This is a picture of an iPad on a plane. I had a scenario like this going on last week. Different airline, different beverage, different device, same idea. Then, I left my iPad on the plane. Dun dun dunnnnn!

It was Friday morning. May 3rd. 7:45am.

I had just landed at O’Hare airport and was deplaning my 6:10am flight from New York City.

As I got my bags from the overhead and walked off the plane, my iPad Mini stayed behind, wedged into the armrest of seat 8A. Maybe if bulkhead seats had normal armrests, I would’ve noticed, but they have those immovable armrests with the tray pockets, so I didn’t. It probably wouldn’t've mattered.

Somewhere on my drive along I-294, I realized that I had no recollection of having put my iPad away. When I got home, I checked my bags and confirmed that I didn’t have my iPad. I thought about whether I’d be yelling at my kids right now had it been one of them who left it on the plane. Mental note: the children get a pass next time they lose/break/aquify something electronic.

I fired up iTunes. Nope: I hadn’t activated the “Find my iPad” feature. That means I couldn’t locate it, couldn’t remotely wipe it, couldn’t send a note to whoever found it. I changed my Gmail and iCloud passwords, left a message for AA’s ORD lost and found, sent an “Oh no!” tweet (which someone actually favorited… really, people?!), and headed into a day of meetings.

Friday afternoon, a Twitter follower of mine connected me with @AmericanAir. Hmph. I probably should’ve thought of doing that myself. AA DM’d me, letting me know that they had alerted all the relevant bodies/agencies/departments to be on the lookout. They’d contact me if it showed up. I appreciated their responsiveness, but come on… we all knew the truth.

It wouldn’t show up.

Until today.

That’s when I got this email:

Jason:

I’ve got your Ipad.  I found it on a AA plane to NY.  Can you give me address to send it?

I’m in the northern suburbs.

Bill

773……

I called Bill to thank him and offer to come pick it up. Then I emailed my office address in the loop. Radio silence… until 1:30pm… when a call came up from the security desk. “Bill is here with an iPad? For Jason? Could someone come down right away, his car is outside with the hazards on?”

One of the team ran down while I finished a client call. Five minutes later, I was holding my iPad, just as I had left it, nothing tampered with. Returned to me by a stranger with nothing to gain. He could’ve kept the thing himself and I’d never have known, but he didn’t. He returned it. My faith in humanity notched up a level. Karma points were awarded. An angel got her wings. Birds chirped, harps were played, and somewhere, a chocolate frosted donut happened. I emailed Bill to let him know how appreciative I was.

My note was simple and to the point. It read:

I love you.

To which he asked,

Shouldn’t we have dinner first?

Anytime, Bill.

It’s on me.

 
Jason Seiden is CEO of Ajax Workforce Marketing. Ajax amplifies brands by aligning employees' online messaging.

Gloomies, 4/6/07

“Dad, why is everyone being so mean to Marty?”

With that, the idea that Meatballs might stand the test of time went up in smoke. My kids rejected the movie outright. They needed to understand why everyone was making fun of camp director Marty. They weren’t willing to accept the fact that it was Marty’s lot in life to be the goat.

Those kids today. So sensitive. Too sensitive. They can’t even deal with bullying on their own. Right?

Wrong.

I have no doubt that kids today are more sensitive—in some cases, far more sensitive—than previous generations. But sensitive doesn’t mean wimpy. It means they’re more likely to react to their environment.

And have you seen their environment? Sure you have: it’s the same one you experience every day. The one where you can’t watch TV without seeing a violent crime (either on the news, as part of a show, or during the commercials), you can’t walk down the street without seeing someone sexing themselves up, and you can’t eat without playing Russian roulette with your health.

My hypothesis is that the same sensitivity that is driving empathy to new heights and bringing conscious capitalism, sustainability initiatives, and “ROAK” into the mainstream is also the same sensitivity that’s leading to rampant bullying, shootings, and other problems. We don’t see it because our conventional use of the term “sensitive” has been synonymous with wimpy.

It’s time for a refresh.

When 17 year olds’ gut reaction to a bad call on the soccer field is to punch a referee in the face hard enough to kill him, we need a definition of sensitivity that encompasses the full scope of what that term means.

The other thing we need is a change in our approach as parents and society.

Because while the upside of having sensitive kids is in their potential to bring this world to a more positive place, the downside is that nurturing them to reach their potential requires us as parents to be better, too. When we’re not, we’re exposing them to negativity that  impacts them more than our parents’ negativity impacted us. Whatever behavior we model, that’s the behavior they’ll emulate.

That’s what sensitivity is all about.

