Blog - Deft Communications

Happy Rex Manning Day on Deft’s 6th Anniversary

April 8, 2021 by Jon Leave a Comment

This is the longest job I’ve ever had.

I have no idea whether to be proud of this, ashamed, or feel weird about it. I’m 39 years old, I’ve been on my own consulting for 6 years as of today, and my next closest job in terms of duration was my corporate gig clocking in at four years and five months. In some ways, I suspect being on my own will never not feel at least a little bit weird, and as a weird guy, I’m very much okay with that.

It certainly beats the alternative where a gnawing sense of greater fulfillment seemed to exist beyond the walls of my offices tantalizing me, but always just out of reach. I used to feel like I was wasting my time when I worked for others, which wasn’t exactly wrong, but imprecise. I understand the value of teamwork, almost always recognize my role on a team immediately, embrace it and work my ass off to maximize my contributions to that team. It’s just that I almost always felt like the institutions I represented had no idea how to properly maximize the value of their teams and frequently got in their own way due to misdirected energy, untenable size, plain incompetence, arrogance, or some unholy combination of the previous. Live with those feelings long enough, and resentment grows inside you like an unchecked virus, which was destroying me from within.

As a consultant, I work lean. I work hungry. I work unorthodox. I know that I can be dropped in an instant, which means I wake up every single day thinking about how I ensure that I bring value to the people who hire me. I suppose it’s true enough that any company you work for can choose to drop you at any moment as well, but there’s something about the immediacy of working as a consultant that throws the fears into sharper relief.

Some consultants aren’t wired this way. I’ve met many of them and I’m always agog they keep getting hired. And, it bears mention, I hate their fucking guts. Getting anyone to hire you for anything is always an exercise in trust, and when consultants – particularly communications and PR consultants who have a knack for slinging meaningless bullshit – waste a client’s money, the walk uphill becomes longer for folks like me. This business is frequently a hall of mirrors and finding people you trust isn’t always easy.

***

I didn’t plan to launch my company on Rex Manning Day, but sometimes life has its little artistic flourishes. I had wanted to leave my corporate gig for 14 months before it actually happened. For a multitude of reasons that I feel like I’ve covered extensively elsewhere, I stuck it out during that time and slogged my way to the finish line. I was finally (and gratefully) laid off on April 7, 2015.

In the months prior, I had worked in the background setting myself up to launch my new venture as soon as that interminable Sword of Damocles fell. On April 8 I woke up slightly hungover, switched my website from dark to live, and sent out a press release announcing Deft Communications. I got it picked up by the Denver Business Journal and a handful of other places which meant it would show up in my old company’s media monitoring, which was exactly the thumb to the eye I intended it to be. Damn the man.

Symbolically and thematically, launching on Rex Manning Day ended up meaning a lot to me. For those of you wondering what in the hell I’m referring to, Rex Manning Day is the backdrop against which the entire plot of the movie Empire Records takes place. In short, Empire Records tells the story of an independent record store that’s threatened to be bought out by the big corporate chain which will sandblast off all the charm, quirk, and ephemera that make this place special. The employees – kids in their late teens and early 20s – contrive a way to save it through resourcefulness, unconventional thinking, and pure scrap. Why yes, this movie did take place in the 1990s before the internet shoved the heads of brick-and-mortar stores of all stripes into the toilet. How did you guess?

I’ve always adored this movie because it effortlessly transports me to one of my happiest times – working for the radio station in college. I was surrounded by people who cared deeply about their shows, the station, and the music we played. Problems that arose there almost always were as a direct result of two or more people’s passions putting them at odds with each other.

I fucking missed that.

My entire professional existence – minus a few bright spots like working with nonprofits or creating the Employee Ambassador Program – had turned into a game of run out the clock. I couldn’t wait until the end of each day, each week, and each second I was no longer obligated to think about work. In the words of Peter Gibbons, “You can only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.” That’s no way to live.

At the radio station I once called up my Program Director on a Friday night to yell at him when I found out my show was pre-empted so the station could broadcast a live volleyball game. (Possibly interesting sidenote: That Program Director is now anchor on cable news channel Cheddar.) I came into the station when I didn’t have to. I worked on my show extensively. I cared about it. I labored over it. I adored it. At my corporate gig, by the end I spent not one second longer than was absolutely necessary to accomplish the absolute minimum required of me.

I had to save the empire.

***

Even if they didn’t lay me off, I had to leave anyway or drown in mediocrity. So on the morning of April 8, I was free. At first, I didn’t know what to do with myself, but I slowly figured out my new rhythms. I was energized. I was brimming with creativity. I was ready to take on the fucking world, not just for me but for my wife who watched me joylessly play out the string and for my then 6-month-old daughter. This gamble had to pay off.

And in 6 years, I can tell you there have been far more highs than lows. My biggest client was Vital for Colorado, and I dedicated more brainpower to them than anyone else for nearly four years. I miss them dearly, and still have nothing but loathing for the fat skidmark who torpedoed their funding in favor of lining his own pockets. They’re not all like that, though.

Some clients I’ll do literally one thing for. I once wrote one op-ed about non-prescription hearing aids for a client that paid me more than $1,000. I recently spent one hour of my time offering guidance to a client thinking of starting their own podcast for $100. For four months I subcontracted at an ad agency that required me to be in their offices for 30 hours a week. They come in all shapes and sizes, and that’s my favorite part.

I never know what’s coming, but I know that I, and I alone, have the agency to accept or reject whatever it is. When you work for someone else, you don’t get that luxury. And my own choices create the reality in which I exist. Do I work with cool, passionate, good-hearted, creative people? Or do I work with pricks? If you’ve never worked with them before, sometimes it’s impossible to know, but my bullshit detector is pretty good (notwithstanding the asswipe who dicked me out of $14,000 to close out an absolutely miserable 2019, of course).

