Premium tequila. I have to be honest; those are 2 words I never thought I would put together. But after attending a special event sponsored by premium tequila brand Tres Generaciones, my perspective has changed.

The event I am referring to was a small, intimate dinner organized by the Zocalo Group, who is working with Tres Generaciones (or 3G as I’ll call it for brevity) on social media strategies. It was held at Rick Bayless’ Frontera Grill in Chicago in one of their private rooms. I had never been to Frontera Grill before and was very impressed by the food as well as the service. It was attended by about a dozen people, including 3G’s brand manager and brand ambassador, who gave us a world tour and history of tequila and 3G.

Prior to the tour we enjoyed margaritas made with the 3 varieties of 3G – Blanco, Reposado and Anejo – and following it enjoyed Frontera’s signature cuisine. I had a Topolo Margarita, shaken in my presence. Of the 3 tequilas, which range in color and intensity (my term, not theirs!) my favorite is the Reposado, which has a light, caramel color. The blanco is clear and can substitute for vodka in a drink, and the Anejo has a darker color and could fill in nicely for a scotch, though I would have to have one accompany a good cigar to completely confirm it.

When I thought about this event beforehand, two other events came to mind of which I have attended in the past.

Back in the early 1990’s I attended what was one of the first rounds of Johnny Walker scotch tastings. You had to know someone to attend, and my invite was through a friend whose invite was through a VP of a big Boston financial firm. It was at the Harvard Club in Boston and everyone was wearing suits. The brand ambassador was a Scotsman wearing a kilt, and everything tied in with the experience of enjoying scotch, whether it was Johnny Walker or the single-malt scotches that are blended to make it. This tour was accompanied by a buffet of fine gourmet foods. This introduction to scotch is one I still appreciate today.

Earlier this year I attended the first-ever Nokia OpenLab, which if you are a regular reader of The Hot Iron I have gone into at length. Again here was an event that was about an experience, this time Nokia technology. It was a small, intimate setting of about 35 people from around the world sharing their thoughts and backgrounds of technology and beyond. Coming away from that I gained unique, global perspectives on communication, and was sold on the Nokia brand.

With this in mind, I was not disappointed with the 3G experience. At the opening of the event I had the opportunity to talk with Derek Sauls, the 3G Brand Manager. He gave me the background on the brand and name, which evolved from celebratory tequilas to mark the 3 generations of the Sauza family. Derek also told me 3G is in the process of a rebranding which will be launched in February 2009, complete with a new bottle design and marketing campaign, including social media. Their foray into social media is something new for them, which explained why the attendees were people involved in various forms of social media.

Following dinner we had good conversation around the table, which included 3G’s brand ambassador Jaime Rodriguez. We talked about perceptions of tequila, and as well what we do for the majority of our days to make a living. I recall my first indulgence in what we would call “to kill ya” and it would always be a group of us doing shots. Granted you can do this with any liquor, but the concept of it as a premium drink, and the fact there are other varieties of it, was a new and welcome concept. Our conversation also included the idea of social media in general, and I definitely learned more than I contributed to it.

As it is relaunching in February, 3G now has a new blog, Thirst for Wisdom and a profile on Twitter, Don Cenobio who was the founder of the Sauza. Their Web site has a “coming soon” message, but no links to either of these. I am interested in seeing what comes from this event, and how it evolves. I am also interested in seeing the new bottle in action – they had some empty ones there, but they asked us not to take pictures of them as it hasn’t been launched yet. But I can tell you it is a nice looking bottle, displaying “coins” of the 3 generations, indentations to represent the blue agave plant from which tequila is made, and a cool-looking metal design at the top of the bottle.

Thanks again to Derek and Jaime for hosting, as well as Michael Stern and Andy Angelos of Zocalo Group for inviting me to this unique experience.

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Recently I was interviewed for an article about using US-issued credit cards overseas, for in some countries if you do not have a country-specific PIN code on the card, it may not be accepted. My lovely wife and I experienced this first hand in Denmark a few years back, and it forced us to make more ATM withdrawals than we had planned.

You can read the full article on CreditCards.com. I enjoyed talking with the journalist Allie Johnson and she represented my thoughts well.

Yet another thing to think about when traveling.

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(Editor’s note: This blog post was written back in September, 2008 but just found. I believe my thoughts from that time resonate today.)

I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. We may never know what that reason is in this mortal coil, but whether it is a supreme being or just gravitational pull, I think there is more going on beyond me. I am reminded of this on occasion by various “symbols” I experience on my journeys.

