Categories
Design General

Belong to Universe

Making new friends during a pandemic is a bizarre experience.

For me, the few I have are people I have connected with during unusually raw evening Zoom calls between friends. These are usually scenarios where we all sit, and drink, and muse about the world from our respective desks or kitchens.

There is an honesty and a vulnerability to these calls. When we’re spending so much time in isolation alone with our thoughts, there seems to be a lot less BS when talking with friends, and much deeper topics can be discussed.

This is how I met Maud.

In the little bit I’ve gotten to know Maud, she is a smart, quick-witted, and clever person who loves professional soccer, German culture, and ska music. It’s surprising we didn’t know each other sooner.

The other thing I know is that Maud lost her father suddenly to COVID-19 back in April.

As a way to honor her father, she has worked with JL Murtaugh of NO GRAND to create a mask and soccer scarf combo to raise money for causes important to her.

In her own words:

And so, I started a project. A way to channel my memories of my father, and my father’s memories, and my love and concern for those around me. A way to celebrate what my father loved about me and what I loved about my father. A way to celebrate the people who have been so kind to me, so kind to my family, and so kind to my father.

When my father was taken from his home, on the block he moved to nearly fifty years before, he went to the hospital and came back thirteen days later in a lacquered wood box. In the time in between, I spent hours on the phone with countless medical workers with such depths of empathy in their communication. I am so thankful to them. I hold an immense debt of gratitude to the overwrought funeral director who spoke to me with such honesty and ease. I have encountered immense humanity, and I have been alone, in my own home, for over six weeks now.

I asked JL Murtaugh to help me turn all this sentiment into something tangible. I told him stories of my father’s appreciation for and association with Buckminster Fuller. I told him about my father’s early career as a photographer, developing his own photographs of the Mies van der Rohe buildings on the IIT campus to be published in the Chicago Tribune. I told him how my father would sketch blueprints on scratch paper at the kitchen table and had a concrete mixer in our garage for experiments in Brutalism. Liam had previously created designs based on Betrand Goldberg and Frank Lloyd Wright. I knew he understood how I learned to understand Chicago from my father.

I am truly honored and astounded by what NO GRAND has created.

I can personally attest that the scarves look tremendous and the masks are some of the best we own. You can see some photos below (including one of my dog Marla modeling the scarf) and place your order via this Google form.

I’m grateful that I’ve had the chance to get to know Maud (from a distance.) The artists and inventors that her father appreciated are ones that inspire me as well. I am honored that I was one of the first people to receive a set and, if you’re anything like me I believe it is one that you may appreciate as well.

There are only a few left so don’t sleep on it.

Categories
Business Chicago General Technology

Congratulations to ActiveCampaign on 100K Customers

Today ActiveCampaign announced they had surpassed 100,000 customers and over $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

When I joined the company in 2013, we were a team of 10 in a tiny office downtown. At that point, we were still transitioning from a downloadable software to a software-as-a-service model and had not yet launched the company’s flagship automation builder that would go on to spike our insane growth path.

Something that has set ActiveCampaign apart from its competitors is its dedication to customer care. Although the company has changed dramatically, and not EVERY practice has scaled (at one point, I would designate a half-hour at the end of every day to handwrite a personal thank you card to every customer who purchased an enterprise account) the team’s commitment to being customer-centric has never wavered. I believe if they can keep that as their guiding light, they will continue to find success.

I’m incredibly proud of the product I built at AC, but I’m even more proud of the fantastic customers and colleagues I helped in the process.

The company released this video this morning, which inspired me to write something. The video not only features a photo with me in it but a few that I shot while working there. It made me smile, and I’m proud to share it. Congrats to the whole ActiveCampaign team. Here’s to 100,000 more!

Cheers!

Categories
General

May Day Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

Since I was a child, I have loved baking. In particular, I’ve loved chocolate chip cookies. Ruth Wakefield‘s Toll House recipe is an inspiration. Since 2010 I have been playing with Ruth’s recipe to put my spin on it. Amusingly after starkly diverging from it at first, the final product has organically come full circle back to its roots with many similarities to that recipe.

It’s hard to beat the best, but after many test batches and tweaks, I’ve finally gotten it to a place that I feel is ready to share with the rest of the world. I’ll let you be the judge.


