ManeyDigital

2 x 20 = 40

Over the past couple of days I’ve managed to squeeze in two strong 20 mile rides on the backroads of Buckingham, Pa.  Lots of hills and little traffic.  Today, one of the local club riders latched onto my back tire for the last 4 miles of the ride (which upped the pace a bit).  Here’s a look at the out-and-back route (click here to see the whole route):

Wismer out and back

Filed under: Uncategorized

Pimp my profession

For the past 18+ years, I’ve worked in the field of public relations. A flack. A spin doctor. And, apparently, not much different than your average, everyday hooker.

You see, years ago I came across a top 10 list of reasons PR is similar to prostitution. Along the way, I lost the list. No amount of Google searching could find it. Until today.

So, in the spirit of David Letterman, I present you “The Top 10 Ways PR is Like Prostitution”:

1. Your ‘customers’ are called clients…like a prostitute.
2. You work in weird shifts…like a prostitute.
3. You get paid to make clients happy…like a prostitute.
4. The client pays a lot of money, but your employer keeps almost every penny…like a prostitute.
5. You are rewarded for fulfilling your client’s dreams…like a prostitute.
6. When you meet the client you always have to be perfectly groomed…like a prostitute.
7. But when you go back home it seems like you are coming back from hell…like a prostitute.
8. The client always wants to pay less but expects incredible things from you…like a prostitute.
9. When people ask you about your job, you have difficulty explaining it…like a prostitute.
10. Everyday when you wake up, you say “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life doing this”…like a prostitute.

(Image via Creative Commons courtesy of Davide Ferro.)

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THE OLD STUFF

CONTACT ME

You can email me, reach me on IM or Skype (I'm mikemaney on most services), follow me on Twitter, see my photos on Flickr, watch my videos on YouTube or check out my professional background on Linkedin. Whew.

ABOUT ME

My Twitter profile says I’m a former Calvin Klein underwear model, father/husband, and stimulator of developer influencers. Well, I guess two out of three isn’t bad.

First, the personal me: I’m a father to two of the smartest, funniest, most talented and most beautiful girls on the planet (they get most of that from their mother). Speaking of, I’m married to a saint. I look a little like Andre Agassi if he got stung by a swarm of bees. I think Buffett and Springsteen are musical gods. I’ve run a 4:30 mile, a 1:19:00 half marathon and two full marathons (Chicago and New York City). I don't run as much as I used to, instead channeling my inner Lance Armstrong on the back roads of Bucks County, Pa. I’ve skied Tuckerman’s Ravine and survived. Despite being years out of practice, I can still climb a respectable 5.9. I once hung out with Chris Farley on the set of Saturday Night Live.

Some of the things I like (in no particular order): road biking, skiing, photography, travel (the non-tour, no-agenda kind), wine, Jimmy Buffett, Bruce Springsteen, Bill Bryson, The West Wing, and great comedy.

Now, the professional stuff: I’m a media junkie. Despite (or perhaps, because of) being in the PR business for roughly the past two decades, I think the Fourth Estate is one of the most important components of society. I’ve worked with big, global corporations (IBM, AT&T, Unisys), big honking agencies (Ogilvy, Grey, Saatchi) and exciting startups (MindTouch, Krugle, Mashery). I’m a believer in open source and an unabashed Mac fanboy. In my current role, I’m the Director of Influencer Management at Alcatel-Lucent. And if I can ever track down the last of those Polaroids, I'd someday like to run for President.

A respected mentor and former colleague once said I have an uncanny ability to help executives hone their messages and craft compelling, creative stories (that colleague also said I liked to kick the snot out of the competition). I've written a number of well-received speeches for executives, but I'm no Peggy Noonan. I've placed stories in outlets big and small. I'm a geek. I've crippled enough devices with alpha and beta software to be dangerous at a keyboard. That inquisitiveness makes me an early tech adopter (if you think Twitter is buggy today, you should have seen it when I was first using it in 2007).

I attended and (Yay!)graduated from Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey) with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and a concentration in professional writing and organizational communications. I grew up in a small town in northwestern New Jersey where I attended and (Yay again!) graduated from Hackettstown High School and lived out my Al Bundy'esque dreams as an all-state soccer star.

FLICK ME? FLICK YOU!

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