Posts Tagged ‘austin business’

I’m a huge fan of our local newspaper here in Austin, The Austin American Statesman. However, I couldn’t tell you the last time I actually touched a newspaper. I’m skeeved out by newsprint. It comes off on your fingers and smudges and well, I’m a diva deep down, I suppose. Aside from that, I prefer to grab my news online, in smaller bites or through my Kindle (yes, I subscribe).

Oh, I could get it from any number of news outlets here in Central Texas, but I’ve stayed pretty true to the Statesman. Why? Simply because they care. It shows in their reporting, and it has for many years. BUT, there’s also a secret reason I adore my local paper. Twitter. No, I’m not kidding. Take a look at their Twitter stream and you’ll see why. There’s no RSS flood of news stories every hour (like some of the news stations – oy!), there’s no starched little headlines. There’s some guy there with his computer or phone or whatever and he’s talking WITH us. He’s telling us what’s going on – and this, my friends, is the part that most other news outlets don’t get – they are replying. If you type in @statesman blah blah blah into Twitter, you can bet they will reply to you. Even if it’s “Oh great, glad you liked that photo” or “yeah, yeah, we’ve had the weather wrong for 3 days now”. I like that they are human on there. The guy running it has a sense of humor. Shocking, I know.

I attended the Statesman’s social media awards over the weekend while I was out at SXSWi where they did tell us that they aren’t struggling like most of the other newspapers out there (and if you read anything about publishing, you know it’s pretty scary out there). I was a little surprised, but in some ways I wasn’t really all that surprised. They get it. They do it right. Not just online, but in the paper itself. I always feel the human element, the fact that they’re listening to their readers.

Anyway… I took away that we all need to do that. To listen to our customers, our readers, our clients, our partners, whomever it is out there that we are trying to reach. I will admit that I’m guilty of getting bogged down in numbers and reports that I sometimes forget that there’s a real human being behind all that mess. Not a bad take away for a simple little ceremony.

Don’t get me wrong, I love all of my clients, but this is my 12th year living here in Austin (yes, I realize I never get to be “from” here, always a transplant) and I’ve come to absolutely love this town, the people, the businesses… just everything.

Oh, I never would have believed I’d become one of those people until I actually lived here. There’s something about walking into a local business in Austin. It’s like nothing you can explain. San Francisco has it’s own vibe (I’ve been there and I think I’d totally live there if not here) – BUT – Austin definitely has it’s own drummer, folks This was driven home for me lately when I went to find a used clarinet for my son to start to learn to play on. We were referred to a little local shop, Play It Again Music, and the lady in there spent over an hour with us, showing my son what he needed to know. All for a little $200 used clarinet. If you’ve never been to a funky little Austin shop before, you must find one immediately *laughing*

So, when I see things like this video over at CNN, it makes me smile and it makes me pretty darn proud to be from this crazy little big city.  Many thanks to my long-time local client, Robert Grunnah over at Castle Hill Investments, for sending this link to me – check out their blog too.

For those of that live here, the fact that Austin is leading in this economic recovery is no big surprise. Oh, we felt it here, don’t get me wrong, but I think we didn’t feel it quite as bad as some other parts of the country.

Go, Austin, Go! And keep being weird… that’s why I stick around (even if I do tend to stick to my far far Northwest suburban area)

PS – I just saw an article from The Austin-American Statesman that Facebook is opening an Austin office. WooHoo!

This morning, I was supposed to attend the Social Media Breakfast with a friend and colleague. We left the house at 7am and managed to go 5 miles in 45 minutes. Yeah, we turned around. You see, Austin was getting sleet at that time. So traffic… yeah, it sucked and there was no way we’d get downtown.

So, we took our own little 2-person meeting and went to Kerby Lane, where we sat by a window and watched the flakes float down.

It was a memory I’ll never lose because the conversation was really good and let’s face it, how often does it snow here? Yeah… never.

I’m sure we missed a great presentation, but also made a connection and memory that will last… that seems more important (plus we didn’t have to try to get downtown in that snarled traffic mess!)