| November 4, 2009 | Should a CEO Take His Burning Man Pics off Facebook? |
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Today I was drawn in by a headline on BNET "A CEO's Dilemma: Should I Take My Burning Man Pics off Facebook?" As someone who has been to Burning Man eight times over the past eleven years and has posted the photos on my own website, as well as on Flickr, and on Facebook (there was even a photo of me at Burning Man 2005 published in "The Economist"!) I have often grappled with the same question as I entered managerial and then executive roles at tech companies. Is it appropriate/distracting for someone in a leadership position to be seen in photos online frolicking in the desert in a tutu? When I noticed that the BNET article's question was the dilemma of Chip Conley, I read it top to bottom to see what he had decided. I have always admired Chip Conley's style of doing business. For those who aren't acquainted with Conley, at the age of 26 (fresh out of Stanford's MBA program) he purchased a seedy pay-by-the-hour hotel on Eddy Street in San Francisco's Tenderloin and against all odds turned it into a cool mecca for musicians and artists which you may know as the aptly-named Phoenix Hotel. When I started hanging out in San Francisco in 1998-2001, the electronic music scene (particularly jazzy SF house) was huge, and I spent countless days/nights watching DJs spin at pretty much every SF venue imaginable -- from DNA Lounge to Kelly's Mission Rock. By far, some of the most legendary parties were the Phoenix Hotel's Sunday afternoon pool parties. The line of people waiting to get in would stretch down the block to Polk Street. The aggressive SF panhandlers had a captive audience who would wait for hours to get up inside the Phoenix Hotel. Conley grew his success with the Phoenix hotel into California's largest boutique hotel chain called Joie de Vivre. All of the hotels have their own unique personalities. In SoCal's Huntington Beach (Surf City USA), they have the surfer-themed Shorebreak Hotel. When I worked at Yahoo and commuted frequently between NorCal and SoCal, I stayed at many Joie de Vivre hotels including Wild Palms in Sunnyvale, Hotel Avante in Mountain View, and Hotel Rex in San Francisco. In fact, Chris and I got engaged this past July while staying at Joie de Vivre's Ventana Inn in Big Sur. One of the best things about staying at the Joie de Vivre hotels is the fun unique spirit and that the hotel employees are willing to go the distance. For example, while staying at the Ventana Inn, Chris and I accidentally slept through the buffet breakfast one morning, and we called the kitchen frantic and hungry they packed up some of the treats and brought them to our room. Conley is a brilliant businessman who also seems to actually be a cool and authentic person. When Conley published a management/leadership book "Peak: How great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow"a few years back, I snatched it up and read it in 2 sittings. In the book, Conley presented theories of running his business that he gleaned from his reading of psychologist Abraham Maslow's self-actualization pyramid. Conley presented his idea of the customer satisfaction pyramid and the employee satisfaction pyramid, and how they fed into each other to create a business ecosystem that brought both customers and employees toward greater (peak) happiness and satisfaction. I highly recommend "Peak." Conley peppers the chapters with anecdotes from other peak-performing companies with unique corporate cultures, including Google and Southwest Airlines. In the BNET article, Conley concludes that he will keep his Burning Man photos up on Facebook as they are not sexually suggestive and he doesn't deem them to be a violation of his company's social media policy. His company's mission statement is "To celebrate the joy of life" and he says that was exactly what he was doing at Burning Man. So far in my online life, I have come to the same conclusion that Conley did. I am leaving my Burning Man photos up. They are not sexually suggestive and I don't believe they violate corporate social media policies in any way. Not to mention, I am well-acquainted with the idea that once something is on the internet, it doesn't ever really "go away" even if taken down. But I wonder if I will ever change my mind on the Burning Man photos? Conley built his company on being true to himself and his own instincts and personality. He defines himself as a rebel. And I see him as perhaps similar to other successful "rebel" businessmen such as Steve Jobs or Richard Branson. As a female leader in business would I feel as comfortable about people seeing me dressed in a tutu at Burning Man? Are there highly successful "rebel" woman leaders in business? Who are they? Tweet to me @p0pvulture (the 0 is a zero) and let me know. I'm almost certain we would never see photos of Carol Bartz, Carly Fiorina, or Meg Whitman in tutus at Burning Man. For female CEOs, dropping F-bombs may be deemed OK (thankfully, we've come that far at least), but having fun and enjoying life may still be off-limits. What do you think? Labels: burningman, california, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 8:14 AM 
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| September 7, 2006 | We Faced Our Fears at Burning Man 2006 |
Chris was a Burning Man virgin this year.  (Not me, My virgin burn was 1999 -- you can read my journal about it. I also went out to the desert in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2005...) During our drive to Nevada, I asked him what he most feared about Burning Man."Seeing naked guys kinda freaks me out," he said. "Oh, you mean dude-ity?" I said. "Yeah, I guess." We arrived on the playa at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday after driving for over 13 hours (it's a much longer drive from Los Angeles, than from SF!) It was the middle of a dust storm, and we were freezing cold and tired and both had to pee. It was very hard to find a space to camp. In the past, I had almost always camped with a group of friends in a theme camp with a reserved spot. We drove around for at least a half hour, being turned away from every spot, until we arrived at 4:30 and Hope. We set up camp in the dust storm and it wasn't until much later that we viewed the theme camp directly across the street: called Our Lady of Schlongs: Meat Inspection camp. Talk about Chris facing his fears!!! Needless to say over the course of the week, they had a lot of visitors and we saw a lot of schlongs. They gave us the best bloody marys I have ever had. So spicy and delicious. Check out all my photos from Burning Man 2006. Labels: burningman, chris, dudity, photos, slang posted by Jess Barron @ 10:50 PM
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| August 25, 2006 | We're Going to Burning Man! |
Chris and I bought our Burning Man tickets last night off of Craigslist from a random guy in Venice who sold 'em to us for more than face value, so that he could "pay his rent."  We waited a long time before buying 'em because we weren't sure Chris was going to get the time off from work so that we could go.
