Cruise Control

It is about daggone time that we at Inspire put up a blog.  For the past few months we’ve been recommending blogs to more people than we can shake a stick at and there we were without one.  Earlier this year, my partners and I sat down to discuss a number of things that we wanted to accomplish in 2009 that we have been putting off for years.  Starting a blog was one of them.

Now we’ve done a lot of research about everything you should consider when starting one, and apparently that first blog post is uberly important since it sets the tone for the blog.  We’ve decided to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves (the writers) and give you a little insight into how we started.

If you aren’t familiar with Inspire, we’re one of the many marketing firms that call themselves “full-service”.   Inspire was started in 2005 by Michael Moody, Curtis Thieman, Craig Thieman (yes they are brothers), and myself (Jonathan Medford).  One thing a lot of people don’t know is that we’re all from the Hickory/Lenoir area and are all proud graduates of South Caldwell High School.  Go Spartans!

Michael and I have worked together since we were loyal employees of the now defunct Winn-Dixie.  We were even company computer guys together throughout high school and college summer breaks at Hickory Orthopaedic Center.  Michael grew up racing motorcross.  He’s raced against and beaten the best and he’s been sponsored by everybody.  He hung up his racing helmet to focus on his education and is a graduate of Western Carolina University.  What will Michael be writing about on this blog?  I think we can sum that up with his official business card title, <geek>.  ‘Nough said.

Curtis and I have known each other since middle school but we really formed a closer friendship during  journalism class our senior year.  Our teacher, Ms. Noggle, probably thought we were the last guys in the world that would have a future in communications.  My Uncle owned a marketing firm in Greenville, NC so I was always fond of going to East Carolina and learning the business from him.  I convinced Curtis to take a tour of ECU and the rest was history.  So to all future girlfriends and wives that will have to endure his fanatical love for his East Carolina Pirates, yes, I am partly to blame.

Craig came to live with me in Greenville to start up his production company, Keyframe Productions.  One day Craig realized that he could make more money if he was the one placing the media buys.  So it’s pretty much all Craig’s fault I’m sitting here today writing this blog post.  Back then, Craig was in the National Guard, so our plans were put on hold while he was sent to an undisclosed location in Middle East.  While he was in the top-secret location, he was able to meet the likes of Brittany Murphy, Kid Rock, Gary Sinise, Robert De Niro and yes, the legendary Wayne Newton.  Craig has some war stories that will leave you rolling on the floor laughing.  Maybe I’ll talk him into sharing some of them here.

I think I’ve written enough about myself in this blog that I can skip my own paragraph.  All I want to say is that I am really excited to get this blog going.  Everyday I come across new information that can help our clients and others with their marketing efforts.  I really want this blog to be informative yet fun and we certainly welcome your participation through comments (even if we disagree).  We will  have an approval system for comments so that we can avoid the random Viagra postings.

Please leave us a shout!
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.