On a recent internal email exchange with folks in the interactive community, I felt compelled to pile on.

The topic was the current mckinney.com and the fact that this site used Papervision3d and a totally new approach to navigation.  It was a reinvention in its own way.

Unfortunately, I have been a vocal critic of the site when I think about its intended audiences.  But I've never been critical of the fact we took the chance, we set a high bar and were not afraid to fail.

As a leader of this agency and one of its owners I'm constantly wondering what I'm doing/not doing/should be doing to help us fail forward more often.  I'm not sure I'll ever know THE answer to this.  But I do know that I've never been afraid to fail.  I've failed a lot.  And I've learned more from failure than success.

I also believe, from my experience, that failing forward happens most and best when people take it upon themselves to make shit happen...not waiting to be told or asking for permission.

Here's to failing more, learning a lot and moving forward!

Earlier this year I blogged about how it felt like Durham (and the Triangle) was bucking the recession. Yesterday the News and Observer wrote this piece about how more and more of the area's more prominent employers, including McKinney, have been doing something few companies have been doing in the last 16+ months: hiring.

McKinney is featured throughout the article, which also gives advice to job seekers.  CEO Brad Brinegar and new hires Lyn Johnson (Acct. Director) and Will Dean (Art Director) are quoted, but what you might not see in the online version is a nice, big shot of Will and his famous, healthy, growing head of hair (see below), which is emblematic of what we've witnessed at the agency this year.

I bet that you, like me, have been hearing a lot of people question whether the economy is truly recovering amid continuing struggling nationwide unemployment numbers.  But for the first time, I'm starting to hear not just about workers looking for employment, but also employers looking for workers.

My wife's uncle said this past weekend that the shipping company he works for in the Norfolk, VA, area actually is struggling to fill hundreds of skilled labor positions.  And the N&O lists Allscripts-Misys, Bayer CropScience, ChannelAdvisor, Cree, Deutsche Bank,Elster, EMC, Novartis, Talecris and Time Warner Cable as more companies looking for workers. 

I'm glad to know the local economy is starting to rebound, and I hope it's a sign of things to come for the rest of the country.

What happens if you mix the collection and adoration of images with the concept of crowd sourcing? You'd get dropular.net. There are many sites that are similar, like ffffound.com, but I choose to collect images on this site. Under dropular's concept, you drop images into the site and they will naturally create pools of similar images through tagging. Through this process, you can start to see the development of trends, categorization of design styles, and the comparision of different media. This site is different in that you can bookmark or "drop" images, videos, and links, all in one place. Also, the navigation is intuitive. You can simply use the arrow keys to scroll down or go to the next page, which is awesome for users like me who tend to zoom through images quickly, too impatient to even use the scroll bar.

I love images. Well, media really. Sites like this are like my little box where I keep them and bring them out when I want inspiration. I guess some people collect stamps, coins, or shells... I collect media. It's one of the things I love to do.

Here's my collection: http://dropular.net/user/free_

My favorite place in New York City is the Pearl River Mart on Canal St. It is a utopia of squiggly things, porcelain dishes, questionable herbal pills and enough cloth footwear to clothe a block of the mainland. When I moved, I thought I left it forever.

Until my fiancée drove me to the Grand Asia Market in Cary.

Their 30,000 sq. ft. store is located in a strip mall forgotten amid suburban sprawl.  But once inside, you find a vibrant cross-cultural Mecca of people gathered around row upon row of edible and non-edible delights.

Curly noodles in fuchsia-fishnet packaging. Fish sauce in every formidable strength and a rainbow of miso, chili and who-knows-what paste.

Steamed pork buns so authentic, the Triangle’s Chinese residents stand ten-deep in line for a single one.

Fresh produce like boy choy, bean sprouts and lotus root and strange mammal products (young children should cover their eyes here) like liver, blood and tripe.

But for me, the gem is a back wall of tanks filled with all the creatures of the sea, happily swimming and mugging for the customers like characters in a twisted pet shop.
 
Oh, and adorable porcelain dishes to eat on and clothing (like the slippers on my feet) to look just as adorable while doing so.

An escape of a few miles that will take you a million miles away.

Grand Asia Market
253 Buck Jones Rd.
Cary, NC 27606

In which I express my admiration for that most awesome of mckinney traditions.

Christmas Tree
December 2008 - December 2008