Simon Says

Marathon #7

Simon Says — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:48:00 GMT

In April and in August, I blogged about my experiences with the Boston Marathon and the Vineman Marathon. On Sunday, I had the opportunity to run in the inaugural Santa Barbara International Marathon from Goleta to Santa Barbara, California. Generally, there is a perennial gravitation amongst members of my race club to register for the California International Marathon in the Sacramento area, but after a cold and dreary experience with that race last year, I didn't feel like returning to that particular one. A friend and training partner posted the link to SBIM on my Facebook wall, and within a couple of days we had a group of more than twenty people signed up to make the road trip to Santa Barbara. Our gamble paid off, as there was a significant temperature and wind chill difference between the two locations on race day.

There once was a Santa Barbara Marathon during the 1970's and 80's but, during the past couple of years, a board member of the Santa Barbara Athletic Association named Rusty Snow worked to create a new race. The course was certainly scenic, with very mild rolling hills during the first 16 miles and a couple of significant ones later on (including a fairly challenging grade during Mile #24). It was smoothly organized, except for a half hour delay to the start time which was blamed on a traffic accident, but skeptics who saw the long bathroom lines thought that was a convenient excuse. Either way, all was forgotten by 7:00am.

Had you asked me four weeks ago about my expectations for this race, I would have predicted a personal record. After a lackluster training season interrupted by a career change accompanied by long commute hours, I surprised myself by posting a 2:12:59 20-mile time at the Clarksburg Country Run. Based on that time, I felt like I was in shape to easily break three hours in Santa Barbara. However, during the week leading up to the race, I developed a nagging upper hamstring and IT band injury on my right leg and both legs felt relatively dead during the weekend. I didn't know if it was due to racing too hard at Clarksburg or mismanaging my taper, but my sub-3 intention seemed a bit more far-fetched by Sunday morning.

Still, I decided to run a very disciplined 6:52/mile pace for as long as I could before deciding how I felt in the latter, hillier miles. That plan went well for most of the race, and this was one marathon where I could honestly say I picked the right pace and didn't make any mental mistakes. Still, the pounding of the downhill sections during the last eight miles took its toll on my legs and I had a lot of cramping issues by Mile #23. It wasn't too difficult for me to hold a 7:00/mile pace, but anything faster would cause a calf, hamstring or quad to immediately cramp. Though I could see my friend and training partner a minute or two ahead of me throughout the race, there was nothing I could do about it towards the end. Even the overall winner who was trying to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Trials experienced the same phenomenon on that course. So, I ran conservatively and cruised into the finishing chute in 3:03:24.

The addictive thing about endurance sports is the drive to improve. The sane side of me says that I should be proud of my race execution, which was much smarter than my blow-up at Vineman. However, the perfectionist in me knows that I'm capable of improving by a few minutes and I'm already itching to prove it to myself. Luckily, there is a humbling and cathartic feeling in one's post-marathon legs that counteracts the ambition in his/her head and heart. That feeling can only be described by this commercial from the 2007 Flora London Marathon.

Overall, my own performance was secondary to those of many of my teammates. I am proud and amazed by the personal records and Boston qualifiers that were run by some of my friends, and I can't wait to join them on Heartbreak Hill again in 2011.

Shopping Engine Demographics

Simon Says — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:21:00 GMT

My company partners with 17 leading comparison shopping engines, and we are often asked by merchants to recommend the right engines for them. While we can certainly make suggestions based on the products that they sell or the past results of similar retailers with whom we have worked, we like to have additional data points to help merchants set an intelligent strategy.

One source for objective and normalized traffic and demographic information about comparison shopping engines is Alexa.com. Similar to the services provided by sites like Ranking.com and ComScore, Alexa aggregates data from users who have downloaded their proprietary toolbar. This browser plug-in measures the popularity of hundreds of thousands of websites while dividing those results in the demographic dimensions of the Alexa user base. Thus, if you want to know whether a website is more popular amongst members of a particular age group, gender or level of education, Alexa can provide some estimates to guide you.

I recently compiled some Alexa numbers about our 17 comparison shopping engine partners in order to help our merchants better understand the differentiation between these sites. (We are currently working on a really interesting stealth project that will provide further insight in this area. I hope to announce it in a couple of months.) Here is what I learned:

When comparing traffic fluctuations amongst these top engines, it is no surprise that the recently-launched Bing Cashback is the fastest-growing one. We didn’t even include it in the graph below for that reason. Aside from Bing, the engines that are growing in popularity this year are TheFind (91.6% improvement in traffic ranking), Buzzillions (88.4% improvement), NexTag (52.8% improvement) and PriceGrabber (49.1% improvement). There were some minor drop-offs amongst a couple of engines, but most of them maintained their popularity or improved thus far this year.

With regard to gender, the engines that are popular with males are buySAFE (by a wide margin), Google Base, Amazon and PriceGrabber. The engines that are popular with females are like.com (by a wide margin), Shop.com, SortPrice, Become.com and Smarter.com.

When it comes to age, the most popular engines amongst people under 34 years old are Yahoo Shopping, Google Base, Bing Cashback, TheFind and like.com. The most popular engines amongst shoppers whose age exceeds 55 years are Shopzilla, Pronto, Smarter.com, and Become.com.

The Alexa data also breaks down the demographics by education level and by the source of the IP address from which the user logged on to each comparison engine. From this data, we can assume that TheFind, PriceGrabber, Shop.com and Buzzillions are much less popular amongst students than Google Base and Shopping.com.

Whether a merchant should be making any decisions based on nebulous third-party data from a source like Alexa is certainly debatable. I always recommend that you perform your own tests to draw your own conclusions for your own business. If you have the time to invest three figures to find out if you can earn five or six figures on an additional comparison engine, then I always think you’re better off defying the demographic data that you might see here.

Ironteam

Simon Says — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:03:00 GMT

Today marks the end of another blog hiatus for me. I apologize for my absence. My drop-off in posts during August coincided with my commencement of a new career role, which has entailed a lot of what Jim Collins would describe as The Flywheel Effect. The good news is that SingleFeed's marketing flywheel is gaining momentum, and we are starting to reap the fruits of that labor.

Another activity that has been keeping me busy has been Ironteam. This group is the little-known division of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training program that prepares athletes to complete an Ironman-distance triathlon (2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of cycling and 26.2 miles of running). Approximately a year ago, I experienced a lot of things that led me to this organization. I was discontinuing my involvement with the Balfour Leadership Training Workshop just as I had the opportunity to visit the Huntsman Cancer Institute and attend the last birthday party of a coworker's wife who was battling Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. Her infectious strength and positive spirit made me want to get involved in finding a cure for her disease. I was also racing fairly often and one of my race club teammates was an Ironteam coach, so I asked him how I could get involved. Generally, only alumni of Team in Training programs have the opportunity to become mentors or coaches, but there was an opening for someone to help the team with their running, and I gladly accepted the position.

Our Kickoff Meeting was just two weeks ago, and I will admit that I arrived with some apprehension. As an outsider, I viewed Team in Training positively, but it also seemed a bit cultish. Everybody seemed to know each other and many of the athletes have a racing resume that is deeper than mine. However, after having a chance to meet and coach our team of dozens of inspirational people, I'm really glad I have joined Ironteam. Amongst the group are dozens of people who have lost siblings, parents, friends and spouses to cancer. While some of the team is made up of endurance racing veterans, we have members who will bravely make an Ironman triathlon their first foray into this sport. To put that into perspective, these inspirational people are devoting hundreds of hours of time and energy in order to make a personal contribution of thousands of dollars to help cure blood cancer.

