www.James-Strocel.com

Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Decorations are one aspect of Christmas that seems to get all the bad press. Oh no! They’re being put up earlier every year. Heaven forfend! They’re going up on government property! Is there no separation of Church and state? Great Caesar’s Ghost! They are simply morasses of glass, tin and plastic that serve no purpose whatsoever other than to take up attic space! I like to respond to these exhortations with one question: What is the reason for the season? Jesus you say? Ah yes, but what did we celebrate before we heard of the Prince of Peace? That’s right! The Winter Solstice, a.k.a the longest night of the year!

It’s like this. Every season has its own tree decorations. In spring we have the buds and flowers, in summer we have the harvest, and in the fall we get the coloured leaves. What do we have in winter? Snow, long nights, and naked branches. In our neck of woods you don’t even get the snow! It’s just  damp death and desolation everywhere you go in nature. This leads to something called Seasonal Affect Disorder in humans. Symptoms include depression, pessimism, and getting screwed on vacation packages to Mexico. Sure you could take a vitamin supplement, rent a tanning bed, but where’s the fun in that? Why not give winter its very own tree decoration? It’s not some kind of religious indoctrination. We’re merely trying to mimic nature. It’s also uniquely human that we write a different ending for the story of winter. Free thinking creatures that we are, we like to create our own fate. Instead of rolling over and succumbing to the cold and misery around us, we turn it into a festival of gold, silver and coloured lights.

Some would say that this is a dark time in music. Too many synthesizers, too much sex and too many repetitive cookie cutter summer jams have fields of musical creativity inert, their soil salted so that nothing will ever grow again. However, once a year, a sprig of hope perks from the cracked ground. Once a year, almost by law, we are allowed to hear Frank Sinatra on the radio again.

Old Blue Eyes is not alone. Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, Burl Ives, Vince Guaraldi, and the Beach Boys all get their turn on terrestrial radio at Christmas time. Not to mention a whole slew of symphony orchestras. A little window back to a time when mastery over musical craft meant more than image and crass attention-whoring. Some kid’s going to hear those tunes in the line to Santa and think, “Hey, I like that 5-part harmony. I wonder where I can hear something like that again?”

My wife says that I have the patience of Job for coming to these Christmas Craft Fairs. While I admit there’s a lot of frou-frou knick-knacks that I probably would never buy or have any use for, I love these craft fairs. I love any kind of impromptu market, for that matter. Most of these stalls aren’t put up by people who are on salary. They’ve devoted their free time and energy into creating a saleable product. They are not necessarily there to make rent or credit card bills. If they make a profit while they are there, it’s more of a tangible measure of how well they plied their craft.

People talk about how money sullies the creative pursuit. You can’t really love what you do if people have to induce you with a reward, right? But what if the goal is to get better at what you do? How will you know that your quilt, ornament, or christmas treat is any good? You could show them off to your friends, you could give them as gifts, but to have a complete stranger give money for your craft! You have to be really good at what you do if you inspire people to trade the fruits of their labour for yours. If you really know how good your craft is, I can think of no better way to find out than to put a price tag on it.

Last year I did a 7 part blogging series on the virtue of christmas. I thought I could just lay out my feelings for the season right then and there for the whole world to see and that would be it. If I alone carried the torch for a traditional, commercialized Christmas, I could deal all the articles calling it the “One-Party State” Holiday. I could deal with the nitpicking over whether Jesus was born on December 25th. And I could even deal the constant wailing over the environment and giving money to corporations, who I am told pick their teeth with bones of children and balance their accounts in ledgers bound with real puppy hide.

But, as it turns out, I cannot. The rants seem to get more bitter and more pretentious every year, and it’s seriously bumming me out. ‘Tis the season to also be fighting Seasonal Affect Disorder, people! Christmas and the preparation of Christmas is how I make my way through the shorter days and the yearly wet death of the forests. I will not stand idly by as my favorite holiday is blamed for all of society’s ills. I know I will not change any minds about the season. If you hate all the shopping, the stress and the Sinatra of the season the following series of posts will only infuriate your puritanical little heart. But if you’re like me and like to celebrate rather than denigrate Christmas, then strap yourself in with an ugly sweater and mug of eggnog for James Strocel’s Seven Days of Christmas 2010.