I'm not sure what I will write to myself, but it will probably begin "Dear Jessica, I'm not sure how or where this letter will find you, but I hope you are still around and healthy in 2011, and I hope you are still enjoying life as much as you were in 2006. (But maybe not working quite as hard.) I hope your loved ones are still around you, and I can not imagine what you will have accomplished five years from now."
Labels: burningman, future, sanfrancisco, venice posted by Jess Barron @ 6:13 AM
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| September 28, 2005 | I'm in "The Economist" (sorry Allyson, it's no "Star" magazine...) |
In yesterday's Yahoo! Broadband portals' team meeting, my boss Jim walked in and announced -- "I was just reading the latest issue of 'The Economist,' and there's a picture of Jess in there from Burning Man!" "Please tell me that I have my clothes on in the photo," I joked. (I already had some advance warning about this possible "media appearance" because I had spoken with writer/journalist Kurt Opprecht on the playa while I was inside my art project -- the Playa Psychiatric Help Booth -- and he had mentioned he was writing a piece about the economy of Burning Man for (who else?) The Economist. He talked to me for a while and asked if he could take a photo of the booth.) You can find Kurt's piece (and this photo) on page 41 of The Economist for September 24th-30th, 2005. The article is also available online as premium content, if you have a subscription to The Economist. You can view a snapshot of it here on flickr. Anyway, back to the Yahoo! Broadband portals team meeting where this was all mentioned before I had seen the photo or the piece (before I knew what I was wearing or how it was all presented)... At this point, Allyson looks across the table and says, "Jess, I'm aware that The Economist is a well-respected publication, but I'd honestly be more impressed if you had your photo in "Us Weekly" or "Star" magazine." (Allyson's comment certainly sheds some light on the state of American Culture in 2005, and as a scholar in this department I promise you I will get to the bottom of it...) Labels: americanculture, art, burningman, economist, media posted by Jess Barron @ 11:46 AM
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| September 16, 2005 | We Get Dicky in the Studio |
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Oh yeah, as a postscript to that last post -- I forgot to mention that tonight at 7p.m. PST Dicky (of Burning Man 2005's The DICKY Box)will be joining us in the studio for an interview on She Said, She Said. You should tune in on 87.9 FM in SF or on the internets at: http://www.piratecatradio.com/site/listen.html We already have a few questions in mind, do you have any more suggestions? Labels: burningman, radio posted by Jess Barron @ 4:35 PM
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| What About Burning Man? |
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Dear readers, some of you think it's a serious oversight that I have not posted about Burning Man yet. "Was it not good this year?" you have asked me. No, it's not that at all, it's just that I've been pretty overwhelmed since I've returned. When I got back from Burning Man, we were very much in the midst of covering hurricane Katrina pretty hardcore. It was news, news, news for work. Heather and Allyson were handling the brunt of it, but I had just over 2,000 work emails to sift through while more were still piling up on top of them. I've been working 10-12 hours every day, and I'm just about almost dug-out. (Tomorrow morning I'm flying to Portland for Selena's wedding and then next week to Vail for Ellen's wedding.) Burning Man was freaking awesome. Out of the past six that I've gone to (the first being 1999), this one was, by far, my favorite of all. Campmates got along, weather was pretty decent (except for Monday which was a raging windstorm that destroyed our shade structure), and my art project was a success. This year I have *4* sets of Burning Man photos posted on flickr: Spending hours talking to people inside my psychiatric help booth each day was truly amazing. A lot of people out there just needed to talk. Somehow everyone expects in their mind that Burning Man is this big party where everyone is non-stop ecstatic -- but there really are a lot of people who get to the playa and begin dealing with issues of loneliness, isolation, and sadness. At Burning Man in 2000, I was dealing with a lot of these types of issues myself. There were also people whose boyfriends or girlfriends had dumped them at the event, people who were having marriage difficulties, people who felt like their campmates didn't like them, people who were having problems meeting new friends. I will write a bit more about this whole experience soon. I just need a bit more time to process it. My two favorite art projects at Burning Man this year were: Labels: art, burningman, photos posted by Jess Barron @ 4:08 PM
