The Peanut Gallery

This is Adam, my Santa Monica colleague, and Back to the Future subscriber. When I lived in San Clemente, Adam and I were the "West Coast Office" - though we both operated out of home offices 75 miles from one another. We would talk daily, bounce things off one another and typically see each other every few weeks or so (99% of the time this involved my traveling up the 405 to LA but did get him to the OC twice).

Adam would frequently get at least one call from me from the road if we were meeting anyplace other than Venice or Santa Monica. This is how our phone conversations would typically go:

Me: "Adam, I don't know where I am. I think I missed my exit."

Adam: "Where are you?"

Me: "Um...I can't tell. I can't see the signs yet."

Adam: "Well, when you do, tell me."

Me: "I hate Mapquest."

Adam: "Don't use Mapquest."

Besides being my personal navigation system, Adam also went with me to check out apartments on the west side when I was up in LA, and also vetted a few without me when I would send him links I'd find online that were a few blocks away from his apartment that I thought looked promising. "Trust me, this one isn't for you," he'd report back, knowing enough about me at this point to know what was and wasn't for me.

Adam was going to be my neighbor...except I moved to New York instead.

So over the past year, Adam and I have gotten to know one another, and have talked about much more than a new business prospect or client strategy. He was one of the persons who knew I started a blog. This is all to say Adam knows a bit more about me than what's in my work bio.

Maybe six weeks or so ago Adam and I were talking on the phone and he brought up my blog: "I need more from you. You moved across the country and you have pictures of dressed up dogs. Isn't there anything else going thru your head?"

Tough crowd. And then I smiled and said sweetly, "I'm not writing it for you."

The truth is, most of the time when I write I operate counter to my profession -- in that, I am not writing for a specific audience other than myself. And most of the time I am not carefully considering or thinking about what I am going to write about. I literally think I have no ideas left and then something pops into my head (most of the time, in the morning), and it inspires a quick post.

In marketing, "know your audience" is rule #1 if you want your audience to be aware of your product/company/service, consider it, buy it, tell someone else about it, invest in it, put it on shelf, license it, write a story about it, or anything else you are trying to do. In public relations, if I believe in the cause/product/person, it's second nature to me to be a partner, intuitively grasp the long term vision and ultimately help make the other person 'look good', and shine. Writing is such a departure for me in that I am primarily unconscious of my audience...if I actually thought about who might be reading this, I'm not sure I'd have the nerve, or honesty.

Every once in a while I get an email from a friend or family member saying they really liked what I wrote that day...and it's such a nice feeling. Most of the time I forget they are actually reading it, so it's surprising too. I went on the subscriber list the other day and was very humbled by everyone on the list -- among those I care about most.

So even though most of the time I'm not aware you're reading, I just wanted to say thank you, and I'm very, very touched.

And comments from the peanut gallery are welcomed!