July 25, 2011

The Message of CLS 11: Community Managers, It’s Time to Take Charge

July 25, 2011

crowd at CLSLast year I came back from the Community Leadership Summit in Portland with the high-level message that we needed to be spreading our gospel throughout the company. This year, the overall vibe I got out of the event was much more practical:

We need to push back. We need to get serious. We need to take control.

From sessions on how community is marketing to how community managers should be CEOs, the vibe was clear: our craft is now legit, and we have the opportunity to not accept the status quo (“Sweet, we can all get jobs now!” as Jono said) but actually make a difference.

Maybe it’s because I read The Cluetrain Manifesto on the way in and out, but we are the employees in our organizations who deal with what the real world actually cares about: conversations. Real, honest, conversations. And we have the power to grow businesses if we not only encourage and join with these conversations, but also tell the other departments to get in line.

take control sign in cornfieldLet’s take these companies by the horn. There is a huge market for community managers, so we’re in a far less precarious position than we have been in previous years. We can get hired somewhere else, so as Danese Cooper of Wikimedia said: if your company doesn’t allow you to communicate freely, quit. It won’t actually hurt your profession. Might actually help (it did for her).

This is not to say that we should set fire to the other departments in our building. Rachel Luxemburg from Adobe came from a marketing background, and her comments were a fantastic foil all weekend: yes, marketing and sales and legal go too far. That’s their job. Our job is to push back. If we’re scared to push back, nothing will get done. If they don’t try to defend their principles, we’ll get our butts sued off. Find a balance. Don’t live in fear, and don’t trash their desks. You have to coexist.

We can make a difference. We have momentum now – let’s use it intelligently. Let’s move this from a silo’d effort to what business is about. I believe we can do it.


Footnote: thank you to everyone who came and contributed to CLS11. You can find notes from this year’s CSL at Wikia. There were some fantastic conversations and many more fantastic people, and I can’t wait to continue conversations with you on Twitter. Didn’t attend, but interested? There’s a CLS West in the Bay Area in January and you can keep up-to-date on CLS itself at communityleadershipsummit.com.

CLS photo courtesy of the wonderful Mark Terranova.
Crop photo courtesy of Tgrab.

Posted in Community Management | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments
March 24, 2011

Handling the rain – a guide for San Franciscans

March 24, 2011

rain on a windowIt’s raining in San Francisco today. Which means people LOSE IT. I’m not sure what it is about San Francisco and rain. But I’ve constructed this handy guide for San Franciscans so they can better survive the rain.

1. Don’t freak out
THE WORLD IS NOT ENDING. It’s just rain. It happens pretty much everywhere. You’ve seen it before. Still freaking out? Pretend you’re just in a giant shower. Better? Um…please put your clothes back on.

2. Don’t drive like an idiot
While rain is largely safe, it does change the roads and driving at your traditional 80 MPH will not benefit you. Slow down a little bit. Because otherwise you’ll have to…

3. Prepare for bad traffic
The rest of the people in San Francisco who haven’t read this guide are still driving like idiots. They’re going to get in crashes and slow you down. Does it normally take an hour to get to work? Plan for two hours.

4. If you have an umbrella, don’t walk on the side of the sidewalk with an awning
That’s for people without umbrellas. Duh.

5. If you have an umbrella, don’t walk in the middle of the damn sidewalk
People. Your umbrella makes you about 4 feet wide. If you walk in the middle of the sidewalk, nobody can get by you.

6. Don’t splash bicylists
C’mon man. We’re already wet. If there’s a big puddle and a bicyclist, go around it or wait for them to pass it. Seriously.

7. Once more, DON’T FREAK OUT
Remember that scene in Jurassic Park where they don’t move so the T-rex can’t see them? Think of it like that. If you don’t freak out, the rain can’t hurt you. Just calm down, and everything will be ok.

Have your own recommendations? Post them in the comments!

Photo courtesy of Mohan Kaimal.

