your meetings. 
  • There are no bad ideas.  Sometimes, a great idea sprouts from a terrible one. 
  • Celebrate success.  It’s so important to recognize individual and collective successes. Share. Get your employees involved.    
  • Be a hero to your coworkers.  Set a firm start and end time. 

Encourage your employees to be creative.  They will thank you with their enthusiasm and provide you with rich ideas for your clients.

Love. 

Leonard Cohen Afterward

It was NYE 1998.  A very potential new roommate invited to me to his NYE party which he insisted would be fab.  I was excited to make out with someone at midnight, get hammered, have something amazing happen.  Instead, I had to endure his girlfriend full court press me in his own kitchen, in hallways…..multiple times to hook up with her at the party.  “Hook up” is being polite for this post.  I was freaked.  Did I tell him?  Did I just go through with it?  She was super attractive, but it was so not my thing.  And this poor guy set up these awkward weird games for us to play.  His NYE party was such a bust.  I got kinda drunk.  And here I am…..SOMEWHERE in Queens and I have no idea where I am, where the subway is and there are ZERO cabs.  A stranger from the party who I will never remember had a car and offered to take me the long way home to Brooklyn.  And she put in a copy of Leonard Cohen’s Greatest Hits.  I asked who it was and she told me.  We sat in total silence on the way to my flat.  Leonard Cohen’s music is beautiful, sad and lovely.  But sometimes, when I listen, I go back to that quiet, lonely ride home. 

Day One. No Soda

So, I made a pact to not drink any more sodas beginning today.

I binged over the weekend drinking a Mtn Dew Code Red, 2 Sun Drops and as many Coke as possible.   I even had a Miller High Life night cap last night. 

So, my two year old is up till after midnight trying to shake off the sugar high she had from being at my parents.  I’m delirious and frustrated.  When I wake up, I am so groggy I have to throw cold water on my face.

Then….my 2 year old rolls off her big sister’s bed.  Crash.  Bummer.  She’s fine, but it freaks me out so much, my muscles are still tense and sore and it’s noon.

I had to get a pick me up this AM, so I decided to get a Red Bull…..sugar free.  Now, I am about to go to lunch and all I can think of is having a soda.  We might have sushi or even pizza…….but I want a soda. 

It’s like crack.   See for your self.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403942n

Sorry

Sorry dear Tumblr.

I have neglected your ass, so that I can have a Podcast, a daughter, a mortgage and a sleeping problem.

I miss you.

Love,

Me.

My Extraordinary Wednesday

This morning began a little before 6am.  I awoke, showered and started preparing breakfast for the ladies.  I took our little girl to day care and ran into the lady that asked me a few days ago if I wanted to “microwave her bottle for 30 seconds.  We don’t do that here.”  I made her repeat it just to prove my point.  She’s the assistant director apparently and she her first name sounds like a stripper.  She…does not look like a stripper.

I threw myself into work.  We had a great meeting and talked about giving away a vehicle using primarily social networking, discussed a menu item called “Pig Lickers” and listened to Arcade Fire.

Then, we went to the CW station and taped a bit we created to giveaway front row and meet and greet concert tickets.  It was a relay race we created where men had to paint toenails, put lipstick on their ladies and the payoff was them putting on our radio station shirts and running to the finish line.  It was awesome.  Our AM Drive person couldn’t make it.  So it’s just noon and I’ve already been on TV.

There were several little unplanned meetings in the afternoon.  Our interns arrived and their first task was to rid our building of Wheat Thins.  We had dozens and dozens of boxes of Wheat Thins that had been laying around and had expired.  They took care of this task in addition to rearranging and cleaning up a big room we had used for storage of old desks, computers and filing cabinets.  They did all of this in less than an hour.

The twist in my day was when the manager of the restaurant next door came to our office to complain that there was no room in the dumpsters to put their trash.  We had filled their dumpsters with Wheat Thins.  And some of their employees were literally just taking them out to take home.  So, the day isn’t over, I have been on TV and now I am digging boxes out of a dumpster.  It’s the worst dumpster in the universe, so we couldn’t actually get inside it.  

Competition sometimes is fierce.  So instead of getting mad, you have to get out of the box and figure out another way to win.  So with one phone call, I set up a live broadcast where the first 103 people to stop by get a free slice of pizza.  

Then someone that works directly with my wife has a medical emergency.

I have to bail work to pick up both kids. So then I spent an hour on a playground with both of my little girls and it was wonderful.   There’s really nothing fucked up to talk about.  Just an extraordinary day.  

Zoso.

Zoso.

Led Zeppelin Tribute Band

Well, yes. Due to my work, there are sometimes things I have to do that I would normally step out of my body and kick my own ass.  I would normally not even attend a wedding at White Castle, but I am coordinating one apparently.  So, here I am.  Watching a guy wearing an outfit that looks exactly like the one Jimmy Page wore in the 70s with what looks like a wig. He looks more like Tom Keifer from Cinderella that Jimmy Page, but hats off to the guy:  he’s a fucking awesome player and his rig was fantastic.  Their drummer actually looked like John Bonham and made all of the playing seem effortless.  John Paul Jones looked nothing like the real guy.  Kinda like the Ringo in Beatles look-a-like bands. Anyway, I’m listening to “Heartbreaker” and a random guy next to me remarks about how great the band is.  I agree.  He then says “so, do you have a blog?”  I reply affimative.  He asks what it’s about and I say “me.”  He says “mine too.”  And we have an awkward moment and he steps away.  Fucking weird.  