I’ve known for a long time that I’m an introvert. When most people my age would go out drinking, I much preferred staying at home with a book or taking a long walk on my own. I realized that I had fewer friends than most people. I began to think something was wrong with me. I would hear rumours that I “hated people”. I don’t “hate people”, I hate hearing Robbie Williams’ “Rock DJ” played at 100db for the fifth time that night.

Unfortunately, when we think entrepreneurs, we think of extroverts. Out-going go-getters with a firm handshake and a bright game-show host grin. When you go into business for yourself, you are management, manufacturing, and marketing all rolled into one. If you can’t manage the marketing, the first two aren’t going to matter very much. That means you have to get out there, dial for dollars, pound that pavement, and sell, sell, sell! Some people are really good at this. They love meeting and talking to new people. It gives them energy. But what if  that’s not you? What if you are an introvert trying to run a business?

Marti Laney’s book “The Introvert Advantage” clears few things up for all the introvert entrepreneurs out there. Introversion is not about whether you like people or not. It has everything to do with your energy level. There’s a funky neurobiology aspect to that, but it basically means that unlike for extroverts, meeting a lot of people is hard work. Shake enough hands and at the end of the night you’ll feel like death warmed over. Now I’m not suggesting starting an introvert support group, or anything like that. You just have to know how manage your energy.

Introverts are better able to manage a few intense and loyal relationships over a thousand hyper-active acquaintances. They are also more detail oriented and are better able to concentrate on whatever they are interested in. This would allow you to spend more time coming up with great product or service because that intense thinking energizes you. So, you’re not going to be “working the room” with fake smiles and air kisses. You’re probably going to get really involved in one very intense discussion and spend the rest of the evening like that. That’s okay. That doesn’t represent lost sales.  Your customers may come to trust you more than your extroverted counterparts because they’ll know that you’ll be there for them 100%. So line up those lunch meetings, and follow up on those clients. You just have take your time and focus on your strengths rather than your weaknesses.

A while back I wrote about the impending closure of Dino Town, which was once Chilliwack’s Bedrock city. It turns out there was more to that story than was told in that Vancouver Sun Article. The paper had sugarcoated the truth a bit, as newspapers are sometimes wont to do. Bedrock City wasn’t a lost battle in the on-going generation war. The loss of the license that turned it into “Dino Town” wasn’t even an attempt by Time Warner to reel their brands in. Bedrock City lost the Flinstone license because it was contractually bonded to the man who originally built the park, Bob Ell. Soon after I had posted my article on Dino town, Bob got in touch with me over Twitter. He had left his number, so I phoned him up. This is what he had to say.

In Bob’s opinion, the park closed due to poor management and a lack of investment in the park itself. He had faced the same issues of declining attendance  in the early 80′s. After 10 years, it was difficult to maintain interest in the park. So, he enlisted the help of Mike Vance, Dean of Disney University and a consultant for companies like Kraft, Mars and General Electric. They created new attractions every year using some of the first computer aided storyboarding software on an original Macintosh computer. Through this cycle of constant re-invention, kids could join the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes, join the Bedrock fire department, steer a rock barge, and even control a brontosaurus.

Bedrock was serving 100,000 customers in its heyday. Entrepreneurs were coming from miles around to the park’s office literally begging to buy a license to build more parks. When the park was sold in 1994, the new owners saw the yearly updates as a waste of money. Attendance frittered away to a mere 40,000.

There is an important lesson in this story. We would have still had Bedrock City, or at least a decent place to take our kids, had the owners of Dino Town kept up with the culture of innovation and hard work that made the park so popular. This same lesson applies to any business in your own backyard. There are too many operations out there where the owners and employees have just given up. They may be in charge of an unassailable franchise, or inherited the family business, but either way consumers suffer for it. It doesn’t have to be this way. These so-called institutions are nothing but fair game for people with the passion and persistence to build something better. Take a good look around. What are people in your town missing? What would it take to give them what they want? What would you build?

