Japi's Blog

My New Job - Houston Market Manager at Group O Marketing Solutions

I've had several friends and family ask about my new job.... and a dear friend suggested I post it here so I don't have to keep repeating myself <grin>.

So I left Schipul after four amazing years of learning, growing and producing. I enjoyed the work more than any other job I've had - the people there are brilliant, the work is challenging and fun and I am certain their future is extremely bright!! I will bleed Schipul burnt orange or Tendenci maroon for many years.

It took me a few months to get the right offer from the right company - Group O Marketing Solutions.

Group O was founded in 1974 by Robert Ontiveros, originally named Bi-State Packaging which was started to sell packaging materials and equipment to manufacturers. The company has grown to over $350 million per year and was recognized this year as the 20th largest Hispanic-owned company in the U.S. by Hisoanic Business magazine.

Group O is based in Milan (pronounced mīˌlän), Illinois and has three divisions:

1. Marketing Solutions
2. Packaging Solutions and
3. Supply Chain Solutions

I was hired by Group O Marketing Solutions as a Market Manager for Houston. I have been tasked with putting together and managing a team of salespeople to market and sell a product for a major telecommunications company... one that has three letter in its name and two are repeated <grin>.  We can use its name when we talk, but not in print.

I have an amazing support team that is helping me put together the team... everyone I've met and worked with are very intelligent, hard-working and fun, so I feel great about this job!

Our goal is to build and grow the business in Houston and San Antonio the next 4 months so that we will be offered additional markets in Texas and eventually around the U.S.

I am extremely excited about the opportunity in front of me and the trust that Group O has placed in me. I will continue to inform of my progress as we meet and beat the numbers... the goal is to have a productive team of 50 here in Houston and 30 in San Antonio in the next few months.

Sorry if I can't say more than that, but if I gave away too much info, I'd have to take all of you out and I wouldn't want to lose my small fan-base <grin>.

Guy Kawasaki at The Houston Technology Center

Guy Kawasaki came to Houston yesterday evening to give a talk at The Houston Technology Center.  I had seen him give a talk called a couple of years ago at the NTC 2006 in Seattle and it was fantastic!  So I was very excited about the event.

I was not dissappointed... Guy was phenomenal, gracious, hilarious, brilliant and just freakin' AWESOME!  His presentation was called "The Art of the Start".  Guy was amazingly gracious in staying wayyy longer than anyone expected. He took every question and even went partying (from what I understand) with some local Kawastalkers (no need to name names). <grin> 

Guy also showed us alltop.com which is a site that covers a variety of interesting topics... he specifically showed us:

• http://career.alltop.com/
• http://moms.alltop.com/
• http://egos.alltop.com/
• http://twitter.alltop.com/
• http://humor.alltop.com/
• http://adoption.alltop.com/

We've posted some pictures of the event on the HTC Web site.

I was also really excited to run into some old friends and met new ones... here's a short list of some of the folks I encountered last night (sorry if I missed anyone):

1. Erica O'Grady
2. Christine Selleck
3. Imelda Bettinger
4. Laura Mayes
5. Tracey Lee Wallace
6. Monica Danna
7. Holly Gunn
8. Kelsey Ruger
9. Richard Yoo
10. Dwight Silverman of The Houston Chronicle
11. Marc Nathan of The Houston Technology Center
12. AND I GOT TO MEET.... are you ready?... Jenny Lawson... The Bloggess!

Since several other folks have blogged about this event, I wanted to do something slightly different.... I decided to copy and paste a bunch of the tweets that were posted on Twitter during the event.  Some of them are obviously funny, others you have no idea what they mean... but here's the list, enjoy:

1. she's in beta with our second child
2. Laura Mayes of skirt has been called out several times... Freakin' awesome
3. Most people think rich and smart parses to smart. No. Most of the time it parses to 'lucky'
4. There is no reason for the survival of Apple but that there is a benevolent God
5. 2 kinds of bozos. rich and famous are the most dangerous bozos. rich/famous usually parses to lucky
6. Don't let the bozos grind you down
7. Find the influencers. the higher you go in most orgs, the thinner the air. harder to support intelligent life. CX0 are dumbest people who sucked up the longest. smartest are the influencers. not ultimate decision makers
8. i believe in god because there is no other explanation for the survival of Apple than a benevolent god
9. seed the clouds ... how you make the rain. "let a hundred flowers blossom". plant fields of flowers
10. Sales fix everything
11. Embrace your evangelists
12. embrace your evangelists... people who get it and want to help you because they believe you/they are making world a better place
13. don't ask someone to do something you would not do
14. lower the barriers to adoption. flatten the learning curve - "plug it in and it works
15. Hire people who are better than you
16. hire better than yourself ... that's very hard to do, but everyone knows they should do it
17. apple hired me because they were willing to ignore the irrelevant
18. hire infected people - infected with a love of what you
19. 10/20/30 rule of powerpoint - 10 slides is optimal number of slides in powerpoint presentation
20. holy grail of marketing - provide something only you can do that provides high value
21. All you white people look alike

So there's the list.... and if you ever have the opportunity to watch Guy Kawasaki... do anything and everything (even slashing someone's tires) to be there.... he's worth every second!

IKEA Suggests You "Tidy Up"

I received the following YouTube video on my Facebook profile.  It's three IKEA ads that suggest you should "Tidy Up".

Well done and pretty darn funny.