Jason Toney

What Will I Celebrate?

"I've got a commentary without much to say." - Boingo, Hey!

I've been thinking about this since leaving Disneyland last weekend. Sure we made fun of the slogan -- what will I celebrate? Coffee! Elvis! Not smacking you upside the head! -- but I do have lots to be thankful for. What I've kept coming back to, though, is this place I live in.

I'm celebrating California.

I live and work in a place where I can go to the beach and snow-capped mountains in the same day. I can spend a day at the happiest place on earth in a t-shirt and shorts in October. I live in a place where we take our burgers and our sushi seriously, where, everyday, I talk to at least one person who is a true believer, a dreamer, someone passionate about possibility.

The sun shines on my face nearly every day. Ultimately, my job is to figure out ways to make it easier for people to tell stories online and easier ways for people to get engaged with those stories.

And even with our upcoming non-tax tax increase and the traffic and the obvious minuses of Hollywood and our screwy political system, my world is filled with people who laugh. A lot. Who think differently. And, who, more often than not, know the secret.

The world is what we make it.

This is our time. It's our time, down here.

Happy Halloween.

The Breathe In Breathe Out Workout Playlist

1. Bring Me Down (feat. Brandy) by Kanye West
2. Dreams by The Game
3. Still Dreaming (f/ Kanye West) by Nas
4. Let The Beat Build by Lil' Wayne
5. Sunshine by Lupe Fiasco
6. The People by Common
7. Breathe in Breathe out by Kanye West
8. Get By (w/ Jay-Z & Busta Rhymes (rmx) by Talib Kweli
9. Xxplosive (w/ Hittman, Kurupt, Nate Dogg & Six-Two) by Dr. Dre

Bonus: My 1st Song (DJ Dangermouse Mix) by Jay-Z

35 minutes of Hip Hop Abs Fat Burning Cardio after nearly two weeks of not doing cardio (but I have been heavy into the morning yoga). Is it wrong that this was the first disc I put into my brand spankin' new Playstation 3?

Jay-Z says, "This song that I sing to you is my everything."

Song of the Week: We've Got A Good Thing Going

We've Got A Good Thing Going by Michael Jackson  
Download now or listen on posterous

07 We've Got A Good Thing Going.mp3 (3127 KB)

We've Got A Good Thing Going by Michael Jackson

In Wanda Sykes's recent HBO special I'ma Be Me she talks a lot about getting older and how she knows she's aging. One of those canaries in the coal mine was the death of Michael Jackson. That's the same for me. When your childhood icons start dying, you know you've been on the planet more than a little while. I still think of MJ as 80s Michael. Thriller Michael. Annie are you okay, Michael. So, I've spent much of the time since his passing getting familiar with Michael from other eras. 90s Michael shows signs of the incredible songwriter even if it is never able to overcome the melodrama of his life at the time. It's 70s Michael, however, that is a revelation.

I know the Jackson Five, of course. The hits are iconic. They had a cartoon for goodness sake. I've got the Christmas album and everything but I hadn't been intimate with the entire collection of songs and albums until recently and, apparently, I still am not at the bottom of this rabbit hole. This track, a beautiful stripped down mix of a flirty love song, showcases what was spectacular about Michael Jackson. His voice is impeccable and feels authentic and wise. Here with just minor instrument accompaniment, he's just like his life in the Jackson five. He's out front. His brothers play the background. The music plays the background. Michael is the star and he makes me believe.

We do got a good thing going. That girl and me. And she don't have to ask cuz she knows it's gonna last...eternally.

Sing it Michael! But like Wanda said, they didn't have thongs in the 70s so watch out for them big lady drawers getting thrown on stage.

