I’ve been lucky to meet many members of this group, to include most of the founders, well before this event. What started as a Tweetup has grown into a community of like-minded people that want to help each other raise the bar – to get better at reaching, serving, and satisfying their customers. And to teach each other how to get better – which is the real key. Vibrant communities are built when people care more about US then they do about “me”.

This is a pure grass-roots organization, with no dues, no real rules, but a lot of shared excitement, and curiosity, and a desire to both learn, and to teach.

I was lucky enough to speak at BMPR two months ago, and I had fun with it. I had the dorkiest slide deck ever because I’m not a fan of slides. I would rather “talk story”, as they say down under.

So for three years, almost, I have been talking about this company I work for, and how amazing it is. And I know some people were probably getting tired of it, because it just sounded like me beating a corporate drum. But last Thursday a lot of my friends got to come and see why I love talking about who I work for.

It is not a perfect place, but it is most often a magical place. Being able to share that with 100+ of my friends, and the friends of my friends was really cool. I was pretty proud to have them see what we did with an old shopping mall – how we turned it into a very comfortable home for Fanatical Support to live – and grow.

Managing over 100 guests at a time, to include a tour through offices with a thousand or more people actually doing their day jobs isn’t something many companies would welcome. My bosses supported the idea from the first email I sent that asked, “What if…?”.

They were so in sync with me on my desire to just show off a little bit of what we are building – we are not done by any means – both our mall (The Castle) and our company are still expanding very quickly. They had no clue who BMPR was – they just knew it was important to me. Important enough that a member of the senior leadership team took some time to welcome people, and stayed around for most of the session.

I’ve been a Rackspace customer for a long time – and approaching being an employee for three years.  The things Rackspace has let me do – the ideas they have let me pursue; the chances they have let me take…  It really is a different kind of company.  Where the Chairman might call me at 12:30 am if that is the only time we can find to talk, or I might have a 1:1 dinner with the CEO.  Where a Social Media team is built off of engineers and not marketing.  Where one over-riding goal of “Be Helpful” permeates everything we try to do.

Where a great idea can get funded if you are passionate enough to pursue it.

That doesn’t happen in a lot of companies our size.  It is a little magic. And I’m glad I can invite in guests that can get a bit of a sense of that magic.

Everything starts with community.  From the way we are building our company to why BMPR matters.

If you want to make your life more full – get involved with your community.  There are some amazing people out there wiling to both learn and teach you.  Find them.  They are looking for you too.

We all need each other.

Thanks so much to my friends in BMPR for letting me show you a bit of my world – and for sharing so much of yours with the rest of us.

Note – edited to link to my dorky slide set, per request.

1 – Wear the most comfortable pair of walking shoes you own.  Do NOT go buy a new pair of shoes now – it is too late to break them in and make sure they are comfortable.  Find that ugly old pair of sneakers in the back of your closet if you must.  Comfort is critical.  You will walk miles and be on your feet 18+ hours a day (if you are doing it right!).

2 – Don’t shake hands.  Fist bump if you must, but so many people coming from all over the world bring in flu strains your body won’t be expecting.  Better safe than sorry (and I’ve been sorry more times than safe, I am afraid).  I also don’t recommend using hand sanitizer right after you shake hands with the CEO of that great company you just met – might send the wrong message

3 – Chapstick rocks.

4 – Don’t carry anything that you can’t fit in your pockets.  You will either regret you did and/or lose it. After 18 hours you will hate that “comfortable” backpack.

5 – Be wary of the weather and pack accordingly.  You will be outside a lot.  And sometimes the weather even comes inside (like it did at our party last year when the roof leaked!). If it is hot, a big floppy hat is a lifesaver. Doubles as an umbrella.

6 – The only thing I carry besides my wallet and iPhone (and the charger) is a bottle of water.

7 – Use FourSquare – that’s how you can find the stuff that isn’t in the official program.

8 – Take advantage of the hallway track.  Some of the best friendships and business deals are made informally in the halls of the convention center.

9 – Party well.  By that I mean have fun, but pace yourself.  There are a lot of parties and a lot of people.  And everyone has a camera phone.  If you end up in a viral video on YouTube, make sure it is for the right reasons!

10 – If you are with others always set a few times and places to meet back up each day in case you get separated.  AT&T did much better with cell coverage/reliability last year than the year before, but relying only on your phone may leave you alone.

Bonus!  See my session!

Got some more helpful tips?  Add them in the comments!