So let’s do like the song says, and be good for goodness sake!

 
Jason Seiden is CEO of Ajax Workforce Marketing. Ajax amplifies brands by aligning employees' online messaging.

Align your employees. They're stronger as a team.

Good bosses, I’m talking to you on this one…

If you were an employee, would you represent your company?
Would you be so grateful for your paycheck that you’d be willing to make the company brand part of your own? Or would you keep the relationship at an arm’s length?

You’d probably embrace the company’s message. That’s why you’re a well respected boss now.

But your employees may not be as invested in work as you are. In the story of their lives, work may be more of a subplot than a central motif. In which case, they may not be as eager to embrace the company message.

So how do you get them to play along?

There’s no shortage of monitoring and measuring tools out there. Is that the answer? Part of it, certainly. But unless your employees have a reason to engage, you’ll be spending more time measuring disengagement than engagement. Before you measure, you need a killer app to pull them over.

The killer app is your employees’ elevator pitches. Show them how to look good on social media, and they’ll listen. Show them how making the company’s brand part of their own makes them look fantastic, and they’ll do it. More of them, anyway. Even the ones with a foot out the door, if you show them in the right way, will engage to promote the brand.

Figuring out that “right way” to show them, however, is deceptively hard. It seems like it should be easy—stick everyone on a webinar, train them on LinkedIn best practices, say thank you for listening, right?—but it isn’t. Framing the message for optimum adoption is a skill, and one that not many people have. Perhaps that’s why there are so many companies out there that will help you monitor and measure your team, yet so few that will help you actually solve the communication/messaging problem they have.

It took the Ajax team about 2 years to figure out how to convert a good training program into something scalable, and this was after 10 years of training and “webinaring” and writing on related topics.

We’re in the process of now of converting our program into a web app to scale things up and bring the magic to everyone at a price point that makes sense. Pilots have been lined up, and though I was hoping to have the pilot phase done in Q2, it’ll be a Q3 thing.

It’s an exciting time for us. Lots happening. If we can help you engage your employees in carrying your banner forward, now’s the time to reach out.

And whatever you do, don’t assume that your employees are like you. The difference between the results you get from “doing training” and “engaging your employees” is massive. And the key to all of this, like I was saying at the beginning, is understanding that the other person’s perspective and priorities are different from your own.

Actually, isn’t that the key to everything?

 
Jason Seiden is CEO of Ajax Workforce Marketing. Ajax amplifies brands by aligning employees' online messaging.

I resemble this infographic. How about you? (You can thank InternetProvider.org for bringing you these insights.)

 
Jason Seiden is CEO of Ajax Workforce Marketing. Ajax amplifies brands by aligning employees' online messaging.

I was on a planning call recently with a client.

They were organizing a client event. At the start of a call, they were planning to facilitate an interactive discussion about a particular topic. In the end, they decided to have 4 execs lecture their clients for 90 minutes.

April is conference season—I saw similar scenarios play out 3 times through my involvement in various events this spring.

Everyone on this particular call knew they were making a bad decision. As an observer with a vested interest, I couldn’t credibly step in. No one else could stop it. So, what happened? No—we know what happened. They had egos on the call that wanted to be placated, and those egos were attached to sufficient organizational power to placate themselves. The real question is, how could they have avoided this mess?

Plan the Next Conversation Before You Start This One

There’s a simple rubric I use to help clients avoid messes like this. It’s really simple to understand. Here it is: plan the next conversation. Here’s how most people implement it:

1. They start with the event in mind and ask the group: “If this event is successful, then when people leave, they will be…. [doing what]?” On the event call, this would have triggered a discussion of what clients would be doing upon leaving the event.
2. Question #2: “What did they just experience that got you to take this action?”
3. Now they’d plan the event. And if an executive says the group needs to bump discussion so s/he can have airtime, someone might ask: “Will that get our audience to the desired goal?” but likely wouldn’t be prepared to follow up with, “How?” and “Nice try,” so they’d get bulldozed.
4. Nothing changes.

Here’s how to really use the strategy:

1. Picture yourself after the conference call. What’s your next conversation with the execs? Do they steamroll you, take you for a fly in the ointment, or respect your views?
2. How do you need to behave on the call to become the person you just envisioned?
3. On the call, when an exec makes a grab for more stage time, you say nothing.
4. Afterward, politely, you say: “Jim, if you were a client in the audience, and you saw a parade of our execs, would you go racing for your phone afterward to tweet about it?”
5. Maybe the exec will change the format back, maybe not. But the next time the issue comes up, you’ll be in a position to discuss it in real-time.

