Miracle at the Roadside Attraction

In the panhandle of Texas is a town you've probably heard of called Amarillo. Just west of Amarillo, one day in 1974, this group of three art wonks called The Ant Farm half-buried 10 Cadillacs in a field. A very large, perfectly active agricultural field. Sticking up at an angle consistent with the Giza Pyramid, this row of fine American steel and rusted tail fins serves as some kind of ode to American engineering, mobility and Route 66. From I-40, it beckons and beguiles travelers, teasing them to make any sense of it. Why'd they put it there? Just 'cause. That's the only reason an American needs to do anything. May as well ask why we put a man on the moon. Just 'cause.

I have made this trip back and forth a dozen times and I swear I fall more and more in love with it every single time.



Paulina and I pulled up one day, armed with Krylon spray cans. We squeezed through the zig zag fence and made our way through the hard-packed, dried mud. We sprayed our names. We left our marks. And due to the wind, we got a face-full of Krylon. We choked and laughed.

Cadillac Ranch abounds with the sounds of giggles and laughter. Teeming with vitality. Young girls, young boys. Taking selfies. Crawling. Climbing. Crowing. Spraying messages on the weathered car bodies. Young couples in love, posing for photos. Spraying their initials in hearts to commemorate relationships that will be outlasted by this ageless monument. And here or there, stand a couple older folks, temporarily rejuvenated by the infectious energy of electric youth. Smiling. Taking it all in. Fountain of youth.

Eons from now, future societies will struggle to grasp what purpose this structure served, and conclude it was part of fertility rituals or sun worship, or try to measure the angles of constellations against it, much like they do with Stonehenge. Who built it?! What does it all mean!? What purpose does it serve!? Why?! Why?!

Joke's on them. It's just a bunch of old cars sticking out of an old cotton field.

And that's precisely why it works.

A lot of people say they don't believe in miracles. Go to the Cadillac Ranch and you'll see a transfiguration of some junk cars into a profoundly sacred experience. It might not be water into wine, but it's still a trans-substantiation of sorts.

I told you this story to really tell you something you already know. A pizzeria is more than just a shop that sells a widget. People breaking bread together is more than just fueling a body to supply nutrients. It's fellowship. It's friendship. It's love. It's community. It is greater than the sum of its parts.

Folks work in a pizza shop need to make a living. The operator needs to make a profit. And we at PMQ are honored to help you in these endeavors. But beyond the balance sheet, within the four walls of your establishment is really nothing less than the very fabric of life itself.

This holiday season, I want to thank you for letting me be part of your community, and express my deepest gratitude for the joys and rewards that come from the relationships built and grown over pizza.

Seasons greetings.

The Kids AREN'T Alright - Millennials Part Two

In my previous blog, I'd made the argument that complaints about millennials are nothing we haven't seen before every time a new generation comes of age.

Vincent Rotolo of Evel Pie and Lars Smith
of State of Mind, mid-competition.

But as the irony of the world would have it, right after writing that blog, I attended a gathering of great pizza minds outside San Diego, during a little shindig called the Western Pizza Trials. A number of them had something to say on the matter of millennials. In fact, they were giving me an earful, practically begging for PMQ's help on the matter of how to find good employees. It seems they're feeling the growing pains of a generational shift.

Participants in the Western Pizza Trials

Now in my defense, I never claimed millennials weren't different than previous generations. My whole point in Part One was that every generation is different. What makes this one different? Salvatore Trupiano seemed to have the best insight on how we got here:

Salvatore Trupiano of Dominic's Italian Restaurant
Oceanside, California

"I think what has happened over the years, if you go back to the days of immigration coming through Ellis Island.... that generation came through the Great Depression. You and I have never, ever understood what it could mean to not know if dinner will be served on the table tonight. That generation did. It was almost an unspoken oath that that generation said 'The next generation - our kids - will never have to go through this. We're going to make a better lifestyle for them.' And then that next generation did the same and so forth. So if you go down the chain to my generation, I've done exactly that."

