Sometimes I wonder if other jobs offer the same opportunity for snack adventures, celebrity sightings, wild weather, and marvelous vistas as do the handful of occupations I call my own.
That is, as a writer, journalist, content creator and commentator or columnist I’ve had the chance to see and experience some great things.
What brought this to mind? I was on This is Why You’re Fat – a fantastically heinous site that documents why Americans might be a little overweight. It documents this in photos. And I realized while clicking around tonight, that I’ve eaten one of the most ridiculous items featured on the site.
The Loco Moco.
That’s right. It’s a bed of rice topped with a hamburger patty which is then topped by an egg and then topped with some gravy.
If you’ve ever eaten, seen, touched, met or experienced something mere mortals might not have had the chance to try, please share that here in the comments.
Thinking thin…but also pining for another Loco Moco.
This was a day and a half of driving. It was only my second stint behind the wheel and the day’s highlights were:
Best BBQ of the entire ten days
Nerves getting a bit frazzled
My first Lone Star Beer – courtesy of Aaron Strout
Arrival at South by Southwest
More content up on the #iroadtrip site
Laundry being done at 3, 4, 5 and 9AM
We woke up fairly early and got breakfast in the FREEZING cold of Nashville, TN. Then we soldiered on through some mist and rain. Colin was still driving and I was doing my darndest to get audio content chopped up and on the Web.
Sadly, the hills of the south-central United States weren’t cooperating with my EVDO card and nobody had a great signal in the car. We struggled with that for a little while and then suddenly it was lunchtime.
Lunchtime and Little Rock Arkansas could mean two things – great BBQ or lunch with Bill Clinton. I didn’t vote for Clinton so I was glad we ended up eating at Sim’s BBQ. This joint was just off the highway and had the best ribs, pork and sides I’ve ever had. The collard greens were salty and fresh, and the pecan pie was delightful.
We spotted the place by the smoke pouring across the road and miraculously we found it – even with two backseat drivers trying to tell John to stop touching the GPS and just find us lunch.
Tensions remained fairly high for a lot of the day’s driving – about 17 hours by my count – but nobody complete erupted and we ended up dropping John at his house and checking in to our hotel around 11PM.
Jim and I were sharing a room that first night and after dropping our clothes in the room, we went out to Emo’s on 6th Street in Austin to meet up with Aaron and the gang.
Drinks and merriment turned into two+ hours of fun and when we returned to the room at 2:30ish we found out that the hotel had a washer and dryer. Jim and I looked at each other and decided to get our clothes washed then.
Taking turnes we kept switching loads (one washer and one dryer) until about 9AM and then we were done.
More to come on day six of ten, our first full day of South by Southwest Interactive.
March 12, 2009 – Louisville to Louisville to Bowling Green to Nashville, TN
You’d think that if you started your day AT your destination you would be in pretty good shape for getting all your daily projects done. Not in our case. On the one day that we started nearly on top of our first interview, we got some great content but also saw some wheels come off the iRoadTrip journey.
Starting at Louisville Slugger, we got some of the most poignant sound bytes and video we’d get the entire trip. We saw bats being made by machine and by hand. We talked with the people in charge of the Bionic Glove line and found out why your hands feel so good when you wear these things. We swung bats wearing these gloves and we found out that Louisville Slugger became a bat company after being a butter-churn manufacturer.
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From Slugger we dashed over to Maker’s Mark Bourbon. We got stenched up during our tour of the plant. When I say stenched up, I mean it. Our tour began at the water-reclamation area of Maker’s Mark’s facility.
Inside were new technologies that make it possible for the company to reduce fuel use and increase output. These also allow them to be more environmentally aware and responsible by returning a lot of this water to nature.
But it smells like crap. Really, crap.
When we walked in the door we were slammed by the odor of a thousand cow fields. And the smell was pervasive. Even after washing some of my clothes later in the week, the smell persisted. But I digress.
