Drew Francis

Kenya Day 4

drew — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 03:29:26 +0000

Kenya Day 3

drew — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:20:02 +0000

Kenya Day 2

drew — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:03:20 +0000

Kenya Day 1

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:19:07 +0000

Kenya Bound

drew — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:50:23 +0000

I know that I haven’t around and there are reasons for that. laziness. Well I’m about to take a trip. I will be blogging from that trip. We are heading back to Kenya. I’ve only returned to a couple countries in my life. I love it when I do. The second time around you start to get this bond. anyway. I’ll see you in a couple days. I will see this guy. I dont know who the photo bomb is.

You can have my voice

drew — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:44:10 +0000

I dont have much to say other than, Compassion you can have my voice. So people if you want to sponsor a child you’ll see a link on the lower left of this blog. If you want do donate do it HERE. Do Something.

Haiti – Compassion International from Student Life on Vimeo.

I do have some new music but who really cares.

peace

Drew

Fugees still

drew — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:13:43 +0000

I have days like this when I search my Itunes for something the reminds me of simpler times. The Fugees the score is one of those times. I remember playing these songs over and over again. The generation that I was born into are now up on deck. We are the ones having with families and we are fully into our career. We are helping to drive mainstream television and still have some markting power. Think of the most popular shows on now. Well popular shows on network tv that is, they all seem to revolve around this generation. Lost, 30 rock and I would even say the strongest story lines on the office. When you start to move down the channel listings you see our influence slipping. Maybe that’s a good thing maybe not. We are now starting to mange people younger than us. Weird when you start being the older person in the room is that what being 30 something is. When I play Fugees is that now considered old school. Well we’ll see I guess. I still love hearing “ready or not” That’s my jam.

Peace

Drew

How many trees had to die?

drew — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:48:22 +0000

Let me first say I know nothing about mailing or the habits of people when it comes to mail. I have no expertise in how it should be done and can only tell you what I’ve read and what I can imagine. I got an email from a colleague that sent me a tweet of someone who is part of the shock and awe campaign that is going on right now. They asked is it necessary to receive a tree a week? That’s a hard question. If it didnt work would we do it or if we had other methods would it work better. Just the fact that we were able to track you down through twitter should give some indication that there may be a better way, one that allows us to know you. Why don’t we add that field to our data. Yes, I’m suggesting we add a twitter field along with our email field. This person follows around eighty people that may follow another 90 people wich may follow 300 people and so and and so on.

On the cover of fastcompany this week is Ashton Kutcher also known as @aplusk Great article on new media advertising. Everyone is talking about it but not all are doing it . I think it may be fear of losing the gray haired dude who calls it some type of mojo. But how may trees have to die?I’ve actually been thinking a lot about this. But how do y0u concentrate on the product along with the means of letting people know about it? If I ask that question does that mean we are doing too much? I’ll let my boss figure that one out. What am I supposed to do?

Peace

Drew

Early Adopter

drew — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:47:43 +0000

I dont really know if I can call my self an early adopter. I usually wait for one generation before I adopt anything. This has come to mind because I’ve just became the owner of a Kindle. The Kindle is an e-reader device. It allows you to buy books, magazines and newspapers that are delivered right to your portable device. I have always enjoyed reading but it was in spurts. I would read heavy for a month or so and then not read anything for weeks. I am hoping to change that. I bought the iphone months after its release. That happened because I saw too many youth ministers walking around with them at a youth specialties event. I remember the day when I said I’ve had enough. Anyway it was great buy and so is my Kindle.

Is being an early adopter a good thing? I dont know. I got my twitter account soon after it was made public but didn’t do too much with it. We talk at work about trying to be at the front end of pop culture. Talk would be the word. We were a nimble ship and slowly we have become and destroyer still agile in the water but a little harder to turn. So what’s harder leading or following the leader. It may be safer to follow the leader but does it end it up costing you more? It may, if you miss an opportunity. I don’t want to miss an opportunity but I also what us to be around in the next 10 years. We’ll see how that goes. I have high hopes. I wish I adopted more things earlier. Maybe that will be my new years resolution. Adoption. Do you have something that I need to adopt.