I have no idea how long I’ll be at this, but I can tell you that after 6 years it still feels like I’m getting away with something I shouldn’t be. Waking up everyday with that feeling is one I’ll never take for granted. I don’t have to trudge into an office. I don’t have to answer people I don’t like and/or don’t respect. And I know that my rewards are pretty much always directly tied to my efforts.

Damn the man. Save the empire. Happy Rex Manning Day. And always ask, “What with today, today?” Thanks for being a part of the Deft story, wherever you are.

Panels

September 17, 2018 by Jon 1 Comment

Sometimes when hosting the Jon of All Trades Podcast, I’ll approach a potential guest and tell them I want to feature their work on the show. And sometimes they turn me down. This is always vexing to me, especially if it’s someone who doesn’t have the media banging down their door day after day.

It’s an opportunity! A gift! Someone thinks enough of your work to invite you to feature in a venue where previously you had no access! Amazing!

Suffice to say, when I was approached to participate in two recent panels, I jumped at the chance.

Last month as part of Seattle Fish Company’s 100-Year Anniversary called “The 100 Years More: Sustainability and Thought Leadership Symposium,” I was asked to moderate a panel called “The Sustainable Message: Communicating Between Consumers, Restaurants, Suppliers, and Distributors.” The talent on this panel was unbelievable, featuring Gin Walker, a sustainability copywriter; Oliver Luckett and Thor Gestsson of Niceland Seafood (Oliver also brand managed Pixar for a number of years); Derek Figueroa, CEO of Seattle Fish Co.; and John Imbergano, Founder of The Imbergano Group.

It’s a murderers’ row of talent, and there was little old me keeping the conversation moving, offering prompts for the panelists to respond to, and keeping them on their toes with references to Koko the Gorilla (the one who learned sign language) and other off-kilter nonsense I’m noted for. The event was tremendous, it was a thrill meeting this exceptional talent, and I’m grateful to Ginna Santy for asking me to do this.

(left to right): Jon Ekstrom, Gin Walker, Thor Gestsson, Oliver Luckett, Derek Figueroa, John Imbergano.

Last Saturday I was invited by the Colorado Independent Publishers Association to be a panelist and talk about the hows and whys of being a guest on a podcast. I’ve had authors on my show, but since I cover so many different types of jobs, I knew my insight would be a bit different than from my fellow panelists.

I was joined by Jerry Fabyanic, who hosts a podcast called Writers Talk that also appears on KYGT fm in Idaho Springs, and Analisa Parent, who hosts The Writing Gym Podcast. The questions were lively from the attendees, my fellow panelists had terrific insight, and it was a fun way to spend a Saturday. Big thanks to Jen Kolic for the invitation!

(left to right): Jerry Fabyanic, Annalisa Parent, and Jon of All Trades

Sorry that photo is cropped weird, but the event took place at the Church of Scientology downtown, and they don’t allow you to post photos of the emblem (which would be above and left) nor the bust of L. Ron Hubbard (to the right) for whatever reason. Who knew Scientology could be weird, arbitrary and secretive?

If you’d like me to participate on a panel, just hit me up at jon [at] deftcom (dot) us.

Connect & Collaborate

April 12, 2018 by Jon Leave a Comment

Just a quick note… I am the new permanent on-air producer for Vital for Colorado‘s twice monthly radio show which is part of Connect & Collaborate with ICOSA and the Colorado Business Roundtable. On the first and third Fridays of each month at 4 pm on 1690 KDMT, you can hear me talking with Vital’s Chairman & CEO and a rotating slate of guests.

Vital for Colorado has been a client of Deft Communications since nearly the inception of my company, and while I’ve been producing this show behind the scenes for 2+ years, transitioning fully into an on-air role is exciting and scratches that radio itch I can’t seem to get rid of.

Thanks to Vital for Colorado and the Colorado Business Roundtable for this opportunity. It’s a pleasure to facilitate conversations that cover issues that matter in Colorado.

Bi-Polar

March 20, 2018 by Jon Leave a Comment

Jon working at KCSU.

Jon working at KCSU.We cleaned out our storage room last weekend – being an adult is glamorous! – and in an old box I haven’t looked inside of in probably a decade were bunch of old cassette tapes I forgot I had.

Holy shit, these are my old college radio show tapes! And not just the ones you pop into a recorder at the station that capture your breaks so you can do an aircheck with the station bosses to gauge the quality of your show so you can get better (Sidenote: I never once did this with my bosses, partially because I was punk rock and fuck you, you can’t tell me how to do my show! but mostly because I was afraid of their feedback), but the shows in their entirety! Music, promos, breaks, the whole thing!

I used to have either my roommate or my girlfriend record these things because the whole reason I started my show was because I was fed up with commercial radio and wanted to create a show that I’d like to listen to. And with these shows I recorded, I now could. Narcissism fully charged to 100% power!

My favorite, and the longest iteration of my show, was The Bi-Polar Show co-hosted by my good friend Kaycee. I did this show for four years, always on Friday nights. We played punk, ska, emo, and hardcore. We had bits and recurring segments we cultivated over the years, production specifically created for the show, and generally had a great time doing it. Kaycee used to have this giant old-school suitcase filled with CDs she used to bring into the show that, along with a couple of giant Case Logic binders filled with discs that I had, comprised our weekly playlists. Kaycee’s suitcase also made for the perfect smuggling mule for beer that we brought into the studio to drink while we cranked up the monitor and rocked out to some tunes. We were shockingly never caught drinking in the studio, which would have seen us promptly fired, so I call that a punk rock victory. (KCSU’s studio is now at the front of student media with a huge window that looks out into a main hallway rendering drinking nigh impossible these days, which is probably for the good, but also makes part of me weep.)

