Well apparently I was out of the office when the announcement was made, but I just found out that Blend (primarily Joe and Deane) are in SHARE! Magazine. They are talking about our experiences with eZ Publish as a CMS platform. It’s pretty cool that this company based out of Europe (Norway to be exact) looks to us as the eZ Publish experts of North America. (Really it’s Joe and we just follow along in his footsteps)
ROCKIN!
Last weekend I was spending the weekend out at Lisa’s parents in Paynesville, MN. It is really just the same as every small town in Minnesota. As everyone from a small town knows, in order to be considered a town (in the midwest)…you really only need two things… 1. A bar and 2. a church. After that, you’re officially a town!
One thing that I didn’t realize was something that made every small town in common, was the auction! On Saturday us guys headed down to a local auction while the ladies had a baby shower. It had been quite a few years since my last auction; however, it was really the same scene that it had been 10 years ago.
All of the local town people get together to chat and throw in their bid on whatever they may need or happen to have catch their eye at the auction. Half of the people there are really not there to buy anything in specific, but really just there for the social aspect. Now if they are serving chips and sloppy joes….it’s a party!
Now if you’re actually there to bid on something…you’ve really got to set your price before you get there. The auctioneers really have an uncanny ability to get people to start throwing out the next highest number to get that bid rolling and really 75% of the time a piece of machinery that is 20 years old will go for 80% of the price that you could buy a new piece of machinery.
But all in all it’s a great way to either get in some conversation with the guy down the road or…in my case a great way to step back into time.
I’ve been on a paintball kick lately (if you can’t tell) and I’m pretty sure it’s because it is getting closer to summer which for the last 7 or 8 years has meant primarily one thing….Paintball. And for the last 5 or 6 years it has meant, Tournament Paintball. This last winter I had a long conversation with my friend Reid about what a woodsballer is and what a tournament paintballer is. It’s an explanation I’ve made a thousand times so I figured I’d put it out here too.
For most people, paintball is paintball. They don’t know (and probably really don’t care) what the difference between what some people call Woodsball or Scenario Paintball and Speedball or Tournament Paintall.
Here is a quick overview of what someone is talking about when they refer to both of these styles of paintball. Read the rest of this entry »
I was thinking about this a couple weeks back when Deane and I got into a discussion about paintball. He was asking about my “Contract Killer” hat. It’s my day to day stocking cap that I wear into work and of course to client meetings but don’t worry, I always make sure to take it off and shove it in my pocket before I get near there front door. Don’t want to scare off any clients! This hat brought up a good discussion about what Contract Killer was about. After the discussion and thinking about it a little more, I realized that the Contract Killer brand really represents what tournament paintball truly is.
Tournament paintball is an odd combination, due to the fact you need a strong team to win at a national level, however it is very much an individual sport. Although jerseys, pants, goggles and marker setups are often mandated to be the same due to sponsorships, everything else, including stickers, bandannas, beanies, head band and even belts are all about fashion. Paintball fashion runs very parallel with the rest of the snowboard/skateboarder fashion of the time. This fashion is really what accentuates the oddity of paintball “teams”. The overall appeal to be an individual. Even though tournament paintball is a team sport, the individual is often held up much higher than what you would find on most teams. This I believe is also because of the relative small jump between national level amateur players and professional players. Therefore everyone is really reaching for that next level consistently even if it is with a different team that can take them to that next level. This really forces each player that is trying to get to that next level to put themselves out there as an individual.
If I haven’t totally lost you yet, here is where the similarities to the Contract Killer line comes in. Hybrid (the parent company of the Contract Killer name) started as a small aftermarket parts company, much the same as most of the top level paintball companies in the industry. The company grew quickly as it progressed into the apparel of paintball. It’s look really personified what the industry was going after and therefore grew very quickly. This was all happening at the same time national paintball was really becoming marketable and growing a breakneck speeds. Soon it became apparent, what people were really craving this Hybrid brand for was it’s ability to make them stick out as an individual. This is when the Contract Killer line hit in conjunction with the idea of a Contract Killer. Up to this point the majority of sponsors, sponsored a team. Now with Hybrid’s focus on individuality they decided to focus only on individual sponsorships for these high paid professionals referred to as “Contract Killers”. These were people that were paid to kill…on the paintball field. The idea and the brand stuck. At least for a good 4 or 5 years. They had really exploded in the market and were starting to create everything they could put their brand on. As paintball grew, so did they.
Finally this last year, with the impending recession, Hybrid and the “Contract Killer” line went into a sort of dormant state as the paintball industry started to up prices on product and has really start to fall into a dormant state overall. Reason being, hobbies depend on disposable income. Paintball is a hobby that requires a very large amount of that disposable income. Therefore, when things get tough, paintball gets pulled down faster.
Overall the line of Contract Killer has really gone full circle, right along with tournament paintball. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the national level paintball scene really redefine itself after this latest lull right along with Hybrid’s next line.