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I can honestly say that I have genuinely loved coming to work everyday* for the past 11 years. (*Yes, I’ve had some crappy days too, probably more than I can count, but hey, this is real life, isn’t it?) But, by and large, I’ve mostly always loved it and that’s always seemed very normal to me. But, there was a time when I thought that maybe that was the wrong way to feel.

About 9 years ago, I went through (what I still consider today to be) the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. It all started 9 years ago when I had my girls, Zoe and Orion, who would from that point on, be the best and most important part of my life (even more than designing, which for a long time, I believed nothing would top).

One of the reasons that made this such a difficult time was not because I was sleep deprived or scared that I wasn’t going to know how to change a diaper (although that did kind of freak me out too), it was because I couldn’t reconcile the fact that I had these two amazing little babies that needed me more than anything but I still wanted to keep working. My mom didn’t work until we were older and I guess somewhere inside, I believed that I was supposed to do the same thing. Stay home and be the best mom I could possibly be. But for whatever reason, my story didn’t really end up that way.

For me, part of making the decision to come back to work was a no brainer. I had to keep working, we didn’t have enough money to live on just one income, but after doing a little math, we realized that we were making just enough money combined that even after sending our girls to daycare, we would be doing slightly better with both incomes than with just one. This also made our decision to leave our girls in someone else’s care a little easier to make (but not easier to do). We needed too.

I often wondered if we would’ve been okay on just one salary, would I of still made the decision to go back to work and would I be where I am today? I guess that’s something I’ll never know.

So, we when our girls turned 6 months old we sent them to daycare. We ate more than our fair share of Corn Flakes and Ramen noodles to be able to pay their tuition every month, but we did it and it worked.

Something I remember clearly to this day, (and probably one of the reasons I am so loyal, not only Barefoot, but to Doug) was the fact that Doug was so amazing about working with me to make coming back after my pregnancy as easy as possible. He was so incredibly flexible with my schedule, understanding of what I was going through and sensitive to what a hard time I was having leaving Zoe and Orion. (Which was amazing considering, at that time, he didn’t have any kids of his own.)

With all the pressure that I felt, either from people around me or just the good old “society” pressure, I felt like I wasn’t making the right decision by going back to work instead of being a stay at home mom. And for what it’s worth, that feeling didn’t go away for about 7 years. So, now back to the reason that this was such a difficult time for me—it came down to one thing; aside from the fact that I had to work, I also wanted to work.

Was that bad?
Was that the wrong decision?

I wondered that for a long time, but now, I can officially say, 9 years later, that going back to work was the best decision I could of made, not only for my girls, but for myself too. I worked harder than I had ever worked. I knew that if I had to be away from them, then I wanted to be at a place that was fun, a place where I was surrounded by great people, and where I was able to do great work and be happy.

Check,
Check
and
Check.

I came back not only with the mindset that I was going to do everything in my power to make everyday I was away from my girls better, but I also came back with more drive and ambition than I had ever had before. It wasn’t just about me anymore. I needed to work not only for myself now, but I also had this great little family that was counting on me. And what better incentive to be the best I could be, than those two little babies?

So that’s what I did, I worked harder, I worked more efficiently, I tried to work better everyday. All so that at the end of the day (which was 4:58 and counting”¦) I could go home and be with Zoe and Orion. Over the years I had plenty of late nights riddled with guilt because I wasn’t home on time. At one point, I even made the decision to leave Barefoot to spend more time with my girls for a while. But ultimately (6 months later) I came back. Not only because I missed it, but because I was a better mom when I worked. I would spend more time with them. Quality time. From the moment I walked in the door they were my only priority. Every second with them counted more, maybe that was guilt driving that, but I was okay with that because I was spending more time with them and they were benefiting from that. So, for years this was how things went. Things were busy. At times they were really hard. Especially when they were old enough to participate in sports. How does a working mom pick up her kids from pre-school (30 minutes from work), change them and get them to soccer practice by 5:30? That one I never quite figured out. So, we were the 5:45ers. That was about the best I could do some days, other days we were the 6:00ers and I was okay with that too. That’s how I was able to make it work. I did the best I could, as often as I could, and tried not to beat myself up over any shortcomings I had that left me just shy of being crowned super mom of the year. I did my best. And that may have been one of the first and most valuable lessons my girls learned from me.

Since then they’ve learned that hard work pays off, being passionate and dedicated is important and that doing something you love to do is probably one of the best gifts you can give yourself.

Our girls are smart, funny, kind, independent and strong.
(Says me, the ever-objective mom, right?)