Speaking from my own experience, I was raised by a child of the Depression. My grandfather, despite being a man of few words, often lectured me on his own meager childhood of extreme poverty. Though we were a low-income family ourselves, the very definition of poverty itself had changed, and it seemed important to him to let us know how good we had it compared to the squalor he knew. So what are the unintended consequences of successively better quality of life? Salvatore continues:

"I never intended to start a family and not have them have a better lifestyle than they did. My kids as well as other millennials have been raised to have everything at arm's reach. They have never been taught to have to work to get something. Today with the internet and social media, everything is instant gratification. 

These kids nowadays, if something extends over their normal existence, they completely and automatically shut off.  If the workload becomes too much for them, that's it. That's their last day, that's their last minute. They shut down. They don't come back. We're learning that if you exceed what THEIR expectations are, you lose an employee.  I grew up knowing and trying to exceed the expectations of the employer, and now we're sort of in a role-reversal. "

Makes sense. So how does a restaurant operator work around that?

"We've changed our configuration of hiring and interviews. Our interview process used to be to find the best employee for the position. That focus has changed. Now our process is - if they make it through the interview, that's already a huge accomplishment. Throughout the interview process, what we're looking for is: Do we have somebody who's actually going to come in for their shifts and perform?
Now instead of hiring one person for a position, I will hire two people for one position because I don't want to put that one person into an over-workload. So what I'll do is split that one position across two people."

Ultimately, Trupiano believes we're in a state of transition.Those millennials who want to work and make an honest living will eventually separate from those who do not. As always, the cream will rise to the top.

If only an employer had the benefit of a magical sorting hat, that process might be less painful. Unfortunately, magic is the stuff of Harry Potter books. In the meantime, we'll make do with good ole fashioned trial-and-error.

I've Eaten at THAT Memphis Cafe

Confessions of a Buttholegate Customer

I confess. I’ve eaten at Imagine Vegan Cafe, the Memphis restaurant at the center of controversy and last week’s biggest internet story. And not just once or twice. I’ve eaten there several times. I’m actually a repeat customer. (Don’t judge me!)

If you don’t know what Buttholegate is, let me bring you up to speed. Essentially a customer left a bad online review in which she claimed a naked baby (the owner’s child) with allegedly dirty feet climbed up on the table the customer was eating at and essentially displayed her...um…. posterior.

The restaurant owner took it as a personal attack on her children and responded in an extremely hostile manner online and in local media. The operator went so far as to deny they were even a business at all and declared they were not at all interested in whether they made money or continued to have a customer base as a result of the fallout.

Some internet wiseacre thought up the “buttholegate” moniker and the #buttholegate hashtag and story went wildly viral. You can read the whole sordid saga on Vice or Thrillist. Or any number of other websites.

https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/wj8j8y/wtf-is-going-on-with-the-baby-butthole-incident-at-this-vegan-cafe

https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/imagine-vegan-in-memphis-has-a-naked-baby-butthole-issue-buttholegate

Of COURSE this sort of story could ONLY come out of Memphis. The city, smack dab in the middle of the “Dirty South,” is famous for its gritty, hard-nosed and sometimes off-the-wall character. The Memphis Grizzlies' “Grit n Grind” style is synonymous with the personality of the town itself. Only outsized characters in such a place could produce not one, but TWO eccentric kings and an even more eccentric prince.

Self-proclaimed alien and perennial mayoral candidate Prince Mongo. Photo courtesy of Mongo's campaign facebook.

Photo by Stephie B.

That character is precisely what I love Memphis for and why I’ve spent so much time there over the years—often at a now-defunct dive called the Rally Point in which beer-swilling punk rockers would spit lager on me while I played in one of my bands. (It would probably be viewed in the same light as New York’s famous CBGBs if only any of the bands that came out of it would’ve gotten famous.)  

So I admit, due to my personal relationship with the beautiful trainwreck of a city that is Memphis, I’m not the most objective person to speak on this story. But I can at least lend you some first-person perspective on the Cafe at the center of Buttholegate.