Posted in Musings | 8 Comments
November 3, 2010

How I Prepared for My First Big Public Speaking Gig at FailCon 2010

November 3, 2010

It never ceases to bewilder people, but although I will gladly get on stage in front of dozens of people and sing, I get nervous in when I have to speak in public. Even speaking up at a meeting of colleagues can occasionally raise my heart rate. Public speaking is a different beast, and it freaks me and a lot of other people out.

evan standing in front of a projection screen that says there's a customer out there with a bullet for youLast week I had the privilege of presenting a 40-minute workshop at FailCon 2010, a fantastic conference about learning from your failures. I’ve done presentations before, but they’ve all been relatively short. I knew this was going to be intense, so I spent a lot of time preparing. I think my presentation went well (and so did others) and I’d like to share what I did to prepare, so that it might help you…and so that I don’t forget next time I have to do another presentation!

(Many of these insights came from a book I fortuitously got for free at the Community Leadership Summit: Scott Berkun’s Confessions of a Public Speaker. The book is a bit haphazard but has some great insights, and my dogears on various pages helped me immensely.)

Here’s what I tried to do (and what I failed at):

1. I Took A Strong Position In The Title

“There’s a Customer Out There With a Bullet For You: Ideas That Kill”. Not only does this catch the eye, but by defining what the presentation was about it helped define what it wasn’t about. Instead of talking about everything I know, I knew what to focus on.

2. I Thought Carefully About My Specific Audience

A fantastic presentation for engineers won’t work well for CEOs and certainly won’t work well for a room full of four-year-olds. I took a look at the attendee list for FailCon and the goal of the conference and determined that my audience would be founders/entrepreneurs and community managers who would want some solid numbers and examples along with the higher-level points. I also knew they’d have a sense of humor and be familiar with the tech industry examples I used (Friendster, Wesabe, Google Wave, etc).

Evan Hamilton in front of a screen with the title failure to understand3. I Built My Slides Last

This one was really key for me, and it’s the first time I really did it. It’s incredibly tempting (and encouraged in some circles) to build a beautiful set of slides first. This is wrong. Your story should dictate your slides. I spent a week and a half building the story and then built slides to support it. The downside? Less time to make your slides pretty. The upside? Your story is compelling, not just something pretty to look at.

4. I Made My Specific Points As Concise As Possible

Confessions of a Public Speaker states it best: “A mediocre presentation makes the points clear but muddles or bores people with the arguments. A truly bad presentation never clarifies what the points are.” Before I wrote any paragraphs or (to the last point) designed any slides, I carved out specific points that I wanted to cover and then worked to build the content to support them. Kudos to Rich White, CEO and my boss at UserVoice, for pointing out that my slides should spell out each point as well, so people who may have been distracted by their phone or computer can hop back in the conversation.

5. I Practiced. A Lot.

Your audience is giving you an hour of their time. Just as companies don’t deserve customer feedback, you don’t deserve your audience’s attention. I tried to respect my audience’s attention by practicing. After finally constructing a story I liked and building an outline for it, I practiced it several times (the whole 35 minutes through) in front of a webcam, cleaning up my performance and trying to cut out “uh” and “um” from my vocabulary. I practiced my presentation for friends and colleagues, and I changed it based on their feedback. Like any performer should, I practiced. Most people leave out this step because they’re scared (I know I was). Don’t skip it.

audience member asking a question6. I Knew The Likely Counterarguments From An Intelligent, Expert Audience

I’ll admit, I didn’t do this as well as I would have liked to. I presented this to friends and colleagues and got some idea of what questions people might have, but I should have asked them to be more aggressive. I definitely got hit with some questions that made me pause. It’s not because my points weren’t valid, it’s just because thinking critically on the fly in front of a bunch of people is hard. Next time I’ll work harder on this.

7. I Got Familiar with the Space

I scoped out the workshop room early in the day and showed up extra early for my workshop to get my setup perfect, walk the stage area a bit, and grok the room. It helped immensely not having to take in these details for the first time right when I went up to present. The nervousness I’ve felt stepping up to the mic at previous events was totally absent.

Evan Hamilton standing in front of a screen that lists the agenda8. I Set The Pace

People like to know what to expect. I told people what we were covering so they knew when we were reaching the end, and I kept people updated about how much was left. I didn’t call out the specific time I was going to spend on each section (as the book recommends), but I think that was ok – perhaps if it were a longer presentation I would do that.