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| August 16, 1999 | I'm Going to Burning Man |
 Burn, Baby, Burn: Tonight I picked up my plane tickets to go out to San Francisco next week for Burning Man. I'm starting to feel some substantial anxiety about the trip. Will I survive camping in the desert for five days? Mindy and I finally came up with an idea for a theme camp, although Lee doesn't think it's exciting enough. I would tell you what it is, but Mindy doesn't want me to talk about it until afterward. You can check out my ticket (and notice how it says "you voluntarily assume the risk of serious injury or death by attending"): I tried to explain what Burning Man was to my mom, but I don't think she got it. I told her it was this huge conglomeration of spontaneous performance art and people just "acting out" all over the place, but she just kept calling it "that concert you're going to." If you're curious about this Burning Man thing, don't worry. I'm going to take tons of photos and probably shoot some digital video as well. And of course, I'll write a few articles for WildWeb and keep a Daily Desert Journal. It now even looks as though I will be involved in the segment for our TV show as well. I'll let you know when it will air. Pavement Poems: I'm going to take a brief respite from expounding in technicolour detail about myself to mention that Ms. Hillary Field of Los Angeles (my favorite Boggle-playing buddy) sent a few of her poetic experiments to Matador Records' Pavement Poetry Project. And before her fans could begin to chant "A for effort, B for delivery..." she was listed among the 25 winners! Alas, she laments that the poem she entered under Jeff's name won better prizes than the poem she submitted under her own name. I do think I like the latter one better, but it seems that the peeps from Matador probably wanted to play out the Scrabble metaphor. And you really can't blame them; Scrabble is such a great game. Allyson Krieger, Miss Thang She Said, She Said: Allyson "Miss Thang" Krieger and I finally wrote our much talked about and long-awaited Teen Vs. Adult TV episode of "She Said, She Said." Alas, I no longer feel as good about the result as I had initially believed. First, as soon as the article went online Lee Charles Baker accused me of messing up his quote. He insisted he would *never* use "overanalyze" and "deconstruct" in the same sentence. Though he *was* copping pretentious attitude with me on the phone when he said the quote, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and changed it to the verbiage that currently sits in the 13th paragraph. Second, I think I lost track of what should have been one of my major points -- the idea that TV shows about teen characters are intriguing because the teen years are a time when people's personalities are being formed. Events that occur during the teen years can have a huge significance on a person's life. Somehow Ray Weigel I neglected to mention this in my article, and for this I should be thrashed. Our "Austin Powers, Hip or Has-Been?" feature came out much better, I think. It's a Shame About Ray: Ray "yo Jimmy" Weigel is out of our office on vacation for the entire month of August. I am not sure how we are all making it through these difficult days without anyone begging us to meet for drinks at the Rainforest cafe in Burlington. My aural pleasure has certainly declined in Ray's absence. And I am finding that I no longer say "duuude" as much either. Thankfully, Erin and Allyson are making sure the Caption Cornycopia isn't neglected. Que Sera, Sarah: On Saturday I went over to Sarah's (my dad's ex-girlfriend's) house to visit. I hung out with Sarah, her baby Misha, her husband Iourie, and Iourie's dad who is visiting from St. Petersburg. Iourie's dad convinced me to take a few shots of a drink called, mysteriously enough, "Russian balm." The stuff was scary. MishaSarah made some delicious pasta salad and we looked at old photos Sarah took of my brother and me in the '80s. Complete-Lee Enjoyable: So you read all the way to the bottom, and you expected to get some details about Lee's visit to the East Coast three week's ago. Nosy, aren't ye? Well, in this case, I am not going to put out so easily. All I'm going to tell you is that Lee passed his NASD test and he's now some sort of uber options broker. I made him a mix tape to celebrate. We got very lost on our first night out in Newark, New Jersey and it took us about two hours to find our way back into the sanctity of the hotel room. We kept seeing the glowing neon lights of our Courtyard Marriot in the distance as we descended and ascended on various on-ramps and off-ramps, but we could never maneuver ourselves over to where it was. I've never laughed so hard during such a frustrating experience. Honestly. I was laughing so hard that I thought my ribs were breaking. And I was driving. This is a good sign, I think. Labels: allyson, burningman, lee, wildweb posted by Jess Barron @ 10:15 AM
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