As anyone who subscribes to my Twitter feed already knows, I love sushi. My tweets routinely center on trips to my favorite sushi restaurant and my infatuation with raw fish. What you may not know is that this unabashed love of sushi is a recent development as I tried it for the first time just a few months ago. Here’s to trying new things.

Trying Something New

I used to think eating raw fish was pretty disgusting. Of course, I had never actually tried sushi, but was forming my opinion with absolutely no experience in the matter at all. Thankfully, my co-workers are quite fond of sushi and encouraged me to accompany them to their favorite restaurant one afternoon. I ordered myself a plate of Chinese food (the restaurant serves other dishes in addition to sushi), but tried a few pieces of sushi to satisfy my curiosity and appease my co-workers.

I ate three small pieces of sushi that day. It wasn’t bad and I was impressed with myself for trying something new. While I was happy to have this new experience, I expected that this would be my last time eating sushi - then something strange happened. I couldn’t stop thinking about raw fish.

Trying Something New...Again

I returned to the restaurant a week later and decided to give sushi another try, but this time I wouldn’t order a plate of food to accompany a few sample pieces of sushi. This time, I planned to go all out and eat only raw fish for lunch.

I ordered the lunch special – any three rolls for $10.99. My plate of spicy tuna, spicy yellowtail, and eel came and I began my first real sushi lunch. I was hooked.

Trying Something New...The Web Edition

When it comes to the Web, trying new things is critical to success. I am routinely approached by clients and asked how they can use sites like Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIN to help meet their business’s online goals. They want to know how they can begin blogging or using video to drive traffic to their sites. They come to me, and the team at Envision, looking to try something new in order to help their business grow.

A big part of what we do at Envision is working to identify what solutions make the most sense for each client since not every approach is appropriate for every project. One thing that is universal in all cases and for all clients, however, is that the first step is being willing to experiment.

Try It...You Just May Like It

I didn’t know I would love sushi until I tried it. Similarly, clients won’t know if a blog works for their business or if they will take to the format until they give it a shot. I’ve had a number of clients who were somewhat reluctant to start blogging, oftentimes fearing that they didn’t have enough time to commit to creating new content, who discovered that they loved the medium once they had begun using it. I’ve also had clients who decided to try something new and found that it wasn’t right for them. Not every story ends in success, but every success begins by taking a leap.

We recently had a client of ours, a retirement community, come to us and ask about using Twitter to promote their business. I had no idea what a retirement community could possibly have to say on Twitter, but I applauded them for bring willing to give it a shot and we are now working with that client to find ways to use Twitter, and other solutions, to meet their goals.

Another client example would be an accounting firm who recently starting using Facebook. Accounting is not what I think of when I think of Facebook, but the placement made sense. The firm works hard to reach out to and attract new, young talent - so being where that young talent already is, on Facebook, is a logical step.

The Process of Trying Something New

If being willing to try something new is the first step, what are the remaining steps in the process? I’m glad you asked. Here is our process:

• Be willing to try something new.
• Try something new.
• Measure the results of the new thing you have tried.
• Revisit and Repeat.

While this is somewhat of an oversimplification, the general premise is pretty basic, isn’t it? Of course, working with a team that can help you identify exactly which avenues make the most sense for your business and can assist you in implementing those solutions will go a long way to doing things right the first time. Still, with our without the aid of experts, the first step is in your hands. It begins when you say, 'Hey, why don’t we give this a shot.'

In Closing

Thanks to Todd, Britte, Josh, Sean, Ando and the rest of the gang at Envision for introducing me to the awesome that is sushi and thanks to all the clients who come to Envision with goals and needs and are willing to take the leap with us and try something new.

For anyone looking for some excellent sushi, the restaurant referred to in this article is Asian Palace, located at 1184 North Main Street in Providence, Rhode Island – just a few blocks from the Envision office. I highly recommend the 'any 3-rolls' lunch special. If you are looking to go all out, I suggest you try the 'Fantastic Roll', which is aptly named since it is, indeed, quite fantastic.

Note: This article was originally published on Jeremy's personal blog, where you can see it in all its sushi-styled glory.

Labels: Facebook, Jeremy G, search engines, social media, social networking, sushi, Traffic Generation, Twitter, Web design

First memorable flight ....

The air in our plane was heavy. I was young, eight or nine I think. Even so, it was obvious to everyone, even the infants onboard that this was a stressful situation. We were on approach to an airport in FL, having descended from 30+ thousand feet to our current altitude (looking back on it we were probably at about 10-15k feet in the air).

Regardless, our plane had descended right into the heart of the type of storm cell that only Florida can produce. The clouds were black, the thunder was loud, and the lightning would have been blinding if the torrential rain weren’t blocking the view.

The pilot had asked everyone to strap in tight, which was silly because the extreme turbulence had long since caused everyone to double-check that placebo (we all knew that if gravity had its way, the belts weren’t going to do much for us).

