10 Things I've Learned (or not) About Being a Dad

Mary Catherine at Duke vs. NC State, February 2012

So, I intended to write this on Father's Day, obviously, I'm a little behind.  My sixth celebration of this day, I'm trying to reflect on what I have learned, and what I still need to know as a Dad.  I suspect, I know very little actually, but here's what I know to date (or not).

1. There is nothing more valuable than my time I can give to my daughter.  I often bring a gift home form my frequent travel (guilt), but everything pales to the hour I spend with her in her swing set.

2. I cannot do hair.  I've finally figured out a ponytailer, but I can see the smirks of the mom's and teachers when I drop her at school thinking, Shannon must be traveling...

3. When did we all stop skipping?  We should start again!

4. Reading is the door to discovery.  Even if your favorite book is currently a joke book (why do hummingbirds hum?  Because they don't know the words...har!).

5. Spongebob is a philosophical genius!  Kierkegaard what?

6. Our children are not only digital natives, their paradigms are shaped by technology.  they will never use computers as they expect interfaces to work with them.  Keyboards and a mouse (mice?) are cumbersome input devices compared to touch and voice.  See the world through this view to understand the future.

7. I've realized that our daughter can and will adopt those parts of our personalities that are most annoying.  The mirror is and unfriendly yet motivating tool.

8. I heart college basketball, especially of the Duke variety.  I'm on a very special mission to introduce Mary Catherine to this obsession once a year in person.  I'm sure she will end up in Chapel Hill just to spite me, but I'm trying.

9. Creativity is the door to conversation.  We build robots, cover most surfaces in glitter and explore the social interactions between various groups of stuffed animals.  This is uninterrupted sharing time with my daughter.  (note: Elmer's is a client.  This combined with TCBY and Smarties pretty much means I have the coolest job in the planet).

10. My father gave me the gift of travel, albeit frequently via ling distance drives in a car with skeptical air conditioning.  It was the best gift ever, and i will always be thankful for this.  I will pay that forward, there is no better learning experience than experiencing worlds and cultures outside your own.

Hunting for Seaglass

Since starting Collective Bias over two years ago, I’ve been trying to maintain our annual summer family vacation, not easy at a start-up.  I’m a firm believer that family and balance foster higher levels of productivity across our team and encourage all of our employees to do the same.  I've learned that more hours do not increase results, focus and prioritization do.  

Mary Catherine running on Jaquish Island trails

This vacation was something more however.  It made me think about building traditions and also about how simple things like hunting for Seaglass with Mary Catherine, are really what I’m working for anyway.  I flew with Mary Catherine to my parents house in Atlanta and then returned to Arkansas to join Shannon to travel to Boston. We spent a great week in Boston (she’d never been) with no particular agenda (our favorite way to travel).  We toured Boston by city hikes, a great way to get exercise and see things from a street level view.  Each evening, we peppered the concierge at our hotel for restaurant recos.  We stayed at the Hilton Boston Financial District thanks to many FF miles earned during my Collective Bias travel.  I prefer staying at business hotels during my leisure travels due to the service level which was as usual, perfection!

That week-end, we met my Parents and Daughter in Portland, ME. and headed up for a week at Jaquish Island.  I lived in Maine for 5 years and it’s still one of my favorite places on earth.  Being able to share this with the Mary’s was great especially with no schedules, agendas or must-dos.  I was really looking forward to spending some quality time with my family.

Bailey Island dock

On Jaquish, 6 rocky beaches offered virtually unspoiled seaglass hunting grounds.  We have a good friend in Arkansas that really loves seaglass and offered to find her some pieces (I was really uninformed about the Seaglass world but I got a quick education).  Mary Catherine and I became great island explorers and hunters of Seaglass.  I relished seeing my daughter’s fearlessness in climbing rocks and discovering the “real” ocean.  Maine is not the beach we mostly think of.  The rocky beaches on Jaquish are not only full of life and adventure, they can also be quite dangerous with extreme changes in tide.  Respect is the order of the day and Mary Catherine was full of questions and wonder about this world that is quite different from our home in the Ozarks.

