Me and a few of the ladies of St. Patricks, Class of 1984
Just a random point of discussion that I have to extend into an infamous EOT blog rant.
Last night I had an 8th grade reunion with a handful of classmates after almost 25 years of love, life and growing up. It was a complete blast.
Since I recently (2008) had my 20 year high school reunion, it seemed like a great idea to go even further back into the Gully (my nickname) archive and reconnect with my Catholic school chums to get caught up and reconnected.
I wasn’t disappointed. As fellow EOT’er David Binkowski said after I Tweeted a picture of my female classmates, “Looks like you’re hanging with a bunch of MILFs.” It was true for the most part. All of them looked great and had really cool husbands to boot.
At a time when manhood is in serious trouble, it was refreshing to hang out with my classmates husbands all of whom were cool and normal guys.
As I was catching up with the class of 1984, one of my first crushes as a young guy, Crystal (I’ll spare her last name so you perverts don’t bother her), started talking about spending time on the phone as teens. She mentioned how I had called one night and used an emergency breakthrough to try and get to talk to her. I had a total 1983 flashback and was flabbergasted.
Do you remember the emergency breakthrough?Before the days of call waiting, caller ID and cell phones, if someone was on the phone, you got a busy signal. The only way you could interrupt a call was to call the operator and ask for an emergency breakthrough. I can’t remember what it cost but I do remember this boy’s raging hormones trying to make time with some of the plaid-skirt clad chicas from my escuela.
This was a detail I had completely forgotten. Me in all my technology-loving zest didn’t remember the low-tech way to cut in on another boy’s girl. Once I heard it, the memories flooded back. I remember doing it both successfully and unsuccessfully. Man, I was a stupid oaf back then. Classic.
My wife Elie remembers it but didn’t seem to be as excited to remember as I was. Again, me being a dork.
Then I started delving deeper. It was funny to think about how creative we had to be just a short 25 years ago. Today, our kids have so many ways to contact each other they’d never need something like emergency break though to get a hold of someone.
Do you have emergency breakthrough stories? If you do, please share in the comments. Or was I just a complete dork?
Follow Scott on Twitter @prgully or email him at scott@everyotherthursday.com. His personal blog, where he writes about public relations and social media, is www.scottgulbransen.com. Just don’t bitch to him because he has a very strong pimp hand.
As the Director of Social Media at tax giant H&R Block, Scott Gulbransen recently returned to the tax business after previously spending 1o years at rival Intuit working on the TurboTax & Quicken brands. He brings 16 years as a marketing communications professional, and 11 tax seasons, with him to H&R Block and was responsible for the launch of many key social initiatives at Intuit before leaving in 2010. A strategic thinker and business problem solver, Gulbransen has worked for some of the world’s top brands including TurboTax, Sony Online Entertainment, and Applebee’s.
In 2010, Gulbransen became the first Director of Social Media & Digital Content for Applebee’s, creating the first-ever social media strategy for the world’s largest casual dining chain. While at Applebee’s, Gulbransen lead a small but nimble team responsible for creating a robust and far-reaching social engagement channel for Applebee’s and its franchise community.
In addition to his professional accomplishments at the corporate level, Gulbransen is also a prolific blogger recently named as one of the Top 50 Daddy Bloggers in the US by Cision. Gulbransen was ranked #21.
As a member of the TurboTax communications and social media team for 10 years, Scott helped the TurboTax team launch and sustain the brand’s social media platform. He also drove and was responsible for the launch of TurboTax’s successful content strategy, including the launch of the TurboTax Blog. Recently, he launched one of the most significant social media campaigns in the brand’s history with the @TeamTurboTax Twitter project.
Gulbransen was instrumental in reinvigorating the Quicken brand almost entirely through the use of social media and, particularly, Twitter. By engaging with customers and influencers who talk about personal finance on Twitter, he and his team helped Quicken Online grow from just 200,000 users in October 2008 to over 1.4 Million in just 10 months. This led to a more focused look at the personal finance space for Intuit and, ultimately, the acquisition of Mint.com.
A former print journalist, who, after realizing his paychecks from the newspaper industry weren’t going to get much bigger, turned to the Dark Side – public relations. After working in both college athletics and inside mid-size agencies, he joined Intuit in 2000 and Applebee’s in 2010. He is a graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and is the married father of five kids.
Despite his busy personal and professional life, Scott is a digital native who never strays far from social networking. To hassle Scott, or to tell him how great you think he is (or not!), email him at scott@scottgulbransen.com, add him to your Circles on Google+, or ping him on Twitter at @sdgully. Scott also is an editor and writer for Technorati.com.