Before joining The Bi-Polar Show, my very first shift at KCSU was Wednesday mornings between midnight and 2:00 am for The Jonny X Show. When I think back on that, it amazes me how much energy and free time I had because I’d get geeked for my show all Tuesday night, go to the station for two hours, and then come home and drink ‘til 4:00 am or so. Thinking of doing this now makes me want to have a panic attack.

It’s now 12 years after my very last show, and my 2007 Acura inexplicably has a tape player in it, so let’s see how awful these things really were!

In terms of Bi-Polar, surprisingly not terrible! Kaycee and I had really fun banter, the music kicked fucking ass, and since we were both at least three years into our tenure at KCSU, we had pretty good technical mastery over the board which made the show sound semi-professional. As a bonus, I got to think about bands I hadn’t thought of in years like Guns ‘N Wankers, 30 Foot Fall, and terrific local band Dr. Neptune.

It was upon listening to Dr. Neptune that I remembered how I learned to open a pry-off beer cap with a lighter. I was in an elevator at the Gold Coast Hotel in Las Vegas for Punk Rock Bowling when Ross from Dr. Neptune got in. He offered me a beer from his backpack (it was a Beck’s, if memory serves), but we had no bottle opener. He asked me, “Do you have a lighter?” I did, I gave it to him, and he showed me how to use your finger as a fulcrum while wedging the butt of the lighter under the cap, and then just pull. Pop! The cap flies off, and you’ve got cold beer to drink. Score!

The Jonny X Show, on the other hand, is pretty embarrassingly amateurish and hard to listen to. I talked after nearly every song, and in some cases front sold and back sold the song you heard. Example: “Coming up next, ‘Gainesville Rock City’ by Less Than Jake!” [Gainesville Rock City plays] “That was Less Than Jake with ‘Gainesville Rock City!’ Coming up next off the request line…” I had clumsy control over the board and I tried really, really hard to be funny. It takes some at-bats to get comfortable talking to yourself in front of a microphone, and listening to dorky try-hard Jonny X from 16 years ago is cringe-inducing.

What also struck me was just how aggressive the Jonny X persona was. As I listened, I kept thinking, “Who is this angry young man shouting at me through the radio? Calm down.”

I can’t remember if I’ve told this story before (probably), but it reminded me of a conversation I recently had with Kristin, the context for which now escapes me. But I asserted, “I think I’m pretty high strung.” She looks me incredulously and says, “You’re just now realizing this?”

Yes? No? I mean it makes sense now that I’ve said it out loud, but yeah, I suppose I am just now realizing this.

This realization only enhances my belief that it’s a fallacy that we know ourselves well at all. I always fancied myself a pretty mellow and low-key guy (which is ridiculous as I type it now), but listening to these shows is a nice reminder that I’ve always been incredibly ambitious, pursued what I did with passion, and been pretty aggressive in achieving my goals. I think I confused myself in terms of self-assessment because so many of the other Type-A people I came across felt so disorganized. They were always running behind, flustered, and complained of being over-committed.

I need organization, structure. I crave it. I’m able to deliver the things I want and need to do on-time and on-budget because I can set the process fairly efficiently in my head. Having a shitload to do never really bothers me. It’s the idea that there’s not a good roadmap for getting it done that stresses me out.

Listening to these shows is also a reminder of something my dad said on Episode 146 of my podcast. One of his biggest regrets of his professional career was his need to give his superiors “the full compliment of [his] emotions when he was upset or unhappy about something.” I very much identify with that, and, as my therapist pointed out to me, when I feel my feelings, I tend to really feel my feelings and I’ve worked very hard to be more considerate of others as I espouse those feelings. And that lack of restraint, at times outright arrogance, comes across very starkly in listening to the old Jonny X persona on the radio.

When you record yourself talking into a microphone every week, and are forced to then listen to it back, you have no choice but to learn a lot about yourself. Radio is in my blood, and probably always will be. My podcast is now 4-years old. I produce a radio program twice a month for one of my clients that’s now in its third year. I love creating consumable audio for others.

The by-product of all this creation is having a living almanac of your past selves, which is both fun and cool, and also sort of harrowing in terms of understanding yourself.

I’m reminded of a line from The Bouncing Souls song “Kids and Heroes” that goes like this: “There are only a few things that really belong to me: who I am, who I was, and who I wanna be.”

The Bi-Polar Show and The Jonny X Show are who I was, the Jon of All Trades Podcast is who I am, and the shows I’m working to create that haven’t even been conceptualized yet are who I wanna be.

The Meeting Cut-Up (or Reason #158 I’m a Bad Employee)

August 4, 2017 by Jon 2 Comments

Of the things I miss least about working for others, perhaps the biggest is the staff meeting. God, how I loathed the staff meeting! And it’s not because I wasn’t interested in pertinent news from our leadership about where we were headed in the near, medium and long term – I was! And it’s not because I didn’t want to hear about what my colleagues were working on and where we might have opportunity to collaborate – I did!

It’s because so frequently those ostensible reasons for a staff meeting to exist in the first place took a backseat to the meeting’s real purpose – providing a forum for a frustrated amateur comic to unleash his or her (but let’s face it, 99% of the time we’re talking about his) shopworn jokes and blisteringly unfunny zingers on a captive audience. Worse, the perpetrator of this eye roll-inducing ad hoc open mic night holding everyone hostage was often whomever led the meeting. There must be something irresistible about the power of knowing people cannot leave until you tell them to, a power even then more irresistible to abuse.

