Growing up my two favorite movies had a common theme. They were both from Disney and starred Hailey Mills. The Parent Trap made me wish I had a twin sister!  A twin sister that I was kept away from! And that our parents got divorced! And we could scheme to get them back together again! And make dad’s shrew of a girlfriend run for her life on a camping trip!! Pollyanna? Don’t you think for a minute that I didn’t long for crystals to hang in my house and a rascally little boy sidekick!  

Man that would’ve been great.

 

In real life I have one sister who is my twin separated by 13 years and our parents still love each other. I had a house (no crystals!) and a brother but he wasn’t a sidekick. He broke my arm. That would have made a terribly boring movie.

 

Fast forward, and now I’m a parent of a 9-year-old girl. She is lovely and funny and sloppy and sometimes a bit arrogant. She is not perfect, but she is perfectly mine. Her media consumption is exactly like what those research firms say it is. She’s online, watching TV, talking on the phone and playing a video game all at the same time. Her network affiliations are Nick and Disney. And as the protector of her little soul, I’m at a real crossroads.

 

Oh it started out rather subtlety. On some of the shows, the characters would say, “Oh my God!”  I was brought up to not say this; my daughter has been brought up to not say this. And really, why did the writers include it on kids programming? Does it really provide that much more? She and I discussed it, how it wasn’t what we believed was right, wouldn’t ever use it as a casual exclamation mark and moved on. Then came those cute little Vanessa Hudgens pictures all over the internet.  Disney’s reaction?  High School Musical 3 October 2008 starring Miss. Naked Text Pix herself.  Guess how often my daughter “Googles” something… say like the name of stars in movies she likes? ABOUT 10 MILLION TIMES A DAY.  Then another character from the show got a nose job. See? At this point it’s so inconsequential I should have written it in a smaller font. The final bombshell that dropped and forced my hand: The knocking up of 15-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears. On every newsstand, news show, website, blog. This story ends with Jamie Lynn keeping her show, getting another season and a Hollywood baby bump! So very in style these days.

 

This is what gets me – We had to talk about it. I had to talk to my daughter about 15 years old getting pregnant. Turns out she wasn’t super clued in on this yet and I was OK with that. “Really, mom? 15 years old have babies?” “Yes, honey.  But they’re not very good at it.”

 

What can I do? I have to show her that this is not alright, that there is responsibility to be held. I know kids make mistakes and do dumb things. That’s why I would never put mine out in the public. It’s hard enough to walk into junior high when you’ve kissed the wrong boy, but imagine it on a national level? Who does that to their kids? Anyway, I digress. My only recourse is to no longer support those networks. Andie, you love TV, I love TV but we have to break up with Nick & Disney. They’ve totally skanked out.

 

This isn’t easy on me either Nick/Disney – I’m hurting too you know.

 

I mean, doesn’t it seem obvious that these companies would work harder to maintain their image? Or maybe they don’t have to. They are kids. Little kids. Little kids who really like Spongebob. Little kids who really like Spongebob and don’t understand how it all works out.

 

I get that technology is amazing, there is no adjective created to gush about it enough, but as a parent I sorta envy when we were all just sitting around the radio listening to music without explicit lyrics… or worshipping from afar the great Hailey Mills.

 

Twitter Asks: What are you doing right now?

Answer: Feeling like I’m sitting next to that guy in 6th period, freshman year in high school.

 

I had the fortunate opportunity to attend the SXSW Interactive Festival this year. Granted, I’ve attended a handful of conferences during my career at Range and the content presented at these has for the most part been pretty solid. They delivered what was laid out, on that one link I visited for 45 seconds as I packed up to head to the airport.  But this conference felt different and in a good way.

 

I won’t bore you too terribly much with the panels I attended – Go next year and hear for yourself. It really was the ultimate convergence of hair gel, tech smarts, skinny jeans and superfly nerdery.  Sorta like if Austin and Silicon Valley met in Arizona, had too much to drink and produced a love child.

 

So anyway….panel…..panel….notes….coffee….panel…..free beer….dinner…..bed….repeat. Day 2 I attend one session entitled “Social Media: Defining the Metrics”. Finally, the Holy Grail! I can confidently walk into a client meeting and extol the virtues of Facebook, MySpace et al…with numbers! That means something!

 

They knew we’d come in droves, they knew and set us up in one of those big ole’ fancy ballrooms. Tons of chairs and hipsters taking their seats, snarking it up on whatever cool thing I’m obviously not cool enough to know about. (I’m getting there though – I promise once I get it all figured out, I’ll report back to you. I know. A large prodigious undertaking and yes, you’re welcome). Maybe four moderators speak and at the onset are primarily focused on explaining how they’ve talked to large corporations and the like and were able to explain the usefulness of this new era of customer/business communication. For the most part I was entertained. However the natives were getting restless.

 

A conference coup.

 

One particularly snarky-social-media-metric-seeker suddenly and very abruptly bum rushes the Q/A mic and launches into his dissatisfaction with the current discussion. “Wasn’t this a panel about social media metrics? We’re all here on twitter, and we’re getting pissed.” (Ok, I’m paraphrasing here because it was so jarring to me I couldn’t catch up to astute observer).

 

Well damn, I thought. I’m not on Twitter, and I don’t really get it. The panel, led by a rather terrible ego-maniac (my least favorite of any conference), responds with exactly what you would expect him to say. This is our panel, we’ll be getting to that, here’s how we’re going to respond. Big Tex taking the proverbial bull by the horn. Way to go!

 

Then I start seeing a wave of insurrection sweep across the audience. There are coordinated coughing fits, wild gesturing, some abandonment of seats etc…Eventually, I catch on/up that this. is. Twitter.

 

Twitter: Allowing you the ability to stay connected and in touch with everyone

 

Or, more accurately from what I’ve just witnessed:

 

Twitter: Countering the theory of social graciousness and professionalism.

 

Listen, I realize that the functionality of this can be great, empowering, productive even, but what I saw that day was using technology to act like a brat. “But Daddy, I want it now!!” Lollipop in hand, chocolate smudged on face, belly spilling out over pants, desperate and hungry for whatever it is right this second.

 

Me – speak in public? After that? Forget about it. Yes, you as the presenter should always be buttoned up and prepared, but don’t you dare be human. Because they’re talking about you and might just let you hear about it.

 

Next up: Twitter’s Implications & Innovations for the Public Speaker.

  

 

 

We have opinions. Oh do we ever! You should see the internal emails that fly around this place every day. From our home office in Fort Worth to our New York and Utah teams, we love to watch, analyze, effect... and often ridicule... what is going on in this amazing industry.

 

We also want to share a bit of the Range culture with the world. Just a taste. Not too much. We are still very protective of our special brand of magic. But, for example, did you know that we have a lot of band members at Range? They play in 9 different bands. And these guys are true musicians. You know, the kind that people besides their moms actually pay to see play. We have had 8 babies in the last year and have three more on the way. We have countless number of dogs... usually running underfoot through our meetings.

 

We are nerds at heart. Funky, cool nerds, but nerds nonetheless. We get passionate about everything from the newest research on consumer trends to the latest Google algorithm changes. We rant about privacy issues and media attitudes. We celebrate new reporting systems and client successes. Bottom line - We love what we do.

  

So, welcome to our world. And, welcome to the new Range Blog.