I should mention that the program is working. Since its founding more than 20 years ago, Team in Training has raised almost $1 Billion for cancer research. In the 1960's, the survival rate for a young child with Leukemia was 4%. Today, as the result of research and medicine that has been developed over the years, that survival rate has become 85%. Of course, the other side of Team in Training is working as well. More than 400,000 participants have had the opportunity to train for marathons, cross-country skiing events, triathlons, cycling centuries and hikes. So, I certainly feel fortunate to be involved with this group, and I plan to blog regularly about the team's progress as our athletes prepare for Vineman, Ironman Louisville or Ironman Canada next July/August. Right now, it's time to squeeze in a run before I meet them for their run later this morning.

My Next Career Challenge

Simon Says — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:25:00 GMT

Many of you know that I recently accepted a position with a comparison shopping optimization (CSO) company in San Francisco. SingleFeed was founded a couple of years ago by comparison shopping expert Brian Smith (author of ComparisonEngines.com) to help merchants experience more ease and improved ROI from working with various comparison shopping engines (CSE's). The company is undergoing a unique growth spurt which they will leverage by bringing me on board to build their sales and marketing organization.

Why Comparison Shopping?

The past six years of my career have been spent with companies that provide online marketing services. At Digital River's Fireclick division, I had the opportunity to learn the web analytics industry, and at WhatCounts I gained loyalty e-communications expertise. I love online marketing because of its metrics-oriented nature. Almost everything can be broken down into a replicable ROI equation - put in X and you should get Y. If not, try A versus B and we'll figure out which one to repeat in the future. Gone are the days of marketing teams that have their heads in the clouds and their fingers crossed for good results.

While I wanted to remain in the online marketing services community, I found inherent flaws with each of the past two industries. Web analytics is great for pointing out all of the inefficiencies in your conversion funnel, but it does little to solve those bottlenecks. I have learned from working with companies of all shapes, sizes and budgets that every e-marketing team is short on resources and very few people know how to properly optimize a site based on web analytics data. Loyalty email has been the second biggest no-brainer in the online marketing world (after search engine optimization/management) for a number of years, but it comes along with its own issues. Regardless of the purity of the intentions or the explicitness of the permission that goes into initiating a sender-recipient relationship, I feel like most marketers end up abusing that priviledge eventually. Whether it's the 17 promotional emails a month I'm currently getting from Performance Bicycle or the unsolicited credit card offers I get from my favorite airlines, I wholeheartedly believe that there isn't much of a fine line between permissible messages and spam. There is just a big gray area, most of which proves to be an annoying rain cloud.

I find CSO to be a much more beneficial (and credible, as I mentioned in an earlier post) form of marketing. People are proactively searching for products and shopping engines are already trying to convert those visitors into buyers. The ROI on submitting feeds to additional engines is a bigger no-brainer than email marketing, but managing those feeds can be even more confusing than juggling one's paid keywords. After all, there is only one Google (alright, two if you count the little Bing that could) but there are dozens of leading CSE's that each have their own non-standardized formatting nuances. Scaled correctly, the CSO space will someday solve complex and time-consuming advertising challenges for retailers while offering unparalleled conversion rates and ROI.

Why SingleFeed?

There are a few vendors in the CSO space which span the continuum of merchants from large to small. There are only a couple of companies that truly focus on data feed optimization and services meant to develop a retailer's comparison shopping success. Of those providers, only one is led by Brian Smith, the world's premier expert on comparison shopping optimization. I feel like SingleFeed is uniquely poised to gain a significant market share while developing technology that can save smaller merchants time and concurrently offering the sophistication that the world's largest retailers need.

SingleFeed is at a compelling point of inflection right now. Their team is at a similar stage of development as WhatCounts was when I joined their organization, but their customer acquisition traction is significantly higher. I'm excited about building a sales and marketing strategy and team in the years to come and I have no doubt that SingleFeed will be a "household" name amongst the Internet Retailer Top 500 and beyond very soon.

The Marathoner's Paradox

Simon Says — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:50:00 GMT

A couple of days ago, I had the chance to participate in a relay much different from the one I blogged about in May. I don't remember how the idea dawned on us, but a friend and I decided we would put together a three-person team to do the Vineman 140.6 Mile Relay. (Vineman is not an official World Triathlon Corporation event, so the term "Ironman" isn't supposed to be used in conjunction with it. Still, it is certainly a well-measured and legal Ironman-distance 140.6 mile course consisting of 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of cycling and 26.2 miles of running.) Since my friend is a strong cyclist and his coworker is a great swimmer, I was recruited for the anchor leg of the relay: the marathon.

This was my sixth marathon, and those of you who are endurance sports enthusiasts understand that racing can be as rigorous mentally as it is physically. The dichotomy between the physical bravado of the sport and the mental restraint necessary for endurance can cause an arrogant athlete to develop a slow, sloped learning curve. Such was the case for me this time. Our team still took the first place prize at Vineman, but it was despite my performance.

There are three types of marathoners: the completers, the "competers" and the elites. Each of them has a distinctly different racing strategy. The completers simply want to finish the 26.2 miles without quitting (or dying), so they are able to begin at a pace slower than their long training runs with the hopes of being able to hang on during the final miles. The elites generally know exactly what their bodies are capable of, so they are mostly concerned with the surges and lulls of the lead pack as they race. It is the middle-of-the-road "competers" who encounter the mysterious paradox between maximizing one's potential and fizzling out too soon before the finish line.

The common analogy that I have heard is that endurance racing is like slowly letting air out of a balloon. You have to let the air out at a pace that allows you to have some left at the end of the race. If you let the air out too quickly, you'll be deflated too soon and you'll have nothing left in the crucial final miles. Unfortunately, the guaging of the pace of deflation involves more art than science. Whether you start out slowly or quickly, those final miles are going to hurt. With prolonged effort comes increased heartrate, accumulation of lactic acid, lack of glycogen, prohibitive muscle tears, cramps and fatigue. So, even that slow pace will be harder to maintain after a couple of hours of running. On the flip side, how will you ever set a new personal record if you don't try to run faster when you feel good?

The guesswork is largely dependent upon one's training. I went into Vineman feeling as well trained as I did before Boston (but not as well trained as I was before my personal record marathon last Fall). Thus, I decided to go out at my personal record pace for as long as I could before the natural slowing would occur in the latter miles. While my plan worked well for 18 miles (two hours often seems to be the magic "wall" for many marathoners), the debilitating pain set in sooner than expected and I ended up with an overall time 10-15 minutes slower than expected. Was that something that I could have gauged beforehand? Had I added twenty seconds per mile to my pace in the early miles, would that have translated into a faster final 10K? It's really difficult to know the answer to those questions, although it's not for lack of mulling over it during the past few days.

The philosophy that is taught by the Endurance Nation program used to coach Ironman athletes seems the most logical. Make yourself go "stupid slow" for the first six miles and then count how many people you pass between the 18-mile marker and the 26.2 mile finish line. The simple truth is that it's hard for most people to walk faster than 14 minutes per mile, so if you do anything in your early miles to reduce yourself to walking thereafter, you have essentially shot yourself in the foot. Even if you add 30 seconds per mile to each of your first six miles (a total of three minutes), you'll gain back much more than three minutes for every mile you don't have to walk later on.

