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Wind, Tree and Fire

Friends, This past Tuesday brought with it a whirlwind. I’m not talking about marketing activity, although there was plenty of that. I’m talking literally! Looking out of our Broomfield office windows, you could see the street signs bending, tumbleweeds smashing into cars and plastic bags zipping by at 86 MPH. There was even a breeze in the second floor corridors (all that air being sucked out of the building through the first floor front doors –propped open by gale force winds!) On the drive home, a couple of fences had fallen, a couple of rooftops looked mangled and a couple of stop lights stopped working. Then there was the tree toppled in my back yard, which fortunately managed to miss my fence, gazebo and siding. While we’ll miss its shade, it provided an obstacle course for Tina, our dog and firewood for my pyromaniac family (alright, for me!).
You’ll notice I resisted my impulse to make corny Wind-stream tie-ins. I also resisted going out of my way to Wind-chill’s donuts (or …
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Donuts, here for your safety!

Friends, This week I discovered our Denver North office has a Bitcoin Teller Machine (BTM). What?!? A convenient way to cash-out on all your Bitcoin millions before the hype wears-off. Except, this teller only TAKES your hard-earned dollars and converts them to Bitcoin. It does not DISPENSE hard currency. What’s the use case for that? Never mind, duh! It’s the general scenario that will ensure Bitcoin never goes to zero (despite recent trends). Crime! Say you are a crime boss (or petty criminal) who wishes not to have your transactions traced. An anonymized crypto-currency is the perfect vehicle to contract for that hit job, buy and sell stolen goods or funnel your monies far from prying eyes. But what if your cash business still accepts, well, cash? What do you do with all that clunky paper? Depositing it at your bank so you can buy your crypto online defeats the whole scheme. Enter the BTM. First you rent some office space at Spaces (which, by the way, makes for a great front). The…
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Tariff-Free Donuts

Friends, Sitting on the sidelines of the tariff escalation between the U.S. and China sort of feels like watching an argument between two five year olds. Let’s call them Jimmy and Danny –any similarity to real names of world leaders is pure coincidence. Jimmy has been making Danny help him with his homework as a condition to letting him play games on his Playstation. Danny is not too happy about it so he pushes Jimmy. “O yea?” says Jimmy and pushes Danny back. Danny punches Jimmy. Jimmy punches back. Before you know it, a playground fight breaks-out. Except, the only ones getting a black eye are consumers, watching helplessly as they are forced to foot the bill for all this child’s play. Fortunately, to my knowledge, there are no tariffs being considered on donuts –yet. This week as we inaugurate the new Denver North office, we’re celebrating with a dozen LaMar’s donuts. So come on over and grab one before they’re targeted and prices go up.
Happy Friday!

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Happy donuts, good Friday

Friends, It’s that time of year again. Chocolate bunnies are at the peak of egg laying season and children of all ages are dusting-off their baskets to hunt-down the great dyed egg. Winter is losing its grip as humans of all sizes change their wrappings to pastel colors and ready for their semi-annual church visit. Soon lawn sprinklers will paint our high desert green again as snow making sprinklers will cease to paint the mountains white. Days grow longer, clothing grows lighter and trees grow leaves. Spring is here and I’ve decided to join the spring break (if only for a day). I’m briefly visiting Caribou Coffee to deliver donuts to my colleagues and then off to enjoy the change of season. Happy Good Friday!
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The Best of Intentions

Friends, On my drive to Caribou Coffee this morning I noticed concrete trucks at big dry creek trail. It seems they’re spending a pretty penny to ruin one of my favorite gravel running trails -although I’m sure that’s not how they see it. Kind of like my dog Tocho thinks of Canada geese as “tasty treat factories” or my neighbors frowning on my not separating recyclables from trash I picked-up from the street during a run. The folks funding this project probably are not runners and probably assume everyone will appreciate it -the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Speaking of good intentions, I’ve been in back-to-back meetings this morning so even though I intended to send this out before 8, I’m just now getting to it. And, apropos “tasty treats” I have dozen donuts ready to consume for anyone still planning to make it. Happy Friday!

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Phishing Expedition

Friends,
The security team' phishing test got me thinking scammers could use a little marketing know-how. After all, if you look at the telltale signs of a phishing campaign, they’re all very solvable. What if we were to start an ad agency that focuses on the phishing industry. It could be called “5K Consulting” (after the 5,000 fish-fed biblical multitude). Our pitch to prospects would go something like this: Phishing is a numbers game where only three numbers matter: the number of emails you send, the number of clicks you get and the number of “phish” you catch. Any improvement to these metrics improves your bottom line. At 5K Consulting, we’re committed to helping you get more clicks. Our proven methods will reduce the number of e-mails caught in spam filters and dramatically improve open and click-through rates. Techniques like “spell check” and “grammar check” are only the beginning. Our marketing experts are fluent in English and will ensure your subject lines and copy read…
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Dunkin' Sunrise

Friends, On this second attempt at a Windstream Enterprise “Virtual Hub”, it occurs to me these words feel like an oxymoron. After all this is an in-person gathering which is the opposite of “virtual”. If you look around oxymorons (oxymorae?) are fairly commonplace. Here are a couple that come to mind from this week’s news: Trade War. Trade is a mutually beneficial exchange. War is not.Diplomatic Tension. Diplomacy is the act of making nice. Tension ain’t so nice. I think the picture I took this morning of a “Dunkin’ Sunrise” also qualifies. If you fancy the big yellow orb in the sky as a basketball, dunkin’ would come at sunset -not sunrise. Whether this note made you smile or roll your eyes, there are a dozen dunkin’ donuts in my car waiting for virtual hub participants to consume them. Happy Friday!
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