In my last corporate gig, I grew to harbor remarkable disdain for one of the company’s leaders who, in general, was extremely disorganized, and, worse, treated every meeting he ran like we were on the couch at a frat house ballbusting each other. The first 30 minutes of every meeting were spent grabassing, carousing, and generally holding forth like a juvenile jackass. Certainly, there were those who enjoyed this approach, but I cannot imagine I was alone in grinding my molars wishing I was anywhere else, or, failing that, for a meteor strike that would end life on this planet just so I wouldn’t have to fake laugh and pretend to smile in a way that I feared might make my head split open and my brains to fall out.

I know it sounds like I’m exaggerating, but it’s hard to convey properly the depth of my annoyance with this. I remember reading an interview with Bill Murray in Esquire a few years ago where he was sort of obliquely addressing his reputation of being tough to work with. He said:

“When I work, my first relationship with people is professional. There are people who want to be your friend right away. I say, ‘We’re not gonna be friends until we get this done. If we don’t get this done, we’re never going to be friends, because if we don’t get the job done, then the one thing we did together that we had to do together we failed.’ People confuse friendship and relaxation. It’s incredibly important to be relaxed — you don’t have a chance if you’re not relaxed. So I try very hard to relax any kind of tension. But friendship is different.”

I identify with that probably a little too much. If we’re working together, I’m not going to be your friend right away. Can’t we just do the fucking work? And once we’re successful, then maybe we can be friends. But the fucking meeting cut-up wants to confuse the order in which I believe these relationships are supposed to happen, which in my mind sets us all up not only for project failure, but for hurt feelings and a misplaced sense of a broken friendship. Fuck that. We’ve all got a job to do, so let’s cut the bullshit and do the fucking job before we all start smacking each other on the ass.

On a less existential level, my annoyance with the meeting cut-up is two-fold: 1) You’re undermining the efficiency of this meeting; and 2) Your shit ain’t funny.

On point the first, assuming you’re working in at least a semi-functional organization, we’ve probably all got plenty of irons in the fire, so let’s group together as quickly as possible so we can return to the tasks associated with the presumable reason we all get paid. This meeting where we’re all stopping whatever we’re doing better have a strong purpose, otherwise we’re just pushing the time where we can just finally go home even further away.

In the case of the PR firm where I worked, our leadership gave each of us the opportunity to lead a staff meeting any way we saw fit. Having grown frustrated with the state of things as they were, when my turn came, I made the staff meeting standing only. I took all the chairs out of the conference room, moved the tables to the back, and made everyone stand.

Then to further facilitate efficiency, I went to each member of the staff beforehand and asked them for their updates. Each meeting had a number of topic areas, and I made sure to hit them all with each member of the staff – Client updates, clients in/out of the office, staff in/out of the office, business development updates, personal news and notes, news from management/organizational updates. Then I wrote them on the whiteboard in the conference room so everyone knew the agenda before and during the meeting as I checked them off one by one.

The staff seemed into it, and standing in a circle in an interior conference room on the 18^th floor will short circuit anyone’s designs on turning into Henny Youngman, but it had the unfortunate side effect of alienating me further from my management. I think they appreciated my balls, but disliked the implicit commentary I was making on their leadership style. Reflecting on it now – I was 27 when I did this – they’re probably right on both counts. I made my point, and while I probably could have been less of a shit about it, I’d still do it again. Most efficient meeting ever.

On point the second, I’m not opposed to a well-crafted and well-placed zinger, but if you recognize the personality type I’m bitching about in this piece at all, you know these are folks not noted for their restraint. It’s always some dusty old cliché they blast out in response to every fifth sentence they hear from a colleague. “Wow, Pam, why don’t you tell us how you REALLY feel?” Har har har! “Hey Chuck, at least buy the client dinner first before you give him a frisking like that!” Hee haw!

I first recognized this way back during my time in college radio at KCSU where we’d have mandatory monthly staff meetings (you could get suspended from your show if you didn’t attend at least two per semester) populated by insecure college kids all elbowing for time slots, and evidently a disproportionate number of them thought being “hilarious” during routine staff meetings would earn them additional kudos. I grew to despise this behavior so much I started to make up shit to get out of going to the meetings. Usually I was outright lying, but I earned my excused absences and saved everyone from my angry glowering face sucking the “fun” out of the room.

I’m not a tough laugh, but at least come correct with some freshness if you’re venturing into the waters of comedy. I realize at this point 1200 words in, and especially after the previous sentence, I’m probably alone (or nearly alone) in my irritation with this type of thing, and that’s fine. Kristin explained my personality to me once when she said, “You’re not happy unless you’re explaining your Halloween costume to everyone.”

I found that incredibly insightful because it hits me in so many of the places I live. I’m a bit pretentious. I have esoteric and unusual taste. I’m ludicrously self-aware. I have high standards for the people I interact with. I strain for real connection. And, at heart, I’m probably a complete pain in the ass. Of those traits, one that has great utility is my high level of self-awareness.

Anyone who’s listened to the podcast for any length of time has probably heard me say I’ve had a problem with basically every boss I’ve ever had except for one, and that at some point I realized my problems with them weren’t actually their problems. The problem was me, and a hierarchical situation such as the one that, by necessity, governs the way virtually any organization is run internally, is probably not a good fit for me.

So, having removed myself from this structure, I’m much happier. Conversely, I’m sure most of the people I worked with who had to endure my sourpuss during these meetings are probably happier that I’m not there, too.

