Thanks For 16+ Great Years, Nabisco

Posted on September 22, 2013 by brent

I feel like I have a pretty solid perspective on life. I take major and minor life events for what they are and give them the appropriate attention. Losing a pet is always a tough deal. However, in the whole landscape of our existence it is not an end of the world proposition and definitely not something that stands on par with the loss of human life. I don’t believe the loss of a beloved pet is grounds for missing a day of work or for staging a whole month of mourning. That is just me.

With that said, I can say that I definitely felt a great deal of sadness when our family cat was put down yesterday evening. After giving the Reser Family so much joy for over 16 years, her health declined to the point where the only humane thing to do was to end any and all suffering she was going through.

Nabisco and I…the best cat I have ever known.

We brought Nabisco into our home in 1997. She replaced the void left by Crackers, our first family cat who sadly left this world when a neighbor dog attacked her in our own yard. We purchased Nabisco at a pet store in Spokane out of a litter of about seven other cats. A distinct marking on her forehead made her stand out and convinced us that she was the one. Little did we know how long she would grace our lives and how much happiness she would bring us.

I have never seen a cat with more personality and love than Nabisco. She simply loved to be around us and loved to make us smile. Whether we were at the dinner table, in the living room, on our deck, or downstairs watching TV, Nabisco would always come and be with us. She would always stroll over to one of us and just plop right down on our laps. She was a very happy and affectionate kitty, always purring loudly while we petted her. She slept with my parents for the majority of her nights and always got up with my dad when he would rise at 5 a.m. Whenever we returned to our house from vacation she would always be right at the front door meowing as we unlocked the door.

Nabisco was a beautiful cat.

I said Nabisco had an amazing personality and with that came many funny and endearing traits. Her favorite thing to do was to sit at our outdoor deck patio window and watch the squirrels come and take the peanuts we had placed on the deck. Nabisco’s tail would wag back and forth 40 miles per hour as she intently watched the squirrels. She loved to eat the melted ice cream from our bowls. Although she loved us more than anything, she did not like toddlers or little kids. Whenever our extended family came over with the little ones or if neighbor kids came over, Nabisco would hide in my downstairs bedroom. When we would pet her, she would tenderly touch her paw to our faces. She always let us pick her up whenever we wanted and was always good about posing for photos. She was deathly afraid of thunderstorms and when they would occur she would find one of us and bury her head into our bodies or into the couch or bed we were on.

Ice cream was Nabisco’s favorite food…we always made sure to let her lick our bowls.

To say that Nabisco had an impact on my life would be an understatement. You have to understand, we got Nabisco when I was 9 years old…I am 26 now!! She was around when I was in elementary school, when I entered middle school, when I graduated high school, when I left the house for Montana, when I made return trips home from college, and then when I made visits back to Spokane for the past four years while I have started my career. She has been a constant for me and my family.

I had Nabisco in my life from the time I was just a little kid to yesterday.

My friends know how much I loved that cat. In fact, they probably knew a little too much. Always kidding me for talking about her and taking pictures of her, people outside of the state of Washington knew very well who Nabisco was. Whenever I talked with my parents one of the first questions I would always ask was “How’s the cat?” One of my biggest joys when making return trips to Spokane was walking through the door and having Nabisco greet me. She always remembered me and let me pick her up. I would immediately feel so happy and the realization that I was home would kick in right at that moment.

Nabisco brought a lot of joy into my life.

I do regret that I didn’t get to see Nabisco one last time. I did ask my parents if they felt she could keep going just a little bit longer so I could see her this next weekend but they said she couldn’t. Her health had deteriorated over the past couple weeks and the vet said they chose the right time to bring her in. Nabisco is now buried outside in our backyard right next to where we laid Crackers to rest almost 17 years ago.

This was the last picture I ever took of Nabisco. It was taken this past August. Thanks for everything, Nabisco.

Our family feels incredibly blessed to have had such a wonderful pet that gave us so much joy for so long. Knowing that we will never have a cat like Nabisco again, we will miss her incredibly. Don’t Blink, 16 years go faster than you think.