I first went to Imagine several years ago when it was just starting out in its original location. It was weird because the restaurant was also the owner’s living room. Toddlers were watching children's programming on TV and their toys were scattered about their area. The dining area was superficially separated, but it still felt a little like you were invading someone's personal space and made for a slightly awkward dining experience. I chalked it up to quaintness and character. But at that time, an all-vegan restaurant was a niche market that only they seemed to be filling, and I liked the concept. It was obviously a mom & pop operation, and I’m always in the corner of the little guy and want to see local businesses succeed whenever possible. I have eaten at Imagine several times since then, and their current locale is set up much more as a conventional restaurant. I’ve never had an experience I would consider bad.

Photo courtesy of Trip Advisor

My support of my own region and moms and pops everywhere notwithstanding, I have to side with the customer on this whole sordid mess. It’s true kids are funny and they do wacky things all the time. It’s true that even the best parents can’t always control their kids. I can certainly recall moments of being a tiny terror my own mother had to deal with. But the restaurant operator's anger is really misdirected. The customer wasn’t blaming the kids. The complaint was the inappropriate response to the kid's behavior and a perceived lapse in supervision. The owners’ response to the online review and subsequent online comments were wildly inappropriate. This was a textbook case study of what NOT to do in a case of customer dissatisfaction.

The only appropriate response in such a scenario is: "We're sorry you felt your experience was sub-par. If you come back, your next meal is on is. Contact us at xyz and let us know how we can resolve your issue and improve our service." The customer is always right. (Even when he/she is wrong. Which is admittedly frustrating as hell sometimes.)

I'm perplexed why the operators seem so adamant Imagine is not a business when it clearly is. What does it communicate to your employees about job stability when you broadcast to the world that you don't care if you're not making revenue? What does it communicate to guests about your professionalism if you broadcast that you don’t see yourself as a professional? If you truly have no interest in hospitality, you may need to rethink why you're in the hospitality industry in the first place.

Photo courtesy DavidLeeRoth.com

David Lee Roth once said, “If you stick your head above the crowd, sooner or later someone’s going to try and throw a rock at it.” Unfortunately, scrutiny and constant criticism is part of the gig when you operate in a public sphere as a restaurant does. Or for that matter, a pizza magazine. Believe me, I get earfuls of opinions from folks in our industry all the time. Some of them carry more weight than others.

But ultimately, if you don’t at least consider whether an argument has merit, the butthole may be you.

Walking a Mile in a Grouch's Shoes

"Hell is other people." That's the famous, oft-quoted and oft-misunderstood line from existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre's play "No Exit."

It's usually thought to mean that the company of others invariably will grate on your nerves and drive you crazy. There is some truth to that (and if you don't believe me, try going on vacation with your in-laws.) But as Sartre himself explained, "That does not at all mean that one cannot have relations with other people. It simply brings out the capital importance of all other people for each one of us."

Reality is a subjective thing. As Obi-Wan Kenobi's wise ghost explains to Luke Skywalker upon being accused of lying, "Many of the truths we cling to depend up on a certain point of view."

It's entirely possible that in a given scenario, you can be 100% in the right, yet someone who disagrees with you may not necessarily be wrong. I once worked on a project for an artist who was once part of a band with a hit record. The band fractured when it split into two camps and a party who outwardly exhibited every sign that they no longer wanted any part of the band filed a lawsuit against remaining parties over a document they never signed.

From point of view of the party I knew, they didn't feel they needed the consent of someone who had completely withdrawn from the entity and no longer wanted any part of it. From the other party's point of view, they were miffed an agreement that could affect their intellectual property would be negotiated without their input. Much bitterness ensued and the end result amounted to both camps essentially losing a bunch of money to a bunch of lawyers. Who was right? Both parties felt they had a point. But neither ultimately accomplished anything except making all parties involved financially poorer while fattening the pockets of litigators. It was an unfortunate state of affairs that probably got chalked up in the music rags as the old cliché of "creative differences."