Occasionally I’m dragged back into regular ass meetings, and from time to time I get a pang of existential dread about them. But mostly I just sit quietly and smile politely when the poor man’s Shecky Greene shows up and farts out some trite joke knowing I don’t work there and I get to leave this place shortly.

And maybe that’s what it was all about in the first place. Not only did I feel I had no agency in terms of deciding how my time was spent; I was trapped there with unfunny, tryhard dingleberries, too. Yuck.

TL/DR: If you think you’re funny in a staff meeting, 99% of the time you’re not. Also, I’m better off not in a corporate environment, possibly a killjoy, and impossibly pretentious.

Ditch Digging

March 28, 2017 by Jon Leave a Comment

Although I haven’t done it in a while, one of my favorite things to do was to speak to students about how I applied my degree after college. When you earn a degree in a liberal arts discipline, this is a common question. And people will always tell you, especially people who have found success and had some longevity in their careers, “What’s great is that you can do just about anything!”

That’s true. And what sucks is that you can do just about anything. So where to start?

When I began my career, I started pounding the pavement and met with as many people as I possibly could and asked them about their jobs. I asked my parents to introduce me to their friends. I asked my friends’ parents to do the same. I leaned on my professors to introduce me to alumni they were still close with. I didn’t go into any single one of those meetings looking for a job directly from the person I had met. All I wanted was for them, after learning more about my skills, my interests, and my aspirations, to introduce me to more people who might be of interest.

I did this for two reasons. One, I didn’t know jackshit about the working world and figured I needed to learn more about it before I actually tried to dip my toe into it. And two, I figured if I met enough people, somewhere in the big, terrifying world would be an opportunity that was the right fit both in terms of my skills fulfilling the need of someone looking for help, and in terms of helping me find some degree of vocational satisfaction.

Sure enough, I landed a job within a few months, and while it wasn’t a perfect fit, the whole time I was there I had my eye on this PR firm I’d met through a contact of a contact and waited for a position to open there. Eight months later, I interviewed with six different team members and received an offer to come work for them. At the time, it was a dream gig, and I spent nearly four years there.

This experience, I didn’t realize until very recently, serves as metaphor for my entire career.

I can recall the effort of finding a job upon college graduation with remarkable clarity. I even left out the part where I thought I wanted to work for the Rockies, so I found a friend of a friend of a friend who worked there and dropped off a resume a week (each with a different cover letter!) for six weeks until he punted me to someone who would interview me. They ended up offering me a job that I somewhat surprisingly turned down. Life is weird.

Anyway, when I talk to college kids now, as someone who worked for a well-regarded PR agency on award-winning campaigns, managed all regional public relations for a Fortune 500 company including a $2+ million charitable giving budget, and have now started my own consulting practice – the message I convey to them is one of diligence and perseverance.

Many people have this charming notion that PR and government relations is a world of glamor. Talking to federal elected officials! Going to galas! Interfacing with the news media and coordinating big advertising campaigns! It’s like Mad Men! Or Samantha from Sex and the City! Or Thank You For Smoking! Sounds fun, right?

And sure, some of that exists. I’ve met and spent significant time with both of Colorado’s current senators, the current governor, the last two governors before him, the governor of Wyoming, his predecessor, the entirety of Wyoming’s congressional delegation, a shitload of reporters (some of whom I keep on speed dial to this day), and a bunch of other people of notoriety. Also, due to attending probably at least 20 charity galas a year (in my corporate days), I bought my own tux.

Here’s what people don’t understand about this work. You’re not doing these glamorous things instead of your regular job, you’re doing these things on top of your regular job. The job you go to every day, think about whatever level of stress that involves. Now picture not going home afterward, but going to schmooze and meet and compile additional contacts because it’s useful to whatever enterprise you’re serving. That’s life in PR and Government Relations.

It bears mention that I recognize how much of this sounds like gold-plated bellyaching. Oh, poor little rich girl… don’t like going to the Ball to eat prime rib and drink expensive vodka? Boo fucking hoo. So let’s change this up a bit.

As difficult as keeping a schedule like the one I list above is – and make no mistake, it is – I grant that it’s still a marker of professional success. Very few get to parachute directly into the upscale world of professional elbow-rubbing with dignitaries. It takes a long track record of doing shit that no one else wants to do.

And that’s exactly what success means in my professional world. You’ve got to be willing to tackle the projects, work for the industries, swallow your pride, do the shit, about which people literally say, “You couldn’t pay me enough to do that.” To which I reply, “Oh yes, you could. And your price is lower than you think.” So what does this look like?

For one client at the PR firm, I drove out to Wheat Ridge on a night when the high temperature was 6, set up poster boards for the public to review in a side room of a rec center from 6-9 pm because the local government required us to update everyone on the dirt my client was moving around (seriously, it was a meeting about re-grading), and 8 people showed up.

One client wanted to buy ad space in a bunch of publications, so I learned how to buy media on the fly. For anyone who’s never bought media before, you have no idea how complicated this is and just how unpleasant media salespeople can be. These are people who LIVE to haggle with you and dick you around on cost, and I fucking hate haggling. Why did I do this? No one else would, and it needed to be done.

In my corporate gig, one time I drove to Sterling to give a presentation to their Rotary Club, hopped back in the car, went straight to the airport, flew to Houston, met with someone I needed to talk to for dinner, then went to my shitty hotel room next to the highway and prepped for a different presentation the next day at 7:30 am.

And more recently, it means lots and lots of cold calling. Without getting specific, there’s a project pertaining to public infrastructure in a Denver suburb I’m working on. My client wants support from the business community, so that means I go and I knock on doors of businesses, assure them I’m not selling anything, give them my pitch, and ask them to sign a letter of support that’s then submitted to City Council. I won’t tell you how many of these I’m tasked with delivering, but suffice to say it would probably make you gasp.