Resorting to Lows on Social Media

Posted on September 17, 2013 by brent

You have to understand, my mom is a very novice Facebook user. She struggles to simply log in to the service. She doesn’t understand tagging, messaging, or sharing. She continually tells me that she declines to comment on anything on Facebook for fear that she will sound stupid. Every photo that has ever been posted on her account’s behalf was done by either my brother or me. Get the picture? My mom knows absolutely nothing about Facebook other than that it’s a place where she can go and see what her kids are up to.

But I lied. She actually knows one other thing about Facebook…

About a month ago I chatted with my mom and she told me about an observation she had. “You know Brent,” my mom started , “When I go on Facebook I notice people taking shots at each other, not directly, but I can just tell from reading their statuses that they are talking about the other person. It is pretty immature.”

My mom can’t detect emoticon meanings or birthday calendar invitations over social media but she sure as heck can detect bitterness, slights, and immaturity. Many of us think we are sly and cunning with our Facebook attacks but the truth is that everyone, including rookie Facebook users in their fifties, can see right through them.

I am not here tonight to go on a big rant about proper social media etiquette. I could go on forever about my personal code of conduct I follow while I navigate the enormous world of digital communication but I will save you all the agony. I will just say this broad statement about my major philosophy that I adhere to both personally and professionally when using social media. Be Positive. If you don’t have anything positive to say, just shut up and keep it to yourself….okay, enough about my own credo.

Indirect social media attacks are not something that is reserved for the younger generation. Sadly, it is probably more prevalent in people who should know better…like adults. It is prevalent in people who are my age. It is prevalent in people who are in their thirties and in their forties. It doesn’t matter the age, it is revolting in any case.

We all see it occur probably on a daily basis. It sticks out like a sore thumb. Someone writes a scathing status or shares one of those eye sore looking at your ex and seeing that he/she has downgraded memes. I know right after that sentence you probably had five Facebook friends who popped into your head who provide content like this consistently. You are probably asking yourself “why am I still friends with that person?”

With so much negativity in this world the last thing we need is to encounter it in such a shallow way over social media. This is a tough problem to fight but we can all take some steps. First off, if we find that we are guilty of such behavior we need to stop. Secondly, if we have a close friend who engages in passive-aggressive Facebook antics we might be in bounds to politely talk to the person and let him/her know how their social media habits make them look in front of hundreds and sometimes even thousands of people. Thirdly, if we have acquaintances who engage in such behavior we just need to de-friend them. Life is too short for such petty and immature negativity.

Across all social media outlets we need to hold ourselves to the highest standards. Social media is a terrible place to try to shame/embarrass others. Bottom line it is cowardly and selfish. Under no circumstances should we ever bring someone else down in front of a cyber audience. Again, no matter how we try to disguise it, it is always detectable. And because of that, we are actually the ones shaming/embarrassing ourselves. Don’t Blink.

Brent’s Top Five For Monday

Posted on September 16, 2013 by brent

Good evening, readers! Thanks again for taking the time to check out Don’t Blink. I hope you all had great weekends and that Monday was not too rough on you. Well it is another one of those nights where I rather just touch on several different subjects instead of writing a long post on just one. So get ready, I am going to whip through five totally unrelated topics.

Monte Improves to 2-0: You bet I will be using my blog to fill you in on how Monte is doing in the 2013 Mascot Challenge throughout the three plus month competition…well, at least as long as he is still winning (kidding of course). This past week Monte soundly defeated Bucky the Badger from Wisconsin. I definitely thought the final tally would be closer but Monte won the vote 63% to 37%. Unfortunately, we might find ourselves on the other side of that outcome this week. Our bear is against Big Red from Western Kentucky and right now Monte trails 60% to 40%. But the week is young and I know Griz Nation will rally. Vote for Monte here and make sure to complete challenges by using the #CapitalOneMonte hash tag.

Weather Still Nice But Days Getting Shorter: It is mid-September and fortunately we are still getting some warm days in Missoula. I hope they stick around as long as possible. Some people wish for more “Fall-like” weather but no thank you! That just means the start of eight long months of cold, snow, and wind. However, the nice weather can’t hide the fact that the days are getting shorter. Today I woke up while it was still dark out, drove to work while the sun was rising, and left work with it already dark. I really don’t want to say goodbye to the warm weather and the long days.

