Amber Jacobs
After departing my agency gig of 26+ years and taking a couple months off to decompress, I decided to get back into the swing of things by meeting with old friends, clients, and colleagues I hadn’t seen in a while. Sure, the pandemic was part of the reason I hadn’t been in touch, but I’d also been heads down since forever. What better time than now to reconnect? My nascent idea was to invite people to coffee (or the occasional beer), find out what they were up to, and take a selfie to commemorate things. I had big ears and lots of questions. I was ready for learn what was inspiring them, energize myself, and maybe clarify my path forward. I posted about it on LinkedIn and eventually dubbed it the reconnect roadshow.
However, like the Beatles early recording sessions, my first attempts to capture this global phenomenon were inadequate. On July 4, 2021, I had my first meet up. It was with former GLG Media Director Joe Huber who had just accepted a new role at Edelman. I trust Joe’s intellect and cycling skills implicitly and I was ready for both. Joe was full of encouragement and names of people I should connect with as we cycled the Tour de Fourth, our moniker for the annual 4th of July ride around Lake Washington (in all honesty, it was only the south end of Lake Washington this time). Unfortunately, at the end of our great time riding and catching up, I forgot to take a picture of us. Then, a few days later, I caught up with Barry Devenny, former GLG interactive producer/director and co-founder or Modern Media. It was a fantastic meeting on the front porch of Fremont Coffee., full of solopreneur advice and brainstorming brand film ideas. But again I forgot to take a selfie of us at the end of it. Joe and Barry, thank you for piloting the concept and being so great to catch up with. My apologize for not capturing our meetings with a pic. If it’s any consolation, you two are the two sought-after lost sessions of the reconnect roadshow, no doubt the answer to a final Jeopardy! question in the future.
My third meeting was July 8, 2021 with Amber Jacobs of Amber Design, at The Loft Coffee Bar in Everett. Amber was a member of the GLG creative team for a short while early in her career. Since then, I’d kept up with her posts on LinkedIn, which always showed great enthusiasm and spirit. My conversation with Amber was fantastic and left me mesmerized at her can-do spirit, focus, and capabilities as a small business owner. I knew she is a fine designer but I could now see that she was a GREAT business person. After an hour, it was time to go. I had a meeting to get to. As I walked out of the coffee shop, energized by the conversation, it hit me. I had AGAIN forgotten to take a picture. This would not do. I was a block away and late for another meeting, yet I ran back to The Loft and caught Amber before she had left. I took the selfie of us. It was great. A couple days later I posted it on LinkedIn. My first installment of the reconnect roadshow is below, mostly a short shout out to Amber.
“Awesome meeting today with Amber Jacobs of Amber Design. Amber is an injection of life adrenaline! Her energy, creativity, and business smarts are amazing. No wonder her business is booming, check it out at https://lnkd.in/gWASA7X #design #logodesign #visualdesign #branding”
What this first post lacked in length it more than made up for impact. Amber’s colleagues and clients jumped in to like it, a few of mine did as well. There was something about this format that was different on LinkedIn. And I loved catching up with cool people and sharing it out. The reconnect roadshow had begun.