The Top Songs of Last Week

1. Michael Jackson – We've Got A Good Thing Going
2. Hepcat – No Worries
3. Derrick Morgan – Greatest Thing (I'm A Blackhead Again)
4. Hepcat – Pharoah's Dreams
5. Drake – Lets Call It Off (feat. Peter Bjorn & John)
6. Drake – Outro
7. Hepcat – The Secret
8. Hi-Five – Quality Time
9. Midnight Star – Midas Touch
10. The Pharcyde – Somethin' That Means Somethin'

As you can see, I was a little obsessed with Hepcat and Drake. Here's some explanation why.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Michael Jackson's 'This Is It' Single Debuts Online (mtv.com)
• ArtsBeat: Discussion of the New Jackson Single (artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com)
• New Michael Jackson Song of the Day (drunkenstepfather.com)
• Rip Empson: HuffPost Review: Wanda Sykes's 'I'ma Be Me' (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)

Posted via email from The Pensieve

Project Managers Use Too Much Paper

Image via Wikipedia

"I acted like I could care less while my thumb was pressed to the paper." - Little Dragon, Scribbled Paper

Visio diagrams. Schedules. Gantt Charts. Dashboards. Project Summaries. Notes. Notes on notes. Calendars. Calendars with charts. It never stops. As I spent a good 30 minutes just going through the mounds of paper strewn across my desk, I couldn't help but think, "we've got to do better than this."

I'm a culprit, too. For me, it's the PowerPoint Deck. I make decks all the time. I fill them with pretty pictures and fancy transitions and I like making them and so I want to see them in print. I want others to print them. I want folks to refer to them in meetings so they become these physical goods that, for most, are immediately disposable and I should really be ashamed about my lack of green thinking in this regard.

I am.

So, I'm making this commitment to myself -- I'm going to limit the print-outs. For meetings, I'm going to try my darnedest to get things up on a screen. I'll send out digital copies after the fact. With notes and everything. In the event of lack of A/V materials in a room, I'll bring my laptop and we can crowd around a small screen. Maybe you'll have to squint and get close to your neighbor but that's better than all this wasted paper, innit?

I'm also going to start looking for PM collaboration tools that allow us to get better as a group. Maybe it's just as simple as an edict -- More PDFs, Less pretty print-outs. Because SharePoint right now doesn't seem to be doing the job.

Suggestions?

Happiness is...

His + Hers...Together.

New Rule: No Lunch Meetings that Don't Serve Lunch

Unless someone on senior staff requests my presence at Noon, I'm responding to your lunch-time meeting request in one of three ways.

A. "What are we having?

B. "Where are we going?"

C. Decline

I'm sure your meeting is very important to you but your meeting is not more important than my need for a sandwich. There's a reason why people's calendars show them available during that time -- they expect to be eating and not meeting.

This is just a note from your friendly neighborhood Mister JT.

The Sad Product Launch of GOP.com

"And what we're looking for still isn't found." - Tevin Campbell, Round and Round

The Lady and I were mocking the launch of GOP.com yesterday but in the midst of the comedy I found something to like. That little bug up there. It's a cute little flash promo at the bottom of most pages that animates on roll over. That coupled with the well structured footer is the highlight of what just about everybody has considered a pretty abysmal launch for Michael Steele and the RNC.

I'll disclaim that I'm a registered Democrat. I voted for Barack Obama last year and have voted Democratic, Green, or Independent on every ballot I have ever cast. So, you know, I'm not coming into this with a favorable point of view to begin with so I'm going to try to stay out of the politics and focus on the problems with the product launch itself...after I get a few points out of my system.

• it's completely disingenuous to highlight a diverse (and heavily Black) population in the GOP faces when we know that the Grand Ol' Party of 2009 is overwhelmingly (some might say scarily) white.
• Many of your Republican Heroes (particularly those of color) would not be Republicans today.
• You're going to claim Jackie Robinson? Seriously?!
• <I was going to crack on Michael Steele's awkward gaze photo on the leadership page here but they've updated it since yesterday.>

Okay. I feel better. Nobody else does, though. As Mediaite notes, pretty much the entire internet agrees that the new GOP.com is not very good. They focus most on the content and the lack thereof in key places of the site, like

but I want to focus on what seem like some key factors they didn't consider or may want to re-consider.