So what did we do?  I invited Derek, and his younger sister Lauren (18), to a Tweetup here in San Antonio.  The establishment says they think we had 75 people there. I’ve been doing local Tweetups for a couple years.  This is the first I invited my kids to. It was a special day for me.  My son is now 21.  And nothing pierced, or tattooed; no records tarnished, no fingerprints taken.  My work here is done

He can now decide his own future, and either learn from my mistakes (which I have openly shared with him).  Or he can do it the hard way – and do it from scratch.  Every parent hopes they teach their kids enough that they each start in a better place than we did.

So why did I invite my “kids” to a Tweetup?  They use social media, but they aren’t overly geeky (OK, my son IS – but in a diferent way than me).  I invited them so:

a) they could meet my friends and “other family” – my community.  To include some coworkers, my new boss, and a couple of employees.  I want my kids to understand what I do, even if it seems impossible that someone would pay me for making friends and treating people well (they actually do!).

b) I could buy my son his first legal beer (and did).

c) And honestly – I just wanted to show them off.  As the custodial parent for about a decade, I wanted people to see that I didn’t screw them up!

I did NOT expect one of my employees to buy my son his first legal shot as well – DAMN you, Rocky!.  Luckily my daughter drove (and at 18 she was drinking soda).  My kids understand the perils of excess – whether that be alcohol, infatuation or anything else.  Too much of a good thing is too much.

In any case – thanks to all my friends.  I had a boss there, customers there, ex co-workers there, partners there, employees there, coworkers there, and job seekers there.  And my kids there.

All friends.

That’s what makes my job and life so cool.

That is actually an interesting fact about Rackspace – every employee is treated as a trusted friend.  We see the books.  We know the numbers.  We know how we are doing, and how we depend on each other to get better, and to do better.

And we let people find what they are good at, and where they best fit in.

Think that is bullshit?

In 11 days I will have been at Rackspace for exactly one year.  After one year I’ll feel more comfortable calling myself a Racker.  I feel like one – just don’t feel as if I have “earned it” yet

I was hired in the Cloud division.  To manage developers.  I now work for Rackspace proper – doing something MUCH different then I was hired to do.  Many companies would not have worked with me to find that “sweet spot” – they would have parted ways with me before they put that effort into the relationship.

Instead, Rackspace let me go try something new (to us).  I took over our Cloud blog, and our Twitter account.  And it worked – pretty well.  They let me build an event for SXSW in Austin – which was amazing, and very well received.

And then they let me do something really out there – I hired Robert Scoble and Rocky Barbanica.  And then we built building43.com, which is yet another experiment.  One I have a lot of passion for.  One I truly believe in, and am passionate about.

And I think that’s the key that Rackspace has figured out – they let people follow their passion.  And they work with those employees to find a way to make that passion make sense.  For the Racker, for Rackspace, and for investors.

So I was hired to manage developers.  Instead I am managing emerging media, building a truly unique web property, and trying to find a completely new way to do both marketing and PR in a public company.

Not bad for the first year.  Wonder what they will let me try in the second?  Guess that depends on how these current projects work out!

But it is pretty damned cool to be able to TRY – to do something totally new.  To have the company see if it fails instead of demanding proof it will succeed before they even try.

If you think hosting companies are boring, you haven’t worked at Rackspace.  We are anything but boring – we are pushing the envelope in ways most companies aren’t.

And that’s why I love it here.

Join us   We’re hiring.

Always.

Rob

I need it for a variety of reasons – looking at the connectors on the back of my TV, so I don’t have to move the TV just to plug something in, looking at the connectors on the back of my PC, etc.

But looking further down the page at the “People who bought this also bought…” section, I find this:

The Bank Job is a movie about a bank robbery.  Somehow I don’t think everyone else is buying this tool for the same reason I am!

1. For some reason I got some hits  my blog with that EXACT phrase today.  So I went to Google and searched it.

Guess what?

I am the number one result – out of at least 13,200,00 results for “what fun can you do on the computer?”.

Just in case the result changes (I doubt it ever will – heh), I included a screen shot of the results as of today.

So if you want fun you can do on the computer, Google thinks you’ve come to the right place

Rob

I got a kick out of this sign in a bar window in Austin, TX.

“No Dogs After 9 P.M.”?

Double meaning there?

Perhaps not.

But I thought it was funny

What impressed me?  The Dyson Airblade.

Really – a hand blower/dryer that actually works!

Everything in the bathrooms is no touch – even the soap dispenser (which I love, coming from a medical background).

But the Airblade – very cool.  It actually works!  In like 15 seconds!  And your hands are dry.