The plane dropped suddenly with a loud BANG, then regained some altitude. We dipped our wings, and the engines revved and settled in unpredictable patterns.

Like I said, I was little. My mom was crying, the woman in the seat next to us was crying. It was scary. I think that’s when I first started to dislike airplanes.

A couple of years later ....

We flew again, my mother and I. Once again solar radiation heated the earth’s crust causing warm air to rapidly rise and replace the cooler air above it. Turbulence. Again.

This time I was a little older and my mom gripped my arm with a strength usually associated with heavy machinery. It wasn’t as bad this time, but still it was scary. My mom was in tears, but this time I held my ground and tried to reassure her. “Something is wrong”, she said. “That man over there is PRAYING!”.

I looked over and sure enough, he was praying. Then again he was a priest, which I pointed out to my mother. “It’s ok. He’s supposed to do that”.

Several years later ....

I entered the airport with EXTREME apprehension. The memories of past flights and frightening unplanned drops in altitude played in my head with Michael Bay-esque special effects.

In the intervening years since my last flight I had remembered prior trips like a fisherman retelling a story about his last catch. Each time I remembered it, the turbulence got worse, the engine started cutting out, and towards the end there was fire. I had convinced myself that, twice in a row, I had barely escaped a certain and gruesome death. Sufficed to say, I wasn’t in a hurry to try my luck again.

However, I had recently bought a boat and the only way to get it was to fly to South Carolina. One of my best friends and co-workers was traveling with me (to his detriment). Adding to the stress was the fact that we were flying out on Friday the 13th under a full moon. I am not normally superstitious, but when it comes to airplanes, you can’t be too careful.

The other thing I am not, is a drug addict. However, that night and on that flight I had more chemicals in me than a hot tub. My doctor had given me happy flying pills and I took them like they were Pez. I could apologize to my friend for years and it still wouldn’t be enough.

A couple of years later (my honeymoon)....

Like or not, there are evolutionary aspects to men and women. At some point, women like to feel beautiful. Likewise, men like to feel MANLY (Arrrgh!). Well, there are few things manlier than getting married and being the protector, and sometimes the provider.

There are few things less manly than grabbing your new bride by the arm and screaming to the remaining passengers in the plane, “That sound you are hearing is our plane and it’s 1.2 million moving parts! They are making that sound because they are losing a battle with physical forces that have been in play since before our planet was formed! Those ancient forces would like nothing more than to reclaim this aircraft by drawing into the breast of our planet at a high rate of speed!”

Tonight....

I am sitting on an airplane for the millionth time in the last 6 months. I do this really often these days. I have been desensitized to air travel (thankfully). I no longer feel that stress. However, that doesn’t mean that I now enjoy this. I just have the ability to fly without being concerned that my last moments will be spent in a freefall and that I am going to die sitting next to a huge dude in a toupee, sandals with socks, and a muumuu.

I have instead refocused my hatred of flying, to a hatred of airports. Somehow, when I am in a terminal, I seem to attract people who are dripping fluids and are flaking skin. Sometimes they also have objects in tow that confuse and frighten me. That isn’t luggage lady! It’s a dog kennel with shoes in it instead of a dog (yes, I saw that tonight).

The whole process is silly; the angry people and the jockeying for seats, despite the fact that the seats are assigned…

However, at least now I feel better about the whole flying part. I have confidence in the 1.2 million moving parts in the aircraft, because I know that about 1/3 of them are spares in case the primaries fail. I also know that the plane’s computers are not powered by Microsoft software. So, I no longer worry that we will slam into a mountain while the pilot tries to reboot the plane because it froze up.

In some ways, I aspire to be like the engineers that created this highly redundant aircraft. All things being equal, these systems are really quite advanced. A lot of forethought went into them and all the systems were engineered with a “plan for the worst, hope for the best” mentality. Presumably, no one failed to consider disaster recovery because it wasn’t in the budget.

Despite the redundancies, there are still plane crashes every once in a while.

I think there is a lesson there for all of us as we consider our own businesses. I also think the lesson applies to all aspects of our businesses, not just technology. In an airplane, lives are on the line. Even with the best engineering, and anticipation of problems, and built in redundancies…. bad things still happen once in a while. So, it’s critical to learn from them when they do, and then engineer the lessons into the next revision.

So, to all of you out there that might read this I say to you, DON’T BE FOOLED! I assure you that if you talk to your employees, you will find that lives are on the line in your businesses too. It may not be about whether hearts are beating, but it is about the day to day lives of the people who work for you.

You need to act like an engineer designing a plane. Plan ahead. Don’t fail to invest in the redundancies that can save your employees life styles, and work to ensure that when you do have a failure you are learning from the mistake.

Thanks for stopping by, and while you are here, feel free to look through our website. You never know, you might find something that will help your plane stay in the air !!

Cheers!

Posted by Todd Knapp

Labels: Engineering, Todd