The Tide is High

My least favorite Blondie's song.  I prefer One Way or Another, Call Me, or Heart of Glass, not the calypso rhythms of The Tide is High.  It's actually sad to watch the videos posted on Youtube, like One Way or Another, as we must have been very gullible as children, as they are not even trying hard to pretend they are lip-synching the song.  The electric instruments are not even plugged into anything!

But, alas, I am not reminiscing about 1980 this morning, but rather a small business lesson that I learned over the years during a previous boom and bust cycle from yesteryear.  When the tide is high, it hides a lot of garbage on the beach.  When you are in a business or market that is growing, it's easy to get caught up and be happy that you are growing and profitable.  It's really important to inspect the infrastructure that you are building and be honest and open to review failures to understand the causes and take definitive action.  When the tide is high, those failures might not seem as important, but when the tide goes down, you'll notice how they litter the entire beach.

It's easier to grow in a growth market.  A great business can grow and be profitable in stagnent and depressed markets, as well.

"Me" Time

At ad:tech this week, Christine Cook (@cooktine), SVP of Advertising at The Daily, spoke on one of my Tablets in Marketing sessions, and talked about how their subscribers make significant amounts of "personal primetime" for The Daily, usually after dinner.  This, along with the fact that their content expires, increasing its contextual value, fascinated me.  For me, since kids, I've often lamented the loss of "me time" or "nothing time".  I never realized how much of it that I had, until I didn't have it.

The Daily

I hardly remember it now.  Some days, I did absolutely nothing.  Nothing.  Quite proud of it, actually.  I don't know how it even works anymore.  The "me time", though, is slowing reappearing.

The kids are 8 and 5 now, and its seems like Sunday mornings are coming back.  Tati and I will stare at each other, while drinking coffee and reading the Sunday Times, which is a great tune by Loudon Wainwright III, and just be amazed.  The occasional fight breaks out, so it's important to read the thicker sections first, because they are more powerful when you roll them up.

So, for you parents who also struggle to remember what "me time" is, grab your iPad and subscribe to The Daily.  It will magically reappear.  And, for you DINCs thinking about having children.  It's great.  Just go on a movie binge the weekend before labor, and take a strong mental snapshot of your "nothing time". It's about to go away.