It's almost like the printer lost the actual ad copy and instead used part of the copy from the agencies justification presentation to their clients.

I'm not sure if this was a mistake, a high form of "lost in translation" or the future of marketing - full explanation of your targeting strategy in lieu actual feature and benefit statements.

We shall see.

I am in Barcelona and having a good time (now). Got in on Thursday morning in one piece, but my luggage was nowhere to be found. Long story short, I finally got my luggage Friday night at 10PM at the airport. Was glad I had a flask full of Jameson stashed in it.

3 days in the same clothes was not ideal...especially when 1 day of that was on an airplane and the other 2 days were spent in an office without air conditioning in the middle of a very hot Spanish summer.

But now, I am good.

Slept in today until, well, late, and then went and had a nice lunch and sat on a bench by Sagrada Familia and read a book. Then I headed to Placa Catalyuna and did a bit of shopping...it's sale season here in BCN.

It's about 9 here in Barcelona now, so it's dinner time and then maybe off to meet some people for a drink.

Enjoy the weekend!

As someone who works in the internet world, I like to hear internet success stories. Stories of cool ideas becoming game changing products and big money keep me going and give me hope for what I'm working on. To me, the Googles, Facebooks and Amazons of the world are something to be studied, appreciated and mimicked. Their stories are my textbooks, and like most internet folks, I soak up every drop of knowledge I can from them.

But when it comes to the companies that don't make it, well, I don't spend too much time on those.

I think this is partially because it hurts us to see the downside of this hyper-fast, flavor-of-the-week, often random business environment that is the web. And hey, it's a bit scary to look at the failures - and even scarier to imagine being part of one.

But beyond that, I don't really focus on the failures because the entrepreneurs from the companies that fail often want to move on, not dwell, and try something new as soon as possible. Get back on the horse, etc.

In short, the stories don't get told, they get buried, shrugged off, and not shared. And hey, who's gonna publish a book about a failed small business anyway?

Today I ran across a blog post that changed my mind - and in truth - the story of failure gave me more insight into making a start-up successful then the pile of success story books sitting behind me gathering dust.

Take some time to read the lessons learned from the failure of the promising internet company Monitor110 - as seen through the eyes of Monitor110's co-founder Roger Ehrenberg.

Because as British scientist Sir Humphry Davy observed, "The most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me by my failures."

First, the Flickr photos of the piece.

Now the explanation.

You've gotta admit, that's pretty rad.

A good example, Fischer and Alston, best friends who run a lemonade stand in Tribeca. Here's a part of their interview with New York Magazine's Joanna Goddard:

How do you make your lemonade?
FISCHER: My family took lemons and squeezed and squeezed. We were sweating. But Alston’s family mixed powder with water. And the thing is, when you taste it, there’s really no difference.

Did you draw signs?
FISCHER: Alston made signs and spelled some things wrong.
ALSTON: When you spell things wrong, they say, “Oh, that’s cute.”

So you do it on purpose?
We misspelled lemonade: LEMADE.

Classic stuff - read all the interviews with lemonade stand entrepreneurs here.

Big thanks to Creative Victuals for the link.

Whether you're an eco-minded person or not, the story demonstrates realities that innovators of all kinds face. They are:

1. During times of comfort or relative prosperity, innovative thought is not valued as highly because true innovative thought will force change and most people, by nature, fear change and will aim to keep the status quo wherever possible. Right or wrong.
2. In times of crisis, innovation is welcomed with open arms. Once comfort, security or prosperity is removed from the picture, making changes is almost effortless.

I'll let you watch the film for yourself to hear Michael's story, because it's something that will leave an impression on you.

From a business perspective, I wonder where the point of balance is. How do you push a culturally entrenched organization to open itself to innovation after the start-up excitement wears off and before the company is in crisis. Because let's face it, sometimes when the crisis hits, it might be too late to innovate.

"All you can do is admit to yourself that yes, this is an adventure, and to accept it as such, surprises and all. With a little bit of practice you eventually get into the flow of it."

Hugh at Gapingvoid seems to have gotten a bit more reflective as he finishes up writing his book. Check out this post - which is where I pulled the quote above. And if you don't read that, read this one, but both are worth the time.

Timely stuff for me, and I'm guessing I'm not alone.

The thing is that time in Spain was almost like a parallel universe to my life in Denver. A totally different place with very little overlap in people, landscape, culture or lifestyle. Everything is so different, it makes it hard for my head to grasp that I was there for as long as I was...and that I was away from home for that long as well.

The sights, sounds, smell and experiences in Barcelona were extraordinary. The people I interacted with at work and in my living situation were kind, inclusive and interesting to be around. And the work that I am doing is challenging, interesting and exciting.

But damn, it's good to be home.

Chances are things here at MarketingPunk will be heading back in the direction of marketing related posts...mainly because that's what I do here, and writing about marketing helps me get better at what I do for a living. With that said, I love the fact that I can use this blog to keep friends and family updates on things in one central place...so I am sure there are more personal posts in the future as well.

