Shane Life

This originally appeared as a guest post on Zach and Simon’s Westside Studio blog.

I’ve always loved taking pictures. I actually even won an award for my sports photography in high school for the Blue Valley Northwest yearbook (back before these fancy DSLRs, I shot on film and developed it myself). I’ve done my best to continue to shoot photographs throughout my adult life, but oftentimes the busy day can hinder the ability to get out there and shoot. I got out of the habit of having a camera with me, so even when I’d see stuff that I wanted to photograph, I wouldn’t have anything with me at all.

About a year ago I read about this photographer named Chase Jarvis who was somehow managing to get some crazy shots out of his simple 3-megapixel iPhone camera. I’m not sure if it was him who coined the phrase (Jarvis has since trademarked it and subsequently released a book, iPhone app and website), but he said:

The best camera is the one you have with you.

When I started working for AMC, I began spending the lunch hour walking around downtown Kansas City with my friend Justin and I began to notice some of the really interesting shots that I might be able to get if only I had my camera with me.

So I started bringing it with me everyday. I just got a new DSLR last year, the Canon Rebel T1i, and I have a nice compact sling bag that make it pretty easy for me to carry the camera, a flash and a couple lenses. I found that I was being drawn to the interesting typography and signage of Kansas City. One of the first shots I remember taking was this sign outside the parking garage at 1025 Main Street. First off, I’m a sucker for Clarendon and most slab serif typefaces. I always thought this was such and interesting choice for a parking garage.

Then behind my office, I found this fabulous Union Carbide Building.

I began to realize that I was being really inspired by James Patrick Gibson‘s New Type York. I began to wonder if I’d be able to start a Kansas City-focused type photoblog. After a day or two and some encouragement on Twitter, I found there was enough audience and interest. Plus, there was definitely enough typography to shoot.

So armed with Tumblr and Twitter, I started KCType.com. I haven’t had a lot of time to spend on designing the template or worrying too much about the details, I’ve just been out there shooting in the places where I find myself on a day-to-day basis. I’ve had a couple guest posts from my brother and my friends Ramsey, Phil and Steve, but there is so much interesting typography and signage in this city to shoot that I rarely have trouble posting on a daily basis.

Usually, I’m shooting with one of two lenses: either my Canon fixed 50mm f/1.4 lens (which is freaking amazing) or a 75-300mm zoom lens that I’ve had for about 15 years. One reason I continue to stick with Canon is because I’ve got so much invested in lenses now that it would be silly for me to switch.

If there’s one piece of advice I could give to people wanting to get into photography (even though I’m grossly underqualified to give photography advice), it’s that you should always have a camera with you. You never know when you’ll have the opportunity for a great shot and there is amazing stuff all around us, even in something as simple as typography and signage.

See more of my pictures on Flickr. Also, be sure to check out my KC Type blog.

One of the main reasons I was able to get my awesome new job at AMC was my connection with their social media manager extraordinaire, Justin Gardner. Justin and I have become friends over the past couple years and we have now been working together for almost 2 months.

I was so thrilled to be able to watch as he and Trevor Hawkins of MAMMOTH MEDIA worked to premiere their short film, We Will Make You Whole Again on Tuesday night at AMC Mainstreet. The trailer:

For these guys, this has been a labor of love, a film that they’ve been working on for the past two years. Completely shot in Kansas City (with KC actors and an amazing score by KC’s Olympic Size) on a Nikon DSLR camera (a pretty cool feat unto itself).

The movie is really great. They’ve did a terrific job telling a compelling story about 6 strangers that feel disconnected from the world and each other because of things like age, race, sexuality, gender, language and culture, while revealing the common, everyday actions and emotions that unite them all. I was really proud of my friend Justin and his film. For someone to get out there and create something…that’s something to admire. (Not surprising for someone married to an artist who is constantly creating work that requires her whole self.)

Give the trailer a look and become a fan of the film on Facebook. Justin and Trevor are currently prepping the movie to be available for purchase via digital download and are scheduling other screenings in Kansas City. The Facebook page is the best place to find information.

