Hey Chipper, back off ;-)

My wife and I are frequent contributors to Make-A-Wish Foundation driven by the fact that they were helpful to my wife and her family when her niece had inoperable surgery which eventually took her very short life.

Every time I make our annual donation I do use my wife's name as although we both believe in the incredible works they do, it impacted her the most.

This morning, we got a request to donate and the celebrity involved with that request was former Atlanta Braves star, Chipper Jones.

For those of us old enough to remember, in 1997/98, Chipper had some large personal issues involving substances and infidelity, the latter resulting in the birth of a child. He strayed with a Hooters waitress and the rest is history. He didn't have a great reputation when all of this happened and opposing and some home fans were merciless around the ballpark.

So my surprise this morning was a personalized email to my wife from Chipper (yes, it's just mail merge, but hey, my brain works in very different, ADHD ways).

If this were the late 90s, I'd be wondering what's going on here with this guy hitting on my wife who definitely didn't work at Hooters at that time. But it's a great lesson in that people get healthier, address their demons and move on with life. The fact that he's volunteering and providing his name, image and likeness to Make-A-Wish to help raise money is fantastic and a sign that he's in a good place.

But as someone in Market Research/Brand Equity, there's still a bunch of us out here who "remember when" (I know, that's Pepperidge Farms) Chipper wasn't a good guy.

Oh well, off to make a donation!!

The glass slipper has shattered, Cinderellas no more?

The Athletic's Jordan Brenner posted some nice thoughts about whether or not the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament's Cinderellas are dead.

In the end, I think Jordan is feeding us what the NCAA would love for us to feel but I think it misses the main point.

We LOVE Cinderellas because they, as a small or mid-market institution of higher learning find magic in a bottle for 1-3 weeks of play during March/April. Just plucking them from those "Davids" and inserting them into "Goliath" isn't the same at all.

I'm loving seeing Iowa make it through the first weekend in 27 years, not because I went there, but because I have so many close friends and family who have. But without NIL allowing Head Coach Ben McCollum to pluck most of his stars from Drake and move them 114 miles East is unheard of in recent history. Cinderella is having them all at Drake and making the magic.

I do not begrudge NCAA athletes now having the opportunity to earn money that their Universities made off of them for half a century. But we cannot just say it's now lift and place and voila, Iowa is a Cinderella.  Iowa, loaded and strapped with all kinds of NIL cash, still far less than many other Universities, will NEVER be a Cinderella when it comes from a Big 5 conference. It's the antithesis of Cinderella in all of its forms.

VCU, George Mason, Butler (who beat VCU), Davidson with Steph Curry, 2025 McNeese, Florida Gulf Coast, Loyola Chicago (in 2018 AND 1963) and St. Peters.  The casual fan has never heard of some of these places but Bracket-Heads all over definitely have. These are the schools that, when matched up against a 1-5 seed, you love to watch them get all scrappy and bring their brand of hoops that got them there, to the national stage.

Cinderellas literally prove that scene from Hoosiers where the rim is still 10 feet high and the free throw line is 15 feet from the basket and it doesn't matter how much "space" there is above and around that 4700 square feet of floor, it's the same as it is in your practice facility. Perspective.

I do think the era of NIL is pushing Cinderellas to the side line. Their slippers never to be returned by their March Madness Prince and cut-pasting a mid-major into an SEC, Big18, ACC, Big XII conference team will NOT suffice.

3rd to last quarterly delivery

Today starts my third to last quarterly delivery cycle for my large global client.

On the heels of a not-so-great Q4'25 delivery, we're under major scrutiny to deliver flawlessly for Q1'26. In most businesses, you're only as good as your last delivery, and we absolutely need to turn the corner.

The pressure is on for the next eight business days until dashboard and automated report release. We've added on to our internal QC efforts and I've spent a lot of extra time reviewing the status of every study so that data processing team knows exactly what they are supposed to do. We've added in an extra set of eyes to review some priority markets and some additional ones to ensure that everything comes out perfect.

Over the years, I have learned to not micromanage unless it's absolutely necessary. If you continue to micromanage everyone, they become completely dependent upon YOU for every single thing they do and that's just not sustainable.

This becomes even more important in the fact that after the next quarter, I'll be working with current staff to start transitioning some of my responsibilities during these high delivery periods so that by the time I DO sign off for the last time, everyone is fully trained and up to speed to carry on in my stead.

I've fallen behind on my 'historical documentation' document which is being created not only as a reference source but, by nature of where it will be eventually posted, completely CoPilot enabled and searchable. Other than changes in structure of the business and research methods, I'm hopefully capturing all of the mistakes we've made along the way to serve as warning signs along the highway of this program.

It's not all mistakes, it's also "things learned under the internal design structure" as well. Companies like ours will build largely automated ways to deliver research programs at scale and often times they rarely discuss the nuances of massive, global clients and don't "bake-in" critical items that are not just requirements but "mandatory features" that our clients have come to accept.

Fun times. Here's hoping that in a few weeks, there are minimal complaints or concerns from our clients on our delivery.

The Final Countdown

The final countdown is upon us, there are now 365 days left until retirement.

My hopes are that, although this blog has been mostly dead for many years now, I can journal my way through the highs and lows of winding down a full time career in the Market Research Industry. The need to continue to service clients external and internal. The need to cross-train someone new to lead the Operations on the global accounts. The emotional journey of goodbye and farewell to some who I've worked with my entire career, as well as those who I've grown close to in just 6-8 years most recently.

Aiming for a post a week, but depending on what's going on, maybe more or maybe less.

My wife retires in just 14 days!!!  She's beating me to the finish line but this has been our goal since we got married almost 21 years ago.

What lays ahead is definitely some massive research into health insurance (we'll have a gap until Medicare), financial discipline and seeing our spawn head off to college since he'll be graduating in just 60 days!!

And, although I may be retiring from the career that has defined my life, I still may dabble in something part-time to see if I can snag some insurance or just to keep myself active. Who knows.

We do have a cool vacation coming up in September to Grenada, and a couple months after my retirement next year, we're doing 2 luxury weeks in Jamaica to celebrate.

The clock is now ticking, but in a very positive way.