1. If you're going to launch a community, be prepared for what people might do with it.
2. Protect your brand. Don't present your key figures and themes in ways that are easily mocked (especially when you have the opportunity to change the story).
3. All launches have defects and small issues that need to be fixed soon after (and kudos to them for seeming to take action quickly) but posting password/admin instructions on your live site? Not copy-editing your primary piece of launch content? Come on, now.

This serves as a reminder to me that with any launch, big or small, you better have a launch plan and you better understand what you're doing to insure that your product is presented in a way that gives it the best possible position in the market. I'm sure a mountain of work by a lot of talented people went into this new site and, instead of popping champagne, those teams are now scrambling to correct very public problems.

That's not a successful launch. It doesn't provide a satisfying sense of accomplishment to the product team, it means the customer didn't get what they wanted, and it means guests and fans of GOP.com are probably unhappy.

Come on, Repubs. You can do better.

There's a lot more that I could go into, i'm sure, but the overwhelming red is hurting my eyes.So, I'll leave you with some remixes of the GOP.com Faces logo. Enjoy.

Sleeper: Season Two (27)

Image via Wikipedia

Sleeper: Season Two by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (2009, Wildstorm). This is where not being a regular reader of Wildstorm comics and not having read Point Blank becomes a hindrance to my enjoyment of what had been an incredible series. It's still great, mind you. Holden Carver's situation goes from bad to worse and the double cross on top of double cross structure of the first half of this collection creates a great sense of tension and dread. You hope beyond hope that Carver is smart enough to get out of this but you never quite believe it. So many terrible things, awful choices, and wrong decisions have been made, you just don't know.

But, in some ways, I don't care nearly as much as I did in the first collection. The secondary characters lose a bit of their realness and meaning. Their vibrancy from those earlier stories is dimmed as it becomes apparent that Lynch, TAO, and now, our anti-hero, Carver, are using them all as pieces on their chessboard. Nobody's life and well-being seems to matter in this spy game.

Ultimately, though, it ends satisfying enough and, probably, as true as it can be to the premise and moral of the story. It occurs to me, now that I'm thinking about it, that I don't think I've read another comic book with pages that are literally this dark. Nearly every panel is full of inks and shadow. There is rarely a moment of daylight drawn.

It, too, serves to ratchet up the dread.

Recommended, but not as much as Season One.

The Smoothed Out Melodic Workout Playlist

1. I Just Want It To Be Over by Keyshia Cole
2. Can't Let Go by Anthony Hamilton
3. I Can Love You by Mary J. Blige
4. If I Have My Way by Chrisette Michele
5. Say Yes by Floetry
6. Love Calls by KEM
7. Lady by D'Angelo
8. Got 2 Be Down by Robin Thicke
9. Crown Royal by Jill Scott
10. I Need You by Alicia Keys
11. Say Somethin' (featuring Snoop Dogg) by Mariah Carey

Bonus: A Long Walk (A Touch of Jazz Mix) by Jill Scott

A pretty soulful mix for today's workout which was nice even though it was a full Fat Burning Cardio.  Morning yoga continues to kick my ass but I think I'm getting more flexible...maybe.

Anyway, it has been a very productive Tuesday and I suspect will continue to be so as I tackle the re-organizing of the bedroom tonight.

But first...Ramen.

Jill Scott says, "Ain't no saints. We all sinners. But you put your good foot down to make your soul a winner."

The Annual Blog Relaunch

Reset.

I feel like this has become an annual occurrence ever since I closed up shop on the original blog in 2006.

The truth is, I never stop blogging. I've just become disaggregated over time. I've posted all over the place. On vox, on friendfeed, on tumblr, on posterous, on facebook, via google reader, on twitter. Oh g-d, the twitter.

This is an attempt at a bit of bringing it all back together. I now, primarily, post in two places. Tumblr for what's been deemed mini-blogging and here for more essay type writing. Almost all my writing of the last 7 years is archived here. There are also links in the sidebar to the rest.

I have domain brand management issues so jasontoney.com won't redirect here for awhile but, for now, this is home.

Let's see if it sticks.