Hey, I’ve been busy.

This past month I’ve been hard at work on the business plan my new company, V2S Web Design. It was a lot of hand-wringing, hair-pulling and a final realization that a business plan is NOT a university English paper. I made my presentation to the Fraser Valley Self-Employment review panel, and they approved. I get to continue running my business with their support. Go me!

The V2S website has also launched at www.v2swebdesign.com. It’s pretty basic for right now, but soon it’s going to have a weekly blog containing tutorials and articles about what I do and what my work can do for my customers. I’m also going to be teaching a day-long workshop about websites in the new year with Blair Campbell of RankAhead.ca. I had pitched the idea of using workshops to market my services, and for some reason the Self Employment Program got really excited about it. Keep an eye on this space and I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’ll keep up with the old blog as much as I can, but I’ve decided I should actually give it a focus now. It’ll still be my personal blog, but it is now the personal blog of a small businessman trying to make his way in the harsh business landscape of the Fraser Valley. I’ve become a bit of a student of making money in recent years. In between jobs I was always reading career books trying to figure out what went wrong with mine. I found a culture that wasn’t so much concerned with CYA policies and corporate servitude as it was with courage and hard work. I’ll be talking to people who’ve made their way in the province, as well as up and coming entrepreneurs. It won’t just be some chirpy shrine to capitalist success either. I’m going to explore failures too – my own and those of others.

I find it kind of strange to be doing this. I’m kind of creating multiple public identities. One for V2S Web Design, where I talk about the things I know or have researched thoroughly. The other one is for James-Strocel.com, where I try and talk about the things that I don’t know, or that I’m still exploring. I wonder, which identity will people accept as real?

There are times when I’m staring down at that facebook news feed I can’t help but feel like a bystander. Someone’s cooking dinner. Someone’s watching a movie. Someone’s posted a link to salon.com. Someone’s pregnant. Someone’s broken up. Someone else is howling to heavens at all the “haterz” in the world (seriously, who actually talks like that?).

I see this stuff and I want to know details. I want to know what they thought about the movie, how dinner went, the baby’s name, weight, and gender. But who am I to do that? I haven’t talked some of these people in over 10 years! If I started commenting or liking every status that held my attention, I’d turn into the Gilbert Gottfried of social media. I’d be as ubiquitous as farmville and twice as annoying!

Or would I? Do I get annoyed when someone comments on my status? Do I feel invaded when someone actually wants to know what’s going in my life? I could avoid social media if I really wanted to. We all could. We’re not looking for our 15 minutes of fame here, but I think we all need just a little acknowledgement. Just a little ping to remind us that we exist, and that someone has noticed. For however long that is.

While we’re on the subject of buzzwords, Community is another word I’d like to have a look at. The most valuable thing in the world today? The Community. Everyone is looking for one, be it online, sustainable, multicultural, or multilingual. We want our children to be community minded, we want them to grow up with a sense of who they are in the community and how they serve the community. Okay, we all like the community. But pop quiz, hot shot: Who is your neighbour?

If you are like me, most of you kind of fumbled with the question. It’s a common suburban lament. Nobody knows their neighbours anymore! We can list any number of factors as to why this is. Oh, it’s the design of this subdivision, with all these Mcmansions, it’s so impersonal! You can’t give out candy for halloween! It’s so unhealthy! Let’s not bother them! They enjoy their privacy. On and on and on. It doesn’t explain what is stopping us from ringing the doorbell and stopping by to say hi.

I’m not saying it’s easy. It involves somebody being annoying, being someone caught off guard, and all the other messy subtleties of face-to-face interaction. They might not  have the same opinions as you, or the same tastes. The only thing you have in common is your geography. But if we say we want community, that’s where it all starts.