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The Definition of Love
I’m also asking people, “How do you know,” “What’s it feel like?” I never really get a straight answer or the one I’m looking for. Few, if any, are able to articulate their thoughts around loving someone else. But, I thought this post did an interesting job. So much so, that I wanted to repost the piece here in it’s entirity. You can find the original version here.
You can stop taking quizzes in Cosmo. Here’s what love really is.
Love is still wanting to hold someone after you climax. After the initial euphoria from the orgasm wears off, you’re replaced with a sense of calm rather than a panic. You don’t want to search for your clothes, scramble to find your keys and figure out the best way to tell them, “See ya later forever!” You’re fine with chilling out in bed with the person and maybe ordering pad thai later.
Love is unattractive. It can expose our worst traits: Jealousy, irrational fears, heated anger; the gang’s all here! While it can bring out compassion and tenderness, it can also make you behave like the ugliest version of yourself. That can be okay for a little while, but love with real longevity should be like a xanax rather than an adderall.
Love is not afraid to be schmaltzy. There’s a reason why the most popular love songs are so lyrically simple. You can drown it in metaphors all you want but love usually boils down to, “You make me so happy. I want to hold your hand. I just want u 2 be mine 4ever!” You can be a 50-year-old linguistics professor at Columbia University and still find something to relate to in a Mariah Carey ballad if you’re in love because the feelings are so universal. It’s humbling, isn’t it? No matter who you are or what your background is, love can reduce you to Mariah Carey mush.
Love is an all-consuming drug. It gives us these natural highs we’ve only read about in books or heard in songs. It’s addictive. It’s what keeps us going to bars, drinking glasses of wine, going to that stupid house party in Bushwick; it’s all for the possibility of finding love. In the wrong hands, love can be dangerous and scary. If someone lacks a healthy foundation, love can kill. All of these crimes you read about in the newspapers are usually linked to passionate love. “I did it because I loved them just…too much.”
Love is not what our parents had. In high school, you never wanted to think about your mother and father having once slept with people in the backseat of cars and feeling warm and happy. That would make it feel less special and young. It would make love have less to do with you when, EXCUSE ME, it has EVERYTHING to do with you.
Love is getting drunk with your significant other at a party and taking a cab home with your bodies intertwined. You feel safest in these moments, the most secure. Entering a social gathering with someone who loves you is the biggest security blanket. People leave the party as a parade of droopy expressions and sad cocktail dresses. But not you. “Sorry guys, I’m in love! I’m taking a car!”
Love is fucking stupid. Love is fucking smart. Love is about betraying yourself, of compromising your ideals for someone else’s approval. That’s actually the bad kind of love, but I guess it all blurs together when you’re young or when you’re old or when you don’t love yourself.
Love is your significant other telling you about their favorite album and then making a point to fall in love with it on your own. Love is wondering why your better half loves certain things. You think you can find remnants of them in their favorite films, books and songs, but you usually can’t.
Love is finding yourself feeling protective over someone else’s well-being Love is being incensed with rage when someone or something has done your lover wrong.
Love is wanting your partner to cum. And if they can’t, just say, “That’s okay. I’m enjoying this.” It might be bullshit, but they’ll be orgasming in the next five minutes. Trust me.
Love isn’t always marriage. Marriage is spending $60,000 so everyone can know that someone loves you. You know what’s certainly not love? Debt. In some cases, love can be divorce.
Love is a back massage, a mindfuck, a hard cock, a pair of perfect breasts, of feeling unashamed about the cellulite on your body. Love is someone giving a shit about you enough to argue. Love is not passive. Love is “Don’t fucking touch me right now.” Love is “Who the FUCK were you talking to?” Love is sometimes hating yourself for a second. Love is hate. Period. Indifference is the real killer of love and the true antithesis.
When love leaves you, you should be lying on your bathroom floor with no resolve. You’re smoking cigarettes in the bathtub and crying about everything bad that’s ever happened.
Love is someone seeing the beauty in you and wanting to bask in it every day all day. Love is not guaranteed. We are not owed love. That’s why when we get it, we know how lucky we are and hold on to it for dear life.
So, yeah. That’s what love is. Anyone know where to get some?
The Best Commercial of the 2012 London Olympics
With every major televised event, there’s always that one brand with a stand out commercial. In 2008, it was Visa’s Go World. This year, for the 2012 Olympics, the below commercial from AT&T was my favorite. It shows why, once again, speed wins.
