This Wednesday, March 21 starts the second, 4-week run of performances for my improv comedy troupe, Blue Shampoo. If you are in Chicago, come see some Blue Shampoo Presents: Spring Break 2K7 at the Gorilla Tango Theatre. We are performing long-form inprov, in a form called “The Mirror.” More information on us, our director and our dates are available on our Web site.

How this came to be is a story about balancing my life. Throughout my day I think analytically. From solving business problems to writing code to the tasks of running Dunkirk Systems, my thinking is methodical, with a mix of troubleshooting. Some of my results may be considered creative, but in a business way. About a year ago I realized that I did not have a creative outlet. Where I was a DJ back in Boston, I did not have my own equipment, so I went on a quest to find an outlet here.

Improvisational comedy, or simply improv, is what I found. With no preconceived illusions (delusions?) of grandeur, I enrolled in the beginning improv program at the Second City Training Center here in Chicago. Second City is where many actors, improvisers and TV and movie writers got their start. It is a year long program broken into five courses. You can just take one class or all 5 over the course of a year. I decided to take it one step at a time, not knowing where it would lead me.

The program starts with the “building blocks” which boils down to the basics – in the first few classes of level A, we didn’t speak! From the basics we moved onto improv games similar to what you have seen on the TV show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Following levels C through E, we staged a performance on the Second City main stage... on weekend mornings, where friends and family paid a couple of dollars to see us.

It was an amazing experience. Improv is not stand-up comedy, and it’s not about cracking jokes. The comedy comes from your interactions with other actors. Common terms in improv include “yes, and” and “build and heighten” – if someone says you are holding an alligator egg in your hand, you don’t deny it, you respond that it is a rare Egyptian egg and it is about to give birth! I was lucky to get into a group of amazing actors, and as we neared the end of the program the idea of putting on our performances on came to light, and we all “yes, and-ed” it.

For as much fun as it has been, improv has also been a tremendous learning experience. I have learned to let go, trust in others with common goals and create an amazing product. It goes without saying that this has carried over to my business.

Editor's Note: This post was modified from the original to remove and correct broken links and images.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Diversions • (1) Comments • Permalink

Years ago when I was working at a dot-com, I got together with our Marketing and Operations heads to determine what domain names we should be registering to protect the brand of our company. In our meeting we came up with just about every derogatory word to describe our company’s name and product, including words to prefix and suffix them. It was as much fun as it was serious. Unfortunately, by the time we went to register the names, the company folded.

Johnson and Johnson, the global giant that makes everything from Band-Aids to pharmaceuticals, went through this process for their alternative sweetener, Splenda. DomainTools.com reported on the list of Splenda domain names. What is interesting about the list is that it goes well beyond adding “sucks” to the end of the product name and hints at some of the product's dangers, including diabetes.

J&J is smart to do this. It is common practice to register such names in the branding process. The cost of a domain name is small as compared to the damage to a new brand when someone registers a domain name that is against it. Some of these names may be disturbing to the common consumer, including myself. If they wanted these domain names, maybe they should have registered them in the name of an individual who worked for the company, and not in the J&J name, so not to draw such attention.

Domain Names • (3) Comments • Permalink

I usually come up with ideas when I'm not expecting them. Yesterday, when walking back from The UPS Store, after having a great conversation with the manager Neal about customer service, a thought popped into my head about JetBlue’s woes with people being stranded on their planes. So David Neeleman, CEO of JetBlue, I offer this one to you for free, though I am not sure why you didn’t think of it earlier.

Whenever the status of a flight changes, or whenever it does not change within an acceptable time period, you get an email message. I am willing to bet US$1.00 that you have a BlackBerry (or if you are smart, a Treo 680!) and you are probably on it all day as it is. For example, if a flight does not take off within an hour of its scheduled departure time, you would know, and then you could find out why, and take appropriate action. This would surely have prevented people from being stuck on the tarmac for all of those hours.

Hopefully you are already receiving these emails as I write this. Many of the things we as people and businesses do are in reaction to something. If not, then a simple thank you reply in the blog is all I ask, though now that you are flying into Chicago...

Business • (3) Comments • Permalink

I don’t believe there is hope for the United States Postal Service, an oxymoron of a name if there ever was one. And this is not just me, as the Chicago Sun-Times has reported on the lack of service, delivery and accountability this past weekend. I will spare you my own mail debacle stories, for now at least.

About the only smart thing the post office has come up with is so-called "forever stamps" where once you buy the stamp, you can use it whenever, and it will be valid at the current rate at that time. So if you buy a 39-cent stamp the day before the rate increase and use it a week later, you do not need to add additional postage. After witnessing the insanity at Chicago’s Loop post office on the day of the last stamp price increase last year – where they literally ran out of two-cent stamps – I am actually surprised that the same organization came up with this idea.

This article from spudart.org on the historic stamp price increases has a cool stamp design they should consider for the first forever stamp!

Business • Diversions • (4) Comments • Permalink

As other bloggers have commented over the past few days on how they read blogs, I have decided to chime in, as well as make a public declaration not only of how I read them, but how many I will read.

Google Reader is my feed reader of choice. I say "feed" as I subscribe to feeds that are not necessarily blogs, such as the news headlines from Web sites. It has worked well for me, both on my PC and my Treo 680. I browse through all of the new feeds in a big list, and do not use any of the other features, including folders. This is acceptable to me as I have a variety of feeds, both business and personal, and going through the list and reading the mix is a good break in the day for me.

Last week I decided to keep the number of feeds I subscribe to fewer than 200. I have found that I don’t put too much thought into a blog or Web site when I subscribe to the feed. If I happen upon the site for whatever reason and find some useful information, I will just subscribe. It is not until I subscribe that I see what the feed gives me. If the content is no longer relevant to me, duplicate of something else I am reading or if there are too many posts, I will unsubscribe.

Two hundred has actually been the cap I have been using all along, noticing it when I manage my feeds. Do you have a magic number for your feeds?

Technology • (7) Comments • Permalink