 
Jason Seiden is CEO of Ajax Workforce Marketing. Ajax amplifies brands by aligning employees' online messaging.

Harlem Shake's aggregate views (across 500 versions)

I just saw the image here to the left in an article on Mashable about how quickly (40 days) the Harlem Shake videos reached a billion views.

What’s amazing to me—aside from the raw numbers—is the trend line: after 3 weeks, the videos saw more than a 50% drop off in views. The fall off from week 3 to week 6 looks like it’s about 80%. Also, look at weeks 1-3. Why the fall in week 2 before a spike in week 3? My guess is that that’s the period when people had seen the first few versions and then got busy recording their own.

Incredible. An entire interactive internet meme, born, experienced by a billion people, and played out… in about a month and a half.

Wow.

Andy Warhol wasn’t kidding about 15 minutes of fame being 15 minutes of fame.

 
Jason Seiden is CEO of Ajax Workforce Marketing. Ajax amplifies brands by aligning employees' online messaging.

It’s April Fool’s Day!

How are you celebrating? Are you pranking anyone? I hope so. There’s too little real practical joking in the world. And far too much of what passes for practical joking is actually nothing more than Schadenfreude—the porn of the humor world.

So here’s the question no one asks: how do you respond when it’s your turn to get punked? Answer: don’t respond at all. Not. At. All. The protocol for exacting revenge is to not worry about it.

Of course, unless you’re made of marble, you’ll probably have some emotions floating around inside: frustration, anger, embarrassment maybe. You’ll need to find a home for them, or an outlet for them, so they don’t tear you apart from the inside out. Tricky. Especially if the joke was on a group of you, in which case not only do you have to move through your negative emotions, but you have to pull others along with you. Still, it’s not impossible.

A friend of mine once told me that birds have no business fighting with snakes—use your wings, get out of the grass. Fight your highest level battles, not the lowest level ones. Rise above.

The world is going to give you plenty of stuff you’ll have to fight that will determine your success. Figuring out a revenge play on April Fool’s Day pranksters is not one of them.

Stay focused.

 
Jason Seiden is CEO of Ajax Workforce Marketing. Ajax amplifies brands by aligning employees' online messaging.

Right.

Not easy. Not terribly efficient, either.

I don’t recommend it.

 
Jason Seiden is CEO of Ajax Workforce Marketing. Ajax amplifies brands by aligning employees' online messaging.

I had the pleasure of attending 2 amazing events yesterday. If you’re in Chicago, I’d highly recommend both of them.

Special Gifts Theatre

My wife and I took the kids to Special Gifts Theatre‘s rendition of Beauty and the Beast yesterday. I was near tears before the end of scene 1. These kids were Amazing. Capital A, period, amazing. From SGT’s website:

The goal of Special Gifts Theatre is to provide individuals with special needs, a unique, creative drama experience enabling personal growth while breaking down stereotypes related to disabilities within the community at large.

And boy, do they nail it! I’ve been watching theater people my whole life from up close, seeing totally beautiful and capable people break down from nerves and stress about their appearances on stage (other than my sister, obviously… she’s perfect)… and then here come these kids who doubtless battle these stresses daily, and they filled the stage and defied a packed auditorium to see them as anything but their characters.

And, they won. They sang, they spoke, and they won. I saw Belle, Gaston, the Beast, and a stage full of actors. And not just actors doing a job, either: actors loving every minute of their own performances. Which is exactly what SGT is all about.

As often as we console one another in times of need, it’s nice from time to time to help others celebrate important victories. I knew this was one from the minute I stepped into the will call line and the guy in front of me told me, beaming, “My brother plays the beast!” Yes, this was a victory for all involved.

Score one for the human spirit, SGT. I can’t say enough good things. Well done!!

Redmoon

Then there was Redmoon‘s Spectacle Lunatique last night. A completely different kind of celebration. If you’ve ever wondered what it must have been like to be a character on the set of Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas, ask me, I now know. (Other than being made of clay, that is.)

Thanks to a good friend and Redmoon supporter, Vanessa and I got to enjoy the pre-show while mingling with Chicago’s jet set. BTW, if anyone can let me know the protocol for when you catch the mayor checking out your velvet jacket, let me know. It was so awkward not to have the right words in that situation. Simply dreadful!

Ahem.