Curious how they inserted real-time footage and scores into their commercials? You can read about it here.
Posted in Advertising, Sports, Video
Why USA Lost in the London 2012 Olympics
Where to start with the 2012 Olympic Games? Not to be overshadowed, the feats of dedication, perservenrance and spirit shown by all the participating athletes was nothing short of amazing.
Leading up to the Olympics, there was a lot of talk about this being the first “social” Olympics. In the four years since Beijing, the online landscape was markedly different. 100 million vs. 900 million Facebook users, 6 million vs. 500 million twitter accounts. Add to that the new darlings of the space, Instagram and Pinterest who weren’t even blips on the population’s radar. In fact, more tweets about the 2012 Olympics occurred in a single day around Olympic trials than ALL tweets surrounding the Beijing Games in 2008.
With those stats and as a marketer, I was beyond exited to watch these games unfold. Unfold they did.
- In today’s news-now world, NBC couldn’t keep it secret that they cut UK’s tribute to 7/7 victims (their version of 9/11), the ignorance of the announcers who pronounced countries incorrectly, didn’t know who the inventor of the Internet or UK’s final torch bearer was and that even on their own network, spoilers were rampant. Personal Note: Yes, NBC did ruin the Olympics for me. I stopped watching their coverage on Day 3, opting for no TV coverage, because it was so awful.
- Racist tweets from athletes to threats from fans, social media brought the worst of people into the limelight.
- Last, but certainly not least, the up close and personal journey of athletes. By far, this was my favorite part. From pictures like this and this to being able to send in the moment personal messages directly to athletes. WOW. What an unforgettable experience. This is the magic of social media. This is why I love i
From a marketer’s perspective, #London2012 had three big lessons:
- We (aka the World) still do not have the needed technology infrastructures in place. Communication via mobile is still a challenge, no matter how many precautions or preparations are put in place.
- Better and clearer connection points should be made by Olympic “leaders”. #2012London, #Olympics, #2012Olympics, the list goes on. Sure, you’ll never corral everyone into using the same hashtag, but airing one in the corner like other TV shows would have helped immensely.
- The majority of the population had no idea about #nbcfail or the Olympic “back channel”. When I shared some of it, my mom was shocked and amazed. She had no idea the coverage was even tape delayed.
- Forget about ratings and revenue and IOC rules. What #NBCfail really did was rob the world of an opportunity to share and connect with each other that was never before possible.
For the sake of the “next generation” that was showcased in Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony, I hope that the 2016 Rio Olympic Games coverage does a better job of representing a united WORLD vs. just USA Athletes.
Need vs. Want
I had a great conversation with a dear friend the other night about relationships. The conversation got me thinking, and I tweeted “I don’t want you to *need* me, I want you to *want* me. #deepthoughts.”
We read relationship articles and listen to significant others say, “I want you to need me.” In many long distance relationships, one of the challenges is one party feels the other is having “too much fun” without them. They fear that their life is complete. That by having too much fun, they are not needed by the other person. This thinking often causes a lot of rifes and stress. It often causes both parties to not live a full life; always worried that by doing so, they will hurt the other person’s feelings.
It reminds me of the age old saying, “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” We all know the true meaning of that statement. A friend in need might be great today, but they will never be a true friend. They are only a friend until they no longer need something from you.
It reminded me that I never want to be in a relationship where I’m needed. I want to me in a relationship where I’m wanted. I want my other half (whomever that may be) to have a 100% full and satisfying life without me. I want them to love life, be passionate about the things they do and be fully functional when I’m not around, whether it’s a few hours or a few weeks. I want to be the cherry on top of someone’s life. I want to be a part of someone’s life because I’m wanted there, not because I’m needed.
The same can hold true for careers. I don’t necessarily want to be hired because I’m needed. I don’t want to be hired because the company is in such a state of disarray that they need a clean up crew. I want to be hired because the company thinks I’m the very best in my field, not because they need a bandaid to fix things.
When you’re entering into a relationship – friend, lover, business – make sure it’s because you’re wanted. Being needed is only going to get you only so (unsatisfyingly) far.
The Other Side of Swimming
Being able to create things like this in the midst of training for the 2012 London Olympics is just one more reason why I love swimming.