The good thing about sports that have a mental component is that the lessons can compound over time. I might reach a plateau in physical capability soon, but maybe I'll still hit some personal records by racing smarter with some stupid miles.

The Most Trusted Satirist

Simon Says — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:14:00 GMT

As a quick follow up to my previous post about the evolution of credibility in news media, I think today's release from Time Magazine is fitting. Many news sources are buzzing about a recent Time poll of 9,400 Time.com visitors asking, in the wake of Walter Cronkite's death, "who is America's most trusted broadcaster?" The top four answers in the survey were Katie Couric (CBS), Charlie Gibson (ABC), Brian Williams (NBC) and Jon Stewart (Comedy Central).

So, what was the most prevalent answer? With 44% of the vote (a full 15% ahead of the second place anchor), Comedy Central's Jon Stewart was the favorite amongst Time.com visitors. A closer look at the state-by-state breakdown shows that there is no chasm between red states and blue states in the results. Whether you live in Alabama, Texas or California, your neighbors trust Jon Stewart the most. They prefer satire and they are skeptical about information from any source that is presented as fact. In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I find this trend to be very reflective of my generation (and we're the sons and daughters of the people who read Time Magazine).

I should mention that Brian Williams' second place finish in the poll put him a solid 10% ahead of Charlie Gibson (with Katie Couric trailing in fourth place with less than one-sixth of Jon Stewart's votes), and Williams is a clear favorite in states like Indiana, Vermont, North Dakota and Wyoming (a couple of which are Republican strongholds).

Overall, the notion of drawing perspectives from a variety of sources that I mentioned in my post earlier this week tends to be true for Stewart's Daily Show. During the first 15 minutes of the program, you'll find clips and commentary from many news agencies (albeit some of them brazenly fictional) mixed in with a blend of fact and hyperbole. Sure, there are some people who don't understand satire (a portion of which actually believe that Stephen Colbert is a staunch conservative), but for those Americans with a funny bone, maybe Jon Stewart is the Walter Cronkite of the future that I mistakenly overlooked.

The Most Trusted Name

Simon Says — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:27:00 GMT

The recent passing of Walter Cronkite has caused many of us to ponder the meaning and evolution of the word "credibility." As people offer their impressions of "the most trusted man in America," they seem to long for the days when they could take Cronkite's word as the gospel, and they didn't need to temper it with varying perspectives or sources.

Was the CBS Evening News actually any more credible than any other medium? Or has our nation simply become less trusting as they have become more sophisticated? Perhaps we are like the child who finally learns the truth about Santa Claus and therefore second guesses every other factual or fictional tale.

Many people contend that political slanting and less diligent fact checking have led our news to become sensationalistic. They might believe that even Walter Cronkite would have trouble earning our trust in our contemporary news environment. I agree and disagree. I believe that our age of increased communication has simply brought new light to the same age-old trend. Are our leaders more corrupt than they once were, or do we just know more about them because of the growth in media? Are our celebrities wilder than their predecessors, or are our diminishing opinions the result of more aggressive paparazzi? Do our news agencies inject more opinion than they once did, or are we just more aware of it because we can now easily compare fifty versions of the same story?

Do I think anyone can once again hold the title of "most trusted person in America?" No, I don't. Even in the technology world, we can no longer read a whitepaper by an industry analyst without first thinking about how the author is paid. In this day and age, we have to invest the time to read various conflicting angles on the same topic to determine our own opinion. Then, we have to recognize that our hard-earned notion is still just the opinion of one person. Someone else might read the same assortment of articles while reaching a completely different conclusion. Whether you are researching health care reform, vendor evaluations, or your best option for local Italian food, there are so many opinions and vantage points to sort through that none of them can be heralded as the "most trusted source." In fact, I think the most credible sources of information these days are review sites and services (such as comparison shopping engines, TripAdvisor, etc), but stories like this one about Yelp make you wonder if anything can be trusted anymore.

Overall, I find myself becoming much less interested in following snippets from one particular news source and much more interested in finding a compelling story and gathering various perspectives on it. Ask me about the "Octomom" and I couldn't care less (I didn't even know her name until I went to copy that Wikipedia link). Want to know my take on Paula Abdul parting ways with American Idol? You won't hear it...I'm not even sure that's newsworthy. However, if you ask me about prospective justice Sonia Sotomayor, I also can't comment because I am still gathering various viewpoints in order to formulate a solid opinion.

Maybe the difference between the days of Walter Cronkite and our current age of information influx has to do with the selection process. Decades ago, the news agencies decided what was newsworthy and what was filtered away from our eyes, ears and water coolers. Today, we have access to almost everything that transpires across the world, and it's our job to do the filtering.

Twitter is Creepy

Simon Says — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:00:00 GMT

As a person who has spent the past six years of his career working with online marketers, especially on their e-communications programs, it made sense for me to dip my toe into the social media waters a few years ago. Since then, I have evaluated MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Bebo and Facebook and only the latter one has created an enjoyable experience for me.

I didn't like MySpace's user interface and I was at an age where most of my peers weren't really on there anyway. I haven't touched that profile in years.
LinkedIn is a decent way of managing my resume and career contacts, but the people in my professional life who I really interact with are on Facebook as well. I'd rather talk to them there...it's more personal.
I have blogged about Facebook before. I think it's the perfect friendship management solution. I'm don't think it's a social networking site, because I'm not really interested in proactively recruiting new contacts on there. However, for keeping up with the friends, family members and coworkers that I already have, it's unparalleled.

So, that leaves Twitter. You can surmise by the title of this post that I'm not a fan of it. I gave it a fair chance and I'll continue to keep it in my online marketing repertoire so I'm up to date as it evolves. Yet, I feel like Twitter offers a less appealing subset of what Facebook offers. Should there really be a rivalry between Twitter and Facebook? That's a fair question since most people think they serve two different purposes. I think those people are wrong...everything that Twitter offers is a part of Facebook. (Yes, Twitter-lovers, I know you disagree but I'll be happy to show you those features on Facebook if you'd like a tutorial.) Plus, Twitter isn't picking up as much steam as everyone thinks. There was the article in April that explained that 60% of new Twitter registrants stop using the service within 30 days. Then, a couple of weeks ago a study by Nielson Online showed that during April of 2009, 13.9 billion minutes were logged by more than 200 million users on Facebook (the Internet's #4 most popular site, with more than 100 million people logging in regularly) while only 300 million minutes were logged by Twitter's user base of less than 10 million. Another interesting study by the Harvard Business School found a stark 80-20 (or actually 90-10) rule showing more than 90% of tweets were generated by the most prolific 10% of their membership.

So, there is no question that Facebook is absolutely obliterating Twitter in usage. The question is, what is Twitter lacking? I think it has three major deficiencies:

The notion of gaining a follower without confirmation is creepy and disingenuous. When I first signed up, a few friends started following me. When I started tweeting, I suddenly attracted a barrage of people trying to promote their own businesses. Memo to you guys: if everybody follows each other for the sole purpose of pushing each other up the rankings, the bell curve will rear its ugly head and your comparative popularity will remain constant. All you are doing is allowing spam to permeate yet another communication channel. Yes, I called you a spammer and I'll stand by that statement ; )
Twitter's user interface doesn't lend itself to the personal interaction that Facebook offers. Pictures, color (in the figurative sense and the literal sense) about someone's life, communities and interests bring our Facebook friends to life. Twitter is a cold world of acquaintances, most of which wouldn't bat an eyelash if you stopped following them (or passed away, same thing in their eyes).
Twitter's lack of critical mass makes it a less fruitful pursuit. The "gas station" philosophy of marketing comes to mind. Where do you want your gas station to be located? On the corner were the other stations are...you'll draw more business. Where should you look for loyal subscribers? Given the choice, I'd rather set up a fan page on Facebook than a Twitter account. With twenty times the active users, it seems like a no-brainer.

