A Sitting Favre

“Like most Packer fans, I have seen lots of Brett Favre and can’t remember a single time he seemed like he wasn’t giving everything he had, which was usually pretty good. I guess that’s as good a tribute as any.” (Eugene Kane, MJS columnist, post on Facebook12/13/10)

I’m probably one of the last six Favre fans in Wisconsin. He’s a spoiled brat and a traitor. Now we can add sexting idiot to the list as well. If I was his wife or his mother, I’d cuff him upside the head.

But he was amazing to watch. So much so that Packer games would often find me off doing something else but a Vikings game would put me in my seat for the duration. Favre’s resilience, attitude, recklessness – faith in himself – I admired and loved all that. Watching him tackle the ball carrier after an interception — loved that.

I loved that there was no quit in Brett Favre. Not with a broken ankle, not when his father died, not when he ought to have retired.

So what’s my point? Eugene Kane’s Facebook post — I’m putting that on my bulletin board — as a reminder to never call it in, never do just enough. I think if we can give everything we have, it will usually be pretty good. And that is a really good tribute.

Brett Favre looks pretty pensive, sitting on the bench during last night’s game. I’m betting he’s sad and pretty uncomfortable watching the football game and having the world watch him watch the game. I don’t think, though, that he’s kicking himself because he didn’t play hard enough. That’s got to be a good feeling.

Sep 26

2010

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By J Wilberg

In communication, Facebook

TagsFacebook Luddite

Luddites are Boring

I find Luddites irksome. This, by the way, is a picture of a Luddite, one of those 19th century reactionaries who violently refused to adapt to new ways of manufacturing, new ways of thinking. Stuck. We’ve always done it this way, ergo we must continue same. Yuck.

So when I run into someone who says something like “I barely got used to doing email. I can’t handle Facebook,” I roll my eyes and look for the door. Even worse to me is the phrase, usually uttered by people who wouldn’t know busy if it sat on their lap and kissed them on the cheek, “I don’t have time to be on Facebook.”

Ok, I think. You have time to be irrelevant? Time to read the 10 Commandments on the original stone tablets? Fine. Be that way. I can’t be bothered.

Me. I like it in the 21st century. I love my desktop, laptop, Ipod Touch, Blackberry, email, website, blogs, and Facebook. (I’ve got a Twitter account but posting to it seems to put me in the far reaches of self absorbed, so that’s been left to go dormant.) I love hearing about what other people are doing and thinking; I love the access to people who I otherwise would never run into and would hesitate to call; and I love the challenge of finding something in my day/work/life worth posting.

My dad, who was a role model in a lot of weird and varied ways, went from using this 1930′s something Underwood typewriter to an IMac overnight. Honest to God. He was 89 years old when my mother died and I watched him type her obituary on this very typewriter. A couple of months later, in a fit of something, I bought him an IMac. Maybe I was surprised, not sure, but within 48 hours of delivery to his doorstep in Michigan, he fired me his first email. Then ensued a lot of back and forth. And this from a guy that I might talk to once a year on the phone. He chatted, made wisecracks, complained about his printer, talked about the weather, and, this is really important and wouldn’t have happened otherwise, encouraged me during very hard times with my children.

My dad was able to recognize that times had changed, that how people communicated had changed. That if he wanted to be in the loop, he needed to change it up. Park the Underwood. Try the new way. Get in the game. And not insist that the modernizing world double back and talk to him in Underwood language. Facebook wasn’t around when my dad was alive. I don’t know whether he’d had taken that step — but I’m not counting it out. He was smart, my dad, smart enough to know that you go where the action is if you want to stay in the game. There’s a message there for a lot of my business colleagues. It’s not cute and quaint being a Luddite. It actually takes you out of play — out of sight, out of mind. Now you don’t want that, do you?

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A Sitting Favre

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