Insights&Inspiration

This is just a great little story I want to keep spreading the word on.

The story itself, along with the two teasers, are just really well done pieces highlighting a great story with a great message. The focus of the story – Chelsea Baker – is just playing a sport she loves and giving it her all. But by doing so, she is also really helping to break down some huge barriers.

Man, I wish someone had taught me a knuckleball early on so I would have had something to keep me focused on baseball instead of giving in to “girls have to play softball” like I did once I started to get a bit of pushback.

You go Chelsea!

Or Watch the Complete ESPN E:60 Story on Chelsea Baker

We were having a wonderful visit with my grandparents just recently.  They are really our favorite people – happy, vibrant, smart – both in life choices and overall intellect.  Though they could retire and live off of grandpa’s fireman pension and their social security, they choose to continue to both work so that they can live comfortably, affording the extra luxuries that they only now are able to spoil themselves with.

I found myself looking at them and hoping that Ryan and I are as happy and comfortable as they are when we are their age – a discussion Ryan and I have had numerous times.  We see a lot of similarities in their relationship dynamics and hope that we are able to be in a similar position as they are in 50 years from now.  I started reflecting on what it would take to make sure we follow a similar path, and why it is that so many families seem to miss the mark on this one.

Smart life choices is huge – but consciously maintaining the relationship is really the key, I would venture to guess. (more…)

Warning: This is a stupid post. Only read if you are bored and happen to appreciate proper use of punctuation enough to be familiar with my dilemma ;)

I am a frequent parenthesis user. I wouldn’t say I overuse them – but I do often insert them amidst my thoughts to provide additional insights, detail or clarification throughout my writing.

I am also a frequent user of emoticons – I stick to :) and :/ mainly, with the infrequent :( – I’m an optimist, what can I say? ;)   I believe that as long as sentiment can’t make it across the web, emoticons are there to help. But I am frequently faced with a dilemma.  Let me show you an example (although its a weak one since parenthesis wasn’t necessary) (more…)

Now that my daughter, Makenzie, is nearing the one-year mark, she is really starting to interact with her environment in an actively thoughtful way. Though going from crawling to walking is no doubt the biggest milestone yet, sometime the little milestones are just as exciting to witness.

For example, she is now beginning to assign words to inanimate objects (her first inanimate object word: “baseball” – thats my girl!).

And just yesterday I got her dressed but hadn’t put her shoes on yet.  I then walked into my room, leaving her behind me for a moment, only to turn and see her walking towards me carrying her shoes that she had found and picked up completely on her own – as if to tell me its time to put her shoes on now.

She has even figured out how to scroll through my photos on my iPhone! (more…)

“As an industry, digital marketing has historically had a bias toward thinking about execution first — to such an extent that much of what passes for advertising and marketing online has no idea in it whatsoever.” Quote from Jim Nichols @ IMediaConnection.com.

“Focusing on platforms versus execution could cause you to miss the entire opportunity in front of you” Quote from Michael Burke @ IMediaConnection.com.

Strategy First, Technology Last: This has become a bit of a mantra here at JStokes in the digital back office. (more…)