I'm in the process of uploading a lot of Spain photos to Flickr...if your interested, check them out here.

Good to be home.

This shot seems to do the visual scene some justice....the audio portion will need to come later.

Not sure how St, John felt about fireworks and I'd be shocked if he was a fan the ones happening all over town tonight. But I've witnessed the great thing that comes from this holiday and I'm sure John would agree with me that the danger of lost limbs is well worth it.

You see tonight, across town, when people of all races, religions, creeds and colors toss fireworks directly at other people, they were no longer different. They were not richer or poorer, more or less educated. No. These peoples are all unified under one word.

Dicks

Due to the sudden decision of the Spanish Weather Gods to switch from cool and rainy to all out HOT, I decided the best way to spend today was down at the beach, relaxing. Actually, my trip to the beach started as a walk to a nearby bookstore and when that was closed, well, I just started wandering.

My one goal for the day was to catch the French Grand Prix, and luckily I found a cafe that was showing the race down on the beach. To one side of me I had a TV with F1 on it, and on the other side, the Mediterranean - not a bad setup.

After the race I took a walk along the beach in a direction I had never gone before. On said walk I learned an important lesson...sometimes nude beaches just happen. No signs, no ropes, no bushes (to block the view...not the other kind pervs), no warning at all.

I know these things aren't a big deal here - in fact, it is totally legal to be a nudist here in BCN and some of my coworkers see naked folks walking down the street quite a bit - but for little old American me, when I'm walking down the beach and all of a sudden a naked dude goes flopping past, well, I laugh. I tried to cover it up, but man...naked dudes having a stroll is an odd sight.

I bought a beer from a beer man and took a seat surrounded by three groups of people. Group one - naked guy reading a book and his pretty much naked lady friend. Group two - pot smoking beach bums yet funnily, not nudist. Group 3 - these ones could have been American - it was a man, his wife (topless) and some random little dog who was trying to dig his little paws off.

After my can ran dry I figured it was time to head back home. But there was some type of accident on the Metro, so I decided to hoof it. The hoofing was good. Ended up in Parc de la Ciutadella and since it was about 4, I tough it would be good to take a nap. Didn't take me too long to find a nice place to siesta.

After a nice rest I packed up my self, and headed to my apartment.

It was a good day - looks like my sunburn had fun too!

This week has been pretty intense at work - trying to get a big presentation ready to give to a very smart group of people is always a bit nerve racking. Gave the presentation today and things went well, but I'm very glad to have it done with (presentations for me have always been something I enjoy, but I put a lot of work and thought into them, so they become pretty consuming).

This weekend BCN will be the host of the Sonar Music festival and St. Johns day. From what I've hear, Sonar could be a nice time, but the other event(St. Johns Day), which is actually a bank holiday is, in the words of one of my roommate, "HORRIBLE."

Why so bad? Imagine handing thousands of teenage kids buckets of M-80 firecrackers and telling then to go out and have some fun from sun down on a Monday to sun up on Tuesday....oh yeah, also don't forget the bonfires all over the city (made with old furniture)!

Even tonight Barcelona sounds like a mini warzone. On the positive side I think I am figuring out what these boxes are for on the side of buildings:

Crazy pyros!

I'll try to get some good pictures and share them here.

Everyone enjoy your weeked!

Working on some really challenging and enjoyable stuff, so the long days at the office are actually flying by. Flying by so fast, actually, that it's now hitting me that I'll be back on a plane, headed to Denver, one week from this Friday.

Crazy.

As a part of the Super Duper care package I got from Kristi, I have a few of my back issues of BusinessWeek. One had a cover story that I found to be a somewhat interesting, yet ridiculously brief article on the state of blogging and social media as of 2008. You can read it here.

The one thing I wish they would have mentioned in the story is the number of major media outlets that have "blogs" and that mention said "blogs" continuously throughout their shows. To me, that's a good sign...so long as I can call it a blog and can stop putting quotes around the word "blog."

Ok, enough "blogging" for tonight...I've got a box of USA smuggled, prime-time, hardcore Oreo Double-Stuff cookies calling my name.

They are, in a word, perfection.

If you said it's Kristi head, you're correct!

So here's the deal, yesterday I went out to lunch with a coworker and my boss. We had a great lunch, and suddenly my boss got up, said he had to go, and left me sitting outside with my coworker. We were discussing work and life and then BOOM, out of nowhere, Kristi was sitting next to me.

My brain shut off.

I noticed my boss was standing next to her smiling, and I looked to him for some guidance - what the heck was going on? After the initial shock wore off I realized that Kristi was really here - after traveling 15 hours on a plane - to see me for the weekend.

For those of you doing the math, that's 30 hours on a plane to hang out with me for 60 hours. And if you've experienced the humiliation of airline travel as of late, you know that that, my friends, is love.

We're having a wonderful time - spent the day at Park Guell and the beach and tonight we're going to go out on the town...last night was going to Sagrada Familia and catching up and drinking sangria.

My head is still spinning...in a good way. It's amazing to be able to spend the weekend with my favorite person in this amazing place.