During this project, while most people are generally very nice, I’ve dealt with rudeness, outright hostility, coldness, disinterest, calls and emails ignored and more general unpleasantness than any one person would ever care to deal with in a day. And I’ve done it several hours a week for the last six months. It’s challenging, and I’ve now mapped this particular suburb in my head in greater detail than I ever had desire to. And there are days I don’t want to do it, but you look inside yourself, and just put your shovel in the ground and start turning over the earth.

Because that’s all success really is. A line from The Usual Suspects seems apropos here. As Verbal Kint is relating the origin myth of Keyser Soze, he says Soze “realized that to be in power, you didn’t need guns or money or even numbers. You just needed the will to do what the other guy wouldn’t.”

And that’s what I do. I’ll go where the other guy won’t. I will knock on the doors, make the calls, and do the work that no one else will. How do you get 100 entities to sign on to a letter to the Colorado congressional delegation to lift the oil export ban? You pick up the fucking phone and start calling them one by one.

This is what PR is. This is what it is to be a self-employed consultant. This is how you earn the glamor parts of your job. This is success.

It’s ditch digging. That’s all it is.

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Deft Adds Two Clients

March 13, 2017 by Jon Leave a Comment

DENVER (March 13, 2017) – Deft Communications, Denver-based communications consulting firm specializing in communications training, content creation, employee engagement and employee activation is proud to announce two new clients in consulting and agriculture.

“We are thrilled to work with these organizations to help them achieve their business and communications goals,” said Deft Communications Principal Jon Ekstrom.

Deft Communications is proud to add the Colorado Farm Bureau to its client roster.

Colorado Farm Bureau, a leading Colorado trade association that seeks to promote, protect and represent the business, economic, social and educational interests of farmer/rancher members and their communities; and to enhance the agricultural industry in Colorado, has hired Deft Communications to provide communications training for its group of young leaders.

Deft Communications has added PolicyWorks America to its list of clients.

PolicyWorks America, LLC, a Denver-based consultancy specializing in advocacy for conventional fuels and energy production, creation of winning political strategies and advancement of corporate communication objectives, has retained Deft Communications to provide communications, writing, and branding support.

About Deft Communications: Deft Communications is a Denver-based communications consulting firm specializing in communications training, content creation, employee engagement and employee activation. We call ourselves “Deft” because it guides our approach to every client we work with, and each project we do. Any communications project your business undertakes should be in service of helping to achieve your business goals. Being “Deft” means understanding those goals, and tailoring our approach to stay nimble in a constantly evolving environment, being resourceful, and maintaining a sureness of touch. We are savvy communicators with more than two decades experience in a variety of disciplines and across communications platforms.

# # #

Contact: Jon [at] deftcom (dot) us

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Rooster & Moon Tribute

September 22, 2016 by Jon Leave a Comment

Deft Communications pays tribute to Rooster & Moon in Denver, closing its doors on September 30, 2016.

It’s September 22 as I type this at the bar of Rooster & Moon Coffee Pub. Eight days from now, Rooster & Moon will close its doors and say goodbye to the community. I’ve written and podcasted about my love for this place before – notably here, here, and here, – so it’s with a heavy heart that I write this.

I just finished eating a Wrigley salad, my favorite item at Rooster & Moon, and one of my absolute favorite things to eat in Denver. It’s so good it’s unfair. I’m not sure what it is about the elements of this thing – mixed greens, candied walnuts, Craisins, feta cheese, grilled chicken, and an unbelievably silky and subtly sweet house made Strawberry Avocado Vinaigrette – that hit me right in the perfect spot, but it does. I would eat this for lunch literally everyday if my schedule permitted it. Remarkably, I didn’t think it could possibly taste any better, but then one of the baristas suggested I put Rooster & Moon’s Honey Jalapeno Vinaigrette on it, so I did. And then my face melted clean off. I’ve literally never tasted better dressings.

I share this, and I put it right up front, because I want to make explicit just what high quality product Rooster & Moon churns out. When I say I love Rooster & Moon, it’s not out of some misplaced sentimentality, or limp hagiography of a friend’s endeavor that just couldn’t hack it. I like to support my friend’s businesses, but Rooster & Moon objectively makes incredible products with delightful service. This place, whether I ordered anything off the lunch menu from my beloved Wrigley to any of a dozen sandwiches or a multitude of breakfast items, loose leaf hot tea, or a simple can of beer, served it to me with intent, care, style and quality. I will miss its craftsmanship.

But that’s not what makes me saddest. The attributes I ascribe to Rooster & Moon could have been modified slightly and applied to the Wok & Roll that used to be across the street from my old office, which I wrote about here. The reason my soul aches for Rooster & Moon is because of what it means in terms of my personal history of launching my own business.

April 7, 2015, 1 pm, some empty office inside a 25-story filing cabinet, me, the Vice President I report up to, and some HR lady I’ve never met – “As you know, the company has experienced some financial difficulties, and your position is no longer available.”

Tremendous. I take the severance package, turn in my badge and company credit card, and go home. I expected this, and although the physical experience of living through it is sort of surreal, I’m ready for it.

That’s all well and good, but what do I do now? I mean, I know I’ve got to start my consulting business in earnest, but that’s more a philosophical paradigm shift, than anything else, isn’t it? No one has equipped me to begin to tackle that monumental task from a practical standpoint. Where do I go? How do I structure my day? I’ve lived with the same-ish routine for four-and-a-half years now, and seriously, what the fuck do I do now?