Big Week At Work: What a week I got going at work! This first half of the week I am working long hours to prep myself for the events we have at the latter half. Thursday night we have our major basketball fundraiser, Friday night we have soccer and volleyball, Saturday afternoon we have football, and Saturday evening we have another volleyball match. With more on my plate than ever before it is going to be a very exhausting several days but after it is all said and done I will get that redeeming feeling of accomplishment. I love my job and I love doing my best for Griz Nation…can’t ask for much more than that.

Shakeup in the Booth: I watched all of the Sunday Night Football game yesterday and I watched the second half of tonight’s Monday Night Football game and it convinced even more of an idea I have had for the last few years. Can we please merge/cut NBC’s SNF announcing crew with ESPN’s MNF crew? From NBC we will save Al Michaels and give Cris Collinsworth the ax and then from ESPN we will let Mike Tirico go and keep Jon Gruden. Al Michaels does a fabulous job calling any sport under the sun and no analyst compares to the knowledge and character that Gruden brings to the booth. The Michaels-Gruden team would call both evening NFL games on Sunday and Monday and we could send Tirico and Collinsworth to Canada to call CFL games or something.

Amazing Sunrises/Sunsets Across the Country: Is it just me or did the whole nation experience beautiful skies this morning and this evening? Driving to work today I definitely got the joy of driving into a sky filled with amazing colors and judging by my Instagram feed so did seemingly everyone else both in Montana and in every other corner of the nation. Getting to admire the beauty of the sky this morning made me feel better starting off the long week and I hope it brought similar joy to others whether it was at the start or end of the day.

————-

Have a great week everyone! Hope to talk to you a couple more times this week but can’t make any promises. Thanks again for taking time to read what I have to say, I appreciate it. Don’t Blink.

The Subject That Dominates My Facebook Newsfeed the Most

Posted on September 15, 2013 by brent

Of course there are times where I know that the content on my Facebook newsfeed is going to go a certain direction with my friends all posting about a similar subject. National tragedies, holidays, important votes or elections, and big moments in reality TV always transform my newsfeed into a vertical homogeneous collection of similar editorials, rants, and analysis. However, once the autumn season comes around, I can always count on my feed getting dominated by a certain subject each Sunday (and sometimes Monday).

By far the most popular subject that I routinely see posted on Facebook via my newsfeed on a consistent basis is the Seattle Seahawks. If you are reading this, I think this should come as a surprise to many of you. I mean come on, a sports team claims the title for taking over my newsfeed in the most passionate and routine fashion? And not only that, but the sports team happens to be a squad other than the Montana Grizzlies? A little shocking for sure.

I am not kidding you though. For the couple hours leading up to each game the Seahawks play in through the three hour game and then peaking like crazy for two hours after it, my newsfeed is blitzed with content related to the SEAHAWKS. It is not like these statuses are passive, lighthearted “Go Hawks” statements either. My friends get absolutely crazy on Facebook for the team and pretty much go unfiltered on what they post. It gets rather intense.

The Seattle Seahawks routinely take over my newsfeed.

Of course I grew up in Washington state and many of my Facebook friends are from the Spokane area. Also, the state of Montana has no professional football team (or any sports team for that matter) so many people choose the Seattle Seahawks as their team of choice. But I still don’t think these two things alone explain entirely why each Seahawk game is such a huge deal socially. I grew up a dedicated Seattle Seahawks fan but I know for a fact that many of the people I knew at that time did not share my same passion. If Facebook existed back when I lived in Washington I know my newsfeed would not look the same that it does today.

I am pretty sure I know the real reason why I see the proliferation of Hawks posts each Sunday. Actually, let me rephrase that and say I know the reasons, because there are two. First off, the Seahawks are a winning team. Back when I lived in Spokane I locked myself in my room after each Seahawk game because I became so enraged with the way they came up with to lose the game that particular Sunday. Not so anymore. Winning solves all problems and can make a fan out of anyone.