Perception is reality. If you have done your best to provide quality service and product to a customer who still has a complaint - you have done your part and you may be 100% right. However, that customer has a grievance whether real or perceived. If they perceive a grievance, it's real to them. It's worth time investigating the nature of their complaint and understanding how they are seeing the situation. Even if you ultimately find there is nothing you could've done better, there may be something you find you can change about the way your customers perceive your quality of service or food.

I can't count how many pizza operators feel they have the best pizza out there. And they may all be right.....from a certain point of view. After all, taste is completely subjective. I'll give you an example: For a variety of factors, I believe Queen's Brian May is the best guitarist of all time....but you probably have your own opinion on the matter. (Feel free to comment why I'm wrong.)

The more often you can put yourself in someone else's shoes and understand differing points of view, the more you get out of your own bubble. The wider perspective you have on the world, the better. Knowledge is power. But beware of going TOO far down the rabbit hole of appeasing cranky customers. You can only please SOME of the people SOME of the time, after all.

Ultimately, this is all marketing really is: communicating the right message to the right people at the right time. And recognizing you might be right, but still be wrong in someone else's eyes can help you refine your message, or deliver it in a different way.

This Was NOT Part of the Plan! (feat. Kenny G)

Here’s the scene: I’m sitting in a crowded but quiet airport lounge in Portugal (Lisbon, to be precise). Dan Uccello has passed out on a chair. His brother, Davide, indicates Dan is not feeling well. Their associate, Alex Garcia, just looks happy to be out of an airplane momentarily. Meanwhile, Michael LaMarca is concerned about our baggage. As well he should be. Even 12 hours prior, none of the five of us had the slightest idea we would be sitting together in a foreign country we had never been to. I never thought when I left the house that I’d end up in Portugal (which is beautiful, by the way). This was NOT part of the plan.

A post shared by Daniel Lee Perea (@elbebopkid) on May 6, 2017 at 4:42am PDT

There’s greater concern about our baggage than if we were just on vacation. For me, the contents of my suitcase could mean the difference between doing my job effectively or possibly not at all. For them, the entire purpose of their visit is in jeopardy. Everyone in this party is part of the United States Pizza Team. They have entered themselves as competitors in the 26th annual World Pizza Championship in Parma, Italy. A town we’re having a great deal of difficulty getting to. If the baggage is lost, it means they don’t have many of their primary ingredients and none of their tools, with only one day prior to the start of competition. Currently, in this scenario, I am in good shape. On a whim, I packed most of my clothes in carry-on bags. LaMarca did not. He has no underwear for tomorrow.

The primary cause of our dilemma is one of those things that cannot be controlled (nor adequately predicted, despite all our technology). Weather. Due to inclement weather in New York, all our flights have been delayed and diverted, resulting in us meeting in Atlanta and collectively missing our flight to Milan. So we remain in Lisbon, waiting for a flight.

Lunch in Lisbon

A post shared by Daniel Lee Perea (@elbebopkid) on May 6, 2017 at 4:59am PDT

Dan doesn’t know it yet, but he will eventually rally from these setbacks to end up being honored at the World Pizza Championship awards ceremony. I will switch my coverage to a DSLR camera for the cheese factory tour that I do not at this point know I will even be going on. Alex will continue to look just happy to be wherever he is. And LaMarca will buy some underwear at a street market. (They may not fit right. He’s built like a Maytag washing machine.)

And, ultimately, that is the point of this week’s Pizza Perspective. If I’ve learned one thing in my almost four decades on planet earth, it’s that nothing EVER goes 100% according to plan. What is most often the differentiator between success and failure in any venture is how you handle the adversity that is created when things go off track. 

Just like LeBron James in last year’s NBA Finals, Dan Uccello of Flo’s Pizzeria in Grand Rapids, Michigan, had to dig his team out of a hole and find a way to win. That’s exactly what he did, coming back from an ingredient and tools deficit to take the top score of any U.S. competitor at the World Pizza Championship. 