9. I Asked For Feedback

I failed pretty good on this front, which is especially embarrassing because my workshop was about getting feedback! I meant to print out feedback forms but got too busy, so I had to resort to asking a few folks afterwards about what they thought. Next time I want to make sure I get this right, because most folks will say “it was great” if you ask them in person. That’s sweet, but it isn’t useful feedback.

10. I Tried To Be Likable

I tried to keep a quick pace, be funny, move around when I could, and talk directly to people. I won’t claim that I was a Johnny Carson, but I think I kept things from being dry – which is key when people have a million electronic distractions in the palm of their hands.

Evan Hamilton standing in front of a screen with his laptop and several books in the foreground11. I Kept People Engaged

To the last point – I spoke to the audience, asked them some questions, and offered free books to those who asked questions during Q&A. People want to be part of what’s going on, not a total observer.

Some other things that helped:

1) My bosses Rich and Scott from UserVoice helped usher people into the room and keep them entertained before I came on. This was invaluable.

2) Cass, the fantastic orchestrator of FailCon, gave me a shoutout in the main room right before my workshop. She’s my hero for this and many other reasons.

3) The fact that the session opposite mine wasn’t very interesting (sorry, that’s just what I heard). Some days you’re lucky.

So thanks to everyone who helped personally or just came out to watch. You can find my presentation on SlideShare if you’re interested. I hope this post helps you put on a great presentation, and if you have any personal tricks, please add them below!

Photos courtesy of Scott Rutherford.

Posted in Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments
October 5, 2010

Who cares about the homeless? I just want to read the funny pages.

October 5, 2010

homeless man in trenchcoat quietly reading a newspaperDon’t give me that look. Clearly you don’t care about the homeless, because you don’t buy Street Spirit.

Street Spirit is an independent Bay Area “publication of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) that reports extensively on homelessness, poverty, economic inequality, welfare issues, human rights issues and the struggle for social justice”. AFSC generously pays for this publication to be printed and then hands it out to homeless people to sell to support themselves. It’s a great idea, and I want to be clear that this post is not a criticism of AFSC’s goals – it’s an admirable organization, and I only want it to succeed.

The problem: people are not especially altruistic.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is an essential concept for anyone dealing with humans as part of their job. It’s quite simple: we have different levels of needs, and it’s hard to focus on the higher levels (example: creativity) when we don’t have the lower levels taken care of (example: breathing).

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, from bottom to top: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Giving a homeless person money is arguably part of the “Esteem” level. While one might suggest that it’s self-actualization, I posit that most people like to advertise when they are donating to someone. While some morality is involved, a great deal of our motivation is gaining respect of others.

However, more important to humans than Esteem is Safety. This doesn’t just mean physical safety – it also includes financial security. And dealing with the homeless exposes our brains to the possibility that we too could, potentially, end up with no money and no home.

So the Safety requirement of our brain is fighting with the Esteem part of our brain…and most of the time, we just look down and walk by that homeless guy with the Street Spirit.

Part of the problem with Street Spirit currently is that it’s full of political articles about the homeless. While, again, it’s admirable that the AFSC wants to help inform us, this is again triggering the Safety-fearing part of our brain. Not only do we have to confront the potentiality of homelessness when buying Street Spirit, but we also have to read about it? No thanks. 99% of people I know who buy Street Spirit don’t ever read any of it.

The solution: make this a product that we want to buy. Appeal to both our need to seem like a good person AND our personal desire for entertainment.

Make Street Spirit an all-comics newspaper and the homeless will make a lot more money.

man smiling while reading the funny pagesWe all love comics. Pretend all you want, but anyone who reads a paper is just waiting until they have read enough of the real content to feel justified in reading the funny pages. The opportunity here is this: nobody reads newspapers anymore, but they still want to read the funnies.

Seriously. Find some independent comic strip artists (or see if you can’t get some big-name webcomic artists to contribute) and try this just once. I guarantee you’ll see a huge increase in sales. We get our Esteem, the homeless get some cash, and the world is a slightly better place.

Posted in Marketing, Media | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments
August 23, 2010

Dry Erase Girl is Going to Re-convince Executives That There is a “Viral Button”

August 23, 2010

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into marketing – Dry Erase Girl attacks.

If you’re not familiar, follow the link. I won’t claim any superiority here: I absolutely and completely thought this was real, and spread the story. It was clever and well-done, and the creators deserve credit. However, this is a terrible thing for people in the social media space.