More items of the tour included a view of the vats being filled…
…and a tasting of their Bourbon.
After this visit we piled back into the car and then zipped over to the Zappo’s factory. The day was getting longer, but so very cool.
Zappo’s was great. Good audio and amazing sites. But similar to the Rock and Roll Hall, there were no cameras allowed inside.
Here’s what we found out from Isaac at Zappo’s….
The warehouse is massive.
They do a full inventory of MILLIONS of items once a month.
They have robots from Kiva moving product around.
They have a creative studio onsite for creating Web images.
Employees get free food ALL THE TIME.
There is security at the door that’s stronger than airlines.
They are right next door to a great Zappo’s Outlet.
We all loved our visit, most of us bought stuff at the outlet, and then the snow fun began in southern Kentucky. Yes, Kentucky.
The snow came and the roads were sketchy and we were all worried. We made it as far as Bowling Green before stopping for BBQ. Then, after a nice little ride, we made it to Nashville and stayed there for the night.
We had hoped to be four or eight hours closer to Austin at that point. Stay tuned to see what happened on Day Five.
When I was a college student, I made a trip around the United States by myself. I was on an independent study that required I visit and interview the public relations representatives from Major League Baseball teams.
I’m telling you this now because one of the two teams that was unable to get it’s head out of its behind and schedule a 30-minute interview with me (and I was doing phone interviews too, so it’s not like people had to be onsite) was the Cincinnati Reds. For that reason I’ve always held some disdain – perhaps misplaced – for the city and its occupants.
Day three changed my opinion.
Yes, up and on the road early. Actually, we could sleep in because we made it to Cincinnati the night before and our first interviews were at the Cincinnati paper.
At the Cincinnati Enquirer, we spoke with the editor of the paper about social media and how his publication is reaching more people and accepting more types of content in an effort to stay alive. The editor was very aware that layoffs were going to happen, but has been able to push some of them off so far by leveraging the power of the Internet.
His interview and the others from that morning – with a Gannett bigwig and with the founder of MomsLikeMe.com – can all be viewed at http://www.innovatorsroadtrip.com.
After we wrapped up our visit, we blazed a trail down to Lexington, KY for a Tweetup in my honor. OK, it was jokingly called the Jeff Cutler Tweetup because the great folks who organized it (Mari Adkins predominantly) pimped the event by trumpeting my info and my arrival but didn’t really mention the rest of the crew. I got a bit of chiding form the whole iRoadTrip team, but I survived.
The meeting there was at Corky’s BBQ in Lexington. Good food and great conversation ensued and I conducted about a dozen audio interviews that you can see below. I asked everyone about their idea of innovations and got some great answers.
Mari Adkins…
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Alison Kerr…
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Ali Kerr, part deux…
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Allan Courtney…
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Adam Martin…
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Kathy the manager…
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Next stop was a Tweetup in Louisville, KY. Uh, huh, this was a long day with stops all over creation. But wait until Day Four if you want to hear about jam-packed.
The Louisville group was headed up by Todd Earwood and was a fantastic time. Not only were were staying nearby, but we met a guy from Zappos at the Tweetup and laid the groundwork for a meeting with him the following day.
I did some interviews there too and they’re below here…
Joe Wheeler…
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Todd Earwood and Kevin Fry…
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Tired and tired and tired and tired, the four of us went to bed. Oh, I think this was the night that we stayed at the hotel where they were having dog-show participants and their dogs stay. Fun stuff, especially when we went up and down the hall barking to get them to bark back.
In the car at dawn (you’ll notice that this is a recurring theme), we arrived at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We did an interview at the Hall and then did a tour.
This place is amazing. If you’ve never been to the Rock and Roll Hall, I suggest it highly. Even those without a lot of music appreciation or sense – that’s me – you’ll be enthralled by the history and the artifacts there.
They don’t allow photos or video in the hall, but the memories I have are so vivid they should last for a while.
