Categories: Articles

8 Things You Didn't Know About Me

I’m getting tagged all over the place for this 8 Things You Don’t Know About Me Blog chain letter thing. I already took part in a similar one back in December 2006 – Five Things Meme – Tag, Who’s Next?. This time time, I got tagged by Collin Douma at Radical Trust and Dave Fleet over at Fleet Street. I usually don’t like these types of link baiting activities, but I have to admit that I really do love reading what others reveal.

Here are 8 more things you didn’t know about me:

1. I love watching G4 Tech TV. I’m not a big TV guy, and I actually don’t own any video game platforms, but watching that channel makes me feel "in the loop."

2. I’m a huge fan of Heavy Metal and Hard Rock music. I grew up on bands like Kiss, Van Halen, Metallica, Anthrax and Iron Maiden. I still, sometimes, crank the old tunes. Yup. I was (still am) a headbanger.

3. Prior to Twist Image, I started a record label – Distort Entertainment – with a business partner. We signed the band, Alexisonfire. A little while after I left the label to do the Twist Image thing, the band broke big. They’ve gone platinum-plus, have released their discs in multiple countries and have won both Juno and MuchMusic Awards over the years. It gives me a huge sense of pride to watch their success.

4. I keep secrets very well. Both mine and other people’s.

5. I don’t like nature. I’m terribly bad at outdoor stuff like camping, skiing, hiking, etc… I’m way more of a Concrete Jungle type of cat.

6. I can’t cook to save my life. I’m not even sure how to boil water. Not being able to cook is one of my greatest regrets.

7. I play the electric bass and some guitar. I even studied the electric bass in the Music program at the college level. I played in a couple of bands and have performed live – but nothing major. I still have both an electric bass and an acoustic guitar in my home office that I, occasionally, strum.

8. I love shopping. Everything from shopping malls to flea markets. I can’t walk by a Future Shop, Best Buy or Indigo Books without walking in. This includes clothing stores too (black only… but that, you knew ;). I love the smell of commerce in the morning (to quote the movie, Mallrats).

To keep the linkbaiting going, here are the eight people I’m tagging (let’s hope they all take part and tag eight more people) – Chris Brogan – Julien Smith – Hugh McGuire – Casey McKinnon – Avinash Kaushik – Bryan Eisenberg – Joseph Jaffe – Shel Holtz.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.