Why I Oughta...

A few months back, I received an email from someone at the McHenry County Visitors Bureau asking me if they could use a photo I took of some corn we bought at the Elmhurst Farmers' Market.  They wanted to highlight Twin Garden Farms in their annual travel magazine but didn't have a photo they could use.  So, they wanted to use the photo I posted on this post about Mirai Corn .  Sure, I said.  Go ahead.  But...can you send me a copy of the magazine when it is done? Fast forward to this week.  In our mailbox was a copy of the McHenry County Visitors Guide. And, if you turn to page 12, you'll see the photo of the corn taken with my phone.  No photo credit, but because of this post, I can take credit, eh?  I'll have to update my CV to include "published photojournalist", right? 

Taking a look at the list of archives on this blog, it seems that we've arrived at the 1/3rd point in the calendar year.  (well...technically, we're just a hair past 1/3rd, but for round numbers, this is as close it we can get, right?) Has gone fast, hasn't it?  I've done so much this year, but still have so much to get done - especially outside in the backyard.  On my to-do list: 1.  Stain the fence 2.  Stain the deck 3.  Seed the lawn 4.  Powerwash/re-sand/seal the pavers 5.  Build/assemble playground 6.  Re-establish vegetable garden 7.  Stain/seal raised beds in vegetable garden 8.  Stain the pavilion wood

In addition to writing the blog post on the Official Google Blog, I also pitched a local story about tax trends here in Chicago.  The Tribune ran the story late last week ahead of the weekend which talked about how Chicagoans are moving online faster than the rest of the country and being solid Midwesterners, we're much more DIY'ers than the rest of the country.  The top brands don't rank as high locally as they do nationally.  I'm calling that a win for the Midwest. 

It isn't about sports, but still is focused on trends.  Specifically something that millions of Americans are doing today:  filing their taxes.  The Taxman Searcheth was a team effort.  This is my 5th OGB post in just 2011.  I've only penned 4 others in my past 3+ years at the company.  That pace is likely to hold true for the remainder of the year.   As for this post, I worked with one of my teammates in NYC to get the post done.  It is effective because it is relevant and shows in very clear ways some key differences in this year (the late deadline and the fast shift to e-filing/online filing) and a few other interesting things including the fact that more US residents are searching for how to deduct their gambling losses than their charity donations.  Think about that for a second.  I guess one could chalk up the big difference to the fact that in some regards, charitable deductions are much more straight forward.  You just put the amount right in the field for charity.  Bu

With The Masters coming so quickly after the Final Four, my sports-related Official Google Blog posts are coming fast these days.   Just 7 days after I told you guys about the latest Final Four trends , I found a ex-pro golfer at Google to "sign" my latest piece.    This one was fun, but because the trends around the game have been so dominated by Tiger's off-course issues, there were a few problems with hanging our hat on the leading players. As I write this, I'm watching the final holes at Augusta and just as our post posited, there are very talented, but relatively unknown golfers coming on strong to contend for the green jacket. (Hello Jason Day, Adam Scott, and Charl Schwartzel!) One trend that I didn't get into the post was around the Par 3 contest that takes place the Wednesday before the tournament opens.  This year it seems, interest in the Par 3 contest skyrocketed as more golf fans wanted to know more about it.  Perhaps it has something to do with E

As I've mentioned before , I've taken on the task of penning a series of "sports trends" blog posts at work as one piece of a effort for the company to create a "voice" around major sports events and in the sports-specific media.  Yesterday, on the Official Google Blog, we ran my latest piece on the 2011 Final Four and search trends entitled:  Searching for a Cinderella Story .  As I've done in the past, we looked at search trends around the hot topics of March Madness and the Final Four.  With two good Cinderella stories in VCU and Butler, the search story lines are strong.  One neat point I think we drew out was how hoops crazy the State of Indiana is right now over Butler.  While in every other state Katy Perry trumps just about anything else search-wise, the Bulldogs of Butler have overtaken her this week. The other fun part of this post was including a link to the Werner Ladder Company in the final paragraph about cutting down the nets.  They

It was just  late March of 2010 that I crossed the 1000th Tweet mark , but here we are: less than a year later and I've just hit my 2000th Tweet.  Joining Twitter in early 2007, it took me 3 years to get to 1,000 messages on the network, but less than a year to double that number.  The rough math says that I'm averaging right around 3ish Tweets per day.  One comes from this blog via the FeedBurner Socialize service, but the other twoish ones per day, I'm manually generating.  Yikes.  Perhaps there's a better way to spend my time.