I want one.

I tried to take one, but I didn’t have the right set of tools to steal one.  Besides, I was in a high level meeting, and walking in with the hand dryer would have been odd.

I love great tech – and Dyson makes amazing stuff.  I LOVE their vacuums.  How many geeks do you know that talk about vacuums?  Only the ones who have bought a Roomba OR a Dyson.  The Dyson is a work of technology and art.  The Roomba is a conversation piece.

Some of the key Mosso/Rackspace employees geeked out over the Dyson products today.

I did

Weird

As we were finishing our food the founders of the company I now work for walk down the stairs.

Not so secluded, I guess!

Anyway, as they joined us one of them asked me to tell him the story about a gunfight I had on a motorcycle.

I didn’t pause to think before I replied, “Which one”?

Probably not something you want to be known for -  having more than one “gunfight” on a motorcycle

I can already tell that this story won’t leave me alone.  Two people have mentioned it since lunch.  Neither of them were AT lunch.

Be very careful what you blog about

Developer: although … I bet that, unlike me, YOU can’t recite the number PI til 70 decimals!

Developer: Gawd… I AM a nerd!

Rob La Gesse: Uhm – I am a manager – I know WHO can recite pi til 70 decimals!:P

Developer: smart ass

Was all in fun – no flame wars required!

Just a short diversion so I can let you know that I *do* realize I have a blog here!

Weekly Pack?  Really?

“Get a Full Serving of Vegetables Every Day” is what they claim.  “Every day”, and “Weekly” lead my to believe that V8 is ripping me off!

There are 7 days in the week.  6 cans of V8 in the “Weekly Pack” – even the calendar on the package shows only 6 days in the week! 

V8 is stealing Saturday!

Why Saturday?  I *like* Saturday!  Why not Monday?  Nobody would care if they stole Monday!

Another quick story from my time in Hawaii.

We had some great neighbors in our quad-plex housing in Hawaii – Chris and Cheryl Boyd.  Cheryl and I spent a lot of time together – we each were the primary stay at home parent, and we would often shop together – both on and off post.  We were both military spouses.  And we were all great friends.

After driving back and forth through the front gate many times together (in a single day) eventually the new guard waved me over.

“Sir, do you know that it is customary for you to return a salute when I welcome you to post”?

Me: “I am not in the Military”.

Him: “Then your wife should return my salute, sir”.

Me: “She isn’t my wife”

Him, flustered: “Uh well then sir, never mind.  Uh, I’ll mind my own business, sir”

He assumed one of us had to be in the military since we had an officer sticker on our car that told him “we” lived on base.  Then he assumed we were doing something naughty.

Assumptions are often my favorite basis in humor.

This story is posted by request – from someone that was there, and has friends that don’t believe it happened.

For those of you that know me, you have heard this story many times.  For those that I haven’t spent more than three hours with, this may be new to you.

I don’t over-drink and drive.  A few beers over a few hours is all my small frame can handle and not become a threat on the road. 

Back in 1997, when I still lived in Hawaii, and was still married, and could still golf – I had a weekly tournament every Wed evening at a par three lighted course at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.

A large group of us would play nine holes, for money (chump change) and then repair to the Tenth Puka for a few cold drinks, and some Karaoke (for those in our group that could sing, or thought they could).  It was always great fun, and for some time it was the favorite part of my week.

On this particular night we had company in town, and everyone decided that spouses would join us at the club after our game (which finished at about 9pm).

When we finished golfing there were about 15 of us that hit the club, and another 8-10 spouses joined us.  We were having a very good time – good enough that the bartender was buying rounds, I was buying rounds – everyone seemed to be buying rounds.  We drank to excess and had fun to an extreme. 

We had a designated driver, Esther – and the more we drank, the more everyone cheered her on for her wonderful Karaoke skills.  As the only sober member of the group, Esther got a kick out of the fact ANY of us thought she could sing. 

I didn’t sing – my job was doing the whistling for “On the Dock of the Bay” (which I could, and still can do well – even sober!)  Amazingly, this song would come up 6-8 times every evening.  Everyone thought they could sing it.  I always got the second mike and the whistling

The club was supposed to close at 2am, and after 2:30 the Military Police finally told the club manager to shut it down.  It had been a lot of fun, but it was coming to a close.

As we walked out of the club there were two lesbians having a domestic disturbance and my (now ex) wife tried to calm them down – that was pretty interesting – I thought she would get her ass kicked, but that didn’t happen – we dragged her away from the couple and piled into our Ford Taurus – headed back to our community a few miles away. 