BUT, the main reason why I think I see the crazy amount of Facebook interest each week for the Seahawks is because of the immense interest in the NFL in general. As I have written about before, it is ridiculous how popular the National Football League is. The league absolutely captivates the nation for 20+ weeks each year. Ratings and revenue go through the roof for the NFL. This mania for the league extends to each team and is funneled out to each geographic region. Of course, this interest in each geographic region is then reflected through social media. Case and point why my Facebook newsfeed, composed mainly of friends from Washington state and western Montana, gets taken over by content related to the Seattle Seahawks.

In two hours my favorite NFL team will take on the hated San Francisco 49ers in a primetime Sunday Night game. I already see the status updates popping up on my newsfeed presently but that is just a tiny preview of what is to come. Sunday night Facebook meeting Seattle Seahawk Sunday Night Football (against a rival) is going to result in a complete social media explosion. My Facebook newsfeed is going to be painted in blue and green but that is okay because I understand it….and I also love it. GO HAWKS! Don’t Blink.

The Worst FM Radio Question Ever

Posted on September 11, 2013 by brent

This morning driving to work I changed the radio when my sports talk program went to commercial and I landed on a FM morning show. I listened in as the DJ spoke about a topic that gets beaten to death on these types of programs all the time. Not only does the topic get brought up way too much to begin with but I am pretty sure that most of the stories surrounding it are complete bunk. Let me explain.

When I changed the channel and landed on this radio show I heard the DJ crack over the airwaves that dreaded question… “Ladies, what is the worst pickup line that a guy has ever used on you before?” I immediately hit my head on the steering wheel. Here we go again. But instead of changing back to my sports program so I could hear the testosterone and razor ads I decided to continue to listen to the current station so just maybe I would have the motivation to write this blog post tonight.

Not all FM radio is bad. There are some great DJs out there, including many great local ones here in Missoula who I know personally. But there are also some bad ones. And let me tell you, these bad ones like to use the “worst pick up line” question about once every week. I don’t know of any question that is more unoriginal or unfunny as that question. In fact, I think the only thing that is more unoriginal or unfunny than that question is the answers.

I am convinced that the women who call in to this question are either working for the radio station in some way and are forced to chime in with some phony answer or they are just women calling in who also see the absurdity in the question and decide to make up the biggest whopper they can. Sorry, I am just not buying it when Rose calls in and says that some guy came up to her in a bar and slyly uttered “Are you religious? Cause you’re the answer to all my prayers.”

Pick up lines are corny one-liners that you find in magazines and on the internet. They are meant to provide a few laughs now and then. They are not meant to actually be used in a courting situation. When you tell a knock-knock joke you don’t literally go up to someone’s door and knock twice. Similarly, when you use a pick-up line you don’t literally go up to a girl and use it. While I know there are some guys in this world who lack brains and who might actually go up to a girl and randomly say “Do you have a band-aid? I scrapped my knee falling for you,” I know that 98% of men have more sense than that. Most of us know that in order to engage a woman you have to be charming and interesting…not stupid.

I have to believe that the DJs who pose the pick up question on air know this truth. I am guessing they just bank on the reality that people will call in and provide answers, even if it is straight baloney. I am also guessing that the DJs might consider their audience on the less intelligent side, thinking that their listeners might actually believe the calls coming in. This very well could be true, there could be (and probably are) people out there who eat up some of the pick up lines being reported. They might believe that some dude actually said that to the girl on the line, even if she really only ripped it off of some internet site. There are always the people who will believe anything.

But I personally don’t believe everything, especially things that are obviously not true. I know I am going to hear the pick up line question about 100 more times (and that is just in the next six months) but I do wish the radio industry would retire it for good. Nothing stimulating ever comes from unoriginality and lies. Don’t Blink.

Mascots, Ice Cream, Golf

Posted on September 10, 2013 by brent

Because my brother always complains to me about the length of my blog posts I try to humor him every once and a while and publish a post that is both shorter in length and on the lighter side of things. Thankfully for Glen, tonight is one of those rare occasions where I don’t write a book and I don’t necessarily have a message to get across. This evening I simply want to briefly describe three cool things that have happened so far in this short week.