Photo: Sarah Beth Wiley Smith

How did he do it? Not alone. Several of his additional U.S. Pizza teammates, already on the ground in Parma, obtained a list of the ingredients he had packed and lost. They took it upon themselves to go to the markets to get them. By the time Dan finally arrived in Parma, he found he had almost everything he needed. When the U.S. Pizza Team said his win was a team win, it wasn’t just hyperbole. Mr. Rogers once said that when times get tough, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” If there’s a cheat code for getting out of a jam, that might just be it. After all, no man is an island. 

As an added bonus, sharing the situation as a collective actually gave me a chance to get to know the Uccello brothers and Alex and served as a bonding experience. It also gave Dan time to pick LaMarca’s brain for marketing advice. This served as another reminder in my many life lessons that there’s always a silver lining to every cloud. (Additionally, I decided to create one of my own silver linings by lining my messenger bag with beers from the airport lounge. Sshhh.)

As an added bonus, we even got to meet legendary saxophonist Kenny G in an airport! Really!

Kenny G!

And what of LaMarca’s underpants? Well…  some questions are probably better left unanswered.

With age and wisdom, I’ve gotten a lot better over the years at handling the times things don’t go according to plan (although admittedly, I’m a slow learner.) There’s certainly always room for more improvement, however. There's an old prayer that goes something like this: “Grant me the ability to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

I’m not a religious person, but I have found this to hold a great deal of truth. And somebody once said, “The truth shall set you free.”

The Mother Road

©All photos unless otherwise noted by Daniel Lee Perea. 

I'm sitting in a motel room that dates back to the late 30s. There's a period bakelite rotary phone on the nightstand that looks as though it may ring at any moment with a Raymond Chandler mystery plot on the other end. (It even still works. So I'm told.) I'm merely one of countless thousands that have stayed in The Blue Swallow Motel on their quest to chase a slice of Americana. It is a well-preserved piece of history along Route 66.

I spoke to the proprietor, a man with a background in the corporate world, and asked what brought him to the remote desert vistas of Tucumcari, New Mexico. We spoke a few feet from the gleaming curves of the '51 Pontiac Chieftain that stays parked beneath the beautifully glowing, world-famous neon sign. He answered "I couldn't go back to another white collar office job. I just couldn't do it. My wife and I stayed here on a road trip, and it happened to be up for sale, and we decided to just go for it!"

This is the sentiment of many a budding entrepreneur. The day you can no longer continue working for someone else and feel compelled to chase your own dream. 

Many times, I've criss-crossed the country along Route 66 (officially discontinued in 1986, and paved over by I-40 in the modern era, thanks to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.)  "The Mother Road." "Main Street of America." It's both a literal and symbolic pathway to economic opportunity. From the earliest agricultural settlers, miners, and cowpunchers who moved west in a bid to control their own destiny, to the destitute hoards chronicled in "The Grapes of Wrath" to the beat generation who pounded out poetry while they were "On The Road," to the paranoid "Fear and Loathing" of Hunter S. Thompson; Route 66 is a literary constant and primary touchstone of American culture.

On my trips out west, I like to muse and wax poetic about the nature of the American Dream. Like Hunter S. Thompson, I was chasing it for a while, not entirely sure what I was looking for. Is it in the sun-baked antique automobiles, gleaming in the sun off the highway? Is it in the trashy, run-down trailers and little league baseball fields that frame and contrast the the kitschy Route 66 Museum in Elk City, Oklahoma?

Is it in the old west ghost town of Cuervo? The ruins of Arizona ranches? In the meek hovels of maverick desert rats who find the company of humankind so incompatible, they move as far away from urban civilization as possible to be one with the wide-open sky and sprawling vistas of solitute? Perhaps some combination all of the above? What IS the American Dream? How does one define it?