We had a designated driver.

Esther was not from Hawaii – in fact she was just passing through with her husband on the way back from a three year tour in South Korea – they stayed with us for a couple weeks, as we had been friends for over a decade.  She wasn’t familiar with the route and had to rely on a car full of drunk officers (and me) to get her home.

To be specific, Esther was a Senior Enlisted Active Duty member – her husband was an Active Duty Army Captain.  My now ex was an Active Duty Army Major, I was a civilian, and we had one more friend with us – Mark Bean – an Active Duty Special Forces Army Major.

As we approached the gate leaving Hickam Air Force Base a young Airman tried to wave over the car in front of us – evidently they we doing “random” vehicle checks (looking for drunk drivers).  The car in front of us just accelerated and sped away – it was a three lane road and the car moved quickly, so they could not stop them.

As several in our car told Esther to just drive through she (being sober) decided she should probably stop as the Airmen waved us to the side of the road.

Now normally, everything would have been ok – we were drunk, no doubt.  But Esther was completely sober.  We had a designated driver.  We were gold.  Or so we thought.

Of course, it wasn’t that simple.  Just as the bar closed I had bought two cans of beer and my ex and I had both brought them with us.  It was a five minute ride home, and I didn’t think carrying a beer would be a big deal.  I was wrong. (at that time in Texas, my home state, it was legal for a passenger to have an open container)

Stupid, I know.  I wasn’t in Texas!

In any case, we were pulled over.  I shoved my beer under the front passenger seat (I was sitting in the rear passenger seat).  My ex put hers in her purse.

If everyone would have kept their mouth shut, it probably would have been a two minute stop.  Of course, not everyone did.  Mark Bean was very drunk, and he was being pretty belligerent (I know – who would expect behavior like that from someone in the Special Forces!?).  This caused the Military Police to investigate further.  They asked us all to get out of the car, and they collected the ID cards from each of us.  We were asked to stand to the side, in the very wide median next to the guard shack.

As the MPs started searching the car, they found my beer – and things got interesting.  They called for the officer on duty, and Mark Bean was trying to piss in their guard shack (really), all the while talking about “Air Force pukes”.  Things were not going well at all. To these 18-20 year old MPs it probably looked extremely chaotic and out of their control.

And suddenly my ex darts to the car and grabs the beer I had left, which the MPs had found and placed on the hood of the car.  She tried to throw it across three lanes of traffic but only made it about a lane and a half.  As the beer hit the pavement the MPs came running back and saw a can of beer, spinning in the middle of the road, and spewing foam all over.  “Ma’am – please don’t tamper with the evidence”, the MP told my ex.  He was VERY polite and VERY correct in his demeanor.  For an 18-20 year old kid dealing with a bunch of drunk officers, he was extremely composed and professional.

At this point I am sure someone, if not all of us, is going to jail.  As the MPs call in this new information, still waiting for the boss to show, Mark Bean starts calling out to Esther – “Esther, are you ok, Esther?  How much did you have to drink?  You ok?  You aren’t drunk, are you?”.  This was NOT a good thing – to this point the only thing we had in our favor was that we were responsible enough to have a designated driver – which might forgive some of our other transgressions.

As Mark continues to yell Esther assures him (and the MPs) that she had nothing to drink and that she was fine, at which point Mark started yelling loudly, “Esther is golden, Esther is Gold!  Yes, Esther is Gold!!!”

We were lucky that night – the commander on duty thought it was more important that we had a designated driver than the fact we were all trashed, we were driving with open containers, and we were tampering with evidence.  He let us go.

I have had a lot of respect for the wisdom of authority since then – they certainly could have affected several military careers that night – and even as the only civilian, I still had a job that would have been affected – I was the Mayor.

So thanks, young Air Force guys – you did us all a favor when we did seemingly everything in our power to convince you to do otherwise.

That being said – it was still a wonderfully fun evening that we often get together and talk about still – even though it happened over a decade ago.

Don’t drink and drive – I use this story as an example to my kids of “responsible” drinking, even though we still made stupid mistakes

My brother Ric told me about In2TV.com which has a complete section of First Episodes.  Some of them are classic – others, like this unaired first episode of Gilligan’s Island.  The theme song alone is so different – as are many of the actors.

If the embedded video player doesn’t work, here is the direct link.

I created my first creature with the Spore Creature Creator – just a fun little tool.  The Creature Creator demo is out in advance of the anticipated release of the game later this year.  Anyway, here is my creature – I call it a “kr8tr-gator”.