I just wrote this for the "About Me" section on my DailyBurn profile. I think that most people would hesitate to put such a long-winded, non-SEO friendly post on their profile - especially people involved in curating a community of hundreds of thousands of users. I mean, I talk about my mom for most of this post. But I know I am not crazy for doing this. I am real. The users are real. I even hate using the word "users" to describe people that I interact with on the web. "Real-ness" wins out everytime. The web is changing. People don't respond to "bots" who pump out seo linkbait shit. They want real. So here you go:
"About Me"
Long Version: I'm a techie triathlete living the dream in Colorado. I split my time between Denver and Boulder. I was born and raised in Maine and grew up fishing, gardening, and riding my bike everyday to elementary school.
I love my mom because she never let me quit any after school sport - even when I was last in the 1600m race (every time), only scored 2 points in my 2 year basketball career, and stared up at the clouds in the outfield during softball games while the ball rolled right past me. I am not a natural athlete, I'm a nerd. But my mom taught me to appreciate an active lifestyle by making food and fitness fun. For example, she would have my sister and I picking rhubarb in our grandmother's yard and a few short hours later, we would be eating delicious strawberry rhubarb pie. Manual labor is fun when you know that pie is on the way. She also instilled in me my "never say die" attitude (although I really really really wanted to quit softball). Now my mom comes to most of my races.
I spent a few years after high school living in the East Village of Manhattan. I started smoking because I was going to school to be a journalist and I thought all hardcore journalists smoked. Although the farmers market in Union Square was top notch, I missed the quit times and hiking trails of New England. I quit smoking. I moved home.
In Portland, ME I began working in the specialty food and beverage industry - first at a specialty coffee roaster/retailer and then in the wine industry. I got to meet some of the best chefs/brewers/bakers/organic farmers in the US. I would spend my entire paycheck on vintage cookbooks, local produce, imported specialty ingredients, prime cuts of meat and lobster fresh off the boat at the Portland docks. I taught myself to cook and I went out to the best restaurants in the city regularly just to taste the work of the chefs that I admired so greatly. I spent my days off reading Michael Pollan's work and Alice Waters' cookbooks. I obsessively did that for an entire year, and it was an investment in time/$ that I will never regret. That year informed my personal stance on food public policy and sustainable food systems.
In the middle of all that, I met a crazy guy from Wisconsin with the nickname "Waz" who was training for a triathlon called Ironman Wisconsin while his wife was an intern at Maine Medical Center. She was never at home, so he figured, as he told me, "Why not, I need something to do to pass the time". So I got a bike and started riding with him. I signed up for a sprint triathlon just to see if I could do it before I could even swim a full lap in a pool. I trained for 8 months while working 70 hr weeks and then I raced in my first triathlon. I was hooked and I haven't looked back. I will be completing my first half-Ironman this summer, and I hope to get my Level 1 USA Triathlon Coach Cert. next year. My current training interests include core workouts, weight training for endurance athletes, and low impact / recovery training.
I'm telling you all of this because I am a real person who believes that anyone can get in shape, get healthy, be happy, and have fun while doing it. Big, little, short, young, big, old, it doesn't matter. We all need to take care of both ourselves and each other. I would love to be your motivator while you are on this site.
My biggest motivator remains my mom - the person in my life who wouldn't let me quit.
Short Version: Tech, triathlon, gardening, don't quit, NYC is stupid, It's Waz's World, lobster = yum, mom is awesome.
What do you think - should a Community Manager be completely real and open, or just zip it and make people happy?
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