Since I got laid off on a Tuesday, Wednesday I woke up lost and in a bit of a daze. I had already pre-loaded the press release and media list for my new company, so after firing that off, I suddenly had no real work to do. And now that I’m sitting here writing this, I’m struggling to remember those first few days. I don’t know what happened on Thursday. I don’t know what I did on Friday. I’m not even sure the precise moment the memories begin. I know I took a month off from the podcast. And I know within a month of getting laid off, I had signed two clients, and begun work in inking a third. But that first week, I have no idea what happened.

Here’s what I do remember. I needed to get some work done. And I needed to do it outside the house. Kristin had successfully navigated this untethered, Bohemian self-employment maze for years, and I was ready to try. Admittedly, and this feels kind of silly to admit now, I was scared about taking myself out to a coffee shop and plopping down to bang out to-dos. I mean, who the hell did I think I was? It felt very conspicuous not being inside an office in the middle of the day. I was suddenly tasking myself with working in a place where maybe others were working, maybe they were drinking, maybe they were just reading a novel in the middle of the day. And here I was figuring how to be one of them. Despite my trepidation, off I went, my little bag over my shoulder ready to be my best consultant self!

So, in I walk to Rooster & Moon. A familiar voice greets me – “Jon Eks! How are you, young man?” Despite not being more than 5 years older than me, Bird has always called me “young man” when he asks how I’m doing, which is impossibly charming for reasons that escape me. Immediately I feel better about deciding to work out of the house.

Then I look across the bar, and another familiar face awaits me. Brandi Shigley makes eye contact with me, and offers a friendly wave. I order my drink, walk over to her, give her a big hug as she’s just back from The Philippines, and invite her on my show again. I tell her I’m out of corporate and she enthusiastically congratulates me. I’m officially welcomed into the fraternity of the Day People.

I can recall this sequence with stunning clarity, and whenever I do, a whole wave of emotions rushes over me. Excitement about my unknown future. Fear that I’m total fucking fraud and I’m going to fall on my face and go crawling back to the slow, comfortable suicide of Corporate America. Resolve and determination to ensure that doesn’t happen. When I dwell in this memory too long, it overwhelms me and my heart swells until I think I’m either going to levitate right into the fucking sky or just explode on the spot.

When I think back on my early days of Deft Communications, my memories are linked inextricably with Rooster & Moon. I banged out proposals to clients. I wrote my first blog posts. I got comfortable with the new rhythms of self-employment. I ate Wrigley after Wrigley after Wrigley. I poured gallons of iced tea into my face. I got a $50 parking ticket from some parasite meter maid, which, of course, sucked, but it was also a stark reminder that I’m on my own now, and working for yourself means staying on top your game at all times.

And now that Rooster & Moon will no longer occupy a physical space in my world, its place in my memory becomes that much more important. I don’t want to forget those feelings of walking through the door the first time as an entrepreneur because the intensity of those memories help to motivate me whenever I revisit them. And whereas I could always mainline a bit of that feeling by walking through these doors again, no longer is that possible, and then I get sad all over.

So that’s why I write this. It’s important to remember the people and the places that have touched you, that have moved you, and that have propelled you to better yourself. The folks who work at Rooster & Moon (or whatever place you find yourself getting shit done) probably don’t know what they mean to you. They almost certainly don’t know that they help power the engine of American small business simply by providing you the fuel you need, working in the space where you become productive, and slinging vibe that puts a smile on your face day after day after day.

Thank you, Rooster & Moon. Thank you to everyone who’s ever brought me a salad, an iced tea, a bowl of yogurt, or a Dale’s Pale Ale. And a special thanks to Bird who was there more days than he wasn’t, introducing me to whoever was sitting next to me, telling me some esoteric story about a band he loves, and creating a place I always considered a 2^nd home office where I’ve worked (and continued to work) to become the best professional version of myself possible.

You will always occupy a special space in my heart, and a vital space in my memories. I will miss sitting at your bar, and although you no longer exist in physical space, I am grateful I will be able to visit you inside a cherished place in my mind forever.

Godspeed.

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“I Just Came Here to Read the Comments”

June 27, 2016 by Jon 2 Comments

“Am I the only person here who loves to watch a couple together that hates each other’s guts?” begins a Dane Cook bit from his album Retaliation. Entitled “The Nothing Fight,” Cook shares a (probably fictional) anecdote about a couple he overhears in the grocery store arguing about something completely inconsequential and how he spies on them with voyeuristic glee from around the Entenmann’s display at the end of the aisle.

Although listening to it again, I don’t think it’s aged well. I found it uproarious upon its release and part of its relatability has to do with the familiarity of past failed relationships and remaining with someone you actively disliked as you continuously fought about any number of irrelevant things. The other part, the more interesting part, is Cook’s ghoulish schadenfreude delight at this couple having it out in a very public way. To whatever extent, most people take some guilty joy in gawking at a public altercation.

You used to have to leave your house to encounter something like this. With social media, it’s easier than ever, which brings me to this meme:

You’ve probably seen this in the thread of a Facebook friend who’s posted something controversial, political, or otherwise of public concern. And given your friend list, you probably know which of your friends tend to bring their flamethrowers to conversations, and it’s not unexpected, or even necessarily wrong, to take some pleasure in seeing how they’ll react this time. I understand this.

But flatly declaring your rubbernecking intent via this meme and that “I just came here to read the comments” is just plain gross.

I believe one of the most powerful ways we evolve and grow as people is by spending time with those whom we don’t always agree, and having civil conversations about the issues of the day.