Cheapo executives are now going to re-focus on the notion that if you hire the right people and post on Twitter enough, something is guaranteed to be viral.

I’ve been in this position before: “create something viral, Evan, and keep it cheap”. The problem is that you can’t fully predict what will become viral. Sure, there’s more and more science around virality that can increase your chances, but at the end of the day there is still too much chaos to be able to really predict what will go viral (one article states “Mind-opening and emotionally rich articles are more likely to make the most emailed list, as are more practically useful, surprising, and positive articles.” Wait, so you mean GOOD articles?). You can post at 11am, include pretty girls, make sure to make it lo-fi, etc…but you can’t guarantee a hit. Much like a musical hit, it’s part talent and part randomness (or part huge-amounts-of-money, at which point you can’t really call it viral).

Don’t point out Old Spice Guy – I think (thankfully) that most executives saw that there was both a great deal of effort put into this campaign as well as a staggering of the different parts – they were ready for the character not to catch on and to nix the YouTube campaign.

But White-board Girl is the epitome of cheap & viral: written on napkins, shot with a cheap camera, not promoted by celebrities. I wouldn’t be surprised if within minutes of the announcement that she was fake that executives were emailing their underlings saying “do this”.

Am I suggesting that viral content isn’t something we should strive for? Absolutely not. But viral content is fire, fire, fail, fail, aim, aim, fire, fire, fail, MAYBE win. Don’t bet on anything more than that.

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August 4, 2010

Buzz VS Advocacy

August 4, 2010

bees on honeycombI got into an interesting debate with a coworker about using an iPad (or physical goods/money in general) as a contest prize. I posited that it’s a bad idea as it brings in people from outside your community who don’t care about your product. He pointed out that it doesn’t matter if they’re outsiders – you can generate a lot of buzz with money/prizes. Neither of us is wrong, but this illustrates a common disconnect between creating advocacy and creating buzz through a contest (or any initiative, really).

Buzz is people talking about you.

Buzz can be positive or negative. Buzz is momentum. Buzz is what it sounds like – a bunch of voices talking about your product.

Buzz can definitely be good – people want to be in the loop, and if everyone is talking about something, they want to know about it too.

Buzz can be bad – people can be saying bad things about your product, or buzzing about the buzz-creating campaign itself, not your product. Buzz guarantees conversation, but not what kind.

Advocacy is people who like you talking about you.

Advocacy is people who care about your product talking about it to other people. Actively, without a campaign urging them to.

Advocacy is always good (but not always easy to get). Advocacy may not be as loud as Buzz (though it can be), but it’s far more effective.

Ways to get Buzz:

  • Do something outrageous
  • Do something controversial
  • Give away a lot of money/prizes
  • Get someone well-known to talk about your product

Ways to get Advocacy:

  • Build a fantastic product
  • Show your customers the same respect and support you’d like them to show you
  • Establish relationships: between you and your customers and between customers (people desire validation from others when they like something)
  • Give away something of only of value to your community (so only those that actually like you already get involved)
  • Do something generous for your community

There’s a great slide in this ESSENTIAL deck that says “whether someone can be influenced is as important as the strength of the influencer.” In other words, for all the talk of influencers on the web, it depends on whether the people they’re exerting influence on can actually be influenced. And as the research in the aforementioned deck (and a million other places online) says, people are most influenced by their closest friends. Advocacy (one-to-one, personal) vs Buzz (many-to-many, impersonal).

So the question is not whether prizes are bad or not – the question is whether you’re trying to create Buzz or Advocacy. They seem similar, but they are in fact very different beasts.

Do you agree? What are your examples of successfully getting Buzz or Advocacy?

Photo courtesty of David Blaikie.

Posted in Community Management, Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment
July 22, 2010

Community Managers Should Be Working Towards Unemployment – Community Leadership Summit 2010 Thoughts

July 22, 2010

This weekend I attended the Community Leadership Summit in Portland, OR. I got to know Portland a bit, had donuts that I sort of regretted, but most of all I learned a lot. Because of the “un” nature of an unconference, there isn’t a thesis built in from the start. But while the sessions this weekend bloomed out of topics proposed by attendees on the day of, I got the sense of a common thread throughout the discussions.

