Meet Fielding
Fielding Miller, the man with two last names and newest member of the Carbondale office, comes to Backbone after some time at Freeskier in Boulder where they probably made him do stuff like eat dog food and drink beers out of his shoe. Fortunately, here at Backbone we eat fresh baked scones and sip beer from a keg of New Belgium. He was, however, subjected to this Freeskier-style interview during his first week on the job.
Talking about taking park tricks to the backcountry is so 2003. How will you take your park swagger to the office?
I like to be as well-rounded as possible, so I plan on soaking up lots of mountaineering knowledge from my colleagues and hopefully I can contribute on the freeskiing/surf/skate side of things. That being said, don’t expect to see me on tele gear.
Dude, it’s all about the progression. Where do you see the sport of skiing going?
The danger level has been pushed to unbelievable levels but style has always been most important to me. I get more excited over a stomped AK line or a perfect grab or shifty than an out of control dub cork or ski BASE jump.
One Backbone employee gets chosen to be the January 2010 Gear Girl. Who would you pick and why?
Mavis, because I think she has unique style.
(Mavis’ unique style)
Account Manager Setup: As you have probably gathered, Backbone doesn’t have any tall tee manufacturers as clients. What gear will you be rocking this season?
Whatever I get for free in XL! (take note, fellow employees)
As seen in countless urban rail film segments, night shooting is where it’s at. How do you feel about pulling dusk patrol shooting off pitch emails on a regular basis?
I pulled some dusk patrol hours in the office last evening, so I’m cool with working hard as long as I believe in what I’m doing.
Lastly, who would win in a fight: Matt Harvey or Penn Newhard?
Matt Harvey is a man of many talents. I’m always impressed with whatever new activity he has successfully immersed himself in (it’s rally car racing at the moment), but I don’t think fighting is one of them… Penn has an undeniable size advantage, so I’d put my money on him.
Welcome Fielding, we are psyched to have you!
Climate change threatens our livelihoods — and yours
CEO’s of Aspen Skiing Company and The North Face demonstrate environmental responsibility, call for a strong global and national climate and energy policy.
Read the High Country News article here.
Google Social Search Catches the Attention of Brands
Last week Google announced the beta version launch of the latest feature to Google Search, called Google Social Search. In short, the new technology finds content from your social media networks and displays it at the bottom of a traditional search results page. Based on what social networking sites you link to in your Google profile, the Social Search results will update you with relevant content from friends and followers. For example, I typed in ‘climbing shoe’ to a normal Google search and found results from followers on Twitter and blog posts from my RSS feeds.
Some may argue that this will change the way users interact with search results and may limit the effectiveness of traditional seo. I think it has more importance to how brands and companies communicate their message(s) on the social web.
Social Search makes monitoring, engaging and providing relevant content on the social web even more important for brands that are active in this space. Here is a checklist for brands to keep in mind with Social Search;
– Expand the social media monitoring fishnet to include all products and categories for their business – check out SM2 by Techrigy (we use them).
– Dedicate some man-power to engage with users on the social web and deal with negative social mentions timely.
– Encourage customers to create and share content for products and categories. It appears that most types of social content is searchable, including blog posts, tweets, videos, pictures, etc..
Google Search seems to have fallen perfectly in the time-line of new products from Google – and is likely to be a key component to Google Wave and the centralization of content. For now, brands have just one more reason to keep tabs of their reputation online.
Coverage Gone Bad
As all PR professionals know, in the final weeks, days and moments of magazine closing or TV spot shooting, sometimes coverage is lost due to unmanageable circumstances. Colors don’t match in a photo, sizes don’t fit models perfectly, or segment times get cut. One never knows, but all I can say is that I am really glad none of my clients were supposed to show up on this Today Show segment, becuase how do you tell your client their product wasn’t shown to over 2 million people because drunk Ewoks went crazy during the live taping.
Ski Fitness Euro Style
During these last few weeks of pre-ski season weather and shoulder season depression, many mountain town locals get creative with their training. Lunges in the kitchen, balance boards in the family room, squats at the gym.
Here is another idea, all you need is a bike and an empty gym. I hear its good for the core and the hamstrings.