Just do your job

drew — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:57:36 +0000

“Galloway: But my feeling is that if this case is handled in the same fast-food, slick-ass ‘ Persian Bazaar manner with which you seem to handle everything else, something’s gonna get missed. And I wouldn’t be doing my job if I allowed Dawson and Downey to spend any more time in prison than absolutely necessary, because their attorney had pre-determined the path of least resistance.”

I wonder how many times i’ve been frustrated with having to do something over. I don’t really know now why I was so frustrated. True, I can understand doing something over but not being given the amount of time you need to accomplish that task. But if you are given the time. If you are compensated for your time does it matter if you do a job once or twice or a hundred times.

Have you ever encountered someone who when asked to do something over asks “You know I’ll have to start over?” I’m not saying I’ve encountered that recently but it does happen. I think I’ve learned over the years that I don’t work at the pleasure of myself. My name is not on the wall as some would say. So is it better to do the job fast or the best? I think most would say best until they have to do that task over again. That may be why I try set someone up for success. I usually blame myself when something is missed or done incorrectly. I think it’s a failure on my part. Sometimes though I want to just say “Do your Job.”

Peace

Drew

Merging-departments

drew — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:52:22 +0000

Over the past 10 years I’ve had to do a couple of things that I know nothing about. Actually that can go back to college where I had a different job every year and sometimes 2. Ive been a fitness instructor, an actor, runner for a law firm, I did account receivables and much much more. Last year which was just a couple days ago I was asked to take on another part of the company. I had to do that when we put creative and technical together. It wasn’t easy but it was something. So here we are at the start of new adventure. With this one merger the males were quickly outnumbered. Conversation about films have been replaced with the bachelor conversation and I love it. All we need is to hire a black female video director and we may have a hat trick. Any way I’m looking forward to it. So how am I going to do this? I don’t really know yet. Here’s what I think.

I think inspiration counts. I dont want to be a dude that feels that his mark has to be on everything. I hope that I can inspire people to do more than I could ever do.

I think there is something about being challenged by your peers even when they don’t exactly what you do.

I think them knowing that they have a direct line to you ahead of others is a real good thing. I had meant to let the team know that. They can pull me out of a meeting or stop me in the hall. They have access. (that sounds bigger than it is)

Ok. I’ve already broken a rule and updated my blog during work hours.

Peace

drew

Drew’s year in Pictures 2009

drew — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 15:12:09 +0000

I decided that I wasn’t going to write a New Year’s post. I will instead post some pictures that I took in 2009. I added a new country, started a great relationship, celebrated ten years at the office, in a new job and sold my car. So much more happened but instead of telling you I’m going to show you. We will be back to our scheduled program on Monday. New Blog post Merging departments.

Holiday

drew — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:59:41 +0000

what I’ve been doing. see you in 2010

Adversarial Partners

drew — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:32:31 +0000

How do you work with conflict? Some of us are really good at it and some well suck. It seems more and more that I’m in a constant state of conflict. This doesn’t mean that if they were about to go over a cliff i wouldn’t grab them. It does mean that I can be pretty exhausted at the end of the day.

When dealing with this I try not to do a couple of things. One I try not to chalk it it up to a personality trait there by giving them or me a bye. I try to understand how they are feeling. That I think is pretty important. People are people and conflict can have some happy surprises. We’ll see how this partnership turns out. Happy monday to you.

drew

Body Language

drew — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:54:58 +0000

What does your body language say about you. I have a couple of tells that I know of and probably 100s that I don’t.

1. When I’m frustrated my face relaxes and I speak slower.

2. I have a forehead rub that i do when I’m done with a decision I just don’t know how to tell someone.

3. I force a smile when I’m when I know a conversation is not going well and I want to get out of it.

I tend to size people up from the first time I meet them. We all kind of do this. If I work with you I make a pretty quick decision on whether I can work with you or not. If I can’t work with you or I know that the relationship will be a rocky one I make one of these two decisions.

1. I use an intermediary no use in causing a ton of conflict if I can still get the job done. If I can’t well….

2. I point out the problem and plow through. I sometimes make light of it.

I’ve gotten to the point in my life where its just not worth the hassle. I actually have fun at work whether its arguing over some video or laughing about the huge mistake I just made. Why have a job where you hate going to work everyday? Is it worth that much to live in misery? Money? Your body language is a tell and we can all tell when you hate it. So how do you change that? You either change your body language or you change your job. I’m sure your coworkers don’t like it either.