Weekend Plans

May 22, 2021 by Brendan

Before covid, you might recall the act of juggling weekend plans and activities. We often made different commitments and maybe moved from one event to the other or had to respectfully decline invites.

The point is there was a lot more to choose from, regardless of how each of us chose to plan our weekends.

This weekend, I have more of an action packed weekend compared to what we’ve had the last year.

I am excited to get back to more of this active lifestyle. This time with a baby and a dog, which should keep everything exciting.

Return to Work Models

May 21, 2021 by Brendan

This is a hot topic across business right now. Individuals are weighing in with their thoughts, media is spinning up stories, and businesses are giving more concrete timelines.

My employer is targeting 8/1 and recently requested we schedule time to come back and pick up belongings to organize the return.

I’m gonna weigh in on my thoughts around return to work.

I support a hybrid work model. That is something like work from home two days a week (say Monday or Friday) and be in office the others or vice versa.

After 15 or so months of working from home, I am stoked to get back to the office. Each September as a student growing up, I was always excited for school to start. My grandmother would buy my sister and I one back to school outfit which I was excited to wear. I was also excited to see my friends more often and meet my teacher (s). Return to office brings back these back to school feelings.

More specially I am excited about in person meetings and in person serendipitous brainstorm sessions that ensue. Tons of high impact projects I have been a part of are born from free form thinking when teams are in the right headspace.

Also commuting some days will give me much needed time to myself as a new dad.

While I am excited for return to work, I also feel strongly about not going back to the pre-covid 5 days a week in office expectation.

I support deep work and thinking for everyone no matter the level you are at in an organization. I don’t believe open floor plans and five days in office support deep thinking enough. Calendar blocks alone don’t solve this in my opinion either.

The funny piece about WFH that I struggled with pre-covid was FOMO. I didn’t want to miss anything if I was at home and co-workers were in the office. I hope I can let these feelings go when working in hybrid work models.

The second piece I like about remote is of course no commute. My commute is ~45 minutes one way so eliminating it a few days a week is huge.

What are you hoping will be working norms as restrictions loosen?

Family Leave Policy

May 7, 2021 by Brendan

I am reading Elizabeth Warren’s new book, Persist. She tells a story about getting fired from her first teaching job because she was pregnant. This was in 1970.

Having just had my first kid, I couldn’t help but start to think about my own experience in 2021 (50 years later).

I had 6 weeks paid leave, and my wife took 20 weeks with most of her pay.

First I am grateful. Our employers have these amazing policies that gives us time to adjust to this big family event, allow us collect our earnings, and return to our jobs. I am also happy about the progress we’ve made when you compare Warren’s experience with my family.

With a lot of employers offering strong family leave packages and government policy changes, more Americans should continue to have positive family leave experiences. Americans favor this.

Everyone should have a chance to start a family and hold their job to manage the transition.

You can listen to a good interview with Warren here.

Human-to-Human Commerce

April 16, 2021 by Brendan

Sometimes I get bogged down with the frustrations I have with Google. Exploiting its power and lack of transparency are a few that come to mind.

I was reminded of the positive interactions it can drive when looking for a newborn photographer one week after my son Jake was born. Lizzie asked me to look for someone, so I went to Google. Being a new dad of course I was on the go so I did a search for “newborn photographer near me” on my mobile. I checked out results in the Local Pack and did some price comparing. Once I got over the prices for newborn sessions, I finally sent a few options to Lizzie.

We reached out to and ended up going with Cara Soulia Photography. I was reminded of the human to human commerce that Google can help drive. We were new parents looking to document our sons first few days, and Cara runs a small photography business looking for customers.

As long as Google still drives connections like this, I will continue to be happy working on the internet.

While Cara was doing the shoot, I told her I worked in SEO and how I found her via Google. She then told me about how she started The Front Steps Project at the start of Covid and that resulted in a lot of backlinks from major publications and other photographers around the world. A truly great example of a serendipitous cause-marketing campaign that ended up driving high value links too.

Here are a few photos from the shoot:

New Standing Desk

February 13, 2021 by Brendan

Have you ever discovered and bought something via an IG ad? It happens maybe once per year in our house, and I always find the story entertaining. Of course there is retargeting after viewing something but I am more referring to the first view of the product being an ad itself.

I pulled my back in early January and was quite uncomfortable sitting at my desk, so I was looking for standing options. I was considering the makeshift box strategy, because I didn’t want to overspend and have anything too clunky.

I stopped my search and continued just trying to stretch and soften my way to comfort while I still worked sitting down.

Then, I was hit with an ad on IG for Harmoni standing desk. The ergonomics looked solid and it was something I could disassemble easily if needed. A few other tactics I believe they did well:

One follow up ad provided an additional $20 off.
I lost the code for the discount so I had to DM Harmoni and they still provided it.
Videos showed a few different takes (1) working at the desk (2) setting up a home office with the desk.
The landing page doesn’t just sell a standing desk. It sells a healthier way to work, more creativity, and more productivity.

So this is how I am working these days. The desk has definitely provided a more optimal way for me to work. Being on my feet the first 2-3 three days took some getting used to but right now I am in a great groove.

harmoni standing desk — My Standing Desk Setup