What’s the best thing I saw there? Billy Joel’s lyric notebook. Machines that show you the influences behind certain artists. And the clothing section because it gave me a real perspective on how tall artists of every era were.
Next up was a great lunch in downtown Cleveland and then in the car for a dash down to Columbus.
Once there, we met up with Shawn Morton of Nationwide Insurance and did an interview on the patio of a Columbus bar. The energy of the town was infectious and it prepared us for our next stop – Cincinnati.
We rolled into Cincy and went to Bootsy’s restaurant for a Social Media Club event/Tweetup. People we met there included the CFO of Federated Media, one of the head honcho’s at Gannett Media and a slew of powerful people from P&G.
We dined on tapas and then retired to a comfy Residence Inn room – smoke and scare free.
I should explain that during our journeys between stops, I set up a Wifi hotspot in the car so that everyone could connect to the Internet and we could blog and Tweet and email and generally maintain contact with the world. When we do our 2010 Road Trip (tentatively called iRailTrip) we’re going to see if Verizon or other cell providers will supply EVDO cards for all participants.
As some of you know, I’ve been immersed in technology, blogging and Twitter for the past two weeks. But that immersion has precluded me from putting up posts because I was creating content for others.
First, I took part in the Innovators’ Road Trip and then I was at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. It’s a major blur right now, but I’m trying to piece it together for a bunch of blog posts. Here’s the first installment of my ten-part series.
March 9, 2009 – Providence to Detroit
In the car at dawn, I drove to Providence and TF Green Airport. I boarded a plane to Baltimore and then another from Baltimore to Detroit. It was the first day of the Innovators’ Road Trip project (#iroadtrip on Twitter) and I met John Johansen at the Detroit airport when I arrived.
After pleasantries we were collected by Scott Monty of Ford who handed us a 2010 Ford Escape to use on our road trip from Detroit to Austin.
We made a stop at the Henry Ford Museum and interviewed the facility’s curators. The video and photos can be seen at InnovatorsRoadTrip.com.
Later we toured the Ford corporate headquarters, picked up Colin Browning and Jim Storer, and then went to a bar for a Tweetup (a gathering of folks that is coordinated using social media tools like Twitter).
With bags in the Escape, we drove to the worst Motel 6 I’ve ever stayed in. The room was laden with smoke (although it was labeled non-smoking), there were no towels, soap or shampoo, and there was only one roll of toilet paper.
After briefly discussing our mission – to find innovation and innovators in America’s heartland – we slept.
I’m not going to walk through the underwear choices and hair-styling products necessary for five days on the road with a team of social media practicioners, but what I’m going to give you here is an overview of what tech equipment will be necessary for me to remain in contact with the virtual world during my #iroadtrip next week.
First off, the journey is the brainchild of Colin Browning of New Media Labs. He determined that media and tech events – even new technology thinking – doesn’t occur in a vacuum and isn’t limited to the population centers of the United States. In fact, he posited that people everywhere are becoming more connected and they all have stories to tell.
In an effort to tell those stories, and in a brilliant way to reach some current and prospective clients, he gathered a team of media specialists (me included) to join him in a journey from Detroit Michigan to Austin Texas. That’s where we begin…or where we will begin on Monday, March 9.
In anticipation of a series of regular missives and content about the trip, here’s how I plan to deliver my messages to the world…
Macbook – as a writer, this is my preferred communications tool. With it I can write, blog, tweet, email and even record sound and video. This item won’t be far from my lap during the journey.
Zoom H2 recorder – As a technology reporter for NPR and as a lapsed podcaster, I’ve found this device to be an amazingly versatile and powerful tool for capturing all sorts of sound. It records in WAV and MP3 formats and is lighter than my cell phone.
Seagate FreeAgent|Go external hard drive – I’m still working on getting a video camera to document some of the events along the way and in anticipation of shooting video I know we’re going to need some storage devices. This little drive is 500GB of pure portability. I’m doing a review of the drive soon for MobileMag.com, but what I’ll let out of the bag right now is that there’s no better feeling than having digital room to expand when you’re creating content on a regular basis. Sound, video and even written files have to go somewhere and there’s no way I’m deleting all my Jonathan Coulton songs off my Macbook’s HD.
