about fifth+main

In Korea, over a decade ago, I ate a live octopus.It was small, the head about the size of a quarter, and it had eight tiny, high-tensile legs swinging about. There was a grandmother there, sitting at the bar, and I’d just watched her pick up one of these little octopus with her chopsticks, place it to her lips, and suck. It was an octopus shooter.I had another beer and did like grandma did.I survived, and I have not eaten anything living since. But I feel as if the whole experience helped me cut my teeth on uncomfortable social situations in a way few people ever see. That, more than any other, sent me careening into the field of marketing and public relations.

Communications

I went to work for Hyundai in Korea, helping roll out the ad campaign for the Tiburon coup launch in North America. They found me on the street and paid in cash and mandu, and they needed a guy who could come in and talk with their agency people in the States. Agency people.That’s where the whole “I’ve eaten a living thing” experience began to pay off in spades.I started writing a lot. With the help of a few steadfast friends we pulled off the first English language marketing magazine for the school we were working for and took it to the web. We were late to the web game — at least, we would have been, had we been in the States at the time. But this was pre-boom Korea, and our apartment was over an arcade and coffee house that boasted waitresses who were also escorts who would “deliver” coffee to clients on mopeds. Those were heady days.When the market fell in the East, I headed West and landed in Mountain View, California. I spent all my Korean savings on rent in the first three months and was forced to get a job. Thanks to Hyundai and a penchant for computers I landed a gig opening the first California office for a Portland-based project management consulting company. It was a small firm, and I wore many hats; IT one day to project planner the next.Not long ago I was sitting down with a dean at a local University for which I’m now lucky to teach. He was reviewing my CV and told me that my resume was “dirty” — jack of all trades, master of none, I suppose.

Big Education

I spent the better part of the next decade as a member of the team at University of Phoenix. When I left in 2007, I’d finished a stint as director of new media communications and the University of Phoenix Alumni Association. It’s an interesting organization, over 500,000 strong, made up of quality people, the lot of them. Unlike the traditional alumni role, mine was to manage communications outreach to this group. But as fine an experience as I’d had as an employee, we came to a position where we had to part ways; I started to feel a poison coursing through its veins and as such, I could no longer give my best to the place.Where I’m happiest, and where I’ve been most successful for my clients, is in creating. I create the media content that my clients need to engage their audience in a new way. You can say I’m a writer, a producer, a journalist, a musician — you can say I’m a lot of things. Mostly, I’m a creator.I’ve been blogging since 2000, though first post of record is sometime in 2001. This blog has changed quite a bit over the years, and while I’m not terribly proud of the editorial excellence throughout, I’ve done my level best not to disturb the history, it serves as a storehouse for all the digital creations that come through, and out of, my head.I’m running several podcasts that are mirrored here, and sometimes post content for my students to digest. I have a number of social networking projects that I drop in from time to time, pining on technology that does not exist.Hopefully, the taxonomy will get itself sorted out in the near future, preferably without much help from me. Then it won’t be so hard to get lost in and around these parts. Thanks for reading. Feel free to drop a line as you see fit. I’m all ears.[pw]Last updated September, 2007.