Redmoon is an exercise in practical creativity—where nonsensical ideas come to find life in the every day. On the face of it, it is indeed pure spectacle. (See the photos for proof.) But on the way home, I found myself wondering, When was the last time I attended an event that got me thinking about how I walk through life? And isn’t that kind of thought provocation the sign of effective art? So looking back, I have to say, the odd, whimsical, and slightly steampunk world of  Redmoon was a huge win for me. Here’s how they won me over:

More about the show:

• Let’s set the stage: the location is a massive, empty industrial space.
• A troupe dressed as birds with megaphones running hither and yon as a flock, complete with megaphones and bird calls.
• A different troupe doing something similar, as a herd of reindeer.
• Let’s not forget the hares. Or were they jackalopes? Does it matter?
• Swings and bikes for two.
• An awesome ’90′s music soundtrack. Note to party planners everywhere: if I’m your target demo, then House of Pain is going to work every. single. time.
• A dancing, bicycle-riding, PBR-swigging bear. Yes, bear.
• People pouring wine from specially rigged tricycles.
• A 4-piece band on a platform being driven around the space.
• More desserts, these on platters held aloft by balloons. (I’m not sure how the servers managed these, but I never saw one drop, so good for them!!)
• Plants, food, wine, light show. Art. Silent auction, airbrush tattoo artist, shirts by Threadless.
• People walking around with spotlights attached to themselves, lighting up the moving spectacle.
• A duo of tea-pourers dispensing tea from a overly-mechanized machine.
• An aerialist who spent a good deal of time suspended from a champagne chandelier. For a gift of $1k, you could make a gift of her: the chandelier (suspended from a moveable crane) would be driven over to your friend, and down she’d descend, with glasses and bottle in hand, to pour a champagne toast. Got the image? Let’s end with that.

Truly, incredible.

Yesterday I witnessed two very different examples of humanity at its best. Not only is there space in the world for both, but sometimes even on the same day.

And that’s a good day, indeed.

 
Jason Seiden is CEO of Ajax Workforce Marketing. Ajax amplifies brands by aligning employees' online messaging.

My daughter wrote the following tonight. She’s 10. I’m proud.

Bliss
by Elle Seiden

Bliss, resting peacefully, at ease in the sky, thinking blissful thoughts as he gazes down at our rock. But it is not our rock anymore, but their rock.

And bliss is thinking, Wow, what a diverse rock!

He thinks this as Jackson marches hundreds of Indians across the barren desert.

Bliss wants to visit our rock. Of course, he would not even conceptualize the thought of material possessions, so he heads for the stars. By the time he gets to the rock, he realizes it has a name.

Earth.

He struts right on in there.

Bliss sees many—no, all—the inhabitants dressed in black thoughts, with hung heads and sour expressions. Bliss is confused.

“Where are the stars,” he asks a man. The response is a hit to the ground. The cold, unforgiving ground.

Bliss tries many more times, with hits and kicks as responses. Finally, he spots a girl. She is in black, but her head is not hung. Bliss asks her, “Why? Why is everyone so cold here?” He readies for the force of her fist, but it is the force of her words that stop him dead in his tracks.

“It is not that we are cold, you are just warm,” she says, with wisdom and grace in her eyes.

“Why do they hit me down,” he says.

“Because you are different,” she whispers back.

“But this is the rock of difference,” he sputters.

“That’s what they make you believe,” the girl says with exhaustion.

“How do I get them to stop hitting me down,” Bliss pleads.

“Change your clothes,” the girl says, before turning away.

 
Jason Seiden is CEO of Ajax Workforce Marketing. Ajax amplifies brands by aligning employees' online messaging.

This is Lenny. She's in the high school musical. She plays a boy named Rufus.

Tonight was opening night. She did a bang up job and even got her own curtain call! You should’ve heard the applause when she took her bow.

In high school, I loved acting. I didn’t do much of it, but what I did, like playing Jerry in a friend’s rendition of “Zoo Story,” was always an incredible experience. Both my sisters also took to the stage. Jackie with actual talent. (No offense, Lor.)

And now, our dog! It’s so much fun being able to share this experience with the next Seiden generation. We have so much to talk about on the car ride home… I’m learning a ton of stuff I never knew, like how the best way to calm backstage nerves is to go for a walk outside and poop in the parking lot, or how the secret to success is to sit there and look adorable. She’s so good at that, her talent blows us all out of the water… except for Jackie. (No offense, Lor.)

It was great to be back at HPHS, too. Tim Conway and Scott Schallenbarger, two of the best teachers at HP 22 years ago when I graduated, are still there, inspiring kids today. Which is awesome.

So if you’re at the show tomorrow night, and you notice the dog at the stage door, come on over and say hi!

Go Lenny!!

 
Jason Seiden is CEO of Ajax Workforce Marketing. Ajax amplifies brands by aligning employees' online messaging.