Happy Birthday to me!  Well...not exactly me, rather my blog! Today marks the 7th anniversary of my first blog post .  Some of the older years (2004-2006) archives are scattered across the web and with the help of the Way Back Machine, I've been trying to rebuild them all over here at JakeParrillo.com. Courtesy of said Way Back Machine, here's what it looked like back in 2005 at RhodesSchool (below).  Some of you old timers may remember these days.  Lots of terrible posts, but plenty of laughs along the way. Last year, I used the occasion to debrief my first month back at blogging every day - and I'm happy to say that I've kept at it in 2011.  Here's to another year of living life with a great wife, amazing daughter and a really fun job.

A few weeks or so back I changed what this site looks like on mobile devices.  Using Blogger-in-Draft, there's a pretty simple mobile-friendly template.  Just takes a few clicks and all of a sudden my blog looks like this on Android and iOS devices (and other's, I'm sure...but at this point who is using those things?).   Should be easy to navigate, fast to load and optimized for your handset. Oh, you Blackberry users.  Be quiet.  I'm just bustin' your chops!

I spent the better part of last week in Detroit at the North American International Auto Show working the show floor, stalking folks in the media room and learning a lot about what makes auto writers tick.  I was armed with a bunch of stats and insights - gleaned from Google's data - and landed some stories. But, this data needed greater exposure, and although just last month, I had my fourth post published ( about Google's 10 year mark in Chicago ), I figured the OGB would give the data a pretty wide audience.  So...I wrote a post for the OGB entitled:  Auto Industry off to a Fast Start in Motown .  This was the second time I've been to the Detroit show and it always amuses me how the industry treats the new models:  they're like brand new babies - kept under wraps.  This (I think) is the new VW Jetta.  Those of you following along at home will notice a similarity in this Auto Show post on the Official Google Blog and the other ones I've written - 4 of the 5

A year ago today, I was pondering News Years resolutions.  All the typical ones ran through my head, but it occurred to me that I've never actually fulfilled a resolution - and carried it throughout the entire year. This year was going to be different, I claimed!  No promising to go to the gym.  No promising to save more money.  This year, I was going to publish a post to my personal blog EVERY DAY ALL YEAR LONG.  Yes.  By some measures, I aimed somewhat low.  To some, a post-a-day doesn't seem like a very high bar to get over, but it was an important personal goal and allowed me to get re-acquainted with something I was missing. Blogging is how I fell in love with the web and found a profession.  To those who know me, they know that the funny thing about my career is:  before blogging, I was a driver.  Yes...I drove someone around for a living. I LOVED it, but still....I was a driver.  Then came along blogging.  2004 was the first time I dug into it - a few years behind th

Last week, a post went live on the Official Google Blog entitled:   Celebrating 10 Years in Chicago .  This was the fourth post that I've written for the company that has appeared on the OGB.  Although I've enjoyed writing all of them, this latest post about the Chicago office was the most fun to draft.  Although they're officially "signed" by someone else (3 of 4 of them), they're most definitely my writing and ideas - so, I guess that's part of being in Communications in a large company. The occassion (our 10th year in Chicago) is a big deal to all of us here in town, but also the company.  We even had our design team come up with Chicago-specific logo (which we've put on shirts and hats.  Perhaps, I'll figure out a way to give a few shirts away via the blog at some point!)   Too often, Google is viewed as this west coast, Silicon Valley company when, in fact, we're over 400 employees in Chicago making a contribution to the company.  If you

Today is YouTube's Life in a Day.  TODAY! For those of you who don't initially know what that means, you can see more details on their YouTube Channel or the O fficial YouTube Blog post  or on Faceboo k.  Alternatively, you can read my description below. It really is a pretty cool concept (you guys do know that I work for Google , right?  They're paying me, but not paying me to promote this!) where ordinary people from around the world should whip out their Flip Cameras or mobile phone cameras and contribute a short bit of footage from their lives today.  In the end, Life in a Day will be turned into a feature-length documentary film that is set to be premiered at Sundance 2011.  And...if that's not cool enough,  if your footage makes it into the final cut, you’ll be credited as a co-director and may be one of 20 contributors selected to attend the premiere. There are some heavy hitters involved ( Ridley Scott , Kevin McDonald ) pulling the whole thing together.