Monte Defeats Cam The Ram: The most famous bear in Montana got off to a great start in the 2013 Mascot Challenge as he defeated Cam The Ram from Colorado State. The head-to-head battle went down to the wire and I was definitely refreshing my iPhone every few seconds as the deadline approached to make sure that Monte did in fact hold on. Thanks to Griz Nation he did indeed score a victory and is now 1-0 and up against Bucky the Badger from Wisconsin this week. When Monte and I were down in Albuquerque for the 2012 NCAA Tournament we got to meet Bucky because our basketball team was playing Wisconsin. While we came up short to Wisconsin in basketball we are confident that we will have their number when it comes to mascots.

Monte and I were happy campers after defeating Cam The Ram.

Cheap Dairy Queen Ice Cream: In Missoula there is a seasonal Dairy Queen located in an old school hut type building that kind of strays away from the typical corporate DQs you mostly see today. Well, I think the season for this particular Dairy Queen is coming to an end because they had a pretty sweet sale going on yesterday. For just $1.25 you could buy frozen quarts of ice cream…yes, that is just one dollar and a quarter. I saw the sign advertising this bargain as I was driving to the Griz soccer game yesterday and sure enough after the match concluded I went straight to the Dairy Queen and bought a lot of ice cream for pocket change. For $2.50 I got two quarts of premium chocolate ice cream. I smiled the whole way home and now I got enough frozen dessert to last me the rest of September.

I am the owner of enough ice cream to last me the month,

I am the proud owner of enough ice cream to last me the month.

Griz Golf Team Wins Missoula Tournament: For the first time in 16 years the Griz golf team hosted a tournament in Missoula. Yesterday and today the team played in the Sun Mountain Grizzly Invitational at the Missoula Country Club. The last time the team hosted a tournament in Missoula was in 1997 and they definitely made up for lost time as they ran away with the team title, defeating six other schools including Montana State. I got to watch the ending of the tournament and then the awards ceremony that followed. It was just another great day to be a Grizzly.

Congrats to the Griz golf team on winning the Sun Mountain Grizzly Invitational

——

There you go…mascots, ice cream, and golf! Short and sweet. Hope you approve, Glen. Don’t Blink.

Photography and Social Media

Posted on September 9, 2013 by brent

Today while out at South Campus Stadium on an absolute gorgeous evening watching our Griz soccer team thoroughly defeat Utah Valley, 3-1, I had the opportunity to participate in an interesting conversation. While standing on one of the sidelines snapping pictures, I talked with our university photographer, Todd Goodrich. With 22 years under his belt as the main photo man at the University of Montana, Todd is a gold mine of information and cool stories. He is one of those people who you really want to spend some time picking his brain.

University of Montana photographer Todd Goodrich at today’s Griz soccer game.

We got to talking about his career. In addition to his 22 years at the University of Montana, Todd has also worked for two newspapers in the state of Montana, including a stint at the Missoulian. We talked about how photography has evolved so much over the years and the challenges that have presented themselves throughout the journey. We pointed out the dramatic upgrades in technology and the complete acceleration in turnaround time for the final product as major characteristics in the ever changing business. But while these changes would have any veteran photographer on his toes and his head spinning to keep up, Todd said they never rattled him much. Technology and decreased turnaround times are givens, he said, and he just takes them in stride.

However, he said there was a change inside the world of photography that did take him some getting used to. A change that he was initially weary of and to some degree even fought. A change that pretty much overhauled his industry and that made him look differently at how he valued his work. Todd, what is this major change you are talking about?…

Social Media.

I listened with wide open ears and great interest as Todd explained that my passion was his Achilles’ heel for a short period during his career. The culture changing phenomenon that swept through life as we know it and continues to shape our daily experience today was not warmly embraced by Todd and the photographer industry. Listening to him speak about the detriments that social media had (and continues to have) on the work that photographers do made complete sense.