May Day Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies
by John Morrison

Yield: 48 cookies
Cook time: 10 minutes
Prep time: ~3 hours (including chilling)
Baking temperature: 375°

½ cup bacon fat
½ cup (1 stick) of unsalted butter at room temperature
½ cup wildflower honey
¾ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 shot bourbon (~3 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 ¼ cups dark chocolate chips

  1. Combine butter and bacon fat in a large bowl and mix in an electric mixer on low until creamy and combined
  2. Add honey and brown sugar gradually. Beat until light and fluffy ~3 minutes. Make sure to scrape down the bowl as needed.
  3. Beat in vanilla, bourbon, and eggs one at a time and scrape down the bowl as needed. Add baking soda and beat into the mixture at low speed.
  4. Add ⅓ the flour and mix on low speed. Gradually add remaining flour until blended.
  5. Stir in chocolate chips.
  6. Cover bowl and chill for at least 1 hour in the fridge.
  7. Preheat oven to 375º
  8. Scoop generously rounded tablespoons 2 inches apart on silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
  9. Bake at 375° until golden brown around the edges. (Approximately 10 minutes on a baking sheet ~9 on parchment)
  10. Remove from the oven and place cookies on a cooling rack for 10 minutes.
  11. Enjoy!

Notes: I usually get my dark chocolate from Blommer. I prefer to buy the ‘Alpine Dark’ broken ends and break them up further to use as chocolate chunks, but chips work excellently as well.

As far as the bourbon is concerned, I usually use whatever we have on hand. I don’t usually use Four Roses Single Barrel, but I did for this batch because it’s my favorite bourbon, and this batch is special to me.

You’ll notice there is no salt in the recipe, that is because the bacon fat should supply more than enough salt by itself. If you’re looking for an excellent way to make perfect bacon while preserving the grease I recommend checking out Dan Benjamin’s Bacon Method.

I landed on the “May Day” name because May 1st (aka International Worker’s Day) was the day I finally ‘froze’ the recipe and because I prefer to it with all local ingredients when possible.

I’d like to give shout outs to Gorden Tebo, Weien Wang, Rocco Palladino, Sean Wolter, Kellen Terret, Doctor Susan Brown, and Will Goodwin of Spoken Cafe. Over the years, each of these folks gave me feedback, advice, or inspiration that helped make this into something I’m very proud of.

Finally, a special thank you to my mother, Susan Morrison, for fostering my love of baking and my love of cookies in particular. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. Your share will be in the mail tomorrow.

Thank you all.

Categories
Chicago General Photography

Returning to the Impossible

An Polaroid-style instant photograph depicting the statue of Abraham Lincoln in Chicago's Lincoln Square neighborhood.
Lincoln Square, Chicago – 1 April 2020

From January 1, 2012 to January 1, 2014 I took a single instant photograph a day every day with a vintage Polaroid camera and ‘Impossible Project’ instant film. And then I stopped.

With all of this corona virus stuff going on, and us all trapped at home, and many of us unemployed, I figured it was time to start creating again.

To maintain my physical and mental health I’ve been cycling daily throughout Chicago (don’t worry, I’ve been wearing a mask and gloves, and keeping proper social distance from everyone else) so I decided to pull out some of my instant cameras and start sharing what I see with the world.

So, ‘The Impossible Year’ is back… for now. We’ll see how long I keep it up.

This content will be posted primarily to Tumblr via the original blog: https://theimpossibleyear.com but I’ll also be cross sharing it to Twitter and Facebook as well. I hope you’ll join me.

Cheers,

John

Categories
Business General

Reflections – Part 1

Surrender
Surrender
But don’t give yourself away
.

In Mid-2018, five years after joining ActiveCampaign as employee number 10, I was running a team of 15 people as the company’s product manager for mobile.

The past five years had felt like a blur. We had recently hit several company milestones, and I had hit several career ones. We had just launched our first iPhone app, and I was preparing to present at the company’s first-ever Activate conference, where I would announce two more mobile apps.

Cheap Trick’s ‘Surrender’ was booming through the event hall as I snuck backstage to catch my breath and reflect.

My job had changed a ton, as had the company, and there was so much to be proud of, but I was miserable. 

I wasn’t sleeping. I was tired and sore all the time, some days to the point where I couldn’t walk. To make matters worse, I was two months away from getting married and majorly behind on planning. I had been pouring so much of my time and energy into the job that I had entirely neglected myself. 

I had given up all of my individual creative pursuits and hobbies, shut down my previously vibrant LLC, quit boards, and community groups I was passionate about, and almost entirely disappeared from my friend circles. Long overdue doctor’s appointments were put off as well as surgeries, and I had been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Hypothyroidism. Still, I hadn’t been following up with my doctors to take care of it properly.

Quite simply, I was far from the best version of myself: I was suffering from a serious case of burnout. 

After consulting with leadership and my fiancé, I concluded that it was time for a change.

Six weeks before my wedding, I announced I would be leaving the company.

I didn’t have much of a plan, but I knew what I had to do: Extend our honeymoon, book a ton of doctor’s appointments, and take care of myself.

To be continued…