Several years ago my lovely girlfriend (now my lovely wife) and I had the good fortune to camp out on the floor of the Atlanta airport. As the sun rose over the red panels of the concourses, I was in a less than joyous mood. As ice storms grounded many planes, we were in good company, and getting a connection flight back home was near impossible, and made impossible by the less than stellar customer service reps. As I was stewing and pacing around the terminal, something caught my eye that changed my disposition. What did it take? A kiosk promoting AT&T’s then WorldNet dial-up Internet service. Splashed on the screen of the kiosk was a Web page to order a CD for the service – a Web page I created! Was it my ego taking over as there was my handiwork out there for others to see and use? Probably, as the visual aspect of the Web is part of what drove me to it and away from boring mainframe application development. This little kiosk was a symbol that helped my attitude, which was made better soon after as I got my flight home.

Yesterday, as I returned from a trip to Boston, I was a little overwhelmed. Highs were seeing family and friends and the Patriots win. Lows were being away from my newborn daughter, my lovely wife, some family ills and witnessing Tom Brady going down for what may be the season. Even after comforting words from my wife, I was still wound-up as I awaited my flight home. Once on-board, I ordered a vodka tonic. When it arrived, it proved to be yet another symbol. The vodka was Finlandia. In 2 days I will be in the Finnish capital of Helsinki for the Nokia OpenLab along with 35 others from around the world. This little nip bottle, pictured here, again helped my perspective.

Interestingly, that flight from Boston to Chicago connected through Atlanta.

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Years ago I read an interview of Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee where he said he was surprised people and business would promote URLs, displaying them in print, advertising, et. al. Not surprising as the idea of the Web is all about linking. Some URLs are better for this as they are short and easy to remember, and others are long and cumbersome.

It is the long URLs that are made easy with services that all you to create a unique, short URL that redirects to the long one. This presumably started to make them easy to type and handle, and they became exponentially popular with short messaging services like Twitter. And Twitter actually automatically rewrites short URLs using the original service, TinyURL.

But have you seen some of these URLs? Where in some cases you can pick a text string, most common ones are taken and the new URL is structured as a domain name followed by random characters. It is short but not memorable. And do you have control over it? Unfortunately no. That is, unless you manage your own.

This is exactly what I decided to do – create a Web application for creating and managing short URLs. I call it psURL.com. For example, the short URL to the Dunkirk Systems, LLC Web site is http://psurl.com/dk. You’re probably wondering why anyone would want to do this? Here’s a few compelling reasons:

• Control your own destiny – I have written on controlling your own destiny before and it something I firmly believe in, especially in turbulent economic times.
• Brand your short URLs – You can choose your own domain name to synchronize branding with your company and give further meaning to them.
• Choose the URL string – No need for random characters, as what goes after the domain name is under your control.
• They can be changed – Did the long URL itself go away, or do you want to redirect the short URL to something else? You have the ability to easily change the destination URL.
• They are measurable – From basic logging and reporting to third-party analytics tool integration, you can measure them like any Web page or Web site.
• You can monetize them – Where this is not in place right now, it is possible to add interstitial pages to display ads before redirection is complete to the final URL.

Dunkirk Systems, LLC has developed the first release of its short URL application and is offering this as a hosted service. Of course you would have to choose your own domain name, but many good names are still available. Whether you choose to manage your own short URLs or not, it is good to know this is an option that works to your advantage.

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Near the corner of Madison Street and Michigan Avenue in Chicago was a Chicago-style hot dog shop I would go to on occasion. All of the sudden one day this spring it was closes, with no notice of why. Shortly afterwards work was being done on the store site along with the adjacent empty. When the hot dog shop’s sign was removed, it revealed a sign that it had been covering. As seen in the first accompanying photo, it read, “Katharyn Sheahan, Since 1920.” I did a Google search on the name, and nothing came up. Assuming it was some sort of store, it had been at this location at 81 East Madison Street at one point of its history, as seen in the photo below.

On closer inspection, the sign appears to be painted on glass. Well, it was painted on glass, as it is no longer there. At some point over the summer the sign was gone, and work was done to remove the entryway altogether to make way for a Bank of America branch which occupied 3 empty stores, as can be seen in the photo below.

I have no idea if the sign was removed and possibly donated to the Chicago History Museum or simply saved by the building owner, or the paint was scraped from it and the original remains without the sign. As well, the street number sign was also removed, and I hope its fate was like the former above.

As a devout capitalist I believe change must happen. However it is also important to document and remember how we got here, for reasons that range from historic to nostalgic. If you have any knowledge as to the history of the sign or its whereabouts, please comment on this post.

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