Todd explained to me that photographers deeply value their work. The photos they capture are essentially their personal stamps, their glory, their labor. When social media entered the picture it made the photographer anonymous and took the beautiful images that he/she produced and made them available for the masses to see but not truly for the masses to appreciate. People could now easily see a cool photo but they didn’t know the back story of that image, they didn’t know the photographer who was behind the lens. Instead of the picture finding a home in a glossy publication or on the crisp pages of newsprint, people could now instantly see it on a computer screen or on their phone. For photographers, it seemed to cheapen their work.

It took Todd time to accept this new (and unfair) direction photography was taking. As someone who directly capitalizes off of the new way we use photography I felt bad. I use Todd’s amazing work all the time through our social media channels to advance the brand of Grizzly Athletics. In an attempt to justify what I do and to see if he really was warming up to how social media has transformed the role of photography I asked Todd if he finds any satisfaction in seeing a photo that he took receive wide viral appreciation and acclaim. For example, just last week I shared a breathtaking skydiver picture that he captured at our first football game that garnered 2,052 likes, 300 shares, and 50 comments. Todd answered yes.

Todd captured this amazing skydiving picture that was an instant viral hit.

While Todd has learned to accept the way that social media feeds off of photography, others in his business have not. I honestly can say that I don’t blame those photographers one bit. Likewise, I have an immense amount of respect for Todd that he has come to terms with the very non-reciprocal relationship that exists.

If you ever see a picture on social media that touches you or captures your attention, contact the administrator of that particular social outlet and ask who the photographer is and then send a note of appreciation to that person. If you are in my position and use the work of talented photographers, make sure you let those people know how much you appreciate them. They are just as much a part of your success as whatever you are doing to market/supplement your social outlets. While the photography business gets more and more thankless, it also gets more and more important. Myself and Griz Nation would be lost without people like Todd Goodrich. Make sure to thank a photographer this week. Don’t Blink.

A Stellar Social Media Promotion

Posted on September 8, 2013 by brent

As social media keeps growing and growing, the pressure is on for companies, organizations, celebrities, and even athletic departments to step up their game and offer their fans fresh social content. Within Grizzly Athletics, this duty falls upon my shoulders. I make it one of my top priorities each and every day to make sure Griz Social Media leads the way in the FCS and that our program can hold its weight with the major schools in the BCS. To accomplish this priority, we try new things and take risks. Some of the social media ideas I have introduced have not always caught on. On the other hand, some of them have. I would briefly like to share a success story.

This social media success story has to do with Instagram.

I depend on Kim Staninger from EPIO Solutions to offer me a second voice on social media. EPIO Solutions is a marketing/PR/social media consulting agency who we proudly work with. I directly work with Kim and we chat and brainstorm ideas to make Griz Social Media better. One idea she offered me was to institute a “Guest Instagrammer” during the football season. This person would get sole access to our Instagram account (@UMGRIZZLIES) and gain complete access to the Washington-Grizzly Stadium sidelines on Saturday. I was intrigued by the idea and decided to run with it.

At first I had to get past the idea that someone besides me would be posting to our social media accounts. I take great pride in posting about 95% of our content across our platforms so to give up the reins to someone not even within Grizzly Athletics made me just a tad bit uneasy. But it only took me a couple seconds to get over my control-fit because it wasn’t like I could do it myself during the games because of my responsibilities up in the press box. Also I knew we would capture a new perspective from our Instagram lens with someone else providing the content. I also knew it would give a loyal fan an ultimate Griz experience he/she would never forget. We were definitely doing this!

Make sure to follow @UMGRIZZLIES on Instagram.

The week before our first home football game I wrote a story for our website and posted on our social media outlets the big announcement: We would debut our “Griz Guest Instagrammer” at the Appalachian State football game! I decided to choose our guest Instagrammer from an application process. I had interested parties e-mail me and provide me with the following: 200 words on why he/she loves the Griz, 200 words on why he/she loves Instagram, a copy of his/her best Instagram photo, and his/her Instagram handle. I knew this information would enable me to choose a person who would make this promotion a hit and who would improve our social media program.