Each morning, Mary Catherine and I took the skiff over to the shore for a New York Times and various supplies.  The first day, she just wanted to go slow, the waves of Mackerel Cove imposing on her, mid-week, she wanted to plane the boat and bounce of the waves to “go fast”.  As I watched her laugh and the stunning Maine sunsets with her, I realized these moments are fleeting.  I now carry a piece of seaglass we found in my pocket to remind me what is really important and to remember the priceless family traditions we are creating.

Hunting for Seaglass on Jaquish

Controlled Drowning - aka Learning to Swim

It's a key rite of passage for parents and children, on par with learning to speak, the alphabet, riding a bike or starting kindergarten. It's learning to swim and it's go time for Mary Catherine. Last year she was swimmies only, the frog belt actually. While she wasn't afraid of the water, she wasn't wild about it either.

This year is a different story, she is all over it, spurred on by her friends Cole and Hayden, who both swim pretty well. It's amazing what affect wanting to play with those boys has on her motivation. Heaven please help us when she's a teenager. She finished her first round of summer swimming lessons a couple weeks ago and she is now irrepressible.

Her first nanny, Ms. Anne was a swim instructor and worked with her often when she was 3-4. Last week, Ms. Anne came back to stay with us and get some Mary Catherine time (that warms my heart that all her nanny's do that). She spent and afternoon working with her and Voila, she's swimming. Or kinda drowning but moving through the water. It will scare the heck out of you when you watch it but she's determined like I've never seen her (gets that from her mother). I try to help her and she says "I can do it by myself daddy!"

I was traveling the week that this happens so she swore everyone to secrecy so she could surprise me that she could swim the entire length of the pool. Part of my parent guilt of my heavy travel schedule (88 flights this year so far - thanks American Airlines) is missing moments like this. I try as best I can to make up for this through complete immersion when I'm home.

Either way, find a way to experience these moments. Shannon is great about forwarding videos and pictures captured via her iPhone and we chat on skype, still not the same, but better than nothing. These moments pass like a warm summer breeze. Take a moment to breathe them in.

13 February

One of three sixty five. An especially remarkable day in the Andrews’ household as it’s the birth date of Mary Catherine, our angel daughter. Irony, being what it is, it’s also the birthday of Duke Coach Mike Kryzewski, a sign I took as divine provenance but hey, not trying to over think things (if you know me for over an hour or so, you understand I have a small Duke obsession). But, then it happened, after a long and productive travel week, I purchased a Sports Illustrated featuring Duke 2010 National Championship team’s John Scheyer on the cover while changing planes somewhere (proudly wearing a well worn Duke hat to remind the Kentucky faithful of the dominance of ACC hoops). It happened. Seas parted, paradigms shifted and old beliefs fell away as I read the parables inside. 7’ 1” Sr. center Brian Zoubek returned to the starting line up on, yes, you guessed it, February 13^th. The rest is history. The team gelled and began to play a very unselfish game that relied on no one player but the consistent ability of different people to step up and play a role when needed.

Now, I’m not a superstitious guy, ok, I won’t pick up a penny on tails, but damn, it’s a full on, Mayan calendar sign of things to come. I’ve taken it as a positive. As Duke is breaking out measuring tapes to place their 4^th national championship banner in Cameron (or having engineering students spot it with a triangle and some duct tape), Collective Bias has been experiencing critical mass in community aggregation and play a small role in defining the future of marketing. It’s our first year of business and it’s been quite a learning experience and the gelling of a highly passionate, innovative and dedicated team. Are these things related?

Doubtful. But I’ll take it!

Whrrl-wind

This is the stuff road warriors are made of. I spoke on a panel at the Social Fresh conference in Nashville, took an evening flight to Columbus for a client meeting and then on to Scottsdale for some collaboration discussions with MARS sister company eMarketing CEO Tim Welch.

I was able to spend a great Saturday with the Marys and our close friends the Palfreemans and Brawners sprinkled with some great sports watching (damn no-shooting Duke) and a BBQ that went late into the evening. On Sunday we home-churched as Shannon and I both had presentations to complete and I left for XNA late that afternoon.