I flew to Philadelphia recently with my friend Adam, and we ended up spending the whole flight talking about politics, policy, religion and whatever else came up. We came at the issues from slightly different angles, and while I didn’t necessarily change any of my opinions, I evolved them in a meaningful way as a result of involved discussion. I know I left the conversation feeling much stronger in my knowledge about the subject at hand, and by virtue of having listened to my friend without any preconceived agenda of the net result of that conversation, I ended up with a deeper sense of empathy.

For the record, one thing I will never concede to him is his ludicrous assertion while flying over the Delaware River that seeing it rendered George Washington’s crossing of it unremarkable since “that’s not that big, really.” GO BACK TO ENGLAND, YOU TURNCOAT! USA! USA! USA!

I recognize that a long, engaged conversation with someone you like and have liked and respected for more than a decade is different than sparring with a quasi-stranger on Facebook… but imagine if we treated the two interactions the same way. Imagine seeing something on Facebook, and instead of loading up with your best ammunition and firing at will, you instead sought greater understanding. That by understanding them better – no matter how unfathomably wrong you initially perceive them to be – you listen and you dig in, and by virtue of that effort, you actually understand yourself better.

I also recognize that some people are just wired to be jerks, and this utopian dithering I’m peddling isn’t universally practical. But I wholly believe elevating the discourse is. And for my money, the best way to start is getting these prurient bridge trolls who live to watch strangers combat each other to piss off.

Just to summarize the intent of these meme-posting jackals: Not only are you not here to contribute anything meaningful, you’re wishing for the absolute worst of the bottom-feeders to hurl Molotov cocktails at each other for your personal amusement. And you’re fully okay with declaring your intent as a grotesque sideshow patron. Swell.

Were you one of the kids who egged on the two school bullies to kick each other’s asses and get suspended while you cried innocence in the aftermath ignoring your culpability in making the environment more incendiary? Were you in Michael Vick’s backyard, too? Were you there with Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer in the back of Marcelino’s bodega at 3 in the morning to watch Little Jerry fight another rooster to try and get Jerry’s bounced clown check removed from the front counter? Did you buy one of those abhorrent Bum Fights videos?

You are the curiosity delay on the highway when there’s an accident going the other way that screws up everyone’s commute to work. You are the reason we have TMZ. You are “The Fappening.” You are the Huffington Post’s idiotic policy of covering Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as “entertainment,” and look where we are now on that front.

In short, you are the worst. Stop posting this.

Better yet, meme or no, stop doing this.

Pride in Energy

June 15, 2016 by Jon Leave a Comment

Kristin and I are allies. We fully support equal rights across the board for members of the LGBTQ community. We’re proud of this fact, and are happy to announce it publicly.

Our hearts go out to everyone affected by the tragedy in Orlando. Without injecting any unneeded politicality into this post, our sincere hope is that out of this horrific incident a better, more caring, and more conscientious culture emerges. We don’t know exactly how that would manifest, but our hope is that we never see an incident like this ever again, and that we take the steps toward that goal.

One of the best things to do, in our estimation, is to seek connectivity where it may not have existed before. With that in mind, I was proud to attend an event last night called Pride in Energy, co-hosted by the Colorado Petroleum Council (the Colorado outpost of the American Petroleum Institute) and One Colorado.

The Colorado Petroleum Council and One Colorado co-hosted Pride in Energy on April 14, 2016 in Denver discussing LGBTQ rights and the oil and gas industry.

That’s an aggressively crappy picture of the screen from the event, but I didn’t want to disturb the panel of speakers who told their stories of being in the LGBTQ community (or being an LGBTQ ally) while working in oil and gas. What was so striking about their stories was that to some extent they all experienced the fear of revealing their true selves to their colleagues in an industry that stereotypically values toughness, traditional notions of masculinity, and leans very conservative. Much to their surprise, what they encountered (more often than not) was not anger or disgust, but welcoming and happiness that their colleague whom they liked, felt comfortable enough to fully be themselves. Their coming out stories were inspirational for how – and I don’t want to seem like I’m downplaying the courage it took to do this or the personal significance of the reveal because I’m very much not – pedestrian they were.

Unless you’re a truly and fully narrow-minded, bigoted, and ideologically entrenched psycho (and some do exist), finding out that your friend and colleague is gay (or bisexual or transgendered) shouldn’t be a big deal. In an ideal world, all coming out stories will end with the person receiving the news being nonplussed by it. That would mean we’ve achieved equality and that sexual orientation is no longer A THING. It’s just a thing.

The panel at Pride Energy, co-hosted by the Colorado Petroleum Council and One Colorado on June 14, 2016. — The panel at Pride in Energy, co-hosted by the Colorado Petroleum Council and One Colorado on June 14, 2016.

I’m thrilled that the folks onstage in the photo above are willing to push us in that direction in a space that hasn’t seen much of this type of thing historically. To create real change, it almost always starts with a brave few before you can build critical mass. Those folks above are the brave few, and I’m just happy to play a small role in helping to build critical mass.

As the panel concluded, a question was asked about the future of both LGBTQ rights and the oil and gas industry. I’ll offer my response. Oil and gas issues are almost associated with Republicans. LGBTQ rights issues are almost always associated with Democrats. It’s convenient to think of the world in binary terms. I hate binary. I like complexity. I like creativity. I like unpredictability.

LGBTQ rights and the continued responsible production of American oil and natural gas are two issues that don’t often intersect for us, but are two issues we care deeply about. It’s a thrill to see them come together last night, and I applaud both the Colorado Petroleum Council and One Colorado for making that connection happen through Pride in Energy.

Here’s hoping for more creative connections going forward. For blowing up boring binaries. For increased understanding from people on both sides of any issue. And for the courage to continue pushing our culture forward in new, interesting, and beneficial ways.

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