I, of course, am not saying that Twitter is devoid of value. Certainly, if you are tweeting on behalf of a corporation or a news agency, I think you are partaking in a higher value (free things usually have a high ROI), more interactive and more personal alternative to email newsletters. If you are a celebrity, your ability to circumvent the filter of the media by using Twitter is priceless. If you are a creepy spammer, Twitter is also a better alternative for you because you can hide behind the veil of anonymity. I'm just saying that I find Facebook to be a much better pursuit for online marketers, and I hope that Twitter's eventual investors and suitors recognize its comparatively low value.

Will I keep tweeting? Sure, I'll keep feeding my Facebook status through Twitter to experiment with it. However, through this post I'm going to mark myself down on the record as a reluctant member who dislikes the service. Now, feel free to follow me ; )

Back From the Mountain

Simon Says — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:32:00 GMT

On Sunday, I reluctantly returned from the Horizons leadership program for college sophomores at which I was facilitating. Coming back down the mountain from Snowbird was a difficult journey for all of us; there is a certain type of utopia that can be created in a pure environment like that. However, as one undergraduate put it: "Sometimes we have to go to the top of the mountain to derive the perspective we need when we return to its base." I thought that analogy was especially fitting for this particular experience.

On the mountain, we taught each attendee the differences between effective/situational leadership and enduring values-based leadership. Then, we helped them identify their own core values and we challenged those values through experiential and interactive exercises. Of course, in order to be a great leader, one must truly understand and embrace the differences between diverse people. Thus, we spent a lot of time delving into each person's fundamental biases and perspectives when it comes to social style, values and personality. Lastly, each man established a two-year vision in accordance with his values as well as some goals, actions, development areas and mentors that will help him move in that direction. As facilitators, we get to spend the next two years mentoring the attendees as they achieve their goals.

The top of the mountain is the perfect place to find enough solace for the introspection it takes to uncover one's own latent values, vision, goals and plans. (I'll be honest...it was also a great place for a snowball fight.) It's amazing how much we miss while amidst the daily grind of our sea level lives. The perspective that we gain by stepping away from a moment to evaluate is priceless. As Socrates stated: "The unexamined life is not worth living." How often do we take the time to analyze the trajectory of our lives?

I'm really looking forward to the next two years of partaking in the examination and coaching of eight exceptional lives. Alex, Ben, Casey, CJ, David, Glenn, Kevin and Pat are each rock stars in their own right, and I have grown to admire their individual talents, temperaments and convictions. Of course, mentorship is a reciprocal interaction and there is a lot of inspiration and perspective that can be gained from each mentee, regardless of his age. It is for that reason that we all were willing to return from the mountain; for the excitement of employing our newfound perspective and accountability network in our daily lives.

Huntsman Cancer Institute

Simon Says — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:39:00 GMT

On Monday, I had the opportunity to make my second visit to the Huntsman Cancer Institute and Treatment Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Off the bat, the name of the facility might make it sound like a solemn-feeling hospital. While there are certainly some stark reminders of the fragility of life, a visit to this center is truly an uplifting experience.

Jon Huntsman, Sr. is a self-made billionaire who overcame an impoverished Idaho upbringing to become the Founder and CEO of Huntsman Chemical Corporation. Instead of stockpiling wealth, he became one of the world's top three philanthropists, providing aid to many nations over the years. After losing his mother to cancer and battling the disease himself, he decided to invest in research and treatment to eventually find a cure. His first order of business was to create a learning center where patients would be able to study the affliction to better understand its innerworkings. He then decided to link up with the world's largest human genome database (with roughly 10,000,000 records) to find hereditary trends and markers that might be able to predict risk factors. The center was also one of the first to open up their research progress to the world (instead of trying to compete for a cure that could eventually be a windfall). This stance of cooperation over competition was unique at the time. Finally, he built a state-of-the-art treatment center with breathtaking quality. He and his good friend Bill Marriott made a pact which shows their confidence in the facility. They decided that when (not if) they find cures for various cancers, they will transform the hospital into a luxury hotel. It won't be difficult to do, the building is already exceptional, complete with gorgeous courtyards, great craftsmanship and some of the best views of Salt Lake City that you can find.

The college students that I am mentoring this week really enjoyed the visit to Huntsman. Jon is an alumnus of the same organization to which they belong, as is his son (Utah governor Jon Huntsman, Jr.). More importantly, his philosophy of cooperation over competition is one of the major themes of their leadership program this week. Yesterday, we were discussing the drawbacks of the American mentality surrounding competition. We often walk into situtations with the assumption that we much be fierce competitors with others in order to reach our personal goals. In reality, there is usually enough differentitation of needs and plenty of resources, and cooperating with one another to ensure that everyone gets what he/she needs is the better strategy. Of course, merit-based rewards are still important, but to ignore the needs of our fellow man is to concurrently ignore the opportunity to become a great leader.

For me, the timing of my two visits to the Huntsman Institute were interesting. The first one was a month after I learned that the wife of one of the members of my sales team had been diagnosed with a particularly difficult form of Leukemia. During the ensuing 15 months of her life, I learned a lot about how families deal with these types of diseases. My coworker became one of my personal heroes in the way that he served his family during and after his wife's time on this Earth. My wife and I flew out to visit them for her last birthday and it was a lesson in marriage that can't be obtained any other way. Thus, this second trip to the Huntsman Institute brought that experience full circle.

Cancer is still one of the top two leading causes of death in the United States. I'd encourage you to take a closer look at the Huntsman Cancer Institute online. If you feel compelled to support their cause directly, you can do so at this link.

Heading to Horizons

Simon Says — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:43:00 GMT

I can't believe it has already been two years since I posted a note on this blog about my involvement with the Horizons leadership program. This seven day experience was designed by a team of leadership experts to enrich the lives of exceptional college sophomores. By investing in this group of young men, we in turn foster the development of the families, communities, organizations and businesses which they will lead throughout their lives. In June of 2007, I had the opportunity to complete the training program to become a Horizons Guide, or facilitator and mentor. Tomorrow, I will be heading out to Snowbird Lodge in Utah to take a group of eight sophomores on their leadership journey.

Over the years, I have done a lot of college mentoring through similar programs, particularly at San Jose State University, Stanford University and through the Balfour Leadership Training Workshop each summer. I wholeheartedly believe in the ripple effect of one leader mentoring a few more young leaders who mentor a few more younger leaders. We all know that the world is currently starving for people with leadership skills, but I think we are also devoid of mentorship programs. We are all expected to learn from books, but the concepts of coaching and apprenticeship are fizzling. We live in a funny world where some of the most important roles that people can take (such as leader, parent, or coach) come without formal training. How can we expect to improve if we don't properly invest in our future? For these reasons, I couldn't be more excited about tomorrow's trip to Utah.