Living up to our community first mantra at Collective Bias, we asked members of our community to join us at Social Fresh, so I was able to meet Buck Rogers, Debba Haupert and Jerri Ann Reason for dinner at the Maxwell House Millennium. Jason Keath did a wonderful job of making Social Fresh, well, fresh and not a repeat of the same social media conference I feel like I’ve been to during the past year (social media is important and you better not ignore it yadda, yadda)

Finally, I ended up in Scottsdale for meetings with eMarketing. The company is a fabulous digital development house and is doing some amazing things in the promotion and game space.

The big realization for me this week is that too much travel can leave you woefully out of touch with your family, friends and business. Balance is key and so hard to achieve. Mostly, I feel very bad for Shannon. She has a big job and balance in her life is extra hard because of my travel. Thank-you for all you do, I owe you!

Global Warming? Trip 1

I’m not naive enough to believe that a record setting cold winter disproves global warming (not to start a political row, but I don’t believe in the 4+ billion year of global history that anyone could actually know what is really happening with the environment one way or another). I do know that when I got to Cincinnati on Thursday it was in full scale get your Winter on. That’s part of the travel deal, if you don’t like it, just stay home (oh wait, it’s 9 degrees in Arkansas).

This is my first trip of the 2010 season and I’m in town for a day to visit a couple of our clients and to catch up with Debba Haupert of Girlfriendology, one of Collective Bias Social Media Influencer consultants. Pre-warned by Debba of the impending snow storm, I switched to an all wheel drive rental which turned out to be a very capable Hyundai. I drove the 25 miles from CVG to my hotel at Courtyard by Marriott in West Chester. I had a quick 5k run (my running shoes are well traveled but *ahem* sometimes don’t make it out of the suitcase) and met MARS partner Bill Haveron for some dinner and strategy planning.

We chose to walk across the street in the 6 inches of snow to Jag’s Restaurant and settled in for the BCS national championship game. Pretty slick planning if I do say so. This was my second time meeting Bill and it was good to break some bread. We had a great dinner accompanied by a piano player. It’s amazing how some face time can totally build a relationship, Bill and I have now spoken daily about various projects.

Moral of this trip, drop the email (and all the other hyper-ingrained technology) and go see people. It matters, even if you need a coat.

Up In The Air?

I haven’t seen Up In The Air yet but I’m really looking forward to it. In a weird way though, I may have unconsciously been avoiding it as I’m sure it will cause me to be somewhat introspective. As many of you know, I helped to start a new company last year called Collective Bias. Not really a planned event, just the right opportunity at the right time and paraphrasing words of Whrrl CEO Jeff Holden, “I am downsiding future regret risks associated with never taking a shot at my own gig.”

I knew there would be some additional travel associated with a startup; however, becoming intimate with the configuration and layout of every type of aircraft in American’s fleet was something I hadn’t counted on (the exit row on an Embraer 145 is 13). I am also living location based marketing as a walking test lab. As the year progressed and we signed our first partnership deal with Whrrl to build shopper functionality, I became a dedicated Whrrl user and pretty much broadcast my whereabouts at all times (to which an informal “Where’s John” game has been created by Jerri Anne Reason).

My original thought was 2010 would chill out a bit as our little company has now grown to 10 people (so some other folks can do the XNA shuffle). Ha! What I thought would start out as a travel free week is going to end with a quick trip to CVG (Cincinnati if you don’t always refer to airports to their code). No worries, I’m learning to consolidate travel and schedule to make the most out of every trip. I’m meeting two clients, spending some valuable time with Collective Bias member and consultant Debba Haupert from Girlfriendology.com and also breaking some bread with one of my MARS counterparts.

So for 2010, I’ve decided to transform my lifestream blog into a composite of personal and business experiences as that’s probably how we really live our lives. I’m going to cover the interaction of my trips and family time in an effort to find that true balance that many might be seeking.

Your input and criticism would be invaluable. Thanks for reading.