I read through the roughly 20 applications I got and ended up choosing a girl named Christina. I looked through her materials and knew she was who I wanted for the first game. I notified her and she met with me on Friday before the game so I could give her the all-access photographer armband that would get her everywhere in the stadium. I also told her what I was looking for, showed her how to access the field, went over policies, and answered questions….oh yeah, I also gave her our Instagram password (the transfer of power!).

Our first ever Griz Guest Instagrammer, Christina. This was her the day before the game when she picked up her credential.

On gameday Christina showed up an hour early and one of our marketing interns greeted her and once again confirmed that the whole field was available to her to take awesome Instagram photos. Once I saw from my vantage point in the press box that Christina was set I kind of forgot about the whole Griz Guest Instagrammer thing and went about doing my job. At halftime I was briefly reminded about the cool social media promotion we had going on when Christina showed up in the press box and informed me that her iPhone had died (I still laugh at this). We did some troubleshooting and got her a charger and after that I forgot once again.

It was not until after the game when I was walking to my car did I remember that we had someone else using our Instagram account for the past few hours. I pulled out my phone and looked at Instagram. My eyes lit up more than the fireworks that went off just 30 minutes prior.

Shots like this immediately jumped out at me.

The shots that Christina took were absolutely amazing. Not only were the pictures themselves just gorgeous but she managed to tell the whole story of the game. She had the skydivers, the band, the fireworks, the students, the mascot, the touchdowns, the crowd, and the jubilant joy of the players after the game. By Instagram standards it was absolutely beautiful.

She captured everything about the game so well.

Not only did she cover the game better than anything I could have imagined but she improved Griz Social Media. Over the weekend we gained 400 new followers! 400! We went from 1200 followers to over 1600 followers. You can’t ask for much better results than that, especially when all you are doing is giving a passionate Griz fan the opportunity to roam the sidelines and capture the game through her eyes.

I loved it how Christina had the presence of mind to run over to where the football team was singing the fight song and take a picture.

I am excited for our future Griz Guest Instagrammers. Christina said she had a great experience and I am glad I am able to afford that to five more people this season. The bar has been set high and I will be happy if we get half the results over the next five games that we did with this first one. Go Griz Social Media and thanks Christina! Don’t Blink.

Cutting Out Distractions, Enjoying Simple Things

Posted on September 7, 2013 by brent

Tonight I realized something. I can no longer sit still and concentrate on one thing. No, I am not talking about multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is a very important skill that is necessary for most people to master but I am not talking about that. Rather, I am talking about just having the focus and patience to sit down and just do one thing. Let me explain…

This evening I sat down to watch the Notre Dame vs. Michigan football game. Watching football has always been one of life’s greatest pleasures for me but tonight I started to notice something. I couldn’t go two minutes without taking my eyes off the screen to do something. I would check my phone constantly, grab for my water bottle, type something into my lap top that I had right next to me, adjust my position on the couch, or have my mind go off in totally non-football directions.

Why was I doing this? I had been looking forward to just relaxing and watching this game all day long but when the time came to do it I caught myself not giving me the opportunity to do so. One thing is for sure, I am glad I actually called myself out on it. I have had a mild case of ADD for quite some time now but I just really had not realized it. To be honest, I don’t exactly know why I took notice of it tonight, but I think that the time I have spent by myself lately has gotten me more in touch with my idiosyncrasies.

After I officially diagnosed my personal focus disorder and after I got on myself for acting so distracted I established a couple of ground rules. I made it mandatory that I would watch a whole series of the football game without doing anything but watching the football game. No phone, no computer, no drink, no adjusting. After the series ended and the game went to commercial I checked my phone, took a big drink of my water, pounded on my computer, and did whatever else I felt like I needed to do. I quickly learned two things. First, the game was much more enjoyable to watch and I found myself thoroughly entertained throughout the three quarters I instituted my plan for (now if only Notre Dame had won). Secondly, doing all the things (phone/computer/drink/etc) on a set schedule made them much more gratifying than just doing them on call every other second.

I think I have trouble getting the most out of my free time just because I am so used to not having any. Instead of switching modes when I am out of the office I instead take those same principles that I use at work and go 100% to get the most done…even if it just entails small, minor things like checking my phone or seeing how Monte is doing in the Mascot Challenge. I need to remember to change gears and realize that work time is different from play time. I am not trying to maximize productivity, I am trying to maximize enjoyment.