Customers Need to Step Up
For the last several years, companies have been working to understand social media for marketing purposes. Then, they started to work to understand how to add it into their Customer Service toolset. With the onset of social, customers’ expectations changed. No longer was it acceptable to get a response in 48-72 hours via email or wait on hold for 2 hours, no, when customers tweeted a complainant or service issue, they wanted an immediate response. Companies recognized this and worked to scale towards this new set of expectations. Some, particularly in the travel industry, have done a phenomenal job. It’s a rare day that I don’t get an immediate response from brands like Starwood, Delta or AT&T. Love them or hate them, these are some of the brands who have really integrated social media networks into their customer service toolset at a scalable level.
As companies continue to scale and the space continues to move at a record breaking pace, it’s time. It’s time that customers step up and start reciprocating. If you as a customer want a “personalized experience,” a “one to one” connection with a brand, then you have to give something back. And, you have to give more than your cold, hard cash. Customers need to start being comfortable with handing over data. No, it doesn’t have to be every detail of your life. It could be as simple as this:
Instead of saying, “@ATT you suck,” the complainant could be reframed as, “@ATT Power Outage in 43219 area. When can you send a tech?”
If customers want to be recognized, then things like Googling passengers or providing personal data via Facebook Connect has to be commonplace. The practice of cookie’ing so future emails and advertising is personalized needs to be allowed.
For the last several years, brands have stepped up their game. Now, to get to the next level, it’s time for customers to step up.
Posted in Rant, Social Media, Work
The Value of Focus
Have you heard of the 80/20 rule? If you haven’t, Pareto’s Principle aka the 80-20 rule, says that 80% of an event’s outcomes comes from 20% of the causes. The rule can be applied to many things – from content curation to readers vs. commenters to the percent of people who keep you in business 
Pareto’s Principle is a well proved out theory. Then, why, oh why, do the majority continue to focus on the 80% that are not driving your business?
My favorite latest example of this rule in action is the land grab to own some of the new domain extensions. The application fee for each domain is $185,000. A steep price to pay for the chance of getting an extension approved. Application price be damned, Google applied for 101 extensions… a whopping $18.7M in fees. I guess when you’re Google you can spend money like that on the right to bid In addition to some of their “branded” terms, they also put in applications for extensions like .baby, .live, .love, .wow.
Then, there’s Apple. Apple has some brands too – iPod, iPhone, Mac, etc. Yet, Apple only put in one application – for .apple. Now, that’s focus. A focus that saved them $18.5MM right off the bat. A focus that saved them hours of manpower in filling out paperwork. A focus that’s sure to get their request approved; for exactly what they want. A focus that shows the world that they know exactly what they want and where they’re headed.
Next time you’re browsing your “To Do” list, focus on the 20% that will get you 80% of the way, not the other way around.
Posted in Work
Everyone Thinks They’re an Expert
With the rise of social media, do it yourself platforms and the popular notion that you can be an “expert” at anything within 4 weeks a la Tim Ferris, I can’t decide whether I’m sad or pissed.
I’m sad that social media campaigns these days are lackluster and siloed. They’re boring. They don’t match nor do they support other marketing pieces (i.e. in store, email, billboards, etc.). I’m sad that today’s generation of social media “experts” have never learned the basics of concepting a marketing campaign nor properly presenting a holistic POV. I’m also saddened that people think that you can become an expert marketer in 4 weeks time. What ever happened to the idea behind Gladwell’s 10,000 hour theory? Even if you worked 24 hours every day for 4 weeks, that only amounts to 672 hours; a far cry from 10,000 hours.
I’m pissed for the same reasons that I am sad. Any Tom, Dick or Harry who reads a Mashable article or sees a Pinterest infograph suddenly thinks they’re an expert. They wholeheartedly believe that if it works for one brand, it must be 100% right for every other brand- from luxury to wholesale from B2C to B2B.
What are we doing about it as an industry? NOTHING. Greedy Ad Sales Execs are allowing PR pros with NO media buying experience to buy media without even understanding their options or goals. How do I know this? Because I get daily emails asking me what is a $15 CPM and how do they tell their client what the cost is. Seriously.
The twitterati pat themselves on the back for cute quips and band together when anyone steps in with a alternate opinion. Conferences and weekly twitter chats like #likeablechat are the same people, the same superficial and recycled quips that we’ve been seeing for years.
So, while I know they’re too busy getting their hands dirty, will the real experts please stand up?