Whether you do it this way or in your own way, art is such an important of education and communities. Please support art in Kansas City or your own community.

Today, February 19th marks my final day of employment at Cerner Corporation. I’ve spent just under a year here as a member of the Online Marketing team. Like I blogged previously, I am leaving the company to take what is in many ways a dream job for me: Community Manager at AMC. I’ve received an outpouring of support from my wife, my family, close friends, my church, the readers of this blog, my followers on Twitter and my friends on Facebook. Even the people that I work with at Cerner have been amazingly supportive (despite now having a rather large awesomeness void to fill) and they know how well-suited I am for this position and how much I’m looking forward to it.

All told, I’m really overwhelmed by the support that people have given me.

And as easy of a decision it may have seemed from the outside, you should know that I struggled at times. See, despite what everyone says, Cerner is a really good place to work. I wasn’t really actively searching for this position. In a lot of ways, it found me. But when your dream job comes knocking, you open the freaking door.

Unfortunately, that meant that I had to close a door at Cerner. During a time of uncertainty last year, I was given an amazing opportunity to join a great team at an industry-leading company that is poised to have a huge next several years. And not only that, but I got to do work that I was proud of, that I was good at, and that I enjoyed:

• I worked on the team that launched uCern, Cerner’s collaboration platform for its clients and partners.
• I led the social media efforts for the company during their annual health conference last October.
• I helped write the best practices for all Cerner associates as they get engaged in new social, collaborative platforms and channels.
• And most recently, I’ve been able to work on another large web initiative with some of my professional design and development idols, Happy Cog Studios.

It was that work that made my experience different than the one that had been described by all the friends I worked with at Perceptive Software that had left Cerner with a sour taste in their mouths. My experience was very positive. I worked with smart people on great projects and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s true that Cerner expects the best out of its associates, but that’s one of the keys to their success. Having an open mind when I was hired gave me the right expectation.

To all my Cerner friends, I salute you. You made going to work enjoyable and rewarding. To the Online Marketing team — Sara, Jake, David, Lance and Jason — keep crushing it. You guys have been a blast to work with. If it were any other position at any other company, I would not be leaving.

But as they say…”it is what it is…”

I’ve had this thing to share with you that I haven’t been able to share and it’s been killing me.

Last year around this time, I was unemployed. In all honesty, I was very fortunate to only be out of work for about three months before joining Cerner in March of 2009. I didn’t get a big severance package when the company I worked for laid me off, so that unemployment came in handy for the few meager months. Those few months were actually pretty fun. I got to hang out with Alli and Dreyfuss a lot. Saw a lot of movies.

During that time, I got more and more active in the Social Media Club of Kansas City. It was through the SMCKC, Twitter and this blog that I got into touch with Justin Gardner, the social media guru at AMC. Justin got me into a preview of the then-new Fork & Screen concept at the Olathe AMC and last February (in fact, almost a year ago exactly), I got to attend AMC’s Best Picture Showcase.

Now if you’ve followed this blog or you follow me on Twitter or Tumblr or Facebook or if you know me in real life, you know that I’ve got a crazy passion for movies. I love the experience of going to the theatre. I love blockbusters, independent films, dramas, comedies, romances…pretty much everything but horror flicks.

For the past ten years, I’ve worked for a software company, a (now-defunct) financial services company, and a healthcare company. The next ten years (and hopefully many more after that) will be spent working for an entertainment company.

Yep. I’m leaving Cerner to go to work at AMC as their Community Manager.

That’s right. Me. AMC. Movies. Internet. AWESOMENESS.

It’s not every day that your dream job falls in your lap.

Working at Cerner for the past year has been a great experience. I’ve worked with an amazing team on some important projects. I have made some terrific friends along the way. The Marketing organization is full of talented individuals who have elevated me and made going to work enjoyable. I’m proud of what I accomplished over the past 11 months. I leave feeling good about what I’ve contributed and knowing that the projects I have worked on are in good hands.

But it’s show time.

I hear you, Jake.