I'll try to post again with more details about the experience. On a high level, the program likens leadership to a lifelong journey that we take, where we learn to better understand ourselves and others, build alliances of collaboration within our community, identify guides to assist us, and put our character into action via a purposeful strategy. The program does a great job of integrating curriculum for all four types of learning styles (reflective, common sense, interactive and imaginative) with journaling, discussion, presentations, experiential exercises, video tools and group interaction. Although my involvement as a Guide might seem benevolent, I find it to be selfish as well because I end up learning more by teaching than they do by participating.

I received some background information about the eight undergraduates on my team (dubbed the "Lone Star Group") and I had a chance to reach out to them earlier this week. I can't wait to meet everyone on the mountain!

Experiential Learning

Simon Says — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:14:00 GMT

I mentioned in my previous post that I was gearing up for Sunday's Auburn long-course duathlon. The main event that day was the World's Toughest Half Ironman triathlon, which is comprised of a very chilly 1.2 mile swim, a brutally hilly 56-mile bike course, and a somewhat difficult 13.1 mile half marathon. The long-course duathlon option followed an identical course for the last 69.1 miles of cycling and running, but we ran an additional three kilometers during the initial swim. Overall, this was my worst race in more than a year, but it was a great learning experience.

We all woke up at 4am to make it to the second transition area (T2) by 5am. There, I hung my items for the bike-to-run transition on the rack and we all had to ride six miles on our bikes to get to the start. At the first transition area, I racked my bike and laid out my helmet, gloves, sunglasses, etc. There were hundreds of people milling around, getting ready for their staggered start times (ranging from 6:30am to 7:30am, depending on which race they entered). My start time was 6:45am, designed to be exactly fifteen minutes after the start of the Half Ironman so we could all compete together on the bike. That was unfortunate for me...I could have used the head start!

The three kilometer run was fairly easy. There were some rolling hills, and it was a trail run, so the only things stopping us from running under 6:00/mi pace were the need for careful footing and the fact that we still had 69.1 miles to go. I finished that run in 11:29 and had a quick transition. As I headed out on the bike, I saw my teammates finishing their run a few minutes behind me and I figured they would be passing me very soon. The Auburn bike course is what gives this race its "World's Toughest" status. You can see a map of it here. Basically, the first 20 miles are mostly uphill, and Miles 29-31 are especially rough (as in out of your saddle in your easiest gear trying not to let your bike tip over). After Mile 36 there is some reprieve, but I didn't have enough power left in my legs at that point to take advantage of it. Finally, after almost four hours of suffering, I made it back to T2 to put on my running shoes and start my half marathon. By then, it was in the mid-80's and I had only consumed two bottles of drinks and three Hammer gels, so I wasn't exactly feeling spry. My best half marathon last year was a 1:23:00, so I had delusions of completing this course in under 1:35:00. Had you asked me after three miles if I could still do that, I would have been confident. However, the hamstring fatigue, heat exhaustion, dehydration and overall lack of energy started to sink in. For the first time since my first marathon, I had to take walk breaks (which unfortunately multiply exponentially once you cross that threshold) and I ran a personal worst 1:52. My Garmin GPS watch has never seen numbers that slow...I half expected it to try to electrocute me to put both of us out of our misery. Although it took me a full 31 minutes longer than expected, I was happy to complete the 70.96 mile course and I felt like I grew a lot through the experience.

Over the years, I have become comfortable with the fact that there are different learning styles amongst people and I have embraced my own preferences along the spectrum. There are many conflicting models when it comes to learning styles, but here's a simple synopsis: people can learn by watching, conceptualizing, discussing or doing, and I tend to prefer the latter category (as do a lot of people). Most school systems are not geared to cater to all four learning styles, and that's why there are a lot of highly intelligent college dropouts who have gone on to accomplish great things (Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Matt Damon, Thomas Edison, etc). As the son of a teacher, I have come to realize that the onus is on the educator as much as it is on the student. Anyway, I digress.

The point is that I'm glad I didn't try to figure out every nuance of this race before I signed up and did it. Sometimes you just have to put on your running shoes and then get on the bike to eventually know what you don't know you don't know. I learned a lot about hydration and nutrition. I learned why triathletes ride tri bikes as opposed to road bikes like mine (saves your hamstrings for the ensuing run). I learned about pacing on hills. I learned about the importance of a bike fit and aero bars.

However, the most important lesson I learned was that we are all capable of doing a lot more than we think. Before Sunday, I had never raced on a bike. Before Sunday, I had never done an endurance race for longer than 3.5 hours (this one took six hours). Before Sunday, I had never gone more than 70 miles under my own power. Sometimes we just need to put ourselves in a position where we have no choice but to perform. That, in my opinion, is the best way to learn.

Duathlon - the Gateway Drug

Simon Says — Fri, 29 May 2009 07:23:00 GMT

A few months ago, I registered for the Auburn long-course duathlon, which is now three days away. I still consider myself to be primarily a runner, but hanging around a bunch of triathletes makes you feel like an underachiever if all you do is marathons. After all, Ironman competitors do a marathon after having already swum 2.4 miles and cycled 112 miles. So, I started training on a road bike six months ago and I thought a duathlon would be a good way to see if I enjoy both sports before potentially getting into swimming and triathlons. In that sense, the duathlon is a gateway drug to triathlon. Of course, my impatient and impetuous nature took over too soon (I blogged a few weeks ago about signing up for next year's Ironman St. George), so I have already committed to a hit off of the triathlon crack pipe.

Cycling has been a humbling experience for me. I have always felt comfortable with running. I don't have the highest maximum heart rate or lactate threshold and my form isn't perfect, but I can usually conjure up a respectable showing in a small local race. I casually assumed that the same qualities would translate over to the bike. My notion was misguided. Although some of the cardiovascular traits can carry over from one sport to the other, there are a lot of abilities and skills that great cyclists possess. It's amazing how I can feel confident on a Sunday run after feeling totally inadequate on a Saturday ride.

My cycling journey began with weekend group rides where I would fall off of pace quickly and make the return trip alone every week. The thing many people don't realize about cycling is the significant impact of drafting. It might sound far-fetched, but a person riding in the middle of a group can be working up to 40% less than one who is alone. Simply put, the turbulent wake left by the leader(s) cuts resistence a lot. Understanding this concept makes it a lot more fun to watch races (such as this week's Giro d'Italia) because the strategic dynamic of riders pulling for their teammates can be really interesting. On the downside of drafting, not being able to keep up with a group ride adds insult to injury because the moment the group starts to pull away, you begin working significantly harder to try to no avail to catch up. Let's just say I went on a lot of lonely Saturday morning group rides ; )

However, riding alone was a great way to build strength. I gradually improved and, although there are certainly a lot of group rides that I can't keep up with, my Saturday mornings have become much more fun. Riding alone also helped me learn that group rides might be beneficial for competitive cyclists (so they can practice their technical handling and their surges) but they can detract from the preparation of a triathlete (drafting is illegal in almost all triathlons). Plus, there is a mental component to cycling by yourself. It's a lot easier to reduce your pain level when there is no one around to try to pass. Making yourself continue to work hard on your own is a skill that translates to every facet of life, whether it be physical, mental, emotional or professional.

So, this Sunday should be interesting. This super-hilly race is actually the National Long Course Duathlon Championship, so there will be a lot of fast people ahead of me. It is essentially the same ridiculously hard course as the "World's Toughest Half Ironman" that will be held concurrently. So, unlike many of my running races, I won't be making any goals about times or places. I'll just be happy to complete the 3km run, 56mi ride and 13.1mi run without any major meltdowns (and only a few minor ones).