Earlier this year, Nat and I bought Nat's mom the Pioneer Woman Cook s cookbook for Mother's Day.  We sent the book away via the USPS and also sent the PW a note via email telling her that it was coming.   (We also paid for the return shipping ahead of time.) A few weeks later (kind of disappointing that we didn't get an email response), this arrived back in the mail. While I am thrilled to get the book back, the whole process made me re-think my expectations of "people on the internets".  I held the PW in pretty high regard, and, at the end she delivered (the signed book), but the process and no email response back were a bit of a bummer.  I bet she gets A LOT of email, but a simple "I'm on it" response would have been perfect.  (and would have allowed us to actually print it out and give it to Nat's mom on Mother's Day instead of giving her an IOW.   In the end, she still makes tasty food.  And...the Crash Hot Potatoes are in regular

Over the weekend, I posted my "1000th Tweet" to Twitter.  According to whendidyoujointwitter.com , I started "tweeting" on May 27, 2007 - almost 3 years ago.  I think it was just twittr.com back then, but somewhere along the line they added the "e".  I was at FeedBurner in May of 2007 - about to join Google.  I didn't have a lot to say back then, ( My first Tweet was about getting a Meatball Parm Sangwich at Venice Cafe ), and I don't have a lot to say now. You can follow along on my choice for breakfast over on Twitter @jakeparrillo .

And now my blog stats are FUBAR'd.  Over the weekend, the great Bob Dylan site ExpectingRain.com  linked to my Female Bob Dylan Impersonators posts.  I've been toiling along at here for a few months and have had some decent inbound traffic from various places including search.  Google Analytics was able to provide quite a bit of insight into what was 'working' and what wasn't. Unfortunately for me, that's no longer the case. When the flood of Dylan fans came a calling, my data - for the most part - failed to be very compelling for me any longer.  With a longer time horizon the insights will come back, but for now, the charts are basically flat - except for the "Day of Dylan".  There used to be peaks/valleys because all of the data was fairly clustered together.  Not any more. I'm certain that I'm not alone in this happening to, but it sure would be nice for Google to allow folks to "throw out" certain days from the reports.  Wou

I wrote one post about Lou's old menu and not 2 hours later they start following me on Twitter.  Pretty nice social media move and one that I can appreciate.  We can get into the merits of what value this is bringing to their organization - and that is a healthy discussion - but I can respect the fact that Lou's has someone monitoring what is being said about their brand online.

Blogging is back in 2010.  At least for me.  Going to try to post everyday of 2010.  No promises that I'll actually follow through.  Knowing me, I'll get bored by May.

In today's Denver Post, Greg Griffin covers the topic of 'blawgs' and their growth among laywers. For many lawyers, blogs are a natural way to stay abreast of an ever-changing legal landscape - and to set themselves apart as experts in their domain. Increasingly, law firms see blogs as a key marketing tool that's far more dynamic than the traditional website and newsletter. Attorneys are grabbing ahold of the medium and pusing their profession forward with their use of blogging. (as a side note, I pitched Cross' law firm  on the notion of publishing a blog called "Trust me I'm a Lawyer", but George and Dave didn't bite...) At FeedBurner, we have a good share of some of the best 'blawgs' on the web coursing through our service. Check out Dennis Kennedy's blog , Denise Howell , Stephen Nipper , Between Lawyers , Ernie the Attorney , ABA's webmaster Fred Faulkner and FeedBurner's very own Rick Klau for some over the very b

Anil touches briefly on Blogging awards and their explosion : The last reason that blogging awards are so popular isn't usually mentioned, but a powerful incentive for hosting and running an awards competition is to help make the host a center of power in the community. By creating the forum, inciting the inevitable drama, setting the rules, and (likely) helping to entrench one's friends and supporters as powers within the new community hierarchy, those who create awards are likely to reap significant benefits from doing so. Hmmm...there's an 'awards' deal that we're still working on for JoinCross.  Illinois Fifty is set to 'rock out' during the Spring Legislative Session. I'm awaiting some information before development is complete. Should be cool. Maybe Corederoy Partners needs to give out 'Political Blogging' Awards. Hmmm....that may not be a bad idea...