Old Dogs and New Tricks
Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back
Chinese proverb
I am living proof that old dogs can learn new tricks. Of course, much of what I’ve learned over the past four months as Penserra’s inaugural Director of Marketing and Communication (or as my Penserra colleagues like to say, “Director of Mac and Cheese”) is common knowledge to the overwhelming majority of the human race. Take my first assignment, for example. Tasked with creating a dazzling format for the new Penserra Perspective, our firm’s monthly newsletter, I fumbled my way trying to construct a template using Microsoft Word. I mistakenly believed I had reached some level of proficiency with Word after having penned a novel and over a thousand blog posts. But after three fruitless hours gnashing my teeth and achieving nothing more than the centering of the title, a bearded, bearish millennial named Anand Desai took pity on The Old Man Next Door and politely asked, “Hey Geiger, why aren’t you using Publisher?”
“Publisher?” I asked, my face wearing an AARP-approved mask of Baby Boomer quizzicality. “What’s Publisher?”
Anand ambled over to my desk, took control of my mouse and within seconds I was staring at a blank publishing document. “Microsoft Publisher, dude. You know, the publishing app that’s on every version of Microsoft Office on the planet.” I had never heard of Microsoft Publisher. And why would I? I’m a stock trader, domesticated on trading desks where the crucible of all knowledge lies in knowing that bids are on the left, offers are on the right, and lunch is consumed at your desk in two minutes or less.
Fast forward to a rainy day in March. I’m on the phone with Roxana Moolla, the founder of Pryme Group, a full-service social media agency providing social media services to regulated businesses. A cauliflower ear sprouts from the side of my head while Roxana, an intelligent, striking woman with more than 20 years of technology, digital marketing and social media experience working with Fortune 500s, mid-market and startup companies, unravels the mysteries of a keyword planner she’s constructed as part of her social media consultation project for Penserra. “It’s all about finding the right balance between ‘average monthly searches’ and ‘keyword competition,’” she says with the patience of a kindergarten teacher explaining the complexities of finger painting (little does Roxana know that I flunked finger painting…twice). “When you get down to it, choosing the right keyword combination is as much art as it is science.”
Memo to Roxana; I know less about art than I do science. For most of my life I thought E= MC2 was the seductive Wall Street formula for Euphoria equals My Cash-squared. And I know even less about the magic surrounding digital marketing “keywords.” Laid before my 58-year old eyes on an Excel spreadsheet are nearly 700 one, two and three-word keyword phrases, each one accompanied by a string of numbers generated by some soulless algorithm. Pick the right keywords and I’m on the road to Google search heaven. Pick the wrong ones and I might as well have taken the dollars Penserra’s invested in Roxana (and, for all intents and purposes, me) and set them on fire. And to think that just six short months ago the only keyword combo I cared about was “shuffleboard cruises.”
To maximize my immersion into the world of social media minutia, I thought it would be prudent to enroll in an online social media class offered through Arizona’s Yavapai College and taught by Jeri Denniston, who also happens to be my sister-in-law. Professor Denniston’s class was extremely helpful, and her videos filled a few gaps and reinforced many of the lessons delivered by Roxana. One suggestion Jeri made resonated above all the rest, especially when it comes to Youtube videos and podcasting. “If you can’t find a media for your product or service,” she expounds in one of her videos, “then make one.” Great advice. Then again, it’s hard to know what you’re supposed to know when you don’t know what you’re supposed to know. You know?
Did I mention I’m now a closet web designer? That statement qualifies as fake news, but I have learned enough about WordPress website platforms to make myself dangerous. Again, much of the credit goes to Roxana, who after twelve weeks of guiding me through the minefields of Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook become my unofficial digital media Jedi Master. You haven’t lived until you’ve experience the unbridled exhilaration as Roxana guides you through a website optimization exercise and the SEO page score indicator light changes from gray (no bueno) to green (BOOYAH!).
But just because I helped redesign Penserra’s website and took responsibility for building the firm’s social media platform, don’t believe for a nano second that I’ve become social and digital media savvy. For those keeping score at home, I now have a personal Instagram account, and to date I’ve posted EXACTLY one picture.
But wait until you’ve seen what I’ve done with my Myspace page!
P.S- In case anyone’s interested and wants to know what I’ve been writing about lately, click on the links below to articles I’ve posted on Penserra’s website.
- What, Me Worry? — Warning: Inflating Our Way Out of Debt With Demand-Pull Inflation Can Be Hazardous To Your Wealth
- XIV Killed the ETN Star— Betting on VIX Volatility: It Worked Until It Didn’t Work
- Lost in Transition—Portfolio Transition Management in 2018
P.S.S.- And if you’ve read this far, feel free to click the links below to view my social and digital media masterpieces.