Face(book) the Nation

Simon Says — Wed, 27 May 2009 04:24:00 GMT

I doubt that anybody needed tangible proof that social media has surpassed its tipping point, with Facebook boasting more than 200 million active users (100 million of which log in daily) and holding the #4 spot amongst the world's most popular websites (MySpace is #11 and Twitter is #37). Sure, there are naysaying articles out there like the one from Nielsen Online in April that showed 60% of new Twitter users quitting their engagement within one month of registering. However, other articles like this one prove that Twitter is still leapfrogging other methods of e-communication, and we have to keep in mind that it is just one vehicle for viral communication (albeit the only one trying to launch a television series to boost its growth).

I think the most telling pair of articles regarding the power of social media came from Iran last week. The first story showed that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad considered blocking the nation's citizens from accessing Facebook in an attempt to hinder the efforts of opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi in an upcoming election. The follow-up article explained that the ban would not occur after all, although more than five million websites are still not accessible from Iranian networks.

These types of stories bring validity to the claim that social media is not just a fad, it's a necessity for the dissemination of information. It wasn't long ago that we witnessed the power of these e-communication channels during the Obama campaign, and Steve Rubel's Micropersuasion blog provides a great account of the strategy and tactics that were employed (as does this FastCompany article). Although the election wasn't close and Obama likely would have been victorious without these methods, the impact was significant nonetheless. Perhaps Ahmadinejad was feeling like John McCain once did, hindered by a lack of contact with more tech-savvy citizens.

I think the big takeaway is that today's society favors a wide range of fragmented communication vehicles, and the responsibilities of the diligent marketing team have increased as a result. No longer can your launch calendar include just 5-6 delivery methods (such as outdoor advertising, press releases, television, radio and print media). Your strategic plan might have 30 different columns including various social networks, blogs, influential writers, microsites and podcasts. In late 2005, I was blogging about the fact that 4% of your subscribers might prefer RSS to email. Now, three and a half years later, that same pie chart might have dozens of colorful slivers, each representing planning and execution for your team. Sure, you can decide to ignore a few channels along the way, but are you prepared to overlook some of your most influential potential supporters? Barack Obama wasn't willing to do that, and his election results were representative of that decision.

Leaders and Believers

Simon Says — Mon, 25 May 2009 01:09:00 GMT

Between 2002 and 2008, I had the opportunity to become deeply involved with the Balfour Leadership Training Workshop. Founded in 1947, this collegiate leadership training program is the world's largest conference of its kind, with more than 1,400 attendees and 200 facilitators and staff members. It was a significant growth opportunity for me to become a facilitator, a division leader, and eventually the chairman of the program.

During last year's workshop, we hit the pinnacle of its 61-year history with an all-time attendance record, a keynote presentation from former Medtronic CEO and Harvard Business School professor Bill George, and presentations from The Home Depot Founder Ken Langone and Betty Ford Center Director Dr. Sally Diane. I had the chance to speak to a crowd of more than 1,500 people about building, living and leaving a legacy through one's leadership, and we spent three days teaching the attendees how to hone their leadership skills while building a shared vision and a strategic plan for their campus organizations. Anyone who knows me has a sense for the boundless belief that I had in the potential impact of programs like these.

As this event is now less than three months away, I have gotten a lot of inquiries from people asking why I decided to voluntarily step down from my chairmanship last Fall. I decided to simply address it here. As we taught in our program, leadership is not about being a taskmaster who conjures up a goal and barks out orders to his/her minions until it is achieved. Modern leadership leverages an intricate balance of people skills and communication to develop a shared vision with our stakeholders, a strategic plan for proceeding along the intended path, a culture of accountability and execution, and impeccable character and encouragement amongst the organization's members. I once blogged about the upside-down model of leadership and the death of heirarchical management, and I firmly believe that any adept servant leader will be able to find success in today's world.

Unfortunately, the top officers to which my committee reported did not share this modern view of leadership. In fact, they did not believe in leadership training, strategic planning or curriculum focused on mentorship, group communication or inspiring a shared vision. There were only two or three people whose vision of the program disagreed with their stakeholders, but instead of collaborating and compromising, they decided to leverage their authority to the detriment of the workshop. My committee had to slowly watch the program that we built and loved eventually regress through their uninformed and underqualified direction. It was a difficult pill to swallow and we knew that the college students would sacrifice much more than we did.

In most non-profit institutions (and many private businesses), bylaws are written to assume benevolant dictatorship. When that power is abused by inadquate leaders, the organization is ultimately hindered. In the absense of available recourse to counter these steps taken to dismantle our program, I decided to step down. You can study leadership theory at many universities and you can find hundreds of books that offer various perspectives, and the one thing they all agree on is this: a leader is not a leader if no one is voluntarily following him/her. By definition, the word "lead" assumes that there are other people who share and support the same vision. If you turn around and nobody is following you, you're not a leader. So, I decided that the strongest statement I could make was to discontinue my followership of the misdirected administration. I wrote a poignant letter to the officers of the organization to let them know my reasons and intentions, and I didn't pull any punches in my explanation.

I think it's important for all of us to remember that, in any organization, supporters are just as important as leaders. Even when you don't realize it, your followership is voluntary. If you don't believe in the leadership of your company or organization, it is a breach of integrity for you to continue to support them. I'm not talking about the strategy or tactics - those can be improved through constructive collaboration by open-minded executives. I'm talking about the leadership practices that are employed. If those are lacking, I suggest you find greener pastures. You'll put yourself in a position to add meaning and value to your life.

Good News for Trees

Simon Says — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:27:00 GMT

I have written two blog postings over the years regarding trends in communication digitization, one in March of 2006 about the slow death of newspapers and one in December of 2006 about the impact of direct mail. Now, three years later, we're starting to see a formidable competitor to printed books. In yesterday's issue of eMarketer, an article about the success of Amazon's Kindle included some surprising revenue numbers. After a modest $5 million year in 2007, Amazon.com's digital reading service posted $117 million in 2008 and is on pace to hit $405 million this year before flirting with the $1 billion mark in 2010. How's that for hockey stick revenue growth in a tough economy?

I have admitted before that I am a pragmatist who waits on the skeptical side of the technology chasm until new concepts pick up steam. It probably doesn't make for exciting blogging about new gadgets and services, but I just don't have time to be a guinea pig for nine failed products before one good one comes along. That's what early adopters are for ; ) That said, I have tried Kindle on my iPhone and I think it has its advantages and disadvantages. Do I enjoy the luxury of not having to stuff a book into my bag when I fly? Absolutely...after traveling to 40 U.S. states in the past few years, I have learned that anything I can do to avoid checking baggage is a step in the right direction. However, do I like sapping my iPhone battery's strength while I'm on the plane? No way, that thing needs to be charged every few seconds as it is. Same goes for the computer download version of Kindle - I already have to take three laptop batteries with me when I hop on an airplane. More importantly, do I want to stare at a little screen for more hours than is already required in my professional life? I think that's the crux of this trend. Not necessarily, but I recognize that there is a generational gap between paper-lovers and screen-starers, and the former group will eventually become the minority.