Eventually in Las Vegas, at a pizza event, I found what was (at at least for me) AN answer if not THE answer. Reconnecting with a certain Persian acquaintance in the cavernous Las Vegas Convention Center as he demonstrated his innovative pizza equipment wares, it struck me. Here was a guy who grew up in a war-torn nation completely ripped apart by the questionable foreign policy of western powers. At some younger age, he managed to escape his battle-ravaged homeland and make it to America. Working his way up through the ranks of pizzerias, he hit upon a market niche or two, made a leap of faith and developed a company and some technological inventions that would fill some needs in the pizza industry. He built an entire company out of it, and became a jobs creator, while partnering with others to create innovative products. 

In short, he crossed the seas to come to the Land of Opportunity and seize his own bit of it. Self-determination and opportunity. That's been the American story for as long as there has been an America. It's the immigrant story in an immigrant nation. The stories I find in the pizza world are often exactly this story. And despite the Italian origins of the dish, there is, on a fundamental level, nothing more American than pizza; and the folks who make up the industry. What starts somewhere else comes chasing opportunity on a journey to melt in the pot here; and in the process, transform America into something more than the sum of its parts.

Is that the answer to "What is the American Dream?" Perhaps not to everyone. But it's enough for me.

_____

Photo: Brian Hernandez

Now, a bit further down the road and a bit of a detour off Route 66, my colleague Brian and I are standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. We stare down into the vast, gaping maw of the crevasse. It is almost beyond comprehension. The size is so titanic, it's difficult for the brain to even process what you're looking at. I've experienced this sensation exactly one other time: when I was looking at the gargantuan interior of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

The Grand Canyon is one of the most cherished national treasures and landmarks of America - to the point of being almost synonymous with Americana. The irony being that is has been here for MILLIONS of years before Amerigo Vespucci (another Italian connection) ever even thought about setting foot on a boat of any sort. The Grand Canyon is beyond any nationality. It predates us by millennia and will outlive any of us by more.  It makes one feel as small as they do when staring into the starry night sky in an area far from city lights. Small. Where the infinite meets the infinitesimal.

Route 66 has come and to some extent gone. Humans will come and go, and one day be extinct or perhaps replaced by another species. By staring into the ageless canyon, one is reminded that they are but a very tiny link in an extraordinarily long chain.  And so we press on. Down the road a bit further to see where it will take us. One mile at a time, perhaps better understanding with each stop and detour that there is never TRULY a destination. Only waypoints. So enjoy the ride while you can.

Sometimes you bend, sometimes you stand
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind
There's a world outside every darkened door
Where the blues won't haunt you anymore
Where the brave are free and lovers soar
Come ride with me to the distant shore
Life is a highway; I want to ride it all night long
- Tom Cochrane

©All photos unless otherwise noted by Daniel Lee Perea. 

#route66

Your Symbiotic Relationship with Customers

Control. To call one's own shots. To be the master of your own destiny. That's part of the American Dream; part of the entrepreneurial dream.  

Every entrepreneur has worked for bosses somewhere along the way that they didn't see eye-to-eye with. You may have had your own ideas about how things should be run.  And one day you knew you'd eventually be the head honcho.  This is a theme in an old Roy Oribson song, "Workin For The Man."

Oh Well I'm pickin em up, and I'm layin em down

I believe he's gonna work me right into the ground

I pull to the left, heave to the right. I wanna kill the man but it wouldn't be right

Cause I'm working for the man, working for the man

So I slave all day without much pay, cause I'm just bidin' my time

Cause the company and the daughter, you see, they're both gonna be all mine

Yeah, I'm gonna be the man, gonna be the man.

But will you REALLY control your own destiny, even when you become "The Man"? What IS control? In The Matrix Reloaded, Councillor Hamman poses the question to Neo who insists the machines in Zion are under their control:

Councillor Harmann: Down here, sometimes I think about all those people still plugged into the Matrix and when I look at these machines I... I can't help thinking that in a way... we are plugged into them.   

Neo: But we control these machines; they don't control us.  

Councillor Harmann: Of course not. How could they? The idea is pure nonsense. But... it does make one wonder... just... what is control?  

Neo: If we wanted, we could shut these machines down.  