I’m well aware of the lack of actual blogging that I have done lately. I really feel disconnected to everything outside of work, home, Alli and Dreyfuss. The only thing I am positive of outside of those things is that in football, the Chiefs stink worse than my fantasy football team, the Long Haired Hippies.

At work, they call isolated focus “being in a silo”. So I guess this is me just looking outside.

The Cerner Health Conference is just around the corner and I am driving the CHC Connect blog and the Web 2.0 initiatives surrounding the conference. To do this, I have been given the services of an iPhone. DID YOU HEAR THAT? AN IPHONE.

In fact, I am writing this post from the free WordPress iPhone app.

So there’s that.

Evenings I come home and spend time with my favorite dog and the best wife ever.

It’s simple. But it’s a very good life.

Lots of stuff going on at work. Trying to make things happen…and FAST.

Looking forward to the day off tomorrow and the 3-day birthday weekend for the Best. Wife. Ever.

I got interviewed on Monday by Whitney at Spiral16 about some of the exciting projects I’ve been working on in the four months since I joined Cerner. It’s the start of a series that S16 is doing on their blog about people who work with social media every day, but don’t work for strategy or analysis agencies. It was exciting and nerve-racking to represent my employer this way, but I’m really pleased with how it all came out.

The interview is 16 minutes, but it’s all great stuff. [Spiral16 is] trying out a program that records Skype phone conversations, which explains the ugly watermark on the video.

If you interested in learning what I’ve been up to since I joined the Kansas City-based healthcare company, give it a watch. I talk about our exciting new social network uCern, our efforts in Second Life and getting involved in social media at a large corporation. If you’re not interested, well…

Today, my employer held a blood and bone marrow registry drive in honor of an associate who was recently diagnosed with Leukemia. I volunteered for a couple hours at the bone marrow registry this morning and then took the five minutes to swab my cheeks to get on the list.

I took a quick lunch then headed down to make an automated blood donation, which is different, offering more flexibility to the blood center to respond more effectively to hospitals. As I understand it, the machine separates the blood into plasma, platelets and red blood cells as a part of the process. Obviously, it takes more fluid from your body than normal blood donation, so they put back saline in intervals during the process.

In addition, they use a needle the size of the tip of a pencil in order to keep from damaging the cells. It sucks. A lot. Especially when they struggle to find a vein, fishing around inside your arm.

But I got it going and was rocking through the donation, occupying myself by playing poker on my phone. The nurse came by to tell me that I was almost done.

Then it all went very very wrong.

First, on the saline return, I started to feel some pain. I looked down at my arm and realized that something was off. I was starting to get a bit of a bubble near the place where the needle was inserted. I called the nurse over, she did something on the machine and then hurried off. The pain subsided a little, but not completely. Another nurse came back with my original nurse and began fiddling with the machine and my arm, chiding the nurse for the amount of tape that she used on my arm. Not a good sign.

The fiddling with the machine and my arm went on for about 6-8 minutes. It ended with my nurse telling me that my vein had clotted up (not as bad as it sounds) and that I wasn’t pumping blood anymore.

This is what we in the business call: FAIL.

There are many things that suck about this.

1. The extra time I took was useless.
2. I am a universal donor.
3. The extra pain wasn’t worth it.
4. My 90%-full pint of blood, plasma and platelets: completely useless.
5. The nurses did not try to finish by pricking the other arm, instead they gave up completely.
6. I wasn’t able to help someone.

Honestly, #5 is the worst one. I feel like I really let down the anonymous person who would have received my blood. It sucks. But honestly, all of those things suck, most specifically #4 and #5.

Who wrote the rule that states you have to provide a completely full pint in order for your blood to be used? It is a dumb rule and really hurts everyone. Can someone explain that to me?

At least I managed to get on the bone marrow donor list, which is really what the drive was all about. Still, it would have been nice to be able to give blood as well.

And technically, I did. Just not enough.

No, this is not a post about the thunderstorms today.

I wore my Gary Vaynerchuk special Bringing the Thunder wristband to work today. I got it at Big Omaha.

And yes, I wore it all day long.

I wore it to remind me to bring the thunder. And I did. Mostly at least.