Now, I realize that the most prevalent way to experience Kindle is on one of their special readers, such as their DX model. However, paying $359 for something only slightly larger than my iPhone and smaller than my laptop doesn't make much sense to me. Plus, I'd still have to carry an additional gadget around, which seems to be the failing point for many products (such as portable DVD players). Still, a December 2008 survey found that 8% of respondents use Kindle and 27% of them showed direct interest in trying or buying one. The remaining population might seem like a significant number (65%), but keep in mind that roughly 93% of our nation's citizens do not own an iPhone.

Regardless of how I personally feel about the usability of Kindle (I am, after all, a slow adopting pragmatist, remember?) the dramatic adoption rate can't be ignored. I'm sure paper books will always have a vestigial presence, as will newspapers, magazines and direct mail, but I'd still recommend eventually selling that stock certificate you might have in your favorite paper company.

Greed for Speed

Simon Says — Wed, 20 May 2009 11:01:00 GMT

I have been taken aback lately as friends have asked me for running advice. I guess it's all relative, because I have a lot of people who are faster than me to whom I turn for tips. Of course they, too, are probably taking notes from someone they look up to. That's the wonderful thing about learning - there is always someone more accomplished or older than you who can provide some helpful perspective.

Everybody, of course, asks how they can get faster. I think the first thing that everyone needs to keep in mind is the fact that genetics are the primary determining factor in one's potential speed. Sure, there are a lot of other skills which can be honed, but it's impossible to truly love the sport without first accepting your own physiological lot in life. Focusing more on personal development and improvement than competing with the Kenyan national team will help you find solace in the factors you can control while embracing the ones you can't control.

I could probably write hundreds of blog postings regarding the things I have learned about hydration, nutrition, race tactics, form, etc. However, today I'll just stick to one oversight that most people make in their training: varying your runs. You can find many endurance training programs (commonly used ones are the Hal Higdon program, the Jeff Galloway program, and the Boston Athletic Association program, but I have found the Runners World SmartCoach to be better for me) that differ in some ways, but the commonality that all of them share is in their four types of workouts:

Easy Runs - This is what most people do every time they put on their running shoes. It's a run of 20-50% of your goal distance at a pace up to a minute per mile slower than you plan to race (for example, a 2-hour half-marathoner might do easy runs of up to 7 miles at 10:20/mi pace). These runs are great for maintenance, recovery and calorie-burning, but they're not going to make you much faster.

Intervals - I could bore you with a bunch of details on types of muscle fibers, metabolic systems and lactic acid processing, but I'll keep it simple: you need to do some running while you're out of breath and your heart is pounding. By ratcheting up your speed a few notches, you'll train your body to process waste materials more efficiently and you'll improve your race pace significantly. Essentially, you will run fast during each interval and you will take a recovery period in between to let your heart rate come back down.

Should you lace up your track spikes for a bunch of sprints? Not likely, unless you're a sprinter. An endurance athlete simply needs to stress his/her lactate threshold, which can be estimated as the pace at which you can run for one hour (for example, a 3-hour marathoner will likely have a threshold pace of 6:00-6:30/mi). I know what you're thinking...if I can run faster shouldn't I? You don't need to...you simply need to push your lactate threshold. If you'd like a more in-depth explanation, buy The Art and Science of Running from legendary coach Jack Daniels (or view a clip here). I have found the McMillan Calculator to be an excellent resource to find your target training speeds for different types of workouts.

How many intervals should you do? The Runners World SmartCoach and the Boston Athletic Association program will provide you with specifics (such as doing eight 800-meter repeats with two minutes of recovery in between) and you can probably find a local track on which you can do these workouts. Keep in mind that inserting some hill training into your program will provide you with a lot of the same lactate threshold benefits while also helping you build uphill and downhill leg strength (after all, it's hard to find a race that is completely devoid of hills).

Tempo Runs - These are runs where you string together multiple miles of threshold running without any rest time in between. For example, you might do six miles of tempo sandwiched in between a couple of miles of comparatively slow warm-up and cool-down. Or, you can do a "fast-finish" run where you do 60-70% of the mileage at a slower pace before finishing the remainder at or slightly above your race pace. Almost every training program that I have seen has a weekly tempo workout in it.

Long Runs - A lot of people miss the point of long runs (as I did at first before my training partners did an intervention for me). If you are training to run a 3-hour 26.2-mile marathon, the point of your long run regimen is to eventually train yourself to run for three hours, not 26.2 miles. You don't need to run race-pace during a long run (ideally, you want to be 45-60 seconds per mile slower)! In the vast majority of programs, you will never run more than 21-22 miles before your marathon, but you will have run the duration of your race goal at least once. There is a lot of interesting re-engineering that your body does after you are on your feet for a couple of hours and, until you make yourself run for that period of time, you won't derive those benefits. For example, your body can only store roughly 70-80 minutes of glycogen (sugar stored in your muscles), so running longer than that trains you to efficiently burn fat to keep going. Of course, I will offer a caveat that, unless you are an ultramarathoner, you don't need to do a training run longer than three and a half hours, regardless of how long you expect to take to complete your race.

One essential ingredient of a successful long run is the practice of your hydration/nutrition strategy. Although many of our predecessors endured marathons without eating or drinking much, the modern best practice is to consume calories while you run in order to improve your performance in the last few miles. Teaching your body to digest food while running takes time, so you have to do it during your long runs.

While I tried to keep this explanation very simple, you might still be swimming in information overload. I'll simplify further. First, test yourself. Run a local race or do 12.4 laps on the track to estimate your 5K pace. Then, go to the Runners World SmartCoach and generate a training program for your target race. Next, go to the McMillan Calculator to double-check the pace of your various workouts (I'd trust the McMillan Calculator more than the SmartCoach for this). Last, get fitted for the right shoes at your local running store (don't just buy some based on color preference, have someone analyze your gait and arch) and start your program.

Being able to stick to a long term training program is a transformational lesson in self-discipline and human ability. You will not only become faster, but you will be inspired by the ultimate realization that the more you ask yourself to do, the more you will be able to do.

Viral Virus

Simon Says — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:56:00 GMT

This comment could certainly come back to get me (after all, my illness-free streak is still alive, so the Law of Averages is not on my side), but I don't see how the H1N1 "Swine Flu" is materially different from any other influenza virus. Ever since this story broke a few weeks ago, I have felt like we are being subjected to sensationalism. Is the Swine Flu, in fact, just like every other flu but with better marketing? Which agency should we credit with this amazing viral (ouch, painful pun) marketing campaign?

Let's review the facts. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano reminded us on Tuesday that the seasonal flu generally claims 35,000 American lives every year. Thus far, the H1N1 virus has led to two fatalities in the United States, one of which was a 23-month old infant. In a survey yesterday of 2,000 Britons, more than half of the respondents feel like this outbreak has been overhyped. There are a lot of similar articles that support the notion of yellow journalism, especially when the latest World Health Organization comment says that one third of the world's population might become infected.

Now, I realize that it is Napolitano's job to keep our country calm. I also realize that there is nothing wrong with health officials trying to encourage people to exercise caution, especially when we are not yet sure of the potency of the virus and it could mutate before a Fall return. However, we can surely appreciate that the press coverage of this story is better than any viral marketing campaign that a leading agency could have dreamt up.

"First, we need a great launch date during a slow news month. Maybe we can squeeze this in between the Somali pirates and Manny Ramirez' drug test. If we're successful, we'll steamroll right through Manny, Sweeps Week, the NBA Finals and the Stanley Cup. We'll take over the world with this story.

