Correction, and a career confession.

I flippantly commented to Renratt that she should start a fictitious blog, pretending to be her husband. It was a joke, of course. Because:

1. Who the hell needs more competition for "hottest daddy blogger?" I'm already stuck in 2,793rd place. And that's out of 300 people! Argh!
   
2. I started playing out the "spouse writes a blog as other spouse" scenario, and I just... just.... well, it's clearly an utterly stupid idea. I couldn't handle reading Maggie's interpretation of what's going through my head... probably because it would be way too true.

Moving on.

My bio says that I'm the CEO of a media firm. That's not quite true. I'm the CEO of an creative employment agency that staffs writers, art directors, CG artists, retouchers, etc. I'm not a headhunter, because my belieft is that there's enough excellent unemployed or underemployed talent in NYC that I don't need to get down in the sludge like that. At least not as a standard method of operation.

I've run my own show for 11 years, with the exception of a 2.5 year period when I sold my company, and then worked for the company I sold. (That's the company that was just sold again).

This merger isn't going well. My sales are down for the first time ever. Admittedly, they ALWAYS have nosedived when there's been a brand change, but I thought that this would be different, because of the transfer of personnel, etc.

I think I've been holding back from giving the new company the kind of badass differentiation required in a field that is often considered morally suspect, quality-inconsistent, and pain-in-the-ass-ish.

Why hold back, if I'm the fucking CEO?

• Fear of failure.
• Fear of disapproval.
• Fear of rejection.
• Having lost the feeling the my blood flows in this company's veins.
  

It's not like I haven't been working my ass off... making real progress in both working method sand technological assistance... but I haven't been doing the things to make this brand something different, more attractive, and an inherently better choice for clients present and potential.

Well, it's pretty much time to put up or shut up. So I'm completely rewriting the website (same visuals, totally different content), rewriting our direct mail (and doing more of it), and, well... I'm just doing a base jump. That sums it up.

I'm report in on my progress, because the first round of this needs to be up and running in a week, at most.

Whoa. What a screed.

Love to all. Even you, the gentleman having a extended, full-voice conversation with himself, punctuated by long, frustrated sighs.