**By the way, if you ever need to know about a tech gadget – go search MobileMag.com – they’ve done…we’ve done reviews of nearly every gadget you’ve ever heard of from micro projectors to Google phones to iPhone apps to cases. We even put up recaps of big tech events and slice-of-life sharing of how we use gadgets in our day-to-day life.**
iPhone – ‘nuf said.
Olympus 720SW digital camera – It’s waterproof to 10 feet, it’s crushproof and it’s shock-proof. I’ve taken this thing to about 47 other countries and I’ve no doubt it can survive the comfy 1500 mile ride in a 2010 Ford Escape. It also returns great photos like this one at the 2006 Tour de France.
Various dongles, cables, batteries and headsets – There are too many other devices to mention right now. I’ve still got to go to the bank and post office this morning and then rush to Rhode Island to buy a Powerball ticket.
If you’ve got some gadgets that you can’t live without, share that list in the comments. I love to find out what others are using to create and share their content.
Jim Storer mentions in his latest blog post that it’s foolish not to begin a week of insanity, sleep deprivation and critical client networking with a few naps and then a few more naps to ensure you’re bright-eyed and bushy tailed for the challenge. He also implies strongly that some opportunities in life are too interesting and possibly philosophically lucrative to pass up.
With the scales nearly flipped over sideways in favor of getting some sleep and being prepared for the non-stop energy suck that is South by Southwest (#SXSW), Jim jumped at the chance to drive a pre-release 2010 Ford Escape from the tip of the Great Lakes to the center of Austin Texas with a few other creative types.
I’m one of those aforementioned CT’s. That’s right. I’ve had my arm twisted to join a crew of social media experts and strategists on a four-wheeled excursion (the name of another Ford product – unintended connection) through the heartland of America.
On this journey I don’t think we’re going to run into turkeys or lions or tigers or bears – oh, my. But I do harbor some hope of connecting with the ever elusive Twitterer. You know the one. You’ve seen the name online constantly. They have some of their comments retweeted by luminaries like @jimmyfallon or @therealdvorak, but they’re seldom in the wild.
I also am seriously thrilled to chronicle the journey in words, images and sound. To that end I’ve pitched a handful of publications and will be making my missives (likely three or four per day) available here at jeffcutler.com.
I encourage you to link to the original work and add comments on the posts.
If we run into trouble, I’ll tweet about it and share those events and fears at my other blogs.
What do you think? Where do you want us to go? What do you want me to ask of the guys in the car and of the people on the road?
When you write about writing you’re causing the universe to implode a little. It’s like talking about giving speeches or sweeping up the floor of a broom factory. But the discussion must happen because so few people know how to use the written word to communicate.
Take a look at Twitter feeds, emails, faxes and even letters. The best written forms are the ones that take the most effort. Whip off a missive via electronic means and you’re disinclined to connect with it the way you would when snagging a $4 card from the shelf at CVS and writing down some thoughts about birth, death, injury, layoffs, marriages or moves.
So I was thrilled when my friend Steve asked me today – in an electronic missive – to let him borrow a book.
Not because I like lending my stuff, but because the book he was asking for is the definitive guide to proper writing…The Chicago Manual of Style.
It’s ironic (look up what that means) that a book that shows/tells/instructs how to write well – and has been a newspaper journalist’s reference guide for decades – is in such demand now that newspapers are going under. But it’s also heartening.
I want people to write well. Not because I’m a stickler for who’s and whose and whom’s, but because if people communicate more clearly we’re likely going to avoid misunderstandings, expand our horizons, learn more about each other and generally be happier.
Steve, please be happy with the lease of my book. I know you’ll respect and learn from it. And best of luck on your foray into the world of publishing.
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