I plan to continue to allow myself to enjoy my free time more. Time to focus more and soak in the moments of leisure that I get. I am glad I figured this out now because the football season is very young. Don’t Blink.

The Analytics Part of Don’t Blink

Posted on September 6, 2013 by brent

Quite often people will start talking to me about my blog and ask if I have any idea about the analytics that my site garners. The answer is yes. Thanks to my friend Chris Lynn who installed it within the backend of Don’t Blink, I have a program called Jetpack that gives me a day by day account of the number of browsers that access my site. This information is invaluable to me as I like to have a good idea of how many people visit my blog and what topics the majority of my readers prefer over others.

Besides the volume of traffic statistics that I receive, I also get other really interesting pieces of information delivered to me regarding my blog. I am told what key words people type in to search engines to find Don’t Blink, what outside sites are referring people to my blog, what links people are clicking on once they are reading my posts, and a breakdown of what individual posts are getting accessed. I assess this information about two to three times every week to have a better understanding of my readers.

When it comes to my daily volume of readers there are a couple trends. I usually always get a large audience on Sunday nights, especially if I post something (which I always try to do). Also, the more consecutive days I post, the more traffic I will get on the latter days in that string. For example, if I published a new blog post Monday through Thursday my web traffic would increase each day, with an exceptionally high impression number on Thursday night. Readers reward you for consistency. However, there are random days when my traffic will shoot right through the roof even though I had not posted anything in a couple days. For example, last week when I was too busy with work to even think about writing a sentence for Don’t Blink I checked my analytics and saw that 900 people (browsers) had visited my site on Wednesday. After looking at the full report I saw that roughly 700 of those hits came by referral of a Japanese website. I had written a blog post 10 months back about Barry Anderson, the mascot of the Chicago Bulls. For whatever reason, Japan LOVES mascots. Barry visited Japan a couple years back and to this day he still has rock star status in the country. On this site there was some thread about Barry and someone found my blog post link and shared it on there. The floodgates opened.

I love looking at the key words people use to find Don’t Blink. Of course I get lots of searches dealing with “Brent Reser,” “Brent Reser Don’t Blink,” “Brent Reser Bio,” and “Don’t Blink Blog,” but many of the other searches are much more random. Just for today, here are some of the key words people typed in to find my site: “random ugly guy,” “Rascal Flatts time on stage,” “double pan fried noodles at PF Changs,” “cheer camp arrival,” “red robin mascot head, ”Boston Bruins stadium,” “iron horse queso recipe,” “embarrassing loss for Loyola football program,” and “don’t waste money on autographs.” Yep, I am proud to say that I have covered such a myriad of topics while authoring this blog that internet users from all over can type in seemingly random phrases and be directed to my little space on the web. Definitely a little creepy too.

I enjoy seeing which blog posts are performing well. As I mentioned in my 2 year anniversary blog post, my passage titled “Instagram Spam” is my all-time most read post. Even right now it is still the most read post pretty much each day. My newer posts are usually always right underneath “Instagram Spam” and then it is whatever post got shared on some random website rounding out the top five most read posts for that particular day.

Speaking of random websites, I pay close attention to which sites are contributing to my site’s traffic. Of course Google, Facebook, and Twitter are my big top three referrers but I am more interested in the websites that will pop up for a couple days and give me rushes of traffic. Because I wrote a couple posts related to Montana Athletics this week, I have had a lot of people from the popular blogging site eGriz take a gander at what I got going. Many times when I review a restaurant or a product the company will get wind of it and share it from their website or social media sites, thus sending people to Don’t Blink. Sometimes, just like with the Japanese website example, a link to my site will get shared on a random platform and I hit viewership gold.

Part of the fun of authoring a blog for me is definitely scrutinizing these statistics and identifying trends. It is cool to see that my writing has an impact on many people from all over the world. Seeing this evidence on a daily basis motivates me to continue to write and to do my best to put out quality work. Don’t Blink.

Don't Blink

By Brent Reser

Author Archives: brent