Councillor Harmann: That's it. You hit it. That's control, isn't it? If we wanted we could smash them to bits. Although, if we did, we'd have to consider what would happen to our lights, our heat, our air...  

Sure, you might have developed five of the most perfect pizza recipes of all time....but what if the general public won't buy them at a price that generates a profit point? Can you afford to keep them on the menu? Do you call the shots, or does the consumer? The answer lies somewhere in the middle.

Just as the machines in the Matrix can't survive without humans who also can't survive without machines, a boss is in a symbiotic relationship with her/his customers.

Consumers respond to a number of factors. Taste, perceived quality, price point, service, atmosphere and experience, and sometimes even human relationships. These factors also exist in a symbiotic balance.
Finding the sweet spot requires tweaking and fine-tuning.  It also requires information from your customers.

Now that I've got you thinking about symbiotic relationships and communication, maybe it's time to take stock of yours. You may be doing enough communicating on your end, but how do you improve your listening skills when it comes to the consumer?

Fortunately, in the information age, it's never been easier. Your consumers live on their smartphones and in their social media spheres. Go where they live! I'm going to leave you with this tip today: Twitter polls.  If you're not on Twitter - get on it. But if you are, and have a lot of followers, you can take advantage of surveying specific questions with a twitter poll.

You can make a poll about anything you want. Whether people like a particular dish, how they feel about items you're thinking about adding to a menu, what to name a new product, what area you should expand to, even who they think is going to win the big game if you just want to have fun creating interaction with a poll.

To learn how to set up a Twitter poll, here's Twitter's article explaining it: https://support.twitter.com/articles/20174524

Hope I've given you some food for thought. Until next time, take the red pill.

Lights, Camera.....Wait, Let's Re-Cast The Lead!

"You were expecting someone else?" - James Bond

You may have found yourself here at Pizza Perspective by way of our editor-in-chief's column in the March issue of PMQ Pizza Magazine. Although he cited my colleague Andy Knef as the author of this blog, Mr. Knef informed us mere days after the issue went to print that he’d gotten a great offer in teaching that it would be almost criminal of him to pass up. And so Andy left in pursuit of new opportunities.

But have no fear, the Pizza Perspective blog will continue under the penmanship of Yours Truly.

"Allow me to re-introduce myself." - Jay Z

It's actually fortuitous timing that I take over this blog during the March issue. The cover story is “Lights! Camera! Pizza!” A feature on the importance of video content in marketing. For the past six years, I've served PMQ and the pizza world as the Senior Media Producer. That's a vague title, because I wear many hats here. But the heavy lifting in my responsibilities is video production.

If you've taken even a cursory look at the modern world, you've probably noticed how often people check their phones (I've even watched Cleveland Indians playoff games and pro-wrestling pay-per-views on mine.) There's a slew of social media apps, and every single one of them utilizes video (some more than others.) From subways in Shanghai 

that project ghostly, holographic video ads onto the tunnel walls, to the sensory overload of Times Square, to custom ad screens on gas pumps all across Middle America - there is nowhere you can turn to avoid seeing moving images. It's kind of the reason I have a job.

"Video killed the radio star." - The Buggles  

With video so prevalent, you can't afford to be left behind when it comes to promoting your products and brands with video. Fortunately, there are a LOT of different ways to use video and no single “right way.” Even if all you’ve got is an outdated iPhone, there's a marketing avenue for you. Our March 2017 issue will help you learn how to get in the game of video. 

But just because I've taken over Pizza Perspective in March doesn't mean it will become a blog about video. Pizza Perspective will continue to cover a wide variety of topics, subjects, ideas and cultural zeitgeists. 

In my experiences with PMQ and Pizza TV, I've trekked across this continent chasing the American Dream, delved into the cradle of pizza in Napoli, and explored the next frontier of pizza in Asia. If I've learned one thing in the process, it's what noted poet Maya Angelou wrote so eloquently: "We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike."  I hope, with this blog, to share new perspectives with you, that you will in turn share your unique perspectives with me, and together we'll share our perspectives with the readers. That's a win-win-win.