"Alcoholica"-Teenage Fanclub with Alex Chilton on Vox

In 1995, I was at a music ghindustry function in the Big Easy.  It eventually crawled into the night before Mardi Gras and got really out of control.  There were many memorable things from this trip:

1. Watching Sebadoh get booed loudly and have Lou Barlow run directly into me and knock over my drink

2.  Go talked into going into a “booth” in the French Quarter where you plugged quarters into an old school 8mm machine to watch dirty movies

3. Having dinner with Lords of Acid while drinking a Jalapeno Martini (which everyone at my table tried and found to be revolting)

4. Being hungover, late and wearing the same clothes from the night before where my work was nominated for a very prestigious award

5. Setting off the fire alarm in a friends hotel room 

What I remember most was at a very fancy dinner one night where I traveled most of the evening with my friend Corey.  I remember I had on very nice suit that evening.  It was the only meal of the week where everything was somewhat civilized.  I was engrossed in conversation when Corey tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Mark, this is Alex Chilton.”  He did this in a way as if I said, “hey man, here’s the potato salad.”  It was so casual that I was totally off balance.  I can handle most social situations, but here I was holding Alex Chilton’s hand and just staring at him. I muttered something very generic out it being a pleasure to meet him.  It was over quickly and I was so disappointed.  Later that evening, I went to an open bar freakfest and Corey handed me a copy of his CD “Cliches” and said he was signing them.  I stood in line like a teenager at the mall and got up to meet Alex again.  He remembered me, but unlike earlier, he was really shitfaced.  Quite visibly shitfaced.  He was smoking and the ash on the cigarette had burned so far it was just about to break off.  He had one of those silver old school paint shiny pens that had the ball in the pen when you shook it. I thought it was really fucking cool and when I mentioned it, he said “Class kid.  Class.”  Just then, the ash fell off onto his pants (which were black).  He looked at the mess for a moment and then just rubbed it off and mumbled “Class kid.  Class.”  

I love Big Star and Alex Chilton influenced some of my favorite musicians.  He made such an impact on so many people, but I met the guy.  He liked to get shitfaced like anybody else.  And that night, he was working, just like we do.  

He just had a really cool pen.

Cadillac Sign Said No Money Down

I was only 11 years old and my parents left me at home by myself.  It was a Saturday night.  I hadn’t discovered trouble yet, so I am sure I was watching MTV or something rather innocent.  After 10pm, our phone started ringing. My parents always allowed me to answer the phone and it was a call from not one of my parents. They were elated and so excited about something that I was unaware had happened.

My parents had bought a couple of tickets in a reverse raffle.  A reverse raffle is where the LAST ticket pulled wins.  The prize for this particular raffle was a brand new Cadillac Sedan Deville.  My dad bought 3 tickets and the last one pulled was his.   My parents drove a Buick Skylark and my dad had an El Camino.  He did have a Silverado pick-up for hauling cows.  But, we had space heaters, a gravel drive way, a tin car port with holes in it.  This…..was indeed a turning point with my parents status in the community.  It also was my welcome mat into my dad’s insane gambling problem.

The white Sedan Deville was traded for a brown Sedan.  My mother hated it and called the color turd brown.  She hated that fucking car.  It was totally bad ass.  

So, one day I am with both of my parents and I am not quite 16.  My dad and I drop my mom off to shop somewhere and unbeknownst to me or my mom, my dad was going to trade the car.   He walked directly into the show room and was confronted by a sales guy.  ”How can I help you?”  was immediately met with $6,000 in cash and my dad pointed the the car in the middle of the show room, then at our car and laid out his deal to trade the two.  As you can imagine, the salesman stalled immediately.  He left and another guy begin to explain to my dad that it would be an extra $1,200 for the tires.  These were “premium” tires according the the other salesman.  My dad had no shame with using profanity in public and sometimes, it was hard not to think he was a bad ass.  He told them they were trying to fuck him over and he wasn’t going to pay them any extra.  The deal was $6,000 which more than covered what he consider the Blue Book to be versus the sticker on the new car.  Still, the car guy wouldn’t budge.  So my dad took out a quarter and said “I’ll flip you for it.”  ”What?” said the salesman.  My dad explained again the deal and let the sales guy call it.  He called heads and lost.  The salesman stormed off.  Those guys made us wait around forever to get this car.  I don’t even know how fucking long we were gone, but I remember being admonished by my dad for being impatient.   This happened ever after my dad asked the guys “what kind of a fucking car lot do you fuckers have running here?”

It was a dark brown Fleetwood.  It was the longest car we ever owned and looked like a huge turd.  My mom stood up as we approached and then looked at the car and dropped her bags.  

One turd is just the same as another.  Unless it’s a Cadillac.