The Golden Guano

Have you ever heard the poker phrase, “If you can’t spot the sucker at the table in the first half hour then you are the sucker?” At Eisbrenner Public Relations, it’s easy to spot “the sucker” because that person has a gold toilet seat, known as The Golden Guano, hanging from his cubicle. Right now, I’m “the sucker.”

If The Golden Guano had a Wikipedia page, it might say:

“The Golden Guano, literally translated, ‘golden bat droppings,’ is an internal award at Eisbrenner PR given to the teammate who deserves recognition for taking a risk. Started by Tom Eisbrenner, president of Eisbrenner PR, The Golden Guano is passed from one employee to the next. The recipient often fails miserably in taking the risk, but occasionally, celebrates grand success. Currently held by Jamie Maynard for forwarding a career fair email to the entire (already employed) Eisbrenner PR team, The Golden Guano was previously awarded to Kara Yadach in 2010 when she asked Peter Brown, publisher of Automotive News, for a copy of an editorial calendar, which is basically like emailing Mike Ilitch, owner of the Detroit Tigers, to request the team’s schedule.”

The reason I received “The Golden Guano” was more of a laugh than anything else. People make silly mistakes all the time, but I recently made a much bigger mistake that caused me a lot of anxiety.

Here’s what happened. I took two days off to take my final assessment test for graduation and celebrate my brother’s 21^st birthday. Since this was the first time I had taken time off, I was somewhat eager to finish my work.

Each Thursday, I send out an email reminding my colleagues to pass along any kudos they have for other teammates, days they’re working from home and any events they’re attending for distribution Monday morning. I forgot to send the email Thursday, so Friday morning I woke up in a panic and called Christine to ask her to send it out for me. Of course, Christine had already sent the email because she’s always on top of things. However, since I forgot, Christine had to forward all the kudos to me so I could complete the newsletter on Monday instead of having it done for Friday’s deadline. The newsletter was distributed to my colleagues two hours late Monday.

The timing wasn’t the only problem. I let down my teammate, and it was really getting under my skin. The rest of the week I felt like a loser. It seemed like everyone had forgotten about it but me. If I would’ve made a mistake like that for a client, it would have been a lot worse. I vented to Kara and Holly about feeling inadequate. They told me to learn from it, make sure it never happens again and move on.

After some reassurance, I went back to my desk, took a deep breath and caught a glimpse of “The Golden Guano” hanging inside my cube. I realized it represents more than the silly mistakes we make. It symbolizes what we do when we make them. Instead of moping, “The Golden Guano” reminds us about our core values, “finding the positive in all we do” and “being motivated to discover what’s next.”

I learned my team depends on me, and I need to make sure all my “ducks are in a row” prior to leaving. It was a valuable lesson, and although it seems like the infamous toilet seat has found a permanent home on my cubicle wall, I’ll never write my name on “The Golden Guano” for the same mistake twice.

Have you ever been worthy of receiving The Golden Guano? What did you do?

The evolution of my addiction

I remember my first time using it. It was 2006 and I went to visit my friend Vincent, who had recently moved from Luther, Mich. to the fast life in Chicago. Everyone in Chicago was using it – it was full of color, memories, friends and expression. Vincent called it a “revolution,” and I was yearning to be a part of it. He warned me it would become addictive; I told him I don’t have an addictive personality and not to worry. I was wrong.

I’m Jamie and I’m a socialholic.

Since my exposure to MySpace during my trip to Chicago, I’ve grown to crave more social media stimuli. MySpace was the gateway to Facebook, which became my site of choice for the majority of my college years. I heard some people were experimenting with Twitter at the time, but I thought of it as a downgraded Facebook status update.

When I was on Facebook, it was like I was a different person. I was free to write whatever I felt. Everyone was using it, but some people, including me, used it too often. I began to notice changes in my life due to my obsession. My relationship ended, my grades began slipping and the happiest part of my day was seeing how many notifications I received.

Since then, my social media addiction has intensified. At Eisbrenner Public Relations, I met Holly, the social media rock star. She told me about all sorts of sites like Linkedin, Flickr, foursquare and Twitter. Turns out, the reason Twitter wasn’t fulfilling my cravings back in college was because I wasn’t using it properly. It’s more than a status update, Twitter’s about engaging with people and now it’s the place I go for news, job opportunities and entertainment.

Usually, I anticipate using Twitter for a few minutes. The next thing I know, two hours have gone by and I’m compulsively retweeting, making new connections and engaging in all sorts of conversations. I can’t go without using social media for too long. If I do, I feel disconnected from the world. Thankfully, I can tweet, update my location on foursquare and change my Facebook status from my phone.

Social media truly is a revolution, especially for public relations professionals. It’s a way to get our ideas into the world, free of cost. What started as a means for personal expression developed into a new realm of communication where people share their stories and promote interaction. Social media has already made a dramatic transformation in the last five years and I can’t wait to see where it will be in the next five.

Are you as infatuated with social media as I am? Follow my Twitter handle @JamieLMaynard. I can’t wait to get some conversation flowing!

Opposites Attract

Among many things, Christine Olszewski, our marketing and events manager, is good at disrupting the office with her booming laugh, scaring away the media, inventing “endearing nicknames” for teammates and attempting to design fliers that cause Lori Eldridge, our graphic designer, nervous breakdowns. How many times does Lori have to tell her to never bold and italicize the same word? One of Christine’s roles is to serve as our quarterly newsletter and video editor, which reflects her creative and quirky personality. This quarter, she passed along her wisdom and put me in charge of recording the video. During the process, something occurred to me: Christine isn’t the only one with a big personality. It’s a miracle Eisbrenner Public Relations functions so well with all the different characters working here.

The process of recording the video was great because I got to see everyone’s personality shine. For example, Michelle Welsh and I went to Town Tavern to record her video and have a glass of wine. After convincing the bartender we were making a film about alcoholism, we began recording the video. Only afterwards did we reassure the bartender we were kidding. I noticed Michelle was instinctively checking her watch as we drank our wine to make sure we’d get back in time. That must have been the former editor in her.

From Jessica Howell, who’s the most poised person I’ve ever met, to Holly Myles, who loves a good rock concert, we all contribute to the team just by being ourselves. When we recorded, some wanted to go outside, some people only had 30 seconds to spare because they had to run to their next meeting and others recorded their videos 50 times before getting it right. I won’t mention names.

Not only did I have the chance to learn about my teammates, I realized my personality contributes to this team, too. I’ve never pretended to be somebody I’m not. I have a Harry Potter screensaver on my computer, I wore my graduation cap and gown around the office, I tell corny jokes and I even try to set my colleagues up on dates with people I know. (Christine still hasn’t agreed to be my stepmother.)

The freedom at work has allowed me to make friendships and has pushed me to figure out what I’m good at. Maybe we all aren’t designers, or maybe Christine is just really bad at design, but at least we have a teammate who can fix our attempts. Individually, we have unique strengths and interests, and we share those with one another to make a very well-rounded, excellent team.