As Community Managers, we should be working ourselves out of a job.

Thomas Knoll and Miz GinevraFrom Thomas Knoll and Miz Ginevra‘s session suggesting that we’re killing our communities by over-managing them, to the revelation in my session on support vs community that everyone feels like they should and will become one organization, to Andrea Murphy‘s reputation system session generally deciding that they can’t be entirely based on numbers – everyone seemed focus less on how to handle the next tweet that came in than on how to build a community that was sustainable, self-policing, self-motivating and perhaps even (dare I say it?) beyond anyone’s “management”.

It makes sense. Community Manager as a profession is new – it’s not something born out of the tech industry. There have always been community managers, in some shape or form. As I mentioned in my post about the inauguration, Obama is a community manager (he just has a larger community than most of us). The guy who owns Woody’s Cafe in Oakland curates a community of passionate locals who just happen to also drink his coffee. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, embodies community management and makes it the key focus of the company.

The problem is that as a culture we’ve collectively forgotten how to have an honest relationship with our communities, and instead begun to focus on controlling and automating communities.

donut assembly line

The marketing and business innovations that began in the fast food revolution of the fifties have turned our communities from real people into commodities that are pushed through an assembly-line system of targeting, advertising, harassment and gouging. If the customer is requesting support of some sort that is too costly, they’re ignored or dropped from the service. But with the power of the internet as their communication device, people are rebelling.

The answer to this shift isn’t a group of people at your company monitoring a Twitter feed, or some guy handing out stickers at a conference. It’s about bringing real community back into company culture. Even if it means we can’t find a job as a “community manager” anymore.

I’m not writing this post from a place of arrogance. I’m not writing this post from a viewpoint of “I’m right, you’re wrong”. I’m writing this post because this weekend I realized that I am failing horribly at this. I keep getting mired in the details of getting through the tweets of the day or writing a good blog post – instead of focusing on creating a vibrant community. So I’m sharing my confession and realization with you all in the hope that we can all help each other get there. Let’s do this, yeah?

Photo of Miz Ginerva and Thomas Knoll by Ginevra herself.
Donut photo courtesy of Marc Buehler.
Posted in Community Management, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments
July 16, 2010

Bottom Line: Steve Jobs Shouldn’t Have Lied

July 16, 2010

I’m pretty Apple-neutral. I adore my iPod (though I specifically bought a 5th generation because I like it better), I use Windows, I own an Android phone but I absolutely appreciate the genius of Apple design.

iphone 4But this time, Apple really screwed up.

Not in building or designing the phone, mind you. I get it – lots of phones have this issue, it’s only affecting a small percentage of people, the media has clearly blown it out of proportion because it’s a juicy story.

But Apple finally got bit in the ass by their “we make the news” policy. And they’re crying about it.

In the press conference this morning, Steve Jobs admitted that they knew about the iPhone4 reception issue before releasing the phone. Again, I understand – all products have flaws, and I don’t really think there is anything wrong about not highlighting them. People can make their own decision based on reviews.

But Steve Jobs specifically told us that this wasn’t an issue. He told us that we were holding the phone wrong. He lied so he wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences. That’s just wrong.

My #1 rule for fostering a loyal community: be honest with them as much as you possibly can.

People value honesty incredibly highly – I’ve had to deliver devastating news to customers before, and taking the time to tell them the whole truth of the issue often results in a surprising response: gratefulness. Yes, people often respond to bad news positively if you’re actually honest. There’s so much dishonesty in the world (especially the corporate world) that people are just relieved to know what’s going on. Ever had a mysterious ailment? If you’re anything like me, what’s worse than being sick or hurt is not knowing what it is or how bad it is. We, as humans, want the truth.

Apple could have saved money and face by being honest, at least once the initial reports came out.

Had they noticed the buzz in the first week they could have simply announced (hell, via Twitter if they had an account): “Yes, we’re aware of this. Yes, it’s a problem. Most phones have it, it should only affect a small percentage of calls and people.” You know what? Most people probably would have been fine with that. And if they weren’t? Offer free bumper cases to people who came in and requested them. It’d still save a lot more money than shipping them out to people (many of whom probably haven’t experienced this issue, but will ask for a case because of all the hoopla).