"Let's see, this affliction is called 'H1N1.' Hmm, that's not catchy enough...it sounds like a Star Wars character. What if we name it after its source...how about the 'Pig Flu?' No, that's not scary enough...nobody would run from Wilbur in Charlotte's Web. The 'Hog Flu?' Hmm...no, still not right. Oh, I know...let's use a word that hasn't been a part of our vernacular for more than a century, except in romantic comedy movies when describing men. We'll call it the 'Swine Flu.' Perfect! That name is memorable enough to be branded easily and poignant enough to be squeezed into any tweet on Twitter.

"Now, we need an angle to which the crazy zealots can cling. Now that those guys have finally gotten Internet connections, they're great at perpetuating rumors. How about the notion that the Mexican cartels have released a horrible virus upon the Earth in conjunction with Obama's visit to their country? Yes, that's perfect...that will spread like wildfire amongst gun-weilding toothless hillbillies with nine kids.

"Oh, and we need coverage, lots of coverage. Perhaps we can create a lot of speculation about the impact of this disease while overlooking that there are still real epidemics out there that deserve our attention. Let's get some credible people to hold public meetings. Let's get a quote from the President during his press conference. We'll write about it every day until this story floats to the top of every news search and RSS feed, even though there are only 896 confirmed cases in the United States representing roughly 0.0003% of our nation's population.

"Alright, let's promote the heck out of this thing to see how big our viral marketing campaign can get while showing wanton disregard for the sanity of our panicked citizens. After all, the only side-effect is a rise in stock prices for vaccine makers who contract with the United States Human Health Services Department like GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Sanofi Pasteur and MedImmune. Those guys are recession-proof so we need to befriend them right now anyway, right?"

My premonition might be wrong, but I get the feeling that we will never see two billion people become infected by the Swine Flu virus. However, its viral marketing campaign may have already exceeded that number.

Relay Recap

Simon Says — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:17:00 GMT

Well, last weekend's 200-mile Relay was another incredible experience. Our "Real Runners Don't Tri" team had a lot of fun and we finished in 6th place overall out of 228 teams. In my previous post, I mentioned that we were primarily running to raise awareness and dollars for Katie Grace Groebner, a local 5-year old girl who is awaiting a heart and lung transplant. We were especially heartened to see her (accompanied by her mother and sister) at the finish line when arrived. They wanted to thank us for our efforts and we were able to take a memorable photo with them after the event. Pictured below are Katie and her sister Savannah along with my teammates Tiffany, Tara, Dina, Angel, Michelle, Stephanie, Dave, Ralph, Lloyd, Liesbeth and Al (ten Boston Marathon qualifiers and two people who would qualify if they ever wanted to run 26.2 miles).

Upon registration, each team submits a worksheet that produces an anticipated duration for the 200-mile journey, and a personalized start time is provided by the organizers to ensure that all of the teams complete the course on Sunday afternoon. Thus, some teams had to start as early as 7:30am on Saturday morning while we began running at 2pm that afternoon. It's a daunting task to begin a race knowing that many teams have a six and a half hour head start. Yet, since those teams are moving at a slower pace, the faster teams do end up passing many runners along the way. These people are universally called "roadkill" and notated as such on the scoring sheet. Real Runners Don't Tri picked up 219 roadkill during our 23 hour and 57 minute run!

Reflecting on the weekend brings back so many great memories. Our 2pm start was shared by our nemesis team ("Tri It You'll Like It") as well as the group fielded by Facebook (Google has won for the past three years and many other corporations perpetually send runners). We opened a gap on the triathletes during the first leg and were never passed by them. Our rallying point for the rivalry was the United States swimming relay victory over the trash-talking French team during the 2008 Olympics, so we had a lot of fun with our arch rivals by calling them "the French." Hence, they are listed on the results page as "Les Fabuleux Americains." ; ) However, that wasn't as close a competition (we beat them by almost 70 minutes) as our 24-hour game of cat-and-mouse with the Facebook team. It wasn't until the 36th and final leg on Sunday afternoon that our anchor runner passed them in an exciting finish with only 90 seconds to spare.

Aside from the competitive aspect of The Relay, driving our van decorated with signs and illuminated holiday lights was amusing. Enterprise Rent-a-Car told us with one day's notice that they would not be delivering the large vans we secured six months prior, so we were all crammed into minivans instead. Thus, I didn't get my first wink of sleep until we found a college gym floor early on Sunday morning (after I had already run two of my legs) and I was exhausted. My first leg was certainly an adventure as it took me up a 1,200-foot ascent before the sun went down and I had a headlamp to guide me through a 1,000-foot descent in freshly squishy deep mud while traversing cattle-guards. It was so dark and foggy that one friend literally ran into a cow and another one temporarily lost a shoe in the mud. My second leg was much hillier than advertised, but would not have been too challenging if not for the sleep deprivation. My third leg had another "fun" ascent which left me spending the next three days relearning to walk.

Overall, the event had all of the benefits of an epic road trip squeezed into 24 hours. All four of the teams from my race club generated a lot of great stories, and many of us are already planning for an encore (thought I'd add in a French word for any triathletes who might be reading this).

The Relay

Simon Says — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:00:00 GMT

The general rule of thumb in marathon recovery is to take 26 days (one for each mile you raced) before jumping into any hard workouts or races. Well, I took six days (raced a 5K on Sunday) and I'm prepping to race again this weekend. As my friends put it, they have never had to question my sanity - they have always known that I'm crazy.

This weekend's event is called The Relay and it is a 200-mile, 24-hour journey from the California wine country to a point on the beach just north of Santa Cruz to benefit Organs 'R' Us. The journey is shared amongst a team of 12 runners, each of which runs three unequal legs totaling between 13-20 miles. The team is split up into two vans of six people each, so Runners #1-6 complete their legs in succession before Van #2 does the same thing for Legs #7-12 (and then Van #1 takes over again). There are quite a few similar relays around the world, the biggest of which are beenhakker's Roparun from Rotterdam to Paris and Nike's Hood to Coast relay in Oregon (12,000 runners).

I have done one relay in the past (the Lake Tahoe Relay last June) and the concept is a lot of fun. The team mentality and the duration of the race can be a sweet and sour mix. It's a great feeling to have a team supporting you out there, but that joy is neutralized by the odor of the inside of the van and the feeling of getting out and running in the cold rain just hours after you completed your previous leg. Of course, sleep deprivation, running in the middle of the night and shortages of food/hydration can lead to a whole lot of crankiness by the time the finish line is in sight.

This year, my race club decided to field four teams (48 people in total) and to pit two of the groups in a competition against each other. Thus, I'll be racing for the runners team (dubbed "Real Runners Don't Tri") while we compete against a team of triathletes (named "Tri It You'll Like It"). It's not exactly an exemplary matchup, since many of the triathletes are run specialists and one of the runners is a good triathlete. However, we'll be overlooking those kinds of details once the gun is fired.

The competition certainly takes a back seat to the purpose for the event, raising awareness and dollars for organ donation programs for children. Organs 'R' Us has already raised $25 million for this cause, and we are happy to focus our support for Katie Grace Groebner, a local 5-year old who is on the organ donation list. We decided to dedicate our efforts to her, and we each made contributions to Organs 'R' Us which were matched by Chevron Corporation. If you would like to make an additional contribution, please visit our donation web page. It's easier and more sane than the method of support that we have chosen.