But that’s how I see them and I believe that is who they are. So, how do I know I made the right decision all those years ago? Well, now when I call home to let the girls know that I’m going to be a little late, they tell me it’s okay, not to worry and just do a good job. When I get home, they ask me if my day was good (and more often than not it is) but when it’s not, they tell me that they can’t all be good days and that tomorrow will be better. I don’t think that kind of perspective and wisdom can come from 9 year olds if they grew up feeling neglected or abandoned. So now, all these years later, I can sit back, smile and say that I’ve done the right thing, no matter how hard it was for me to believe all those years ago. I believe that being a good mom isn’t just about spending time with your kids, but it’s also about being happy. Happy with your life. Happy with your choices. And happy with allowing yourself to be unsure and to let things work themselves out. And for all of that, I can honestly say that I’m happy.

I wanted to publicly congratulate everyone at Barefoot for having an amazing show at the Cincinnati ADDYs again this year. If you saw the article on cincinnati.com, you’ll know that Cliff Peale of the Cincinnati Enquirer prominently mentioned not only our Best of Show award for the Mickey’s site, but the fact that we won significantly more awards than any other agency. Not that anyone is counting, okay, maybe there is someone out there counting.

Allow me to tell you a little story. Along time ago (approx. 12 years) I attended my second Addy show, and after coming home with a wee bit of hardware (a great feeling then, as it is now), I dissected the Addy book. I counted who won what, and because I’m a bit of a dork - I also created a chart of golds, silvers, best of show, developed my own scoring system to give more weight to Best of show, etc. All of which was very obsessive/compulsive of me (I apologize to the National Association of O/C’s as I mean no offense, and neither did the snickers man-kiss ad or gm’s affront to suicidal robots everywhere). Jodi Greene was kind enough to remind me how mental I am/was Saturday night as I went on record back then saying I wanted to be the agency at the top of the list. Perhaps one of those things better kept to oneself, but apparently I said it aloud.

That was the beginning of our efforts to put Barefoot atop the local agency heap. And while I personally think we have been there for some time (talent and results, not size), it’s always nice to have the validation of talented advertising peers from around the country.

At any rate, Jodi had an interesting observation. She wondered if there was any 2 or 3 person agency out there today making that same list. Or if less mental than me, just vowing to topple us from our place as the best agency in the city? I bet there is, which means we’ll keep pushing to stay on top.

Starting tomorrow.

Today, I’m just going to be happy about how we did Saturday. I’ve often observed that when you’re pursuing something that’s very worthwhile, and incredibly important to you, you’re sometimes not sure what to do with it when you get it. In this case, I’m just going to enjoy it for a moment. We’ll renew our efforts tomorrow. And we’ll raise the bar higher. Our goal is no longer about being the best agency in Cincinnati (it hasn’t been for a while), or even the region. We want to be, need to be, striving to be one of the best, if not the best, agencies in the country.

Nights like Saturday just reinforce the progress we continue to make.

Late last month we launched the Map of Future Forces Affecting Education for the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, and let me tell you something: I’m happy about it. If you’ve read any previous posts, you know that technology makes me damn near giddy, and this site uses some of the best.

Main goal:

Build an online, highly-interactive version of the printed version of the map. While the printed version is great for small group discussion, an online version to which interested people can contribute allows the impact of the thinking represented in the map to grow exponentially.

Subordinate goals:

1. While maintaining interactivity for we humans, make the site indexable by search engines.
2. Allow actual conversations, which may have started in person, to continue and grow online.
3. Allow users to contribute to the thinking and assets by uploading their own documents or pointing to existing websites.
4. Allow users to control the categorization of the material.
5. Make it easy to use.

That last goal seems obvious, but was one of the toughest charges. Let’s face it, the subject matter of the Map is difficult to grasp and some of the language is highly academic. Layered onto that is that fact that the metaphor used to present the ideas in the Map takes some time to “get”. So how did we do it?

Adobe Flash is used for the UI. This allows users to interact with the map in an intuitive way. Much like Google Maps, you can pan in any direction either by using the navigational arrows or by simply “grabbing” the background and moving the map in the direction you’d like to go. A Compass View gives you context as to where you are within the whole Map. Using Flash, we are also able to trace your path through the site. This helps users begin to connect seemingly disparate ideas, which is vitally important on a site with such wide, sweeping scope for subject matter.

Using Flash Remoting (a business layer that ties the Flash-based UI to the data layer) paves the way toward expansion and personalization. Don’t want to remember where you were next time you go to the site? No problem, just log in and we’ll take care of remembering. Think three different topics are all related due to economics? Tag the nodes, and the rest of the world will see the connection. Got something to say about all of this? Great! We want to hear it. Join the discussion groups to further the conversation. Need to lead a small group discussion in your community? You can either print out the full Map, or just grab the topics you’re interested in and we’ll create a PDF on the fly for you.

We think it’s a heck of a site. And I’ve got two young children, so building a site that helps shape how my kids will be educated is perhaps the greatest happiness of all.