In short: even Apple’s might can be damaged by dishonesty. I’m impressed that Apple is actually admitting the truth and listening for once. I hope they keep it up (and their stockholders should too).

Photo courtesy of mkuma443.

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June 3, 2010

Comparing Developer Blogs

June 3, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write about my new position as Community Manager at UserVoice, but there’s simply been so many exciting projects to do I haven’t had a chance.

One of those projects has been evaluating the possibility of starting a UserVoice developer blog to supplement the existing UserVoice blog. Not being a developer, I decided to do a little comparison of some developer blogs to see if there were any trends. As I asked folks for suggestions on Twitter, I figured I’d pay it forward and post the results here.

Facebook Mozilla WordPress Skype Flickr Android Shopify GitHub
Feature and Technology Release Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Beta Release and/or Previews No Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Related External News No Yes No No No No No No
Tips & Tricks No No No Yes No Yes Yes No
Wiki or Knowledge Base Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Change Log Yes No No No No No Yes Yes
Status No No No Yes No No No Yes
Video Demos No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No
Community Participation and/or Events No Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes
Public Relations Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No
Policy Yes No No No No No No No
Interviews No No No No Yes No Yes No

Hope this is somehow useful for others out there.

Disclaimer: This is by no means exhaustive, accurate, or up to date. This is simply my interpretation on a specific date of a selection of sites provided to me by folks. Try not to read into it too much, really.

Posted in Community Management, Marketing, UserVoice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
December 31, 2009

Evan Hamilton’s Top 5 Songs of the Year

December 31, 2009

Yes, I’ve fallen prey to list-mania.  I can’t resist it.  Here’s the new music I loved in 2009 (in no particular order).

A disclaimer: I don’t listen to a lot of new popular music because I’m weird and picky.  I’m sure there’s stuff that is better that I haven’t heard (or at least you think it’s better). These are my top songs, so take that as you will.

Them Crooked Vultures – No One Loves Me & Neither Do I

Choosing the best track off of Them Crooked Vultures was difficult.  If I were going for best groove I’d call out Gunman.  Most intruiging might be Bandoliers.  But No One Loves Me & Neither Do I is such a brilliant combination of pop, rock, and HEAVY that you can’t help but rock the hell out to it.  Just try.

Golden Shoulders – Little Nixon

Fantastic band from my hometown of Grass Valley.  Every song this guy writes is great, but this one stands out as one of the best on “Get Reasonable.”  Great digs at George Bush without being heavyhanded (like 95% of Bush songs).  Fantastic music that is hard to define from one moment to the next.  Makes me want to flail about.  Win, all the way.

(track can be heard at http://goldenshoulders.com/music.php)

Heartless Bastards – Could Be So Happy

There’s something so happy and beautiful about this song. It’s got a dark side, but the acceptance of one’s own issues is an important part of getting past them. Erika Wennerstrom’s vocals are not the most beautiful, but they strike me as completely honest and I can groove to that.  The Mountain was possibly the best surprise of the year.

Wilco – Wilco (the song)

Deny it all you want, but this song is great.  Wilco (The Album) is certainly not my favorite Wilco album, but “Wilco (the song)” is great.  For anyone who’s ever hid from the world in their headphones, this song proclaims “tired of being exposed to the cold/the stare of your stereo/put on your headphones/before you explode/Wilco’ll love you, baby”.  Amen.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Soft Shock (acoustic)

I was not a fan of the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album.  I love the YYYs intensely, but I wasn’t a fan of their transition from raw and original to a ripoff of every hipster electronica band. However, the acoustic bonus tracks on the special edition of It’s Blitz! are strikingly beautiful in comparison to the fuzzy robotic tunes on the record proper.  “Soft Shock” has an incredibly unique set of instrumentation that suggests folks but then goes somewhere completely different with the melody.  I could listen to this song for a long time.

(acoustic version not available for streaming)

Monters are not Myths Song I’m Most Proud Of – Netcat

It’s impossible for me to objectively rate my own songs, but I’m extremely proud of how “Netcat” turned out on our new album, Corporate Grown.  Most of this is thanks to the brilliant band behind me, including the awesome banjo of Clide Lynne of The Paper Crocodiles.  Call me a shameless promoter, but I want everyone to hear it.

Hope you all a happy new year with lots of great music!

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